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Third Party Introducing PlanetServer - Photon/Smartfox/Electroserver alternative

Discussion in 'Multiplayer' started by seand88, May 19, 2014.

  1. seand88

    seand88

    Joined:
    Aug 30, 2013
    Posts:
    13
    Good Afternoon,

    We are very close to the first release of planetserver to the asset store and I would like to get some feedback. Our first release is about 1 month away.

    What is PlanetServer?

    PlanetServer is a java middleware server technology similar to SmartFoxServer,Photon, or Electroserver

    What features does it have?
    - Sending Data over TCP socket
    - Room Api - Create rooms and send messages to people only in those rooms
    - Custom Json Protocol for sending data between Client/Server
    - Plugin Support - Write your own extensions to the server

    Why would I use this over photon or smartfox?
    - The server has a java backend and supports multiple operating systems.
    - The server has been tested for windows, mac, and linux
    - The server is only priced at $65 for unlimited concurrent users! Photon and Smartfox will charge you $4,000 plus for an unlimited user license.
    - The server is geared towards indie developers on a budget, If you start making a ton of money and need additional features it will be trivial to port it over to one of the bigger servers such as smartfox since both use java

    We are finishing up the game demo for the server as the Unity Client is now complete.
    The final asset will contain the full game demo, and we are also working on the server documentation and a couple tutorial videos.

    Why did you use java and not just use c#
    We used java as the backend because of its abundance of high permanent networking libraries.
    It was also much easier for us to target all the platforms we wanted the server to run on like Linux and OSX

    If anyone has any questions or would like to chat about whether or not it could work for your project please leave a message!

    Thanks for reading
     
  2. 3D Omelette Studio

    3D Omelette Studio

    Joined:
    Oct 1, 2013
    Posts:
    130
    Awesome,
    it is nice to see other networking alternatives and very affordable. thanks

    got a few questions:

    -does the current state offers a backend admin panel for managing server stats , creating rooms user management etc like smartfox or electroserver does?

    - only tcp? any chance for udp or reliable udp in upcoming versions?

    -how about area of interest (AOI), any chance for this feature later on?

    -are you going to provide an existing mysql db setup plugin for persistent player data for the server in the release?

    -what kind of game demo be included in the release: an rpg, board, fps? will include db setup is it going to be a complete minigame, or the usual client server connection and walk around the scene setup?

    -how about source , will it include full source code for the server aswell as for the client api, or just binaries .jar and .dll?.

    - will there be a free trial with limited ccu or just binary?

    -by any chance are you going to add a very needed some sort of server side collisions plugin, none of the others server alternative have this and pretty much everyone need it or looking for their authoritative server setups

    regards
     
    Last edited: May 20, 2014
  3. seand88

    seand88

    Joined:
    Aug 30, 2013
    Posts:
    13
    Thanks for the reply.
    As this is a first release its definitely marketed towards an indie developer.

    does the current state offers a backend admin panel for managing server stats , creating rooms user management etc like smartfox or electroserver does?
    -Right now there is no backend panel for managing server stats, creating rooms etc. That is all done through the API and a configuration file that comes with the server.

    - only tcp? any chance for udp or reliable udp in upcoming versions?
    -UDP Support is a planned feature and we know its a big deal, we just want to get something out there so people can use it right away.

    -how about area of interest (AOI), any chance for this feature later on?
    - AOI is definately something we will release as a free plugin in the future.

    -are you going to provide an existing mysql db setup plugin for persistent player data for the server in the release?
    - We won't be providing a mysql db setup plugin, as you can just connect to the server in your own code without issues. (But this could definitely be a subject of a tutorial)

    -what kind of game demo be included in the release: an rpg, board, fps? will include db setup is it going to be a complete minigame, or the usual client server connection and walk around the scene setup?
    - The game demo will be a multiplayer shooting game (top down, pixelated) Think Realm of the Mad God, but everyone is just in one room.

    how about source , will it include full source code for the server aswell as for the client api, or just binaries .jar and .dll?.
    - Right now for the $65 you will get the binaries and the .dll, i am thinking about releasing source.
    - AKA if not enough people are willing to purchase we will probably release source

    - will there be a free trial with limited ccu or just binary?
    - There will be no free trial with limited ccu, we will just sell the complete binary for $65
    - I don't want to worry about hooking up an auth server etc, and putting in any restrictions on the server

    -by any chance are you going to add a very needed some sort of server side collisions plugin, none of the others server alternative have this and pretty much everyone need it or looking for their authoritative server setups

    I understand the concern here when it comes to Unity, We may do a basic collision check plugin in the future but as you can guess this is a huge task and it would require to emulate the physical world of unity and determine collisions. There is a reason this is hard to find
     
  4. fholm

    fholm

    Joined:
    Aug 20, 2011
    Posts:
    2,052
    Does you server use JSON for transmitting data between the client and server?
     
  5. seand88

    seand88

    Joined:
    Aug 30, 2013
    Posts:
    13
    Does you server use JSON for transmitting data between the client and server?

    Yes right now json is used as the main transport. It is on our priority list to also allow binary transport using either BSON or MessagePack, but we have not decided which to go with as of yet.
     
  6. fholm

    fholm

    Joined:
    Aug 20, 2011
    Posts:
    2,052
    Take this as advice from someone that's been around the block a few times when it comes to networking architecture.

    This makes the server almost useless for anything but the most simplest games sadly, JSON is just way to big with way too much overhead.

    Both BSON and MessagePack are a bit smaller then JSON yes, but the difference is not huge (at most 1/4-2/4 of the size). If you want to make your sever actually compete with uLink/Photon/SmartFox you really need to implement a custom binary serializer which works on the bit level, as it will produce orders of magnitudes smaller data then any of JSON/BSON/MessagePack/ProtoBuffers.


    Edit: Also, you really need to allow UDP so you can do unreliable communication, which is required for fast paced games.
     
    Last edited: May 22, 2014
  7. seand88

    seand88

    Joined:
    Aug 30, 2013
    Posts:
    13
    This is the first release so we are going to always look for ways to optimize the overhead and network load. Smartfox actually started out using json as well before they built the binary protocol and I know many games that were built on top of their json protocol. While its not ideal i dont agree it only can be used for small games, as I have seen large games built with json for the network transport.
    Just depends on the type of game you are buildling imo.

    I will definitely look into writing my own binary protocol though instead of using msgpack,bson as they are too generic so thank you for that advice.

    As far as UDP support we have that planned next as I know this is needed for fps style games.
     
    Last edited: May 22, 2014
  8. seand88

    seand88

    Joined:
    Aug 30, 2013
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    sandolkakos likes this.
  9. Polys

    Polys

    Joined:
    Jul 13, 2014
    Posts:
    25
    woot woot, I'm all for seeing some open source options in addition to the handy asset store. Hopefully they'll let us sticky a open source projects post some time in the future as open source projects aren't officially allowed on the asset store. Will keep watchin :)