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Researching Unity Backend servers

Discussion in 'Multiplayer' started by Kazzack, Nov 12, 2014.

  1. Kazzack

    Kazzack

    Joined:
    Mar 8, 2013
    Posts:
    27
    Hello guys,
    The last few days i've been searching for like a server backend to use for Unity.
    I'm using Photon Cloud for in the in-game networking like connecting clients, creating rooms and the generic ways of lobby control etc...

    But what i'm looking for is a way to constantly keep the information backed up and secure in like a backend server that will save everything from different stats, accounts, account info.

    I've seen Photon have recently teamed up with PlayFab which was almost perfect for what I needed, except with very limited tutorials, documentation and support for Unity (at the time being) it was little help for me.
    I've also looked into GameSpark, but their tutorials there seemed geared towards facebook and mobile type apps which again had little documentation / tutorials on integrating with Unity.

    Can anyone suggest anything that could help me try and get what I need, hopefully something with a vast documentation and support for Unity.

    I've mentioned in the second paragraph what it is i'm looking for, and maybe it can be done with Photon and i've just missed it somewhere? Or would it be good for me to look into setting up A database myself and integrating that into Unity / Photon.

    I mean I could be looking at this completely the wrong way, any suggestions or a kick in the right direction would be great... :p
     
  2. willemsenzo

    willemsenzo

    Joined:
    Nov 15, 2012
    Posts:
    585
    I'm using photon and if there's one thing I think its lacking is the ability to keep roomdata/playerdata updated on a webserver. Maybe there are out of the box ways but not that I know of. I can't recommend any existing backend service simply because I haven't tried any but instead I wrote my own which certainly has its benefits like easy extendable and does exactly what it needs to do (plus no costs or being dependant on 3rd party). If you know some php I encourage you to at least try to see if making one yourself is an option. It took me a couple of days and mostly because I'm paranoid I don't trust clients they always look for ways to mess with the system.
     
    Last edited: Nov 14, 2014
  3. Kazzack

    Kazzack

    Joined:
    Mar 8, 2013
    Posts:
    27
    I did a very little bit about php in school about 4 years ago, but it is an option for me to look into and learn.
    As for my main post, after discussing with the dev's at PlayFab they helped me understand a lot more how PlayFab works, and even though i've only spent a few hours tinkering with it, it know seems to work VERY well, and they are looking to further incorporate it with Photon, so I guess i'll stick with that.
    If anyone else is like me and want a Backend server for their multiplayer game, i would suggest PlayFab :)
     
  4. BFGames

    BFGames

    Joined:
    Oct 2, 2012
    Posts:
    1,543
    PlayFab is VERY easy to use. 30 minutes after i imported it i had a user and could save all kind of data for him.
     
  5. PlayFabJames

    PlayFabJames

    Joined:
    Sep 25, 2014
    Posts:
    15
    Hi there,
    Yes, PlayFab can do this for you. I'm sorry you thought our documentation wasn't good enough -- we are working on improving the docs, and have just hired a full-time demo engineer to do nothing but create better samples and documentation for our system. So we should soon have better materials for you.

    In the meantime, here are a few pointers that may help you:

    1) the first thing you need to do is create a profile for your user. The getting started materials show you the basic -- see this article for the basics.

    2) once you have a profile, you can store whatever you want for the user in his or her profile. See UpdateUserData

    Is this the scenario you are looking for? if not, please describe what you'd like to see.

    We are working on a much deeper integration w/ Photon which will make it even easier to use Photon from PlayFab -- that's coming soon.
     
  6. JohnTube

    JohnTube

    Joined:
    Sep 29, 2014
    Posts:
    66
    Hi guys I want to seek your advice. I'm making a word game for Android and iOS with Unity 4.6 that requires most of the features of popular games like Zynga's Scramble with friends (social integration, user profile with XP level, push notifications, achievements, leader board, in-app purchases, ads, chat).

    I'm considering few options for some 3rd party services : (as we are only two guys working on this game)
    1- Photon (TurnBased) + Parse (cloud storage) + SOOMLA (IAP)
    2- Photon + PlayFab (cons : few docs, few tutorials, the partnership is recent)
    3- GameSparks (cons : beta : few docs, few tutorials)

    I don't know about other available services like NextPeer but I'm sure about ShepHertz, it does not look ok to me, I've only seen their website and I think it is "messy" enough.

    So what do you think ? should I go for the number 1 combination ?

    I'm only afraid of the different confusing pricing strategies :
    for monthly payments :
    Parse : req/s : requests per second (30 free)
    Photon : CCU : concurrent users (20 free)
    Playfab : DAU : daily active users (1000 free)
    GameSparks : MAU : monthly active users (10.000 free)

    Knowing that it is not clear how to convert from CCU to DAU to MAU :

    some say :
    "To calculate monthly active users (MAU) we assume 1 CCU to translate into 10 daily active users (DAU) and each of these into 20 MAU."

    while others claim :
    • CCU tends to be around 10% of your DAU
    • DAU tends to be around 10% of your MAU
    So which metric should I consider as a lowest threshold for estimating my future payments ?