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Unity mmorpg Multiplayer game

Discussion in 'Multiplayer' started by MayhemMaker, Nov 19, 2014.

  1. BFGames

    BFGames

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  2. jonkuze

    jonkuze

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    LOL! Careful now @BFGames don't mess the Indie MMO Defenders... you've been warned! You might suffer my same fate and have to endure the Forum Posting of Death Attack.
     
    DiscussedTree likes this.
  3. Ibzy

    Ibzy

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    I think @CarterG81 is trying to show evidence of how an "MMO" can be made quickly and "easily" with a small team (albeit not a AAA 3D MMO)
     
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  4. CarterG81

    CarterG81

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    Yes, very relevant if you followed this thread. Also to this forum about game dev.

    Second, what a trollish post. Snarky and rude to say the least. Are you friends with Kuroato or something? Yeesh...what is with these devs with crappy attitudes trying to get at me? Even after ignoring them they follow me to other threads to try to discredit me with libel.

    I will never understand some people...but fully understand those people collectively make the internet....the internet...
    Welcome to the ignore list, you negative nelly! At least by ignoring all these trolls, my forum becomes more positive and friendly.

    It is so depressing that when you try to encourage others, ppl literally hate you for it to the point od stalking you on other threads (or in one case across the internet)...wtf is wrong with you people.
     
    Last edited: Dec 19, 2014
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  5. BFGames

    BFGames

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    If you found the post rude so be it. And no i dont know the guy.

    I did however find that you tried to prove a point with your example, which i think can be misleading to people.

    If you think i am here to only be a buzz kill, then fell free to look through all my posts. However you do have to be realistic sometimes.
     
    Last edited: Dec 19, 2014
  6. jonkuze

    jonkuze

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    LOL! Dude maybe if you just focused on actually helping people and ignore other peoples comments and not try to tell someone else how negative, or ignorant you think they are things wouldn't end up this way... I honestly don't think you're a bad guy, I just think you need to relax and just be that helpful person that you want to be and stop trying to correct everyone else who replies to a question or thread that is not to your liking... you bring it onto yourself by derailing threads because your more focused on debating with people like me than just staying focused on helping the OP and move on...

    i mean really look at your initial post to this thread after I commented, and maybe one other person said something you didn't like you included the following in your first post:

    Overall your calling Most People who post on the Forums Idiots, and Calling them Ignorant of knowing what it means to develop a game.

    I don't think that's very nice... but whatever I don't really care, the point is you instantly derailed the thread by calling out whoever you think is Most People that are Idiots... Was this really necessary? then you wonder why you get the responses that you do from someone like me...

    Just stick to being helpful and stop trying tell people they are ignorant, or idiots based on their responses... and i'm almost certain you would not have included any of that if I had not initially commented because you didn't like my comment, so i'm pretty sure some of that was targeted at me. So in essence you called me an idiot from the start....

    so yea... i'm not surprised things turned out this way... I think we could have been good friends lol... o well...

    any by the way...

    I have no clue what your talking about because I didn't express hate towards you because your encouraging other people... encourage newbie devs to make MMOs all you want, why do I care... your the one who picked away at my comments... and targeted me for a debate because you didn't agree with me... either way i didn't express hate toward you for being a helpful person.
     
    Last edited: Dec 19, 2014
  7. DiscussedTree

    DiscussedTree

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    But that is just out of context. OP asked

    He never said anything about making a AAA MMO or something close to Lineage II, Guild Wars, or WoW.
     
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  8. Teila

    Teila

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    Carter, I didn't read that thread because...well, it is Christmas time and I want to be happy. But if someone is stalking you on the forums and saying things about you personally, report it. The mods are pretty good at keeping personal attacks out of the forums but this time of year, they are probably as busy as we are. Also, depression levels rise at this time of year so we might see more grumpy posts than usual.

    Otherwise, continue ignoring for a while. It really isn't worth the bother in some cases to worry about it.
     
  9. Muber Gaming

    Muber Gaming

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    well, i am not with or against the indie mmo devs.

    but i know for fact an mmo from scratch can be done by an individual if you know what you are doing and have the spirit and persistent to follow your dream goal, , i know this was done and it is a fact.

    so for those mmo indie haters you might want to check this out, very educative at least educate yourself of what can be done when it comes this topic .

    here is a living proof of this and the game still alive and it is fun game if you try it.
    up til now its been online 9 years and still going, they even got an expansion out in 2012.

    crated in 2005 by husband and wife Josh and Lara Ritter, Prairie Games called themselves built a complete playable mmo game in 11 months time. game called: Minions of Mirth.

    they used TGE Torque engine from garage games, they also built the full working complete mmo server backend from scratch in python, i still got the server since they released a torque mmokit back in the day and used it and it works as described!

    in the following link thread they narrate what when right and what went wrong and the whole enchilada,

    you might want to read the whole blog, very interesting deal.

    not sure if there in the same blog, but i remember the developer they sold their house and moved to a cheaper one to fund their project.

    now that is what i called vision of what you really want and what you really can do and a very straight goal to fulfill.

    Game Website link:
    http://www.minionsofmirth.com/

    developer blog link:
    http://www.garagegames.com/community/forums/viewthread/37703


    just laying it outhere for those skeptics who hate motivated indie wanna make mmo.


    for those motivated dudes,, keep at it,, you never know what the wind will bring tomorrow, hard work really pays, not just in the game industry, but in general, you work hard and you get rewarded.


    so, nothing agains haters and nothing against mmo wanna build, just handing out real proof info of this that it is a real possible fact if you really want to do it.


    Me?? i just like to build a small multiplayer platformer game for fun, and i am fulfilling my dream very soon. so i kno wmy strengths and weakness and i really know i can do what i aim for, so for now just a simple platformer multiplayer game is enough for me :)

    cheers
     
    Last edited: Dec 20, 2014
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  10. jonkuze

    jonkuze

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    No one is stalking CarterG81, so you can stop right there... Ibzy created a new thread that I actually happen to be engaging with Ibzy on, and Carter decided to once again Target someone who said something negative which he didn't like their comment, but yet offered no real helpful info to the OP there only focusing on Targeting anyone who posts something slightly negative instantly derailing the thread... calling someone else ignorant of the subject (question of the OP) but yet didn't even bother to answer the question himself...

    Carter says I have a weird obsession with him... na... he is the only one who seems to have a weird obsession with derailing threads when he doesn't like what someone else posts... and calling "Most People Who Post on Unity Forums Idiots" as I Quoted above as part of his initial Post on this Thread...

    If I was stalking him i'd follow all of his other activity on the forum and jump on each of the threads he is active on and act like a troll as he so calls me... but that's not the case. I simply called him out on another thread about what he was doing... i might not have done so in the most professional manner but none the less that was my intention, but anyway I am pretty much done with him so just let it all rest.
     
  11. Teila

    Teila

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    Thanks, Muber!

    I remember Minions of Mirth. My husband and I are also making a game, with some help and we used Torque3d first and then moved to Unity. Prairie Games was quite active on the forums. 9 years, huh? Very impressive.

    I had forgotten about that. :)
     
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  12. BFGames

    BFGames

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    I think there is a misunderstanding on this forum of not wanting to help and discouraging people from making stuff like MMO's.

    Personally i will answer based on the question asked, which is often "What do i need to make an MMO" or "How do i make an MMO", no background of their skills, what projects they worked on previously,what their new MMO project is and what they did not understand from google'ing the question.

    If people write vague questions and cant frame the specific details they want to know, then they will get a vague answer. Why? Because it is somewhat silly of them not to do their homework - and answers like that is what they will encounter in the actual world.

    Would i go to an Architect and Engineering forum and ask "How do i build a modern house from scratch" because i just assembled an IKEA furniture? No.
     
    Last edited: Dec 20, 2014
  13. Teila

    Teila

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    BFGames, you are right. They deserve a vague answer if they ask vague questions. In fact, I usually ignore posts where it appears the OP hasn't done their homework. The most I usually do is tell them if it is the wrong forum and suggest a better place to post.

    Then just let the thread sink to the bottom of the pile. If the OP is serious, they will come back with more detailed information and ask more detailed questions. Otherwise, it all just devolves into a nasty attack on the OP or anyone who defends them.
     
  14. BFGames

    BFGames

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    Aye its true that we should just ignore them. Just so hard to resist sometimes because i personally hate when people don't make an effort and then expect something from others. Guess it is just a flaw i got :D need to work and that ;)
     
  15. Teila

    Teila

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    Well the good thing here is that I doubt anyone here will do anything for someone unless A.) they show effort on their part, or B.) they are willing to pay. :)

    I know what you mean though. I remember the guy who had forgotten to do his project for a college class and suddenly realized it was due. He posted asking if someone would send him a complete game that he could turn it in to his professors. Sadly, someone did offer to send one if the person was willing to pay! Stunned me! lol

    I hope it was just a joke. The mods closed the thread immediately after this so not sure if the kid ever got his "paid for" class project.

    That one really had me fuming!

    I think, however, most of the time the questions are innocent and from people who truly think they can hear a few words and be helped/inspired. I don't think they have any bad intentions which is why I don't like to see them attacked. Better to ignore than beat a dead horse.
     
  16. BFGames

    BFGames

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    Very true.
     
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  17. jonkuze

    jonkuze

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    @Teila @CarterG81 can we all just be friends? lol.... no i mean seriously.... i think we have drawn this out for far too long... lets let it all rest and start over shall we? Or does everyone hate me now? Honestly I'm laughing about how long this has gone on for lol... and I think at the end of the day if we were all standing in the same room and meet face to face and had a real discussion, i doubt any of this would have gone down the way it did mostly because Forums, Text Messaging, Facebook, bla bla... any form of Virtual Communication can be easily misunderstood... we all make assumptions at one point or another, and just flame at each other until someone gets put on the ignore list AKA me... in this case lol.

    Anyway... honestly I don't hate anyone... so if you want to keep me on the ignore list no problem, but really i don't mean any harm to anyone. I'll work on my approach on how I reply to threads like this in the future, and then maybe Carter wont indirectly call me an idiot anymore, and maybe Teila won't jump in the fray to add her sting lol...

    Teila I honestly would love to learn more about the MMO your working on... and i'm sure the community would love to see what your doing as well. Hell I would even offer to help test it if you need some close alpha / beta testers! ^_^
     
  18. CarterG81

    CarterG81

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    That particular extreme case I mentioned (where they stalked me across the internet and began posting my personal info) was handled within hours of the person stalking me across the internet. It was a bit ago (a few weeks?) This site was by far the fastest to act, but all were pretty quick to ban the user and remove them. The user was obsessed with me kindof like Kuroato, but far far far more extreme. The reasoning was even weirder too. Instead of it being over me encouraging people to make a MMORPG, it was over me posting a very thorough tutorial about how to mod a specific MMORPG. They were enraged that the developers approved my tutorial, and I quote "I have no idea why the forum mods allowed you to get away with that." As if I was a criminal for modding the game. He lectured me on ToS and warned others of the threat of modding. Then the developer stepped in and approved everything, agreeing with me. Later when the mods came in and deleted all their troll posts, they flipped out and stalked me all the way to this forum, among others. I guess that sent them over the edge. People seem to flip their **** whenever you are proven right after they have a firm stance you are dead wrong and in their mind you should and will be punished. For them to see others' praising you or mods supporting you- "BUT HE SHOULD BE PUNISHED!!!!11" just makes their brain cave in and their heart filled with rage. It seems consistent anyway. I always see a rise in heat anytime others jump in to support me, after someone objects vehemently to something I do/say.

    Either that, or I just attract the crazies (a very legit theory, because I actually do in multiple ways) :p Even when I was only 13 years old, I had internet stalkers- to the point of finding my website about a video game and hacking it- turning all my pages into insults and threats. All because I didn't have the best grammar as a child, along with my personality. Idk if this has to do with gamers or what- but it's always about gaming. Very often MMORPG's (perhaps people feel more attached to MMORPG's). My theory is that it is because I feed the trolls by talking to them. They love the attention, so they get off on escalating things for more & more attention. The fault is in my talkative personality and fast typing. It's a theory anyway. Idk how common this is for people on the internet- maybe it is more common than we think- and I'm just the only one stupid enough to post about it (which would probably only attract more trolls towards the user).

    It also makes sense that this type of stuff occurs on rare occassion. Anyone with any measure of opinion who achieves any form of popularity (Nearly all popular Youtubers, for example) will receive death threats and all kinds of creepiness I've probably never even seen before. So it makes sense that some unknown on the internet who tries to be encouraging and has strong opinions against negativity/aggressive ignorance would have a "lite" version of that creepiness- eventually anyway. Lot's of obsessive types online. Since most major celebrities (or stuff like GamersGate) doesn't result in any legitimate threat (at least to my knowledge anyway) I'm sure us unknown people who get the "lite" version are probably super-duper safe. It only gets scary when they find you on other websites and start to post your real life info. Fortunately mods are quick to act in those cases, and the perpetrator is often in another country entirely. (Very often from New Zealand, for some strange reason.)

    Thank you for your concerns though :)

    I know all of this is off topic, but it's interesting to me - and the thread already derailed awhile ago.

    There is this phenomenal article from the New York Times about internet trolls and obsessive types. It is an amazing read, if anyone is interested. Just a great journalist's experience diving into real life troll dens.

    The Trolls Among Us
    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/magazine/03trolls-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
     
    Last edited: Dec 21, 2014
  19. Teila

    Teila

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    Wow, very scary. I had a situation like that with a guy who I worked with on a game. We disagreed on a few things, and he became enraged. He was eventually let go, but every six months for a few years I would get strange PMs from him, threatening to call me, telling me he knew where I lived and that he loved me...very weird, since he really seemed to hate me. lol Turns out he had some issues. I must admit that I still worry sometimes the he will find me somewhere else on the internet. Since we worked together, he knows my real name. Not that hard to find someone.

    Anyway, it all started out with a disagreement. Some people just can't handle such things which is the big reason when I start feeling anxiety, I ignore the poster. Fortunately, I have never run into another person like that and my ignores are usually turned off after a bit.
     
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  20. jonkuze

    jonkuze

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    @CarterG81 sorry for your long history and experience with trolls, and obsessive people, but seriously both you and Teila can stop mentioning my name as being obsessed with you as that is not the case at all... but if your going to continue adding "Kuroato is Obsessed with me" when I am done engaging on any topic regarding MMO with you then we have a bigger problem here. So just let it go, and stop saying i'm Obsessed with you because I called you out on on another Thread with a valid argument at that... that's far from an Obsession... if you and Teila want to talk further about Obsession and Trolls or about me, and Ignore my friendly message above then take it to PM and talk about Obsession and Trolls all you want, no need to do it out in Public as this sounds like a very Personal Issue that you need some help with so just take it off the Forum and keep my name off your posts stating i'm Obsessed with you.
     
  21. CarterG81

    CarterG81

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    Holy crap, that is way freakier than anything I've dealt with. I imagine being a woman, the hatred is intensified alongside some creepy/faux-love creepiness attached to it.

    *shudders*

    Yea, it is really disconcerting how easy it is to find someone. Anyone.
    I use a fake name on here, and the cross-forum stalker found out my name relatively easily. Not sure how either. A simple google doesn't suffice. He had to have dug for quite a bit. Amazing he found me from one specific game website, to all across the internet- even though I try to use different names on different sites.

    I still can't believe he hated you that much over a disagreement, and my mind was blown when you mentioned he also said he knows where you live and he loved you. Creeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeepppyyyyyyyyyyyy!

    Crazy stalker: DONT YOU SEE? I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111 I HATE YOU! I LOVE-HATE YOU. IT IS COMPLICATED! *tasered by police*

    lol, oh man that is some weird displaced affection :p

    It is nice to know that although some information is super easy to find, they often get a lot wrong. So really, they're more likely to stalk your neighbors IRL than you. Haha, im kindof serious. From my experience, they always seem to get some incorrect info alongside the real info- so I think we are a lot safer than it feels even when it seems like they know about us ;)
     
    Last edited: Dec 21, 2014
  22. Teila

    Teila

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    To be fair, he has a mental illness. I met someone who knows him in real life and he assured me that these episodes happen when he is off his meds. So I was less afraid after that although...you know..once exposed you are always a bit skittish. His particular illness is not usually manifested in violence so probably won't be a problem. Often the people who cyberbully are not physically dangerous but they can still traumatize you.
     
  23. jonkuze

    jonkuze

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    what's weird is how these two totally ignored my friendly comment to bring our silly debate to a close, and now the thread has dissolved into personal issues about attracting stalkers and obsessions that they probably should be discussing in PM... now that's just weird. all the best to the both of those two lol. Forum Admin... Please Close this Thread before it gets even more awkward..
     
  24. CarterG81

    CarterG81

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    Very true. I have a lot of experience dealing with mental illness. It is good to know that very often, especially after you haven't seen them in awhile, even if they are still bad or even worse- you are most likely no longer their target. They've long since forgot about you as the hundreds of other people in their life were targeted and obsessed over.

    It's only a matter of time before any human who has constant problems like that, will forget about the past and focus on someone in the present. With people with those problems who go off their meds...it's common to say about them "If it's not that person being a problem, it's some other person being a problem." Meaning there is always a problem, always a different person to obsess over who was "worse" than the last, etc. If they aren't sending death threats to Youtuber#1, it will be Youtuber#2 or EbayMerchant#3 or ForumGuy#42.

    Literally ignoring them and distancing yourself from those people will insure your safety simply for the fact while you're distanced, they will encounter others. Hopefully it isn't another person with similar problems- because then they can clash and it can get pretty bad as they feed off each other. I've seen things get significant bad (legal issues, violence) when two problematic people clash. Either the other with a mental illness too, or the other being a stubborn prick who doesn't back down or leave it alone like they should.

    Proximity alone does so much in so many parts of our lives. Thankfully, proximity is super easy to remove on the internet. The problem that causes normal people to act so viciously sometimes is also the solution to our safety- anonymity and (lack of) RL proximity.

    It gives a truer meaning to the phrase, "Don't feed the trolls."
     
    Last edited: Dec 21, 2014
  25. Teila

    Teila

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    I don't think most trolls have mental health issues and I wouldn't even call my situation a troll since I think this fellow really was creating his own anxiety which just fed his illness. While there are trolls, as mentioned in the NYT article, that do have emotional issues, most are just folks who are mild mannered in real life but seem to forget there are people behind the keyboard and say what they would never say out-loud. Or they like the attention, which I think is a factor here with some folks. :) Or maybe a bit obsessive/compulsive, wanting everything to be just so...might be a few of those here too.

    I have a shy son who is sweet and caring but I have read some posts by him on forums that border on trolling. He just gets very passionate about some subjects, especially what he perceives as ignorance or injustice and can't let go. He gets rather arrogant and insulting in the process. I try to teach him but I can totally understand why it happens. When I delete a thread, it usually because have gone over that edge. :eek:
     
  26. CarterG81

    CarterG81

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    I believe that the term 'mental illness' is pretty crappy. It's vague, encompasses too much but also not enough. It brings stigma to those who have it, and creates problems when diagnosing individuals who seem to have a "lite" version of it but is actually pretty normal or common. I mean, some professionals will diagnose someone with a mental illness just because they have insecurity or problems in one particular area. This is quite different than people with a mental illness which often leads them to be homeless or potentially threatening toward others (more severe cases).

    It also doesn't help that even professionals know next to nothing about mental illnesses. What causes them, how to cure them, how to control them, what defines them, what SHOULD define them, what terms to use, etc.

    I say all that to say- I disagree. I think most trolls on the internet do indeed have some issues, but not severe issues. They could still benefit from treatment, just like everyone can. (In the professional field, everyone believes/states that even psychologists should see a psychologist. Even healthy individuals and health care professionals can benefit from mental health treatment.)

    The trolls in the NYT article are just significantly more severe issues and almost certainly chemical imbalances in their brain (as opposed to just some typical mental trauma which everyone probably has in varying degrees).

    Then again, I also agree with you sometimes they are just normal people who are bored / want social interaction. No more plagued with issues than anyone else. Also sometimes it is fun- even when it shouldn't be. It can be hard for even a normal or good person to resist. I've had otherwise good people tell me "I am usually not a jerk and detest mocking others, but man- your post really makes me want to berate you." or "I am usually nice. I don't know what was with me. Thanks for pointing out I was being a jerk. I apologized to the guy." heh. So combine all of that with people having bad or off days or getting swept up in the bandwagon. Then there are all the children who are just being children. Teens are know for their almost psychopathic perspectives which don't dissolve until they get older. Since most people on the internet are probably kids, that can make it seem pretty bad. (Like Youtube comments, which are often 100x worse than forum comments).

    The internet is like a melting pot of healthy to unhealthy individuals, atypical to typical, who just blend into this kind of monstrous negative troll which feeds off another melting pot of others. Like a galaxy feeding on another galaxy, creating a black hole which devours all life, lol.
     
    Last edited: Dec 21, 2014
  27. Teila

    Teila

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    Yeah, teenagers are crazy...I have a book with that title. ;) Of course, they are also wonderful in their own way.

    I agree with most of what you said. One thing we shouldn't really being doing here is trying to diagnose people or even analyze mental illness. It is a painful, misunderstood diagnoses that is harmful to people and can stigmatize them.

    Anyway, while this is way off topic, I think it is relevant in one way to this post. The NYT article mentioned that one method trolls use is to come into a forum and act like a newbie or naive. They do this to see who they can get riled up. In the case of this thread, if the OP was a troll (which I doubt), he riled up at least three of us.

    So another reason to give simple answers to the new/naive members of our forum that are first time posters. If they are sincere, they will add follow up questions. If they are trolls, they will sit back and watch the destruction and laugh. So...might be better to ignore them if their comments bring any sort of anxiety, whether it be annoyance as Kuroato felt or frustration as you and I felt. Not ignoring or getting wound up feeds the trolls.
     
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  28. CarterG81

    CarterG81

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    I'd like to elaborate on some of my beliefs on MMO's.

    While I heavily encourage anyone and everyone to follow their dream and make that MMO regardless of the negative users so common on the internet, I wanted to emphasize my greater desire to encourage the broadening of our minds through a pragmatic and innovative approach.

    The thread is titled "Is MMO? Why MMO?" and questions why you have to make your game a MMO, when you could very possibly do BETTER than that.
     
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  29. jtadeo1

    jtadeo1

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    I can't say I read every word as in the very last bits of the thread (so far) I've only skimmed it.

    I do agree one has to be realistic to avoid disappoint as that may translate to giving up. However, I think the approach is to build up the skills to an MMO. I believe it is possible to make an MMO game if the required skills and time are acquired. That journey would definitely be tempered by how much frustration, cost, time (and more) along the way can one can handle. Even the simplest multiplayer can take hundreds of hours to produce, let alone an MMO. If I can somehow make a comparison, it's like the "Mount Everest" to me when I think of even trying to make an MMO.

    ...sip...
     
  30. shaderop

    shaderop

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    This argument (and many others) wouldn't have happened if "MMO" was simply replaced with "online persistent game."
     
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  31. Bionicle_fanatic

    Bionicle_fanatic

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    I half made one [:p] It works (Just) [:p] But then I didn't release it or even clear up the bugs, because I moved on to another project [:p] I recently got PUN+ though, so I might make a multiplayer game, just not an RPG [:p]
     
  32. snacktime

    snacktime

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    I'll just throw in some more context here.

    So I have just over 20 years experience in software development, around 12 in the game industry. I'm the author of a server platform for large mmo's and I've worked on around a dozen successful online games with large user bases.

    Making large complicated games is getting easier on most fronts. I'ts much easier then it was 10 or even 5 years ago. We have access to more tools then we did, there are more open source tools available, and we have a lot more indie studios which adds to the number of people with experience doing it.

    Also, making an mmo or any multiplayer game that only needs to support a few users, is completely different from an mmo that has to support thousands of players, or a lot of players in visual range of each other. The differences go down to the core architecture. If you have an inexperienced team, avoid the latter.

    The best advice I can give is to flesh out the play experience first as best you can. You might need to add some basic multiplayer functionality, but keep most of it on the client if you can until you get to the point where you know you have a fun game. Then go back and put in all the systems you need server side and make it all server authoritative. Don't let your developers go down rabbit holes before you have a fairly good idea you have a game people even want to play.

    In many cases I would suggest not even adding multiplayer until the single player parts were working, but that depends a lot on the game. If multiplayer is integral to the game experience, then just add in the basic location tracking for player movement, and a very basic generic messaging system with a way to save/retrieve those messages from the server. Actually store the complete messages don't make it any more complicated then that. Serializing arbitrary dictionaries is a good approach here. You literally don't want to be doing any work on will this scale, is it secure, etc at this point. And you want your team to be able to iterate on the prototype without having to add any server code at every little step.

    In closing I'll also comment on hosting. Hosting has never been cheaper. I can get 2g ram on new xeon 3.5gh servers for under $20 per month, and they aren't oversubscribed. Contrary to popular opinion cloud hosting providers have pretty good profit margins. What you want to watch is bandwidth costs as that can easily be your biggest cost factor. I suggest doing the math on it, it will probably surprise you. And for this reason a lot of the big cloud providers are just not viable. The real cost of bandwidth went under $1 per mbps this year. That's what large isp's pay. So if you look around you can find providers offering accounts with several terrabytes of free transfer per month, and per GB rates down to $0.02 per GB if you go over the limit. Most of the big providers give you at most 10GB free and the average is around $0.08 per GB if you go over. With big name providers you are paying a lot for the name, and the evidence doesn't show they are necessarily any better then some of the good middle tier providers that are less well known.
     
    KarlGG, CarterG81, RobbynB and 2 others like this.
  33. jonkuze

    jonkuze

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    I like the approach snacktime! start small... build a multiplayer game first... test it... see if people would even want to play this game before trying to make it a massive multiplayer game. Makes sense to me...
     
  34. RobbynB

    RobbynB

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    What I find the most funny about your comments and you as a person is you have a superior attitude that your way is the best and only way. And when some one actually points out that it is not you get defensive and aggressive in your words of why it is the best way. @CarterG81 at least contributed something to the conversation that moved it forward. I recently met the producer of Shrouds of Avatar. I must say, we know making a Video game is hard, and MMORPGs are the hardest. It is possible just not easy. I am thankful that there are plug-ins like what Exit games provides to help me learn how to build a MMO it may not be the "BEST" way but it accomplishes what I want done and ultimately in the end I learn from doing. Coding is not easy in general and sometimes a simple period will be missing and no matter how many times you look at the code you can't see what is wrong. THAT is why these forums are vaulable. THAT is why I read, is so that I can find people like @CarterG81 who are also willing to help their fellow developers grow and learn and ignore people like @Kuroato who seem to just want to build their ego and puff their chest and beat it w/ their fists... In my head whenever I read posts like what he has written I hear the male trope of a caveman, "Me know best, me MAN. What you know? ug. ug" I believe all people can alter their behaviors and just because one person has posted these things in the past doesn't mean they will continue to be like that. Perhaps something about this conversation has enlightened our dear @Kuroato and he has realized how his post have made him appear to the community and perhaps in the future his posts will be more beneficial to the conversation. One can only hope but if he is truely like that male trope of a caveman, he won't understand what enlightenment is being offered..
     
    CarterG81 likes this.
  35. Teila

    Teila

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    Thank you! Not only is your information helpful to us, but it has validated our plan. :) I appreciate that you took the time to post. Hopefully someone can suggest a few hosting services that would be reasonable in price and reliable for those of us who will be in the market soon. Good to know there are possibilities out there other than the big cloud services.
     
  36. tiggus

    tiggus

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    +1, I mentioned this in the other MMO networking thread. If you don't have a good way to monetize prepare to shell out the $$$ in bandwidth costs even for a relatively small game.
     
  37. jonkuze

    jonkuze

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    It's funny how you judge me based on the first page of this thread or comment you quoted... why not read the the entire thread and see what the end results are before judging me based on earlier comments? Also i'm a little confused why you tossed in "I recently met the producer of Shrouds of Avatar." OK, and? I've meet tons people in the Game Industry while out in California the past 2 years showcasing my games, what does meeting someone from the game industry have to do with anything or relevant to this thread? Also, why try to spark up a dead debate between myself and Carter... there was a lot of assumptions, mis-communication, misunderstanding, various points being made by us both some heard, some lost... but it's all good we've moved on. You seem to be more interested in taking a jab at me than contributing anything useful to this thread... I smell a Troll.
     
  38. snacktime

    snacktime

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    Ya it's a really easy thing to overlook and can completely screw you over. The other side to this is how you optimize the server side. Following is what I did on my own platform. It added some complexity although it's all abstracted away so game logic is completely unaware.

    1. Used integers for floats and then did the multilplication/division to convert back and forth on the client and server. Use varint compression (google it it's a thing) on the integers. My floats all had a scale of 2.

    2. For location updates I used delta's. Initially send the complete number, then after that just what's changed.

    3. Not only did I use integer id's for everything, I made use of id pools. For example for players in a specific zone, they all get assigned an id for that zone, and the largest id = number of players in the zone. Implementation was based on a blocking priority queue and id's were recycled and reused.

    On a side note I also suggest using industry standard formats for data when possible. Protocol buffers for example beats most of the commercial multiplayer servers for bit packing efficiency, and by a fairly large margin in some cases. Using language specific serialization is almost always a bad choice. It almost never does any bit packing, and as a general rule I like language agnostic message formats. This might not be an issue for some games, but on larger games it almost always becomes an issue as you invariably end up using more then one language.
     
  39. RickyJack

    RickyJack

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    This seems like a good thread of people and a good place to ask a relevant question... not 100% sure if my question is covered in the 3 pages of conversation, as i read page 1 and part of 2... Not trying to sound lazy but i have read entirely too much lately...

    Any way myself and another person took on a project of creating a mmo... Programming a server is pretty complex... But not our main issue... When we finally reached the point of scaling the 3d maps, we hit a major problem... Let's just say it's yet another space mmorpg... Our options are limited to point of origin with floating point precision or moving the entire world around the client. The latter of moving the world would work well in a single player game but cause all kinds of battle precision issues... So that pretty much leaves us with point of origin... We have looked at projects like Kerbal Space Program and they have tons of issues with floating point precision at far distances from point of origin... The only thing i can think of to resolve some such issue is having multiple points of origin, as in each zone has it's own point of origin... Is something like this even possible within unity? Unity it seems to be very limited in this area with the way it's hard coded and even overwriting the hard code to double float point precision causes errors... We even looked at voxel based games like star made... We are at a stand still with this issue, as we hoped to scale a rather large 3d world or universe to play within... It is imperative for the game to be just that from it's design stand point... I hope some one can shed some light on this for us. We are not professional dev's but we have achieved much over the last 6 months and would hate to toss this project to a shelf over something that could be resolved... So any help would be much appreciated!
     
  40. BFGames

    BFGames

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    Think you need to divide it into zones on the server somehow. If you want one big "scene" on the server then you will have a problem when A is at lets say (0,0,0) and B is at (far away, far away, far away). Locally i dont think it will be such a big problem ?
     
  41. RickyJack

    RickyJack

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    Well considering the massive scale one would need to say create a realistically scaled solar system, We find that method entirely implausible as each scene has a hard coded point of origin(major floating point precision errors)... Having multiple points of origin within a scene seems impossible for that reason... So option 2 was to create a scene stack within the floating point origins scale that is hard coded... http://www.davenewson.com/dev/unity-notes-on-rendering-the-big-and-the-small <--- basic idea of scaling... But even having multiple scenes proposes many issues we cannot resolve... For one, there is no type of scene manager to view multiple scenes at once within unity to setup cross scene physics.... Which leads me to believe that any massive type of scaling is utterly impossible with unity at the time being... I mean sure we can try and write assets that interact with unities hard code but that would be essentially hacking unity to create tools we need for a such a venture... We are not even license holders.... I mean even after making it through the massive mess of networking that unity lacks, we ran into this major road block... Cause even if these tools are created then there would be major issues of being able to see into the next scene to shoot at something... We even tried to scale it down in 2d which wasn't feasible either... SO basically i feel like our design is to eager or unity is a typical product of academia(extremely limited to old designs). Unless of course there can be some sort of parent/child point of origin within a scene.... But even then our dedicated server is limited to a certain amount of unity instances... *sigh*.... Has to be some kind of resolve to this uncharted mess that floats aimlessly outside the box of unities current capabilities...
     
  42. RickyJack

    RickyJack

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    With a scale like this... Realistically i find it entirely implausible... I hope some one out there has some kind of intuitive resolve to what we are doing wrong or can just flat out tell us to toss our project in the trash....
    1. If you choose Pluto, the outermost planet, as the end, then the diameter of the solar system is 80 A.U. A.U. means "astronomical unit"; then the distance between Earth and the sun equals 93,000,000 miles. So that would be 7,440,000,000 (over seven billion) miles.
     
  43. RickyJack

    RickyJack

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    Oh yeah... I didn't clarify this... "Unless of course there can be some sort of parent/child point of origin within a scene...."

    I don't mean the routine Parent(world)/Child(player....
    I mean Parent(scene)/Child(sub scene).... KSP uses this in a different manner as camera tricks that eventually fall apart and crash....

    It seems we have to go this direction in some way to reach such a massive scale, as unity blocks us from taking other approaches... At least from what we can tell... We may just be stupid... I have no idea... but at this point it seems we may need to write our engine to run our gaming environments the way we need them to work... which opens a whole other can of nightmares.... Seriously need some insight to this... We have even been modding and toying with PZ(project zomboid)... 2d tile based game... Some how they manage to never run into floating point errors... the map sizes are insane and assembled as cells(zones)... no idea how they pull off this chunk based feature...
     
  44. CarterG81

    CarterG81

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    To be honest, I'd never use Unity to make a MMO. Really, to make any large project.

    I have enough problems getting Unity to work correctly in small 2D projects. What you're doing sounds like a nightmare.

    On the bright side, I tried to create my own 2D engine similar to the same game I had in Unity2D. It was surprisingly easy, taking me only 3 days for the core setup. I ran into some struggles implementing scripting (Lua) since it is actually a ton of C and the documentation of C++ bindings are so horrible. (Writing my own bindings just wasn't worth the time, as I could just go with Unity instead). I actually did end up getting most of it working, but Unity's asset store would theoretically save me a ton of time- so I stuck with Unity.

    I still very often miss the power and control of a custom made solution. It was a bit more work, but not anymore time consuming. It would take me, oh say 8 hours to implement something Unity already has- but Unity would have some kind of issue, poor documentation on a feature, a bug, a confusing way it wanted me to handle it, or a feature I had to learn- all of which would take sometimes 13 hours just to push through for a problem I would never encounter in a custom solution or for that same feature I flawlessly created in only 8 hours.

    This is especially true of something like Unity not being very precise. I hear a lot of complaints with floating number accuracy and physics accuracy. At least with a custom solution you can get the literal best technology at the time. With Unity, you are out of luck.

    With Unity, you have to worry about how it wants you to do things, what is better for performance, research a lot, learn Unity (in an almost never-ending way), and struggle through UNITY's bugs, or your bugs which were caused by Unity's goofy or non-sensible ways. With your own engine, you just have to research a lot and learn how to implement that specific feature. If you do it right, no bugs, no confusion, no goofy incompatibility with different functions of the API.

    So for a 2D MMO, it is a no-brainer for me: Don't even consider using Unity.

    For 3D? I have no experience in Unity or a custom solution. For all I know, Unity could save loads of time for 3D, and only suck at the 2D. (Unity's 2D features are known to be bug-ridden, goofy, and all around incomplete. This is not as true for its 3D, at least to my knowledge).
     
  45. BFGames

    BFGames

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    Strange that you find so many problems with Unity's 2D. Working on a 2D project at the moment and havent run into any problems yet. Did however create my own 2D platformer "engine" using C++ and SDL two years back. Was ALOT more work...
     
  46. snacktime

    snacktime

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    I know basically how games like Eve handle this so I'll take a shot at how I might approach it.

    I would probably subdivide the space into different systems which are separate scenes much like Eve does. This solves the problem of how to show skyboxes, since every system gets it's own skybox. That issue aside the rest would work fine in a single scene.

    I would use spatial partitioning within each system to manage rendering objects in range and for combat. I would probably subdivide the space using a 3d spatial grid. To get all players/objects that are in range of a specific player, you get all objects on the cell the player is on, plus all objects in the surrounding cells.

    I use an algorithm that uses hashing to avoid a traditional graph, as it's much more performant. This is the algorithm my implemantation is based on.

    http://www.cs.ucf.edu/~jmesit/publications/scsc 2005.pdf

    It should work for 3 dimensions, Just haven't gotten around to actually testing that. You could also use a quadtree or something similar also, it's just a lot more cpu intensive.

    I have a java implementation you can use as a reference. This is a simplified version. I have another version that does a bunch of space related optimizations, this is one I pared down to just the spatial stuff.

    https://github.com/gamemachine/game...io/gamemachine/pathfinding/ProximityGrid.java

    With this specific approach you can also do some other tricks, like calculating distance to all the objects once you have retrieved them from the spatial grid to filter for exact distance. You could use that approach as a way to use just a flat 2d grid in 3d space. While this might seem like kind of a hack, chances are it would be more performant then a traditional graph for a fairly large number of of moving objects, and it's simpler. You might also mix things up by using a graph for tracking static objects and a 2d grid for moving ones.

    The algorithm is very performant, much more so then more traditional graphs such as quadtrees. Cost is mostly front loaded by writing location updates when a player moves. Retrieving objects in range involves simple math to get the surrounding cells, then just retrieving the objects associated with each cell. The java implementation can handle hundreds of players in the same area on a single core and have cpu left over.
     
    Last edited: Jan 5, 2015
  47. snacktime

    snacktime

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    Couple of other thoughts on how Eve does things that might help. So in Eve I don't think they really use a scene concept like Unity has, which the more I think about this, the more I think just a single scene is the right approach. Whatever kind of travel mechanism you use to move larger distances quickly, you introduce some type of loading screen mechanic to give you time to load in the local assets and players.

    It will also help to have two measurement systems in game for distance. One for large objects over long distances, and the other for anything at short(visual) range. Eve for instance has AU's for long range, which is only approximate to meters.
     
  48. npsf3000

    npsf3000

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    Not really... since with Unity you can often integrate the 'literal best technology' if you wish.
     
  49. RickyJack

    RickyJack

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    All game engines have this issue and we live with it... A computer can only handle so much and the software can do so much... It doesn't matter what you use, it still has it's limits... But in defense of unity, we chose it because of it's ability to render so quickly and general versatility. Plus it offer's a free version to toy with... Not to mention if you stay within the parameters of the software the floating point and physics are spot on....

    It sounds as though your hating on it and not helping in any way to explore the software and it's capabilities... *facepalm* thanks for the argument *sarcasm*....

    We built a server on a comp and made a rough 2d multiplayer game in a week with little experience... I suggest you go back to the drawing board and start over....
     
  50. RickyJack

    RickyJack

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    Thanks for the insight snacktime!!! Reading all this material and waiting for my smarter half to view it as well for a possible resolve of sorts. All i know is it will take a stroke of mad genius to entirely solve it but i think this helps in the proper direction. Thanks again :D