Hybris: There may be other reasons, but the one deciding reason really is the hacking thing.

Plus, storing the data on the server won''t increase lag. You might have to send a bit more info down to the client at connect time, but after that bandwidth usage should be the same.

cu,
Prefect


Sanity is the trademark of a weak mind.

Hybris: There may be other reasons, but the one deciding reason really is the hacking thing.

Plus, storing the data on the server won''t increase lag. You might have to send a bit more info down to the client at connect time, but after that bandwidth usage should be the same.

cu,
Prefect


Sanity is the trademark of a weak mind.

Hybris: There may be other reasons, but the one deciding reason really is the hacking thing.

Plus, storing the data on the server won''t increase lag. You might have to send a bit more info down to the client at connect time, but after that bandwidth usage should be the same.

cu,
Prefect


Sanity is the trademark of a weak mind.

Hybris: There may be other reasons, but the one deciding reason really is the hacking thing.

Plus, storing the data on the server won''t increase lag. You might have to send a bit more info down to the client at connect time, but after that bandwidth usage should be the same.

cu,
Prefect


Sanity is the trademark of a weak mind.

Ok, here''s my 2cents regarding the server. As for the other questions, well, I think everybody else already answered them.

What you should get as a server is at least 1 dual processor, preferably Intel Xeon 1G as it will be processing alot of data. Also, as for how to save the DATA, most MMORPG, will use structures to save their data as a database can be slower and would require a seperate server for it not to lag. Especially if you plan on using MSSQL. MSSQL is a real processor and memory sucker.( Don''t get me wrong, SQL is great but not for game data, imho ).



Cyberdrek
Headhunter Soft
A division of DLC Multimedia

Ok, here''s my 2cents regarding the server. As for the other questions, well, I think everybody else already answered them.

What you should get as a server is at least 1 dual processor, preferably Intel Xeon 1G running on Win2K. Also, as for how to save the DATA, most MMORPG, will use structures to save their data as a database can be slower and would require a seperate server for it not to lag. Especially if you plan on using MSSQL. MSSQL is a real processor and memory sucker.( Don''t get me wrong, SQL is great but not for game data, imho ).

Anyhow, these are my views.



Cyberdrek
Headhunter Soft
A division of DLC Multimedia

If you were tagetting this for commercial release and have the cash to spare, Solaris would be a good choice. It has network performance that blows Linux & NT out of the water and scales really well.

But this is a hobby and you dont wan''t to spend 100k on a server right

So download yourself a copy of Cygwin & develop on NT, it''s more than good enough for what you need, and you''ll be able to port to a Unix box if you ever need to.

I dont really think that getting the latest expensive hardware is nessasary, you can get a perfectly good server running on a unix machine with fairly low specs. Something like a pentium II 233mhz, 128mb with a cheap graphics card would be able to handle several hundred clients at the same time which I think is more than enough for a MMORPG that is just starting out. Ive seen few of mmorpg projects, most of them have so few people on that even at peak times you would be lucky to see 10 or so on. And at other times 1 or 2, if you aim to optimise your server well, run a good operating system and have good control over everything (that means no directplay) then you will be fine. If you can actually get a game server coded and running well, and you manage to get a consist amount of players on your server then you can upgrade further but there is nothing worse than buying a state of the art Pentium 4 1200mhz with 1gb of ram, the best hardware you can find, a dedicated OC1, T1 (or some good industrial-capable internet connection to an internet backbone) and then finding out your game runs so poorly because you have been too worried about supporting 3000 users. And even worse-so if you end up getting the game made but you rarely have anyone come to your server.

I think if you expect to have thousands of users come to your server just because its an MMORPG then your going to be in for some disappointment. You need to give it time so people can recognise it and actually put effort into getting people to play on the server. Having a nicely designed and programmed game which is actually enjoyable will certainly help this, and obviosly if you become successful and get thousands of users you can take steps to improve your server. Ie, put advertisements and keep it free, or make people pay for it, or ask for donations of money/servers/bandwidth...

Good luck everyone! Hopefully, there will be some good free MMORPGs being made and released in future... Btw, i hope im not sounding patronising, im simply trying to make people aware of reality instead of making the mistake of buying lots of hardware and bandwidth and end up with nobody on their servers.

CorsairK8

I think that the "professional" programmers (I am certainly not one of them) are correct; amateur game programmers have little hope of finishing a large multiplayer game. Not because they don''t have the know how or the ability to code the game. Simply because they aren''t 6 professional programmers, 3 graphics artists and a pizza dude; the "details" involved in a game can become overwhelming for a small team.
As for creating the game framework, I think that can be done with relative ease given the tools that are available to todays amateur programmer. For example, using DirectX, I can create in an hour what took professionals a day several years ago (if they had to do it from scratch), and I don''t know what I am doing!. And that is exactly what will kill your game! It''s just too easy to add a multitude of features that will end up requiring months of code to complete the logic etc.
So my point is this;
Can you do it? YES!
Will you do it? Not likely.
I hope I am wrong because I am planning my own MMORPG




swift like sloth,
smart like rock.