Building a 3D MMO using Websockets

[triptych]

Building a 3D MMO using Websockets

 

http://www.gamedev.net/page/resources/_/technical/multiplayer-and-network-programming/building-a-3d-mmo-using-websockets-r3392

 

From the article: 

 

"Hi there! My name is Nick Janssen, creator of Ironbane, a 3D MMO that uses WebGL and WebSockets. With this article I would like to give you a better insight in MMO’s and make you less afraid of the complexities involved in building one. From my experience I have found that people consider them very hard, while they are in fact quite easy to make using the web technologies of today."

[Jim]

Hmm "works in any modern browser" fails in latest/current Safari and Chrome ... do I perhaps have to fiddle with settings to get this to work
 

Which makes me question other things in this article, particularly around the scaling of web-sockets for a MMO, I'm not seeing the "Massively Multiplayer" part of their game ... any details about how many concurrent players can be active in a single world?

 

Don't get me wrong it looks very impressive, but I think they are missing the difference between an online game and an MMO.

[dreta]

Using socket.io for games is a terrible idea.

[Psychho]

Works fine for me, great to see a 3D online game using HTML5 besides Runescape.

 

Using socket.io for games is a terrible idea.

And why would that be Dreta?

[David da Silva Contín]

And why would that be Dreta?

 

Yeah, I'd like to know the reasons too.

 

I guess (?) it might be a bad idea since socket.io is a generic wrapper designed for usability, ease of use, whereas for a MMO you need a fast and light data transmission system.

[dreta]

http://buildnewgames.com/optimizing-websockets-bandwidth/

 

Use https://github.com/Worlize/WebSocket-Node instead. It allows you to send binary data and doesn't bloat packages.

[Gio]

It really depends on your point of view... if you're desperate about bandwidth, socket.io is indeed a bad idea.

 

On the other hand, if you want to support as many devices as possible, sending binary data through typed arrays isn't such a great idea either (nor using WebGL, for that matter).

[Psychho]

http://buildnewgames.com/optimizing-websockets-bandwidth/

 

Use https://github.com/Worlize/WebSocket-Node instead. It allows you to send binary data and doesn't bloat packages.

Socket.IO only takes up tons of bandwidth if you send JSON objects, you can always just use msg to send a string.

[valeriocelletti]

If you are interested on this topic also check http://blog.lightstreamer.com/2013/10/optimizing-multiplayer-3d-game.html.

 

"We have presented an online demo that shows how a technology created for the financial industry can be used with great benefits in the gaming industry. Adaptive streaming (dynamic throttling, conflation, delta delivery, etc.) is a set of techniques to make sure that the amount of real-time data needed to synchronize a 3D virtual world among several clients is governed by the actual network capacity for each client. Several low-level optimizations and high-level abstractions are required to make multiplayer game development easier with reliable results. If you want to solve the problems of real-time gaming efficiently, you should use similar techniques in your real-time web stack".

 

[full disclosure: I work for Lightstreamer]

[thephox1982]

Building a 3D MMO using Websockets

 

http://www.gamedev.net/page/resources/_/technical/multiplayer-and-network-programming/building-a-3d-mmo-using-websockets-r3392

 

From the article: 

 

"Hi there! My name is Nick Janssen, creator of Ironbane, a 3D MMO that uses WebGL and WebSockets. With this article I would like to give you a better insight in MMO’s and make you less afraid of the complexities involved in building one. From my experience I have found that people consider them very hard, while they are in fact quite easy to make using the web technologies of today."

 

 

 

Looks interesting and a bit retro, like originla Doom or Blake Stone 3D era.

I pressed Enter and no chat window came up, just so you are aware, using Chrome on Windows 8 (not my computer, hate windows 8, lol).

 

I am working on a more modern hybrid MMO if you or anyone else wants to take a stab with it, it's open source so feel free to fork it on GitHub.

Main website: http://www.werescape.com

GitHub: https://www.github.com/werescape

 

The website has more information and such on the Developers page and I am always available through multiple means to help where needed.

[thephox1982]

Using socket.io for games is a terrible idea.

 

 

I can be yes but it can work just fine as well if you really really know what you are doing and use UDP connections

But if you want something for more than a couple hundred people concurrently, you should use something like C# or at least Python.

 

But if you really wish to get dirty it is possible to expand a Node.js server into a game server that is responsive enough.

 

But hey, I was told it was impossible to make an 3D MMO with HTML5 yet in theory and so far in practice, if you think outside the box and get creative to work around issues rather than give up you can get it done.

 

Lots of things have been claimed to be really bad ideas yet we take them for granted today, computers being one of them and cars!

[user123456789]

But if you want something for more than a couple hundred people concurrently, you should use something like C# or at least Python.

 

Are you saying that the actual programming language at the server-side is a big factor in terms of scalability? Haven't heard that before within context of MOGs.