Multiplayer networking

[shindig]

Holy shit technology is awesome. Yesterday I started browsing an API for multiplayer networking and within hours had a good grasp.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rya4Mqfs15E]i haz the power - YouTube[/ame]

Projectiles synchronized across clients, no lag, decent network prediction, etc.

The framework is called Photon Server Photon Server on premise solution for realtime multiplayer cross platforms: Unity, iOS, Android, Marmalade ... | Exit Games: Network Engines and they give you a free cloud account that allows 20 simultaneous players at any given moment. But for $100 I can allow 120 simultaneous players..........and they have servers on all continents except australia, or you can host your own on your own vps for much cheaper.

The crazy part is with Unity Pro mobile licenses the networking code works the exact same as browser or pc/mac builds, and they just came out with a $95 plugin to use the framework with free unity mobile licenses. So for $95 you can make real time multiplayer games/software for android, ios, and winrt.

Never been a better time to be a programmer...... :rasta:

 

[dsixl]

no not new, they had this in the 90s with things like won.net and many others. also, it looks like there are a lot of problems with getting authoritative servers running on this, you are probably better off coding your own server. otherwise, this would be OK if you aren't worried about people cheating.

 

[shindig]

no not new, they had this in the 90s with things like won.net and many others. also, it looks like there are a lot of problems with getting authoritative servers running on this, you are probably better off coding your own server. otherwise, this would be OK if you aren't worried about people cheating.

Good points. I actually played an MMO game that wasn't authoritative, it had massive hacking for a year then they figured out a way to track the cheats.

I've found a couple tools to help, one based on obfuscation which turns everything important into unreadable strings, not great but a first step. https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/#/content/8774

Then there's a plugin for $35 someone made for detecting cheat engine, wall hacks/directx hacks, and 21 memory editing programs and other stuff for windows games: https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/#/content/3692

But shit nothing's 100% secure, ever. I'm hoping that by doing mobile games it's harder to hack on the devices, and focus on more of co-op adventure games for kids, less competitive than say an fps shooter.