WebSockets: What do you want?

Are you planning to do all of this in C2 language or do you plan to use a plugin at some point.

I would love to offer my time, but at the moment I'm super busy. However if my plate clears in the near future I will speak up on interest about the subscription system and getting MP into C2.

That's fantastic. You'll find my email address in the upper right hand corner of my blog ... highlevellogic.blogspot.se

Not sure if I can use a C2 language exactly. Is that patented or copyright protected? Or, is it ok if it's like a C2 plug-in? But wait, I'm not planning to restrict development to C2 at this point. I don't have a business deal with the C2 people or anything.

I think the C2 tools and approach to allowing game developers without programming skills to build games is the thing I'm after. C2 isn't the only tool that does it. The idea is fairly generic. Plugging in actions related to events ("event sheets") is just a simple interface away from the XML form (which C2 and others also have).

I've done a simple proof of concept using the HLL WebSocket Server with C2. It was very simple with a single sprite. I'm imagining that C2 can have independent characters, but don't know that. If characters can be independently controlled, I think it's already possible to build multiplayer games.

Let me follow up to the already mounting commentary I've given in the past couple of hours. I'm sure you will all enjoy the book when it comes out. LOL!

Grain of salt on having all the logic in the browsers. What I have in mind, game developers will be able to decide how much logic is on the server. I think the details will become clearer as I implement, even for me. I'm not at this point, considering running a game loop on the server. I suppose that's possible, and might be a consideration at some point. But phase 1 anyways ... it'll just act like a good and proper server.

Interesting question has come to mind from the discussions. Surely, there can be no doubt that I need to provide good support for game developers, making it easy to build the games. But who's my target market?

If what game builders are saying is that they need a subscription service, so that all they need to do is upload their games; maybe I'm looking mostly for people who want to set up and run a subscription service: Either that or someone who wants to run mmo games ... either way ... someone who's interested in running servers.

A lot of independent game developers aren't interested in doing that.

Some might be.

Not sure I've been perfectly clear about everything. I think game exchanges should be command driven, not by constantly updating the state of each character. Even holding down an arrow key can be done with "left down" and "left up" or "left" and "stop left" for example. I believe that there does need to be some basic synchronization supported by the server as well as a simple way to deal with latency. But that's a far cry from putting all the game logic on the server.

RE: Cheat ... teleporting as an example. If there is no teleporting command in the game, you won't be able to teleport in the multiplayer world. If someone finds a way to change their local position, it won't show up on any other player's screen. It will just leave the cheater confused.

I'd like to see good responsiveness, but until the activity is making huge bucks, I don't think I'll start an R&D project on the cutting edge of Internet connection speeds. I'm comforted by the fact that photon torpedoes can take as much as 15 seconds or so to reach their targets in Star Trek movies. Cool effect. Why wouldn't you want to see the photon torpedo run its course? With everything from sluggish goofy old canons and catapults to futuristic energy blasters (I've seen it in games already), it's possible to use projectiles that take at least a few seconds to reach their target. And that's more than enough time to sync up.

If the game does larger troop movements, it can take a second or two for ground commanders to respond to the player. I'm not saying that's technically required, just saying it wouldn't be bad to design the game as such. Player / general orders swordsmen to attack the flanks - couple seconds later, acknowledgment from the ground commander. Humans are like that. Why should it not be so in the game? (This can also work if you're giving instructions to an individual character rather than directly remote-controlling it; although I'd have to think more about a game in which that's interesting to do.) It then takes time for the group of swordsmen to move in and fight ... lots and lots of time for sync.

That's just a couple of examples. There might also be some good examples for extremely rapid action play, but I'm just not treating conservative / safe action as what I'm after right now. I'm not against rapid interaction, you understand. And maybe somewhere during the development of what I've described, I'll see an opening, or at least be set for some preliminary timing tests. As I start out though, I don't want to lead game builders astray. I'd rather advise them to do things that we know will work. For those who have the time and interest, ok, they can test the outer limits if they want to. I'm just not going to push someone who just wants to get a good game on the market into doing experiments. I think that's part of responsible support.

And once again ... My WebSocket server is fast, very fast, but WebSockets don't make data move faster over the Internet.

And now I'm also considering the business model and who / where / how servers will be installed.

BTW: Just now, I'm seeing about a 50ms latency on http fetches between two different cities in Sweden. That's about 20 times faster than the human eye can process imagery (Wikipedia). It's under 10 times faster than film refresh rates in the later half of the 20th century and somewhere around half that (still faster) than TV, which was synced with electric power cycles (50-60 per second).

In 50ms, a real life bullet will travel 3-25 feet.

But since you've all spent time on computers and the Internet, you know that you're not always getting what is possible. Switching protocols doesn't solve that problem. Still though, there's a great deal of potential fun. :)

Hey Roger,

We briefly talked before when you put out your Websocket post and I ended up not being able to get back to you and I apologize!

All of this sounds awesome/interesting and I too would like to help/be a part of what is needed. My 9-5 job is a FileMaker developer (kind of like C2 of the database world) and know plenty of SQL so I know my way around data and databases. As for servers, I'm a bit behind on that aspect but always trying to catch up.

I'm currently trying to finish up a board/card game in C2 to put on iOS and Android which I really really want to finish ASAP, but after that I wanted to do more online/server connection games with C2 which seems like a good time for us to try some stuff out.

Feel free to shoot me messages whenever you have something or ideas and I will get back to you, and I will make sure I come back here when I have more time!

Nick

Very interesting thread, working on a chess like multiplayer game in C2 and might be one of your customers. I hope this project of yours is still alive.