EncryptedCow
DatapawWolf
You guys are simply going beyond the multiplayer behaviour capabilities of scirra.
The official multiplayer system is a simple signaling server which connects players with each other, so one player will always be the host.
What you guys are talking about is a simple dedicated server, that's it.
So as long as you're not going to code a dedicated server, there's no way you're ever going to achieve what you're looking for.
From what i've read from Ashley so far... he's not really interested into further developing the multiplayer part.
It looked like he felt that the multiplayer feature was a complete waste of time, because there are not enough people actualy using it. (i'm just interpreting what i've read so far, but his words came pretty close to that) So according to that i would guess that he's not willing to help you in a dedicated server matter.
(i would love to get my hands on a dedicated server version as well)
The only way to prevent players to become host right now is, to run the "main game" on your own server.
What i mean is.... run the game itself on your own private dedicated windows server (for example) which will then always be the host.
That would prevent players to become host themselfs, and you could offer your players a dedicated bandwith.
But it's just a simple and bad workaround.
So either you're going with lennaerts suggestion, which is actually pretty good.
Or you're going to code your own dedicated server.
Using lennaerts suggestion would simply mean that creating an actual (dungeon) instance will just be a new player being abused as a new host.
This would save you an *** full of money rather than being forced to host a dedicated server.
Of course there's a big downside on that, as you would have to rely on the players internet connection/location.
But i'm sure you would be able to add some checks on the players connection to prevent such players to become a host.
If you're actually willing to go for a real MMORPG, just keep in mind that this will require a really fast and big database / a good dedicated server. MMORPGs require the most powerfull servers when it comes to gaming (compared to a shooter for example)
In short: it's expensive
What a lot of us are aiming for is a multiplayer world without the 'massiveness' of MMORPGs -- you might have, for example, a cap of 50 people per server, movement in two dimensions (which is a lot less data being passed back and forth than a 3D MMO), inventories that are simpler and require less data storage than an MMO with, say, loot permutations (so an object in a player's inventory is simply recorded as "Item #263," which references local data on what all the items are, rather than all the special properties and permutations a modern MMO's 'Vorpal Sword +3 of Shadows' has undergone.
Multiplayer without persistence is boring and done to death. Who wants to play another competitive 2D arena game? But we're not trying to compete with the Big Boys here. We can do a form of persistent-world on the cheap.
As for a player potentially hosting with a poor connection, this is one more reason for me to split up every single screen of my Zelda-y multiplayer game into its own layout... if a screen is choppy because the first player to arrive on it is a poor web host, well, hop to any other screen and you'll be fine.
The one downside is that if players aren't 'connected' until they're on the same screen, how will I handle chat? That'll be tricky... Unless there's some way to have the chat box as a 'separate' multiplayer connection that I permanently host and have all players of the game as permanent peers... if that's impossible, though, text is simple enough that there's gotta be some weird Java-y way of handling it.