Integrated system for coop games

[YouGroove]

Will it be planned some high level system in LE3 for network coop gameplay ?

I mean without needing to integrate ourselves Raknet or other stuff and just be able to easy create sessions and manage gamepla y ?

[DudeAwesome]

couchcoop no need for networking

[Rick]

It was talked about before, but networking is a big task to get right. I don't recall a timeframe ever being talked about around it.

[YouGroove]

So i guess like GUI, the only solution would be some product existing, prooven and that could be integrated in LE3.

[Rick]

It's called RakNet or eNet or whatever networking you want to use that works with C++

[gamecreator]

Or Steam.

[Rick]

I think Steam just gives the social and room/lobby aspects and not the actual gameplay networking code.

[Ma-Shell]

Sockets/WinSockets FTW!

Highly compatible to each other (as long as you don't use WSA-functions) and free.

 

I think Steam just gives the social and room/lobby aspects and not the actual gameplay networking code.

I think, I read somewhere (probably in this forum) that you can also send arbitrary messages to any steamid.

[Vulcan]

Sure you could use sockets but then you need to have implement stuff like congestion control, handle network thread, occasional ping, etc.

Why try reinventing the (tcp-)wheel when you could use RakNet which has an indie friendly license, zero royalty if game has less than 100K revenue.

 

I think it is possible to create a RakNet wrapper for lua, but personally find it just best to digg in with C++ (more control).

 

If anyone are interested in a good RakNet tutorial (C++ based):

[YouGroove]

I was talking of high level functions instead included in some package like some you can find with Unity. Perhaps some solution will be available in LE3. Coop story games are very interesting allowing mutual help and interaction, they are becoming to appear lot more in incoming games.

[Ma-Shell]

I was talking of high level functions instead included in some package like some you can find with Unity. Perhaps some solution will be available in LE3. Coop story games are very interesting allowing mutual help and interaction, they are becoming to appear lot more in incoming games.

 

The problem about this is, that you can not really optimize stuff. There are different requirements for different tasks. For example with an FPS you have to make sure that some important things get through, like e.g. hits. On the other hand, it would be an overkill to really make sure that every position/rotation update is transferred. So you have to design your own protocol for this. If you just have a switch like "synchronize this object", you can't really differentiate between those, so you would either end up having too many losses or a flooded network.

[Rick]

If you just have a switch like "synchronize this object", you can't really differentiate between those, so you would either end up having too many losses or a flooded network.

 

While I agree, an on/off switch is pretty basic. The configuration could be more detailed and still be useful. I personally use RakNet because I don't think networking will be implemented anytime soon, but having some basic options/configs for things in LE networking is doable and can work for a vast majority of the indie games that'll come out of LE with the option to still use a 3rd-party if you want.

[Einlander]

Being the lazy person I am, when I get around to networking I'm going to have a modified entity tracking script. All networkable objects will be prefabs with a script saying whether the object needs to be networked and I it has physics. Every time it syncs it will compare the old list to the new list of entities and only syncs the changed entities.

 

Alas I'm lazy and it will be a while before I get to it.