Server side physics, what would you want to see?

Chris Ochs · 2013-08-15T08:06:57

I'm working on a server side game engine for mmo games, and have been thinking through what physics features would be most wanted. The engine is open source but not quite to a first release, this is one of the last pieces to get in place. I'd appreciate any feedback! Here is the list of features I have so far, mostly all implemented. - Fast 3d spatial partitioning, for efficient 'players around me' queries. This sacrifices some accuracy for performance. It guarantees you will get every object in range, but you might get a few just outside of range also. I use 2d grids within grids, and then do some additional filtering on the third axis which is not 100% accurate, but it's fast. - 3d location tracking for all movable objects. Nothing to special here, just the ability to do basic queries on anything in the game world to get distances between objects,etc.. - Collision detection & general physics This is one I'm still unsure of how far to go on. Right now my thought is to have physics for immovable objects. Ensure players can't walk through walls, things like that. The approach I'm playing with is to use A* pathfinding on the server and verify that against the client. If they get into a position that the server finds impossible, they are probably cheating. But right now I just have 2d pathfinding, still playing around with the best solution for 3d. The physics is just to prevent cheating, not replace any physics on the client. Are there any other must have physics related features that you would need if making an mmo? Chris

Networking and Multiplayer Programming

Started by snacktime July 22, 2013 06:27 AM

9 comments, last by wodinoneeye 10 years, 8 months ago

wodinoneeye

1,691

August 15, 2013 08:06 AM

What minimum is needed for server verification (anti-cheating measures)

If you are proposing a MP game with greater reality of physics (and want that put in the server) what physics will HAVE to be verified at the server end?

Many games vary as to what is significant to the games operation (what would give a cheater an advantage for the type of game....)

A possibility of modal activation of the serverside physics for verification might allow 'soft' servers where players dont care so much (but this will unload ALOT of processing (and slowdown/delay?) from the servers the company has to maintain) ----- versus optional 'hard' (or hardedned?) servers with alot more physics turned ON so can be forced/verified to be accurate.

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Also consider are you going to be designing for much richer MMORPG environments than the current crop of fossilized architectures the players are afflicted with today.

What of a MMORPG with highly deformable scenery ? One where every object is real (not baked onto a level) and can be interactive and have at least physical behaviors (if not also huge numbers of active NPCs also playing with passive objects within the players view) ??

Magnitudes of increased for server physics processing (and liklely even more for NPC AI)

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Server side physics, what would you want to see?

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Server side physics, what would you want to see?

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