Hi,

I'm becoming rather addicted to miniclip's 8 ball pool game. However we don't like the extra features like the super spin etc. Also the tournaments are not as we'd like them at all. Everything else about the game we like except the lines that are shown on the pool balls indicating direction.

However, we love the concept of a 2d pool game with multiplayer tournament and user account features with ranking although the ranking needs to be different.

For an example only we use miniclip since that is the nearest to what we would like although online multiplayer 2d pool with database backend and fastest possible data communication is essential since lagging and delays mid game/shot are not desirable.

Along with the price for the games dev, what kind of hardware are you looking at to run multiple tournaments with potentially a few thousand persons playing at one time. Where is the stress in such a scenario? cpu, ram? If for example you had 10,000 persons playing at one time would multiple db scaling and replication be required or can ssd drives along with large ram and cpu handle all of this on one machine? Would you need multiple locations for fast ping? We are looking to run university tournaments between several institutions so if it catches on it could get a lot of players.

As in experienced persons in this field, what should we look out for when consulting with studios or even small teams concerning developing multiplayer games like this? should they be mentioning socket.io for the server communication procedure ( not 100% sure how that works but from reading it seems that will stop some of the lagging we have seen on other multiplayer games where it seems you are waiting for the response of the other player for far too long.

To get a game like miniclips pool game produced from start to finish incorporating our tournament requirements what kind of total financial commitment would we be looking at.? Of course a rough estimate only. I looked at the costing structure on the faq of this site and i was not expecting it to be quite that expensive. I realise that the huge amount work involved is not appreciated by the persons outside of the dev industry so we are willing to accept that our initial expectations were well off.

However, if anyone has the time to tell me what they would expect to pay for start to finish production of such a game that would be very handy to know before making any serious calls to studios and explaining what we want.

thanks for any information.

1. what kind of hardware are you looking at to run multiple tournaments with potentially a few thousand persons playing at one time.

2. Where is the stress in such a scenario? cpu, ram?

3. If for example you had 10,000 persons playing at one time would multiple db scaling and replication be required or can ssd drives along with large ram and cpu handle all of this on one machine?

4. Would you need multiple locations for fast ping?

5. As in experienced persons in this field, what should we look out for when consulting with studios or even small teams concerning developing multiplayer games like this?

6. should they be mentioning socket.io for the server communication procedure

7. To get a game like miniclips pool game produced from start to finish incorporating our tournament requirements what kind of total financial commitment would we be looking at.? Of course a rough estimate only.

8. I looked at the costing structure on the faq of this site and i was not expecting it to be quite that expensive.

9. However, if anyone has the time to tell me what they would expect to pay for start to finish production of such a game that would be very handy to know before making any serious calls to studios and explaining what we want.

1. That's a technical question, not a management question. I suggest you ask this in the Multiplayer And Network Programming forum.

2. That's a technical question, not a management question. I suggest you ask this in the General Programming forum.

3. Again: Multiplayer And Network Programming forum.

4. Yes. If you're going to license to a publisher or portal, they've probably got that covered.

5. You want them to have experience doing similar work before. You want them to have good references. You want them to be affordable.

6. Again: Multiplayer And Network Programming forum.

7. Somewhere between $30,000 and oh, say, $200,000 - broad range because I don't have a solid grasp on the scope of the project.

8. Experience costs money. Peoples' time costs money.

9. You need to approach developers with a solid design document and realistic expectations. Then ask them how much they would charge. (You do not tell them how much you're looking to spend first -- let them name a figure first.)

Thank you very much for taking the time to isolate and answer my questions. That's great and gives me a more realistic expectation of the scope and cost of this project, and since we were not thinking about licensing it but rather to open our own challenge/tournament portal then i will seek more council regarding the hardware required in the other sub forums that you refer to.

thanks :)