Is this possible??
Author
Hi, forgive me for this newbie question...but what I want to do is make (becuase no-one else has done it AFAIK), or play a game like the old Elite on the C64, but played in a peer to peer environment without any central server. The game world would be contained on the client machines, and whoever is online at the time can become the defacto server. Is this making any sense? You could even have retro vector graphics to cut down on lag! I''ve looked at EVE online but that seems very expensive and over the top. The ideal p2p game would be free to play. (just like kazza is free to use)
Has this sort of thing been attempted?
How do you know who is online and therefore who is the server... if you don''t have a server? I suppose you could run it through gamespy but noone playing the game is going to have sufficient bandwidth. Maybe an idea for 20 years time!
It is possible. Is has been done (Doom in DOS for example, using IPX).
The trick is let the computers see each other and then they have to decide who is going to be the server. You''d better find some ID (IP?) which you can use to determine the server. Take the lowest ip of all the connected players for example.
Since you want anybody to be the server when the old server drops out, ALL of your clients need the server data. This can get quite traffic-heavy with more than 4 or 8 clients, depending on how much data you want to send around.
With some clever data shuffling you can do a lot (predefined world, always the same). Remember, when someone connects he probably needs a lot of data at once. You could make some smart data sending where you only get the data of players close to you.
The trick is let the computers see each other and then they have to decide who is going to be the server. You''d better find some ID (IP?) which you can use to determine the server. Take the lowest ip of all the connected players for example.
Since you want anybody to be the server when the old server drops out, ALL of your clients need the server data. This can get quite traffic-heavy with more than 4 or 8 clients, depending on how much data you want to send around.
With some clever data shuffling you can do a lot (predefined world, always the same). Remember, when someone connects he probably needs a lot of data at once. You could make some smart data sending where you only get the data of players close to you.
quote:Original post by Endurion
It is possible. Is has been done (Doom in DOS for example, using IPX).
Only in LAN. (only a few potential adresses to check, or use broadcast)
Impossible in Internet, you need at least a lobby server to comunicate who actually is playing a game, and to whom to connect if you want to join.
At least such a lobby server doesn''t eat up much bandwith and can be a low cost pc. (perhaps could even work over DSL)
How about having an IP list of your dedicated testers who''ll play the game often put into some file. When another player attempts to connect, the current IP list is downloaded and scanned through until a listening IP is found. Once this player connects, their name is added to the IP list for other players to check games with. This is kinda like a dynamic lobby server. The main problem is that if no one is playing the game, no one else can start playing later. Not to mention that it''s way more trouble than its worth.
Stay Clausal,
Red Sodium
Stay Clausal,
Red Sodium
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