LOl kalvin. Trust me everyone thinks you''ve eliminated all the ways to cheat but trust me, they will find a way you didn''t lol. It''s a fact :p
Anyways and i''ve been thinking dark. Maybe your right but at the initail release the game is not going to be playable much. But say we do charge. What if we were to do a free Alpha test and once we get the basics done (skills, stats, land, etc...) Then we switch to beta and charge? I don''t know tho cause it''s hard to suddenly get people to pay for something that was free but... And i know that even if i put down "donations gladly apreciated" not many people will pay but who knows. I know for a fact that people won''t want to pay if we charge later when we really need the money even more then but who knows....
Also I love the idea for a monitor since we''re having another computer set up networked to the server computer and we could have that monitor the server but how would i program this? Also how would I implement the email thing?
How to get a server
I know of a few ways to "cheat" by basically taking advantage of how the program is written. But as soon as those come to light they''ll be posted publicly or removed and a new client will be released. I can disable older clients just by changing the GUID of the server.
There aren''t many things I can discuss about the project as it is a professional one for a local company but if you''re interested in some of what it can do I''ll have an official site posted on my server.
There will be a private beta released by the end of the month. By that time the source will have a name and be copyrighted and I may be able to talk about some of the other aspects of the game and the original engine it''s built on. I will never discuss source however.
My server is currently down as I''m upgrading to Win2k pro. Check back for updates later this week.
The "home made" feel to the project will be gone eventually. We''re focusing on game play at this time. We''ll invest the money for high end systems and connections when the time comes.
Ben
http://therabbithole.redback.inficad.com
There aren''t many things I can discuss about the project as it is a professional one for a local company but if you''re interested in some of what it can do I''ll have an official site posted on my server.
There will be a private beta released by the end of the month. By that time the source will have a name and be copyrighted and I may be able to talk about some of the other aspects of the game and the original engine it''s built on. I will never discuss source however.
My server is currently down as I''m upgrading to Win2k pro. Check back for updates later this week.
The "home made" feel to the project will be gone eventually. We''re focusing on game play at this time. We''ll invest the money for high end systems and connections when the time comes.
Ben
http://therabbithole.redback.inficad.com
Kalldrex, what I would do is first have a "Private Beta" this will be free with a selected few people you trust, IE the people that worked on it and their friends and family. This remove''s the "initial" bug''s, flaws, problems etc.
Then I would suggest a "Public Beta" this will be free and will pretty much be a "stress test".. This phase should provide precious feedback on how thing''s run, what should be changed, and game design in general...
Trust me.. If your game does well during the Public Beta then people *will* pay to be able to continue to play it.
Also for this to a success you''ll need to post information arond the net, www.betabits.com (?) is usually good for find beta tester''s.
Once in final release always post to mpog.com, download.com, winfiles.com, tucows.com, gamespot.com see if they would like to review your game and so forth, not to forget search engines.
Kalvin, it doesn''t take people long to figure out how the client/server run''s.. (wel latleast it won''t for the intelligent people playing) but yah, patching up bug''s/cheats as quickly as possible are essential but you seem to have all that covered.
I''m eager to see how your stress test went with 50+ clients, I know you said your Frame Rate isn''t affected by 1 client on there but you never know. Also when it is released I''d be interested on the architecture of your server, from what you have said it doesn''t seem any different from what I''ve done, but the speed you are getting is.. well hard to believe *if* it sustains that. (dont get me wrong not calling you a lier, just amazed)
My server pretty much doesn''t do anything unless someone fires, then it checks for collision detection and does the appropriate events, how ever this is *completely* server based with the Client just transferring the messages into visuals (GUI).
I also intend of have the server only accept connections from the latest client... seems to be only logical to do this.
Kalldrex as for the monitor, never made a "network" one befor but What I did was fire an event every 5-60 minutes to check for the server Process ID, If it couldn''t be found then I would launch a new server. However the most important thing is error handling and why/what caused the server to crash.
Then I would suggest a "Public Beta" this will be free and will pretty much be a "stress test".. This phase should provide precious feedback on how thing''s run, what should be changed, and game design in general...
Trust me.. If your game does well during the Public Beta then people *will* pay to be able to continue to play it.
Also for this to a success you''ll need to post information arond the net, www.betabits.com (?) is usually good for find beta tester''s.
Once in final release always post to mpog.com, download.com, winfiles.com, tucows.com, gamespot.com see if they would like to review your game and so forth, not to forget search engines.
Kalvin, it doesn''t take people long to figure out how the client/server run''s.. (wel latleast it won''t for the intelligent people playing) but yah, patching up bug''s/cheats as quickly as possible are essential but you seem to have all that covered.
I''m eager to see how your stress test went with 50+ clients, I know you said your Frame Rate isn''t affected by 1 client on there but you never know. Also when it is released I''d be interested on the architecture of your server, from what you have said it doesn''t seem any different from what I''ve done, but the speed you are getting is.. well hard to believe *if* it sustains that. (dont get me wrong not calling you a lier, just amazed)
My server pretty much doesn''t do anything unless someone fires, then it checks for collision detection and does the appropriate events, how ever this is *completely* server based with the Client just transferring the messages into visuals (GUI).
I also intend of have the server only accept connections from the latest client... seems to be only logical to do this.
Kalldrex as for the monitor, never made a "network" one befor but What I did was fire an event every 5-60 minutes to check for the server Process ID, If it couldn''t be found then I would launch a new server. However the most important thing is error handling and why/what caused the server to crash.
That''s a good idea dark and I think we just might do it. All we basically need is 25 paying people at the beginning to get a T1 or something like that. One question tho. Don''t we have to pay the credit card companies to allow us to accept credit card payments?
Also I was thinking that if an error occured I''ll have it create a error log on the computer. Also i''m still confused how to set up a monitor for the server. Any ideas?
Also I was thinking that if an error occured I''ll have it create a error log on the computer. Also i''m still confused how to set up a monitor for the server. Any ideas?
If you''re looking to accept Credit Cards use Pay Pal. They take a small percentage of your profits to cover their fees and to make some profit themselves. You can also use VeriSign. Unless you and your customers trust the security of your server I''d look to pay someone else to handle it for you. You could also just accept checks. They mail you a check and you keep their account active for a month. Or 30 days whatever your billing cycle is.
As for monitoring errors I just write to a text file any information I need to watch. I do the same for both the client and the server. The file opens when I start the program and closes when I exit.
Ben
http://therabbithole.redback.inficad.com
As for monitoring errors I just write to a text file any information I need to watch. I do the same for both the client and the server. The file opens when I start the program and closes when I exit.
Ben
http://therabbithole.redback.inficad.com
I guess remotely to check that server is still up is connect to the specified server:port, if it connects then server is still up, if it returns an error then it''s not up.
How ever I''m not sure how you''re going to launch a new server remotely, I usually have monitor running on same system as server.
How ever I''m not sure how you''re going to launch a new server remotely, I usually have monitor running on same system as server.
The speed is mostly because I only redraw the screen every five seconds. And also because I use standard HDC functions in a simple console type window. No DirectDraw or anything. I''ve also found that Win2000 allows a much higher frame rate. My web server is a 333AMD with 128 meg ram runing Win2k. The server gets 120,000 fps on that computer. My 700AMD with 160meg of ram on WinMe get''s 73,000fps.
I''ve got just some minor tweaks before the private beta is released. I''ll post the results at my site. The optimum is making it possible for a 28.8k modem user to play with practically no lag.
Ben
http://therabbithole.redback.inficad.com
http://www.vendettaonline.net
I''ve got just some minor tweaks before the private beta is released. I''ll post the results at my site. The optimum is making it possible for a 28.8k modem user to play with practically no lag.
Ben
http://therabbithole.redback.inficad.com
http://www.vendettaonline.net
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