Quote:Original post by NateDog
I'm a novice, but I'll share my experiences FWIW...

We crashed and burned on our first attempt at an MMO where the server was sending 5 updates per second and the update size varied quite a bit but was generally in the range of about 1k raw data (but wrapped in xml) per update. The bandwidth use per user combined with the high percentage of total active players connected concurrently at peak times made for a situation we just couldn't sustain. I believe it was about 800 users where our dedicated 100mbit pipe was saturated...

That makes sense-- 800 users x 5 updates per second x 1000 bytes raw x 8 bits per byte = 32 megabits. Add in the xml and network overhead and I can see how you would run out of headroom.

But 800 users per server seems pretty good. Why did you consider this "crash and burn"?

That's exactly right. It was a freemium flash mmo using smartfox for the serverside of things. The "crash and burn" relates to many aspects ... The game encouraged players to keep themselves logged in for many hours just to watch so the 800 concurrent was just from about 2000 overall active players. Also I really wasn't well versed in multithreaded race conditions. It was a great learning experience but many mistakes at all levels of the design and execution.

It's all good ... From the ashes of that one comes the knwledge and determination to take another stab at it. :)

Well 800 concurrent players for a first mmo is pretty good, good luck on your next attempt!