Third Party exitgames photon

As mentioned by Chris from exitgames that enet has been implemented to work with photon with reliable UDP, Just wanted to ask if this implementation of enet is already in photon? and its unity sdk??.

cuz I still see the features in photon that still uses TCP, well actually both. but is this optional, like If I were to use it for UDP only?
or in this case to use UDP for game and TCP for ingame chat,, can both be used at the same time or only one?

Anyone else using photon with unity for small scalle mmorpg? would really like to hear about it and their experiences.

thanks again.

 

We built a small test base MMO with the pre-photon technology (at least I guess thats what it was as it was UDP already with realtime and a C++ server that uses the C# "webapps" for plugins). Its pretty powerfull but it will likely take some time until you grasp all the aspects.

Also you need to write conversion functions for float to char[4] and back so you can send floats optimized as the hashtables used by photon don't support float at least they didn't last I checked. (that work is pretty straight forward with the Convert class, but it still needs to be done)

Its backend is very powerfull and flexible to extend and it has a very good performance.

The only thing I'm unsure is how much of neutrons functionality is still available if any since the split of photon and neutron, so you would have to check that, as Neutron had a few things that were helpfull to start out with.

 

thank you dreamora,

I think so too, photon looks good, at least from I have seen, and I see why they split to neutron, which neutron offers good features for mmo, but its managed service so it means extra business, so in other words you need to subscribe to them in order to enjoy the goodies it offers like chat etc...

I wonder how hard will it be to implement those features neutron has to photon without subscribing to their managed service. unless I missed the part that they offer those features in photon without the managed subscription.

One other thing I noticed about their site is that I didnt see any community forums for their products, you know , its always good to have those since peeople helps eachother out with tutorials, code sipplets, to help jump start some part of the game logic. etc..

 

Its a professional product.
Community boards, that are available just like that, are a thing for no budget indie and hobbiest technologies only.
Professional developers won't use such boards, they contact the developers themself and get exactly the answer the wanted, they don't have 3 - infinity days to get a somewhat shallow answer.

Already the list of technology users for Neutron speaks for itself with AAA and big publisher companies using it.


The only thing I don't like about ExitGames website is that they mention prices for Photon, but they no longer have prices for Neutron, not even indications.

Thats just as bad as NetDog who mention a single server and a cluster capable version of their tech.
For the first their CEO has mentioend the price here once ($30'000), for the later the price is not even known but if a single server costs already that much, the addition of message routing, seamless zone transition etc will potentially raise it that far that you might be able to get a fully fledged MMO tech instead (Monumental Tech Suite or the first 10-20 rates of your BigWorld / Hero Engine license)

 

you are right, somehow or someway I thought I saw some prices for neutron on their site not too long ago, unless I was dearming, saw some packages with hosting included for the game server etc...

ohh well, when there is not prices on their sites, that means only one thing, at large ammount of money.

No wonder they split the software, since neutron pretty much is the whole enchilada, and without it if we are not a rocket sientist harcore programmer then photon is not for us I think.

Lovely. lol

 

Not needfully
As you can throw in whatever you want into Photon you can actually achieve everything. And C# offers a lot of "whatever you want"

 

I was trying to look at the source code from server
never realised it is c# no wonder c++ could not opened the solution file, anywasy used vs2008 c# and still gives me errors while opening the solution file:

I wonder if this is normal on c# compiling, I am used to c++ compiling and never encountered any of the above before.

I think I need to do a little research on c# compiling on the net , how hard can it be once used to c++.

 

It is normal compiling but you don't compile to exe, you compile to web applications which are executed by the socket server.

The provided sample component that comes with it should compile out of the box given you have the right VC# edition and license type. Unsure if express will do it.

 

I see,

I have vs2008 express , but it should not give me the solution folder not compatible with this version error.

now in the other hand if it was for vs2005 version, then vs2008 should upgrade or convert it automatically as it usually does with any other solution files I have worked with that were created with 2005 version.

confusing...
maybe exitgames can clarify this.

 

Thats not what I meant.
I'm unsure if you can compile the desired project type at all with the express edition, as express is free and has a few capabilities removed from the IDE which would require doing all the steps manually.

I've only Pro, so I can't comment on potentially required manual steps I fear

 

Probably, it must of require vs2008 pro version in order to compile.

ohh well, thanks anyways for your time dreamora I appreciate it.

Good day.

 

Yes it is baked in (Server and all SDKs). We support 5 different protocols types in parallel:

1) UDP (based on enet, so you can mix reliable and unreliable)
2) TCP binary (you would only use this if #1 is not an option for some reason)
3) TCP AMF3 binary (for Flash AS3)
4) TCP XML (for Flash XML sockets, and the policy requests)
5) Silverlight XML (similar to #4, but MS decided to do it slightly different than Adobe)

You would just stick with UDP - but for sure you could mix both.

Double support is on the roadmap for one of the next releases - until then you have indeed to build is on your own simple conversion.

Thanks Dreamora. This is what our intention was - simple, lean and fast (and cost effective).

Neutron is a seperate product (hosted) and you can mix Photon and Neutron. Biggest reference for Neutron is www.wgt.com.

Good input - we will change this. As described above: Neutron is a hosted solution while Photon is not.

This is true - we only use the pro version. We will look into why express is a problem (should not).

 

Thanks for the detailed answers and clarifications

I know that it is Neutron hosted. One of the benefits (and potential drawbacks, depends on the plans with it and your own backend).

Our evaluation is a while back now, but wasn't there a possibility to only use your hosting end as a routing point to the actual server and I think for payment processing with the possibility to route the rest to a self hosted server?
Or was that "proton" (it wasn't called proton back then)?

 

Thank you Chris,

Great info.

Glad you clarified the vs2008 pro compiling.

I guess is time to upgrade to vs2008 pro, ouch. $$$


although is strange the express version throws those errors, never seen something like it even on pro solution files being opened by express.


Ohh one more thing, do you have or provide like any sort of documenation for it, besides the 1 page doc file it comes with it?

You know some examples tutorials, compiling stuff, glossary stuff. community forums. I dont know, I always like to read manuals or references to get aquainted with products.
I know for fact and like dreamora stated before that the product you sell is targeted for professianals that may or may not need any further info to get started.
but like any product even if it is a tv set, which pretty much any one can operate comes with a manual.
I am sorry, I dont mean to offend or enything like that, and I know the tv example if a little bit off, but I hope you understand what I mean,

thanks again for dropping by and the detailed info you provided.

keep up the good work.

regards

 

It has nothing to do with the solution itself but with the type of project thats not supported by the express.

Unsure if it requires Pro or if standard would be sufficient.

 

This is e.g. what Abandon does with Freaky Creatures: http://www.freakycreatures.com/. BTW Photon was never called Proton - some months ago Photon was still part of Neutron and called Realtimeserver (RTS).

We are working on further documentation which will arrive with the next update (ETA is in the next 2-3 weeks).

 

I hate it if I do that typo (Proton instead of Photon), sorry about that and potential confusion.
Yes, the RTS was what we evaluated, I guess now its even more powerfull
And the clean separation of Neutron and Photon makes it potentially simpler to grasp it I think.


Good to know that the option for self hosting of Neutron is still present

 

Nice to hear that, looking forward to check it out.

you mean that neutron can also be licensed or hosted on our own servers and not only managed service from exitgames?

 

Yes you can - our bigger customers do so. But Neutron is not that usefull for MMOGs (== persistent worlds where you need realtime exchange of events, dynamic channels, management of interest etc.). We are prototyping an MMOG Layer on top of Photon right now - ETA is not defined yet.

 

Wow, thats even better to make a persistant world layer for photon.

Looking forward to hear more on this topic.

is this something like dead reckoning or this is another different beast. excuse my ignorance, I am new to the term and been hearing it quite some lately, althoug havent got a straight answer of the term definition applied for games.

when you mention ETA not defined , does this mean not within this year? maybe on 2010?

regards

 

It is about "interest management" (filtering the information you need) and dynamic publish/subscribe. "Dead reckoning" is an important aspect as well - but will not be in focus in the first step.

With the next months: We will give selected partners versions to play with.

 

Nice to hear that you are working on an MMOG layer.
Thats actually a great thing

Raises the available "out of the box base technologies" for this sector to two. One with Java and one with C++ + C#

 

What about the neutron´s license values/costs? Still there are none on the website...

R.

 

The pricing for "Neutron 5 Managed Service" for Unity projects is simple:

Server Setup and Game Settings EUR 480
License A: 100 CCU EUR 150 per month
License B: 500 CCU EUR 500 per month
License C: 1000 CCU EUR 800 per month

License includes:
- Hosting for one game for a single platform
- Limited Email support
- Licence period starts not until game is launched

If you are interested in hosting Neutron yourself, please contact us for price
information.

Chris