Multiplayer Choices

Hey guys.

So, I'm not completely new into coding, I've coded in several languages before, started at C, then I learned PHP, moved to C#, C++ and started coding for web (JavaScript, HTML, CSS); but I'm completely new to game development. I choose Unity because Unity has shown me several good results for games such as but not limited to Rust or The Forest, I love these kind of games and I got bored at my summer break so I decided I could do something useful and try to start creating a game like these, why not?


So let's make things clear:
I might actually never commercialize this, nor am I sure that I will ever release or having anyone playing on the same server else than me on unity player and on a windows build. BUT I'm doing this for the experience and knowledge, so and even though it might and most likely will be a failure I wanted to do things right (for the knowledge).


So firstly I looked into Photon, it seems okay but I haven't understand something yet. Are the servers hosted in some kind of facility from Photon or do the players host a server and then other people join them? If it is the first option then it makes it totally nonviable to go with Photon as I want to have the ability to have 50+ players in one server (even though I most likely will never do so) and I don't want to pay them to host the servers.



I was looking for an alternative that could actually hold a good amount of simultaneous people that would be on the same map, have guns, inventories, shoot each other, jump, maybe even building or barricading buildings (just some examples, even though one more time they might never become true, it's for the experience), and I would like to give the players a chance to host a server in their own computer or have dedicated servers running the game servers.

That would be nice.


This is a project just for the fun and the lulz but I would like to make it right to improve my knowledge. Any help is appreciated. Sorry if my english isn't the best I'm not a native speaker I'm Portuguese.

Also I'll only be using free programs to make this whole project such as Unity Free, Blender (which are not bad at all, they are both awesome programs, blender might even be better than the alternatives), Paint.NET / GIMP and such.

 

I was thinking of uLink.

It passed the 1000 players mark AFAIK.

Anyway what do you think about uLink? Will it do it?

 

1.photon is dedicated server-based, AKA they host any player created server in there large server-bases (located in US, EU, EU East, Asia, and Japan). As you would know, this cost a bit to keep going, so any other solution that does this also cost. Here's the pricing. If you don't plan 100+ users, the $95 once is a nice deal.
https://www.exitgames.com/en/PUN/Pricing

Now understand this is CCU, AKA the number is not per server, it's total overall.

2.A alternate would be probably located here.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...FVGQWxUWW9Fdmk2RzNfa3hUZU90V1E&hl=en_US#gid=0
for players to host there own servers, ether use unity's networking (not recommended until 5 comes out and improves it) or this one.
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/18358

3.I have no clue on uLink, never used it.

 

I know that unity' built in networking sucks, It was the 2nd I searched, it won't hold the 100 concurrent players at a server (this is the objective).

That Photon thing seems okay, but players don't "host" a server in this kind of game, they join one of our servers or get files to host them on dedicated servers (well maybe they can host them in their PC for a private server aswell but you see the logic).

Actually the Unity's build-in networking seems okay. The concept is what I wanted. A player may create a server, being it dedicated or home-hosted or join other people's servers (even one of our official servers); at least that's the concept I want. These servers would have to hold 100 players playing at a time or even more. Of course I probably am not archiving this but it doesn't matter as I want the experience anyway.

Rust used uLink for a very long time and said it's capable of holding 300 players in their map, which is quite a map and quite a game. I might use it,


The concept I wanted is something like I said.


Player Hosts a Server (with the option of hosting a dedicated server) -> That server is registered in the master server -> Player 2 wants to connect (refreshes server list) -> Shows all the servers registered at the master server -> Player connects.

Unity's built in networking has this concept and that's what I'm looking for. So does uLink, I just wanted to know more alternatives to these (as Unity's out because it just isn't stable I just have uLink for now).

Does Photon follow this concept and allow me to do this, or are all servers hosted in their servers?

 

How do you know it sucks? I actually encountered fewer bugs in Unity's built in than in uLink and Photon. That was a while ago though...
What makes you think it won't handle 100 players?

 

The way Unity's built-in networking works atm, the major problem I know of is that no matter if you see a player or not it will update it's position. Plus, it will send variables no matter if they changed or not.

With photon, they are hosting the servers. Not the player. Player's can start a new server, but it's ran on Photon's computers.

If your planning on 100 users in one server, your gonna have to find a solution that can handle that/create your own.

 

Everyone that wrote reviews or anything about it said that it wastes a lot of resources thus making it very hard for both servers and players to handle, it's OKAY for games like Counter Strike, Call of Duty and the games that copy Call of Duty but I think it won't be good for games like Battlefield, planetside, etc.

Yea that sucks. I wanted to kind of have a "network bubble" and only update things around the player.

 

There are several ways to create network bubbles with Unity's built in - you do not need to send a player characters position if you don't want to. Nor do you have to send variables unless you want to.

There are different versions of Photon - not only Photon Cloud with PUN.

 

I love me some uLink and well, it really depends on what you want to do and how much you can afford.

If you never commercialize it, or even actually release it, uLink is more or less free. If you release something, it could get expensive (750ish USD) unless it's some special case (educational, ???) The trial period is like... unlimited, so you have lots of time to learn and play around with it. The documentation is excellent, the tutorials very good, the forums kind of quiet (except for Patrick and I it seems),

Alternatively, Bolt Engine is in its infancy but seems like an amazing engine but is missing a few key components I'd need to switch over to it (inter-scene handovers, etc.). It's $65 USD I think, search for it on the asset store. There is no trial, so you need to pay for it. The documentation is good, has a few tutorials, but the forums are like a raving madhouse of questions and answers from fholm. I think he's going to have to hire a forum person soon.

I personally wouldn't use Photon because I thought their pricing structure was terrible. Just my opinion. They may be exactly what you need. I don't know much more than that, as I did some light reading, saw the pricing, and moved on. That's about all I can say on Photon.

 

I'll plug my own project:

https://github.com/gamemachine/gamemachine

I do regular stress testing on this, the latest numbers using UDP that I did over the weekend are here:

https://github.com/gamemachine/gamemachine/wiki/Performance

I just finished redoing the TCP support it will be released shortly and I'll post numbers for that also.

The server runs on linux or windows.

Chris