[Released] Bolt, The new generation of networking solution for unity!

Is there a plan to update Bolt to work with 5.1+ Unity Networking (uNet)?

 

There are plans to incorporate the use LLAPI into Bolt; however, when this will happen is unknown. The only reason I can think of that this is needed is for the WebGL builds. Everything else would just be redundant work, I think.

 

The old Raknet based networking is going to be completely removed sometime after 5.1, they are leaving it in for now to give people time to move over. http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/unet-networking-legacy.321167/#post-2083308

 

How does this Zeus master server work? And can I use it to randomly connect players together?

 

Bolt doesn't use any part of that though, so it will be fine even when the old Raknet stuff is removed. It uses udpkit for the low level API stuff.

 

I just read the last 2 pages of this forum, and I want to weigh in a a couple of issues, voice my comments and advice.

I own a license for Bolt, Unity Park and others. None of them make it easy for myself, a non programmer, to make an MMO or even just multi-player, easily. But, I haven't given up on it. Whichever of the technologies that finally makes it possible for me to build my game, I think, will be a commercial success in general, because there are lots of people like myself who will buy the license and give it a go , if it's easy enough.

Price of $80? This is dirt cheap. If you have ever, as I have, tried to acquire assets and programming by hiring and paying people to make this stuff, it will cost you a BUNCH more, in cost and especially in time to oversee the production. Granted, some of the items on the Unity3d asset store are modest in quality, but others, such as Bolt, are a huge bargain for what goes into them. Want to talk about price, a few years back I had a HERO license, 1 year for $5,000. So, if you think $80 for Bolt is too much, even in its current state, respectfully, you are way off base.

fholm, I put my faith in you that like me, you will not give up on your product. That you will see it through to the end. I know the demands on your time and I have a son who I am going to spend time with no matter what.. I know the risks involved in paying for Bolt before it is mature, documented and easy enough me to start working with it, but, I judged it worth the risk and I stand by my decision.

Permit me to conclude with a quote from the immortal Galaxy Quest, "Never give up! Never surrender!"

 

I think they should do some more tutorials and stuff

 

I agree there should be more tutorials for Bolt, and they've done some excellent ones along the way. The problem, though, is that since Bolt is in beta and actively developed, breaking changes come along quickly and the tutorials become out of date almost instantly. An additional problem is that it takes a fair bit of time to set up each tutorial, and that time is probably best spent developing Bolt.

So we probably have to be patient and wait for Bolt to get finished before we can see some real, dependable tutorials.

 

i dont even know if its worth waiting for bolt anymore considering the new Unet coming out is going to reap the Networking Market with simplicity, but i may be wrong.

 

True, I did not think of it like that

 

Honestly the tutorials at this time are plenty to get you introduced into the API. Beyond that, you should be competent enough to study and develop it on your own. There are also multiple avenues of support such as the very helpful people in the Jabbr channel who are fellow developers. If you are seriously developing with Bolt I would highly recommend idling in the Jabbr channel.

Like mentioned above, it really is unrealistic to expect all of the documentation, tutorials and API to be seamlessly updated at every patch cycle. In a utopian world yeah, sure, that would be nice, but this is a beta product and you should not expect anything outside that range. Really, I'm impressed that fholm has managed to do this all on his own, especially considering his circumstances lately. The primary source of complaint is that he was actually the direct source of problem solving and API questions and was available 10h/day, but has not been lately. Clearly a big change, but the release previous to this is basically completely stable and fine for dev builds.

I certainly don't speak for him, but considering his track record I feel that he deserves more credit.

Just wanted to say those few things...

 

This is my problem.

 

Hey, does Bolt support webgl?

 

No, it does not currently.

 

Figured someone needed to say something. Future development of Bolt is very uncertain to most everyone at the moment. If you're considering purchasing, make sure the current state of product will fulfill your needs. I wouldn't recommend purchasing Bolt until uncertainty has been resolved..

 

Hi,

first at all, thank you for this wonderful solution, lag interpolation itself is a great thing alone, but there is much more inside, its really awesome! Good wiki documentation and then the videos and the examples.
Under Unity 5.0.2 the version in the asset store does not work. Creating a state cause infinite amount of errors, so I have to close unity. Google said, the version on your side works well with Unity 5, could you update your asset in the Unity Store? It seems to be a small issue, a method not exists. Under Unity 4.6.0 i run in 'out of memory' at updating the database, 32 bit cannot allocate much enough Probably the database updating could be written more memory efficient. I would say that the version in the store is not the best one.

 

The asset store version is quite a few versions behind, it's true. The actual bolt website has a download section where you can get the latest version using your invoice number, so if you can't actually get it from there... then I'd suggest paying for the asset. My assumption on why the asset store version is a much older version is to provide value to paying customers. I don't really know. He might update it, might not.

As for the inconsistency of late, things appear to be a bit better. fholm had some stuff going on, appears to be back and developing the product again. Burnout I believe was the big factor. I never thought having 16x7 chat support while being the sole developer was sustainable in the long-run, especially when so many new people won't ask the rest of the chat community simple questions. They'd wait for fholm to be online to ask yet again, "How do I set up a connection??"

Anyhow, hope he figures out how to manage his time vs. stress vs. burnout better. Life goes on. 4.3.1 is said to be released soon, fixing bugs and more improvements. Looking forward to it.

 

Im already got the version from your site, works fine. I would hold distance to the clients, support thread and support e-mail is absolutely enough. Bothering with "How do I set up a connection??" is a bit unfair, it can take a long time.

 

I'm just saying a lot of people don't bother with the tutorials, reading forum posts, or asking the other 5-15 people on the chat something, waiting for fholm to show up to ask him something basic.

 

If one men runs the show, then we can be happy to have some documentation, tutorials and example scenes. Else, no time for developing.

Are there any sample scenes for Unity 5 Bolt 4.3, somehow the sample folder is missing after the installation? I would like to see Bolt in action in my Unity before i implement the multiplayer feature for my game. Especially i would have the car example, as it would suit for my RTS game vehicles.

 

It's not officially announced but Exit Games (Photon) purchased Bolt (now known as BOLT) and have signed fholm on as a consultant. No other concrete information was provided, as it seems this was about a week before it was going to be announced. JabbR chatroom is going crazy. Figured I ought to let potential buyers know. Lots of speculation, very little actual information.

 

Hoped for a good non photon based multiplayer network solution and bought Bolt some time ago.

 

Wow, he really sold it? It seems like the Bolt community is really shaken up by this :/. A shame that the company everyone was trying to avoid wound up purchasing what everyone went to in order to escape.

 

Thanks for telling us, Yukichu. Good to know.

 

On the other hand, maybe the company wants to be something that people want? In that case, it is a logical move for both fholm and Photon.

Also, probably uNet is and its future development is putting a squeeze on Photon.

 

I suppose that this possible... however, what money do they gain by buying an asset that is a 1 time purchase and already has a community. They will need to find a way to monetize it in order to make money off of their new purchase.

 

Just speculating, but IF Exit Games felt threatened by Unity moving into their Photon market, they would probably seek out a top Unity networking guy (like fholm) and say, "Here, have some cash and finish your project with us. We need a premium product that beats Unity's."

So it may not be that Bolt requires a new monetization plan with Photon. It could be that Photon will use their current plan along with Bolt's Zeus and server/host/client architecture. I believe that would be parallel to what Unity is going to offer; i.e., free networking software plus paid-for matchmaking / cloud / game server.

Does this mean the current free Photon software will be replaced with Bolt? I don't know. Could happen, I guess.

 

Photon's engineers should have more experience then this one person when it comes to networking. It is my understanding that they purchased the product, not the person.

I don't know because it is new, but it is likely that Exit Games is really buying the community of Bolt so that they can offer their services to everyone that is already using Bolt. If this is not their game, then I would have to say that they are not the brightest when it comes to acquiring a product. When you buy out a product, you always buy the community that uses it, never the product itself because the product itself is worthless and anyone with a little know how can re-create it.

Also note, I have argued networking with fholm before, he is not a 1 size fits all networking genius by the way. He was just rude and didn't come off as a networking mastermind to me, just a hobbyist that has been doing it the same length of time I have been.

My response to fholm when he was attacking things I've said
Asking why people were using Forge and not Bolt

In his defense I will say that he made a product that a lot of people liked and was well needed at the time. Also he has to be a pretty smart guy in order to sell his company to a larger one.

 

Bolt's audience is likely too small to be a marketing grab. Photon already has a huge Unity multiplayer user base that dwarfs the Bolt community by multiple orders of magnitude (if the numbers they publish are correct).

Sounds to me like Photon wants a Unity-as-server solution and acquisition is the fastest way to get there. Unity as server is a different skill set than Java servers that Photon has historically built and operated. (Apple, for example, has bought multiple companies for their tech and then integrated it into iOS or their native apps, ie, maps, natural language processing, etc.)

In fholm's defense, he was previously a full-time game developer and, I think, last shipped an online fighting game (non-trivial!). So, he's not an amateur. Just $.02 to correct misconceptions.

 

Yes, I didn't mean to come of saying he is an amateur, I probably sounded like that mainly because he was super rude many times last I dealt with him. He did come off like "I know more than everyone" even though I've been networking for just as long as him, modified Unreal 3 networking to support MMO and currently develop at a studio that has a DAU in the millions.

This is probable as well, however there still is an issue of buying out a system that already has a following and has for a while. That would mean that they need to make whatever they spent to buy it out back on brand new customers which isn't super likely. When Apple bought out other companies it was to use their tech to make something more and make more money. So either Exit Games will need to make Bolt 2 and make everyone buy a new version or they will need to push the community to use their CCU based stuff in order to make their money back. In the end they need to make what they spent back and then as much as possible more.

OR They will push their current community to buy Bolt which is totally possible as well

 

I was among Bolt's users, but, honestly, the lack of tutorials and clear documentation killed it for me. I didn't have time to sleuth out what info was correct or outdated (and it was changing fast), so I never got far with it. My sense was that the active Bolt community is actually pretty tiny. Really tiny. That's why I don't think it's a marketing buy.

My guess is that Photon will complement their current offering with an alternate one using Bolt's features: ie, either you can use the historical Java-based server solution or a shiny Unity-based solution integrated seamlessly with all of the other Photon support services.

Having authoritative collisions and raycast hits, for example, is fundamental to many games but is a huge amount of effort with Java and Photon (custom tools to import level geometry?! use Bullet or a home grown Java physics engine?! eww!). So, Bolt brings a lot to the table in terms of Exit Games' sales pitch IMHO.

Fun to speculate! Will be interesting to see how all the competition for this important set of services/features plays out.

 

I agree with jasonMcintosh. They're not buying Bolt because of the community. it's tiny.. However they're buying the product and most importantly his know how.

I hope now exitgame will introduce a proper networking solution. Authoritative networking is a must.

I think it's too late though, Unity has raised the bar far above their reach. They should have known better.

All I can say now is well done Unity networking team.

 

To me it is the second and last time i bought something with fholm inside.
In the early asset store days i bought some things from him that he left alone and now this happened again.
I do not say his things are bad but for me it is a bad investment to his tools when they allways get abandoned.

And also i hoped for a good multiplayer system that is working, get good support and tutorials and does not cost any money for my players or me if the game is ready for just a game that they can play with some friends in a network. I do not need photon for this and not willing to pay each month for that. That was the reason i choose Bolt and now this.
Not saying photon is bad in any was but i needed another solution for raknet that i also not have to pay monthly.
I will see what the new Unity network system with the released Unity 5.1 and its update is brinnging to us.

I am really disappointed !!!
Bad i also had the feelings the last month that this could happen again with an fholm product.
Sadly i payed for it and i not only mean the money i lost.

 

@farrisarts
IMO coming to a thread and basically saying "use our networking solution instead" isn't really professional..

 

@Pecek - No, this would be saying "use our networking solution instead" - http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/mu...-forge-and-playfab.294852/page-2#post-1957347

 

One does not simply change their networking solution mid-project unless you have so little done that it is only marginally cumbersome to do so and in which case that user or company is not even a valid statistic anyway because it does not have any tangible weight behind it. Insinuating that flocks of people are "leaving bolt" because of Exitgames acquiring them is laughable.

The actual news of Exitgames acquiring Bolt was found out less than two days ago and we had no information about it. Hardly reason to change systems. Since then we've had some information given by Christof and Frederick which has confirmed some basic things about whats going on. They apparently have still not fully decided how the system will be laid out in terms of costs but at this point it seems like you can still use bolt like before but they will charge on a CCU based system for Zeus/Master server/hosting/cloud services etc.

We've had more than enough ranting, threats and speculation in the Jabbr channel, theres no need to bring it here because there simply are not enough facts to discuss.

Christof says to expect official announcements within a few weeks.

 

I would like to hear what he plans on doing next as he hasn't really done much from what I have seen. Hopefully now with some support from photon he can actually work on Windows Phone support as he has promised time and time again to deliver. I do remember him berating our system when it was only 2 weeks old, but thankfully that stopped after our development continued to keep progressing ahead of his.

I am excited about UNet and think that all these solutions out there really should step up their game. Guess all that is left is to wait for news from himself and see what his future plans are with Bolt and Unity in general. I really do hope he continues to work on his networking solution for his consumers but I'll have to see. In the meantime, I think that it is great to have many options available to people who want to try different avenues with no restrictions in their creativity.

 

0.4.3.1 was released with many of the fixes for issues that have been troubling us for months.
Christof and Fholm are on the chat somewhat consistently, and seem to have to answer the same question 100 times.
We've been told that there will not be a CCU/DAU limit for Bolt itself; however, the 'master server' (Zeus/Photon/whatever) will incur this cost. Not sure about hosting your own server. Others probably know more detail on this.
Active development is happening again.
Yes, going into someone else's thread to rip their networking product is a douche move.
@Cranick - I liked your post. More competition to better. My fear is that with UNet, like most other Unity features, will be 'mostly' developed, where it relies on someone to write extensions to it to the asset store to sell. Who knows. Too new, not enough documentation for my uses right now.
Future plans and roadmap are in development, but currently unknown beyond the no CCU promises.
For a lot of the 'Boltians', the user base seems to be more... secure and happy. It's a complete turnaround from a week ago. As was stated quite a few times, we could have no transition and no development, or a transition to new owners and active development. Yes, this transition period could have been handled 1000x better, but whatever. I have other things to worry about.

 

Thanks for the tip! There's no outward sign yet of this update, but I was able to find it on the boltengine.com download page.

 

Not want to be rude here but it is clear that they are all happy after one week and because of the last patch because in their brains they hope this is a good sign wich i understand but i am someone who needs more info and more time to be sure it is going the right way.

 

Well, i guess it's official.

https://twitter.com/ExitGames/status/610441586300854273

https://www.exitgames.com/en/bolt

 

Hi,

this is a superior asset for making multiplayer games. All other, inclusive photon are more concentrated on smartphone games, where they host the server inclusive, in a pushy way (I hope, i don't missunderstood the marketing of photon). For my game i just need BOLT as a middleware, as i have my own lobby server, which is just collecting player for a game, but not host a game. Im also feel myself better, if no CLOUD is in my game Cloud is nowdays connected with fear, nobody like it, nobody trust it.

I hope there will be always a separate BOLT middleware...

You sold the source, the whole project/company to photon? How is that possible, why not just a sourcecode license? I belive yet, that it was a misstake from your side, a developer cannot afford more from a networking middleware... It was a good asset, the best networking asset, by far better than photon, but with a bad marketing.

 

@mkgame - I don't know if @fholm will make any further comments in this thread. It sounds like one reason he sold Bolt to Exit Games was so he could return to focusing on the actual development of the software and let Exit Games handle the customer support.

 

I agree with hopeful. and I also agree with fholm.

it's not possible for him to deliver a high level customer service and be productive at the same time.
Also predictable finance is very important.

Congratulations fholm

 

@mkgame, How can you say it was a mistake from @fholm, without knowing what was the deal ($$$) and considering he is overwhelmed by all the support request, workload, The Forest and other private matters. There was no way for him to continue developing at a decent pace with all the support demands increasing.

 

I don't care about, if greedy and bad assets 'die', but i always sad if a good one give up... I still don't get it, if there is a lot of support needed, then there must be enough money for a new employee. If someone afford too much support, then it must be paid. For 80$ nobody will give anyone so much support as for a tool, which cost about 120.000$.

However, the decission was made and i can just wish the best for @fholm and for us whose bought this product.

 

Bolt Engine Wiki: Bolt 103 - Events

Four occurrences of "BoltNetworkModes.Host" should be "BoltNetworkModes.Server" I think?

 

@MrG fixed

 

Remember Bolt is love Bolt is Life lol

 

When will the site be back up?