uLink and the UnityPark Suite - even more available now!

The UnityPark Suite


Last year, we at MuchDifferent brought you several amazing news.

- First we made it so easy to turn a singleplayer game into a basic multiplayer that it could be done in five minutes without writing a line of code, using our uLink network engine.

- Then we made it possible to convert 100% of a Unity Network project into a uLink project simply by pushing two buttons.

- We improved the workflow of any multiplayer development project with our uCollab tool and made it freely available for everyone to use. We also introduced automatic network load-testing, through our uTsung tool, to increase quality and production speed.

- With clear and comprehensive documentation and example projects, uLink users were able to show advanced prototypes of multiplayer games and MMOs soon after getting their hands on our technology.

- Through our cooperation with Ericsson In-Game Communication, we brought voice chat to Unity developers in the form of our EIGC Unity client.

- We helped promote Unity as an engine to be reckoned with by our involvement in high profile projects such as Battestar Galactica Online and SHADOWGUN: DEADZONE.

So, what more could be expected of us? A lot more. Actually we were just getting started.

Earlier this year we released our UnityPark Suite, and with it, we released our vision of what we believe the future of multiplayer game development should be like. The Suite will substantially cut development time, risks, costs and stress - no matter what type of online game you have planned. We’ve integrated distributed database systems, created powerful load-balancers and instance managers, and we have made what we think is the most powerful and flexible lobby system for Unity ever seen. You can get your hands on it by visiting our website.

But instead of stopping there, we also introduced seamless, high player density MMO technology for Unity, through our PikkoServer technology. We made it so powerful that we had no problem staging an MMOFPS battle with 999 players and thus crushing old records for the number of players in one single first-person shooter battle. Thank you all who participated in this event, by the way!

With uLink, the UnityPark Suite and PikkoServer, we feel that we have gone full circle. Put together, these tools enable Unity developers to create everything from the simplest co-op game up to the most massive MMO game you can think of. And maybe the best of all is that it all follows the same development workflow. You can start small and scale it up as you go along simply by adding more pieces of our technology.

At least that is what we think - now it would be great to hear what you guys think!

--
Click here to check out stuff we are working on right now.
Our indie licence success for the UnityPark Suite continues here.
Download our tools and try them out!
Check out the brand new example projects for uGameDB and uLobby!

 

I have been lurking around waiting for the unitypark suite and i have to say that i am extremely impressed with this, I will be purchasing an indie license in the very near future. One question i had is when are the new updates expected to arrive? (mainly talking about the fix for handing players across servers with uzone etc)

 

Thank you.

Sadly, we have the same problem as everybody else with setting a date when things can be released. We maybe even worse than most when I think about it. Our game Man vs. Machine got delayed almost 18 months because we came up with new ideas of how to improve it further all the time.

However, before you mentioned having uZone transferring players - we had not even thought about it since uLink and uLobby does this for uZone. But what you are suggesting is a cool feature worth thinking more about! How would you use it?

 

Im sorry i actually meant ustream but yes it would be nice for uzone to handle something like handing a player over to another server when they move to a different region. Something i would definately like to see in ulink is a seamless handover from one server to the next when walking into another zone. If you look at hero engine they have something like this which allows you to receive updates from objects that are being handled by another zone server. im not sure if this is already there from what i have read though ulink only manages the handoff between servers.

Also what i was referring to with ustream is:

 

Ah, it is so humbling...

I just wanted to brag a little but instead I learn that we have somehow managed to post old, wrong and misguided information on our developer site. But really: thank you for letting me know about this section. The entire page about uStream's "Features and restrictions" will be updated and corrected. Meanwhile, we have put it offline since there was very little information that actually was accurate there.

Each uStream is designed to only handle one zone / instance so it would not be suitable to transfer players. With PikkoServer, however, you can already make seamless MMOs and it is relatively easy. It is designed to handle both incoming and outgoing traffic between players in several zones at the same time. Sorry for this confusion and thank you for helping us improve our information on our developer site.

 

Of course im glad i could help . Unfortunately pikko server isnt included in the indie license, how much is a license for pikko on its own? Also ive been having issues installing riak on linux, ive followed the basho website to the key and seem to have issues installing libssl-dev and the ncurses5 dependencies. This is the part im getting stuck on because when i try to install riak i get a message saying git command is not found when doing cd /riak1-1.1.0 and typing make rel. I am using Ubuntu Server 64 bit and the latest version with vmware as suggested in the ugamedb getting started page. Any chance you can help?

 

uLlink is not perfect because of the lack of "Room" -Based design,currently it's too diffcult to make a multi-sessions(rooms) game,Shame!Hope this will be on the roadmap soon!

 

For PikkoServer, we determine the cost of the licence depending on the project. And yeah, I don't like this way of pricing too but that is how we have to do it.

Strange that you are not being able to get Riak to work (I can't see why it isn't working) but head over to our Q&A community and let us sort it out there.

Thanks again for the great feedback! I will make this PikkoServer pricing information more visible and easy to find at our site

 

Yep, I feel the shame .

The good news is that the "room" feature is bundled with a huge amount of other stuff that address some of uLink's imperfections and that are destined for the next release. We have been hording a lot of improvements in the drawer because we knew that our Man vs Machine event would give us valuable feedback on how these improvements behaved in real and extreme conditions. If I'd guess, you will be able to fiddle with our clever "room" feature in a couple of weeks from now.

Is there any other features that you would like to see in our next release? Or do you have ideas of how we could improve workflow in general? I'd love to hear them.

 

I have posted the question with a screenshot in the q a page - http://unitypark.muchdifferent.com/questions/installing-riak

 

Great news,I just bought a license about a month ago,due to my game type(need to build dynamic rooms often),i have to wait for a better time to finsh the server part,may the good time is close!

Another feel is: As a "complete" network solution,not now,may be later,,uLink could focus on developping more visual manage tools,like Zones/users manage tool,servers monitor,and more,these are neccessary for some "bigger" project, just like some network middleware(eg.Bigworld..)

Just personal opinon! Good luck with the development!!!

 

Thanks!

 

Thank you! I will take note of this. We have some support already for this in uZone that is our instance / zone manager but it is very rudimentary. We will continue to develop on it and now when I know that you are looking forward to see more of this, it will be more fun implementing it.

Don't hesitate to write me a line or two if you come up with more stuff you would like to see!

 

I have to say uLink is the most professional looking networking solution I've come across for Unity. And the support is good too!

 

You convinced me to use this in a future project!

 

Hi,

I am evaluating UnityPark Suite for my multiplayer racing game. Currently my game uses Photon Cloud for the real-time multiplayer and PlayerIO for the login and database. However I am interested in switching to uLink, uLobby, and uGameDb.

Currently with Photon I use rooms for the races, which I now understand is like your multi-sessions. But in your docs you say that multi-sessions are much more difficult to set up than single sessions. So if I use single sessions for my 8 player races (as opposed to my current room solution with Photon Cloud), what all would I be giving up?

Thanks,
Shawn

 

I have a silly question. I want to eventually use uLink for a combat racing game I'm developing and was wondering if I would have to hire a completely different programmer to maintain the server. Is this something I could possibly do on my own or does it depend? The number of cars on one track at a time is up to 15, btw.

 

You guys plan on releasing the angry bots project working in Ulink? I think a while back you guys said you had it working but had to clean things up before releasing it as a tutorial.

 

Hey christian i was just wondering if you could take a look at the question i posted yesterday - http://unitypark.muchdifferent.com/questions/how-would-you-pair-data-stored-in-riak-with-account-id ?

 

looks like a nice networking tech for unity,

I dont want to be mean, but just to provide some constructive feedback form at least one indie dev, that may help expand this product,
As seen here, WITH more than 6 months old thread with less than 10 unique users interested on it?

Maybe you guys may want to re-think the license agreement,

it may probably be way over the common budget for indie devs on unity or maybe a 30 day trail is just not enough nowadays.

photon and smartfox server are taking mostly all the share of the pie with the lifetime free 100 ccu license

why would one be interested on a new tech with 30 days trial if there are 2 existing proven networking free 100 ccu solution.

I just dont know, sorry , like i said , not trying to be mean, but just realistic from my single point of view, which i think lots of more like myself may share this thoughts.


btw, i went and pay a visit to your website community forums and noticed your forum software scripts just do not help at all.cosmetic wise(appealing)
maybe a more popular forum board software layout may be more appealing for future clients. ie: invision board, phpbb, SMF

or maybe is just me, having a bad day,
sorry again, do not mean no disrespect to your hard work.



just my .02 cents

keep up the good work and good luck.

 

Photon and SFS licensing does not work for uLink as there is no central server component involved.
Actually uLink is not comparable with them at all as the architecture is absolutely different.

The only thing that even far far out is comparable, beside unity networking itself, would be Badumna / Scalify, which has up to a given degree technically similar benefits at least for large multiserver games (for dedicated server style games, badumnas benefits are lost and uLink / Unity Networking / barebone sockets or similar will win, especially if you want your users to host games too)


I personally consider the licensing more than fair and the pricing is cheap, especially considering the pro price and the effort it would be to create anything reasonable yourself (look at others like fholm who do something similar, ask them for time figures and then do the math. even if you have an expert in the field you will pay a 5 figure fee to get something yourself)

Anyone who needs more than 30 days to evaluate a technology that gets you starts in minutes if you did your homework with unity networking first might potentially be better adviced to hire someone with at least basic networking knowledge.

 

clearly i must be missing something, 6 months old thread with less than 10 users interested in product

i was just stating my own personal opinion/feedback on what can help boost up the user base and or licensing of the existing product.

the existing upfront license cost maybe handy for some, but not for me,

I am not a highly experienced on unity networking , but i sure am experienced on how to wisely spend my hard earned money in something that I am 100% positive and sure that it will work for my needs.

30 days may be enough trial for some, but i rather want try the free 100 ccu while i develop my networked game,
that way if i get stucked in 6 months from now, i can switch to other backend solution without spent more than 700 dls upfront.

As per your statements, ill take it that ulink is far superior than smartfox and or photon? or maybe i misunderstood,

I guess what i asked is why would i spend more than 700 US dlls upfront for a backend solution for my game if i can get free 100ccu while i develop my game.

features and benefitss that will justify my upfront cost.

regards

 

I'm using uLink at the moment and very happy with it. But like it was said before it operates very differently from photon and smartfox. uLink's server side also works inside a Unity application so if you want to make use of Unity physics or any other property it suits your needs perfectly. But even if you don't need those, it's still a great tool. I've used photon before uLink and I have to say uLink is much more easier to setup and get going.

As for evaluation I don't think there is a time limit (like 30 days). Even though I have a license, I forgot to use it in my code for a long time and all I got was a Debug.Log message at the start, saying it was an evaluation license.

 

Agreed, uLink is superb

I actually use uLink, Photon or Player.IO depending on the use case as each of them has its own strong use cases and trying to 'do it all with one' seems counterproductive to me

 

thanks for your feedback homeros,

ok, so the app wont shut you down after 30 days?? and leave you hanging?

so you are saying you only get a debug reminder about license and still can continue working on your project?

i just havent even touched it since I would not wanted to waste 30 days of my life on a trial that wont get me anywhere if i dont have the upfront money to continue deving with it.



see this is what i am taking about, not even the actual app product developer comes here and clarify this very important facts so they can get new customers.

they just dont care or dont know how to stay up in business by supporting their customers or getting new customer up the door. marketing their product etc..

do you guys get any support or feedback from ulink developers on their forum at least?

or maybe because my real job is sales/marketing i may always think business, lol

anyways, thanks for the feedback guys.

 

I've notice you bag out this company a bunch of times for not having many interested users, not talking to it's users etc.

Complete BS.

Email 'em, or read one of the other threads, but stop getting annoyed because they haven't noticed a 6 month old thread has been reanimated.

 

Especially when they sent out an update mail just late last week on a pretty good update on their game database included in the suite

 

I have bought the uLink,it is a great kit,the only problem is uLink is not good for room-based games,the support of group message/sessions is not good enough currently.

 

you mean like photon and or smartfoxserver room support?

so besides this , what may be the best strength for ulink, i mean what kind of networked game can really benefit most using ulink?

like persistent mmos kida games? or lobby bases like matchmaking instanced mobas games?

thanks for your feedback.
sure looking forward to hear more feedback about ulink, before even trying to test drive it.

 

In the uLobby manual it states in upcoming updates:
"Server Creation -
Enables starting game servers programmatically from the lobby, thereby bypassing the need to manually setup the server instances."

When is this feature going to be available?
Thank you

 

I believe this is already possible with the use of uZone

 

The biggest benefit of ULink is that your Unity scene IS your authoritative server, complete with physics, pathfinding or whatever logic you've put into your scene. There no need to write extra C# code or Java code using a separate API such as Photon or Smartfox.