UNET being phased out.... Help needed understanding whether Im learning something pointless

Hi all, I've been loving using and learning in Unity for about 2 or 3 years as a hobby. For the last few months I've been focusing on making my own networked game implementations. One of the top tasks I've set myself is to create games which don't need any Third Party services such as Unity Cloud Servers or Photon PUN subscription services.

I just read this: https://blogs.unity3d.com/2018/08/02/evolving-multiplayer-games-beyond-unet/ --but due to being unexperienced/knowledgable I'm not fully understanding what I am reading.

Basically, I have made a few mini-games which myself and friends have been able to connect to eachother for free. The server was a Host-Client type server and so we didnt need any Third Part CCU agreement (which IMO are way too expensive and scary contractual agreements for startup game devs such as myself).

I've been spending LOTSSSSS of time learning the UNET thing and am slowly getting to grips with how it works (still a long road ahead but I've spent probably 500-1000 hours already trying stuff directly relating to UNET).

MY MAIN QUESTION FOR NOW IS: the title of the article linked above is Evolving Multiplayer Beyond UNET , it says the HLAPI and LLAPI will no longer be included with Unity. So is this a step towards forcing Unity developers into using their Cloud services (ie. pay per month, CCU-limit based contracts (guess-work gambling on how many users we hope to get at once)).

I don't want to use Unity Matchmaking Service. My games will mostly all be Free To Play. (and/or very cheap indie games) but I still want to offer multiplayer and 100CCU is no where near enough (100CCU costs around £90 per 60 months with Pun, but to increase beyond that costs HUGE price EACH MONTH!

Will Unity be still offering this nice and clear way to create connections to other machines, as right now with UNET I can simply put a IP address and connect to it, no need for Bells N Whistles Matchmaking Unity Server for £xyz123 pounds per month.


I really hope some kind souls here can ease my worries. Or let me know that I am right to be worried in which case I'll stop wasting my weekends trying to learn UNET and try to find a way to make the networking happen for free somehow. (sorry for the disjointed writing here, just kind of writing it as it appears in my head lol!)

thanks for reading

 

If you like Unet, try switching over to the Mirror community port of Unet which will continue working even after Unet has been removed from the editor. There are almost no changes needed to your game to switch to Mirror, and none of your tutorial time or experience with Unet will have been wasted.

Thread for discussing and downloading Mirror:
https://forum.unity.com/threads/mirror-networking-for-unity-aka-hlapi-community-edition.425437/

 

I don't think they want to force people to use their cloud services. That will most likely be something that you will want to use, because it makes your life easier.

As far as I understand, Unity wants to remove UNET because they considered it too general. Their new networking will be fully low level and have a few example projects instead (e.g. example FPS project, example Strategy project, etc.).

Just like you, many people here still see the value in UNET. Thankfully Unity made it open source, so as @Joe-Censored said, you can still rely on Mirror.

I honestly don't really understand why Unity is so eager to remove UNET. Imho there is no easier way to make multiplayer games right now. Unity is the most easy to use engine, we all know that. And UNET is the most easy to use networking library for Unity. So if you are an indie developer and you actually want to have a slim chance for your multiplayer game to ever be finished, then Unity + UNET/Mirror is not the worst idea.

 

Thanks for these answers guys. That latest post from you saying how it will be more low level and will have some examples sounds very promising.

I really need to discover how to achieve multiplayer but also allow users to run their own dedicated servers (a la Rust).

Thanks for taking the time to respond to my un-knowledgable viewpoints on this matter

 

The MLAPI might be what you are looking for. It's a Network lib very much like UNET but with more Low level functionality. It gives much more flexibility than for example UNET. https://github.com/MidLevel/MLAPI

 

thanks I'll check it out soon. Really appreciated your help over the time ive been learning this aspect of game development, im still not understanding everything but I'm getting there slowly