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Unity Multiplayer - UNET is abandoned / discontinued?

Discussion in 'UNet' started by Onsterion, Dec 10, 2017.

  1. Onsterion

    Onsterion

    Joined:
    Feb 21, 2014
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    215
    Hi,

    I am working in a MMORPG in Unity and i create all the base in UNET but i don't see any real update / improve. I am looking in the Unity Road Map and any about UNET are dissappeared o_O

    So Unity Multiplayer - UNET is abandoned / discontinued?




    Regards.-
     
  2. dadude123

    dadude123

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    Yes it was abandoned.

    But in any case, using UNET for a mmo, you're not serious, right!? haha
    The HLAPI is/was supposed to enable fast prototyping and will only work fine for small games / scenarios.

    If you're seriously trying to make something as huge as an MMORPG you will have to make your own networking solution anyway.
    If you actually have something like WoW in mind, then nothing from unity or the asset store will be nearly good enough.
    Since networking is one of the technical core features in an mmorpg (as the name implies), you should also treat it as such and do what all larger games do: completely planning out how synchronization is supposed to work, coming up with a custom network messaging protocol, ...
     
  3. TwoTen

    TwoTen

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    1,168
    Source?
    The LLAPI is still being worked on AFAIK and it can easily be used for MMO's. You are chatting about the HLAPI.
     
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  4. Deleted User

    Deleted User

    Guest

    Such the strong words about abandonment. But you are talking about HLAPI. UNET consists LLAPI too, do not forget about it.
     
  5. dadude123

    dadude123

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    Yes the guy who works on the LLAPI is still there and does a good job from what I've heard.

    As for a source on the HLAPI: read the threads in the network section.
    The developer of the HLAPI has left unity and there are no official plans announced to continue development.
    The last official update was very long time ago.

    Well, not sure what else to call it :) Feel free to offer another word to describe the state of things.
    And yes I was talking about the HLAPI.
     
  6. Zullar

    Zullar

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    Yes it seems there is 1 guy working on the LLAPI, but the HLAPI doesn't seem to be supported anymore (virtually no bug fixes or features in a year). I wouldn't recommend the HLAPI to anybody... it's extremely buggy and I wasted a lot of time before I moved to something else.
     
  7. hippocoder

    hippocoder

    Digital Ape

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    What bugs did you find?
     
  8. Onsterion

    Onsterion

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    On server connected in random cases the editor crash(?).
    I have to cross mi fingers every time when i intend to do NetworkManager.singleton.StartHost(); o_O
     
  9. Doug_B

    Doug_B

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    Jun 4, 2017
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    1,596
    Hi hippocoder,
    I came across 4 issues that cost me a lot of time before I moved over to Photon. Three of them I would classify as bugs:
    1. The Lobby Manager cannot be left and rejoined by a Client. More details here. As this is a showstopper, it was the cause of my looking around for alternative solutions.
    2. Triggers on Network synched Animator Controllers can cause double triggering of an animation. This problem has disappeared by moving over to Photon.
    3. Network synched Animator parameters only seem to get synched across the network on change of state. Again this is not an issue with Photon.
    Whilst the fourth is not strictly a bug, my 'player' is not a single GameObject / prefab but, rather a hierarchical structure. I found getting this constructed over the network using the Unity method was fiddly and time consuming to code up. Whilst it is possible this was due, in part, to my initial learning curve of UNet, moving to the Photon method has simplified the creation process in code.
     
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  10. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    I think signs just point to me using Photon out of fear for my production game - I don't want to take risks and it seems to me as the single programmer on my project, that Photon would be quite a bit less risk and time wasted. Anyone agree / have thoughts about this?

    I really don't want my hard work ruined by S***ty multiplayer and I really don't have anywhere near the energy to go low level networking and learn all that.
     
  11. Onsterion

    Onsterion

    Joined:
    Feb 21, 2014
    Posts:
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    Certainly it is always better to learn to do it but why do we always have to invent the wheel again?

    Why unity does not have an efficient multiplayer system being in 2017?

    I love Unity and i would love to make a mmorpg, a giant mmorpg using UNET but if the cost is create a new wheel spending years i do not think if this worth.

    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Back to the topic, "UNET server library" is removed from the roadmap so, any dev of unity can respond what goin on with the future of UNET?
     
    Last edited: Dec 12, 2017
  12. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    I'm sure it's LLAPI is very good, but I am not a network engineer. And what I'm reading is that the HLAPI hasn't improved in 2 years since I last tried it, so that's one vote of no confidence...
     
  13. dadude123

    dadude123

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    Hmm, I'm not so sure what to think about Photon.
    From what I've heard you have to deal with CCU nonsense and a high price that can't be avoided.
    But maybe I'm misinformed.

    As for the Unity networking stuff,
    I did not yet personally take a look at the LLAPI but I heard good things about it all around.

    For prototyping right now I am still using the HLAPI, which works fine for the extremely simple scenarios I use it in.
    Which is basically only a few SyncVars and a ton of custom game-messages.

    Disclaimer though:
    Even if the HLAPI would be 100% bugfree and stable, I would not use it, simply because I have specific needs regarding networking, how I structure my classes (can't and don't want to have shared classes for client and server).
    So I think my opinion on this topic isn't really representative for what most people want from a networking solution.


    Yep I can imagine that.
    I would strongly advise to avoid going on a low-level adventure if you have no prior experience.
    Depending on your game, this stuff can quickly become even more complicated than it already sounds! There is so much that can go wrong that beginners don't even think about...



    edit:
    There is "HLAPI Pro" made by someone here on the forum.
    It aims to be a drop-in replacement for the Unity HLAPI and to fix all bugs.
    I have taken a closer look at it and I would not recommend it, since it is primarily intended to fix bugs first without respecting any performance goals. It generates a ton of garbage collector invokes (even per frame!). Maybe that will change in the future when all the bugs are found and fixed though.
     
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  14. Zullar

    Zullar

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  15. moco2k

    moco2k

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    Here are some relevant official statements:

    https://forum.unity.com/threads/unity-hello-is-there-anybody-out-there-p.445978/page-2#post-2997314
    https://forum.unity.com/threads/official-multiplayer-improvements.390823/page-2#post-2755330
    https://blogs.unity3d.com/2017/03/17/update-on-unity-multiplayer-current-and-future/

    I still have hope and I expect that sometime the HLAPI gap is filled and officially being worked on again.

    Then, while I think that the HLAPI has some considerable flaws, I wouldn't say it's completely useless. So far, it actually works quite well and stable at least for my small-player-count project (without having stepped into production level so far though).
     
    Last edited: Dec 14, 2017
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