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Official Welcome to the Friends forum!

Discussion in 'Friends' started by kevin_unity3d, Mar 28, 2023.

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  1. kevin_unity3d

    kevin_unity3d

    Unity Technologies

    Joined:
    Jun 24, 2019
    Posts:
    13
    Welcome to the Friends service forum. You can use this forum to ask for help, share feedback, and have discussions about Unity's newest Friends solution.

    Introduction
    We are excited to announce and introduce you to Unity’s Friends, a service that enables players to form in-game relationships Open Beta! Add a new social experience to your games by helping players connect with others across any platform by adding Unity’s Friends solution.

    What does it mean that Friends is an Open Beta product?
    There are a few things to be aware of when using this Unity Beta service package:
    • We are working towards a full GA release in 2023, however, there is no set release date yet.
    • Pricing
    • Know that breaking changes to the SDKs and APIs may be released as a result of feedback or discovered issues in the Open Beta; however, we do our utmost to ensure this is not the case once we release a product to Open Beta. Anything available in Open Beta will be supported for a minimum of 2 years, following the Unity Editor standards.
    Beta Services are defined under the Operate Terms of Service, and that by using Unity Friends you agree that you have read and agree to the Operate Terms of Service.

    Key Features & Capabilities
    Friends is a service that enables players to form platform-agnostic relationships that last beyond a game session. The Friends service is based on 2-way consent which requires both parties to agree to a friendship. This consent can be revoked leading to a block state where the revoked consent also removes presence status.

    Friends includes a Presence feature enabling players to make decisions based on other players' status. Beyond server-side online and offline status updates, Presence allows players to identify where their friends are located including in a lobby, a specific game location, or level.

    In addition to offering status updates such as online, offline, appear offline, Presence allows players to identify if their friends are in a lobby, in a matchmaking session and where they are located in a game session. This allows them to easily find their friends and play with them.

    The Friends service relies on the Unity Authentication Service (UAS) to provide playerIDs which are used to identify and connect players. If players from multiple platforms are authenticated with UAS they will be able to form friendships within the shared context of a game.

    Resources
    To learn more about what you can do with Friends, take a look at the Solutions page.

    Getting started
    Since this is a beta product, you need to sign up for the service in Unity Dashboard. Once you complete the signup process and agree to the Terms of Service, you will be able to access Friends. From the Unity Dashboard, you can follow the getting started guide to get set up.

    What's next
    Our main priorities between Open Beta and GA are to finalize pricing, add billing support, iron out remaining issues and collect additional customer feedback. Unity will leverage this valuable input to expand the features available for the service, prioritizing them based on the feedback we will receive during the Open Beta phase.

    Our team is working on developing Guilds functionality to enable you to expand your game’s social capabilities.

    Feedback and bug reporting
    We want to hear from you! Let us know what you think right here in the forum, or if you have Friends enabled for your project get in touch with the Friends team using the dedicated support link in Unity Dashboard.
     
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