(Part 1 and Part 2 are related. I'm only doing this at JCL's request.)

Hello Conitec,

I've put a lot of thought and time into this post... some might say 5 years worth of time.

I asked the community what they thought of your advertising this engine as MMOG capable and in general what is their opinion of GS Networking. Here are some of their replies:


Quote:
But , I agree , that we should all ask...or maby , demand (dunno if we have that right) that Conitec finishes 3DGS's MP and MMO capabilities. This should , in theory , be their main focus , because the future of gaming isnt single player...Even cell phones already have MMO games. :|
Why shouldnt we be able to create MMO games ?





Quote:
If I sold something and said it could do (INSERT EXCITING THING HERE), and really within a 10 year period nobody could actually do the (INSERT EXCITING THING HERE), then I'm sure people would be mad.



Quote:
If I could I'd set up a law suit demanding either:
A) Conitec to prove it's MP is capable of 1000's of players
-or-
B) Remove all claims off their site



And my personal quotes:

-After 5 years of dedicating myself to MMOG, I am still unable to create a product that is stable and publishable. You can blame my code all you want, but the things like "incompatible version" cropping up from who knows which server all the time is not our fault. Things like anyone being able to create a dummy program, anyone being able to connect to our system without us preventing it, and then injecting false data into our system and crashing our servers is not our fault... as a matter of fact it's not Gliders fault either and that was years ago and it's still not resolved!

-Several other members have attempted to create MP and MMP solutions with the engine and failed. Or rather, the engine failed them...

-I am not alone in my dissatisfaction with networking. At one point, network fixes on the forecast had an actual priority. Now they are lumped together with other junk (EDIT: I notice that on Aug 15, encryption and encapsultioan are RDY? I am SO confused as to what you guys are doing with Networking and it's still piecemeal changes on a sunset (DPLAY) engine! Do you think throwing us a random bone our of the blue every fews years qualifies as supporting your network engine? I don't. I suspect others won't either.)

The bottom line to this thread is the MMOG promised made on your page:


Quote:
Multizone/multiserver support for MMOG (Pro Edition)


MMOG AND GS DO NOT BELONG TOGETHER UNLESS YOU, CONITEC, STEP UP TO THE PLATE AND GIVE IT SOME DEDICATED CONCERN.

Dplay is NOT MMOG friendly. If you keep trying to squeeze water out of that stone, you will merely be wasting your time for you KNOW that DPLAY cannot and will not stand the test of time. Furthermore, it's building on a house of cards... there is a reason why MS sunset DPLAY and why DPLAY has not been used on any commercial MMOG's that I know of and precious little (if any) modern MPs today.

So what am I asking for here in "ask conitec"? Well a few things:

1) Can you drop Dplay and switch to Raknet? Should not be difficult if your engine design is modular and OO.

2) Can you drop Dplay and switch to XXX? There are many other great network engines out there and in your research, you may find better than RakNet.

3) Can you drop Dplay period? MP and MMP in GS is a failure practically and commercially. You can't argue otherwise. To keep it in the engine is a disservice to those of us that bought it "thinking" that you had testing it for MMOG, believing that when you said "1000's of players", you had actually done it... two things which I and others have found out is not the case.

On todays beta list:
[P] dplay_encrypt activates encryption and compression of data packets sent over the network

Just to inform you.

- insert here what I've written the last time -

jcl, would you be able to answer if I'd post a thread about what I would do to redesign the network system?

A lot of work on encryption.
Too bad it's all for naught since encryption is the LEAST of our net problems.



Do it anyways. JCL or not, it will be very informative to me and others who want to do it right. But put it here so it gets noticed and is less a "theoretical" discussion on "multiplayer" and more a "call to action" on "Ask Conitec".

what MMOG is not possible? im wasting my time? and all my work for nothing?

I would prefer that Conitec drops the MP part. Because everybody can use RakeNet/Enet/... All he has to do is packing the thing into a plugin.
And I think someone who really can finish a MMOG, is able to do this as well

And the positive effect if you drop the network engine: You can concentrate on more important things (Ingame Mapeditor, Shadows for terrains, ...).

Plus there are already good solutions for free (GSTNet) so I don't understand the logic to implent a new network engine which will cost a lot of important time.

Dark_Samurai

Count yourself lucky. Took me 5 years to reach this conclusion.

no no, there must be some way, i mean plugins and things like that, this network engine must be updated, because limiting clients is a bad side of this. and my game is based on network player more then 16 (MMOG) and this means no project done?

THIs must be a nightmare...
Has conitec a solution?

An MMOG requires a lot funding and knowledge, but aside from that it's the same as with all other game genres: Developing it is the responsibility of the user. All we can do is providing functions in the engine.

All network functions are well tested and guaranteed to work. When you have a certain technical problem with an engine function, ask us and we can help. But we can't guarantee that you can finish your game or that it will be successful. That's outside our possibilities.

I can understand your frustration and anger when a huge project fails. Sadly this can happen and does happen with MMOGs as well as with other projects. It's easy to blame the engine then. But I don't think you can tell us seriously that you're developing an MMOG for 5 years, and have not noticed all the time that the engine you're using doesn't work.

SOOOOOOOO not the point.

When I bought the engine, Conitec had advertised connecting 1000's of users to the engine. This was the case all up until maybe a few months ago and A7.

Q1: Can you guarantee that 1000's of clients can connect to the engine?
And if you can, can you guarantee 1000's of USERS (which implies that GS is doing some logic and not just DPLAY shuffling packets) can connect to the engine?

On your current page, you have multizone for MMOG as well as stating that GS is a commercial game engine. Putting both together and we come up with the promise that GS can create a commercial MMOG.

Q2:Can you guarantee that the engine is up to a commercial MMOG?



Again, not the point.

The current network functions work fine. The problem is that they are not enough for MMOG and they haven't been for years!

Consider:
Back in the A6 days, session_connect was broken. It is an obviously critical part of any MMOG. However, as you attached bug fixes with updates AND THAT UPDATE TOOK 6 MONTHS (or more?), GS Networking was on standstill for 6 months, my project was on stand still for 6 months, and honestly, there has been little improvement since! How is this MMOG friendly? For that matter, how is that Conitec supporting it's MP and MMP comunity?

Consider:
Since Glider what was it 3 years ago? -- there has been the problem of anyone creating a dummy GS program and connecting to any GS server, injecting false data on any network index, and this crashes the server.

As there is no way to prevent someone from sending data once they connect AND there is no way to prevent someone from connecting to the server, how is this MMOG friendly?


Consider:
For at least four years, I have stated that intra-server communication is vital for a mmog network. Right now, I have to route all my player AND server farm traffic through a single server. This means that one application has to take ALL the traffic for the game and puts critical data dangerously close to the internet cloud. Now then, given the current single server bottleneck for the engine, how is this MMOG friendly?

Consider:
For the same amount of time, people have been begging for a server list so that they can create lobby games. This is critical for MP games, especially FPS and RTS games. Yet for years of people asking, nothing has been in this direction. How is this MP friendly?

Q3: So how are we supposed to complete a MMOG if a) there is no guarantee from the engine makers that it's even possible, b)the tools are not there for us and c) when we ask for the tools or changes necessary, they aren't given?



Q4: Finally, are there any MMOG's made with DPLAY? If not, then how can you guarantee that anyone can make one with GS if it's based on DPLAY? If not, then why keep putting time and money and risking our projects to keep supporting a network solution THAT NOBODY IS USING.

Do you have ANY idea how hard it is to have someone take you seriously about an MMOG when you tell them it's DPLAY based?

And if you won't listen to me and others, then perhaps a legend can help you see the light:

[gratuitous name dropping]
When I consulted RICHARD BARTLE about DPLAY and MMOGs on a phone conference, he could not think of a single one.

Furthermore, he expressed reservation at my using it because as he said it "there is a good reason why MS sunset DPLAY and a good reason why there are no MMOGs with it". What that reason is I did not ask because the point is that if Bartle expresses concern over DPLAY, well, I listen...
[/gratuitous name dropping]

... and if you don't listen to me, perhaps you'll listen to him.

(PS: I'd hate for it to come to this, but if you want me to ask the co-father of MMOGs why DPLAY is a bad choice, if this will finally convince you that Conitec's continued support of it is a bad idea, I will be MORE than happy to do so!)

Four questions. One answer:
REPLACE DPLAY AT ONCE.
GIVE GS MP PRIORITY FOR ONCE.

Have you ever kept up on Fastlanes work? His many attempts at success? Is this your suttle way to blow away the rising issues coming to your attention?

I'm kind of stunned. JCL go out and make us a demo displaying how great your engine is - prove to us (THE USERS THAT KEEP YOUR COMPANY GOING) that we have reason to believe you.