Then the licence to fully use A7 would be split to two
interlectual property owners:
Conitec and the owner of RakNet.

I dont think Conitec wants that to happen.

And seperating Raknet as a supported plugin
would make the multiplayer non functional without it.

A solution would be to operate it by an engine-command either
over dplay or raknet, but that would
just be a lowest common denominator solution.

That is a valid point, JCL. There is the another problem and that is that the license is only for one application. You'd have to pay each time you make a commercial MP game. However...


Counterpoint 1: there have been only 1 or 2 commercial MP projects in the last 5 years AFAIK.
Counterpoint 2: anyone that is making a MP project AND wishes to go commercial should have at least $100 dollars they can earmark towards the license.


I agree that the licensing for Raknet makes it difficult for it to become a community wide, multiple product solution UNLESS Conitec and Raknet make a deal where they bundle the cost of Raknet with the Pro version. However, if you present the MP history of our community to Raknet, I think the case can be made that the entire community would only need a single indy license if you take my meaning. :P

In other words I see nothing wrong with having MP users pay $100 as a minimum to commericalize their game... everyone else can just play around with it for free!

Raknet costs "$8,000 - Per-platform Site License" for commercial Developer or $100 for one Application.

@JCL: Do you know another good Network Engine?

Would be a great day if GameStudio used RakNet and I don't even mind to pay $100USD to have all the features in a plugin. Don't want to buy Pro because i'd never make anything commercial with GameStudio, though I can see potential for serious developers if this was a option.

In the meantime i've created my own RakNet plugin that works with Litec, but its just simple from the tutorials and doesn't provide all those neat features. That would take me years learning to get it working. Now that I have read all the MP threads. I do hope some solution will come in the near future. If not for me, at least for people that are using the engine for commercial purpose.

i agree that, if someone ever makes a commerical mp game,they wouldn't mind 100$.

a7 really needs better mp support(and physics).

raknet and a new physics engine will give some more life to a7.(ode is aged,dplay is aged, A7 is aging on this features.)

RekNet could of course also use price discrimination:

make a special build-in build for 3dgs with limited capabilities.
wich is financed by the purchase of 3dgs. And offer an optional payed licenes / full implementation for
3dgs users, who want to really have
complex multiplayer, and are willing to pay for it.

Add a switch between DPlay and Raknet.
Those who are willing to pay, can use Raknet, for small multiplayer stuff DPlay will do.

So it seems that:

a) The community would not mind the extra $100 to commercialize their Raknet Based projects.

b) The community thinks that there are various business options that Conitec and Raknet can undertake to make it the Net Engine of Choice.

Are there other non-technical issues with RakNet we can expose aside from price and licensing?

Not such a showstopper, but I found it remarkable that there is only one Raknet support room on the IRC network, featuring 6 people total. For normal software products I wouldn't be surprised, but raknet is a developper tool, which made me wonder a little.

Anyway, I love having the option to go for professional multiplayer at any time, if I can pay the costs when I want to do so, and not integrate the costs in any future 3dgs editions, forcing me to pay for an option which I will not use (yet). But I trust that this is a thing I do not have to worry about .

I did some more research for other solutions, but the results are not plenty. I have little experience with massive multiplayer development and it's requirements, so I just listed everything I found worthy showing. (Yes, 3 results and 33% plausible for usage ).


Some products I think are not up for the task:

http://opensource.linuxgamepublishing.com/grapple.php
Although it sounds better than 3dgs's current functionality, it's somewhat too basic. (the readme has more specific descriptions).

http://enet.bespin.org/
Well, it's actualy already saying so on the main page.


One hidden gem that may be up for it:

http://jcatki.no-ip.org:8080/SDL_net/
http://www.libsdl.org/
SDL_Net I got recommended by a MMORPG developper that wrote an interesting article about MMOG's on devmaster. This solution is not as big as raknet either, but it's clearly capable of handling a mmorpg.

Article: http://www.devmaster.net/articles/building-mmorpg/
Note that he also recommends Directplay, this either means some people here are wrong, or he is wrong. But he proved his point already by succesfully creating a mmorpg. Although not with dplay, I expect from him to know what he is talking about.

Game in dev: http://www.eternal-lands.com/
Players online: http://game.eternal-lands.com/online_players.htm
That made me quite exciting indeed, and the article was a good read.
Another note: There is a big community for SDL (as well on IRC), which is a big plus for me ^^.

It doesn't look as professional as Ragnet, but I think it could be a good alternative, especially for beginners as there is alot of support and tutorials.