(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.