Hi,
I am creating an online game that requires networking (obviously). This is my first time doing something like this so I would like some opinions and suggestions on my initial plan.
There will be a central server that will be running the game. Then the clients will log into their server and play. The clients will have to download the graphics before hand, ie: installing.
So the server will have to keep track of where everyone is on the screen, known as player location. So that is good.
My question lies in the fact of this (I will provide an example for you!):
We will have content, say, a database of items on the server. When a player say, opens a chest…the client asks the server what is in it. The server says, let me check the DB. So he goes and looks at the DB and gets the contents of the chest and sends it back to the client.
Another example is: Say the player talks to a NPC. The NPC will have some sort of text. So the client talks to the server and says I want the text for NPC #. The server says, let me check the DB. So he goes and looks at the DB and gets the contents of the text the NPC has and sends it back to the client.
Is that feasible? Is the server requesting the information in the DB and then sending it over the internet (along with the data to draw X graphics) not too bandwidth consuming? Or should I do things like this…
Put a lot of the content on the client side. In our above exampels this would consist of the text the NPC’s have and chest contents. This would make updating the game difficult as everyone would have to download new things. Another problem is that people could change the contents of the files so they could get anything they want. But it would save on bandwidth.
Thank you for your time and answers. These questions prolly have simple answers, but, I just want to make sure I am somewhat correct.
