I need help being pointed in the right direction...

Networking & Multiplayer
#1

Ok.

I am going to of course make my game work for single player, as my personal sand-box testing.
Yet, I disprove of writing code twice, to make it work for multi-player.

The game its self- graphically will be pretty simple, it will utilize Java swing components, along with a canvas that will show some of the
menus, and part of it will show the visible tiles of the map.

  • The player(s) can move 1 square at a time, and each tile contains monsters, buildings, objects, npcs, players, you name it.
  • Each player has a set of skills, traits, etc.

Well for single player, it is somewhat self-explanatory on how to store it:
It could be: “written into a .txt file”, or “hard-coded, but .txt file for (saving)”

Well, we all know that any (MMO), (dont yell at me yet) always is “constantly saving” somehow.
Well I know nothing about online/server databases at all. I need to code my game to work for an online database somehow.
I need to store pass-words and everything somehow.

  • I will also need to somehow update people’s clients, and update my server with those scripts of mine.
  • Because the game, things constantly die, respawn etc, this must be know to the clients and the server somehow.

Help point me in the direction. I would like to code it - “server ready,” and it sounds like “writing scripts to .txt files” will not cut it for multi-play.I can make a web-site, but I dont know how to utilize “servers” or those login-thingys :).

I plan to take years on this before it goes online, but i need help with the database lingo, like I need help.

#2

First you need to learn how to install a Tomcat. Then you need to learn how to connect to a database from a servlet or a script running on the Tomcat. Then you need to learn how to insert, update, delete and select data from the database.

/Morten

#3

Build the client/server interactions into your game from the very beginning.

The things that you do in the GUI will build a move specification, but do not
actually change anything.

The engine that actually plays the game eats the move specification
and makes the changes, which eventually leads to the display being updated

If your game has a single player mode with an AI playing the opponent, the AI will
generate the same move specifications.

If you are rigorous about this, when you insert a network, or a real second
player, the game will “just work”.