I have done the tutorial and I am able to connect my game from my pc and phone, but I am not sure if the multiplayer the tutorial showed can be used when I put my game in the app market. Would it crash if enough people use the game?
I don’t have a budget for my game so I would really like to make my game multiplayer for free (or really cheaply). Do I need to use a service like photon ?
Theres also forge networking which with its one time price of 65$ sounds good, but I am not really sure on what it is. Do they provide the same services as photon or unet? because on there website when they say “You can host servers at no cost with this system” which makes it sound like it.
I have asked something similar here before ( How to make a multiplayer game in Unity5. - Unity Engine - Unity Discussions ) and was told that “with unity 5.1.1 the new UNET(Networking system) allows one player to host a server and other players to join to him so, no need.[to pay]” but when I go to unity multiplayer services at the top it says “[THE SERVICES ARE CURRENTLY IN A PREVIEW STATE. WHILE THIS LASTS YOU’LL GET A PRO LEVEL TIER FREE OF CHARGE (100 CCU).]” So what happens if I exceed 100ccu?
So ultimately what I am asking is if you need to pay to make your game multiplayer, or if theres a way to make it free.
Sorry if if it seems like i should know the answer to some questions but I have searched for 2 days trying to find answers (when i google something regarding multiplayer pretty much everything is purple lol) and the best way to learn is to ask questions, so I really appreciate everyone that helps out.
It ultimately depends on your specific game for how much its going to cost. The main options out there are unity’s built in networking, Photon, uLink, or forge. I am using uLink because my game relies heavily on physics and I need an authoritative server. Also uLink works well with all the other tools in the UnityPark suite (uZone,uGameDB, and uLobby) so I can integrate many other multiplayer features (matchmaking, user accounts, etc…). The UnityPark suite was a hefty one time fee of $600 but I think its well worth it as it is very powerful. It is very flexible as I have to host my own servers via AWS (amazon). However, if you do not want to deal with the backend infrastructure (server-side processes), you could mix things up and use uLink for real time multiplayer while using playfab for your backend. Building a multiplayer game is very complicated and if you are not comfortable with the backend things then playfab or braincloud is there for you but it comes at the cost of more money (not upfront, but based on many different metrics such as daily active users or API request count).
Here is where you can learn some basics on networking: http://developer.muchdifferent.com/unitypark/uLink/NetworkingConcepts
So in order to make the game multiplayer I must rent a server?
Also I used this procedure to make my game online http://www.paladinstudios.com/2013/07/10/how-to-create-an-online-multiplayer-game-with-unity/ and it is what I have been using this to test my game. (it is a very simple game with no physics aside from a linecast) and I was wondering if I could just keep that procedure to make my game online , since its free. I am just confused as to what service the procedure is using since it just says “Unity’s networking functionality.”
So it seems like in this tutorial you do not have to host your own server, but you are able to host your own master server. In the same post he has a link to a tutorial where he uses photon instead. In that link he says “An advantage of Photon is that it does not require hosting, so the player who created the room can leave the game without causing crashes at the clients.” I guess he means if you are using standard unity networking, then the servers are created on the phones and once you leave, you destroy that server. But, I am not a pro with unity’s standard networking so you might want consultation from someone else.
Ok i will try asking again, thank you for your help!
Even tough your no pro with unities standard networking, do you know if hosting(like in the tutorial) is always free? Or would it stop working if enough people are playing online? Ps i dont mind using hosting
The networking done in the tutorial is free I’m pretty sure as you are just using the standard unity networking api. However, if you host your own game servers with amazon web services or use a service like photon, than you pay for what you use or based on other metrics.