I want develop 3D browser MMORPG use unity3D, but I have some basic questions.
I browse same other questions like mine. I find somebody mentioned SmartFoxServer. If I use SmartFoxServer, need I write collision detection, character simulation by myself, or use some existing library ?
Unity uses .NET (actually an open source implementation of it called mono) for doing script. As you know you can write unity scripts in C#, Javascript and Boo which is a dielect of python.
You can use any language to write your server side code and use system.net namespace of .NET to talk to TCP and UDP sockets in the most low level way. You can connect to mysql using mono/.NET’s mysql connection libraries or odbc.
There are different networking middlewares for writing unity server side code. some of them like smartfox and electrotank and photon do message relays for you but doesn’t allow easy usage of unity based servers and libraries on the server so you either have to create systems for using unity based servers yourself or use other libraries.
unitypark suite however allows you to do it easily. it has built in load balancing and database suport (it uses a no sql database called riak), can do custom data serialization and unity based servers can be and should be used on the server.
About updates i should say that updating code for standalone projects is not that easy and handling them using asset bundles and assemblies requires your own system but since you are writing a browser based game you’ll just need to update the files on the web server and clients will automatically update and it’s one of the advantages of browser based games. Maybe unity at first did not think of this hot update mechanism because they made asset bundles for browser based games and keeping them in mind, did not see the need to include codes easily in asset bundles or the amount of work was high enough to ignore it for the moment.
At this moment I wouldn’t recommend the built in networking functionality for making an MMO,
instead you should look at Smartfox (http://www.smartfoxserver.com) and Photon (http://www.exitgames.com/).
There are also other options like uLink (if that still exists) and Electro, but I think you’d be better of sticking with smartfox or photon, since they seem to be the most used here on the forums.
Each of these has it’s own omplementation details and features, I’d recommend looking op the details on the respective sites.
P.S.: Here’s a big comparison chart: SERVER ENGINE COMPARISON - Google Sheets
Found it in this thread: http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/95277-Networking-Server-Comparison-Chart