I think the only MMO that’s out is FusionFall (Cartoon Network’s MMO).
And I don’t believe they use any of Unity’s built-in networking. Unity’s networking is fine for many multiplayer purposes but it is not optimized for MMO scale. Take a look at RakNet (which is what Unity’s networking uses underneath) and ExitGames’ photon for possible replacements.
The multi-player features found in Unity are not meant for MMO-scale projects, rather they’re meant for smaller scale multi-player content only (they just don’t scale to anything MMO/virtual world in scope). You can still use a Unity front-end though as the Unity player supports HTTP and socket connections thus allowing you to tie into virtually any back-end technology you’d like, including a proper MMO back-end.
If Unity networking can’t handle mmo’s then they didn’t properly integrate Raknet… and there’s absolutely no reason to directly integrate something like raknet into an engine to begin with since it’s just a wrap around networking library.
HiggyB isn’t saying Raknet is incapable of MMO-level networking. He’s saying, to quote, “The multi-player features found in Unity are not meant for MMO-scale project”.
Raknet has been implemented enough to accomplish the goal set by Unity Technologies, which by and far is smaller-scale multiplayer, not MMO. I’m sure there is quite a bit of Raknet potential which did not get integrated.
With everyone and their mom wanting to make MMOs shouldn’t more advanced networking be at the top of the Unity roadmap?
The master server thread for instance seems to have stalled, it seems silly to me that the one connecting point that makes all network play across the internet possible should still be in Beta. And we’re not even talking MMO here, we need a solid solution there even if its just for casual multiplayer.
The trend of everyone wanting their own personal MMO is a case of misunderstanding of what it takes to develop and host an MMO. Just because everyone WANTS it, doesn’t mean they understand the time and resources which are required.
For small developers, multiplayer capabilities are much more practical than MMO-level networking. Improving the practical, more useful level, is, and should remain UT’s focus.
Way to many people want to get cracking on MMO projects before they have mastered normal multiplayer.
But these basic technologies don’t exist out-of-the-box with Unity yet. When I first tried to get going with multiplayer, there was lots of talk in the documentation about a master server and when I emailed support about it they were very confused as to what I was talking about, which implies that it is not a mature project yet.
My hope is that this will be resolved in the future.
P.S I’m going through my “been using the tool for 3 months and disgruntled phase”, hopefully it will soon be replaced by the “I’ve now figured out how to hack it into submission which makes me a useful resource phase”.
I also have a really hard time seeing why Unity Tech should spend time and ressources on making yet another MMO capable backend - rather than spend time making the best possible client engine.
If you truly have the skills to make a MMO, then you also have the skills to integrate one of the existing MMO backends - or even write your own.
Unity as it today is perfectly capable of being a great client for such an adventure. But making a MMO as a small indie team? Good luck.
We have plans for enhanced networking features on our road map already, the longer term goal being to make multiplayer as easy as possible. But so far that hasn’t been the most important thing as there are in fact entirely viable solutions available today. So we plan on improving in this area, but please recognize that we have to make our choices based on what gives us the most bang for the buck (what features will impact and benefit the most people in the greatest ways) and frankly I think we’ve done a pretty good job at that, without forcing this topic to the top of our list.
Good answer.
I am very happy with the two way flow of information here. We get to vote on what is important to us, we get a roadmap of future development, and more complete ETAs then “When it’s ready” (Soonish and ‘This Fall’).
