Hello to everyone, I’ve posted this thread first of all to collect in 1 thread all experience and knowledge about unity’s networking
Then I’d like to ask u if I need a server to run a game with a very low ping(50-30), for example, if I host a game on my own pc and not on a server, me and my friend get 200-250 ms of ping(both in the same country and with ADSL) and this is really horrible for a multiplayer game. So, I was thinking to host the game on a server with a better internet connection, maybe on the “backbone”, but if I need to create a game at home, how can I send commands such as begin the match or kick people? Thanks
I agree… I used photon for one of my games. A month is plenty of time to see if you can use their system.
Also… do you really want to be a server hoster or a game coder? I’m sure you want to spend more time making games then keeping servers up and running. So let them do it for you.
They have a “cloud” service. I think it’s pretty fast to get up and running with them. And a month is plenty of time to figure out if you can use them or not. Even at $9.95 a month to have up to 100 users is pretty awesome. If you have that many people on… you should be making money
You write your own serverside code (it’s just 1 file) and they host it. I found it also easy to figure out and get up and running. But Photon is definitely less coding and quicker… however. PlayerIO gives you wayyyyyyy more features. You need to do more coding with them, but I found it fun once I got the hang of it. Their basic plan is free.
I don’t think that’s how it works. I would recommend just playing around for it with the free month, and then seeing if it fits your needs. Probably the best feature of it though, is that the person ‘hosting’ the game will not have to forward ports, as he/she will be connecting to the server like everyone else.
well, using unity networking, when u setup a game u become the server, but I think It’s the same thing for smartfox and photon, in fact u need a machine running the game(server), maybe with smartfox and photon u can have much more control over networking
Yes, you do need a machine running the server. This is obvious. What I am saying, is photon’s machines, located where ever they are, do that. That’s why it would cost $$ per month. You don’t need to give them a server exe, because of the way the photon system works.
Seriously, try it out with the free month and you will know exactly how it all works, and whether or not its the way you want to do it. You should be able to get up and running in a couple of days.
well, I can’t and I don’t want to pay photon every month just for a little game, instead, I have a server, but how can I host the game on it?
I was thinking of keeping running the exe on the server just to manage the game, then when u decide to connect to it, with a password, u can start the game or abort it
Guys, You are both right
Photon is a realtime multiplayer networking solution. It comes in two flavors:
“Self-hosted”, where you download the SDK with the pre-built binaries (matchmaking, rooms, etc available out of the box) and the source to build your own server game logic. Unless your game gets more than 100 concurrent users, this is free but you host. There are several licensing options for more than 100 concurrent users and no subscription is required. (License Pricing, Requirements, Photon in 5 min)
“Photon Cloud”, where we host a fixed feature set for room-based multiplayer games. Here we run hardware for you and there are monthly fees (starting at $9 / month). (Cloud Pricing, Info)
Self hosted, you can run any server logic you want. Add persistence, accounts, anything your game needs. You don’t have to pay subscriptions (like for Photon Cloud) but of course you have to run and maintain your own server(s). The big difference is that the Photon Cloud does not allow you to run your own game logic at the moment.
I am not an advertiser and don’t intend to do so too.
If you want to keep writing game logic in Unity itself instead of Java/C# extensions the best package is Unity Park suite (uLink) from www.muchdifferent.com
They have networking, Database and load balancing, Lobby system and lots of other stuff compared to Photon. Some player.io features like payment systems and shops are missing there but are possible to write and have many features wich player.io doesn’t have.
If Photon Cloud does not allow one to run their own game logic, what DOES it do? How would that work with a simple 2-player async game like checkers or othello?
Their photon cloud is a message relay so if you don’t want an authoritative server and clients run the game logic (i.e. the player that moves tells the other what is the new game state) then it can help. Their hosted solution allows you to do essentially anything possible in a normal .NET application with a networking layer on top so you can write/add anything you want and there is a lite application implementation with some features like rooms and items and interest management.
