Online multiplayer game development questions.

Unity Engine
1

Hello, I’m not new with Unity, as I’ve been developing games with it for a year and a half, but I’m almost totally new to networking, and since my team and I are planning on doing an online multiplayer vs game I need to ask some questions first:

-Is there any free or really cheap way to test the game online with my team? I don’t want to pay for months until I can figure out how to do this, but I understand that playing online for testing requires a service that needs to be paid. If there is no free way, how much could it cost to test it for, let’s say, a month? The game is a 3D battle game (team vs team).

  • I read that Unity Multiplayer is designed for peer to peer, but supports other topologies. My question is: If peer to peer is how it works (one player hosting the game), why do I have to pay monthly to Unity if I’m no using any servers?

  • What is the best type of network (peer to peer, dedicated server…) that I should choose for this fast action type of game?

2

Some game hosting solutions offer free plans for testing purposes, such as Photon. If you want to use Unity’s P2P networking solution (which is getting deprecated), you only pay them if you use their matchmaking and relay services. If you can afford running dedicated servers, it has many advantages over P2P.

3

Oh I didn’t know it was getting deprecated! It looks like Photon is the only option then?

4

There is a thread in this forum section about UNet’s deprecation, and also a blog post. Unity are working on new networking features that will utilize dedicated servers instead of P2P, but those aren’t released yet. Photon isn’t the only option but they are popular among Unity developers. Take a look at their different multiplayer services and pricing options, and if it suits your needs you can go ahead with the free plan for testing. There is also Multiplay but I don’t know if they offer a free plan.

5

SmartFoxServer is also another viable solution. You can install it at your hosting provider and it comes with a free Community Edition allowing 100 concurrent users. Plenty of space to test your game during development.
And also later, if you need to perform some load testing, we provide very affordable Elastic licenses.

6

I think I read it, but I didn’t know that Unity Multiplayer was abreviated to UNet.

Thank you for your answers, I will take a look onto both Photon and SmartFoxServer.

7

If it is a dedicated server game, you can just add port forwarding on your router to point to whatever test server box you have at home or your office.