Can this help me build my game?

Amy
Amy
edited May 2012 in Any Topic & Chat
I'm a game designer who mostly specializes in writing game design documents who has taken the plunge into working with unity. I'v recently been buying a few things off the asset store with the hopes of fully making my game a reality. Making a multi-player game seems daunting and this seems like the perfect package but I needed to ask a few questions!

1. I'm trying to make an rpg game where players join rooms after finding their friends and this takes them to a joint little "hub town" Where you and your friends meet/trade/sell/craft and finally go off in adventures with 1-3 friends. I would call it more 'diablo style' then 'MMORPG" Is this possible?

2. Do you need to know coding to implant this into a system? I'm currently using playMaker and scared that my visual programming skills won't help here?

3. Does this have a Database feature that's easy to handle 1,000s of skills, abilities etc.

4. Do games have to be built up with Photon in mind or can I build my game/battle system now and plug in later? I'm not sure which option is smarter! Sorry if I come off as total noob.

Comments

  • 1: This is possible but Photon does not match players as built-in feature. However, players who want to meet could agree on a room name (e.g. "coolDudes") and then all join this room by entering the name. This could be improved by passing the name in or some other clever idea. Photon however, does not know your user's names or friend list.

    2: Yes, this might require some coding. We are integrating with playmaker, so you might be saved from some of that. Get in contact with them and volunteer to test this integration :)

    3: Nope. Photon does not persist anything. It's not a RPG or MMO engine. We just make it easy to get into rooms, update others with shots and positions and on top of that, there's a framework to build this and more easily. But it's more for coders.

    4: This is always a good question. It depends on the skill level and codng style, so it's tough to answer. Some people wrap everything in layers and then it's not a big deal to exchange the network layer. But I'd say: better get to know your networking solution and go with one you like. Then you save some work, probably.
  • Thank you Tobias for the reply! I'm glad to see playMaker is being integrated because it will help take this from painful to peaceful in term of my non-programming mind :D

    Is there a possibility I can use the photon server with conjunction of other small assets (like a facebook user and sign up databases) to help photon find which players/ have a friends list?
  • As Photon doesn't have it's own "account system", it's in fact very easy to integrate others. If you concentrate on Facebook, you can completely adopt their names and friends list through a suitable plugin. You don't have to worry about Photon, cause it just accepts any name you pass in.
    The only tricky part is the friends matchmaking. Photon does not provide you with a list of rooms with specific players in, so you can't find your friend's games this way.
    When a player creates a room, you could name that room as: "r_"+playername. Then it's possible for friends to find this room, if they know that their friend is online.
  • So do you have any suggestions to give? ^^ Do you still think I should use photon and try to find a built in friends list feature?
  • There is no ready made friends list system as thats a game specific thing cause you might want to tie in other things too.
    There are games that use FB in which case its all driven through FB, others use other gaming social networks etc and there are titles which bind the friends list to guild systems, login system etc etc ...

    A friends list on its own does not even exist, as you need persistence and an account system to even build one.