How to make TEXT RENDER stand facing the camera of my character and also for the camera of simulation? I have an actor (Minion) with a Text Render just above it mesh As you have seen, I defined your rotation as absolute, so the text does not rotate along with the actor. In the game the rotation setting is good and acceptable at various times At other times it is very bad An example of what I want is something like the life of the champions in the League of Legends I would also like to know how to do this when I am simulating I've made some attempts at the camera of my main character. And I got some of what I tried. Character Blueprint I know I could put on the Event Begin Play because the camera does not rotate. Minion Blueprint I did (partially) Ignoring the fact that the text is inverted. I tried Split Struct and added 180 to each of the 3 axes (ROLL, PITCH, YAW) and I could not solve it anyway. Simulating nothing works EDIT 1 (Attempt made based on a rrat's answer) Blueprint I think I tried all the combinations and none worked the way I would. The combination defined in the image made the Text Render spin. EDIT 2 (Correction of the attempt I made wrongly) Correction that I did With the answer I was given I noticed a marked improvement. Result 1 Besides the value is no longer inverted. Result 2 But I still have not got what I like. Result I am looking for I wish life would be displayed the same way anywhere on the map the character is on. EDIT 3 (Removing roll) Blueprint In game there was no difference. EDIT 4 (Trying to explain what I want to happen) I think that because I can not speak English and have to use programs to translate things for myself, I do not know the best way to explain my doubts, the best words, among other things. I think the best way then to try to explain what I want is with images. I want regardless of the location or angle life is seen in the same way. Image Image Image In the LEAGUE OF LEGENDS anywhere on the screen that the champion is, the life bar appears the same way. I would like to achieve this result.


How to avoid gimbal lock in Unreal Engine (c )? I created an orbit camera (sometimes called turntable camera similar to the one with the "use UE3 orbit controls" setting in a static mesh view). I attached the camera to a USpringArmComponent with a TargetArmLength set to 400. In the tick function, I rotate the arm with this simple method Simple, clamped version FRotator Rotation CameraSpringArm gt GetComponentRotation() Rotation.Yaw CameraInput.X CameraRotationSpeed Rotation.Pitch FMath Clamp(Rotation.Pitch CameraInput.Y CameraRotationSpeed, 85.0f, 85.0f) CameraSpringArm gt SetRelativeRotation(Rotation) I had to clamp the pitch to hide the gimbal lock problem. But this prevent users to rotate completely around objects. I don't understand why the Z rotation (the yaw) occurs on the world z axis ( FVector UpVector which is (0, 0, 1)) and not on the local z axis. It turns out that this is exactly what I want. I tried to solve this gimbal lock problem with this other method Taken from https answers.unrealengine.com questions 232923 how can i avoid gimbal lock in code.html FRotator RotationDelta(CameraInput.Y CameraRotationSpeed, CameraInput.X CameraRotationSpeed, 0.f) FTransform NewTransform CameraSpringArm gt GetComponentTransform() NewTransform.ConcatenateRotation(RotationDelta.Quaternion()) NewTransform.NormalizeRotation() CameraSpringArm gt SetWorldTransform(NewTransform) It works, but this time, the Z rotation (yaw) occurs on the local Z axis. How can I change it to rotate around the world Z axis, and the local Y axis, without gimbal lock? I tried this hybrid solution, but the gimbal lock is still there Hybrid FRotator RotationDelta(CameraInput.Y CameraRotationSpeed, 0.f, 0.f) FTransform Transform CameraSpringArm gt GetComponentTransform() FRotator Rotation CameraSpringArm gt GetComponentRotation() Rotation.Yaw CameraInput.X CameraRotationSpeed Transform.SetRotation(Rotation.Quaternion()) Transform.ConcatenateRotation(RotationDelta.Quaternion()) Transform.NormalizeRotation() CameraSpringArm gt SetWorldTransform(Transform) I did solve this problem (a long time ago) in OpenGL using quaternions, so I tried this version Quaternion FRotator Rotator CameraSpringArm gt GetComponentRotation() FQuat Quaternion Rotator.Quaternion() Rotate around the world Z axis Quaternion FQuat(FVector UpVector, FMath DegreesToRadians(CameraInput.X CameraRotationSpeed)) Rotate around the local Y axis Quaternion FQuat(Rotation.RotateVector(FVector RightVector), FMath DegreesToRadians(CameraInput.Y CameraRotationSpeed)) CameraSpringArm gt SetRelativeTransform(Quaternion) But this does not work. I also tried this Quaternion transform FTransform Transform CameraSpringArm gt GetComponentTransform() Transform.ConcatenateRotation(FQuat(FVector UpVector, FMath DegreesToRadians(CameraInput.X CameraRotationSpeed))) Transform.ConcatenateRotation(FQuat(Rotation.RotateVector(FVector RightVector), FMath DegreesToRadians(CameraInput.Y CameraRotationSpeed))) Transform.NormalizeRotation() CameraSpringArm gt SetWorldTransform(Transform) without success.


Design of a camera system Thinking about a common game, doesn't matter the type of the game, it's very likely that we need some camera type. For example Debug camera controlled by keyboard and mouse, with that we are able to move around in any place of our scene. Scripted camera with that we can instruct the camera to move around, following a determinate path. Player camera. ... Each of these camera types has its own update function. The easiest (and bad) system,is to have a camera manager class with a generic update function and specialized update functions for every camera type. Inside the generic update function we have a switch statement that, based on the camera type, calls the proper update function. Instead of this I've thought to another approach strategy pattern. We move each camera behavior (update method) in an appropriate class that implements a common interface. In the camera manager we have a member to that interface, and we can set dinamically any behavior we want. What do you think about that? What other systems do you suggest me? Thanks. Additional info there is the are real possibility that I need more than one camera active, for example for reflections. In short, I must take account also of that.


Why does this work? camera rotation from screen space I do not understand the math behind the linked function or why it works. I would like to know this. https sidvind.com wiki Yaw, pitch, roll camera void Camera motion(int x,int y) theta x 200 Adjust this to control the sensitivity phi y 200 target.x cos(theta) sin(phi) target.y cos(phi) target.z sin(theta) sin(phi)


How do I get the camera's local XYZ axis in Direct X 11? I'm currently working on quaternion rotation and I have them working, but it seems to be using the world XYZ axis to rotate around, which is an issue as the camera rotates itself around an axis. Similar to the last image, how do I rotate the camera around its local XYZ axis rather than the world XYZ? Edit The camera now rotates around its local axis, but when doing so, it does not change its values in world space. I can hold a key down and it will rotate around the correct axis, but once I release the key it will snap back to its original position before the rotation began. What must I do to allow the local changes to be applied to world space?


Legally possible to re create remake an old game? Recently I started remaking an old game on Unity. Basically I want to remake an old RPG that was released for Playstation 1. I'm not ripping anything from the old game, all the assets are being created by me. I'm creating everything from the scratch, music, 3D models, gameplay however I will keep the (copyrighted ?) names, I will try to create the characters and maps levels as they were in the original version of Playstation 1 but with better graphics. I'm not planning on selling it or adding in on a platform like Steam (for obvious reasons, copyrights etc), just giving it for free. But I wanna know when I will finish the development, can I share the game on public with other people so they can download it? Can the company that made the original game sue me fine me because of copyrights reasons even though I'm not planning on selling for money? tl dr Remake an non profit game of PS1 from the scratch, can the company that holds the copyrights of the game sue me fine me?


Copyright and patents on game design and names? We all know that each game has elements from another game but when does one cross the line of copyright? I have a view particular questions about this since this "line" is very vague. While looking for a name and Googling it usually return some kind of old or unknown game already with the exact same name. Can i use this name? And what about a name like Diablo, since Diablo is the commonly used name for the devil there cannot be a patent on this afaik. So would a different kind of game named Diablo be allowed? Let's say i want to make a game of mechs like in Mechwarrior. Obviously the mech designs have copyright, the name as well since i suppose. But am i crossing any rights if i make a top down tactical squad game that include mechs of different designs names and call it Clash of Steel? I understand there are not much lawyers here, but how could anyone create a game these days that does not cross the lines of copyright. Like the Mechwarrior example, there are plenty of games nowadays even movies that use this concept. For what it matters Mechwarrior could have ripped the idea from the Gundam anime series. With so many titles coming out each week including the indies it is next to impossible not to infringe into someone copyright.


What do I need to do legally to protect my game with copyright? I am in the process of writing a game and I'm wondering what the copyright laws about publishing this game are. I do not (for now) intend to make money from this. The beginning of my code contains a comment with Copyright 2013, Collin Norwood, but is that legally valid? Do I have to apply with some government for a trademark or such?


Adding actors musicians famous people in a videogame Let's say I want to make a videogame with several famous characters in it, you can't copyright a name and a face, right (I'm talking about names and surnames, not branded ones)? How does it work? Are there any royalties to pay? To whom? If there are royalties, can I get away by making my names similar to original ones?


Version Not Final, Does Not Represent Actual Game Footage? Just curious about this. Frequently, a lot of gameplay videos from big studios have small subtitled text at the lower part of the screen, reading something like Pre Alpha Gameplay Footage not Final Game Footage not Final Pre Alpha, Game here is not final Is there some sort of reason they do this? Is there some sort of legal ramification that they need to go through by adding this? I have especially seen some gameplay vids whose titles are "Alpha x.x.x", yet still, in the video itself, it always something like "footage not final, game may change".


What resources can I use to determine if the name of my game violates any copyrights or trademarks? I'm a indie hobbyist game developer. How do I check that I'm not infringing any copyrights or trademarks when I release my game? I'm not making megabucks so it's not financially feasible to get professional legal help for each game. I asked recently if I can reuse the name of an old arcade game (Crazy Balloon), but this got me thinking about future games where I might not even be aware of something similar that existed before. So, are there any tools or resources that you can recommend to check myself (due diligence I think it's called).


Copyright notices on a web game portal I notice that for several games on Kongregate, the copyright notice either uses the author's handle name (login name), the name of the group that produce it or a domain name. Are all those valid copyright notices?


Using an unregistered company name If I want to release an App with a Company Name do I have to have that registered before I can use it? I have checked and the name is not taken, so is it fine to just use a made up company name? As a side note, I have made this game just as a hobby project, not looking to make any money from it.


What is the proper, legal way to make a derivative video game? I want to make a game derived from an existing game. That game is owned by a live company. How do I go about contacting the rights owners correctly and negotiating for the rights to the content?


Are there legality issues using a company's name in a game? I'm working on an RPG of sorts where the character has a "day job" that determines how much money they make each time the day cycles and other things like that. Are there any legality issues with using the names of companies like "Barnes amp Noble" or even "Apple"?


How or when to add a copyright notice in published games? I've seen lot of videogame title screens show a copyright notice together with the company name. I'm about to publish my game and I am looking for possibilities or requirements on how or when to add such a copyright notice (including date or year published). Does it apply to both indie game makers and larger companies?


If I release code under GPLv3, can I specify what parts of users' code can be released under a new license? I have a few questions about what users of my engine could copyright in their own project. The way the engine would work would be that it would be a standalone program in Java that would load all of the scripts assets data from a folder that the game takes place in. The code could be written in Python or compiled to Java. Onto my questions, the code that they write would access some parts of my engine through Jython, and so I assume those would have to be released under the GPL. But what about the rest of the game other than the code? Like could they copyright their own art? I guess what I really want is that modifications of the code of the engine must be released under the GPL, but projects created using my engine can be released under any copyright, as long as they obey they distribute the engine itself under the GPL.


Does using an licensed game engine prevent you from open sourcing a defunct work? I'm curious as my previous company is asking us (people who developed the game) on what to do to the game since it's no longer financially viable. My suggestion was to open source it so people can still enjoy the game at the same time it could at least be improved. But we did use a licensed Torque engine which was mostly recoded reworked. Not sure if their license allows for the move though. (Also not sure if this is an appropriate question to ask here)


Is it legal to record music with a synthesizer and use it in my game? I want to make music for game on my own because I don't have professional composer hired. I have found some softwares for making music, but most of them cost some money. I have an idea to record music on synthesizer, then edit it and use in my game. My question is Is it legal to record music (that I have composed and edited) on synthesizer and use it in my game (the game may be free or charged)?


Can I get around a Pokemon copyright with new art and minor changes? If I develop a game that is essentially pretty much Pokemon (you're a trainer, you catch "monsters" and put them to fight and level up etc), and I do the next things I'm a trainer with a 6 "Monsters" party. Mechanics like the PC, Gym Leaders and "tall grass" will be used. I will throw an "ball" to catch the weakened "monster". I will use common item names, like "potion", "high potion". The battles are almost the same as Pokemon in terms of mechanics (four moves, elements, critical, evasion etc) I will NOT use Pokemon names nor graphics... artwork is mine. Some of the attack names will match Pokemon attack names. I think it is okay, like "ember". Come on. With all these points, I shouldn't run into copyright issues or anything right? Even if the game feels a lot like Pokemon itself?


Workflow for accountable file transfers between freelancer and developer I'm an indie game developer and I often hire freelancers for artwork. We sign an agreement to basically state that I'd get ownership of the resources they produce. I'm a fairly picky person when it comes to formalities in these agreements, and I can't find a good system to document file transfers between freelancer and client. What I'm looking for is A way to track a relationship between their email account and mine, and document file exchanges, like a quot timeline quot Freelancer uploaded X file at 16 50 UTC 03 00, download button Freelancer uploaded Y file at 17 43 UTC 03 00, download button Client uploaded Z file at 18 35 UTC 03 00, download button And files are permanently kept in the timeline for documentation purposes it should be impossible to delete an entry (unless both parties agree to delete it). The point of such structure is to quot vouch quot that this person transferred a file at some point and neither party can deny it. Technically, e mail attachments do exactly this. However, if it is a relatively large file, Gmail will ask them to upload to Google Drive. The problem with this is that Drive lets them keep ownership of the file (so if they delete it, I cannot get it back unless I had downloaded it) we would lose the whole quot record quot thing as there will be no guarantee that the file that I have is in fact the file that they uploaded. How we've worked with a few freelancers in the past is that they will transfer a bulk of files (zip) to us using whatever convenient method, and then, in written, state that they have produced and transferred a zip with some MD5 hash. So if it is ever necessary to prove that such a file was given to me by a freelancer, we'd just compute its hash. However that's understandably inconvenient.


Will using similar exact name to a current Marvel superhero name for your game be a problem? I have heard that the word 'superhero' is trademarked by marvel and DC and thus we can't use superhero as part of the name of a game we develop. But I wonder do they also have exclusibe rights to all the names of their super hero characters? For example will people get in trouble if they name their games 'premagneto', 'superwolverine', 'exbeyonder' or 'the cyclop'?


How do I publish to Google Play if I'm under 18? I've finished my first Unity and want to release it on the Google Play store but can't because I am under 18. The main issue is that Google Wallet requires you to be over 18. How could I work around this?


How do I protect my rights to my game on the web? My small games all have different gameplay. I want to showcase them through the internet. However, I'm worried about them and their concepts getting copied. How can I protect them? Also, if I have to openly display the code to the open source community, how can I make sure I get credit for my work.


To what extent it is legal to declare support of third party commercial products' assets? Is it legal to say that MyGame supports other (specific) games' textures, sounds and models? I'd like to get involved into an open source game project and implement support for Quake's weapon models (for example), but the owners of the project don't know about the legal aspect of it, so I'm asking here.


Cloning a Game Dev diary while using original assets I'm currently cloning a game and still using the sound and graphic assets of the original. I know that I may not distribute those assets but what about publishing a video of my progress as part of a dev diary, is that allowed? Thanks.


Can I sample audio sources from others without asking? As the title says, would it be considered legal if I take a part of an audio source (any media like music, dialog, video, etc.) to use in a project, whether it is for commercial or non commercial purposes, without contacting the owner creator of the asset? As an example, Earthbound used this technique to create unique and memorable soundtracks.


List of all games names? Is there any list of game names anywhere, so i can choose a name for my game and avoid (legal) conflicts with other games as much as possible?


Legal issues around using real players names and team emblems in an open source game I'm writing a sports management simulation game. Like most sport management games, it makes heavy use of statistics. I would like to use real players, teams and league names. i) Am I running the risk of getting into legal battles if I should use the real names? ii) Also what about team colours and emblems etc? Update Much thanks for all the input!


Could you create a game for an older system (say, SNES) and sell it with an emulator as well as the game? I was looking into development for the SNES in assembly, as programming in assembly is my hobby. I then had the thought what if I could sell my native SNES games for modern use (on steam, bundled with an emulator for example)?


Using name of real products in games My friend and I are creating a Computer Tycoon game. We're using graphics cards and other real CPUs in the game. So can we use names like GeForce 210 in the game without issues? Also, if the above doesn't work, can we just change a little bit in the name like LeForce and will that work?


Question about Monster Rancher My Brute generators I want to build a system based on the idea of Monster Rancher's monster generation system. First, is it legal per se? Obviously, I don't know how they built theirs and I will be generating my own "generator". But the idea itself of being able to randomly create a character or monster based on something..is it copyrighted? patented?


what is the legality behind "openMW" ( an open source implementation of morrowind) knowing bethesda those people probably sue hard....yet there is an open source implementation of morrowind which is actually quite good. but that question remains, what is the legality behind all of this? is it legal to distribute a free open source implementation adaptation of a videogame?


Game Trailer Reference other Games I am currently developing a game that pulls in the basic ideas and concepts from 3 other games. I want to make a trailer, and can I put in the trailer something like this Pulling Game Concepts from ...Pokemon ...Fable ...and Harvest Moon Can i do this? Or would I have to get permission to even reference them?


Can I mention other games' titles, characters, maps, weapons etc. in my game? Let's say I was about to make a quiz game where the questions are like this When was Fallout 4 released? What is your first pickaxe in Minecraft? Who do you have to kill as the last boss in Skyrim? And let's pretend I have 1000 of these questions, from 1000 games. What are the chances some of those 1000 could sue me, remove my game from the internet, pay them a fee etc.? Even if it becomes very popular. Taking it one step further, could I buy their games, take in game screenshots personally, then use those as pictures in my own game? Does it make a difference if it's a free to play or a game that has to be bought?


Can I use popular classical music as my game's soundtrack? Can I use popular classical music in my game as a soundtrack? I'm concerned about copyright protection. I don't plan to make money off of my game. Will I break some law if I do that?


Can i use the same name for a spell in my game that already exists in another game what does trademarks and copyrights contain. how similar can a name be to a name that already exists.


Is a programmer liable for copyright infringement in other people's mods to his games? If a programmer (P) releases a game, and a modder (M) releases a game modification which includes copyrighted content, can P be held liable for the copyright infringement in the mod?


Issues using real names in a soccer player game Is illegal to use the real player and team names in a game? When I say game could be and desktop, mobile or fantasy game. If is illegal, is ok to change a little bit names? Instead of using Messi could I use Messsi (or something similar)? All gambling and statistics soccer websites have permissions to use those names? Thanks!


Legal status of games with similar titles I've been working on a game for around a year and a half named Planetfall, in which you build a colony on a new planet. I've bee working on it with that title since before the announcement of Age of Wonders Planetfall. The games have some overlapping mechanics and aesthetic, but other than that it would be clear that my game is not a clone or a rip off. I know that I probably should change the name anyway (so there's no confusion between the titles) but I was wondering what the legal status is of a title that was in development since before the announcement of another similar title. If I decided to go ahead and not change the name, what could happen?


Is it acceptable to say "Inspired from ... game" For a game I'm developing, I would like to use "inspired from ... game" to acknowledge and praise that game. But I'm not sure if this is a good idea from a legal point of view. They might think my game is a ripoff, and base the claim on my word. Any ideas?


Copyright and patents on game design and names? We all know that each game has elements from another game but when does one cross the line of copyright? I have a view particular questions about this since this "line" is very vague. While looking for a name and Googling it usually return some kind of old or unknown game already with the exact same name. Can i use this name? And what about a name like Diablo, since Diablo is the commonly used name for the devil there cannot be a patent on this afaik. So would a different kind of game named Diablo be allowed? Let's say i want to make a game of mechs like in Mechwarrior. Obviously the mech designs have copyright, the name as well since i suppose. But am i crossing any rights if i make a top down tactical squad game that include mechs of different designs names and call it Clash of Steel? I understand there are not much lawyers here, but how could anyone create a game these days that does not cross the lines of copyright. Like the Mechwarrior example, there are plenty of games nowadays even movies that use this concept. For what it matters Mechwarrior could have ripped the idea from the Gundam anime series. With so many titles coming out each week including the indies it is next to impossible not to infringe into someone copyright.


Will my "Block Buster" game infringe on the Blockbuster (movie rental) trademark? I'm developing a small puzzle game called "Block Buster" and I was wondering if there will be any collision with already existing "Blockbuster" (movie rental company) registered trademark. Does the space or case difference in the trademark mean something? Or is there any difference in that Blockbuster is a movie renting company and I will just be selling a game? Do I really have to change the game's name?


Using modified copyrighted music in non commercial games Background I'm making a retro style game for both fun, and an unofficial contest. I have bought a song, song X. However, I then found notation for song X, and all the instruments. So basically, it's a program recreating song X in a sense. I took the notation, and used another program to make it sound like a chiptune does (just for the fun of it, and it sounds good P). However, I would like to use this in my game. It's non commercial, but is this allowed? I would've said yes, because I'm not actually using the original, copyrighted song. I think the main point is can I Use the music with no reference to the author Use the music with a reference, since it's non profit. Not use the music at all since the melody and rhythm is copyright.


Releasing a game without really having an officially registered company I'm thinking of releasing my iOS game without formally registering a company at all. I'm not sure I even want to create a company. ITunes wants to know the copyright holder of my title. I have 2 questions regarding this 1) Can I use my (already decided upon if will exist) company name and just register it later (if the need arises)? 2) Or should I just use my NAME as the copyright holder, regardless if I plan to formally register the company later or not?


Do I need licensing to use real city names in my game? I want to allow people to go to real places (Seattle Washington, Portland, Maine, etc.) in my game. Will I need licensing to make those places and use their names?


Would making a satirical version of someone else's character get me sued? Licensing the rights to a popular character is definitely a hard process. Rather than licensing the rights to (insert hero here), what if I were to make a satirical version of the IP owner's character(s) like Spaceballs did? What sort of legal trouble could I face for making a satirical rip off of a character?


legal disclaimers and lisence type for a free multiplayer browser game I have created a multiplayer browser game. The game is completely free (donations are welcome) but I would like (a) to protect my concept in some way. (b) to provide legal notes that the user should accept before registering. In some games (i.e. Travian) there are legal notes such as Terms and Conditions, Privacy Policy. Should I include things like these? Where can I get create such legal texts? I can barely afford hosting, not to mention a lawyer to write all those things for me. What should I do? Chris


Using name of real products in games My friend and I are creating a Computer Tycoon game. We're using graphics cards and other real CPUs in the game. So can we use names like GeForce 210 in the game without issues? Also, if the above doesn't work, can we just change a little bit in the name like LeForce and will that work?


Legal and IP considerations with publishers and playable prototypes I'm almost ready to send a playable prototype of a game to a publisher. I've never worked with publishers. What legal or intellectual property issues should I consider at this stage (if any)? In this specific case the publisher is well known... perhaps this makes a difference. Also the game is for a mobile platform.


How not to break licence laws? I have an idea for a game. Also I have almost everything worked out considering coding. What interests me the most is how can I know if that game can be published. As it would be for iOS and android, these markets are of the geratest interest for me. I found on apples store something similair to what I would make and it's published by some big game developer. How can I be sure I am not breaking any laws when publishing the game? Can I make a game like board game 'Risk'? I don't have any knowledge considering licencing. This game would be avaliable for free, with an option to donate, so money isn't my objective (but it won't hurt)


Making an indie with friends Legal considerations I am close to finishing a game I am making with 3 friends. 1 other coder, and 2 graphic designers. We agreed from the start to split revenue (40 40 10 10). However we have no contract, and I know that I don't own the graphics sounds in my game just because "my friend made it". What steps should we take to make sure that all graphics sounds that were provided by my friends, are actually owned by me (the company). We have a budget of 0 so hiring a lawyer is not an option, should we draft our own contract regarding the revenue share?


Can art syle proportions have copyright? I like the art of a mobile game called Battleheart. Is it copyright infringement if I copy only the proportions of his characters? Obviously the clothes, style of the brush, and all the rest of the art will be my own style. The gameplay of the game will be different, too.


Pac Man Public Domain? I've googled this and haven't come up with anything. Can I create a Pac Man game and not get in trouble with? Like can I sell it, and be able to make money without having to pay someone else royalties?


Can I include a public domain book in my game? Just for fun, I want to include a bookshelf in my game with a real book (or few) that you can actually read. Would I run into any legal trouble if I included an out of print book in the public domain, such as Pride and Prejudice or Alice in Wonderland?


Networking to make a single player RPG into multiplayer I ve written a few games in Xcode before and would like to turn one into the simplest possible 2D top down RPG multiplayer game. Essentially just needing movements around a big tiled map (I love drawing), and chat. Keen to just host my own server on the iMac I use, with python and twisted framework (new to this but happy to take the time to learn). I m thinking TCP for chat and UDP for tracking movements but do they need to be on separate servers? Also for games like this I know there isn t much on the client side. All my map drawing and game logic is set up in Xcode, which I would prefer to keep working in because I m familiar with the language and love the sprite kits and tile maps. Do I have to redo it all in python on the server side for scaling in the future? Or for cross platform? I've done lots of research and found plenty of tutorials, just want to know I m on the right track. I m not looking to make a WoW killer just something simple I can gradually build on for fun


What sort of data should be sent for mouse based movement in a multiplayer game? I'm new to the Multiplayer Rodeo here so please bear with me... I am just getting started and I'm trying to figure out how to deal with movement. I've looked at the question Best way to implement mouse based movement in MMOG which gives me a pretty good idea, but I'm still struggling with what kind of data should be sent to the server. If a player is on position x 0, y 0 and I click with the mouse on x 40, y 40 to start movement, what information should I send to the server? Should I calculate the position based on velocity on client side and just send the expected location? Or should I send current location and velocity and direction? When the server is updating the clients on the players' whereabouts, should the position be sent only, and the clients expected to interpolate predict movement, or can the direction sent from the client (instead of just coordinates) be used. My concern(or confusion) is regarding the ping lag frequency of data update and use of a predictive algorithm, as I'd like the movement to be smooth even with a high latency, and prevent ability to cheat(though that's not the top priority).


Game logic on the server! Good or bad? I'm currently planning a simple online multiplayer game. And here is the question. Does it make sense to make the whole game logic on the server and just send the input from the client to the server? Which are the pros and the cons or are there any reasons why I shouldn't do that?


Input and output of a server side game using web sockets I am having a look at redeveloping an old flash based top down zombie shooter game I made in highschool so that it supports multiplayer using socket.io. My experience over the last 5 years has been mostly writing server side code, so writing the game logic itself on the server isn't a huge concern. The places I am having trouble with due to my very limited experience with sockets specifically is What the most appropriate input and output should be to and from the server in a game context. How much data is appropriate to send. Off the top of my head, I imagine the process would look something like The server runs the game (using NodeJS). Clients that connect send their input to the server (key presses, clicks, etc). Those inputs are queued against the client ID on the server and interpreted to move their character or whatever it does. The server sends back the updated position of the client as well as everything else around the client in the "world". The last point is where I have the most doubts. Assuming a reasonable collection of objects in the world, I am not confident that sending through the position of everything every 30ms to every client would be sustainable (though I really don't know what is sustainable with web sockets). Then again, maybe it actually is perfectly fine to do this. Obviously I can limit the amount of objects by only sending ones who have actually been updated (so static objects would never come through, etc) but I am not sure whether that is necessary at all or whether that is something extremely crucial. I also don't see this working if we implemented something like everyone being able to fire 100s of projectiles (or some other massive collection of constantly updating objects). Are there any general guidelines or common knowledge around how much data you would expect to see come through a web socket and how frequently? Am I way off the mark or would this work okay for a moderate amount of clients? I realize this all sounds very broad so to try tighten it up a bit I am specifically interested in how much data is realistic to send through web sockets and how frequently. Any auxiliary information based on the above is a great addition.


Do "write once run anywhere" engines require platform specific code for multiplayer? I've been investigating the myriad selection of mobile game dev engines that allow compilation of your code onto multiple target platforms, but, something I can't seem to figure out is if multi platform "write it once" development is possible when you bring multiplayer into the equation. I've looked at Unity and Monkey mostly, so far, but aside from seeing threads on the Monkey forum such as "I've developed such and such networking library for Monkey"... I can't find a definitive answer. That example is one of many that causes me concern. Is it the case that if you used a cross platform engine, you'd have to write platform specific code for the networking portion of your game app? (Even if the rest of the game did work on your target platforms with no minimal platform specific "jiggery". I'm not talking about cross platform multiplayer, but I do presume that'd be a happy by product of a write once deploy anywhere (within reason) networking solution.


client server Silverlight turn based game domain model question I am making multiplayer (2 players) Minesweeper like the one that's available on MS Live Messenger. Client side is going to be silverlight, server side will be MVC Application. Client (the one who is waiting for his turn) will poll server every X seconds to get current state, the other client (who's turn it is will post his click to server and than roles will reverse) Now my question is should domain model classes be the same for client and server side? I mean you need Minefield class on both sides, but while server side class will have rules and logic, client side will be more or less a data holder.


Revenue model for an open source multiplayer game I've had an idea for a multiplayer game, and ideally, I'd absolutely love for it to be open source. However, I also want to make a profit from it so I can make more games and maybe even have a dev team. Is it possible to keep it open source and generate revenue? One idea I've had is to charge for online multiplayer services, but then users could easily circumvent that by patching in their own servers. Is there a revenue model that can work for this kind of game project?


PHP Browser Game Private Messages? First off, I'm asking this question here because gaming and messaging are intimately connected. Why win if you can't gloat? Nevertheless, I won't be offended if this needs to be moved to overflow. I need a PM system for my browser game, which already has a user and authentication system (To clarify the game already has a user system). Specifically, I'm wondering if a PHP library already exists that I can use to save some time. Better yet, if anyone knows of a nice Codeigniter library for messaging, that would be perfect. I already have a good idea on how I would approach this if I have to write my own, but it seems like something that would already exist in a robust form (despite my failed Google searches). Requirements Messages can be sent to individuals, multiple users, and guild mates (which is essentially just multiple users with server side selecting who to target). Users can reply to individual or all recipients Messages appear in sender's outbox and receiver's inbox. Utilizes some 2 table design to handle marking read deleting messages on a user by user basis Messages are semi threaded. I.e. I won't necessarily have them appear in the GUI as threaded, but previous messages should be included at the bottom of a reply. Maybe better to say, previous messages are identifiable and accessible. (This, I'm not yet 100 sure how I would design if I write my own. I.E. whether to include the text of the previous message into the new message or somehow remember the previous message's database ID to link later) Technology in Use PHP, Codeigniter, Javascript, JQuery, Ajax, Sqlite Note I have seen that there are some similar questions on overflow, but they were very little help in the answer department. Otherwise, people were looking for either chat boxes or more umm.. like social media site threads, which I find a bit different than something you would find in a game.


Calculating interpolation percentages I've been reading valve's article on multiplayer networking repeatedly recently and everything is starting to make since. One thing I'm wondering on though however is what percentage value to use for interpolation. For example the article shows this image Then the following explanation is given The last snapshot received on the client was at tick 344 or 10.30 seconds. The client time continues to increase based on this snapshot and the client frame rate. If a new video frame is rendered, the rendering time is the current client time 10.32 minus the view interpolation delay of 0.1 seconds. This would be 10.22 in our example and all entities and their animations are interpolated using the correct fraction between snapshot 340 and 342. At the end of the last sentence it states to use "the correct fraction between snapshot 340 and 342". What would this fraction be? Is it the time it takes for a frame to render?...or am I way off?


How can I keep a consistent number of players per match in a continuous multiplayer game? Fortnite Battle Royale is an example of a non continuous multiplayer game. 100 players join a game which has fixed start and end times. When there's only one player remaining, the game ends. Agar.io is an example of what I like to call a continuous multiplayer game. Players join in and die out, but the game goes on forever. How would a game developer design a system to split players into different groups when there're too many online to fit in a single game? Let's say a game has a limit of 10 players, and 50 players are trying to join. The server will split them up into 5 separate groups. New players will be sorted evenly into these groups to replace players who died. When the player count increases past the global limit, new games will be created to fit them. The problem arises when the player count decreases. The system needs some way to seamlessly delete extra groups of players that are no longer needed. How can that be done without A) interrupting games to merge players together or B) block new players from joining into the group(s) that require deletion and waiting for everyone in it to die (which will be a bad experience for the last few players). Agar.io obviously has a player population management system that works, so how do they do it?


Can game replays be used as cheat protection? Say you're writing a complex turn based multiplayer strategy game in the browser (i.e. JavaScript). The game state is big and complicated (think line of sight calculations in a 3d world). There can be many simultaneous games on different maps. Thus keeping all of those maps in memory on the server and verifying every single client action as it happens would quickly become prohibitively expensive. So we're faced with the situation that we cannot trust anything from the client and we cannot verify every individual client action on the server due to cost. Has anyone experimented with recording game sessions and running offline asynchronous verification on them as a cheat deterrent? Ideally, the players themselves would get suspicious and spot check each others' replays. Obviously there would be a significant delay between the cheat happening and the player getting flagged, but in a long running strategy game with persistent state, I think this would be a significant disincentive. Do you know of such examples? Have they worked well?


Hobbyist game dev, want to create async multiplayer game. Are server costs manageable? I want to make the game I want to play, and that game happens to be an asynchronous multiplayer game. Think Hero Academy or Hearthstone, where there are 2 players and each submits moves to a central server. Alternatively (and not ideally), clients connect to each other and play is limited to a fixed window of connection, but still there needs to be a central server to acquire new opponents. That said, this is very much going to be a hobby type endeavor I'm just one guy after all. This is not going to commercially support itself. If I have 100 players ever, that would be fantastic. Given that I'm going to have to eat server costs myself, what are my options for getting a server? I don't need much bandwidth or CPU, due to the nature of async games only the sending of the gamestate current move, and perhaps some checking of legal moves. Going to Amazon or getting dedicated hosting seems drastically overkill for what I want. If it makes a difference, I'm intending to learn and use Unity for this.


How to manage a multiplayer asynchronous environment in a game I'm working on a game where players can setup villages, which can contain defending units. Any of these units (each on their own tiles) can be set to "campaign" which means they are no longer defending but can now be used to attack other villages. And each unit on a tile can have up to a 100 health. So far so good. Oh and it's all asynchronous so even though the server will be aware that your village is being attacked, you won't be until the attack is over. The issue I'm struggling with, is the following situation. Let's say a unit on a tile is being attacked by a player from another village. The other player see's your village and is attacking your units. You don't know this is happening though, so you set your unit to campaign and off you go to attack another village, with the unit which itself is actually being attacked by this other player. The other player stops attacking your village and leaves your unit with say a health of 1, which is then saved to the server. You however have this same unit are attacking another village with it, but now you discover that even though it started off with a 100 health, now mysteriously it only has 1... Solutions? Ideas? Edit The simplest solutions are often the best. I referred to Clash of clans below, well after a bit more digging it seems that in CoC you can only attack players that are offline! ha, that almost solves the problem. I say almost because there's still the situation where a players village could be in the process of being attacked when they come back online, still need to address that. Edit 2 A solution to the "What happens when a player is attacking your village and you come online" issue, could be the attacking player just get's kicked out of the village at that point and just get's whatever they had won up to that point, it's a bit of a fudge but it might work.


Building a simple bomberman game with Node.js and Socket.io I'm building this game mostly because I want to experiment with Node.js and Socket.io, and the game is more like a proof of concept. To start with, I have a 2D grid system as the game map. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Each position with values 0 empty 1 wall can not be destroyed by explosion 2 obstacles can be destroyed by explosion 3 bomb 4 9 some powerups 10 gt the id of player CLIENT SIDE I'm not planning to have any game logic happen on the client side, so the client simply send left, right, up, down and plant a bomb command to my server. There is however, some simple check that happen on the client side 1. check that there's no wall at the direction the client is moving to 2. the client didn't plant a bomb in the last 3 seconds. The client also receives the state of the map as a 2d array and knows how to draw everything using that info. SERVER SIDE Main game logic happen on the server side, which includes updating the position of player, calculating the damage of bomb explosion destroy stuff in the range, except walls and space behind walls Questions When the player is moving, he won't see himself moved until he gets the data back from server that updates his position. So I worry this delay may affect user experience, is it better that I move his position on his browser right away, and only update other players' position using info received from server, that means his own movement is rendered away, while his position info is sent to server. When rendering everything, it's simple to implement that whenever anything on the map move or change, redraw everything with the new data. Is that a waste? Can I only update things that change, for example, a player move right 1 position, nothing else changed on the game map, do I still have to redraw everything? I think I'm going to use Canvas to render. Please feel free to comment or answer if you think there are places I can improve or I simply thought wrong, thanks!


What are some ways to prevent or reduce cheating in online multiplayer games? Punkbuster exists just to prevent cheating, and yet cheating is common in punkbuster enabled games. Modern Warefare 2 is seriously locked down from the end user running their own server or making any mods, and cheating happens constantly. For a multiplayer game where each client is running on a PC, what can be done to reduce or eliminate cheating?


Multiplayer and creeps (NPC enemies) how to compute bullet hits given the lag? We are making a multiplayer co op game, where players will shoot not each other but AI enemies (creeps), controlled by the game. The chosen implementation is client server with an authoritative server. Edit we use client side prediction for both creeps and avatats to give the illusion of immediate responses. So far we managed to make creeps movement syncronized on the client and the server, that is at the same point in time each and every creep are located in the very same place on the client and on the server. However, the player avatars cannot be syncronized in this way it is simply impossible. Player avatar will always lag on the server. Now the problem arises when we try to shoot and hit the creeps. The two avatars (client and server ones) will fire bullets in different places (because one lags from another), but the creeps positions are equal. Bullets hit almost instantly, which means that quite often the bullets will not hit the creeps on one of the machines and, as the server is authoritative, it will have the final say in what actually happened. Ofcourse such behaviour is unacceptable. One solution would be to force creeps to lag on the server, but that is a poor solution as the lag (ping) may vary dynamically and, more importantly, the game is designed to allow for up to 4 player multiplayer mode and I cannot even start to think, how to fit this solution to other players' bullets. The only thing I could find so far on the internet is the fact that in FPS multiplayer shooters you see your opponent in the past and the server "rewinds" each of you before hit scanning. But how do you exacly implement this? Do you keep the list of recent positions actions on the server? But what if hit scanning involves taking skeletal animation into account? Do you store recently played animations aswell? Any advice would be appreciated.


Is It Possible To Make Matchmaking System Without Server? I want to make a matchmaking system without a server, but I don't know much about matchmaking. First, let me list what I want to do Cheating is not important in the game, so that the architecture will be listen server. (One of the clients in the lobby will be host.) The players will be connected to each other by sending invitations. I will not list any lobbies in the game. All the data in the game will be sent via RPC functions. (I have already coded this.) The game will be published on mobile platforms. I wonder if I can connect 2 players to each other in the game without a server. Is that possible? Can I make this kind of system by using a library like socket.io?


How to support more than 4 XInput controllers? I'm making a multiplayer game in GameMaker Studio 2. The game supports upto 12 controllers, where the first four are XInput controllers. The rest would be DirectInput. If I try playing with 8 Xbox controllers, only 4 of them are detected in the game, as expected. But, is there a way to get more than 4 Xbox controllers working?


Storing quests for an online RPG in a MySQL database I'm creating an online RPG game and I've been looking around for a way to save players' progressions in quests in MySQL. I've been looking at Pim Jager's answer answer for a while and I've come to the conclusion that this could work, but then my question would be Where how do I store if a player currently has a quest accepted? How do I keep track of at which step of the quest the player currently is? This has to be saved somehow but I can't seem to figure out how I would do that. Let me know if you can help me out. Thanks!


The tolareable lag range in a multiplayer game I am programming a multiplayer game. I calculate the ping in ms as ping the time i recieved pong the time i sent ping I implemented client side prediction and interpolation algorithms. When I test the game with my friends, it works quite fine for those who have a ping under 100ms, but after 120ms it becomes unplayable as they have told me. So my question is wheter I should try to improve the client's game experience under a latency more than 120 ms or not ( is a lag 120ms considered tolerable ? ) Thank you all ! NOTE My game is a fast paced game so the lag compensation matters.


Single player game into Multiplayer game I developed a Single player game in Flash (Tic Tac Toe) and in the Multiplayer mode i will be able to do both player playing on the same system with out network. I would like to extend it and make it enable to play the Multiplayer game for two player playing it online. How i can be made give me some ideas , How test the Multiplayer game playing along with different computers(I do not have internet connection in home). How I able to change the single player game into Multiplayer game , any minor changes required or I have to change the code base completely. In which way i can make it possible.


Race condition implementing World Boss System in Web Browser MMO using PHP I am trying to create a world boss system using PHP. But I am having a problem with how to account for all the damage while updating the health of the boss in real time. The current damage process is as follows Get boss' current HP from database. Reduce the HP based on the calculated damage. Update the boss' HP to database. Example Player 1 (P1) attacks the boss. Calculated damage is 10. The boss' current HP is saved to variable boss hp which is 100. It will now be boss hp 10. Which is 90. The boss' HP in database is then updated. Now, imagine two player attack the boss simultaneously... P1 attacks the boss. Calculated damage is 10. The boss' current HP is saved to variable boss hp which is 100. It will now be boss hp 10. Which is 90. Before P1 updates the boss hp in database, P2 also damages the boss. P2 saved the boss' current HP to his her own boss hp variable which is 100 at the moment. P2 also performs step 2. boss hp 10. Which is also 90. P1 now updates the boss hp in database ( 90). P2 also updates the boss hp in database ( 90). The boss hp should be 80 but the damage of P1 has been neglected since P2 updates the boss hp last. How to avoid this problem?


Handling increasing numbers of users (server) For this post, we'll assume my game is multiplayer chess as it essentially requires the same functions. User logs in to the server and requests a game the server provides a simple matching service and once done, they start the game. They get 30 seconds timed by the server per turn with 6 players in each game and however many spectators (probably very limited). I would like to know how you would scale this. I've considered two options Option 1 1) Main server to handle login match making (which regardless of user numbers should be a fairly easy task) 2) Start new Node servers for each game that close when the game ends. I'm not entirely sure how this could be implemented yet. (i.e. would the user connect to the main server still and the requests just be passed to the new server or would the user change connection to the new server and then back again when done? changing connection would reduce the load even further and as the two servers won't require communication between them, should be fairly simple) Option 2 Have 1 Node server and somehow scale it. Suggestions input? I'm planning on hosting on Amazon AWS and am well aware that the chances of my game even warranting this level of detail are probably nil but I'm taking this as a learning opportunity. Thanks.


Cocos2D v3 and Physics simulation on server I'm trying to develop a real time multiplayer game using Cococs2d v3. The game is basically a side scrolling racing game. I wanted to develop the client using Cococs2d for iPhone, and the server side using Java. I've read about real time networking and the difficulties I can encounter, but also how can I overcome it. The most helpful articles I read was Valve's, Glenn Fiedler's game networking article and Gabriel Gambetta's article on fast paced multiplayer games. I can attach links to those articles if anyone is interested ) I have come to the conclusion that the physics should be implemented both on the client side and the server side. Using cocos2d v3 this could be done without any problems on the client side, but how can I use the same physics simulation in my server written in Java? For example how could the server know if there's a hill the client player is climbing, or if there's an obstacle it need to collide with? The physics engine the client use is written in Objective C.. Am I missing something over here? If my question is not clear enough, please tell me and I will explain it in more details. Thanks in advance )


Input and output of a server side game using web sockets I am having a look at redeveloping an old flash based top down zombie shooter game I made in highschool so that it supports multiplayer using socket.io. My experience over the last 5 years has been mostly writing server side code, so writing the game logic itself on the server isn't a huge concern. The places I am having trouble with due to my very limited experience with sockets specifically is What the most appropriate input and output should be to and from the server in a game context. How much data is appropriate to send. Off the top of my head, I imagine the process would look something like The server runs the game (using NodeJS). Clients that connect send their input to the server (key presses, clicks, etc). Those inputs are queued against the client ID on the server and interpreted to move their character or whatever it does. The server sends back the updated position of the client as well as everything else around the client in the "world". The last point is where I have the most doubts. Assuming a reasonable collection of objects in the world, I am not confident that sending through the position of everything every 30ms to every client would be sustainable (though I really don't know what is sustainable with web sockets). Then again, maybe it actually is perfectly fine to do this. Obviously I can limit the amount of objects by only sending ones who have actually been updated (so static objects would never come through, etc) but I am not sure whether that is necessary at all or whether that is something extremely crucial. I also don't see this working if we implemented something like everyone being able to fire 100s of projectiles (or some other massive collection of constantly updating objects). Are there any general guidelines or common knowledge around how much data you would expect to see come through a web socket and how frequently? Am I way off the mark or would this work okay for a moderate amount of clients? I realize this all sounds very broad so to try tighten it up a bit I am specifically interested in how much data is realistic to send through web sockets and how frequently. Any auxiliary information based on the above is a great addition.


Why can't cross platform multiplayer games exist? At least, why are they so difficult to make? assuming that's the reason why not even AAA studios accomplish this feat for their games. Especially with modern cross platform game engines like Unreal and Unity that can build on Xbox, PS4, and PC, why hasn't this been done yet on a large scale? For example, Diablo III is a game released on a variety of platforms. Despite it being a product of Blizzard, one of the wealthiest video game companies in the world, it does not allow an Xbox player to play with someone using a PC.


Efficient solution for multiplayer space partioning? This question is a little tricky, but I will try to make it clear. Lets say I am building an online game (not MMO scale), but that supports as many players as possible, in a authoritative server approach. I want really big worlds with lots of AI simulated enemies. I am aware of a few strategies to save server CPU by subdividing the space and not processing what doesn't need processing. I have already split the world by regions, that will require loading times and small transitions, which I think is important to maintain the quality of gameplay when playing locally (alone or even with a couple of friends). I don't expect the players to be in more than one or two regions. The problem is that a region can become pretty big, and have a lot of NPCs simulating at once. How do I handle this without affecting the players' experience? Approaches like one server per region and alike are not in the table. I am mainly looking for data structures to hold hordes of enemies, and even peaceful NPCs. To finalize the question, please note that vehicles exist, therefore its considerably fast to travel within a region, influencing the "when" to cull areas.


Is it possible to control the difficulty of a multiplayer game? I'm developing a multiplayer game, played between 2 players. But in these types of games, there can only be 1 winner and 1 loser for per match. So for each player who wins, another player had to lose. This means that roughly 50 of all players in the game are having a bad time (losing more than they win). In a single player game, it's easy to solve the problem of "50 of players lose more than they win." You just make the game easier to beat (reduce difficulty). Unfortunately, you can't do this with a multiplayer game, since players' opponents are other players. I don't know if there's a way to control the difficulty of a multiplayer game, but is this even possible?


How to solve "server lag" problems that break the game How do real time multiplayer games deal with latency problems (or server lag )? Imagine an online fighting game where 2 players battle head to head in real time. When a player performs an action, there'll be a short delay until that player's action appears on the opponent's computer screen. This delay causes many game breaking problems. Let's say 2 hypothetical players, Player A and Player B, are fighting against each other right now in the game, and the latency is 1 second. Player A is moving toward Player B, but then Player B places a wall (or something of the like) that stops Player A from moving toward Player B. Player A doesn t see the wall appear on his her computer screen until 1 second later, but by then Player A has already moved past where the wall was placed. In a more game breaking situation, Player B is just about to kill Player A. Right before that happens, Player A uses a special attack that instantly kills Player B. But on Player B s computer, Player B kills Player A, because it takes 1 second before Player A s special attack happens on Player B s computer. This makes it so both players die even though only Player B was supposed to die. One solution to deal with the latency issue is to implement an artificial delay so that when there s a discrepancy, one player s game is momentarily paused to wait for the other player s game state to catch up. This is not a good solution because it makes the game feel extremely laggy and unresponsive, and it also renders some reactive actions useless (like dodging) because of the artificial delay. What can be done to fix these latency problems?


How well (or badly) does Minecraft SMP scale? Has anyone tested and collected some data about how well does Minecraft SMP scale, with an increasing number of players (up to large amounts of players)? I.e. the bottlenecks are mostly in the server or in the client or both if the players are all in the same area, or if they are in different areas, or it is irrelevant where they are


Achieving smooth movement curves correct collision detection with a google app realtime multiplayer game server I'm an hobbist game developer. I'm trying to make a clone of a game like this http superhex.io to experiment with multiplayer online. First of all I'm not sure if there is a better way to implement server client comunication. So far I have implemented a server which updates the game state every 0.5 seconds and sends the information to all the clients. You can try my current prototype here https hexpose.appspot.com With respect to local development where the 0.5 seconds rounds are very regular, playing on the public server you see that the pace is not regular... I think this is due to a variable latency in server client comunication. Suppose I have many players moving on an arena like in this game. The superhex original gameplay is very fluid, you see enemies move on smooth curves. How this can be achieved? The position of enemies is known later (because of client server client latency) than the position of my player. But collision are anyway correctly detected. Is it just a matter of very slow latency and good server infrastructure or it depends on game logic implementation?


Anti cheat How secure is the client? Let's say, theoretically, that I'm developing a first person shooter with, of course, a map with things like walls. In the client code, the player is obviously halted upon collision with these wall objects. The server, however, only receives the player's location coordinates. Without some sort of data encoding in the client, the player could easily read the network communication to the server and send false coordinates to the server, allowing them to go wherever they wanted. My question is, is there a way to encode this location message to the server before it exits the client binary such that it would be extremely difficult for someone to read? Even by someone who disassembles the code to try and break the encoding? Or do all player collisions have to be detected by the server?


In what kind of variable type is the player position stored on a MMORPG such as WoW? I even heard J. Carmack quickly talk about it... How a software can track a player's position so accurately, being on a such huge world, without loading between zones, and on a multiplayer scale ? How is the data formatted when it passes through the netcode ? I can understand how vertices are stored into the graphic card's memory, but when it comes to synchronize the multiplayer, I can't imagine what is best.


Handling different version clients in a multiplayer game What are various ways of handling different version clients in multiplayer games? For example, when there's an update, some games allow you to play with people who have a different version of the client. How is this handled?


How can I implement multiplayer cloaking with visuals that resists client side hacking? I've been thinking about implementing stealth in a multiplayer game. It's a MOBA style game, so think League of Legends (LoL) and Heroes of the Storm (HotS). Multiple clients connect to a single server, which broadcasts the game state to all clients. Clients send their input data to the server, which might reject it when encountering invalid commands, thus rendering cheating impossible (well, in theory). Now, I mention these games on purpose because both implemented stealth differently. LoL has stealth with two possible states you're either completely visible or completely invisible. HotS on the other hand, implements stealth in such a way that you can tell by a shimmer in the air I think this is a neat mechanic, as it promotes rewards paying attention to your surroundings. However, this being a multiplayer game made me realize that this might prove easily exploitable. When you implement stealth in 'the LoL' way, you can simply stop sending player coordinates to the other clients. When the player's character breaks stealth, the server can broadcast the location again. However, with the HotS model, a shimmer can be seen in the air where the character is moving about. This means that the server must be sending the player's location to the other clients. Which means that players that change the texture or model or even the game code itself could render the cloak mechanic useless. Here is a thread on the HotS boards about it. My question is whether there is some way to implement cloaking (with a 'shimmer', la HotS), without having the issue that crafty players can modify the game (data) and 'beat the system'. Is this possible, and if not, how do other multiplayer games with this mechanic deal with this? Is only the LoL style of invisibility uncheatable? I thought about having the server send bogus 'cloak' locations every now and then, but this also harms fair players that are just paying attention, so that won't do.


Will Geolocations for IPs ever change? I'm making a game where the geographic location of a user is used to give them a little flag icon next to their user name. To do this, I've been using the ipstack API. However, the API only allows up to 10,000 requests per month, and since I make a request every time a user connects, this could easily lead to overuse. Would it make sense to just store geolocation data on my server and only make a request when an unknown IP connects? Or will the geolocation data ever change for an IP?


How do I manage multiplayer login? How is the typical login, loading the level and spawning handled? For example Client sends "iwanttologinwithcharacterx" Server does some validity checks and instantiates characterx Server sends back "loadlevelx" Client sends "iaminloadingscreen", when finished sends "finishedloading" Server sends "spawnyourcharacterx" OR just after the "iwanttologinwithcharacterx" the server tells the client to handle steps 3, 4, and 5 without interaction? I'm confused about what would be the ideal approach with the least room for errors. Some info The level in which players begin is always the same. Players can have multiple characters and during the game they often switch levels (this would be linked to my first question, how would I handle that cleanly? Don't destroy the playerobject between level load and just change their positions accordingly?)


Key mapping for a 2 players game I've been struggling for a while trying to figure out the best way to map two players on a single keyboard. Let's consider something generic Arrows Validation Cancel (optional) Some common actions shared between the two players (start, reset, etc.) So far, I used P1 WASD Space or Tab P2 Arrows Enter or Return Common R for reset The problem is that some configuration can be uncomfortable on certain keyboards (especially when there is no keypad). Plus some players like to have the direction on left hand (FPS style) and others on right hand (platformer style). Also SHIFT is usually not a good choice on windows because of the sticky keys feature. Also I'd like to avoid using a settings screen (kind of heavy for a small game). I guess a config file would be OK, but is there another way to handle this problem that would make every one happy?


Multiplayer game with Cocos2d Javascript and Node.js It is possible to make a multiplayer browser based game using cocos2d javascript node.js? If so, is there any tutorial about that?


Best way to go for simple online multi player games? I want to create a trivia game for my website. The graphic design does not have to be too fancy, probably no more advanced than a typical flash game. It needs to be secure because I want users to be able to play for real money. It also needs to run fast so users don't spend their time frustrated with game freezing. Compatibility, as with almost all online products, is key because of the large target market. I am most acquainted with Java programming, but I don't want to do it in Java if there is something much better. I am assuming I will have to utilize a variety of different languages in order for everything to come together. If someone could point out the main structure of everything so I could get a good start that would be great! Language choice for simple secure online multiplayer games? Perhaps use a database like MySQL, stored on a secure server for the trivia questions? Free educational resources and even simpler projects to practice? Any ideas or suggestions would be helpful...


QT for lan game devleopment I am making a small game for a course in my school and was planning on using QT to build it. I have worked with pygame last year and turbo c about 5 years agao to make games, small easy stuff. This time I am planning to make a game that supports multiplayer over lan, the game idea is simple however, information about the game is here. I was hoping to know from you all, if it is a good choice to use QT for this! I am totally new to QT, but a decent c programmer. Also what problems would I encounter when it is a LAN game, for a start I just want it to support 2 players on the local network. Thanks


Client side prediction on FPS game I've recently attempted to develop a simple client prediction for an FPS based on Gaffer on Games famous blog (http gafferongames.com game physics networked physics ). Now I've gotten to the point that everything works (more or less), my main problem is crossing the message sent from the server and finding the appropriate snapshot on the client. I can use the last average ping time to find a very near state, but it will never be exactly timed placed as on the server. So my question is how exactly can I sync and find the time stamp sent from the server to the client and find which snapshot is the correct one on the client?


HTML5 multi player game data event validation best practices I'll start by saying that I am fully aware that this question might seem subjective at first, but I'll try and provide a specific test case scenario for it to be a clear question about validating the data received from 2 multiplayer game clients. Scenario Imagine we have a multi player Tower Defense (TD) game. And let's assume that the game is built using HTML5 Canvas, Javascript and a multi threaded web server, for example, Tornado running in the back end. And in this scenario both of the players have an option to place a turret anywhere they want. After a turret is placed, a bunch of enemies are released from both sides and move in a straight line towards the other side. As soon as an enemy reaches turret range, we can assume that it is destroyed in 1 5 shots. If it takes more than that, the enemy safely passes to the other side. Now, my problem lies in the fact that usually I would do all the validation server side, but it becomes increasingly difficult to do, because I would need to simulate every step of the game. Instead, I would like to depend on the event data (enemy destroyed enemy gets safe passage) received from both clients. Question The main question then is this What is the best and hopefully easiest way to implement these sorts of checks and would there be anything prohibiting me from continuing with the development using HTML5, Canvas and Javascript?


Hobbyist game dev, want to create async multiplayer game. Are server costs manageable? I want to make the game I want to play, and that game happens to be an asynchronous multiplayer game. Think Hero Academy or Hearthstone, where there are 2 players and each submits moves to a central server. Alternatively (and not ideally), clients connect to each other and play is limited to a fixed window of connection, but still there needs to be a central server to acquire new opponents. That said, this is very much going to be a hobby type endeavor I'm just one guy after all. This is not going to commercially support itself. If I have 100 players ever, that would be fantastic. Given that I'm going to have to eat server costs myself, what are my options for getting a server? I don't need much bandwidth or CPU, due to the nature of async games only the sending of the gamestate current move, and perhaps some checking of legal moves. Going to Amazon or getting dedicated hosting seems drastically overkill for what I want. If it makes a difference, I'm intending to learn and use Unity for this.


Is my Lua form scene loading setup efficient? At the moment, I'm working on a small game project using LUA and the love2d framework. Using this framework, I've made my own assets (i.e. button images, form images, etc), and using these assets I've been able to make a functional application, but not yet a game. In my project, I plan on having several scenes, and I'm not quite sure whether my method for scene management switching is efficient safe to use (safe, as in minimal bugs). So the process I'm using is as follows if scene selector.active scene "splash" then if sceneSplash.loaded false then sceneSplash.link.load() sceneSplash.link.update(dt) sceneSplash.link.draw() sceneSplash.loaded true else sceneSplash.link.update(dt) end elseif scene selector.active scene "menu" then if sceneMainmenu.loaded false then sceneMainmenu.link.load() sceneMainmenu.link.update(dt) sceneMainmenu.link.draw() sceneMainmenu.loaded true else sceneMainmenu.link.update(dt) end end where scene selector is a link to the follow file Misc Vars active scene "splash" version nil Resources cre nil xp nil End Vars Global Script Indicator calls calls.active scene active scene calls.version version return calls and sceneSplash sceneMainMenu are links to lua files which act as the scenes. Each file manages its own updates, which are passed through by the main.lua found by the love.update and love.draw functions which are passed through to the forms relevant load update draw functions. I'm aiming at using about 10 forms, 3 variable files and 2 misc function files (file management encryption IO operations logging etc). So the TL DR version is is it efficient safe (safe in terms of minimal bugs) to pass through draw and update functions from main.lua to other lua script files? So far, the process works without any bugs, even when I go back to a previously accessed 'scene', so I assume the process will work 'safely' when I'm using more scenes.


Efficient tile maps in Corona SDK I need to create a tile map based level system for Corona SDK that loads files created with Tiled 1 . It also needs to support user touch scrolling and zooming. I've searched the Corona forums for possible solutions but the ones they talk about don't convince me. They basically have a matrix of Sprite objects which have an image loaded and a given position. That makes scrolling and zooming a bit hard. Any better ideas? 1 http www.mapeditor.org


Why can t this boolean stop the sound from playing 60 times a second? The code local dontPlayMoreThanOnceDammit false function Behavior Awake() local sound CraftStudio.FindAsset( quot motorbuson1 quot ) self.mySoundInstance sound CreateInstance() self.mySoundVolume 1.0 self.mySoundInstance SetLoop( true ) self.mySoundInstance SetVolume( 1.0 ) end function Behavior Update() if dontPlayMoreThanOnceDammit false and CraftStudio.Input.WasButtonJustPressed( quot on quot ) then self.mySoundVolume 1.0 self.mySoundInstance Play() dontPlayMoreThanOnceDammit true end if CraftStudio.Input.IsButtonDown( quot off quot ) then self.mySoundInstance Stop() dontPlayMoreThanOnceDammit false end end Error it gives


Roblox script Can't get "IntValue"? I am new to Roblox scripting (Lua apparently) and was fiddling with a function that is called when one Part (dubbed the "Sender") is touched by another Part, which is actually a tool with a Part called "Handle" inside of it, and a third Part nested inside that. I have also added an IntValue to the latter to be read upon touching. The object tree looks like this Apple (Tool) L Handle (Part) L TouchInterest L Value (IntValue) L Apple (Part) L Handle to Part Strong Joint The function is called alright, and the part with the name "Handle" is correctly identified, but I cannot for the world get a hold of the IntValue using the following code function onTouch(hit) print("Sender touched by "..hit.Name) local val hit FindFirstChild("IntValue", true) if val not nil then print("Found IntValue "..val.Name) if val.Name "Cash" then Get Money For Apple print("Players "..game.Players.LocalPlayer.Name) game.Players.LocalPlayer.leaderstats.Money.value game.Players.LocalPlayer.leaderstats.Money.value val.value end else print("IntValue Not Found!") end hit Destroy() end script.Parent.Touched connect(onTouch) In other words It keeps on logging "IntValue Not Found"! I have changed the name of the IntValue to "Value" and back to "IntValue" to no avail. I have been adding clones of it to several different layers of the composite object, but no results. Any help is greatly appreciated! BTW The object is a Tool, because the player is supposed to be able to pick it up and place it on the "Sender".


Obscuring stored info in a flat text file I have an idea for an addon for World of Warcraft which would basically be a minigame within the game itself. Eventually, I'd like to have players be able to compete against each other directly. The game would have some RPG like elements, particularly statistics and abilities, which it would be undesirable for the end users to modify. So the fact that this is a client side script, where everything (logic and data storage) are all in flat text files, means that it's impossible for me to truly secure things. But I'd like to at least make it non trivial to alter things, e.g. so that you can't just open up a file in notepad and type in 'Strength 256'. I'm looking for any ideas on how I might obfuscate the data, preferably something which is easy to implement as it's not really what I feel like spending my time on, but probably more sophisticated than ROT 13. As an example, one idea I had, which I'm not sure if it's feasible (have never made an addon for WoW before) is to serialize the data in base 64.


Shortest rotation value I have a top down game. The player moves the avatar with WASD where W rotates the avator to 180, S rotates to 0, A rotates to 90 and D rotates to 270. I also do diagonal movement so if they hold SA it rotates to 45, WA it rotates to 135, WD it rotates to 225, and SD it rotates to 315. I smoothly rotate from the current rotation to the hardcoded desired rotation based on those key combo's. Of course what happens is if I'm rotating from anything 180 to 0 it goes the long way back to 0. So if I'm at 270 rotation and I press S key it sends it back to 0 but that goes from 270 to 0 vs going from 270 to 360 which would result in the same end result but how it got there would be shorter. I was looking at this (https answers.unity.com questions 556480 rotate the shortest way.html) and trying to translate it but it's not working. Below is my translation. function Script CalcShortestRot(current, target) if current target then return from end local dist target current 180 dist dist math.floor(dist 2 180) 2 180 180 System Print("Dist "..dist) if dist lt 0 then System Print("Value 1 "..target current) return current dist else System Print("Value 2 "..current target) return current dist end end The usage is determine the model rotation based on direction we are going if move gt 0 then if strafe gt 0 then self.targetRot self CalcShortestRot(self.targetRot, 225) self.targetRot 225 elseif strafe lt 0 then self.targetRot 135 self.targetRot self CalcShortestRot(self.targetRot, 135) else self.targetRot 180 self.targetRot self CalcShortestRot(self.targetRot, 180) end elseif move lt 0 then if strafe gt 0 then self.targetRot 315 self.targetRot self CalcShortestRot(self.targetRot, 315) elseif strafe lt 0 then self.targetRot 45 self.targetRot self CalcShortestRot(self.targetRot, 45) else self.targetRot 0 self.targetRot self CalcShortestRot(self.targetRot, 0) end elseif strafe gt 0 then self.targetRot 270 self.targetRot self CalcShortestRot(self.targetRot, 270) elseif strafe lt 0 then self.targetRot 90 self.targetRot self CalcShortestRot(self.targetRot, 90) end self.rot Math Curve(self.targetRot, self.rot, self.damping) EDIT updated my CalcShortestRot() function per comments below but still not working. It spins all around


L ve2d How can i select object with mouse if it's overlap? I have already some code but i can't solved this. How can i select one object with mouse if the objects are overlap? It's looks like solitaire game. I wish you can understand me... For example my code function love.load() love.graphics.setBackgroundColor(245, 255, 255) 1 carda carda.x 110 carda.y 5 carda.width 100 carda.height 150 carda.dragged false carda.dropped false 3 cardb cardb.x 110 cardb.y 20 cardb.width 100 cardb.height 150 cardb.dragged false cardb.dropped false end function love.draw() love.graphics.setColor(255, 255, 255) love.graphics.rectangle("fill", carda.x, carda.y, carda.width, carda.height) love.graphics.setColor(255, 128, 128) love.graphics.rectangle("line", carda.x, carda.y, carda.width, carda.height) love.graphics.setColor(0, 0, 100) love.graphics.print("Card nA", carda.x 5, carda.y 5) 2 love.graphics.setColor(215, 255, 225) love.graphics.rectangle("fill", cardb.x, cardb.y, cardb.width, cardb.height) love.graphics.setColor(255, 128, 128) love.graphics.rectangle("line", cardb.x, cardb.y, cardb.width, cardb.height) love.graphics.setColor(0, 0, 100) love.graphics.print("Card nB", cardb.x 5, cardb.y 5) end function love.keypressed(key) if key "escape" then love.event.quit() end end function love.mousepressed(x, y, button) if button 1 and x gt carda.x and x lt carda.x carda.width and y gt carda.y and y lt carda.y carda.height then carda.dragged true end 2 if button 1 and x gt cardb.x and x lt cardb.x cardb.width and y gt cardb.y and y lt cardb.y cardb.height then cardb.dragged true end end function love.mousemoved(x, y, dx, dy) if carda.dragged then carda.x carda.x dx carda.y carda.y dy end 2 if cardb.dragged then cardb.x cardb.x dx cardb.y cardb.y dy end end function love.mousereleased(x, y) carda.dragged false 2 cardb.dragged false end


how to display current time as a static value in lua pico8 Pico8 has a function time() that when called displays the current time from start of program. i.e. print(time(),0,0,14) prints time at (0,0) with colour 14 However the function doesn't stop and keeps drawing the time each frame. I'm trying to figure out how I would draw the time without it increasing changing. So If I printed this 5 seconds from the start of the program I'd want it to display 5, but not change from that 5 value. https pico 8.fandom.com wiki Time I don't know how to store a static value of this time as a variable. Although according to the wiki, assigning var time() will cause time at 0 to be stored. Another way of phrasing this is...how would I display the time of 10 seconds when the following print is triggered? So after 10 seconds "time's up" is displayed. How would I display the current time 10, as well, as a static? Maybe I don't know what the time is when the event is triggered, so how can I count using time()? function init() last time() end function update() (empty update to use game loop) end function draw() cls() if (time() last) gt 10 then print("time's up!", 44, 60, 7) end end


How do I select a portion of the window using Love2d I want to be able to divide the window of the game in, lets say, 3 places, and when the mouse (or touch) click one of those places, execute some code. Do I have to make each portion a button like object? or is there a way for me to use love.mouse.getPosition() and give different instructions to specifics range of coordinates?


How to automate baking pizza in Corona SDK? I'm writing a game about making pizza in Corona SDK. When you buy chefs, the new chef is supposed to make some pizzas on its own like automation. I tried everything I knew about, I couldn't think of anything that would do what I'd like so I ask you guys to help me. Here is the code I think is relevant local widget require("widget") local pizzeria display.newImage("background.png") pizzeria.x 160 pizzeria.y 230 pizzeria scale(1,1) local pizzas 0 local chefs 0 local pizzatext display.newText( "Pizzas ", 100, 200, display.contentWidth 0.6, display.contentHeight 0.7, native.systemFont, 16) pizzatext setFillColor( 10, 0, 0) local pizzacount display.newText(pizzas,165,200,display.contentWidth 0.7,display.contentHeight 0.7,native.systemFont,16) pizzacount setFillColor(10,0,0) local chefstext display.newText("chefs ",320,200,display.contentWidth 0.7,display.contentHeight 0.7,native.systemFont,16) chefstext setFillColor(10,0,0) local chefscount display.newText(chefs,363,200,display.contentWidth 0.7,display.contentHeight 0.7,native.systemFont,16) chefscount setFillColor(10,0,0) local function pizzamaker( event ) if ( "ended" event.phase ) then pizzas pizzas 1 pizzacount.text pizzas end end local function addchef( event ) if("ended" event.phase) then if(pizzas gt 5) then chefs chefs 1 chefscount.text chefs pizzas pizzas 5 pizzacount.text pizzas end end end local pizzamaker widget.newButton left 100, top 400, defaultFile "button.jpeg", overFile "button.jpeg", label "Make Pizza", height 50, width 100, onEvent pizzamaker local addchef widget.newButton left 100, top 100, defaultFile "pizzachef.png", overFile "pizzachef.png", height 50, width 50, onEvent addchef


Lightweight lua objects vs. inheritance Although I did this a couple of times from scratch, still no solution really fits. I'm using lua for scripting in my games. Lua holds the "prototypes" of the game elements, that are copied to each entity on it's creation. A prototype represents a class of objects ("Soldier with shotgun"). Also, each prototype may hold event hooks (OnDie, OnSpotEnemy, etc). Clearly it's a prototype, not the object that will be handled. So, each time a hook is executed, I need to create an object to represent the calling entity (and any entities it interacts with) only for the lifetime of a single script execution. What it means is that a instance of the object lives in lua only for the time needed to run this script. Simple execution of this idea wasn't much work I used lightuserdata to hold the C pointer to the entity encapsuled in a being class. To access the fields of the C object, I overloaded the metatable of being. However, the fact that the fields of the object are handled by a metatable practically breaks any reasonable implementation of inheritance. I pondered with the usage of normal userdata, but I'm afraid that the dynamic allocation needed to run each script (some of them being ran each tick in the game loop) are going to ruin performance. Any suggestions? Or maybe a better solution altogether?


How can i run my .L VE game directly from the lua interpreter? I've just started with LOVE and LUA , i'm interested in LOVE because i want to play around with something different from my dayjob(i'm a webdeveloper) and since it uses LUA and is interpreted , i though it would be a great way to try out the API. but i couldn't find how to run my .L VE game directly from the lua interpreter? i'm finding it bothersome to package the game each time i make a little test with the API.


Open CryEngine console from lua script Is there a function in the CryEngine Lua API to open the Console? I cannot find it in the Lua (ScriptBind) API reference.


When PlayerRemoving event is fired, for loop does not work properly while I was implementing the Backback save feature in my Roblox Game (using game.Players.PlayerRemoving Connect(), I found that when I used a loop of any form (for, while,etc.), it would not run correctly. Here is a test program which I wrote to observe this issue game.Players.PlayerRemoving Connect(function(player) local testList "Hello", ",", "world" for i 1,3,1 do print(testList i ) end end) However, when this code is ran, all I see in the output window is Hello And nothing else. This issue is causing a lot of issues with the rest of the code, can somebody please help? It would be very useful!


How to use LuaJIT the same that Lua in a C program? I'm using Lua in my C program, as an library. But I read that LuaJIT is a better implementation. Is it posible to replace with LuaJIT with little change? How?


How to make the character dash forward in Roblox? In my game I want to make a skill in a tool to dash forward for a specific range and if the character came in contact with a humanoid during the dash, it stops right on contact and stops the other humanoid from moving temporarly too and deal damage I don't know what functions should i do and where to look for them... i figured how to use onActivate and getting the mouse through Equipped Appritiate any help and guidance


Love2d Failed to load tileset map I'm reading the Love2D Development book, which i think i will stop reading because is outdated and very instable, sometimes i got a lot of troubles. Backing to the question, i made a tileset map with Tiled and saved in .tmx with Base64 ( uncompressed ) then i used Advanced Tiled Loader and used the code from the book This is the main.lua file local loader require ("Advanced Tiled Loader master Loader") the path to our .tmx files and sprites loader.path "map " local map loader.load("tilemap.tmx") function love.load() love.graphics.setBackgroundColor(255, 153, 0) load the level and bind the variable map loader.path "map " local map loader.load("tilemap.tmx") end function love.draw() map draw() end When i tested the game, the result was this http i.imgur.com JM8EYrv.png The result was suposted to be like this http i.imgur.com W26XFjE.png So what it could be?


Create a game start up menu screen with Lua love 2d I just got started programming games and decided to try out love2d since I'm learning lua. I was wondering if anyone knows how I can create just a simple 2 3 button menu when you start up the game. All I want to do is make a start up menu. I have 2 files and nothing else main.lua, in which I have the game code and the level design conf.lua, in which I have the title screen code and the icon of the game I couldn't find any wiki page to help me for coding for the first time a splash screen and a overall game screen !! now i have only one screen the game screen and i want to have 3 screens 1 splash screen in wich i want to draw a image background and 3 buttons PLAY,EXIT,TITLE with coding mousepress! 2 game screen! 3 game over screen with an other background image!


Is it possible to develop a game with Lua L ve and have the source code compiled? I've been looking at Lua and L ve for developing simple 2D games. But since Lua is interpreted and I know it can be compiled to some point, but how secure is that to decompiling. Or is there a better way to distribute the game?


Corona SDK, do I need to pay for it? I'm a single dev making simple mobile games. I was looking at corona sdk for my next project. I don't understand what the difference between the paid version and the free version is. It seems that the whole SDK is free, so what does the paid version give you that the free version doesnt? I've been reading through the site, but I'm not quite getting it. I will need to interface with apple's game center etc.. is that not accessible to me without paying?


What are the pros and cons of incorporating Lua into a C game? I have a C game programming book and it has a Lua section in it. I've started to read the Lua section, and it sounds interesting, but I can't determine the pros and cons of using Lua in my C game. The only benefit I can currently think of is that you can make some coding updates, via Lua, without having to recompile. Other than that, I can't think of anything. So what are the pros and cons of adding Lua to a C game? Examples would be appreciated.