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Esenthel Understanding Server
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Spinel Offline
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Post: #1
Esenthel Understanding Server
Hi Everyone,

First of all I would like to say that I would be more happy if I had found Esenthel before. I was on Unity and UDK, they are OK, but none of them are indicated for MMO titles, they for sure need 3rd P Programs.

I'm looking forward to be part of the Esenthel's family already, I really just have some questions that I didn't quite understand by reading most of old threads (due to the fact that they are from 2010). Maybe people that knows EE (& ||) people with a better network knowledge can answer:

1) Is EE Server Authoritative, would it be possible to explain better server side here ?
I'm asking this because I found in some threads that people were concerned about physics and collision not being handled in server side. I find this to be the most secure way ( as far as I know from my study ), but looks like thats not the way that EE Server-Client Works, right?

2) Is EE working today with UDP reliable connection or only TCP for MMOs?
here I just want to understand a little better how things are handled, because the project I'll be trying to put into EE is a Hack & Slash MMO, and for this I think I would need UDP instead of TCP. ( Thats just my thoughts, someone with more pratical experience with the engine may disagree and also say it here, if you guys say that it will roll ok with TCP, than I'm ok with that also! )

This I found in one thread that the version 2.0 of engine would cover, but I just want to confirm:

3) is EE just a console prompt today, that does logs and stuff? how its working, and how we can handle it in general ( really open question for better understanding since I didn't find anything directly related to this)

Talking about Worlds in EE

4) What about clusters? I think I can answer it. From what I read, EE does not support clustering, each server supports a World ( very large map ), and It already work with streaming ( thats just GREAT ), but if I want to work with clusters to support more users, I would need to do it manually. ( not the case for me yet, since its just for study, I imagine that the max number of player won't be more than 1k).

5) what if I have like, one big continent, with two small islands and some dungeons, do I add all of this in the same World ? Like real size ? or do I make gates to other scenes that takes the player to other server that only handles this small pieces of my World, such as islands and dugeons (just imagining a cenario where its not valid to keep all my maps where it really should be, like an 2 undeground deep floor dungeon)

I think those question will clarify for me a little bit about what is necessary to make a good MMO. I hear people in threads talking about using Raknet instead of EE netcode, which for me does not come to any good, as I feel this engine should be able to do the work without any usage of 3rd part programs, but since I found more than one thread saying Raknet, I started asking myself if there is something that EE really needs help, but again.. I know some threads are old ones and probably should be disregarded.

An advice for Esenthel: would be good to have a diagram that explain better that engine does, this is a good example: Photon. Photon looks good, but its just a Server solution that connects to Unity, which means I would need both licenses to publish something. And thats when I found EE. EE pricing is really good and should be the only tool necessary that I'll need. and thats the point here, I finally found an Engine that looks beautiful and got a fixed price with a reasonable value for indie developers and students that want to go deeper in this area, so thanks again for this!


Please let me know if I talk too much, if something is confusing, and again, Apologize for a great post for probably repeated questions, feel free to link me with old answers if they are still valid for this version of the engine.

THANKS !
(This post was last modified: 10-31-2013 07:54 PM by Spinel.)
10-31-2013 07:40 PM
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Rubeus Offline
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Post: #2
RE: Esenthel Understanding Server
1, 2, 3, 5: However you want it. smile Esenthel is different from engines like Unity in that it gives you a LOT more freedom to work with it. You can program your server to be authoritative or not. You can use TCP or UDP(both viable options), and you can make your world all 1 unit(automatically takes care of loading/unloading areas) or you can teleport to other 'worlds' for the dungeons. EE does not have a 'server' component in itself-you will have to program it yourself or work off an example (such as Inesis), and you can make it either console or gui, and have it log whatever you want.
4) Clustering is not supported natively by the engine, but you could code it yourself or use middleware if you desired to go that route. The EE net code is pretty decent and I believe the estimation was more than 1k- I don't remember off-hand. People like to use Raknet because it has some more advanced features. It's preference thing.

If you haven't yet, download EE. You can demo it for free. Play around with the tutorials, and you can get a sense of how the engine works.
10-31-2013 10:55 PM
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Spinel Offline
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Post: #3
RE: Esenthel Understanding Server
I see, I better start studying then smile thanks for the quick reply Rubeus! I own you a little bit for the explanations, I'll try playing with EE and try doing my stuff from basics then, since its this flexible....

do you know if are there any limitation between free and payed version of the Engine? despite the fact you are limited by license agreement to publish a game with the free one

Thanks again!
10-31-2013 11:49 PM
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Esenthel Offline
Administrator

Post: #4
RE: Esenthel Understanding Server
Hi Spinel! Welcome to the forum smile

3) You can even have 3d graphics on the server application if you'd use DX10+ EE version, but I don't recommend it as it's rendered in software by Windows drivers, and could be slow.
But you can do 2d graphics no problem, you can also minimize the server application window, and just output stuff to the console using LogConsole, Log, LogN, ..

EE is very open, so you can do with it whatever you want smile
10-31-2013 11:57 PM
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Spinel Offline
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Post: #5
RE: Esenthel Understanding Server
I was actually horried about the oposite, because in Unity, using the built-in netcode you cannot just turn the graphics off. (at least I tried but couldn't) so we are good in this one. I'll probably just use it as a prompt that receives command ( if possible ) that I can manage de the server and people connected in it smile

but I'm just beginning here, its been like two months I was trying to find a better way to do an MMO, I was almost thinking I would need to write it from scratch ( something I clearly don't know), but an angel touched my google serach and I got here, hopefully I'll be able to at least have some fun with it
11-01-2013 01:45 AM
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