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I think it would be easier if we had a train option in the peasant menu. You would select what the peasant should train to, and then they would go to that building, instead of selecting a peasant, then finding the building, etc.
Since most every bit of TOW economy relies on peasants, they should be created fairly quickly, at a regular rate, depending on the number of houses. If, at some point you find that you have too many, you can limit the number.
Z.
Yeah, that's basically the idea. Jorj raised a good point in a chat we had - to further reduce micromanagement, we can have a ratio button. It would let you decide what percent of civilians created are trained into whatever.
Yeah. This is where the Window UI is going to be invaluable. We are going to have a lot of options, and it will make that managment a lot easier. The option of micro managment must be there, but you can delegate it to the computer if you want to.
Z.
I would start on some networking demos and things to show you and start working on ideas but i cannot get my *ahem* cd to install the software so its all ****ed atm.
ok, i got this mother ass installed and working :D
800 Posts :D:D
Excellent.
If you need a testing bed for the other side of communications you can give your exe to me...
I am going to want to really compress the data sent from computer to computer. We will need facilities for both UDP (in game stuff) and TCP/IP (lobby stuff, chat, etc). If you want, you could also try some multicasting stuff (there was a feature over on gamedev a while back on this). I dont know if you want to do this in straight WinSock, or if you are going to use DPlay. Either is fine for me. Otherwise, just keep me posted =).
Z.
I m getting behind but expect the unicorn along with 2
other pics for the weekend
Really? Cool :)
i shall be using winsock as i dont want to get into having to link in direct x with the other direct x already used for the graphics, i also dont wanna get involved for the theory that i use open gl and not direct x and i dont wanna go down direct x route atm.
SO ! Any Information On Winsock In C++ Would Be Nice
I will get some demos off planet-source-code.com. I will probably need some help on how this is gonna work for instance with lobbies, im thinking eah lobby has its own id, eah user shall have their own id too.
Asap i shall get a demo done that shall be a simple chat application which has its own different rooms or lobbies, whatever u wanna call them, then i can work from that. A few things i want u to answer me back on: (the first demos will be done in vb coz i know winsock best in that):
- Will i need a different thread for each winsock connection to the server ??
- One lobby per game, ie u join a game and u go to the games lobby ??
OR
- Diablo style where u have lobbies, then from anyone of those u can join any game ??
- Are we gonna have a central server where ALL game data passes through ?? or do we have like where u have to get someones IP and enter it for like direct play which takes the load of a central server and puts it onto a seperate user, the downside to a decentral server is time (having to get all ur m8s in one place where otherwise u can see if theyre on and play them) hacking the net and adding proxies to modify data becomes easier (do we have to combat that anyway ??) ?
At the moment i just need some help on WHAT we want and HOW is best to do it.
me is thinking that direct play is going to be easier. do u want me to create a new direct x instance or can u pass on how to link it to the existing dll files that contain the direct x part ?
Igor (or other composers on the team),
I was just listening to 'Theme from the Hunt for Red October'. I thought it was an excellent piece of nationalistic music and, perhaps, when I'm more finished the story, I could write some lyrics in a civilisation's language if you could write a stirring piece like that. If you haven't yet heard it, I heartily recommend it.
Any thoughts on this matter?
Sorry for the massive downtime there, guys. Comcast (our ISP) is switching over to a new network, and we had a "temporary interruption in service" that lasted all day =). It is working again, though Im not sure if I will have the internet on my personal computer again. We will see =).
On a much happier note, I finally kicked my ass into gear, and got a significant amount of work done last night. More to come this weekend.
Psy. I dont think we will be able to afford a central server. This is what Multi-Casting is all about. It actually allows people to group together without all connecting to a server. Like I said, there is a tutorial about it over on Gamedev. You may want to take a look to see what I am talking about.
I dont know much about Winsock in C++, so Im not sure if you will need to thread. If you find that connections lag, and the program actually waits for data, thread them, but I think you can create asyncronous sockets (non-blocking).
Z.
Oh.
Psy. None of the other DLLs use DPlay at the moment, so I dont even link with that library. This will all be in a single DLL (preferably DivMP.DLL, or DivNetwork.DLL, or something along those lines, you pick =). You should wrap all of the functionality up into a class that allows the simplest interface possible, then export that class from the DLL. I shouldnt have to know a thing about multiplayer programming to use it. I will have to get back to you on the specific methods needed, because I dont know yet.
Jorj. Sounds great, though Ive never heard that theme =).
Z.
RTS online play requires a lot more packets than strategy play, namely because of more units and buildings that you wouldn't have in games such as Half-Life or Unreal Tournament. However I think it may even the tables in decals, in 3D shootem up games you need to have all the holes in the walls, etc, so you have to transfer more.
But if we make dynamic terrain we'll have to send over what terrain changed!
Hmmm, we'll get it sorted, I'm just trying to figure out the best way to send the data from computer to computer.
god damn hotmail, dont u hate it when u have to visit a site and u get that crappy msn thing that appears, like wen u get a link in a hotmail ???? it just ****ed my post.
i think this is all i had to say.
does direct play only do the lobby stuff, game data has to be sent still using our own winsock system ??? if it doesnt do game data i will run for direct x all the way through.
what i meant zaei is that u have alread created an instance of direct x for direct draw / 3d, or whatever its called now. do u want me to link to that direct x instance or create one specifically for direct play ??
i shall dl that multi-casting article (already seen it once) i think only some isp's allow it ???
i think the best method to do this system would be:
People download a copy of the game, with this they can choose multiplayer server or client. once they start a server the ip address gets sent to a web page on the site (done thru ftp with our sites server). People can then goto this site and see servers that are running and connect and play. This means no central server, and one chat room per game. they cna also have the option of not having the ip sent to the web site (for personal games).
if so... do we want servers that HAVE to be dedicated or do we want people to be able to play and have a server (so they dont have to have two pc's) ??
i started on the app into C++.
im using winsock and asynchronous sockets (multi-catsing is only supported by some isp's so im not going there). asynch's are better than non-blocking :D the only problem is they require a window to be created because they use the message queue. i think i shall just make the window invisible to the user.
DPlay can do all of your data transfer for you. Its not just for Lobbies.
In C++, you dont create an instance of DX. You can immediatly create a D3D Object to create a D3DDevice from. This should be the same for DPlay. The Graphics sub system is completly contained, so all other code is forced to use only that system, through the methods I allow.
Z.
I tried the demo thingy of ur game but it does not work
OS - Windows 2000 Pro SP2
System - Athlon 850mhz 382mb Ram 32mb AGP Video Card
Just thought you might want to know.
What card, and what happened when you ran the demo?
Igor. I believe that the first tutorial is ready. It's pretty hefty, coming in at around 9 pages in Word. I will post it tomorrow for you.
Z.
ok, i shall use direct play then. i gotta dl the deverloper runtimes and the C++ SDK which is just under 200mb (on my 56k eeeek) so will take a while.
are we going for peer 2 peer or server - client, i think p2p would be better - though it depends on the number of players. and i need an answer to this:
People download a copy of the game, with this they can choose multiplayer server or client. once they start a server the ip address gets sent to a web page on the site (done thru ftp with our sites server). People can then goto this site and see servers that are running and connect and play. This means no central server, and one chat room per game. they cna also have the option of not having the ip sent to the web site (for personal games). - depending on the answer to this i will choose p2p or client - server.
If you download the SDK piecemeal, you could probably get the SDK and C++ docs at under 70 megs. You might want to get the samples as well though, to check out how they set up their DPlay stuff.
We are going to want Client Server. P2P gets a bit complicated when you have more then 2 players, because everyone has to send data to everyone else, which causes lag (4 people playing is 3 times the data you would normally have to send). If you do Client Server, the burden is put on the server, so clients dont lag as much if they are on a slow connection.
Z.
As well as the SDK for C++ which is 70mb i also need to get the developer runtimes (according to the site) which wops another 130mb. Im dling the SDK for C++ atm which will take 7hrs (done by tomorrow nite due to me not being at home etc). i will then try compile an app and c if it works, if it dont i will get the dev runtimes, if it works then i wont.
I shall go for the server client option then, servers will have the option to be dedicated or not.
We have a bandwidth cap at our website and that would quickly get eaten up if we had this many players. I think we'll need to find somewhere where we can do this for free, I believe there are some sites that allow this for games.
The debug runtimes just spit out info into the debug output window in MSVC, nothing more. You dont need them to write DX apps.
Z.
zaei - thats what i thought, im going for the straight C++ SDk, which is 130mb.
i need some more info on direct play. msdn seems crap. i got the article from gamedev.net though it uses version 5 i think. i have the direct x 7 cd so i will get the demos off that to get the general theory going but i could do with the direct x 8.1 demos if someone could mail them to me zipped or upload them to a / the site.
Here you go Igor. I hope its what you were looking for =).
Z.
Good news! I've completed the history of the world as well as the present-day map and language family trees. All that remains is to make the languages, name the countries, and create their cultures.
Cool =)
Sweet, Jorj!
Z.
jorg you sound like a prodigy writer
I think he is too :)
Norman, do you have any more pictures?
Nope, will be the same speed, i get about 4kb a sec downloading, will take about 6hrs from now, so i should have it by the end of tonight.
Grrr this is so annoying, i have 52% done.
I havent had Internet since 7 last night =(. I am working one getting rendering set up, then some stuff in the guts of the thing. Then, I think, I will write an ASE converter to get 3d models into our format. I should have rendering up and running tonight.
Z.
Well, Ive got D3D to clear the screen so far =). Now its just a matter of importing the model classes and such.
I also figured out why the demo's cursor lagged while moving, and the other applications that Ive written dont. For the demo, I was using the message handle to wait for keydown messages. If you have a lot of these messages coming through (ie, holding the key), it lagged the system, which also causes the mouse to lag (i was handling it the same way). In all of the other things ive done, I used the GetKeyState() function. This will be fixed =).
Z.
pictures coming soon... midterms are slowing me down
Well don't rush it, I hope your midterms go well :)
something along the lines of unreadable or something and at block (some hex didget) it was just a currupt download i think i tried it again and it works fine.
Well, guys, I think that rendering a model will work now. I havent been able to test it yet, as I had to go to bed right after I got most everything working, but I will test it when I get home.
Unfortunately, the computer with the internet has a virus, so I probably wont be able to get here at home. Hopefully this will be resolved soon, so that things will get back to normal, but until then, I will be a bit limited in the area of communication =(.
Z.