Online Game <help please>

[Valentine-less]

I am planing to make an online walkaround game using graphics as in Goblin Hack Or Rouge, I know how to make people(labels) move with the arrow keys or w,a,s,d keys and i know the collision detection and i know shooting. What i plan on useing ontop of that is... A chat system(i might know how already), A way to have plenty characters on the screen at once, a character creation menu (Choose your letter and color), and weapons and items... none of which I want made with DirectX... can someone help? Big order I know... sorry... But I am fairly new...
P.S. Im using VB 6.0

I posted this in the game/graphics forum as well but i didnt get any replys maybe you can help? thanks

[DigiRev]

For the chat system you will want to use Winsock...either the Winsock control (much easier and better in most cases, in my opinion) or it's API functions.

There are a lot of tutorials for using that control so I'd read those first (it's not hard to learn).

How are you planning on making this multiplayer? Will it be 2 player, 1v1? Or will there be more than 2 players? If there's more than 2, then one player will need to act as the server, or the one that 'hosts' the game. The server would be what's responsible for relaying the chat messages to all the clients. (All clients connect to the server and the server is responsible for relaying messages, etc to all the connected clients).

If it's a 1v1 then you can just connect the 2 people together directly.

There are 2 protocols with Winsock. TCP and UDP. UDP is faster and might be good enough for chat messages, but I'd still use TCP. UDP is better if it's for sending game data rapidly (character movements, etc.). It's up to you.

Either way, I'd familiarize yourself with the Winsock control.

[Valentine-less]

ok thanks, i plan on making more of a mmo game so ya a server would be needed i guess. Ill work on learning Winsock stuff, and if UDP is faster then Ill use it. Thanks for helping!

[Hack]

This might help.

Winsock

[Valentine-less]

Thanks Hack, Ill look through them and see if it comes in handy. If it does should I mark this tread as resolved?

[Valentine-less]

so a quick question... if I want a character to move, could I simply type

Winsock1.senddata Label1.Top = Label1.Top - 10

What would I need on the server for that... or is it harder than I think?

[extreme.aly]

naaH! i'm also new to winsock... but i think this will not work... cyou have to send data in some other way..like this
Winsock1.senddata "movechar|-10"
because, the only recieve and sends messages...
you can use these messages as commands
you have to add a function that, when a player press left button, the winsock sends this message: "movechar|player1|-10"
then you have to make another function wich will read the message, if the msg is a command it will move the character otherwise it will print the message to the chat box...i think i have not clear the ...

let me try once again in rough coding

function left_btn_onPress()
{
winsock.senddate "movechar|player1|-10" // if the user is player 2, change it to two
}

function right_btn_onPress()
{
winsock.senddate "movechar|player1|10"
}

function winsock_onRecieveData()
{
if data.startswith("movechar|") then
data = split data with '|', (the first will be 'movechar', second you will get the player, and third u will get the distance to move. understand??)
data[1] will be player
data[2] will be the distance (u can use it like this: Label[data[1]].Top = Label[data[1]].Top + data[2] )

elseif
chatbox.text = chatbox.text + "\n" + data
endif
}

this is just to give you the idea.... you can you your chatting program as the command sending program as well as chatting program

dont forget to rate if the idea is good!

[Valentine-less]

hmmm thats confusing because of the code... it was all out of wack lol, you had works and stuff in it... it was realy hard to understand. I basicly get what you are saying. Use functions that moves a character and sends that data, correct?

[extreme.aly]

function left_btn_onPress()
{
winsock.senddate "movechar|player1|-10" // if the user is player 2, change it to two
}

function right_btn_onPress()
{
winsock.senddate "movechar|player1|10"
}

well, it is winsock.senddata, not winsock.senddate.. i made a mistake..
and yes, you have to send a message to other computer using winsock, and use that message as a command, and then you can use that command to move the character!

[Valentine-less]

ok, thanks... I havnt been working on this for a while, but Ill start it up again in a bit. Does anyone know if Java is easy to make an online RPG with?

[Hack]

ok, thanks... I havnt been working on this for a while, but Ill start it up again in a bit. Does anyone know if Java is easy to make an online RPG with?

I would ask this question in the Games section.

They would know.

[Valentine-less]

Oops, This topic arose in the games section and then I stoped and forgot about it... Thanks Hack!