How would i do an online high score system? and have my program acsess it?

[Gamemaster1494]

I want to make an online highscore system... With the top 10 scores online.... How would i do this? is it possible?

[FireXtol]

Yes, it's possible.

Here's a few that come to mind:

• VB(or custom) Server application
• Web server with PHP, ASP, etc.
• FTP Server

[Gamemaster1494]

Hmm..... With the first option, would that be 2 seperate programs?

[FireXtol]

Yes, the server application would conceivably be different than the client application.

[Gamemaster1494]

Hmm.... Okay.... how would i do that, with high scores?

[FireXtol]

You'd want to design a protocol that'd allow users to post data, and get data. I'd suggesting designing your packets as UDTs.

Like these:

'not a complete packet, just a part of a packet
Private Type tUserScore
  lScore as Long 'their score
  lNameLength as Long 'the length of the next field
  sUserName as String 'their name
End Type
 
Private Type tSubmitScore
  lCmdID as Long '4 bytes for a command ID, the parser will check this and act accordingly
  lScore as Long 'The score
  lNameLegth as Long 'the length of the next field
  sUserName as String 'their name
'or design this like the next packet* to upload an entire local scoreboard
End Type
 
'next packet*
Private Type tScoreResults
  lCmdID as Long 'a unique ID for this packet
  lNbrUserScores as Long 'the number of items in the following array
  UserScore() as tUserScore
End Type

[Gamemaster1494]

Okay. Whats a UDT? (fyi, im not that advanced with vb... so i dont even know how to have it acess on line, nor resive information, other than .txt files...)

[FireXtol]

A UDT is a user-defined type. Like the three in my example code.

For designing a protocol, have a look at this: http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.php?t=615906