Posts by vergilkilla

Hello Everybody,

Been diving into the wonderful world of lacewing for my game for the past two weeks or so. A mighty fine extension capable of a ton of things.

I've got a good idea of how to do IP-to-IP connection between players in which they both set up a static ip and portforward, etc. Me and my buddy played my prototype this way! Very cool, but, honestly, going through the process of port-forwarding, etc. or using something cool like Hamachi is for more "advanced users" I think.

I'm interested in making conventional online play - play in which users hit "Online" and they are presented with, ideally, a lobby of selectable games, and then they choose what they want to do. I want to make an online chess-like board game.

I wanted to pick everyone's brain for both my thinking on how to do this, and also for some PERFORMANCE concers.

Here's what I intend to do:

2 servers!!!

1. Make a server that process client's request for my game in MMF. This .exe would be run on a DEDICATED server box here at my home - a desktop with decent hardware spec. This MMF server would be hosting/dealing with MULTIPLE game sessions at a time. My game is 1v1.... but obviously, my server needs to be able to deal with several 1v1 sessions simultaneously. This server program ALSO has a lacewing client object.... this is used to communicate to server #2.

2. A "master" server that is receiving the status of all GAME servers. The reason I want this server is so that I can have a game lobby actually updated with player occupancy and "open rooms". When the players hit "Online", they actually connect to THIS server program, which simply presents them with the list of "open rooms" (realistically, just channels to connect to server #1).

3. A client that the players use to connect to and navigate these servers as well as do all game actions.

My QUESTIONS are, in order of importance:

1. Server #1 must host multiple game sessions at once. I am hazy on HOW to establish which set of clients are communicating on which channels to make this a possibility. Every game session can't all slam "channel 0" on port 6121, yeah? If 10 sets of 2 are playing, how will the server know which clients to update if they all use the same channel? ORRRRRR is there something about channels I don't understand?

2. Given that the servers are port-forwarding and static IP, NOTHING as far as set-up will be required of my players, correct? These servers are meant to be up all the time - I know it's not exactly possible but they will be up MOST of the time. I REALLY want to avoid my players having to do anything but press "play".

3. Is a desktop PC like mine, running windows, running an MMF server going to actually be able to withstand a decent amount of active channels and users?

Hello happygreenfrog! Thanks for the suggestion of the working server! It makes that example work a tad better, but it is still unclear, to me, at least, how to host a game and have the client join within the context of that example, even once I've made what I believe to be the correct changes in the Event List editor. The issues with that example are, in fact, stated some where in the comments afterwards I believe - the client can't see the hosted games so is unable to connect.

In my continued searching I've found this old set of tutorials but it actually predates the Lacewing server object, it appears. Please login to see this link.

I figure my best bet is to adapt this to what I want using the Lacewing server object (if I want players to be able to be hosts), or, honestly, I could likely use this same game loop with external servers.

Still open to if anyone can get the old example above to work or if someone has a better suggestion/example of a "lobby" with Lacewing. I think it is definitely possible, perhaps people have even done it, but I'm sure they are rather hush-hush on it since it took a lot of time to do and was very difficult for them.

Lacewing is an amazing piece for Fusion and I am glad to have it. I've made several simple games using peer-to-peer connection, in which one player types in the IP address and hosting port of the other player to then connect to a game and goof around.

I now endeavor to make a nice working game/demo of a typical lobby system, a system in which players "logon" to the game (that part is not the issue, however - we already have an excellent "login" tutorial) and are then presented with a LISTING of hosted games from which to choose and connect. Connecting to play with IP addresses (and the people behind them) that they do not already know the "numbers" of beforehand.

I've been trying to scrape together a solution for this, and am curious the forums thoughts. Typing in "online game lobby" will yield a few threads from 5+ years ago, and this online example, which I believe is the only one: Please login to see this link..

Trying to manipulate it, I believe the example above does not work because it attempts to connect to port 6121 of the server "server.klikfarm.com", which appears to no longer be operational, but I can't really derive what it's supposed to look like when it is working, either, and am not sure if it is broken by updates to Lacewing (it is old) or Fusion, or both.

How are you guys approaching a "Lobby" system with Lacewing? Does anybody know of a good tutorial or have an operational example to show? In one forum post a guy mentioned he made one but was going to offer it for pay. I'd be down to pay for it, then I'll package it up, fix it up my way, and make a video myself of how to do it, hah.

Hey Guys,

Been looking in the forums for examples of throwing, and have happened upon several good ones for throwing of an object from an active object, a la the Castlevania axe arc.

I wonder though - I want my players to be able to pick up my guys with their mouse pointer, then be able to "throw" the guys with some sort of concept of mouse acceleration, etc.

A system not unlike this classic stickman game: Please login to see this link.

Note how when you throw a guy with the mouse he seems to move as fast as your wrist flicks, etc.

Anybody ever done anything like this?

Thanks Pao! That's what I am doing currently!

PaoBrasil, does the newest Xcode support the iPhone 4 and 4S devices?

Hello All,

Developing for iPhone and set my application property to landscape - I want them to hold the phone sideways.

I also set resolutiong to 640x960 as per the iPhone 4 and iPhone4S.

Anyway is this change from portrait to landscape supposed to reflect in the view of the frames? My frame is still in "hot dog" rather than "hamburger". Switching between portrait and landscape does nothing to my frame view.

I'm worried that I'll need to develop the thing with my computer sideways. What do I need to do other than changing the app propery to landscape to have my frame view adjust accordingly?

Thanks man!

I picked up the instruction book - it was the first couple of lines in the iOS section! Thanks for the help!

Hello Everyone,

Excited to begin my development with Fusion 2.5.

Small hurdles in starting though. I have elected the build type to be the iOS Xcode project and dragged a simple object into the first frame of my game.

I am interested in how to manipulate this object using the touchscreen. Just the absolute basics. Like - how do I specify in the Event editor that the object has been pressed on by the user's finger? Or that an arbitrary point on the screen has been pressed by the user's finger? How about dragging?

I don't see any blatantly obvious "touchscreen" object with which to interact.

Further, is it suggested that I test my application early and often on a real iOS device?