I'll be looking into making a fighting game over the Xmas holidays...
But other than that a multi-player RPG is on the most part impossible, while multi-user dungeons are quite possible and plausible. But there wouldn't be any storyline and it'd probably be (to mis-quote Al) "a quick-fire fight-fest".

What came first, the Chicken or the Egg?

The technical demands of hosting a QuestNet game are out of realistic reach of most of us too - even if I wrote a QuestNet game, I couldn't "serve" it - I just don't have the facilities.

I'm guessing most of us who could write a QuestNet game are in the same boat here

quote:

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There are no games because there are no players and no one wants to spend aged writing a game if there are no players.

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I MEANT to write...

There are no players because there are no games and no one wants to spend aged writing a game if there are no players.

I got the point Al : )

I guess the only way to host the game was if it was a kind of "tournament" version of the released game, and it had a web-site with a (I think an ideal example:) count-down timer to the next tournament, with different "rooms", a scoreboard, ect...

Also, I don't think QuestNet has the most important feature yet - username/password abilities. Without these it's impossible to make sure players have the correct settings/items ect... From the last time they played the game. Also a sevrer type QSG-file where it saves players info - their stats, their locations ect...

This will require ALOT of attention to really get off the ground. I suggest Alex concentrate on Quest first, then once the major stuff is there, get to QuestNet and concentrate on that...

This being said, I'm willing to host a game if anyone's interested in writing one. All you'd have to do is send me the ASL.

But CW is right, the biggest issue right now is the utter lack of a "save" feature--there's no convenient way to record statistics, inventories, etc., and allow a player to log off and log back on later to resume exactly where they left off. This feature has been discussed in another thread, here: http://www.axeuk.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/000032.html .

My solution to the lack of a save feature is to have a returning user simply enter in some sort of code that would be descrambled by a script and then restore the proper variables. If you have an RPG, you need to store, say, hit points, experience, and gold, at a minimum. So if you just have a returning user at the beginning of a game type in CODE NUM1 NUM2 NUM3, you'd be able to at least reconstruct those stats.

Inventory is trickier. My thought, again in an RPG scenario, is that you only keep track of (and only allow the player to have) 2 things: a weapon and some armor. You can have up to eight options available for each, but the player can only store one at a time. You use a two-digit number to represent the status of the inventory: armor is the first digit, weapon is the second. The number 1 for both means that the player didn't have that particular item. So, a code of 11 means no armor, no weapon. Numbers 2-9 all represent different items. So a code of 12 means no armor, knife as a weapon. 22 means leather armor, knife as a weapon, and so on. You then run a script that gives the player the appropriate items at the beginning of the game.

[quote]
It's easier to host a server if you have a cable modem (points to himself). I have an IP that's constant and my computer is virtually always on. This doesn't guard against crashes, but I could host a server probably 99% of the time.

(snip)

CW is right, the biggest issue right now is the utter lack of a "save" feature--there's no convenient way to record statistics, inventories, etc.,
[/quote}

Well I've a 1Mbps 'broadband' connection - but frankly I can't allow my machine to be on 24/7 JUST to serve a Quest game (I need it for too many other things, some of them critical to my work) and I'd definitely want to dedicate a separate PC to do nothing but have the Quest game running on it - I don't need the security hassles of trying to protect other stuff on my principal machine!

The lack of 'save' in QuestNet is a little bit problematical, but far from impossible to work around. My solution at this stage would be to create a "passcode" that the player is given on leaving the game, which when re-input on rejoining the game is decoded to leave him where he was before. It would be a fairly cryptic code - (a bit like a MS CD-Key) and probably rather long, but not that hard to code really.

If you had 5 items, 5 rooms and only a couple of stats then yes - you could mangle them up into a pretty short 10 or less code.

Possibly random codes for various states (don't forget their health now). Ie 45guhR5 for a guy with a primitive sword, full health in the start room. 34jbn03G97Cc for a guy with low health, but great armour and weaponry, with a key. and 2fF for a guy with full health all items and in 5th room.

I know these code's aren't what you (bjbest) had in mind - but it makes the game hack-ish proof. Meaning people can't really fool around with the numbers/letters to get better stuff.

But if you had a giant game with 1000+ rooms, then still with 5 items and 5 choices of health you're talking of alot of different code's you're talking about... Think with MORE than 5 items and some money involved, plus a numerical health meter, this would not be good for pass-codes.

This method would be good for other games, but not MUD-type games nor multi-RPG's.

This *is* restricted a bit since it IS a text game, but you can get a huge variety of stuff I guess.

The good (IMO) way to do it would be to have a blank room, named "BlankRoom", with NO detail whatsoever.
When the player types "create #roomname#" then just clone "BlankRoom" and give it the Alias "#RoomName#".
After that the choice is up to you how to add it to the current room (putting it as an Exit? Assigning it to North/Sounth/East/West), and let the players customise the properties of the room.

Also, how did you get the game to SAVE the data?