Curious question is all -- is there anything similar to BYOND around, that wasn't built in the 90s? An engine that's as easy to use and as flexible.
I've been looking around and haven't really found anything. Feel free to post engines here that offer the same benefits DM does, if there are any around (mainly the whole taking care of networking part).
ID:1431482
 Nov 27 2013, 10:35 am
|
|
|
Nov 27 2013, 10:37 am
|
|
King_LiOnZ
 |
I haven't found anything close to relation with BYOND at all neither.
|
Probably Unity and GameMaker are your best bets, but as far as I know, there is nothing that has a built-in networking infrastructure. Only idiots would think of developing something like that.
| |
Tom wrote:
Probably Unity and GameMaker are your best bets, but as far as I know, there is nothing that has a built-in networking infrastructure. Only idiots would think of developing something like that. Haha, care to elaborate on that? Is it a daunting task or just bad practice... ? | |
Tom wrote:
Only idiots would think of developing something like that.  Writing A New One wrote: Curious question is all -- is there anything similar to BYOND around, that wasn't built in the 90s? An engine that's as easy to use and as flexible. I believe Aaiko is working on one himself. http://www.byond.com/forum/?post=1431021 | |
I saw that, but I'm wondering if there's anything out there. You'd figure there is, what with how many game engines there are about. The closest I've found offer basic networking, such as: http://www.isogenicengine.com/
I guess BYOND really is one of a kind, even after all of these years. :) | |
There hasn't been anythting like BYOND from what I know. All other engines would probably come equipped with a flexible networking framework, or wrapper functions to something like WinSock, or some other library included. Either way, the networking messages to and from the server/clients would have to be designed yourself.
The pros of having to do it yourself is that you can specify what needs to be sent and received, and drastically cut down on bandwidth while also being able to manage client-sided processing. The cons of course would be that networking can be a hassle if you're not already accustomed to designing such a thing, and can cause bandwidth bloat if you don't know what you're doing. | |
As a programmer, even if you're accustomed to other languages, how much of a benefit is the integrated networking? Does it save a lot of development time when you program with DM, or can you get things done at a similar rate in other languages?
These are all just things I've been wondering. | |
Programming network code in another language is tedious at best, and hair-pulling-out annoying at worst.
You have to cater the networking for your specific application, handle security, timing, etc etc etc... It takes a lot of work, even if you make a framework for it. I'd say the automatic networking on BYOND saves a good month of work at the least, because even when you have your networking code ready it's still gonna take a lot of debugging and tweaking to get working right. With BYOND you know what to expect and the system is built around it. | |
Network code isn't ... too bad, as it goes. However there are two big reasons it's beneficial to avoid, particularly if you're an indie game dev:
1. It's another task, takes effort, design etc 2. You're probably not all that good at it. Networking is not too ridiculously bad to do well, but it does require a bit of planning, and usually that kind of planning is the anti-thesis of quick prototyping development, which game devs usually need to adopt to establish if an idea is worth pursuing further. Same goes, it requires a bit of education and prior learning, which a first time game dev won't have done. Even professionally, it can be a bit of a rare skill in the workforce, hence a large part of my employability is my design skill in large scale networked systems. | |
