MMO: In an applet?

Troubleshooting General Help
1

Hi everyone, thanks for (probably) answering this question again.  I've tried reading everything I possibly can and lurking for a week here before asking for your help.



I have been asked by my board to present to them about how one would make a game with the same functionality as RuneScape.



Meaning:

  1. Runs from an applet
  2. Has basic 3D graphics
  3. Is an MMO environment



    Despite being a programmer for a living, I don't know anything about Java except that my company will need to use the language to generate an applet!



    At the moment I've got this idea in my head that I will need to:
  4. Include a 3D graphics/gaming specific renderer/engine (or write/extend one).  This is how I found jMonkeyEngine!
  5. Include some kind of networking engine (or write/extend one).  Is this Project DarkStar or JGN?
  6. Generate the game itself (or more specifically a WorldBuilder, with which the Game will be made!)



    Please help me to understand the scope and basic methodology of how to achieve the goals above.  I've got to present in 72 hours and I'm a bit lean on detail!





    Thanks,

    Stephen
2

A game like runescape? What you're searching for isn't jME. JME is for high quality games (take that, jagex  :P). RuneScape has it's own 3d engine, they don't use converters of any kind, they need to specially design tools for it. Result? They spend more time in the 3d engine than in the game itself, especially in graphics quality.



To answer your question, it's indeed possible to use jME in an applet, however, we do not recommend to do so. It won't work as smooth as outside as normal. Instead, use Java WebStart, a function that allows you by just clicking a link to start a Java application. The examples at the main page use Webstart, take a look at them.


  1. Jmonkey engine doesn't need to be extended, it has most functionality already in it
  2. JGN is indeed a networking engine. It supports various things, such as scenegraph synchronization and, it's not as hard as doing it the "runescape" way (a good source told me that they still use java.net.Socket)
  3. WorldBuilder? 3ds Max, Milkshape 3d, Blender… to name a few.



    I'm developing a mmorpg too, and my goal is also making something similar (actually, better) to runescape.



    If you wanna know more about how runescape works, there are a few fansites that attempted to decompile runescape. (I personally even ran my private runescape server for a while… ssh… don't tell anyone else, ok?)
3

Thanks again for all your help with my queries SeySayux.



So jME can be used in an applet.  It's not as bug free at this stage as a web-start or application, and is less recommended due to limitations applets place on resources.



JGN can be used to simplify the server/client environment.  Any further insight into what Project Darkstar is from anyone?  Or how it compares to JGN in functionality and scope?



Any other advice regarding limitations an applet MMO would have compared to a traditional client/server application MMO?  Limits on the number of people per server, because of limited RAM, hence each client couldn't display 1000's of character models at once?



Thanks for helping me brainstorm everyone!

4

I'll put in my two-cents, but I'll warn that it's biased since I created JGN. :wink:



JGN isn't at all as large-scale as Darkstar, but I believe that's one of its advantages (lack of bloat if you will).  I'm sure Jeff's going to ream me for my comments here. :wink:



Performance-wise JGN can beat Darkstar hands-down.  I will be fair though and state I have not generated any official statistics to prove this yet though, it was just an early evaluation I did on my own and haven't come back to it yet.  Darkstar has some really powerful features for MMOs though and can make certain aspects a lot easier.  There are several aspects that JGN cannot now and probably will never even try to replicate.



I would really suggest you give both a fair evaluation.  I'm confident if you do you'll end up with JGN, but if you don't please let me know what caused your shift so I can fix it. :wink:



I joke about how much better JGN is than everything else in the universe, but honestly they are two very different systems with two very different goals in mind so simply decide based on which one falls more in line with what you want to do.  JGN does not have the level of testing and use that Darkstar does, but it is currently being used to develop a MMO game right now (my own) and has been used to do networking in many other projects as well.