This is the way I am trying to design my basic network for my boixng game. 1.) There is a central server, this server has the login information, and the user profiles/stats and everything on that computer. When someone turns the game on, it connects to that server.... they log in.... then the central server sends over a list of possible "playing" servers that are available... you can then transfer to one of those servers to play.. My biggest problem is, how to provide this "transfer" to the playing server.... I figured, maybe have the central server, send the players Ip number over to the playing server they are joining, along with there stats, user info, etc.. everythign needed for them to play.... then the user's computer will connect to that server, the server will check the users IP number with the list it has from the central server of clients to be expecting, if it matches it lets you in.. and everything proceeds fine from there.... 2.) After you win or finish playing or whatever on the playable server, it will then send all the new stats and updates to the central server for "safe keeping" in the files and such. 3.) To allow for lots of outside non controlled by me servers to pop up, I would have the "playable" server app, send a request message to the central server to become activated, this will be a TCP/Ip connection and the playable server will remain connected with the central server for as long as that playable server is online.. Like this the central server has a list of Ip's to send the clients when they join... also like this, it makes the game still be "controlled" by me, forcing everyone who joins the game to still go through my central server, for such things as if there is a monthly user fee invovled or antyhing, but still giving the freedom for peopel to have there own servers and basicallyt to take some of hte bandwidth load off of me. does anyone see any problems arranging things this way? Would this method be reasonable secure, and would it gurantee that I could still maintain control of everything, such as keeping player stats "accurate"...... and implementing montly fee's... [edited by - boxingonline on May 4, 2004 11:43:03 PM]

If its a boxing game, why do you need servers to play games? Wouldn''t it be better for the clients to connect to each other?

Well there are a few reasons to not have the players connect to each other:

- If they connect directly to each other, you have big problems with firewalls and routers, sometimes making it nearly IMPOSSIBLE for one of them to host the game if they are both on routers/firewalls

- If they are connecting to each other, it makes it MUCH harder to have who won, and various other game related info be recorded for such things as rankings and such which will be a HUGE aspect of the game. Also without a "unbiased" server watching over everymove its much easier for cheating

- Also as mentioned in my origional post, I want to be able to charge monthly fee''s possibly at some point in the game''s history if they simply connect directly to each other, cannot mainting that sort of control over the users

- The last reason to not have them direclty connect... is I have alreayd written the whole game to revolve around one playable server, have not made it revovle around a central server with many playable servers yet.., However,I do not see any good reason to go back and rewrite all my networking code to have it function directly connected to one another

Ok, I see why you want game servers instead of peer to peer.

But, if you allow them to run their own servers you will have a lot of the same problems as peer to peer with cheating. Only the people running the servers would have a lot of power to cheat. And you will run the risk of them circumventing your central server, so you will have to do a lot of authentication.