Hi all,

what are the best practices to keep data synchronized in a multiplayer game?

Is usually the server responsible to send up to date data based on the order at which it receives the events from the clients?

Think for instance of a shooter game where players have rechargable shields:

the simplest way that I can think of is that the server receives a "hit" event and then computes the up to date shield value of the hit player according to the time from the game start at which it _receives_ the event.

Then the server sends the new shield value of the hit player to all of the clients (including the shooter player) that simply accept the new value.

Has anyone ever thought of a strategy to move this computation away from the server?

Is it something it is worth enough to think of, anyway?

Many thanks.

Probably > 50% of the posts in the multiplayer and networking forum talk about this question.

There is no one "best" way, because what kinds of trade-offs you choose depend on the particular needs of your game.

The FAQ for this forum (stickied at the top) contains a number of links to a variety of articles on the subject for different kinds of games.

Some good articles to start with include:

"1,500 archers on a 28.8 modem"

"zen of networked character physics"

"source engine networking"