Looking for advice on Java game server

Time4Tea · 2018-07-17T15:15:54

This is linked to another question that I asked here a couple of days ago: I'm looking at making a client-server game with a game server programmed in Java. The game will be a 2D turn-based game (like a board game), with a maximum of around 50-100 games going on at any one time. So, the performance requirements are not very high. The reason I would like to use Java for the server are because I already have some familiarity with it and I would like the server to not be tied to one particular platform. I would also like to design it so that the client interface to the server is as generic as possible, so that the same server could be used with multiple different clients. For example, there might be a web-based client, or someone else might design a stand-alone 3D client application later on, using the same server. So, I am looking for some advice on where to start with this, as I have very little experience with coding servers. I was planning to use web sockets for the client-server connection, which apparently uses Java EE (Enterprise Edition), which seems to require the use of the GlassFish server. However, I have been advised that a fully-fledged application server, like GlassFish, may be overkill for a game server. So, here are my questions: Should I use something like GlassFish? Does it makes sense for the type of game server I am describing? If not, then what sort of networking protocol/library would experienced Java game designers recommend? Are there any existing, general-purpose Java game servers that exist, which I might be able to use as a starting point? (Or even free software/open-source client-server games?) Or, should I look at coding my own game server from scratch? In which case, again, what sort of connection type/library would be recommended? Does anyone know of any suitable introductory tutorials that deal with how to make this sort of game server in Java? I guess my priority is probably minimizing the learning curve and the amount of time/effort involved, over performance. How much effort is this sort of undertaking going to require? Thanks in advance! :-)

Networking and Multiplayer Programming 2D Advice Java

Started by Time4Tea January 30, 2018 03:41 AM

16 comments, last by d000hg 6 years, 4 months ago

Time4Tea

Author

February 05, 2018 10:33 PM

Something else I'm wondering about is how/where to actually host the server. As I'm a fan of free software and want to use as much of it as possible in this project, I've been looking into free-software alternatives to Amazon Web Services. This page here seems to list several interesting options:

http://101.datascience.community/2013/06/07/open-source-alternatives-to-aws/

Does anyone have any experience of using any of these? Any recommendations for any that would be particularly well-suited for hosting a web-based game implemented in Java?

Sorry for asking so many questions, but it seems that there is quite a lot of research and planning to do, just to figure out where to start with this!

ddyer

262

March 04, 2018 12:28 AM

There are several open source java game platforms, which you should at least look at before rolling your own from scratch. One I've had some contact with is "Jogre" on sourceforge.

You won't do terribly by starting from scratch on the server part, but based from Tomcat.

You can rent a VPS cheaper than using AWS or similar cloud based, and have the flexibility of having a whole virtual box to yourself.

---visit my game site http://www.boardspace.net - free online strategy games

hplus0603

11,938

March 04, 2018 04:12 PM

You can rent a VPS cheaper than using AWS or similar cloud based

Amazon, and the other cloud services, are almost exactly the same thing as a "VPS."

Amazon Lightsail starts at $5/month. (Albeit with a small amount of RAM -- I think 512 MB?)

Linode gives you 1 GB of RAM for the same price.

And, in all of these "virtual/cloud server" cases, you have the "virtual" server for yourself, but you may have "noisy neighbors" hosted on the same physical piece of hardware. The only way around that problem, if you suffer from it, is to rent full servers. However, for a turn based game, that's unlikely to be a problem.

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ddyer

262

March 04, 2018 08:17 PM

4 hours ago, hplus0603 said:

Amazon, and the other cloud services, are almost exactly the same thing as a "VPS."

You're right, these things change very fast!

---visit my game site http://www.boardspace.net - free online strategy games

Charley_43613

July 17, 2018 04:46 AM

On 1/30/2018 at 8:36 PM, hplus0603 said:

Thus, you could use a Node.js server with socket.io for translating websockets to your server mechanism, you could use an nginx/PHP gateway to translate polled HTTP to your server, and you could use something in Erlang to translate between mobile phone UDP packets and mobile push.

@hplus0603Taking away the Erlang translation, would the rest of the development process stated in your response still be applicable for non-mobile functionality? Also, if I am to use a "virtual/cloud" server, it doesn't take away any of the surrounding functionality in the quoted response needed to get this job done does it?(I.e. messaging system, front-end gateway, etc)

Charley_43613

July 17, 2018 04:57 AM

On 1/30/2018 at 8:36 PM, hplus0603 said:

Of course, if you'll only ever use a single server, and don't need scalability, just rolling it all into one is simpler, by far, and costs less to get started, too (no need to spin up and manage multiple different server processes.)

The only general-purpose Java game server I've tried to use was Darkstar, and it ... didn't scale. I don't recommend it.

Regarding my previous post, I was referring to this comment of using a general-purpose server. And by not able to scale, you mean accommodate for more users/requests efficiently, not restricting the Java code itself. For my purposes, I want as much of the application logic as possible on the client-side.