database help please

#1 Do a search for the odbc resource, there's more than one. It allows you to access odbc data sources within TGE/TGEA/TGB.

#2 As of a few years ago, sqlite also worked for TGE. Is this still a viable option for TGE and TGEA?

#3 I've used SQLite before, though not recently, and not for Torque.
One advantage is that it creates a fully self-contained database in a single file - so all you need is the SQLite code. No need to have something like MySQL installed, and no need for an odbc driver.

It might be worth you investigating that.

#4 thanks ill take a look into it and let ya know if i have any more specific questions. on sqlite what kinds of limitations does it have. im assuming its a striped down with the lite name anyway

#5 Sorry to say it but if you're working on an MMO then the odbc/sqlite resources mentioned are going to be too slow to handle the volumes of players that will be online.

Reading and writing to a database is one of the slowest things that a game engine can do - you're much better looking at the event driven database resource as it runs in a seperate thread or even having a seperate server just for database requests.

Unfortunately neither solution is a simple one, it's just one of the obstacles to overcome with an MMO and why it's always suggested that Indies and especially those without a lot of development background don't try writing them as you'll get stuck.

My advice John would be to scale your project down to work on a smaller game first, learn about databases, game development and if you still want to tackle an MMO then try and take it on.

#6 well to say its a full blown mmo might be a little misleading at the moment altho that is our overall goal. what we are looking at right now is making it so that it works probly more along the lines of guildwars if that big even. we want to make a multiplayer rpg where atleast 15-20 people can work together to acomplish their goals and expand it from there. the big problem im having at the moent is that it is a rpg and as such we intend to have alot of skills and a robust crafting system aswell as having to track the players ever changing inventory. the shooting for the stars goal is ofcourse to come up with something to rival eq or wow tho our setting is more to the scifi with fantasy elements. what our imediate goals are tho is just to get a working game we can all play together that has alot for charater progression and crafting. at the same time we are trying to figure out the best way to try to program it to be easily expandable and to allow us to move forward with the project as we go along.

this is actually a game idea that was originally developed by me and some friends over a decade ... wow.. now that i think about it , almost 2 decades ago.. as a mud and with the changes in the industry and personal computers we want to move it to the realm of 3d graphics. we had someone who was able to do all this stuff when we started it bu he has sence been hired by sony online and can nolonger work for us. unfortunate for our project, but there was no way we could hold it agenst him, he is makin the big bucks now and we are still trying to decide between rent and new software....

as to the event driven db, where can i find more about that, and yea we figured it would be a seperate computer if not 2 running databases and probly also a seperate box for every coupple zones in the begining eventually ending with each zone on its own server. we do have a pretty good idea of the beast we are trying to tackle, we just arnt quite sure how to get it to the ground and roped yet. we also realize that it will be a good 4-6 years to do for a small team before the over all goals are met. we are not necessarily idealistic dreamers just very determined.. or as my GF just added, stubborn as hell. we will make it happen, just not sure how yet

#7 Along the lines of what Andy Rollins was saying, read this first. It's a little thing I wrote up on how to go about making an MMO.

As to DB performance, ODBC isn't going to kill you. True, if you have the numbers of players that a mainstream MMO has, you may need to do a different implementation of database communications, but you'll know before you launch if you have to from the reaction to your game in the media.

Quote:the shooting for the stars goal is ofcourse to come up with something to rival eq or wow tho our setting is more to the scifi with fantasy elements.

Now here, you're going to fail, even if your MMO succeeds. And the reason why is that you should never make a game with an aim to unseat a game like WoW. There are reasons why WoW was successful that have nothing to do with MMOs, and unless you replicate the success of Blizzard's other games for about ten years before releasing the IP of those other hit games into an MMO, you're not likely to even replicate WoW's success, much less exceed it. Your first order of business is to understand some of the business aspects of MMOs before you look to make your own. You'll be much better off for it.

Quote:we are trying to figure out the best way to try to program it to be easily expandable and to allow us to move forward with the project as we go along.

The game rules should be simple and consistent, leaving content as the hard part. A trick would be to test your rules in something like Excel first, or test it in pen and paper sessions.

#8 i know we arnt likely to ever come close to taking on wow, i was one of the first in line to get it for exactly the reasons you mentioned. not only do they have an amazing track record but i have and love all the warcraft games. there was initially a large built in player base for this game too, i had talked to kevin sembedia about doing his rifts games but we ended up changing so much of the core game system that we decided to make our own game. tho once the core is done i think i would still like to drop it into his world if he will let us. its just such a rich rp location. that happens when you have been building a world for 20 years tho

edited for spelling

#9

Quote:i had talked to kevin sembedia about doing his rifts games

Are you the reason why he never returned my emails?? lol

#10 would be about 3-4 years ago? we only talked a fiew times and basicly he said someone was already working on something but to give it a go and show him what we came up with. and about a month later the only "real" programmer we had was hired by sony leaving the project prettymuch dead in the water for about a year and a half, we kept hashing out ideas but noone knew any, well enough, coding to do any testing

#11

Quote:would be about 3-4 years ago?

Actually quite a bit more recently. Neither here nor there though, since I'm working on my own now :)

#12 hey ted is there any chance there is a better way to get in touch with you? would like to ask you about what i already have and what you think of it, and where an experienced eye sees us as being. if you dont mind ofcourse

#13 My email's in my profile (now). Feel free to email me.

#14 will get back to you as soon as i can, but quite literally just found out we are pregnant again. which probly meens moving again as we barely fit in this place

#15 ok i sent you the game doc but it came back as a mailer daemon and it was a cut and paste from your profile, might want to check for typos

#16 I verified that. Somehow, when you cut and paste, it inserts a null character into the email address that resolves out to Ted@nullDigitalFlux.com. Take out "null" and you're good to go :) I'm going to see if a profile edit fixes that now...

#17 Oh, and by the way: Congrats on the pregnancy :)

#18 ok, finally got it sent off, and thanks