Hi Clars,
The MUS is definately a good choice to develop a game like that. I have
done a fair bit of programming with it and found it to be very stable,
reliable and easy to use. As far as documentation goes, MUS has been
treated like a foster child by Macromedia. However, it's been around long
enough for plenty of good demos to be floating around.
For starters, Macromedia has published one (the only one?) PDF document
that covers the methods of the Xtra. It's on the Macr site. Besides,
there's also a section on the site handled by a developer by the name Sally
or Sarah. I'm not too sure. Hit a search on either of those names on the
Macr. site. I've learnt most of my MUS from the demos there. They're not
very elaborate on aesthetics, but functionally sound.
To play games, users would connect to a server that runs the Multiuser
Server application. This ships with the Director cd or you can download it
from the Macr site. It runs on PC and (maybe) on the Mac too. Most servers
however, are WinNT/2000 boxes. So I guess you won't have much choice on
that. You'll have to ask your ISP to install the MUS application on the
server and keep it running all the time. It doesn't run as a service on
WinNT/2000, so he'll have to place it in the startup folder.
Besides these things, keep some other things in mind such as:
1) Anticipate errors. Your users will not always be able to send or revieve
data correctly. They might not even be able to connect. Provide a timeout
function or atleast a Cancel/Retry button.
2) Minimise message frequency. Rather than sending moves on every
exitFrame, send them only when the player changes position.
The MUS 3 was released recently. Do have a look at it. I suppose you can
still use most of the older commands on it. And it has some nifty new
features that could help out.
There was a thread a while back on this list that spoke of alternatives to
the MUS application. You might want to have a look at them too.
Regards,
Pranav
-----------------------------------------------------------
"Simply stated, it is sagacious to eschew obfuscation."
--Norman Augustine
<obliterated>
I am looking for some general comments as to approaches to a multiuser
game.
We are working on a turn-based (board) game for shockwave.....
....I'm looking for rants and raves on the multiuser Xtra! Is it stable
enough? Is it well-documented enough? Do I need special server
configurations to run it.
<obliterated>
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