I downloaded the SDK to check it out and sure enough there is a Unreal Engine plugin included with the SDK. I was just researching this subject couple weeks back and was thinking that there is no reason why this would not work with Unreal Engine. Seems I was quite right. If anyone gives the plugin a go I would sure love to hear how easy it is to get running.
> Would love to hear(read) more about GameLift and if there’s any other good option elsewhere.
I’m working on an open-source game server called Nakama. We are about ~3weeks away from releasing the Unreal Client. Nakama can handle data storage, friends, groups/guilds, realtime chat and multiplayer with a presence system.
It would be super awesome if you could let me know what you think about this and whether it is missing any features etc. I’m one of the devs behind it so if you have any technical question I can answer.
It is pretty much like Photon’s PUN server.
You can’t do much, but for small games it’s a perfect host for your dedicated UE Servers; I though people already knew about this
Basically, as BrUnO mentioned, the primary difference is that GameLift hosts your dedicated server builds on their servers. You use the GameLift dashboard or AWS CLI Tools to upload your builds, then GameLift deploys it across 1 or more AWS EC2 Server Instances ( Windows or Linux Servers Supported ). These instances are organized into Fleets are assigned to builds and provide auto-scaling and multi-tenant capability to handle whatever server load your player base requires. Currently the GameLift SDK’s are more utilitarian in nature, focused on managing these builds, fleets and basic game session management. They don’t have very robust match-making or social features yet, you’ll basically need to roll you’re own ( for now at least ).
Steam on the other hand, purely hosts a master server where your game servers can register their availability and players can create, find and join available games, plus invitations, badges, etc. You and/or your user base will need to host and manage your own dedicated servers. However, Steam provides a lot more integrated community functionality and features on the social, matchmaking and monetization front + voice, etc. Not to mention distribution of your game, game updates and dedicated server tools. It really just depends on how much of an infrastructure you think you’ll really need, what type of budget you can afford and if you’re OK with tightly coupling your multiplayer game features with Steam. There is a free tier for new AWS accounts that can get you going relatively cheap if you’d like to try it out.
There’s now a blog/news post on Unreal Engine page for the topic here. You can also get the plugin from marketplace here
Good conversation on the subject. I would like to point out one thing about these hosting solutions and that is region based servers which means lesser latencies. For example GameLift provides good coverage on entire globe and I’m pretty sure Photon and others have similar solutions. Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think using Steam and GameLift cancel each other out. Granted it might be little more complex to get it working than using purely Steam and the player hosted servers.
Also worth mentioning is that when you use the player hosted servers there is more risk running into foul play. Players running custom servers and cheating are more of a issue when you don’t have full authority of the servers running the game. Then again it depends on the game how much of an issue that is…
@kreivi_krapula:
Yes, Photon does indeed offer several hosting regions around the world for providing low latencies from pretty much everywhere.
See Regions | Photon Engine for a list of currently available regions. Note that we constantly add new regions over time.
GameLift ? Haven’t heard that name in years…
It lacks documentations so hard that I just wanna run away from it. Gonna try photon first, tired of Amazon for particular reasons.
If anyone gives the plugin a go I would sure love to hear how easy it is to get running.
