How to make a game for P2P and Dedicated Networking

Development Programming & Scripting Multiplayer & Networking
, , ,
1

First a bit of background: I am currently in the process of developing my game from the ground up to be networked. However, when I initially launch the game, I would like to not have to pay for dedicated servers until I’m sure that I will make enough money from the game to support it. So when I first launch, I would like to launch with P2P networking, and later transition to dedicated servers. I have to date been building my game for the dedicated server model, but I would ideally like to be able to support both models, and possibly even have support for LAN games.

Today I tried running my game in a simple P2P model where Client A spawns the map in “listen” mode and Client B connects to Client A. Since I have mostly developed with the idea that there is a dedicated server, things naturally did not work out so well. I would have to adapt my code alot to take into account that the Authority could also possibly be a player in the game, as opposed to just being a moderator.

I woudl like to get some opinions on which model would work better for a game looking to support both P2P and Dedicated servers:

  • Option A: Build the game so that it takes into account all the possibilities for both modes. Pro is that all logic is contained in 1 process, Con is that it will create additional complexity each time a new feature is added which requires network replication.

  • Option B: When the game is started, the host would launch a dedicated server as a separate child process. Pro is that it’s literally identical code for P2P and Dedicated, Con is that the host will need to bear the additional processing cost of a separate process

I am curious what are some thoughts on these two options, and possibly other options that I may not be considering.

Thank you for your time.

2

Basically require players to run server executable and client executable. Then use their server to communicate to other clients and their own.

I too would like peer to peer it seems unreal removed it from Trello. For true P2P you can use current model but would need each player to run a client and server instance. Then brute force ip search for anyone with your game. I think you would need to create a virtual port on one of the common open ports to avoid legal issues. Which is something I’m working on now.

3

Sorry I never answered this. This is what I ended up doing. Separate process for client and server is best, and the additional cost is not much for the host if their machine is decent.