Im jumping ahead of my development progress here to touch on how I will keep track of massive amounts of data. Right now I am using data tables, but every time I load the game all of my characters stats are set to default from the Data Table they are created from.
Eventually I wil need to keep track of mutiple players, 100’s or 1000’s if Im lucky. Each of those players will have a collection of characters, and each of those characters will have various stats, like Level and Experience to Next Level. In addition each of those characters will have a collection of items, like armor, and each of those items can also be leveled up and otherwise improved.
I assume I need to set up a database, like MySQL or something, but I have no idea where to begin and finding documentation on this is exceedingly difficult. Everything I find is assuming your trying to save your single player game. I am NOT trying to create a save file, this is completely different scenario.
If you guys know a resource to point me to that would be awesome.
You would need a database to store all those data. AWS DynamoDB is one of the solution we used for one of our games. Its an object oriented database so its the best solution for what you just mentioned. SQL on the other hand needs to be tables with variables, you may end up having to make multiple tables with relations. Our solution was a mix of both using APIs to communicate between AWS DynamoDB and MsSQL. oh and DynamoDB is way faster than SQL if setup properly.
here is a plugin you can use for that. its a bit pricy but worth every penny if you are looking to patch things up quickly
I did a lot of reading up on DynamoDB and it seems the way to go. Scales nicely so if my game takes off I dont have to worry so much about being able to handle the traffic. I also dont need to build/manage/maintain the server, and cost is basically on use, so I can set up test stuff and not have to pay anything up front. In addition, there is a client you can put on your PC if you want to as a way to test it before deploying to AWS.
I did set up some tables and create some test items.
Still not clear what a LIST or a MAP attribute is for exactly. From what I gather, LIST is for single values, so 1-1, etc… while … still confusing but i did find their documentation on it though it was hard to find. I think they assume you know what LIST and MAP is.