I had a couple of questions I was hoping to get some help with.
For an MMO type game, we want a database of items, like weapons for example. We want to build the framework so you can then add a new weapon by filling in certain fields. Weapon type, damage, recharge, ammo capacity, rarity, level, etc. how would you do this in Unreal? Is there a SQL type database system for items?
Do big MMO type games use an external DB like SQL to store a weapons table, enemy table, item table and so on? or is this all done in Unreal?
We don’t want to custome code each mission, item, enemy. We want to create a structure so it is easy to add a new mission by filling in all the fields on the developer side. Is this possible with Unreal? if so, what should we be looking at? Are there plugins for this? Examples?
It’s more complicated than just storing information in a database for an MMO. Yes, all MMO’s that I know of use an external database engine to do permanent storage. However, writes from the player’s client > to the server-side game engine/router > to the database takes way too much time for a modern real-time MMO. Writes to hard disks are extremely slow compared to manipulating data in memory.
Usually, the way MMO’s resolve this is by loading all pertinent data/information into a memcache/in-memory table/something that can be manipulated at the memory level. Then, any changes to this data in-memory on the server-side would be sent to a write queue, where the server would then proceed to do the write operation on the database to save the information permanently.
you need a server to do db transactions for security reasons. don’t expose your db to the internet!
MMO’s usually are client-sever, the simplest server type is a rest interface server. more complicated games like WOW uses proprietary c++ servers doing all the logic with their own protocols.