RPG Questions (Forms vs Links)

[j8h9x]

RPG questions

I have some questions regarding the development of an online RPG that I hope someone can answer.
Thank you in advance for your time.

1. All variables must be stored temporarily in session vars or is it advisable to read/write to the database every single turn?

2. I guess action is best captured via FORM rather than LINKS (with query string vars) in order to hide variables. So, the RPG game becomes one big FORM? Right?

3. Session vars are stored on my server meaning the more players--eventually performance will suffer due to memory limitations? Is this true?

Is there a FAQ anywhere?

[Weedpacket]

1. Any information that is relevant to the ongoing state of the game should be committed to the database (especially since you don't want the game states of different players from drifting out of sync with each other); stuff that's just for convenience that wouldn't break the game if it accidentally disappeared can go in the session.

2. Obvious advantage with the form is that players have more control over what they enter. Obvious disadvantage is that you have less. Whether it's one big form or not is over to you.

3. Eventually performace will suffer due to plenty of other reasons: disk space (which is where session data is stored by default) is not likely to be one of them. If you have so many players connected at once that their loaded session data is hogging core, then you've probably already got bigger problems to worry about.

[xanderman]

a nice example of a php-based rpg is available for download at http://dragon.se7enet.com/dev.php - i learned a fair bit just by going through the code and adding new things. you should be able to get a few ideas from there 🙂

[j8h9x]

Thank you.