[gameprogrammer] Re: development model

[Kevin Jenkins <gameprogrammer@rakkar.org>]

> > I did some searches and I did find an
> > article on gamasutra that gives a high level overview of how this
> > would be done. I wanted to get some opinions. What types of
> > developments models are people implementing for their games?
>
> Server-based multi-player games are heavily reliant on separating the
> component into model, view, and controller - the controller can't
> directly impact the view (much) because it depends so much on the model,
> and the model is separated from the controller and the view by the network.

I'm sorry but this is wrong and a huge oversimplification.  In 
practice, multiplayer games have some of the code on the client and 
some of the code on the server.  Sometimes some parts of the code is 
shared.  The model of a necessity differs between system.  As does the 
view.  The controller is shared among the client and server, sometimes 
on one, sometimes on the other, sometimes on both.  Some examples of 
this are:

Scoping: Not all systems know about all data
Interpolation: What you see is an interpolation of the last known 
network data, which in itself isn't necessarily what is on the server.
Local updates: So you can see your gun start shooting before the 
network actually knows about it.
Anti-cheating: Server overrides the input of the client.

I've written 7 multiplayer games and am working on an MMOG and not 
once have I even considered model / view / controller for the client / 
server networking part.  It's not even applicable to the problem. 
Where I have used is in GUI design and there it's very useful, not in 
itself so much as in code reuse between games.

The way to think about design patterns is not "How does this apply to 
gameplay programming" but "How can I modularize the components of my 
game in such a way that they will be more flexible and reusable 
without an undue loss of speed or reliability?"  To the credit of 
design patterns, oftentimes the best solution follows a design 
pattern. But not always and not at the level of construction, which is 
where most design takes place.


---------------------
To unsubscribe go to http://gameprogrammer.com/mailinglist.html