Programming Multiplayer Games

Rating:
Summary: Fails to impress
Review: Doom. Quake. Call of Duty. All are popular multiplayer games and many a person has dreamed of coming up with the next winner. The title of this book is thus a masterstroke of marketing simplicity, sure to capture the attention - and hearts - of many.

Yet, it fails to impress right from the onset. To start, the book is specifically about programming online multiplayer games, specifically Web-based multiplayer games - so immediately visions of producing the next Quake are out the window.

That said, the authors present their formula for successful code-cutting with TCP/IP sockets, MySQL and PHP4. These are hot, popular technologies and all are freely accessible to any programmer and hence mean anyone can hope to get into the biz with no real cost - just as well, given the hefty price tag of the book itself!

However, a book about programming is not necessarily a book about programming games. In this case, it's not until page 427 (of 542) that the mechanics of the sample game itself are discussed. Instead, the bulk of the text is dedicated to tutorials on PHP and MySQL and a very lengthy and wasteful custom network library. The value of these tutorials is very dubious: the eventual game does not use a database, for instance, to save the status of a game but instead to facilitate on-line chat between players in the "pre-game lobby". Neither does the game itself use PHP. The game does - of necessity - use TCP/IP but the sheer amount of space devoted to a custom library of routines makes little sense, especially because the network library produced has no special game-oriented functionality. The authors themselves do little to explain its inclusion, giving the sole reason, "Microsoft DirectPlay could be used but does not cater for UNIX".

Ultimately, this book has potential value. Disregard the title and it does serve well as an introduction to a multitude of good technologies, but there is little here for experienced programmers.

Rating:
Summary: Very cliche and trivial
Review: I agree with the poster below. I purchased the original book from these guys a couple of years back and I thought it was okay. I read this one on the shelf around 30 minutes ago and realized it wasn't too different. Now it seems they stay on the topics that many programmers have gone through time and time again. It certainly doesn't start with these authors, this is a definiton of many computer books on the shelves these days. They spend half the book to explain and reiterate over concepts that many developers have been through time and time again. These concepts are probably covered in the books around it on the shelf as well. Authors that create tech books need to realize that with the economy the way it is there are probably way more programmers with decent experience than there are newcomers to the field. I myself have probably been writing SQL and studying TCP longer than the authors, I don't need all this coverage of such simple topics just to have the code section of the game crammed into that last few parts.

Hopefully next time a multiplayer game book is written the authors will cover advanced topics as well as do's and don't's in the realm of multiplayer game programming and server creation and optimizing.

Rating:
Summary: Not a good Intermediate Level Book
Review: I was eagerly awaiting this book, after reading much hype on the web. Finally it was here!!! However my joy at this turn of events turned somewhat to dismay upon reading the book. Why?

Let's start with a page breakdown:
542 pages not including index.

Page #: Official Title
My summary

001-014: Intro to Windows Programming
How to create a project using Visual Studio
015-055: Using Databases
How to install MySQL and explanation of Queries
057-101: Creating Web-Based Server Interfaces
How to install Apache and intro to PHP<->MySQL
103-113: Intro to TCP/IP
What is TCP/IP?
115-162: Basic Sockets Programming
Intro to socket/bind/accept/listen/connect/close etc.
163-177: I/O Operations
Threads/Blocking/Broadcast

Part 2: The Tutorials

181-203: Using 2DLIB
How to use 2DLIB with Visual Studio Projects
205-304: Creating Your Network Library
Design and function of dreamSock library for networking
305-369: Creating a Basic Network Application with dreamSock
Client and Server Using dreamSock
371-425: Creating the Game Lobby
Front End for Logging in and Instantiating Games
Uses MySQL for user and passwd, etc.
427-542: Creating your Online Game
Creation of a very basic move and shoot 2 player game.
Using overhead viewpoint. No persistance, MySQL only
used for login, chat and front-end functions.

Now as an Intermediate level book, and touting the MySQL/PHP use, I have to admit I was expecting something a little more in-depth when it comes to the actual Multiplayer Games part.

For example I assumed that the Database would be used by the game for some purpose (Object library, persistance, player data, etc). Instead it's used for login functions, chat and front-end functions.

The creation of a new/proprietary network library seems excessive, and takes up nearly 20% of the book, adding little to understanding how to program Multiplayer(2) games.

I can understand why you wouldn't want to put too detailed of a game in the book itself, as each developer probably has their own game design goals in mind, but the included game is a toy, and has been implemented to death in many other versions.

In short I "might" recommend this book to a Newbie developer who had no knowledge of any of the topics, and was looking for an intoduction to "on-line" non-persistant games, but I cannot recommend this book for anyone familiar with the various topics listed above.