In the networking video I have shown that the clients connect to a Dedicated Server. But what is that?
Simply put, it is the almost the same thing as the client game, but contains slightly differect code for an Authored Server. The funny thing is that is probably the only Dedicated Server ment for two players only.
"Why did you not go with Peer to Peer networking?" you might ask.
Three reasons:
1) Fairness - in Peer to Peer, one client has the authority do decide the game's outcome and zero latency, while the other client gets lag. With a Dedicated Server, both clients have the same limitations.
2) Cheating prevention - while not all, but surely a lot of cheating can be prevented with a dedicated server. The game and the physics is all done on the server, so client can not directly set score or ball position via a cheat.
3) Tournament possibilites and reliable stats - a Dedicated Server might be connected to a tournament service or stats in a secure way - this enables us to build a backend layer behind the Dedicated Servers that can track stats and game results, etc. With Peer to Peer networking, this would not be reliable since the result sent by the hosting client might be altered on the way.
Disadvantages:
- hosting dedicated servers costs something
- having one dedicated server for evety two players playing is quite a lot of servers
- both clients have latency instead of one
Those are the reasons that perhaps the Peer to Peer networking may be implemented in the game further down the development, for friendly matches where you either know the other player or do not care about possible cheating that much.
But ranked games should be played on the Dedicated Servers.
A Dedicated Server for two players? Huh?
Why did I went with a Dedicated Server for a game with just two clients?
Posted by Diskobolos on
