Topic: multiuser Flash without special server?

I'm making this quiz game, right... and I'm thinking of doing the multiuser back end entirely with PHP and MySQL. A unique table is created for each game, and dropped at the end of it; and then every Flash client calls a PHP script every few seconds to see if there are any significant updates. The "needs update" flag would be set on the server side, so it's not like Flash would be requesting a lot of info every two seconds and making its own decision; instead, it would send a request, and get back either a "no update needed" XML blurb or XML blurbs containing the new information. There's not much data involved anyway -- just a listing of player names, their answers, their point totals.

Since the game isn't real-time, this should work. Players aren't competing to ring the buzzer, they're all answering on a client-side timer, and competing on total points stored server-side. Does anyone have a better suggestion for running a multi-user game/app with Flash? Or any refinements/corrections to my scheme? (And yes, I've looked at that PHP Flash remoting thing, and I doubt I need it enough to try something so completely beta that it doesn't have docs.)

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Flash remoting isn't a multiuser thing, it's simply a nicer way to communicate between Flash and PHP.

Anyways, I've never really liked multiuser apps that rely on a "polling" method to communicate, it just feels messy and regardless of how much data you request it'll likely chew through more bandwidth than a dedicated multiuser server will, and there are a couple of options for this if you're using flash.

Firstly, there's the overpriced and highly restricted Flash Multiuser Server MX -- whilst it streaming audio and video along with server side actionscript (application based code as opposed to client based) which is really handy espically for big apps but it's really not worth the money.

The other options are well, any socket server you can find. I dumped a bunch of links about this over at the GN a little while back and grumble had the Oregano Server ( www.oregano-server.org ) up and running on a basic Dream Host account, probably your best option. Here's a link to the the GN discussion: http://development.gurusnetwork.com/discussion/thread/2343/

Additionally, Piper over at the GN wrote a socket server in Perl for the Guru's Flash Chat -- Steve could probably tell you more about all of that seeing as he built the flash side of it.



Edit: Let us know how you get on with this. I'm considering developing a web gaming network lobby system over the holidays which will tie into various bits and peices I have floating around the place and the oregano server is looking to be the best bet for that thus far.

[This message has been edited by Dracusis (edited 11-09-2003).]

Thanks for the tip -- I'll look into Oregano. Steve, if you happen to see this, I'd appreciate your insight. You and Drac are really proving to be my guiding stars with this (and I regret to say that the questions you bowed out of were beyond the dedicated Flash forums as well; just had to solve 'em by that "2am flash of insight").

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PT - I've read, but haven't had time to respond
(damn house in the suburbs; damn trees; damn autum leaves ....)

But I'll try to in the next day. Sorry

No rush; I'm still working on single-player, I'm just trying to leave things modular enough for later multi.

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