Since I’ve been developing online games since 1991, many folks have asked me to recommend a 3rd-party network library for their game project. Unfortunately, I can’t! At least I can’t recommend one from personal experience because the projects I’ve worked on — Warcraft, Diablo, Starcraft, battle.net and Guild Wars – were all built on proprietary, […]
Writing Server and Network Code for Your Online Game
April 6, 2012 by 2 Comments
I spoke this year at the Game Developers Conference (GDC 2012) on “Writing Server and Network Code for Your Online Game”. Since I tend to talk quickly, to say the least, I thought it only fair to post my presentation slides for those who attended but didn’t manage to take notes fast enough. I find […]
Installing firewall exception rules programmatically
December 22, 2011 by 5 Comments
Writing installers for applications requires a substantial effort, even when using tools like InstallShield. My challenge for today was to write as little code as possible (because I’m lazy) to configure Windows Firewall exception rules so that the game I’m working on wouldn’t “pop” a dialog box asking the user to configure firewall settings — […]
Your new() is not my new()
November 10, 2011 by 7 Comments
One of the problems I’ve experienced using third-party DLLs is the way that they handle new and delete for C++ classes, which can lead to memory leaks or even memory corruption. This was a particular problem when developing the Guild Wars model and animation exporter for 3ds Max, since 3ds Max uses plugins extensively, many […]
Using transaction rate-limiting to improve service reliability
November 4, 2011 by 8 Comments
I develop and publish multiplayer games for a living, and have discovered some useful solutions for running reliable online services. The one I’m writing about today is how to implement reasonable usage limits so that services are less likely to be abused by hackers. Y’see, hackers find ways to manipulate games by simulating the behavior […]
A better way to update SQL stored procedures
October 30, 2011 by 9 Comments
A common pattern to manage SQL stored procedures is to drop the current procedure and recreate it. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work if you’re trying to run a high-availability service. Here’s the (broken) drop+create pattern: — Delete the stored procedure if it already exists if exists ( select * from sys.objects where name = N’p_MyProc’ and […]
