Spring Architecture

[virajithj]

Hi,

I am new to the Spring game engine and am curious about its server architecture. I have searched around and did not find any articles that could address my questions. I was hoping some one on the forums can help me with the following questions:

1) Does Spring support multiple servers? In other words, can a game which has been developed using Spring be hosted on multiple physical servers at the same time? Are there any games which do this currently? Can a player connect to any one of the multiple servers? Do the different physical servers communicate a lot i.e. what is the bandwidth requirement for the network on which these physical servers communicate?

2) How is the persistent data related to a single user stored? Is a database used? Is this datastore distributed across multiple physical servers or is it stored on a single physical machine? Can the datastore be create on a machine which is different from any of the physical machines which are running the actual game server?

In general, is there a place where I can find a (detailed) documentation of how the game engine is architected.

I would really appreciate any help I can get on this issue.

Thanks a lot,
Virajith

[Jazcash]

Never fear, for FAQ Site is here!

[virajithj]

Never fear, for FAQ Site is here!

I am sorry but are you asking me to post my questions on the FAQ site rather than this forum?

Thanks!

[Jazcash]

Never fear, for FAQ Site is here!

I am sorry but are you asking me to post my questions on the FAQ site rather than this forum?

Thanks!

We're trying to shift all people asking questions to the FAQ site, since your question is a lot more likely to be answered there as its primary use is for asking and answering questions. The forum is supposed to be for discussions, but it's more of a Spring-banter-hub for all things Spring.

[Forboding Angel]

Yes jaz is correct, plus for that matter, I'm guessing that the engine devs pay more attention to questions on the QA site than they do here.

[AF]

And your question is kind of vague, to which part of the engine are you referring to? Your question as it is has such a large scope that one could write an entire book trying to answer it.

[virajithj]

Cool! I posted it on the FAQ site also. Thanks for your replies.

And your question is kind of vague, to which part of the engine are you referring to? Your question as it is has such a large scope that one could write an entire book trying to answer it.

I am referring to the part of the engine which deals with the server side of the things in any game that can potentially be developed from Spring. I think it is specific enough. My main question is: should the game server be hosted on a single physical machine or can the game be hosted using multiple physical servers. Further, is the player data store somewhere? If so, does it have to be the same physical machine as the game server?

Thanks!

[AF]

There is only one host to which all clients are connected to. There was a thread here recently in which a lot of the mechanics were detailed, though I forget which one

[zwzsg]

How is the persistent data related to a single user stored?

Spring is NOT a MMO.

• There is no persistent data to store.
• Every battle is independent.

Only the 2-10 people playing together need to communicate, they don't need any link with the 4 other people playing the same game at the same time in the next battleroom. And once the battle is done, nothing has to be stored.

Well, ok, game time and login/password have to be stored. But that's peanuts, and that's actually handled by the lobby, not Spring engine.

[Neddie]

We do have a ladder which provides optional persistent battle tracking.

[hoijui]

aehm.. this question is clearly NOT meant to be on the new site (answers.springlobby.info)!!

first of all ,that new site is for:

• mod-dev - mod-dev
• mod-dev - engine-dev

and second, it should contain short questions, which will turn up easily in searches, and will serve well for other users having the same question/problem.

this question/these questions do clearly not belong there at all!
even if you call it a FAQ (F => frequently) site as you do, it should be obvious: this is a quite ill defined and specific question. it is very unlikely someone will turn up with this again, as it (like Z pointed out) assumes that spring is an MMO.

The new site is meant to be a useful, high quality pool of answers for mod devs, not to answer all sorts of spring related questions.

[aegis]

not to answer all sorts of spring related questions.

why not? tags separate different kinds of questions pretty well.

[Jazcash]

aehm.. this question is clearly NOT meant to be on the new site (answers.springlobby.info)!!

first of all ,that new site is for:

• mod-dev - mod-dev
• mod-dev - engine-dev

Why should it be? As Aegis said, things are easily sorted with well tagged questions and answers. This is why I suggested making a few simple categories so the site can be used for any Spring-related questions, not just engine questions.

and second, it should contain short questions, which will turn up easily in searches, and will serve well for other users having the same question/problem.

This is what tags are for.

this question/these questions do clearly not belong there at all!
even if you call it a FAQ (F => frequently) site as you do, it should be obvious: this is a quite ill defined and specific question. it is very unlikely someone will turn up with this again, as it (like Z pointed out) assumes that spring is an MMO.

Well I didn't think about it, I meant to say Q & A but regardless, frequently asked questions will, as Tobi said, bubble to the top over time.

The new site is meant to be a useful, high quality pool of answers for mod devs, not to answer all sorts of spring related questions.

I see absolutely no reason why this should be the case. With categories, you "mod devs" could just lurk in the engine section. There are a whole number of other questions that people regularly ask about Spring and I don't see why the forum should have to take a beating because of that.

Just adding simple categories would help a lot. Say, Engine, Mapping, Modding, Lua, General.

[kremmy]

There have been an unnerving number of posts like this, where someone comes in and asks questions which reveal a basic misunderstanding of what Spring is. As was said, these questions made it sound like Spring is being looked at as an MMO. This is par for the course on the internet, but there's something even more disturbing I've come to notice with regard to the instances on this forum. We've gotten posts from people talking about how they're wanting to use Spring in their research projects for higher education degrees, then asking questions that have little to no relation to what Spring is. Such basic misunderstandings, particularly coming from those students, really makes me wonder - whatever happened to spending some time figuring something out before going and asking questions? In this context, it's actually meant to be harsh, because there's a level of due diligence to be expected from anyone - particularly the students looking at Spring as a tool in a research project.

With regard to the first question, it gives me the impression that this user has spent very little time playing the game, has not attempted to host their own games, and is just generally ignorant about what's going on beyond "spring is a network game".

The second question is equally frightening. If they meant with regard to Spring itself, they asked a nonsense question. If they meant with regard to the lobby server, they seem to have skipped spending any time experimenting with it and went straight to asking.

It seems like these guys aren't even giving themselves the context they need to ask a relevant question. It's seriously disturbing. There's only so much use to answering questions when the asking party is so unfamiliar with the context that the answers probably won't make any sense.

[zwzsg]

I'm relieved to see I'm not the only one to get that feeling!

[Neddie]

I'm relieved to see I'm not the only one to get that feeling!

In fact, this is why I often don't post in these threads! I usually don't think the original poster has done the footwork, but I'm simultaneously disinclined to discourage further interest.

[Licho]

It takes nearly no time to ask question compared to searching yourself - it puts work on others :)

I can imagine such people ask in many RTS projects at once and just wait for answers.

[AF]

I'm a little astonished that people are getting the impression we're an MMO at all, especially when we're an RTS engine, they're not exactly famed for their MMO credentials

[SinbadEV]

I did not take his question to imply that he thought spring was an MMO, I think he might think that the games are hosted (files and matches) on the central server as opposed to dedicated hosts or host players.

As far as persistent data it seems like he was asking about user/pass/stats type data... given his misunderstanding of the first part I imagine he would wonder how a user playing Complete Annihilation data would be related to a user playing Conflict Terra... if he did not know about the Server>Lobby>Instance relationship model he would wonder if a user for one "Game" was synchronized with a different "Game's" server.

[Pxtl]

I'm a little astonished that people are getting the impression we're an MMO at all, especially when we're an RTS engine, they're not exactly famed for their MMO credentials

I imagine people just google "free online game engine" or some similar variant and see Spring and post their boilerplate question to the forum.