Re: A few thoughts on client/server in multi-player games

["Carl Edman" <>]

 writes:    

>     No, the ideal protocol would work something like this:
>     

>    Server -> client
>    map 1 2 floor
>    map 1 3 floor
>    map 1 4 firewall
>   

>     [ Client notices the name 'firewall'.  Checks its cache (either
>     on disk   or in memory) and find it has no image associated with
>     the name   'firewall' ]
>     

> Trouble with that is with name conflicts on different servers, that
> have added similar, yet contradictory, items. Reference my previously
> sent mail for a different idea.

Such name conflicts may very rarely happen but it is hardly tragic if a  
user sees one artists idea of a "vampire" instead of anothers.  Keeping  
completely distinct data bases for each server just to avoid this rare  
and at very worst slightly annoying occurence is both a waste of disk  
space and bandwidth.  Remember, clients may not have multi-gigabyte  
disk arrays -- they may be little Macs and PCs or normal users on large  
systems with a very limited quota for games.

	Carl Edman