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Is unity multiplayer matchmaking paid?
Hi, I have a decent idea for a mobile game, in short, games are going to be about 2-3min long with 2 or maybe 4 players in one game, the map is really small since it's a 2d game, this is obviously is a multiplayer game, but I don't want it to be a mess with ip's and all that stuff, so...
My MAIN question is :1) can I make the game with a matchmaking system for free?
Also :2) I am thinking instead of dedicated servers I would use Peer 2 Peer connection, is it free?
3rd and last) is there any benefit for me of waiting for the new "Connected games" system to come out or is my game simple enough that I can just use mirror? (one thing to note is that my game will have a lot of collision checking so is mirror reliable enough)
I heard that it is paid to some extent with limitations on number of players and servers or something along the lines, but I am not sure cuz I did not find much on this, can you give me any sort of information because frankly, I am pretty uneducated in this area of unity. Thanks in advance.
Yes all the multiplayer systems have a free tier. Even for a system like Photon, you do have to implement the matchmaking logic yourself so at first it may seem like they provide everything for you, but really they just provide the proxy and an API to connect to hosts. There will still be plenty of coding involved to get a multiplayer game working.
Photon and Photon Bolt allow up to 100 CCU (Concurrently Connected Users ) free, regardless of dedicated or peer to peer.
One primary decision for any multiplayer game is, who will be the host? You already suggested peer-to-peer, which you will want to have a Proxy/Relay service handling connections which Photon providers (not sure about Mirror but doubt it). The simplest system is allowing any player to be a host, but for "instant match" type games most popular games spawn a game server instance to host the game temporarily and shut it down after the match. Spawning a game server can be done using a service like Gamelift or Playfab Game Servers, but it may be possible to create your own system although that would involve even more work. The services for spawning a server instance don't provide free tiers that I know of.
For Photon, you don't need to worry about IPs or how to connect - it has a proxy system in place to connect players and you use their API to find games and connect to them. For instant-match type games you would still use their API to connect to the server host, probably by some kind of unique ID to find it once the instance is running.
Proxy/relaying is important for any multiplayer game and I recommend you use a system that has it. Photon and Photon Bolt do but I'm not sure if Mirror supports proxy/relay which is important for any multiplayer game, since you don't want people to try to figure out how to do port-forwarding or whatever is necessary to host a game.
Overall, completely free systems like Mirror and Forge probably don't provide what Photon does out of the box and if it's your first multiplayer game you may want to use Photon or Photon Bolt. Mirror/Forge and those others may consider themselves "Easy" but without a built-in proxy/relay system people will have a problem connecting to each other without port forwarding.
Photon Bolt attempts to do a direct peer to peer connection and would give you the best experience for a fast peer to peer action game.
So let me get this first, I read that 100 CCU are only in testing and after publishing fees will depend on the usage of their network, How will that apply and is it really that much, like how much would it cost per game or users if you could give me similar numbers.Photon and Photon Bolt allow up to 100 CCU (Concurrently Connected Users ) free, regardless of dedicated or peer to peer.
i don't understand this because i watched some tutorials about implementing multiplayer and it seems that the only way you can connect players together is by having them typing their ip address and hosting a game then other player would join through the same ip of the host, how is it even possible "Not to worry about IPs" when its the thing that is connecting them together, is it like their API just finds a random host and joins the game, but even then the host would have to type in the address and not all people know what an IP address is.For Photon, you don't need to worry about IPs or how to connect
I'am sorry for being such a hassle but there is a lot cover on this topic, and yes it is my first multiplayer game.
what do you mean by:
instant-match type games
lastly, I am pretty sure i need to use P2P connection for this, but isn't it less reliable since there is none you can trust in the game like a server. How do you get over that with P2P to make it more fair for players.
Pretty sure its free up to 100 concurrent users but I can't speak on the licensing - you will have to go through it and ask them those questions. It's better to ask them than to make assumptions, they can clarify.
For the IPs, maybe you watched a $$anonymous$$irror tutorial and they don't have a relay/proxy system? Photon does not need IP addresses to join a game.
Instant-match type games, like Clash Royale - ones where you click "Play" and it matches you up against someone. Those types of games launch server instances each time to join two players together.
Regarding fairness, P2P is easily hackable, but even dedicated servers are hackable. If it's your first multiplayer game, you will want to familiarize yourself with networking and not worry about that at this point. Building a hack proof game is more advanced.
So if i use P2P i wont be able to make an instant-match type game? Cuz i really think this is the way to go with my game. and yes those tutorials that i talked about were mostly mirror tutorials.
@SubtleTechnology This might be a stupid question (since I don't know much about Online $$anonymous$$ultiplayer games), but would this asset from the Unity Asset Store be able to solve the problem of $$anonymous$$irror/Forge not having a built-in proxy/relay system? $$anonymous$$atch Up
Nope but that looks like a cool asset - like it says its for matchmaking. If you combined all their great assets from that publisher, they would be pretty much Photon Bolt - which has NAT punch-through allowing direct peer to peer and lower latency. I recommend Photon Bolt for multiplayer games because it has the proxy built by Photon when NAT punchthrough does not work.
