Original Post
Hello everyone, I'm a first timer here so just saying hello to everyone before I get down to my question =) Ok, that done, I'm trying to develop a multiplayer game that has a flash interface and using an xml socket server. I bought a book on using xml with flash and it gives a simple example of a flash chat. They gave an example of a simple socket server written in java and the way it transmits data to/from clients is a line of xml that contains the message and the user's name. I'm trying to figure out how to extend this to a more complex use. For example if the user has more attributes than just a name (ie, gender, amount of money, items carried), would I have to append all attibutes to the xml tag or would it be more efficient to append a user id and connect to a database to read all the attributes? A problem I see with this method is that each of the other clients would have to make a call to the database so maybe the first method of appending all the user's attributes at once is a better method. I guess my main question is how is this actually done with the more complex MPORPGs or MMPORPGs or what is the best way to handle it? I'm trying to understand the simple chat example and expand it to characters and items and more than just chatting. Any comments or direction (ie tips, hints, tutorials, or good books) would be greatly appreciated. Thanks a lot everyone, Lime