Map Sharing

[Mako Star]

First new topic here in a while, here we go.


I was wondering what all would be required to have something in a game bring up a function that would read and load maps put onto a server and let the player put their own maps for others to load and play.  It would not require playing online with others or any of the hoopla that comes with that. Although maybe some sort of achievement board, or something that records certain player stats and puts the, even onto a website, stats up for others to see would be a good idea.


Is something like this achievable? And what sort of js or php knowledge would I need?   I've studied  c++ for 2 semesters and am vaguely familiar w Java and php. I can generally get some idea of what I'm looking at when I dig around.

 

[sagebrushfire]

If you were just going to use the default RMMV maps then it would actually be a really big project. All data is stored in JSON files (Data formatted like a JavaScript Object Literal). You would need to be able to write to these files and append new maps to them or at the very least store individual maps somewhere in JSON format so you could call them up and create new scenes with them. Of course you'd need more than just maps, you would need other data files like Common Events, Triggers, etc. I also have no idea how you would ensure that player's custom maps used the right enemy troop IDs for random encounters, etc. 


What would be really difficult is creating some way of people exporting their maps in the first place. That's kind of a feature of the RPG Maker MV software itself so you would have to replicate that part of the software to some degree or write your own code that could at least export something that was made in RPG Maker MV; now we've gone from JavaScript/PHP into you building some type of Windows app (Most likely WPS with Visual C# or maybe even the ancient but still extant Windows Forms. I would avoid Windows Store apps despite the fact you can use JS because the other two will target a bigger audience). 


Probably it's not a great idea to try and replicate RPG Maker functionality in your own windows app, I don't know how Enterbrain (or whoever owns the software now) would feel about that. So you might want to work on an in-game solution where people can create maps while playing your game. 


From there you need a way to save them. That's not too terrible, you just need to use the existing JSON format or design your own and use AJAX to post it to a PHP handler that can write it to a database or flat file. If you're doing an MMO you want to implement some scripts that will offload file saves to a DB/Flat File on the server anyway because the default system just saves them to LocalStorage which means they only exist in the player's browser. 


Beyond that you'd need to implement map loading (Again, using AJAX to download the user's map file) and a way of reading the format (either just executing one of the built-in functions with a map that uses the game's format or by writing some custom code to read your own format). 


I hate to be super vague like this but the feature you're talking about is something that, even at it's simplest, could take a  team of 3 people a couple of weeks to pull of really well. It's no small project and I wouldn't recommend it for anyone who isn't very comfortable with JavaScript and a server-side language (most likely PHP since ASP.NET hosting is scarce and/or expensive). 

 

[Mako Star]

That is awesome. Was wondering if anyone was gonna reply to this so I definitely appreciate the well written response.


I'll be researching and askin a few buddies for some pointers. I have people who are much more versed in coding, so that will help. Would you mind me PMing you for info about mv limitations and execution and such if I need to in the future?


Once again, thanks for taking the time to reply.