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AppGameKit Classic Chat / How about TGC offer a AGK highscore service?

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DVader
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Posted: 19th May 2012 21:45
Hi. I have been looking into this for a few days with no real success. Mostly because I have no real knowledge of any internet based language. So all this talk of php databases and such is little more than gobbledegook to me. I don't much fancy learning php just to get a online highscore into my game at the second.
So, I am guessing I won't be the only novice who can program quite well in AppGameKit, but is pretty much useless with html, php, javascript etc. I have played with javascript and it was fairly easy from what I could see, but I didn't find it very exciting so lost interest quite quickly.
Would it be possible for TGC to host a service of this type? Something that would make integration of secure online highscores fairly simple? I think it could be a good idea, and would encourage users to use AppGameKit for this feature alone. Even if this is something TGC couldn't support themselves I am sure they could find a partner of some kind to host a service of this type.

I would imagine if they could extend this service to game content features etc. AppGameKit could look quite interesting to a lot of indie devs out there.

7RS
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Posted: 20th May 2012 01:35
There are a lot of service like this, maybe they could integrate something like openfeint or scoreloop.
SageTech
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Posted: 20th May 2012 02:40
I had posted about this not too long ago. I was considering developing a service for high scores, file storage, user details, etc. But there doesn't seem to be much interest in it to make it feasible at the moment
Digital Awakening
AGK Developer
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Posted: 20th May 2012 09:23
I want it, but I was the only one interested in SageTech's offer.

KareDev
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Posted: 20th May 2012 12:28
It would probably make more sense if they found a T1 method to integrate Game Center (iOS) and OpenFeint (multi-platform), as they're the two main services that Apps tend to use.
MrValentine
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Posted: 20th May 2012 13:31
hmm I might try making an automated High Scores site... if that helps...

bjadams
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Posted: 20th May 2012 15:51
as KareDev said why reinvent the wheel when all apps use GameCenter and OpenFeint. Just integrate those sdks with AGK.
MrValentine
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Posted: 20th May 2012 16:30
Quote: "all apps use GameCenter and OpenFeint. Just integrate those sdks with AGK. "


precisely why I dont use that silly system...

I hate using [and I rarely use the term hate] that stupid system when I play a game in Play Store I never buy those games that use those systems...

for me OF and GC are detering tools... in my opinion that is...

hi bjadams you been quiet lately...

Digital Awakening
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Posted: 20th May 2012 17:01
I never liked Open Feint. Game Center seems nice, not used it much. GC also allows players to connect for multiplayer games and even support asynchronous play. What GC doesn't support is uploading user created content, like maps.

bjadams
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Posted: 20th May 2012 17:36
MrValentine, try doing a game with NO gamecenter support and a similar game with GameCenter support and SEE THE download difference!!!

Games with Game Center support are downloaded much more!

Yes I have been quiet because a lot of things I was waiting for in AppGameKit now do actually work, so I can finally release a few projects in AppGameKit!

I hope they continue to improve AppGameKit and keep the commands working, and not break them in new versions
MrValentine
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Posted: 20th May 2012 18:10
I am not so familiar with GC but OF really teas me off...

bjadams
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Posted: 20th May 2012 18:55
OF is good because it is cross platform. it is an industry standard for mobile gaming.

can you name any other alternative services of the same quality, that won't go down after 1 year?
Digital Awakening
AGK Developer
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Posted: 20th May 2012 19:05
Bjadams:
OF does nothing but annoy me as the player. It is just not done well. Thanks to AGK's HTTP capabilities it is possible to create a similar cross platform system, and also making it so much more.

Kobaltic
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Posted: 20th May 2012 19:25
Couldn't you just get a mySQL DB and update it every time a player finishes the game? Keep 10,000 entries then delete the one with the lowest scores. Sort high to low then by most recent date.
DVader
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Posted: 20th May 2012 20:00
Kobaltic, that's what I have been trying with no success. It's the reason I posted about this because that process was driving me insane. I think the last attempt was just crashing AppGameKit completely, with a fatal error.

@ Sagetech, I think the problem you have trying to offer a service like this, is the fact you are one person. People think about the long term with things like this. If something happened to you what would happen to the service? If you were laid up in Hospital for 6 weeks, or worse, would it be maintained? These are valid questions. I would be interested myself, but as you say you need a bit of interest from several members to set something like that up, I would think. That's why I suggested TGC partner up with someone, make it official looking, and hopefully sustainable.

@Mt Valentine, if you think you can do it, why not do a tutorial for AppGameKit people can look at? I'm sure a lot of people would be grateful for any help in this area.

I haven't used either open feint or gamecenter so couldn't comment on their qualities or bug bears. If people really do download a game more because it supports one or the other, that seems branding gone crazy. I mean what's more important? Gamecenter support, or a good game? Games should sell based on how good the game is, not what services they use to support the games.

I have been looking at a service called moai, which looks pretty good. However it is based around it's own api for game making, and not really designed for AGK. Although by the sounds you could possibly use it if you know Lua, and their own scripting language. Again this is not something I want to do at present. But it could be worth TGC taking a look themselves.

TGC were asking for ideas to get AppGameKit more accepted by the dev community, this sort of thing would be one of them I think. I got AppGameKit to make making games fairly easy and fast. I don't want to get bogged down in the mire doing an online high score table. I'd much prefer a simple way to integrate something like this

Digital Awakening
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Posted: 20th May 2012 20:36
DVader:
I agree with you, it would be better if TGC offered this kind of service (I wouldn't mind paying for it, even an annual subscription) than a single person doing it.

The thing with GC is that since iOS 4 or 5 GC is already installed so the userbase is high. It might even use the same login details as you use to access the App Store, not sure it's been a while since I tried it. It also has it's own app where you can see what your friends have played etc. It also helps you set up multiplayer games over the Internet (IIRC). It is a smooth and transparent most of the time while OF is annoying and in my face. OF also doesn't always work.

bjadams
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Posted: 20th May 2012 21:21
The problem is that GC is iOS only and TGC want to give priority to multiplatform.

Mayeb TGC will add GC support to one of their games and then it will become available for all to use.

Truth is GC games get more exposure in the sea of apps that's why they are downloaded more. productivity apps & books don't appear in GC so your game is less lost amongst the thousands of other apps.
Ancient Lady
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Posted: 20th May 2012 21:24
I think I like the idea of a TGC Game Center. It would support all the AppGameKit platforms (and Dark Basic and DGK if/when commands set up for it) and have all the best features of the existing sites.

It should support a flexible setup for games. The game I am currently working on would have history/best for game/level/field: score, time, gold, goodies, oopses

I plan, at least in the short term, to have a service on my VPS to track scores and status for the games I produce under my company title, Triassic Associates, Inc. (I am the company!). I have total control and can set it up the way I want. And I always travel with a computer that lets me get access if a client has a problem.

But, using a company with a longer history and with which the game was developed may give better creds to the game.

I'd be very happy to work with TGC to set up a flexible system. I've been doing PHP/MySQL based sites for clients for several years and my clients love me.

Cheers,
Ancient Lady
Hockeykid
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Posted: 21st May 2012 07:15
DVader
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Posted: 21st May 2012 20:18
@ hockeykid, that was the first thing I found to have a try. It didn't help me. I should have perhaps followed it to the letter, but as my highscore is different, tried to apdapt the php around the different highscore. I had no luck and after many hours of messing gave it up as a bad job. I don't know php, so really hate using stuff I don't entirely understand. I couldn't even get the blank white screen to work after uploading the new php file.
Oh I know the thread is locked now, but one thing infuriated me a little in that tutorial. The picture of your database creation. You have something like 467_3456723 as your username. This had me sitting trying names for over an hour, and wanting to throw my computer out the window every time it told me the name must contain alpha numeric characters! You also add for good measure "Your username and password don't matter as long as you remember them", what!!?? Once you have tried as many times as I did to get it to work, try reading that sentence for the 20 or 30th time without feeling rather annoyed, lol. No text in the picture at all would have been far more helpful, so as not to make us php newbs assume it must contain the _ character
Anyway, apart from that it seems a good tutorial, but as I said I spent a long time trying with no luck, and no sign of any, so gave it up to look for other methods.

MrValentine
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Posted: 21st May 2012 20:38
I shall have a toy and see if I can offer up this service, I run a limited company so do not expect me to vanish suddenly and also why I mentioned automated

it might be a nice pet project for me while i pick up PHP fully I have a huge project on the horizon and need to gear myself up for it

SageTech
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Posted: 22nd May 2012 02:01 Edited at: 22nd May 2012 02:03
Maybe another option could be to develop a fully working web app and predefined AppGameKit functions and just open source it. That way, AppGameKit developers need only upload it onto their own server...obviously it doesn't have the benefits of living in a data center like most of my clients servers would, But its not hard or expensive these days to setup a simple vps. And if your app gets big enough, you can scale up.

It's one thing I hadn't thought off, I guess the programmer side of me was just as into the idea as the IT consultant in me
Hockeykid
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Posted: 22nd May 2012 06:40
@DVader That tutorial is quite old, and I do recall it was some odd our of the night while writing it, so I will admit it isn't the best. If you want, you can add me on MSN and I'll help you get a high score system setup. Then maybe you could create a bit of a better tutorial for everyone.

Sean

XanthorXIII
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Posted: 22nd May 2012 07:06
OpenFeint or GameCenter I believe is all we need. They both provide fantastic services on the platforms we need them on.
baxslash
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Posted: 22nd May 2012 14:29
TGC are quite keen on using Game Center on the stuff I've been doing for them. I imagine it's only a matter of time before some support for it is added into AGK. That's just a guess on my part though...

I agree it would be great to have Raw commands for GC.

bjadams
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Posted: 22nd May 2012 17:03
XanthorXIII agree 100% with you.
bjadams
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Posted: 22nd May 2012 17:04
Putting in some RAW GC support won't take much time as there is only 1 platform to test
DVader
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Posted: 22nd May 2012 21:31
I would be happy with anything that offered the functionality I need. As I haven't used either service, I have no idea the foibles of either. I would be happy with either at the moment

@hockeykid, I thought your tutorial was pretty good, although I didn't have success. The main bone of contention was that username comment, and picture lol. As it seemed fairly important at the time. It didn't help the actual site has a number like 1234566_ at the start of it. It merely reinforced my miss assumption. I don't use MSN, but perhaps my messenger will work with msn contacts. I will take a look. An online score chart and such is the one thing my games lack at the moment. I did one in a competition entry ages back in DB, but that was a very simple ftp system. It made the game lot's more competitive though!

Hockeykid
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Posted: 22nd May 2012 23:03
Quote: "I don't use MSN"


What messenger service do you use?

Sean

DVader
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Posted: 23rd May 2012 03:48
Yahoo. Tried earlier but it didn't seem to work. I guess the cross platform support is defunct now possibly. I can probably setup trillion and use that, I think.

Kobaltic
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Posted: 23rd May 2012 18:20
I would settle for agk database functions.
Ancient Lady
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Posted: 23rd May 2012 18:41
Quote: "I would settle for agk database functions. "


Danger! Danger, Will Robinson!

Great idea, but what database would you target? (The only obvious answer is MySQL, free to everyone and a current web industry standard.)

Cheers,
Ancient Lady
Digital Awakening
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Posted: 23rd May 2012 18:50
If you are talking accessing a MySQL database directly on a server I would say that sounds like a security risk. It is much better having the app connect to something running on the server that then access the database. If you are thinking about coding a server in AppGameKit that access a database then you need to set up a server. It is much cheaper to pay for a web hotel, like one.com.

Ancient Lady
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Posted: 23rd May 2012 19:02
If I use a database in my apps, I'll handle it on my own server (with my other sites) and use the http commands to communicate.

And, if I were to code a server for a game, I would not use AGK. It really isn't the right platform for it.

I wouldn't actually suggest having DB commands in AGK. As Digital Awakening says, it can be a security risk to directly connect to a database on a remote server. Pretty much any server that uses MySQL has a facility to allow specific IP addresses to access them, or to allow all IPs to connect. It's that second bit that causes the security issue.

Cheers,
Ancient Lady

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