Alright, thankies for the support.  Its just I always have a tendency to be halfway through with an extremely long section of code before I realize theres a hella easier way of programming something lol.  Well, Im on it. Ill keep you posted.

Yes, I do realize my question is rather redundant and I apologize for that.  While i am far more advanced than programming "Hello World" Programs, I just need a simple opinion on wether my idea of going about this could be correct. I would have a text file including all data for a city such as the Location of buildings and other physical objects, and when the image for the background of the city is loaded in, I would read in that data and throw it into an array or something.  Cycle through that Array, and check that array for collisions, or update it whenever you move.... Thats what I had in mind, but I wasnt sure if that was a practical way of going about it.

Im trying to make a game thats has a feel like pokemon (Assuming any of you have accually played the game)  I want to know of any good ways to do things like movement along a specified grid while it still feels like you have full control, kinda like the feeling u get playing pokemon.  And also I was wondering how I would do the collision detection, Because ive run into a couple issues,  because like in different towns buildings will be placed in different locations, and I didnt know if I should read in the data about where the buildings are from a file or what..... idk... somebody help???

whats a CV?

Im a Java programmer, looking for work in a group type programming environment.  I have about 3 years experience programming in java, Taking full advantage of those three years learning as much as i can about Different Java API's and data structures.  Ive been programming games since before i can remember, i believe I was 12 when i started.  Though ive just recently traversed the Game programming path in Java. But i do have a small sample physics & gameplay demo of a side scrolling shooter i was working on, just so you can see what i can do, though it is not limited to that, and I am always up for learning more.  If i need to know something new i learn very quickly, considering i devote a high amount of my time towards game programming. I am very enthusiastic about programming and i can program for hours on end without stopping. Programming is my life, which is why i think you would be smart as to hire me.

Im not that experienced with networking in java (as most of these forum members could tell you) im currently "attempting" to program a server to run a simple mmo off of... yeah, not turning out so well lol. But I know there some pretty good tutorials out there on using ServerSockets, which is what i have been using up to now... ill try to find one and repost later

Well, alot of that problem may be because i simply just scrapped this thing together so i could put it online before i got off my computer last time i worked on it, so i never accually really got around to putting code under the stop() method... i know... kinda stupid of me, and i aplogize. But i do appreciate everyones slight interest in my crappy little game lol.  My other project isnt working out so well, so i think i may just turn back to this game, if anyone would like to help me out in turning this into a full-fleged game gimme a holla.

hmm... ive heard nothing about this... elaborate please??? lol

oy... are you telling me that after a week of programming this dam server i still got more to read before i can do it... if i gotta reprogram this whole thing im just gonna cry...  lol

well, as i mentioned before im not at my home computer at the moment so i wouldnt be able to get the accual client program till monday. It was just a simple program to connect to the server and recieve from the server the number of clients connected and display it in an applet... not to difficult. God i really hope we can figure this out cuz its pissing me off! lol

so does self-signing the applet cost money??? because that would definitely suck...

Well, im having the client program send the server an integer indicating a course of action, and 1 just happens to be close the socket etc.  Im not at home this weekend, which ticks me off becaue i really want to get this working correctly... I think that the only way to find out where its getting stuck at is to put a System.out.println() statement in the front of each of the 4 methods inside the while loop, and see where it slows down when multiple users connect...  Heh... well, if you can manage to help me solve this i wouldnt mind putting u in the special thanks section of my game credits lol.

Hmmm... well, in that case, how do I make it not an unsigned applet then?  btw, i appreciate all the help

Im so close... but its still not working, I managed to connect to my server via Telnet, so I know my Port Forwarding works & theres nothing wrong with my server program, so its something wrong with my client.  When I try to connect to my server via my Applet its giving me an java.security.AccessControlException... Does anyone know what my problem could be???

oy... i just realized... i already looked @ this tutorial lol

Yeah, i understood that the accept() method blocks, which i thought adding the echoServer.setSoTimeout(20); line, I know that line puts a time limit on how long accept can block. and i only set it to 20 milliseconds.... so i doubt that would be true that my program is idleing right???

But I have accually thought about the whole arraylist of a class containing my variables thing, I do agree that it would make things simpler, but still, that doesnt solve my speed issue.  Because the program just bogs down right after a second user has connected, and this is no good because im going to want at least 50 people on the same server.... Please someone help me!!! until then i guess ill look through that tutorial you showed me.

I read plenty of tutorials on ServerSockets and such, but none of them really told me much, i made this basically out of what little i did get from it.

But I have noticed that when more than one user connects, it has horrible speed when it comes to sending the data back to the clients, I think its because there ends up being an immense amount of code inside of my while loop after two users... does anybody know of a way I could fix this?    (I know, complete n00b question... but how else am i going to learn?) Im not exactly familiar with using threads... could that help me in any way? and if so how???... oh god do i need help!!!! lol.

-me-
(I guess ive earned that n00b rank by now)

Yeah, im a complete n00b when it comes to networking and stuff, so im not really afraid to post my entire source code.  I just finished programming my first server, it doesnt do much besides allow users to connect and disconnect from the server, and sends the number of clients to each client while thier connected.  It doesnt work on the internet as of yet because i have some firewall issues, but It does work on my network so if you guys could give me comments or suggestions or info as to what i should learn after this, any help would be appreciated. Im not saying its good, im just saying it WORKS lol. and i guess for me right now thats a good thing.


[td][//-------------------------------------------
//Game Server (In Development)
//Programmed by: Britton Kjenner
//-------------------------------------------

import java.util.*;
import java.io.*;
import java.net.*;

public class TrivialApplication
{
   //Variables for Sockets
   public static int [] inDat;
   public static ArrayList sox;
   public static ArrayList is;
   public static ArrayList os;
   public static ServerSocket echoServer;
   //
   public static Random gen;
   
   public static void main(String args[])
   {
      gen = new Random();
      inDat = new int[50];
      sox = new ArrayList();
      is = new ArrayList();
      os = new ArrayList();
      try
      {
         System.out.println(InetAddress.getByName("steve"));
         System.out.println("Creating Server Socket.....");
         
         echoServer = new ServerSocket(9999,50,InetAddress.getLocalHost());
         
         System.out.println(echoServer.toString());
         echoServer.setSoTimeout(20);
         
         //Constant Server Proccess
         //1.Check for new Users//
         //2.Recieve Data from Users//
         //3.Process the Data//
         //4.Return the new Game State//
         while (true)
         {
            checkNewUsers();
            if (sox.size()>0)
            {
               getData();
               processData();
               sendData();
            }
         }
      }
      catch (IOException e)
      {
         System.out.println(e);
      }
   }
   
   //Check ServerSocket for any incoming Transmissions
   public static void checkNewUsers()
   {
      Socket NewClient = null;
      try
      {
         NewClient = echoServer.accept();
         sox.add(NewClient);
         is.add(new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(NewClient.getInputStream())));
         os.add(new DataOutputStream(NewClient.getOutputStream()));
         System.out.println("New User Added");
               
      }
      catch (IOException e)
      {
      }
   }
   
   //Gets any sent data from the client program and puts it into an array
   public static void getData()
   {
      int response;
      BufferedReader temp;
      try
      {
         for (int lcv=0;lcv<is.size();lcv++)
         {
            temp = (BufferedReader)is.get(lcv);
            if (temp.ready())
            {
               response = temp.read();
            }
            else
            {
               //No Data Was Sent
               response = 0;
            }
            inDat[lcv] = response;
         }
         
      }
      catch (IOException e)
      {
      }
   }
   
   //process data gathered by the getData Method, and reset all values to 0
   public static void processData()
   {
      int check;
      for (int lcv=0;lcv<is.size();lcv++)
      {
         check = inDat[lcv];
         if (check==1)
         {
            //1=Close User Socket
            closeSock(lcv);
         }
         inDat[lcv]=0;
      }
   }
   
   //Close Socket,&IO sreams/ Remove from ArrayList
   public static void closeSock(int spot)
   {
      try
      {
         ((BufferedReader)is.get(spot)).close();
         ((DataOutputStream)os.get(spot)).close();
         ((Socket)sox.get(spot)).close();
         is.remove(spot);
         os.remove(spot);
         sox.remove(spot);
         System.out.println("A player has left.");
      }
      catch (IOException e)
      {
      }
   }
   
   //Send Data to Users
   public static void sendData()
   {
      try
      {
         int numPlayers;
         numPlayers = getNumPlayers();
         DataOutputStream temp;
         for (int lcv=0; lcv< os.size();lcv++)
         {
            temp = (DataOutputStream)os.get(lcv);
            temp.writeInt(numPlayers);
         }
      }
      catch (IOException e)
      {
         System.out.println(e);
      }
   }
   
   //Method to return the number of Players
   public static int getNumPlayers()
   {
      int retNum;
      retNum = sox.size();
      return retNum;
   }
}/td]

Well, most of the people who make up my team are just fellow programmers scattered about my school... I dont plan on having this be the next Everquest or anything, just a simple game that me and my friends can play and offer to others across the internet.  Which is one of the reasons as to why i wouldnt pay.  I was mainly just looking for a graphic designer, but mentioning other positions were available upon request.  And I do agree with you about having the game logic before the graphics and stuff, its just that i would like to keep my options open.

That is true, but my team is slowly growing... I managed to find someone who can do some pretty cool character sprite sheets, but i wont need him for at least a few months. But im still kind of low on programmers, Im down to three... so this project may take a while lol.

Haha, yes, that makes alot more sense, thank you!!!   

Hmm... thanks for the hot tip, unfortunetely my Team is still without a graphics designer, so when i get to that phase i gotta use snes sprites... how embarassing.... o well.... *cough*... people resopnd!

Well, i registered the dns name and everything like that, but im still kinda confused as to where to take it from there. Just to make sure everything worked out allright, i did a system.out.println() statement of InetAddress.getByName("barron.gameserve.org"); and that worked, it spit out barron.gameserve.org/[my IP address]
But Im still getting the whole thing where my Serversocket doesnt want to bind to that address... im sorry for being an ultra Networking n00b, but any idea what im doin wrong?

Nice, this game demonstrates the basics of what im trying to accomplish... Look at some of my other posts, probobly under Online Game Development... id like to get some words of help from you lol

Ok, ive tried just about everything i can involving this and for some wierd reason its not working.
I created a servers socket like so

ServerSocker s1 = new ServerSocket(9999);

but when i print out the toString method of s1, it shows that the Adress of it is 0.0.0.0.0 which strikes me odd... so then i try using the other ServerSocket Constructors to assign it an internet adress.
I did this like so

ServerSocket s1 = new ServerSocket(9999,10,InetAddress.getLocalHost());

Ok, this seemed logical, but It turned out the getLocalHost() method referred to my IP adress on my network, rather than my Internet IPaddress... I even tried using the getByName() method passing my Internet IP adress as a parameter and of course i got an exepton on this Java.Net.BindExeption....... Im pretty stumped here, im just trying to run a simple program where an applet connects to the Server and the server returns the number of people connected to it, ive got everything else working except the fact that its not working over the internet because of these problems... if anyone could help i would really appreciate it....

-me-

Hmm... thanks for the help... ill look into it and ill let ya know it it turns out well enough.

Your description is quite understandable, but im quit the n00b when it comes to networking gameplay... Im working on a project similar to this. Could anybody show me a way to implement this into an applet based mmo such as runescape?

Yeah, im kind of a newbie when it comes to programming Online multiplayer games...  I would like to learn how though if anyone could point me in the right direction... I just want to start off learning something simple, something where i could refer to a file off somwhere on my geocities account that would contain the X and Y coordinates for each character, and constantly refer to it and updated it as players would move.... if anyone has any ideas help would be much appreciated. Im working in an applet btw.

-me-

Heh.. seems like something i would've been interested in... without the whole moving across the ocean thing... afraid ill have to stick to something a little more localized.

Well accually, im no that good of an artist, i never do my own sprites (Still looking for a decent Graphic artist for my new game), and the sprite sheet that i had, i couldnt find a way to have Master Chief hold the gun while he was running, but if im not mistaken i think you can shoot while jumping...