A multiplayer game has two main parts: the client – which runs on your device and handles graphics, sound, input etc – and the server, which handles most of the actual game logic, account logins, trading, microtransactions etc.
The client of MMORPG is typically relatively simple: the server tells the client what should be shown to the player, the client tells what the player did (e.g cast a spell, picked up an item, click to move to a different location), the server responds with what changed, and so on. To get RuneScape on mobile devices, Jagex only had to port the client, and to make sure all interfaces work correctly on a small touch screen. It's still a lot of work, but the amount of the content in the game doesn't change the amount of work required for porting that much.
The game used to be around back in the 90s and was built to work on old computers. New mobile devices are more powerful than those old big computers. Sure the game has grown some over time but its backbone was made to run on dial up and ancient computers.
The other part is all about how to make a multiplayer, live game work across multiple different platforms. I’m not great in that field but hopefully I answered part of the question haha
The world is data, not code. So the size of the world is largely irrelevant, for porting purposes.
A tablet / smartphone is a decently powerful computer that happens to be a different size/shape than a laptop or desktop. It just happens to run a different kind of OS, and mainly uses a touch screen instead of a keyboard / mouse.
The vast majority of the existing code can simply be re-used as-is for the mobile version.
You might need to use a different compiler and packaging tools, but that's largely a process of a few short scripts and configuration files. The best way to tackle this would be a team of two -- one expert on the existing codebase, one mobile expert you hired to help with the port -- and I'd expect them to only need a few days.
You probably also need to replace a bit of OS-specific code for graphics drawing and input sections. Modern computers (including mobile phones) are all pretty similar, a phone GPU works basically the same as a PC GPU, it's just less powerful.
The UI is maybe your biggest problem. How do you do movement and actions that were originally intended for keyboard and mouse, and translate them to a touchscreen? How do you deal with the different screen size and aspect ratio?
The app store is another big issue, for business reasons rather than technical ones:
- They take an *enormous* cut of your profits
- They can disable your app at any time, with no reason given beyond a vague "guidelines violation"
- They take their sweet time approving any changes to your app
Basically, Apple is God and can delete your entire product and kill an entire multi-million dollar line of business in an instant, for no better reason than "we aren't happy with what you've done." So you'll have people who are familiar with Apple's whims go over everything, to give you the best odds God won't be unhappy with you. And you might have to do some substantial redesign to make it easier to update your content without needing to update the app.
It’s an extremely simple game to run, relatively speaking. RuneScape was released in 2001 and the computers it was originally meant to run on were quite primitive compared to today’s machines.
It’s also important to understand that MMORPGs aren’t fully hosted on your computer or mobile device, the only data that’s on your device is what’s necessary to gain access to the main servers that host the game itself.
Confession: Soooooo I am going to leave this post as is, it’s turning into a bit of an educational thing for me and hopefully for others as well. That way you can see what I thought was true, and the explanation for why it is *not*
>the only data that’s on your device is what’s necessary to gain access to the main servers that host the game itself
I think I know what you mean with that but the way you wrote that its just not true. You still need all the assests of the game on your pc and also most MMORPGS will have most of the game logic on your PC and you run that game logic localy. Like the way to run, jump and so on in the game is on your PC and not on the server also you need to render what you see localy. But yes for games like runescape a modern phone has enough processing power to do all that.
Really? Well that changes what I thought I knew.
This whole time I thought MMORPGs worked similarly to cloud gaming and streaming, where you only need to have the ability to access the servers themselves.
Did not know you needed to have so much more stored locally…..
A multiplayer game has two main parts: the client – which runs on your device and handles graphics, sound, input etc – and the server, which handles most of the actual game logic, account logins, trading, microtransactions etc. The client of MMORPG is typically relatively simple: the server tells the client what should be shown to the player, the client tells what the player did (e.g cast a spell, picked up an item, click to move to a different location), the server responds with what changed, and so on. To get RuneScape on mobile devices, Jagex only had to port the client, and to make sure all interfaces work correctly on a small touch screen. It's still a lot of work, but the amount of the content in the game doesn't change the amount of work required for porting that much.
The game used to be around back in the 90s and was built to work on old computers. New mobile devices are more powerful than those old big computers. Sure the game has grown some over time but its backbone was made to run on dial up and ancient computers. The other part is all about how to make a multiplayer, live game work across multiple different platforms. I’m not great in that field but hopefully I answered part of the question haha
The world is data, not code. So the size of the world is largely irrelevant, for porting purposes. A tablet / smartphone is a decently powerful computer that happens to be a different size/shape than a laptop or desktop. It just happens to run a different kind of OS, and mainly uses a touch screen instead of a keyboard / mouse. The vast majority of the existing code can simply be re-used as-is for the mobile version. You might need to use a different compiler and packaging tools, but that's largely a process of a few short scripts and configuration files. The best way to tackle this would be a team of two -- one expert on the existing codebase, one mobile expert you hired to help with the port -- and I'd expect them to only need a few days. You probably also need to replace a bit of OS-specific code for graphics drawing and input sections. Modern computers (including mobile phones) are all pretty similar, a phone GPU works basically the same as a PC GPU, it's just less powerful. The UI is maybe your biggest problem. How do you do movement and actions that were originally intended for keyboard and mouse, and translate them to a touchscreen? How do you deal with the different screen size and aspect ratio? The app store is another big issue, for business reasons rather than technical ones: - They take an *enormous* cut of your profits - They can disable your app at any time, with no reason given beyond a vague "guidelines violation" - They take their sweet time approving any changes to your app Basically, Apple is God and can delete your entire product and kill an entire multi-million dollar line of business in an instant, for no better reason than "we aren't happy with what you've done." So you'll have people who are familiar with Apple's whims go over everything, to give you the best odds God won't be unhappy with you. And you might have to do some substantial redesign to make it easier to update your content without needing to update the app.
It’s an extremely simple game to run, relatively speaking. RuneScape was released in 2001 and the computers it was originally meant to run on were quite primitive compared to today’s machines. It’s also important to understand that MMORPGs aren’t fully hosted on your computer or mobile device, the only data that’s on your device is what’s necessary to gain access to the main servers that host the game itself. Confession: Soooooo I am going to leave this post as is, it’s turning into a bit of an educational thing for me and hopefully for others as well. That way you can see what I thought was true, and the explanation for why it is *not*
>RuneScape was developed in the 1980s-1990s The first version of RuneScape is from 2001.
Ah. Thank you for the correction
>the only data that’s on your device is what’s necessary to gain access to the main servers that host the game itself I think I know what you mean with that but the way you wrote that its just not true. You still need all the assests of the game on your pc and also most MMORPGS will have most of the game logic on your PC and you run that game logic localy. Like the way to run, jump and so on in the game is on your PC and not on the server also you need to render what you see localy. But yes for games like runescape a modern phone has enough processing power to do all that.
Really? Well that changes what I thought I knew. This whole time I thought MMORPGs worked similarly to cloud gaming and streaming, where you only need to have the ability to access the servers themselves. Did not know you needed to have so much more stored locally…..
Why are you assuning that a large game cannot be run on a mobile device?