Beginner level question about game servers.

[TheGuy]

Ok so this is a really noob question but I want to learn how game servers work. Popular games such as World of Warcraft or League of Legends have millions of people playing at the same time. How are they connected to each other? How is the networking done? What is the game server responsible for doing in order to make a multiplayer game work? How does it do this? A little insight would be appreciated and thanks!

 

[office politics]

the link below prolly has what you're looking for.

HowStuffWorks "The Technology of MMORPGs"

edit - there's this link too. its more high level and an easier read. http://pastebin.com/bbc5KQ32

 

[TheGuy]

Uhm thanks a lot it provided me with a lot of insight! Do you have links to information of the same kind of thing but on a much smaller scale? So like setting up a custom server in a home and connecting it to the internet and all of that stuff? Thanks!

 

[office politics]

I don't think the games you listed allow end users to run their servers. however, minecraft does. see links below.

Can I host a Minecraft Server?

Tutorials/Setting up a server - Minecraft Wiki

 

[TheGuy]

No no you misunderstood I'm not talking about for those specific games. I'm talking about just setting up your own personal servers for maybe a game you yourself created or maybe just a database you want to access over the internet. So I want to learn about that. Thanks

 

[iParanormalx]

No no you misunderstood I'm not talking about for those specific games. I'm talking about just setting up your own personal servers for maybe a game you yourself created or maybe just a database you want to access over the internet. So I want to learn about that. Thanks

You could rent a server from one of the vast number of providers out there but even then its a challenge to find the software to run on the server that is targeted around doing what you want to do. It depends entirely on your goals and how apt you are to learn about the platform you're wanting to setup.

Then cost becomes another major factor; i was renting a server for a while just for practice it was 150$/mo - although it was a single unit machine on their rack i had full control of it including remote desktop, firewall, server manager, cpu prioritization, ect.. I think it was a good start for a self-learning method of many basic fundamentals of servers and public services for games, voip, databases, domains, ect...

Otherwise if you just want to learn the systems without taking action it would be smart to start a trial of windows server 2012 and setup a virtual machine on your computer (assuming you have a relatively decent machine to do so). Then you could learn the ins and outs of windows server environment as well as firewall control and software connectivity. You could even setup the virtual machine on your desktop then run a game on the desktop and connect to the virtual server as though its a separate machine.

Hope this gives you some ideas...