Server?
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@iTap-Development Assuming you want to access the database with the HTTP request behaviours, you'd want a database that you can connect to with whatever language you're using serverside. I think most databases allow SQL queries, so you'd probably need to know some SQL. I personally use MariaDB for databases and use the mysqli functions in PHP to access them.
I haven't used Amazon, but I think it depends in what you want in your server. If you want to use socket.io for a multiplayer game, you'll need a server you can run it on. A lot of hosts don't give you access to a command prompt or terminal, so you can't install packages or programs. I'm not sure whether socket.io can work in PHP without having command line access, when I look online it says to use composer, but there's probably a way to manually add the files onto the server.
If you just want a server for HTTP requests, pretty much any web host is fine I think, as long as you don't want to install anything on the server.
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Amazon is great. But it's really bare bones and you need to set up a lot of stuff your self. It's probably overkill for your projects.
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(We use amazon hosting, as do many other popular websites you use.... like Netflix ;))Another option is Heroku, they make it easy to get started. You can get a server and some basic software up and running really quickly. They even offer free tier which is enough to test and build your game. It can get a bit more pricey than amazon though when you need to pay. But you can always move to amazon or who ever else later.
Some other options to look into: Google fire base. It's a hosted database/server with a lot of cool functionality. You don't have to worry about writing a bunch of code to get started as they have that all done for you. You just use their APIs and our http request behaviours to send/receive data.
There used to be an awesome service called parse, GamePress was powered by it. Like firebase it made it quick to get started. It would handle user accounts, databases security etc. Pretty awesome. Unfortunately they got bought out (by Facebook I think) and then shut down. But there are a lot of alternatives out there... especially since they released a large chunk of it to open source. So just search for parse alternatives on google.
We've been meaning to get a tutorial up for using http requests... unfortunately we just haven't had the time as we're getting other missing documentation out first. Sorry.... 😐
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@iTap-Development you wouldn't really be able to use the realtime functionality of firebase since its a different protocol to Socket.io. That being said, you can still make HTTP requests to the firebase api. Take a look at their REST Api guide here: https://firebase.google.com/docs/database/rest/start where they're using CURL to make requests you would simply use the HTTP request behaviour.
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@Hamed so I would be able to use firebase for a realtime game? Id need a different server?
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For a realtime solution, it would probably be best to use socket.io. Otherwise you would have to be constantly be sending requests to your firebase server through http requests... this is slow and you would have syncing issues.
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Here is an example on how to get Socket.io running on Heroku: https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/node-websockets
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@iTap-Development I don't think firebase is configureable enough to run socket.io. It's more designed to be a simplified solution for database and user type things.
Check out Heroku, it's sort of like Amazon, but there is less set up required to get your server running.
You can install socket.io on a Heroku server, see here: https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/node-websockets#option-2-socket-ioHeroku has a free tier that should be enough to get up and running, then when you need more they have paid options as well. It costs more then Amazon, but you can get up and running quicker with less effort.
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@Murtaza ok! Thanks for all the help!
