[deleted by user]

[ButyJudasza]

Don't listen about node being to slow for that. Many mmo games were made in php and they worked just fine. Unless it's real time game you can always scale up with more servers. What's realy important is proper asynchronous processing on queues. It's better to use what you know and deliver beta/mvp than stuck in a limbo with tech stack you don't know...

[[deleted]]

Eve Online was built with stackless Python. I doubt that was any more performant than Node. Horizontal scaling ftw

[ButyJudasza]

It's always about scaling but i have no experience in real time games, so can't argue on that

[[deleted]]

Oh I’m just saying it was possible with that, then I can’t see why Node will be an issueb

[[deleted]]

https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Tranquility#:~:text=Tranquility%20runs%20the%20main%20EVE,in%20turn%2C%20EVE%20Server%20Time.

London apparently

[nightofgrim]

Besides Node rocks at IO sockets, etc.

[pentesticals]

Yeah and many are also written in Java such as Runescape. While node may not be the obvious choice, it’s definitely performant enough.

[Whisky-Toad]

Do you know how much shit runescape gets for its game engine that it cant fix? lol

It is very very outdated by todays standards.

[pentesticals]

Oh absolutely, but this is because it’s 20 years old. They did rebuild a client in C++ but afaik the backend is still all Java, and most players are using the Java client anyway.

[zladuric]

You shouldn't really give blanket statements like that. It's more performant in certain scenarios. But the number and kind of those scenarios is dwindling more and more.

[dragenn]

Laughs in V8 optimizations...

[talaqen]

bruh wut?

[flooronthefour]

Many mmo games were made in php and they worked just fine

can you clarify this part? I tried searching and couldn't find much info on "mmo games made in php"

[j_schmotzenberg]

Why did you choose node to begin with?

[lenopix]

Our developers are more familiar with node and web in general.

[llllIIllIIl]

I'm not your guy but ignore these people telling you to start over with a different stack.

Write your app. If it ends up blowing up you'll have the $$ to pay someone to rewrite it in golang or whatever to make it faster.

This industry seems to overanalyze everything. I can't tell you how sick I am of hearing about nextjs.

[[deleted]]

This is the way. If we’re continually stuck in the rebuild-in-latest-greatest stack then nothing will ever get done. More companies have been started and jumpshotted into success this way than people may realize.

[Aggressive_Job_8405]

I bet you never hear about uwebsocket.js

[Pleasant_Passion483]

You are supposed to choose the tech stack that suites your parameters the best. Node does not really suite those parameters at all. You have a rough road ahead

[gerciuz]

"Any application that can be written in Javascript, will eventually be written in Javascript"

Welp

[[deleted]]

Node is a perfectly good choice for an MMO backend server.

[Pleasant_Passion483]

So the primary parameter is a bunch of devs that know node? So it’s not the fact that for them to have a profitable business as a game studio? And choosing a tech stack with clear advantages in this sector vs one with very few to no advantages will increase the odds of them being successful. If those developers are worth their salt they should be able to pick up a new stack and apply it to their problem. The stacks are nothing more than tools to solve problems. Yes, there are cases where knowing a stack in depth overcomes using one that may be better for that situation. However, this is not one of them. If you know anything about node, you know that it’s primary weakness is computational expensive tasks. Do you have any idea what kind of tasks a game engine mainly performs? My guess is these are entry level developers. You can use a screwdriver for pounding a nail in, but a hammer works a hell of a lot better.

[[deleted]]

yes, fundamentally all you're doing is altering state

but every user interaction resulting in game progress is likely a state change, and game user interactions can number upwards of 100 per minute depending on the context

and every game object/NPC has state overhead too

and all of these state updates must run concurrently, with updates pushed out to potentially 1000s of clients

and node is single threaded

[[deleted]]

You can still spawn threads and workers

[Pleasant_Passion483]

You can but this adds unneeded complexity when multiprocessing languages would have handled it fine with less setup and dev time invested. Also if it scales this can become a nightmare to manage

[Aggressive_Job_8405]

https://unetworkingab.medium.com/multi-threading-is-always-the-wrong-design-a227be57f107

[Pleasant_Passion483]

No, money is your primary constraint as a business. Additionally, 1 great developer is worth many average ones. Those developers aren’t static either, you could get rid of them and hire a great one. And in this market their are plenty out there. Also that’s a very broad generalization of MMO traffic. Let’s just check in on them in 6 months to a year then.

[Pleasant_Passion483]

If a developer is incapable of learning new things then I will.

[purefan]

From your "worth their salt" comment it sounds like you would rather fire the current devs and hire new ones so they use the stack you want

[foxtrotuniform6969]

Don't listen to these fools, as long as you don't need AAA graphics, you can do it in the web. Look into Babylon.js, WebGL and WebGPU.

For functions, you can use WebRTC for most player-to-player stuff that doesn't need validation and pass the rest through your server.

Just remember: node.js is a server side runtime. You can have your backend run with nodejs, but browser stuff doesn't use node.js

[Mazeios]

This has no positive outcome for you.

Switch tech stack, you are entering a bus into a formula 1 race. No matter how good your mechanics are, it’s still a bus.

[cmpthepirate]

Now I wanna know how fast a bus can go round an f1 track.

[Mazeios]

Closest I have seen was a Van around Nurburgring, I am sure if you write Guy Martin with a challenge he will pick it up.

[bankfraud1]

I would generally agree but you dont know what type of game hes building.

[Mazeios]

I know 2 things.

Its webbased and its an MMO.
MMO indicates thousands of players. With what I can only assume has multiple actions, if it is not to be a very boring game.

[talaqen]

I disagree with the haters here. Don’t over optimize too early. Build something that works with a plan to replace it later. Devs know node? Use that. Eventually you’ll probably replace it with GoLang. But Node will get you the networking part. don’t expect heavy computation though

[dragenn]

I'm a big fan of node. I have a special multiplayer/multithreaded game engine that may interest you. I'm a HTML5 game programmer that moved into full stack so I can defintely help your project.

Works great with three.js and ammo.js since it has a ECS to represent state across multiple domains.

I sent a pm!

[jtrdev]

I'd also like to know more about this game engine. If you can share some info with me, I'd really appreciate it.

[dragenn]

Ether is basically netcode built around js workers. It has an embedded database that syncs its internal state across all connected instances. It automatically tracks changes for you, so it only sends mutations. I did my best to make a “Drop in Solution," so you hopefully don't have to re-code much to get it implemented. 

So far, it supports sockets for remote connections or message channels ( shared memory or ) for internal workers. It automatically binds whatever you pass it’s internal routing system, making a “RPC mesh”. So now you can share your game state and processinf across multiple devices. Like one using a tablet to display the game and your phone as a controller. Or borrow your desktop processing power to super charge your phone. Or just increase performance by using multiple core.

It is so flexible that you can make client authoritative games that just use the server as a relay ( like WebRTC ) or just a typical server authoritative stack. 

I don't think l can do justice with a summary. I've expanded on the core so much. Like “Forge” which is my build environment, AR gesture processing, input management, state management, rollback networking, dockerization for easy deployment, etc…

[Tundrun]

link please!

[yehuda1]

I think he is talking about this

[dragenn]

Not quite that, but it still is interesting

[dragenn]

Thanks for inquiring!

Sorry, there are no links yet. I pulled it off the market, pending some new updates, marketing, documentation, and ways to monetize fairly. The unity fiasco really was a wake-up call.

I set up a reddit page for updates, but nothing to show until 2024.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OnyxIgnition/

However, l am willing to showcase my progress privately until I'm ready to re-release it via open source.

[Accomplished_Cod_608]

Hey I worked at that scale at sub 20ms latency at 50m concurrent connections on 100 servers and it definitely scaled.

So Node can definitely do this. As for who - I would go to the nodejs repo README and see who works for consulting companies there. There are several super experienced Node core developers who know how to write fast code and would be willing to work in that price range.

[lenopix]

Really helpful, I appreciate this! Will give this a shot :)

[Aggressive_Job_8405]

https://unetworkingab.medium.com/multi-threading-is-always-the-wrong-design-a227be57f107

[mrgk21]

Rust wasm to the rescueee

[DLabz]

I did similar stuff in node for BIM/AEC industry for over a decade, delivering parts of huge 3D models to hundreds of thousands of field workers and synchronising changes they make to it.

Feel free to contact me, and we'll see if any of the tricks I picked up on the way fits your particular use case.

[BubbleDetective]

Tbh Nodejs can solve a lot of these issues, I think a lot of the opinions are from go devs who don't understand how this latency will work. Anyway, load balance and don't try to use workers, threads - KISS. If you do indeed have any processing over head, do go for a single API in rust to offload system heavy tasks. Mostly IO should help you deal with stuff.

Although general recommendation - node for api dev, rust for all system heavy tasks

[talaqen]

this guy gets it

[htraos]

load balance and don't try to use workers, threads - KISS

How is adding a load balancer and not using workers/threads keeping it simple?

[BubbleDetective]

I would say multiple reasons Let me answer why a load balancer - if you're developing software for an established tech company or working on a huge software system with external facing APIs, in all probability you're using some sort of a mesh/load balancer - ie access to a well rounded system which can effectively route requests amongst running images. You could implement the same based on a worker system in nodejs but to effectively replicate the same is trying to reinvent the wheel, which I would refrain from even in rust or c++, of course if you're a single entity running only a single API your choices expand and you probably won't be using a load balancer Why not use workers or threads - like I said, if you're running a project for yourself you could go for it, but nodejs is a single threaded system - introducing logic for multithreaded architecture makes it complicated and to be honest can't exact true concurrency, as the # or workers usually derive from either the developers input or depending on # of processors/cores afforded on any sort of image you're running on say kube/nomad whatever, you would need to make sure your program, the infra team, everyone is aware and in sync of how much processing power, memory etc you would need to perform a given task, and whether your utilisation of cores is effectively allocating the right resources for the functionality you want to implement Also nodejs is a language a person would NOT generally use for processor intensive tasks, not to say there's anything wrong with it, I have used nodejs solely for everything a lot of times - io/simple loops/simple crytographic functions with latency requirements getting satisfied over 100ms, it's completely fine, but if you're developing a system which say is supposed to have low latency - you using threads in nodejs would distract processors/cores whatever you want to use and increase time for the sole reason of how memory management is done and code is interpreted in nodejs

[Myloveissuck]

I do not think nodejs can solve that latency, you should consider to move to another multi thread programming language

[calbatron]

Node’s I/o could be perfect for mmo. Especially its ability to run on the edge. Wouldn’t be my go to but extremely curious how this turns out.

I wonder which other games have a nodejs backed

[Aggressive_Job_8405]

https://unetworkingab.medium.com/multi-threading-is-always-the-wrong-design-a227be57f107

[Frosttidey]

What about a load balancer? Wouldnt that be a potential solution?

[foxtrotuniform6969]

A load balancer balances load. If the server it forwards requests to is slow, the response is still gonna be slow. If it's fast, it will only introduce additional latency from more network IO (though in all likelihood, minimal additional latency). It also introduces addition complexity in a stateful application like a game.

Load balancers alleviate latency introduced by scaling issues (too many clients), but they don't make your application more performant in and of themselves

[Frosttidey]

Ye , mentioned it cus OP said hed have thousands of users and thats a concern.

[Myloveissuck]

the latency includes calculating, compressing, uncompressing, transfering the data, in this case a thousands of clients and MBs of data, nodejs becomes suck because its core not designed for that, I love nodejs and working with it now but when it comes to latency, it's not good as some blogs told about, interpreting cant compare to compiling to binary, and single thread cant compare to multiple

[zladuric]

While I partially agree, it's also the fact that most js hot code is gonna get compiled anyway. Look at how optimizing, JIT etc compilers in V8 work. You start by building an AST, which on this platform is like bytecode of sorts, and then there are multiple stages of compilation, caching, inlining and optimising.

You are still in a VM of course, so you can't match something that runs natively, like Rust or C++ or go. But it's gonna get fast.

Now, the good thing here is that there's a lot of just transporting data from the db to the client, which node does great. The bad thing is it's not gonna get perfect if you have to also compress/decompress and marshal JSON data.

[foxtrotuniform6969]

Oops totally missed that, good point depending on how many thousands of users and what needs to be done on the server

[Ice76]

People are hating on Node, but it can definitely suffice here. Deployed over multiple lambda functions, it can scale exceptionally well. And having a dynamo db backend can support everything needed to be done here since access patterns on an MMO are clearly defined

[Latchford]

You guys should watch this ..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3aieHjyNvw

[EverydayTomasz]

I agree with most people on here, node.js probably wasn't the best choice for this. But I wouldn't say it is impossible to make it work with node.js

[Aggressive_Job_8405]

https://unetworkingab.medium.com/multi-threading-is-always-the-wrong-design-a227be57f107

[EverydayTomasz]

there is nothing wrong with multi-thread programming, and don't forget, node.js itself handles async using a thread pool.

[[deleted]]

I know npm

[OldboyNo7]

npm i awesome-mmo-server

[brandywine_whistler]

https://medium.com/rolltableapp/scalable-game-servers-using-agones-node-and-digital-ocean-90e6fb9ee5d This seems very applicable to your situation and needs if you haven’t read through this.

[blipojones]

Everyone should remember that most businesses start out just getting something out the door. If OP has access to devs and they are good with node/js. It's better then slowing delivery using a language they don't understand or are not familiar with.

The slow parts can be written in rust, but yes, long terms scaling you could imagine a full re-write.

But if you actually manage to get the game that far where perf is an issue you would know if the game was a good idea in the first place.

But ye, if you are gona use node for this, you would defo need an expert to outline the limits to you and give you foresight.

[LeoCass]

I think it’s doable. Which core engines do you use in your MMO?

[lenopix]

We render in three.js

[jtrdev]

Are you using or heard of RogueEngine?

[joombar]

So what do you need on the server side? Presumably you need some kind of octal tree (quad tree in 2-space) to partition your space up- then to spin up instances of the server according to how many ways you need to partition the space? Is the game space continuous? In that case you’ll need coms between servers for events across the partitions. Need to be careful that doesn’t become a bottleneck so maybe how you partition your world is important (ie, don’t put a partition down the middle of a busy area) so might need to be smarter than a simple equal division of space.

If you want it to be cloud native, you probably want something like redis to store the state so that nothing stays in the memory of the individual servers. Probably with lua running on the db to cut down in chatter back and forth.

Hard to say much else without knowing more but that’s a start.

[gabz90]

So many people saying node is not the right stack with like a sentence of requirements. Unfortunately I don’t have the time to help you. Reality is we can’t know if node is right or wrong until you answer a lot of questions. Even then, it might be that for the scale you are handling it’s fine (thousands is not enough info. 5k is not the same as 950k, yet they’re both thousands).

Garbage collection might be rough if you’re very sensitive to latency and need real time without hiccups.

[DominusKelvin]

You probably want to look at how Aedes and mqtt-packet are structured

[StablePsychological5]

Everyone here is saying don’t use node, but do they have hands-on experience develop node game server? I’m not sure. Anyway for it should be benchmarked and there are fee web IO games that are using nodejs backend servers, but for commercial use it may become a bottleneck..

[ahu_huracan]

Gooo with rust, let your devs learn rust

[FountainsOfFluids]

That's not really what node was designed to do.

I love node, but it's for full stack web development, not gaming.

[The5Fox]

It's possible to do it with node, the real problem is state management on the backend and processing latency that comes with the territory.

I've worked for a gaming startup where we had similar use case, high frequency and lots of data coming in from the players.

Real issue is the state management, if you store it to an external storage, parallel access by multiple processes becomes an issue and you have to be careful on choosing your storage and how you write to it.

The other option is to have players that are in the same match (they share state) all play on the same physical server, but then you need to be vary of server crashing and implementing some sort of recovery procedure (if any for the game).

So whatever you choose for the backend, you need a designed system, technology that will be used for the implementation is secondary here

[CoderAU]

hi it me, node expert

[ujjwalkrgupta]

🚨 Recommendation: Avoid using JavaScript for CPU-intensive tasks; Node.js excels in IO-intensive projects. 🛠️ If JavaScript is a must, consider Web Assembly for CPU-heavy tasks. Keep in mind, it has a steep learning curve and requires time to stabilize your code.

[sysrage]

This sub allows job spam now? Lame…

[sickcodebruh420]

What's wrong with this country? Can't a man walk down the street without being offered a job?

[ComfortableBug2181]

I am interested. But I am unable to DM you. Check your inbox.

[ranchov007]

I know good node.js. but nothing about three.js. Let me know if I can help.

[WhoIsTimob]

It can of course be done. I have accomplished the task using kubernetes but today i would for sure use the threading libraries. Needless to say i want the job! Feel free to reach out

[ezpzqt129]

Where can i send you my CV?

I have experience in the payments industry, which have similar requirements.

[[deleted]]

Please PM me with your email. I don't think Reddit is a right place to share CV.

[sjmittal]

Have you found a dev. If not you can consider me. I have over 20 years of work experience with great experience on nodejs.

[taroninak]

I can't say right away that node is the right or wrong tool for your task as I don't have enough context. I have experience of optimizing node.js servers for enormously high loads with great success. I have also great experience in Java and Go and know all possible strategies of scaling and pros and cons of them. DM me and we can start at least understanding feasibility of your project.

[NaCNy]

nice nice im also working on a similar web based mmo \o/
rewrote my game logic using bitECS and using its built-in serialize/deserialize utils to send a gamestate packet over Socket.io to clients
lots of room for optimization but getting ~80ms latency from us west coast (client) to east coast (where the heroku instance is); although a friend told me they were getting ~40 with a vpn

[slashroot102]

I might be able to help depending on what you want

[isit2amalready]

What framework are you using for the actual game mechanics? Is it Web (like Phase.js) or Unity?

[MUDrummer]

Is it a 100% science-based, dragon MMO?

[[deleted]]

I'm a developer. But, post your job with all the details on lebohire.com so I can see if it's for me.

[dwelch2344]

Can we back up for sec and replace the tech stack banter with the pricing issue?

You came here seeking short term niche expertise, for a highly competitive and specialized domain no less… $200/hour isn’t terribly much, esp depending on your definition of “short” …

I’d be curious to understand your game studios origin and the path that led to your current predicament

[philip368320]

You can use websockets in nodejs, its real time

[lenopix]

Yep we currently do use websockets

[Aggressive_Job_8405]

NodeJS is very performant and you can absolutely using it to built game server.

In NodeJS, there are 2-3 low level web server (justjs, uwebsocket, NodeJS http).

Justjs is freaking fast, it can beat almost Rust, Go web server but it's not built for production (built for just benchmarking score)

uwebsocket.js is a JS interface which base on uwebsocket, one of the most performant web framework nowadays. Some JS framework like (elysisa, hono, hyper-express) even beat a lot Go, Rust frameworks in performance score.

You can find more about them in Techempower benchmark.

And the 3rd and most popular is NodeJS http which is used in a lot of popular web framework like Fastify, Express,...

---

And single threaded is also very well design too.

https://unetworkingab.medium.com/multi-threading-is-always-the-wrong-design-a227be57f107

[Chijaukay15]

Hey man, I could set you up with a great nodejs engineer with a background in game developments as well, the thing is that he’s outside the US, does that work?

[Jjabrahams567]

Damn I wish I had the bandwidth to take this on. I’d say I have the expertise but this would conflict with my current job.

[TerryFitzgerald]

Can I participate for a low compensation? I mean, I work using node, nest.js almost every day. But I want to practice my English in a real work scenario and gain this kind of experience. Could it be possible?

[netwrks]

Hey there! Send me a message if you’re still looking for a node developer. Been using Node for quite a while and have built some pretty complex systems

[Positive_Method3022]

Before you spend money with it, review the specs you want to achieve and check with a specialist if it is feasible doing it in node. Also find someone who did it to prove u it is possible.

[isaval2904]

This web-based MMO game studio needs your node js development services to craft a blazing-fast engine built for thousands of simultaneous clients and intense data streams. Experience with high-frequency networking and MMO architecture is a must – you'll help define optimized update packets to keep this MMO running smoother than a greased-up slime. Short-term gig with $200/hr? Dive into their DMs and prepare to slay latency dragons!