Formats

[cairnswm]

XML can be encrypted or compressed to make it binary. Thats how I store my game config now.

While Array[0.255] of Char will work writeing String[255] is easier. Look up ShortStrings in the Delphi Help.

There are a number of nice component sets out there for zipping and encrypting files: look at the DCP Components http://www.cityinthesky.co.uk/cryptography.html and the
dzdel.zip compression libraries http://swiss.torry.net/vcl/compress/std/dzdel.zip

If you have your information in a Memory Stream you can then encrypt the stream and save to disk. This allows you to save and load encrypted data. (My data gets save with a key of about 100 bytes long - then the key is added to the config XML which is then encrypted using another 32byte binary key).

[cairnswm]

I thought that I should quickly do a demo on how to encrypt your stream information so I did one in the Tutorials section:

http://terraqueous.f2o.org/dgdev/viewtopic.php?p=8561

Have a look.

[Paulius]

In any multiplayer game it?¢_~s a very bad idea to send the whole map, make players download maps before joining the game. You should only send changing data like object A moved to position B, and avoid sending strings, send strings like names only once and enumerate them(Make a list of them and use a number to look them up).

[xGTx]

Oh I do, I think I didnt explain clear enough.

In my MMORPG, it isnt a scrolling map. So when a player walks out of the current map, the next map data is sent.