Review of Programming Role Playing Games with DirectX (Game Development Series) (Paperback)

I found the 1st edition of this book to be the best book on this topic I have found.I use much of the code and many of the concepts from this book in a hobby level multi-user RPG I have written.My review of that book is attached below.

Because I greatly appreciated the content of the 1st edition, I also bought the second edition.

Basically, the second edition is the first edition updated for DirectX 9.0.The text and the code are practically verbatim with small changes here and there to account for changes in technology and probably minor improvements the author wanted to make from the first edition.

The most obvious difference (aside from using DirectX 9.0), is that the first few chapters from the first edition have been removed.The discussion on how to design rpgs from a story line perspective, intro to C++ and a few other things were removed as well as the last chapter on marketing your game.

Editorially I can see why they did that.It makes the book much more focused on the "meat" of programming an RPG using DirectX.Also, I personally barely paid any attention to those chapters in the first book anyway as I focused on the programming myself.However, I thought they added an element of style to the book that was quite nice, so I miss them a little.

In summary, this book is pretty much the same as the first edition in all of the important ways.Since I thought extremely highly of that book, I think extremely highly of this one too.

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Review of Programming Role Playing Games with DirectX 8.0

I had a specific objective in mind when I bought this book. I'm in the process of writing a hobby level multi-user RPG for me and maybe up to a hundred or so other players (not many hundreds or thousands). I have a solid background in C++, less so in DirectX.

I've bought many books on game programming to help me with this process and to my surprise I've found this one simply amazing while most of the others I've found to be little more than expensive doorstops. :)

Like all the books of this nature, I read it in very much a "pick and choose" manner, focusing on chapters I liked and extracted code from the CD for places where it helped me. I found the material covered and, more importantly, the code representation of that material to be extremely helpful in my coding process.

I believe the tips and code the book provides (which all compile and provide very reasonable and practical applications for the ideas demonstrated) saved me (literally) hundreds of hours of research (not to mention trial and error) finding methods that work and work well and covered all of the core components I would want in a role-playing game. It covered multi-player over the internet, 2d and 3d rendering in directX, how to construct combat, spells, chat, and inventory systems and a variety of other items.

Naturally, I had to do a lot of customization to make the game do what I wanted it to do and I had to merge several of the ideas discussed into my own framework (for example the multi player network section is covered more or less stand alone where clearly other parts of the book need to be integrated with it to form a real game), but the result is I have a basic game up and running in a fraction of the time it would have otherwise taken, which no other book has ever really brought me.


Product Description
No game draws a player into its world in quite the same way as a role-playing game does. In role-playing games, players break through the barrier that exists between their actions and the fantastic world that they're navigating through and instead become an inhabitant of that world. Get ready to put your creative ideas in motion and try your hand at creating your own role-playing game! "Programming Role Playing Games with DirectX, 2nd Edition" will show you how to do it as you create cool graphics and combat engines, handle players in your game, use scripts and items, and make your game multiplayer-capable. This book breaks a role-playing game down into its essential components, examining the details of each and showing you how to use them in your game project. Learn how to draw with DirectX Graphics, play audio with DirectX Audio, network with DirectPlay,and process input with DirectInput. By the time you finish, you'll possess the skills you need to create a complete role-playing game.

About the Author
Jim Adams has been programming since age nine. For the past 22 years, he has worked various jobs in the business and entertainment industry.He has contributed to several books on game development and maintains a core library of DirectX functions to assist in game development.Jim is the author of the book "Programming Role Playing Game with DirectX" (Premier Press, 1931841098) and "Advanced Animation with DirectX" (Premier Press, 1592000371).

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Review of Multiplayer Game Programming w/CD (Prima Tech's Game Development) (Paperback)

OK well I know many people who are really serious about game programming get turned off by the Lamothe books because they basically go over the same old 2d information over and over again, and never actually seem up to date.This book is up to date, and has good information.It uses DirectX 8.0, and actually goes into 3d programming which is nice.I personally do not care for the DirectPlay information, I like Sockets, but either way they are both there.I will go through the pro's and cons.

Pros:
Easy to read and understand
Has quite a bit of good information and history
Definately good as a reference book
Covers DPlay and Sockets
Covers D3D, which i believe is nice to have even though it doesnt pertain to the multiplayer end.
Great service, I emailed the author and he emailed back.Can be quite a useful thing

Cons:
The code is poorly documented in many spots.While it is explained afterward, it would be nice to have a lot more comments. (which is something that Lamothe does quite nicely in his books)
Not very much ACTUAL GAME SERVER type code.. I've practically read over the book already, and while I have a general idea of how I will get this going, I feel more like i'm adapting chat programs to make my game.
Not enough on sockets... The sockets information was just too vague to me.
The DirectPlay information seemed mostly like pasted information out of the SDK Documentation.Honestly, the reason I bought the book was because I didn't get what was in the documentation very well.
And lastly i'd like to see more information on actually obtaining and setting up your server for a MMORPG.Things like security, what type of connection to get and how to get it etc.

Well, the cons seem bigger than the pros, but its really not like that.Just be warned that there are only about 200 or 400 pages out of this 800 page book that really focus on the issue of writing your server.Really, i'd like to see a sequel that really delved into the advanced issues, and really layed out things like sockets.

OK well finally, i'm glad I bought this book.I enjoyed it, and still am.It's a good book definately, and the perks of it are nice.I just feel like I want more, and there is nowhere to get it as of now.Based on this book, I would buy a sequel if it was put out.If I had it to do again, i'd buy this book again.Enough said, if you want to program games, buy this book.It's one you need on your shelf, as well as "Tricks Of The Windows Programming Gurus", and your most MOST important resource, the DirectX SDK.Because most of these books out today are just people who read and interpret the samples from it, and just print em out in a book.I learned most of the stuff from the SDK.

Product Description
Multiplayer Game Programming enables you to write your own completely Internet-ready video games using DirectX and/or sockets.This book reveals techniques and secrets of online gaming technology and teaches you the skills necessary to get involved in the video game industry. This book is perfect for hobbyist programmers who want to learn how to write online video games, software programmers wanting to move to online game programming, and the millions of video game players who want to learn about the technologies used in online video games.

Some of the features of the book include:

Coverage of both DirectPlay and Sockets
DirectX 8 with DirectPlay, Direct3D, DirectInput, and DirectAudio
Network design theory and implementation
Introduction to Windows programming
Multithreading
Player management
Peer-to-peer development
Client-server development
MMORPG design and implementation
Source for two complete INternet-ready games!
History of game development
Hacking into multiplayer games

About the Author
Todd Barron is a lead software engineer at Acxiom, a billion dollar information company based in Little Rock, Arkansas. Previously Todd was a professional game developer and developed networking systems and created mulitplayer games for the Megatouch arcade line at Merit Industries. In his spare time he operates Lost Logic, a vehicle for his PC game creations. He is currently working on a 3D multiplayer game engine for use in future titles.

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Review of Online! The Book (Paperback)

The Internet doesn't come with a manual, but if it did, this is it. This sounds like an exaggeration, but it is not because the book literally covers almost everything for people at all levels computer literacy.

That sounds like a tall order, doesn't it? I agree, yet Dvorak, Pirillo, and Taylor have pulled it off. The book has almost 700 pages of rock solid content in 28 chapters covering hardware, music, meeting people, gaming, networking, email, and more.

Though I read as much as I can about technology since getting my first computer in 1980, the book has material that cover areas I know less about such as enterprise instant messaging and peer-to-peer communication.

The topics are tackled at the 30-foot level and the 30,000-foot level. For example, we know emails are those messages that fill up our mailboxes with some in the ugly disguise of spam. The email chapter has contents on its history, protocols, clients, spam (of course), header analysis, filtering, and etiquette.

Protocols, header analysis, and filtering are uncomfortable terms for some people. Techie words and concepts are clearly explained without leaving the reader scratching his head and re-reading the paragraph until his eyes cross. Most of the technical terms and tips are in a gray box, so if you don't want to deal with it you skip over the visual cue. Tips are also in little boxes with a photo of Pirillo running into a window (again) or Dvorak in his Hulk Hogan wanna-be garb.

Business folk benefit from chapters on commuting, Internet marketing, content management, business Web sites, Internet law, and VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol). The Ten-Step Commute chapter takes a trip into the world of teleworking with advice on how to sell it to the boss, setting up remote access, and security.

This is not the heavy, boring textbook students lug around campus. The authors throw in their senses of humor throughout the manual. You could find the stuff in the book (where else?) online, but it takes many searches and hours to find the gold nuggets. Take a break and let the book do its job.

Believe it or not, I didn't notice the sub-title of the book when I wrote the first paragraph. When I got the book, I went right inside the cover. Online! The Book lives up to its sub-title, "Because the Internet does not come with a manual."

P.S. I take book reviews seriously. Some of you may know I write for Chris Pirillo's Lockergnome.com. If I didn't like the book, you wouldn't be reading this. No, he didn't pay me to say this. In fact, he doesn't know I've read the book and wrote a review.

Product Description
More people than ever before are using the Internet, and are using it more often for more purposes. Yet there has not been a new general-interest book on the Internet for a long time. John Dvorak, one of the most well-known authors on computers, and Chris Pirillo, one of TechTV's most popular hosts, have written a book which will appeal to all internet users, no matter what their level of expertise. Online! covers everything an Internet user needs to know, from hardware to security, from mobile access to spam filters, from blogging to setting up your own Web site. No matter how long you have been online, you will find this book to be an indispensable companion.

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