How can I build my game with this system?
All you do is inherit your Game Mode from my OWSGameMode base class, your Character from my OWSCharacter (or OWSCharacterWithAbilities) base class, and your Player Controller from my OWSPlayerController base class. All of the functionality above is now available for you to use.
Can I build a game that is not an RPG?
Yes, currently we have developers using this system to build MMO's, Persistent World Co-op, Open World Survival, FPS, Racing, and RTS games!
Can I use Blueprints or do I need to use C++?
If you start with my project template the C++ is already compiled for you and you can do all of your game building with blueprints. If you want to add the functionality to your existing game you may need to install Visual Studio 2015 on your PC and follow some simple instructions to set up the C++, but you do not need to know how to code in C++.
How Large of a World can I Create?
Each map is run on a specific IP and port that is managed by the Login / Management server. Then these maps together create your larger game world. During development I often run a dozen maps on one PC without any noticable performance issues. Each map can be multiple km in size and with enough servers your could support 100's of maps. So you can create as large a game world as you want.
What are the limitations of this system?
You are limited in how many players can connect to one map instance at a time, but you can load multiple versions of that map to support more players; they just won't all be able to see each other. It is up to you to decide how large each map is depending on your game design and performance considerations. The transition from one map to another is not seamless, but it is fairly quick (a few seconds).
What kind of hardware do I need to run this system?
For development I can run all of the components on my development PC. For deployment you can run all of the server components on one Windows hosted server or your can split it up into a large web-farm. For my game with a very limited number of players I run the Login / Management server on a Windows server (Virtual Host with 4 MB RAM) at 1and1 web hosting and then have one of the players (myself) run the world servers along with my UE4 client. The code runs on Microsoft .NET and uses the free edition of Microsoft SQL.
Will this system run on Linux?
I am working on an alternate version of the World Server which will launch the UE4 dedicated server instances on Linux. The alternate version uses ASP .NET Core to run on Linux. I was able to get it running on CentOS 7, but it should run fine on other versions of Linux as well. The database can be run on Linux using the new SQL Express for Linux. The Web API does not currently run on Linux, but at some point I want to rewrite it in .NET core so that it can run on Linux or OSX.