I've been approved for my webpage (yeah) but am waiting for my confermation email, aol stinks. Anyway, I've been working on an idea for a text based game now for some time on paper. It would be in real time days=days hours=hours kinda thing, needing some databases with pictures. I would want a place where there could be some kind of forum or something like it.

My question is, what languages would I need to know to do this kinda stuff? I've got the HTML down pretty well. I have to download that WAMP thing so I can learn PHP. I'm pretty sure I'll need to learn that and MySQL. But is there anything else or should I not be learning those at all?

PHP is the best choice as far as programming languages go. Having developed and deployed a version of the text based games based on the Promisance game language in the past: you may want to evaluate PostgreSQL as your database choice.

Now I was using the MySQL 3.x series of databases when I ran my games up until some early versions of 4.x. While the database is great for most web applications, like content management systems or anything running a large number of SELECT statements, I found that MySQL hiccupped more than I would have liked. What MySQL lacked was the ablity to lock tables and rows. If there were a lot of users (say 400 online at one time), people trying to access the same information could cause the whole thing to crash thanks to corrupted data.

Now those features are available in the newer versions of MySQL, but PostgreSQL already had those features and they were well tested in production enviroments. I got a version of Promisance recoded to use the PostgreSQL database, but my laptop's Logic board fried and Apple cleaned the HDD when I sent it in. My Fault for not keeping a CDR backup or another copy online. (Although in defense of Apple, I got a new faster Combo drive and OS 10.3 for free [hence why the drive was wiped])

O.K., being a programming moron here. Is MySQL or PostgreSQL something I would have to download to use? I haven't even attempted as of yet to get to the database part of looking at things, so I haven't looked into it. I'm starting slowly right now, wanting to get my background in place and trying to work on the CSS, but for some reason when I went to do the CSS on the geocities page it wouldn't work. Maybe I'm not allowed to there, but I did it exactly as it said to do on two different tutorials so I was getting pretty ticked and just decided to take a break.

without any doubt it will be PHP and ofcourse you will need any database, i suggest MySQL, it's much easier to deal with and have more features, i think it's the best for now.
by the way, i was planning to begin a game project too, i hope we can be in contact, may we make a good thing together, i have an idea for a game, in fact not only one, i have 3, just i'm so busy with a portfolio manager i'm coding, anyway, i made a google group for that purpose, to connect php programmers and persons who have ideas to create games and projects you can check it at :
Google PHP/MySQL Projects Group
and i hope we can do some good work together.

XIII, when I start learning PHP I will check out that site more. It looks like it could be of some help to me, having people doing the same things and possibly getting some feedback. Thats why I like this place too. If I run into any problems, I can always ask. Being new to programming, it's hard when something doesn't go right and I just cant figure it out. So its always good to have someone elses point of view on things sometimes.

It depends. If you have an account at astahost, I think they provide you with a your choice of MySQL or PostGresSQL, or both. All in all I have used both. I haven't designed any databases, but PostGresSQL seems to be somewhat better in some reguards. I don't personally know all the differences in it, but you should probably google it and do some research before you decide. One difference I've heard a lot about is inhertiance. I don't know if the new version of mysql offers it, but postgres does. So, depending on what game type you wanted, if you chose rpg you could create a table that holds fields like race, age, sex, name, etc. Simple characterstics that belong to all every class in your rpg. Then you could create other tables that inherit your previous table that have specific characteristics according to their class. In D&D types of games Orcs are obviously different than humans or elves, so you could probably think of a few characterstics that are different, probably to do with damage or something.

Once you decide, either use astahost (or other free web hosting or w/e you want) and start learning. You will have to install it if you want to do it locally, so I don't know what WAMP comes with, but probably php, apache, and mysql. You'll have to install PostGres manually more than likely.

Just as mysql has phpMyAdmin, postgres has phpPgAdmin. I like them both, but one of my professors says that he likes phpMyAdmin better. It apparently has a lot more features. For me, I find them both adequate, but after using phpPgAdmin for awhile, it seems more logical the way it's layed out rather than phpMySql. Good luck, and if you need help installing it, you might find someone to supply you with the commands to add to your .ini's and .conf files in order to make postgres work with php by altering your WAMP configurations. That is if it's not installed already, I've never used WAMP.

I don't know much about the pictures either, but you want to store pictures on your database? I've never done that but it sounds interesting. I personally just use an upload script and upload them then have the url's to each image written to the database. Can you actually encrypt the image and store it?

Good Luck.

never i heared about that before, all i know about this subject, not only know but also use, is images links, to put them into your database, so you can point to these images by pointing to thier links in your database, that's what i know and what i think you need.

I don't know alot about databases so I didn't know it wasn't posible to put pictures in. I will figure things out when I start reading about it. I'm getting my original computer back on Tuesday hopefully, so I can download what I need, such as WAMP and things, to get started. But as of yet, I still haven't recieved my confomation Email from astahost (problems with AOL or something). But the computer I'm on now I think either has a bad power supply or motherboard issues. It keeps shutting itself down, not hibernation mode. But none-the-less I should be getting my computer back on tuesday.

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