Question concerning features of a MMORPG

Originally Posted by Chucklez

Not sure if anyone here has ever heard of it, much less played it, but I am creating what can be termed a 'clone' of a game called ArchMage originally created then dropped by a company called MARI telecommunications from Korea several years back.

Originally Posted by b3n

Flash wouldn't take any longer than a script, because Flash can't talk to a database directly. You use Flash to talk to a server-side script (like PHP), which acts as a middle-man between the database and the Flash movie.

Originally Posted by Chucklez

Not sure if anyone here has ever heard of it, much less played it, but I am creating what can be termed a 'clone' of a game called ArchMage originally created then dropped by a company called MARI telecommunications from Korea several years back. After MARI discontinued development of the game, several copies have sprouted up, now Im in the process of creating my own.

Basically, this game is a text based/turn based game. I am encoding it in php with a SQL backend. While I am not finished with the PHP coding, it is coming along nicely, although a bit slow. I will begin working on several of the new features here shortly. But I am not entirely certain of the way I wish to proceed on creating it.

In the game, there is a 'marketplace' of sorts where players can put up for sale their unwanted items, or purchase items, in a auction type of sales system. Once a bid is placed upon an item, someone has 30 minutes to come along and place a higher bid. If someone bids higher, then the clock is reset to 30 minutes, and the process begins anew. Once the item has gone a complete 30 minutes without a higher bid, the purchaser receives the item and the seller receives the funds generated from the sale. Now, several people have requested a sidebar that shows how long until they either receive the item or the money generated by the sale, and to display this in a clock type fasion.

My question here, and I guess this is simply a matter of opinion, what would be the best way to accomplish this? At first, I began to explore the JS route, but ruled that out as I cannot find out how to connect to a DB from JS. I then thought of using a RSS type feed, but 1.)I know nothing of RSS, and 2.) How could it update without refreshing the entire screen? Recently, it was suggested that I used flash and ActionScript to accomplish this, and it seems a very good idea, except for 1.) I know nothing of Flash, and 2.) Wouldnt the constant querying (say perhaps every 10 seconds or so would be sufficient) of the DB drastically slow things down, especially if this game would and could eventually have thousands of players from all over the world playing?

As far as my 'Not Knowing' or not being familar with JS, RSS, or Flash, thats not much of a problem as my knowledge of PHP and HTML are entirely self taught, and I can do the same with any of the above.

And when it comes to the server, I am not entirely sure of the specs, but it is a dedicated server.

So, what would be the best way to do this? Possibly something I havent thought of yet? Thanks for your input here guys and gals.

Here is some concept art/templates from the graphics designer we have on our team:

Main Gaming Page
Secondary Page
Background that turn information will be shown on
Different symbols used in the gameplay

Originally Posted by gimp

I personally despise iframes. They work well for KoL but rarely anywhere else. Using an AJAX implementation for supposedly real-time updating seems like a much better way to me.

I personally would also prefer ajax to flash.