It's time to learn how to setup a basic communications network, by use of the 39dll application extension. We'll start by setting up the system that lets a client interact with the server. Without this important system, your users wouldn't be playing an MMORPG, but a single-player game.

Before continuing, make sure you understand The Concept as best as you can.

The first communication functions we'll be making use of are as follows:

These functions are pretty self-explanatory. Run them at the appropriate time (start of the game and end of the game respectively).

The following functions are generally only used in single sections of code too, and while you won't use them often they are very important:

The function tcpconnect() is generally used by the client only, for connecting to the server. Normally it is only used once, near the start of the game.

The function tcplisten() is generally used by the server only. It is used within a section of code for handling new connections to the server, caused by the above function.

The function tcpconnected()  is used by both the client and server to check if an established connection is still active, or whether it has been broken.

Next we'll use some of these functions to prepare your client program