[Merlin2]

I didn’t have a GRAAL account so darklink let me use his.

SQL is cool but if I were to make a GRAAL or if you will SIDRA I would use Visual C++ to design multiple servers using a TCP/IP connection to communicate with its clients. These multiple servers would use an Oracle Database. Instead of reading/writing to Oracle though BDE, ADO, ODBC or IFS (internet file system) I would communicate directly with Oracles OCI layer. This would increase the speed and reliability of data being transferred, which would lower bandwidth and speed up game play. I used to design 3D video game engines. They are very time consuming and the characters take forever to design. When I tried to get a game/software into the retail market the high costs always stopped me. You’re looking at a minimum of $250,000.00 just to get to market. And then another $10,000 or so to grease the retailers palms. And that’s to advertise your own stuff on their shelves. The reason I would charge to design something like GRAAL is because of the amount of time involved. So keep in mind that GRAAL is done very well for a free online game. It took some great ideas and hard work to accomplish what you see, hear and play.

One more comment for Virgil. I have worked as a freelance programmer for over 10 years. In that amount of time you have to learn something new all the time or you get very board very fast! In fact I am currently working on my own scripting language that works on a tag system. This will be used to decrease development time and allow high level programming techniques to be implemented in Intranet/Internet projects.

-MIKE WADE