Programming Role Playing Games with DirectX (Game Development Series) 2nd Edition

I found the 1st edition of this book to be the best book on this topic I have found. I use much of the code and many of the concepts from this book in a hobby level multi-user RPG I have written. My review of that book is attached below.Because I greatly appreciated the content of the 1st edition, I also bought the second edition.Basically, the second edition is the first edition updated for DirectX 9.0. The text and the code are practically verbatim with small changes here and there to account for changes in technology and probably minor improvements the author wanted to make from the first edition.The most obvious difference (aside from using DirectX 9.0), is that the first few chapters from the first edition have been removed. The discussion on how to design rpgs from a story line perspective, intro to C++ and a few other things were removed as well as the last chapter on marketing your game.Editorially I can see why they did that. It makes the book much more focused on the "meat" of programming an RPG using DirectX. Also, I personally barely paid any attention to those chapters in the first book anyway as I focused on the programming myself. However, I thought they added an element of style to the book that was quite nice, so I miss them a little.In summary, this book is pretty much the same as the first edition in all of the important ways. Since I thought extremely highly of that book, I think extremely highly of this one too.------------------------------------------------------------Review of Programming Role Playing Games with DirectX 8.0I had a specific objective in mind when I bought this book. I'm in the process of writing a hobby level multi-user RPG for me and maybe up to a hundred or so other players (not many hundreds or thousands). I have a solid background in C++, less so in DirectX.I've bought many books on game programming to help me with this process and to my surprise I've found this one simply amazing while most of the others I've found to be little more than expensive doorstops. :)Like all the books of this nature, I read it in very much a "pick and choose" manner, focusing on chapters I liked and extracted code from the CD for places where it helped me. I found the material covered and, more importantly, the code representation of that material to be extremely helpful in my coding process.I believe the tips and code the book provides (which all compile and provide very reasonable and practical applications for the ideas demonstrated) saved me (literally) hundreds of hours of research (not to mention trial and error) finding methods that work and work well and covered all of the core components I would want in a role-playing game. It covered multi-player over the internet, 2d and 3d rendering in directX, how to construct combat, spells, chat, and inventory systems and a variety of other items.Naturally, I had to do a lot of customization to make the game do what I wanted it to do and I had to merge several of the ideas discussed into my own framework (for example the multi player network section is covered more or less stand alone where clearly other parts of the book need to be integrated with it to form a real game), but the result is I have a basic game up and running in a fraction of the time it would have otherwise taken, which no other book has ever really brought me.

I had a specific objective in mind when I bought this book. I'm in the process of writing a hobby level multi-user RPG for me and maybe up to a hundred or so other players (not many hundreds or thousands). I have a solid background in C++, less so in DirectX. I've bought many books on game programing to help me with this process and to my surprise I've found this one simply amazing while most of the others I've found to be little more than expensive doorstops. :) Like all the books of this nature, I read it in very much a "pick and choose" manner, focussing on chapters I liked and extracted code from the CD for places where it helped me. I found the material covered and, more importantly, the code representation of that material to be extremely helpful in my coding process. I believe the tips and code the book provides (which all compile and provide very reasonable and practical applications for the ideas demonstrated) saved me (literally) hundreds of hours of research (not to mention trial and error) finding methods that work and work well and covered all of the core componenets I would want in a role-playing game. It covered multi-player over the internet, 2d and 3d rendering in directX, how to construct combat, spells, chat, and inventory systems and a variety of other items. Naturally, I had to do a lot of customization to make the game do what I wanted it to do and I had to merge several of the ideas discussed into my own framework (for example the multi player network section is covered more or less stand alone where clearly other parts of the book need to be integrated with it to form a real game), but the result is I have a basic game up and running in a fraction of the time it would have otherwise taken, which no other book has ever really brought me.

The book delivers as promised. By the end of the book, you have a full working RPG mini-game that should help any developer get past the beginning stages. This book doesn't do everything for you. It puts you on the map. If a reader takes the time to understand the given code and READ the book, there will be gains to be had.The author does go into some basic ideas at the front of the book, but I don't feel the technical material covered is enough to completely educate a pure novice and is too simple for an intermediate programmer. Although ineffective, I don't subtract from my review ratings for additional information.I felt the author's technique was pretty well thought in this regard however. Someone reading the book finds the foothold where they first understand everything easily. This allows the author and reader to find the common stride needed for the reader to move forward.There is some issues with the book code that had to be solved, but the author has a website with all the changes. The big problem is more Microsoft's fault rather than the author's. The book was released with DirectX 8.0 and the MS team decided to change a few things with DirectX 8.1. Not to worry, the author has updated his entire book code with an easily downloadable patch.In Summary,Best book I've read so far. From Graphics, Sound, Networking, Input and much more, this monster of a book will make you a better game programmer if the time is spent with it. (Beginner to Intermediate C++ knowledge required. A small trip through the DirectX SDK tutorials a plus.)

Loved this book. Even though it's old, it's the most comprehensive description, with coded examples of how to program an RPG from scratch. If you can translate from C++ to whatever language you're interested in, this book is still very relevant.

great book

This was a replacement order for my original that got damaged. It arrived on time and intact. Very pleased with the delivery time.

My own 2 cents, briefly - it covers most aspects of the game development process in substantial detail, and presents it all in a clear, friendly, well-explained manner.The sample code is excellent, and if you want to get developing RPGs with DirectX 8.0, this is an excellent start.Speaking as mainly a VB/Dot Net developer, I'd have been keen to see code that used C#, etc, but there's no denying that C++ is the most common language for DirectX development. If you're not familiar with C++, you'll need to familiarise yourself with its concepts to follow the code, but apart from that, what are you waiting for?

This is a decent book, if you get it for the right price. I don't recommend paying too much as the information gets out of date quickly.

Unserem Sohn hat es sehr gefallen, hilft ihm sehr beim programmieren

RPGゲームを開発するには何が必要か？という問いに一番あってる本だと思います。ゲーム開発を企画する方法からはじめ、シナリオ、メインゲームエンジンの作成、サウンド、グラフィックス、そしてゲームの販売など総合的な内容を解説しています。ですが、DirectXを元にしたC++で開発しているため、かなりのC++の知識が必要です。そして何より大きな問題は、今のDirectX SDKとこの本で解説しているDirectXのバージョン違いです。かなり多くの部分でDirectXクラスがなくなったり、メソードが変更されたりしていますので初心者はついていけないかも知れません。この本に載っている内容をそのまま受け入れるよりは、そこに使われた作者のテクニック、アルゴリズムなどをしっかり把握して勉強すれば、この本はとても価値ある本になるでしょう。若干古い本ですがRPGゲームを作りたいという人にとって一度は必ず読んでおいた方がいいと思う本です。

GameDev.netの評価が非常によかったので買いました。DirectXが初歩から学べて、簡単なＲＰＧが作れるようになるのですばらしいと思います。最後にできあがるゲームはバイオハザードのような固定カメラ＋回転移動のものでした。難点はフルスクリーンに関する説明がなされていないのとXファイルに関する説明が足りなかったことです。