2D Multiplayer Game - What tools do I need?

#1 Yes, I ran into the same issue. TGB has networking support for turn-based games. For a realtime-networked game like you described the best solution I have read of is to purchase TGE and TGB Pro, then patch the TGE network code into your TGB app.

XNA 2.0 now has networking for Live, so these features may be added to Torque X in the near future.

#2 I'm interested in not only information on networking with TGB, but how to manage the game overall as far as servers and whatnot. I have an idea for a turn based game that would benefit greatly from a multiplayer component. I'm able to get two copies of TGB to connect and send messages to each other, I'm just not sure how it would all work when there are many more players.

#3 Joe Bird, it's not "turn-based" it's "event-based". There is a very, very substantial difference. "Turn-based" implies just that, although you could do turn-based games with "real-time" (a misnamed thing if there ever was one) and you can do a game that has no turns with event-based networking as well. When did this business of calling event-based networking become "turn-based" start?

Joe Rossi, you'd basically need to track each of your connections. When you have an onClientConnected() message to your server, keep track of that %client and then when updates are needed send a message back to that client.

#4 "When did this business of calling event-based networking become "turn-based" start?"

When typing "TGB Networking" brings up tons of docs where users refer to the networking as "turn-based" or "non-realtime" or when the included TGB Networking tutorial, "Checkers", refers to them as "turn based networking functions".

So from here on out I will refer to them as event-based.

#5 Well I have the same issue and I'm still developing the game's features so I have not started yet with networking but I think it's possible to use TNL (open o closed source) or Oregano Server (http://www.spicefactory.org/oregano/download.php) with TGB Pro.

I don't know how bigger is your budget ( I had read that commercial version of TNL is easier to integrate than open source version) or how bigger are your networking needs but I'm sure that you should have TGB Pro instead TGB because TNLite is too basic when we are talking about a dedicated server. (Just my opinion it's would be very nice if someone have another experience to share), and you will want to have access to TGB's source code in order to integrate your game with another networking alternative.

#6 The versions of TNL are the same, the licensing is the only difference. And there are some nasty namespace issues that people have had in integrating TNL into TGB. That was one of the reasons that Tom Bampton integrated TGE into it rather than TNL, I believe.