MMO Server + Unreal Client Plugin

Distributed MMO backend in C++17 with separate Auth, Game, and Chat services, plus an Unreal Engine runtime client plugin.

Project status

⚠️ Work in progress: This project is not finished and is under heavy active development. Expect breaking changes, incomplete systems, and missing hardening for production use. Currently the development cycles can be quite long. Got a Main Job and quite much with my family to do.

What this project includes

• Auth server: login, character create/select/delete/list, session key handling
• Game server: world entities, zone management, movement/combat packets, persistence hooks
• Chat server: base packet handling for chat channel flow
• Shared common layer: sockets, config parsing, packet contracts, logging, Redis/MySQL integration, security/compression helpers
• Web GUI monitoring: lightweight HTTP monitoring endpoints and embedded dashboard page
• Unreal plugin: MMOClient runtime networking module for game-side integration

Currently working features

• Multi-service backend binaries build and run (auth_server, game_server, chat_server)
• Config-driven startup using --config and key-value config files
• Shared packet layer with compression/encryption path in the common networking stack
• Redis + MySQL connectivity in the shared server layer
• Session lifecycle and heartbeat timeout handling in BaseServer
• Auth flow: login, character create/select/delete/list
• Game connect handoff via session key validation from Redis
• Basic player movement handling after game connect
• Entity/zone management foundation with player load/save on connect/disconnect
• Web GUI server can be enabled from config for monitoring endpoints
• Chat server receives chat packets, but full chat channel/message routing logic is still TODO

Not working yet / in progress

• Chat message handling logic is not implemented yet (Server/chat/src/main.cpp TODO)
• Player-specific runtime update logic is still TODO (Server/game/src/Player.cpp)
• NPC AI behavior is still TODO (Server/game/src/NPC.cpp)
• Several entity spawn fields in zone broadcasts still use placeholder values (class/level/type/item/count)
• Some packet IDs are still unhandled and currently log as unknown in server handlers

Repository layout

Server/
  CMakeLists.txt
  auth/
  chat/
  game/
  common/
client/
  Plugins/MMOClient/

Tech stack

• C++17
• CMake
• Boost (Asio/Beast)
• OpenSSL
• LZ4
• MySQL client libraries
• Redis (hiredis)
• Unreal Engine plugin (client side)

Prerequisites (Linux)

Install the core toolchain and dependencies:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y \
  build-essential cmake pkg-config \
  libboost-system-dev libboost-thread-dev \
  libssl-dev liblz4-dev libmysqlclient-dev libhiredis-dev

You also need running database services:

• MySQL (for accounts/characters/game state)
• Redis (for sessions/shard discovery/runtime state)

Build servers

cd Server
cmake -S . -B build
cmake --build build --target auth_server chat_server game_server -j

Configuration

Servers load key-value configs via --config.

Included examples:

• Server/common/auth.cfg
• Server/common/game.cfg

Typical keys:

• Network: bind_ip, bind_port
• MySQL: mysql_host, mysql_port, mysql_user, mysql_password, mysql_db
• Redis: redis_host, redis_port, redis_user, redis_password
• Logging: log_level, log_to_file, log_file_dir, log_file_level
• Web GUI: webgui_enabled, webgui_port, webgui_allowed_ips, webgui_user, webgui_password

Run servers

From repository root:

./Server/build/auth_server --config ./Server/common/auth.cfg
./Server/build/chat_server --config ./Server/common/auth.cfg
./Server/build/game_server --config ./Server/common/game.cfg

Note: A dedicated chat.cfg is not currently shipped. You can create one or reuse auth.cfg with a unique bind_port.

Unreal client plugin

Plugin path:

• client/Plugins/MMOClient/MMOClient.uplugin

The plugin exposes runtime networking functionality to connect gameplay code to backend services using the shared packet model.

Development notes

• Packet contracts are centralized in Server/common/include/Packets.h.
• Shared server lifecycle/session behavior is in Server/common/include/BaseServer.h.
• Monitoring endpoints are in Server/common/include/WebGuiServer.h.
• Current implementation is a prototype foundation and should be hardened before internet-facing deployment.

Community

• Discord (collaboration and support): https://discord.gg/SbNzjeZT

Contributing

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch
3. Keep changes focused and well-tested
4. Open a pull request with clear context

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.