My weekend of netgore
Well I've decided to start learning c# by learning networking first so I decided to make a news box.
thats my pride and glory at the moment. Currently I've created the socket connection asked the server for the news and gotten it back. However at the moment the news is hard coded so my next job is to learn mysql so I can grab the news from the database.
so that sums it up really making slow progress but I've learnt all the networking I'm going to need for my project (hopefully) and aload of c# basic stuff
In vbGore the way SVO got its "news" was by grabbing a txt file from our site. It's easier to just have the client grab a file from a website rather than the server having to access the database and send over the news to each and every client that is running.
now that I think about it damn I'm a spaz.... well I guess I'll be rewriting the news system when I get a chance (got my first AS level tomorrow =/ )
on the bright side at least I learnt all I needed too about packets.
Having it grab from a web server also makes it easier to delay the establishment of the connection with the game server. Web servers also usually have better uptime (pretty hard to crash a web server) so you can likely deliver the news more reliably. It also lets you give news as to why the server is down or that an update is happening, both of which are pretty common.
As for how to download from a web page, just see what the server does for grabbing the external IP. I believe its a WebClient class that you use. Its incredibly simple in .NET.
or better yet Implement a bare bones browser that directs to your news page.. Then you can use HTML to make it looks pretty without having to do as much work in the source itself. Pretty good for making adjustments on the fly without having everyone of your users grab a new client.
Also just to teach yourself, you may want to to the database idea too just to start to get the working of how you access a database, in the most simple way possible, before you start worrying about handling logins and retrieving player accounts.
Well as you may of seen from my other posts asking for help 
I'm back and I decided to finish work on the news box. So with out further ado
Now I just need to find a graphics artist willing to create the images to make it look nice.
Imageshack doesn't do this picture any favours but the text is readable.
Looks good. It's all about the little things 
.
Write a quick guide on the wiki so others can benefit 
I already know a good amount about sockets, but if you wrote a quick wiki page on sockets within net gore, I think it would be highly beneficial. (new developers that are interested can get right in the meat of net gore)
