Based on my scenario should i go WebSockets or XmlHttpRequest or both?

Question

I am about to make a turn-based game in the Monkey language (Cross-platform translator). The game will use the HTML 5 platform. This game will play online where players can match against each others (It can be a 2vs2 match). I recently reviewed a tons of solutions and i stopped on 2 of them. The good old XmlHttpRequest and the new one WebSocket which seem to be in a recommandation state from W3C which is rather good. There also another technology which i was interested which is PubNub, a push service. This service actually push messages to all clients connected and is really fast.. but this come at a cost later and is restricted in the number of messages you sent. By that i mean it cost you 15$ per month for 1000 connections and 1million message then +1$ for another 1 million and go on. There actually 3 actors, the client written in monkey (HTML5) the server written in C# because i know well the language and PubNub for broadcasting messages. The client will only send requests to the server and the server is relaying the messages to PubNub which in return send back to clients. I had two plan in head considering thoses facts :

1. The game is written in HTML 5 but i may port it to other languages (Android as an example). I can't do that if i use WebSockets because i would have to get additionnals librairies to handle this and i don't want to invest more time in it. So i will focus on HTML 5 for now but porting it is alway an option.
2. Its a turn-based game so yeah XmlHttpRequest seem to be suitable for this task but at which point ? If i have over 1000 connections sending requests will it be able to support it ? Each turn is an unique request but chat messages is also a request and private messages too, getting player data too (before you join any game) etc. An advantage over WebSockets is that Http Get are easy to make and is supported easily on many platforms so i could obviously go the Android route if i choose this.
3. I don't want to invest more time in others technologies than thoses stated here.
4. PubNub cost money in the end but it is very efficient for pushing messages so not using it might be risky and would force me to do the messages relaying code myself.

So here my 4 plans.

1. Going with WebSockets and use Alchemy as a WebSocketServer for C# which i tested and work wonderfully and still have the PubNub actor in the backend for relaying my messages.
2. Go with XmlHttpRequests and use a simple WebAPI for the request Gateway.
3. Go with both. Make the client independent on which technology to choose. Use XmlHttpRequest as a fallback and make the server support both connection. PubNub will still be the relaying actor here which should make the whole stuff communicating.
4. Go with WebSockets but without PubNub.

So which route do you recommand me to go and why ?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Take a look at http://realtime.co - Its a Realtime platform similar to PubNub and with more capabilities.

Answer 2

PubNub for Indie Games and Multiplayer Online Worlds

Networking is hard when you are building a simulated world for people to explore. These simulations are often considered. PubNub is the best solution for indie game developers for all the good reasons. Enable Networking in your Indie Game is simple with PubNub's two easy functions PUBNUB.publish({...}) and PUBNUB.subscribe({...}). Adding Networking in your apps allows you to implement multiplayer games and more! Implement real-time notifications between HTML5 browsers, phones, tablets and more. Everything can send and receive data from everywhere on Earth.

WebSockets or XMLHttpRequest or both?

PubNub makes this choice for you, automatically detecting the best connection type suited for your player's systems and capabilities. That means your Indie Game will function as expected on all platforms including Android, iPhone, Chrome / Firefox / IE and more. That makes it easy, so you don't need to worry about transports or delivery methods to the diverse number of platforms that exist. Your team only needs to focus on making a compelling and engaging online multiplayer game.

Online Indie Game - Server Logic

You need a way to securely collect player progress and track actions and consequences on your world. You may also need to track inventory and player state. There are two great services for this.

RoarEngine

First let me recommend http://www.roarengine.com/ RoarEngine an online hosted Game Engine which gives you a Scripting Engine to Unleash your creativity with limitless possibilities by writing your own custom logic. Events, challenges, timed mechanics, you name it. RoarEngine also offers Items & Gifts economy to Shape player interactions by creating items that affect player state, powered by a full featured shop, currency and gifting system that can be managed on the fly.

Parse

I highly recommend https://parse.com/ an online cloud hosted service which managers you user/player sessions. Parse is great when you need an online platform for more abstract and less tailored to gaming; which allows you to define models and objects in the way you choose. With Parse you don't need to focus on building infrastructure, you instead get to focus on building your game world state.

PubNub HTML5 MMO XKCD Game Multiplayer

We wanted to demonstrate the capabilities of HTML5 Indie Games used together with PubNub to enable expansive gameplay that joins players all across the world in real-time. This game uses HTML5 Canvas with multiple users flying around with a balloon figure. If you got stuck, you can click your balloon guy and turn into a ghost to seamlessly move through the landscape unhindered by mortal barriers like trees and hills. There was a problem however with the scaling of users on ordinary off-the-shelf gaming servers. The max concurrency could only be a few users at a time leaving many wonder where the MMO part of the MMO was. PubNub makes this automatic and at a lower cost compared to self-hosting options. Teams who are considering self-hosted options will consider the cost compared to maintaining and hosting a networking cluster for gameplay.

• PLAY LIVE - http://www.pubnub.com/static/pubnub-xkcd/index.html
• BLOG - http://blog.pubnub.com/xkcd-mmo-websocket-scaling-with-pubnub/
• SOURCE CODE - https://github.com/pubnub/pubnub-xkcd

The links above show you a live HTML5 Canvas based game that is powered by PubNub multiplayer capabilities.