Mozilla Releases HTML5 MMO BrowserQuest

Visual slashdotting. by suso · 2012-03-27 07:53 · Score: 4, Funny

I'm waiting to see thousands of new players enter the arena in real time. Should be interesting.

Re:Visual slashdotting. by suso · 2012-03-27 08:13 · Score: 1

Eh, disappointing turnout.
Re:Visual slashdotting. by GNious · 2012-03-27 08:39 · Score: 1

Is running VERY slowly with 74 players on the server I ended up at ... and Firefox was complaining about scripts not responding.
Is pretty cool demo, but need more polishing.
Re:Visual slashdotting. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 09:53 · Score: 0

Eh, disappointing turnout.
I heard from a GM that there are several servers.
Re:Visual slashdotting. by VanGarrett · 2012-03-27 14:59 · Score: 1

While I was playing a moment ago, there were 74 players at peak (that I noted), and never fewer than 68-- in the same instance as me. Total online was 1700+.

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Learning about brewing beer, by brewing beer.
Re:Visual slashdotting. by EdIII · 2012-03-27 16:39 · Score: 1

I'm waiting to see thousands of new players enter the arena in real time. Should be interesting.
I'm just waiting for one player.... me.
Re:Visual slashdotting. by hairyfeet · 2012-03-27 16:45 · Score: 0

I'm waiting to see someone explain WHY, for the love of Pete why? with ALL the trouble Mozilla has had lately, declining share, practically zero adoption in the mobile space, the well documented problems with memory leaks, extensions getting killed by version jumps, extensions making the leaks worse, why are they wasting resources making a fricking browser based MMO?
Hey Moz, you wanna fart around? that's cool, but don't be surprised if you wake up one day and find your share of the browser market dried up. How about instead of wasting money on MMOs, yet another thing we do not need, how about you use that money to do some focus groups or even just ASK your users what they want, and then you actually LISTEN to them, how about that?
I used to hand out Firefox in my free software pack with every new build, but it seems that Mozilla has got that bug that infected the Ubuntu and GNOME guys, the "Fuck what the users think or want we're doing our own thang" bug and its REALLY fucking irritating. So now I hand out Comodo Dragon and Pale Moon, which BTW if you haven't tried it its very good and they LISTEN to the users and have kept the old UI while killing some of the dumb shit FF devs did under the hood like the 256 connections bit. C'mon FF devs, you USED to have focus. remember when you first got us to switch to FF from the suite? Remember how you aid your goal was to be the "fastest most nimble standards compliant browser", remember that? Well at least on the machines passing through my door as well as my own machines you don't seem very fast OR nimble, in fact i get an extra 40 minutes of battery life by NOT using Firefox.
So c'mon Moz, I know you can do better. Quit aping Chrome, quit fucking off with stupid distractions and get focused on being the BEST browser there is. Fix it so FF can update without UAC prompts, fix the memory and CPU hogging, get back to your core strengths and watch your users come back. because i bet there are a lot of them like me using one of the Chromium based that try each new release in the HOPES you'll come back, and would be happy to return to the fold if you did.

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ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Re:Visual slashdotting. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 17:25 · Score: 0

Games and porn.
Be the premier browser that supports the technologies and apps that provide this and it'll do more for giving Mozilla visibility than fixing Linux bugs.
Re:Visual slashdotting. by justforgetme · 2012-03-27 20:23 · Score: 1

It says so on their blog also. not only several servers but multiple world instances per server.
It makes for a nicer game experience that way (and is technologically easier, not that the alternative would be unachievable)

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Re:Visual slashdotting. by justforgetme · 2012-03-27 20:24 · Score: 1

I had no problems at all with aurora. Could it be plugins?

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Re:Visual slashdotting. by justforgetme · 2012-03-27 20:37 · Score: 2

This is a "hey, look what we can do!" maneuver. Sort of like: "In your face `chrome experiemnts' and `google IO app'". I don't recall anybody else demonstrating such a big part of HTML5 (graphics,sound,sockets) so successfully.
Props to Moz. for doing this.
Also a small point: This is how gaming should look like all along IMO, I don't want to have to install 18TB of data in order to start playing anything. Nor do I want to have to read through manuals and strategy guides before actually doing gameplay. Games should be fun, click on a link wait a few moments for init, start moving_around/hacking/slashing/selecting_optinos/etc and while the game turns you "free time" into "fun time" it can elaborate the game setting, thicken the storyline, expand game mechanics and controll schemes, widen the world etc. My ideal game's first ten minutes are playing it not waiting for a download on an overwhelmed CDN.

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Re:Visual slashdotting. by buchner.johannes · 2012-03-27 23:37 · Score: 2

I'm waiting to see someone explain WHY, for the love of Pete why?

To show that you don't need Flash to build realistic games. And open-source it as an incentive to companies to adopt free technologies -- that's the point of Mozilla -- open the web.

with ALL the trouble Mozilla has had lately, declining share,
The share has not been declining, actually growing in absolute numbers. The total number of web users is growing all the time. Mozilla isn't terribly worried if other open web browsers gain more share -- as long as there is a diverse market, it's good for the open web.

practically zero adoption in the mobile space
They are working on that -- the recent announcement on adopting H.264 made it clear that they take it seriously.

, the well documented problems with memory leaks
Not sure if you refer to the newest version. They have the MemShrink team. Allocating a certain portion of memory for caching is not a leak though.

, extensions getting killed by version jumps
Not true any more -- my extensions get automatically extended to the newest version by a bot, unless incompatibilities are found. This point became invalid last year.

, extensions making the leaks worse
There is little Mozilla can do about 3rd parties, except to put warnings out -- which they do in their wikis.

, why are they wasting resources making a fricking browser based MMO?
Mozilla is not a company run for profit. Different people have different interests and ideas of how to progress web development. If someone takes his time and thinks that's a great project, then good for them.
The pie is not limited.

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NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
Re:Visual slashdotting. by suso · 2012-03-27 23:51 · Score: 1

True, but I still would have expected at least a 50 character sudden jump given the subject matter (new open source MMO game in browser & 5 second character setup). What happened was it went from 72 to 74 in the 15 minutes I waited after the story hit the front page.
Re:Visual slashdotting. by justforgetme · 2012-03-28 01:59 · Score: 1

They are operating the levels at a cap of approx 80 playing chars per instance from what I understand so new logins over the threshold would just automatically create new instances. I was on an instance though whose end game arena had some 20 ish /.ers

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Hopefully... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 07:56 · Score: -1

Hopefully this will be the first open source game not to suck. Here goes...

Re:Hopefully... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 08:05 · Score: -1

Haha riiiiight. Open sores turds don't know how to make good games. If they did they'd have a job with a game studio not living in mommy and daddy's basement reeking of B.O. like Jabba The Hutt.
Re:Hopefully... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 10:45 · Score: -1

And yet we're supposed to believe that you have a life? Tee. Hee.
Re:Hopefully... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 13:33 · Score: -1

And yet we're supposed to believe that you don't suck lots of nigger dicks? Tee. Hee.

Can anyone connect? by iONiUM · 2012-03-27 08:00 · Score: 2

I cannot. Just says "Connecting to Server.."

Is it slashdotted?

Re:Can anyone connect? by suso · 2012-03-27 08:06 · Score: 4, Interesting

You'll eventually get in. There seem to be different realms because I have two browsers open with different profiles and I see different players in each environment. But they seem to balance the players across the realms pretty well because the player count is close to the same in each one.
Re:Can anyone connect? by The+MAZZTer · 2012-03-27 08:07 · Score: 2

It needs WebSockets, make sure your browser supports them. I couldn't get it to work from my workplace, I assumed WebSockets don't support proxies or something.
Re:Can anyone connect? by The+MAZZTer · 2012-03-27 08:10 · Score: 1

Addendum: Though, probably just slashdotted.
Re:Can anyone connect? by Sez+Zero · 2012-03-27 08:16 · Score: 2

Their status page is located here: http://browserquest.mozilla.org/status/
It shows population, distribution of players.
Re:Can anyone connect? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 09:17 · Score: 1

This is what I see:

BrowserQuest Dashboard
Total players:

Literally. That's it.
Re:Can anyone connect? by PCM2 · 2012-03-27 14:58 · Score: 2

I tried it in IE9 and it told me it wouldn't work because my browser didn't support Web Sockets.

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Breakfast served all day!
Re:Can anyone connect? by ConaxConax · 2012-03-27 22:13 · Score: 1

Allow Mozilla.org with noscript and it should work, it did for me!

Zelda rip-off by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 08:00 · Score: 0

It's a Zelda rip-off, and actually one of my dreams just became true (Zelda multi-player? wow!)

Thanks Mozilla :)

Re:Zelda rip-off by HBI · 2012-03-27 08:01 · Score: 3, Funny

There's no such thing as a Zelda rip-off. Zelda itself was a rip-off.
Now get off my lawn.

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HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Re:Zelda rip-off by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 08:09 · Score: 1

There's no such thing as a Zelda rip-off. Zelda itself was a rip-off.
Now get off my lawn.
You clearly have no clue about the history and impact of a game like Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
Having played it for hours, I can instantly recognize the graphic tiles. At the very least, *those* should have been changed..
I like it a lot, just it would be nice to see some credit to Myamoto..
Even so, I strongly advise you to get a life instead of trolling serious discussion on such a nice HTML5 game..
Re:Zelda rip-off by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 08:15 · Score: 0

Having played it for hours, I can instantly recognize the graphic tiles. At the very least, *those* should have been changed..
Or maybe you can't, as they claim to have made all the graphics themselves.
Re:Zelda rip-off by khallow · 2012-03-27 08:19 · Score: 1

There's no such thing as a Zelda rip-off. Zelda itself was a rip-off.

Now get off my lawn.
You clearly have no clue about the history and impact of a game like Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
Eh, I'd say he does. Consider the Ultima series, for example.

Now get off my lawn.
Re:Zelda rip-off by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 08:41 · Score: 0

The graphics are very similar to Zelda ALTTP; you unqualified evolutionary leavings keep trying to hijack topic from "BrowserQuest is a rip-off of Zelda ALTTP" to "Zelda ALTTP is a rip-off of something older": that was not the point.
My point is that the rocks and grass and cliffs are very similar and there is no mention to prior art that could have *inspired*, that's it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Legend_of_Zelda_a_Link_to_the_Past_Screen02.png
Now get off my lawn.
Re:Zelda rip-off by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 08:42 · Score: 0

Ultima? I can't think of one that was anything like the original Zelda.
Re:Zelda rip-off by chispito · 2012-03-27 09:19 · Score: 1

Sorry, but you are not legally (or, some would say, morally) obligated to cite inspiration.

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The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
Re:Zelda rip-off by khallow · 2012-03-27 09:33 · Score: 1

The previous AC was talking about the third Zelda in the series.
Re:Zelda rip-off by Requiem18th · 2012-03-27 10:58 · Score: 1

I know the ZLTTP tiles to heart and I can absolutely say these aren't the original tiles. I absolutely agree with the "inspiration" part, the "look&feel" is similar, but the tiles are original artwork.

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But... the future refused to change.
Re:Zelda rip-off by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 11:10 · Score: 0

Yep, you nailed it. That's what I meant (original AC here).
Having played the former Ultimas as well, I didn't get any "looks like Ultima" balloon when looking at it
Re:Zelda rip-off by tepples · 2012-03-27 11:22 · Score: 2

you are not legally (or, some would say, morally) obligated to cite inspiration.
There are in fact laws requiring citation of sources. On the U.S. copyright registration form, for example, the author has to declare any "Material excluded from this claim (Material previously registered, previously published, or not owned by this claimant)". Trademark law likewise has a concept of "reverse passing off". Foreign trade law has country of origin labeling requirements.
Re:Zelda rip-off by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 13:04 · Score: 0

You would have loved Graal back in the day. It was multi-player link to the past with mounts and all sorts of fun. The scariest thing was getting in and out of the bank. Mad camping was going on there.
Re:Zelda rip-off by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 14:31 · Score: 0

oh who gives a crap.
If you want to bitch about zelda ripoffs, bitch about the one that shamelessly outright stole the zelda graphics before modifying them (I forget what it's called, suffice it to say I think it's been wiped form the net,) oh but here's yet another one: http://www.solarus-engine.org/
Likewise there are pokemon ripoffs out there too. See http://www.monstermmorpg.com
Re:Zelda rip-off by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 14:32 · Score: 0

you are not legally (or, some would say, morally) obligated to cite inspiration.
There are in fact laws requiring citation of sources. On the U.S. copyright registration form, for example, the author has to declare any "Material excluded from this claim (Material previously registered, previously published, or not owned by this claimant)". Trademark law likewise has a concept of "reverse passing off". Foreign trade law has country of origin labeling requirements.
How many FPSs/RTSs/RPGs/Tetris_clones/etc cite their inspirations? For better or for worse, this is simply not done in the games industry. On the one hand it could be seen as unfair, but on the other it's one law less to worry about.
Also, I was expecting something similar to Zelda ALTTP and was disappointed. It is not similar at all, not on graphics, not on animations and much less on gameplay. But it works damn well, although I don't like that kind of game.
Re:Zelda rip-off by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 20:08 · Score: 0

Then why don't all of the Zelda games cite "Adventure" as inspiration? That is where Shiggy stole the idea from after all.
Re:Zelda rip-off by justforgetme · 2012-03-27 20:48 · Score: 1

The `original zelda` is an NES game that runs @ 256x224/30 the sprites are 16^2 and some times even smaller. Everything looks like zelda at this resolution. Anyway, this isn't a game as much as proof of concept that a game like this can exist.
for reference:
Zelda screenshot
NES video capabilities

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Nice job on the https link by The_mad_linguist · 2012-03-27 08:02 · Score: 1

Nice job linking with https to hacks.mozilla.org.

Firefox immediately starts whining about it.

Glorious Javascript by Crasoose · 2012-03-27 08:07 · Score: -1, Offtopic

I don't know how related Javascript is to Java but the last Java game I played was Minecraft and the performance wasn't so glorious.

Re:Glorious Javascript by dccase · 2012-03-27 08:09 · Score: 3, Insightful

Four of the letters in their names are the same.
That's about it.
Re:Glorious Javascript by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 08:09 · Score: 1

I don't know how related Javascript is to Java
No relationship whatsoever beyond an idea to jump on the Java-bandwagon dreamed up by a marketer.
Re:Glorious Javascript by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 08:09 · Score: 0, Troll

I don't know how related Javascript is to Java.
Who the fuck let you in here?
Re:Glorious Javascript by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 08:10 · Score: 1

I don't know how related Javascript is to Java but..
They are not related at all. The only similarity is that the performance of Javascript is not good either.
Re:Glorious Javascript by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 08:16 · Score: 0

"Slashdot: News for Programmers" Right?
Re:Glorious Javascript by OakDragon · 2012-03-27 08:19 · Score: 4, Funny

I don't know how related Javascript is to Java but the last Java game I played was Minecraft and the performance wasn't so glorious.
Prepare for an assault on two different borders! ;)

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Dark Reflection
Re:Glorious Javascript by IAmGarethAdams · 2012-03-27 08:20 · Score: 5, Funny

They're about as similar as a Car and a Carpet
Re:Glorious Javascript by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 08:35 · Score: 0

Why would anyone want a pet car? Normal people keep fuzzy pets that have teeth and claws and poop in your yard.
Re:Glorious Javascript by kungfugleek · 2012-03-27 08:46 · Score: 1

Especially if the carpet is cut out to look kind of like a car.
Re:Glorious Javascript by Qzukk · 2012-03-27 08:53 · Score: 1

And then sold to you in that shape by a salesman who is certain it's the right shape for your square room.

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If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Re:Glorious Javascript by Nadaka · 2012-03-27 09:00 · Score: 3, Funny

Especially when it is carpet that uses dynamic variants and prototyping instead of strongly typed references and class based inheritance... am I doing this analogy thing right?
Re:Glorious Javascript by IAmGarethAdams · 2012-03-27 09:03 · Score: 4, Funny

Ok then, they're about as similar as a Hamster and a Ham
Re:Glorious Javascript by lister+king+of+smeg · 2012-03-27 09:08 · Score: 2

They both taste good when fried and chopped up in an omelet ?

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---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
Re:Glorious Javascript by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 09:23 · Score: 0

Ugh... keep your ham away from my eggs, you disgusting freak.
Re:Glorious Javascript by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 12:03 · Score: 0

Difference being that you wouldn't lick a Car.
Re:Glorious Javascript by dccase · 2012-03-27 12:41 · Score: 1

A car can have a carpet. They are less related than that.
Re:Glorious Javascript by hendrikboom · 2012-03-28 03:00 · Score: 1

Java's relation to Javascript is just the first four letters of the name.
Re:Glorious Javascript by Mad+Merlin · 2012-03-28 11:42 · Score: 1

OT: The register page in your sig is broken:

Fatal error: Class 'database' not found in /home/rflowers/landofmyriad.com/lib/class.formelement.php on line 3

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Game! - Where the stick is mightier than the sword!
Re:Glorious Javascript by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-02 00:41 · Score: 0

Hey, all nerds can program, right?
Or you don't actually need to be able to program to know that Java and ECMAScript, er I mean Javascript are completely unrelated other than the name.

Played it just before /. entry by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 08:11 · Score: 0

I played it just before it arrived on /. I wanted to try it in Safari as well, but couldn't understand why it was suddenly so slow. "Seems like it's slashdotted or something."

Re:Played it just before /. entry by Mabhatter · 2012-03-27 17:29 · Score: 1

Worked well on my iPad. I think there might be some keyboard commands I can't get to? Enough to play the game pretty well.

Mozilla shouldnt waste resources by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 08:12 · Score: -1

How about Mozilla focus their resources on projects more to their core and worthwhile. I couldnt care enough to open this link I just dont care. However perhaps firefox market share wont slide so much if I dont know... maybe they android version of firefox wasn't a slow resource hog.

Plenty of other products needing a bit of love, Thunderbird has "indexed search which is useless, try Outlook search, and then try Thunderbird you quickly see how slow, and pathetic it is.

Re:Mozilla shouldnt waste resources by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 08:43 · Score: 3, Insightful

How about Mozilla focus their resources on projects more to their core and worthwhile.

Why bother focusing on pointless browsers and mail clients when cancer is still uncured, killing thousands? Seems awfully selfish and inconsiderate to piss away ones time with these pointless endeavors when we still have AIDS, cancer, and other diseases. Who knows? Perhaps we could have had a cure for one or more of these if open-source efforts had been directed toward medical research.

Of course this would require you to actually think about someone other than yourselves.
Re:Mozilla shouldnt waste resources by Culture20 · 2012-03-27 08:58 · Score: 1

How about Mozilla focus their resources on projects more to their core and worthwhile.
Mozilla is kind of like Congress. It's nice to know they're spending time specifying a National Hamster Breed or color for the Senate carpet instead of spending time screwing up important stuff. When Firefox and Thunderbird got Good Enough (TM), programmers had to justify their jobs, so tons of terrible features got shoved down our throats with no option to disable some of them. Now Firefox is bloated like Mozilla (Seamonkey) was.

Gotta love all the references. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 08:19 · Score: 0

Portal, Matrix, Mario, they've done it like a boss too!

This was a test by crawly · 2012-03-27 08:22 · Score: 1

Mozilla's way of massively load-testing their servers. Now damn it let me play!

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GCS/S d-x s+(+): a C++++$ UL+$ P+ L++$ !E--- W++@ N++>$ !o !K-- w++$ !O !M !V PS++>$ PE !Y PGP+ t+ 5++ X++ R tv b

WebSocket by JcMorin · 2012-03-27 08:26 · Score: 1

In my opinion WebSocket is the real technology we are waiting for building stuff on the internet that make people collaboration or play together. Having the ability of the server to push data to the client without having to get a pooling every x seconds or so is a big plus. This game give us a great example of simple communication using WebSocket, too bad it not yet available on all major browser (IE).

Re:WebSocket by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 08:42 · Score: 0

By my last count, WebSocket was just missing from the one major browser you mentioned. Really, if games like BrowserQuest work on Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, Safari Mobile and Firefox for Android that's close enough for me
Re:WebSocket by Desler · 2012-03-27 08:48 · Score: 2

IE 10 PP5 implements the websockets RFC.
Re:WebSocket by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 08:56 · Score: 0

/Itoo bad it not yet available on all major browser (IE)./I
that's not a bug, it's a feature.
Re:WebSocket by lennier · 2012-03-27 13:23 · Score: 1

In my opinion WebSocket is the real technology we are waiting for building stuff on the internet that make people collaboration or play together. Having the ability of the server to push data to the client without having to get a pooling every x seconds or so is a big plus.
So basically, we've moved boldly forward from the bad old 1970s client-server days of raw TCP over IP, to the glorious new Web 3.0 days of TCP over HTTP over JavaScript over HTML over HTTP over TCP over IP. That's a.... win?

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You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
Re:WebSocket by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 17:34 · Score: 0

Flash has had this for several years now - it's nothing new. I was using XMLSocket in 2004 - and it worked across almost all browsers at the time. Fun stuff.
Re:WebSocket by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 23:02 · Score: 0

its true that flash has had this technology for quite some time, but it's worth remembering that no one uses flash anymore...
html5 has really taken off in the last few years, just look at how youtube have stopped using it for their videos
also, It's taken over the huge and rapidly growing browser game market almost completely.
if you get a slight headache reading this then that's just the reality distortion field working on you. open your wallet for the next piece of plastic shit, log into slashdot (the home of woefully deluded idiots) and you should be ok

Not a bad proof of concept, but... by Millennium · 2012-03-27 08:32 · Score: 1

Interesting use of Web technologies. But as a practical matter, isn't storing user progress data on the client side a really bad idea from an anti-cheating standpoint? How long until someone releases an editor?

Re:Not a bad proof of concept, but... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 08:46 · Score: 0

There's a guy running around with a nyancat avatar already.
Re:Not a bad proof of concept, but... by DragonWriter · 2012-03-27 08:55 · Score: 1

Interesting use of Web technologies. But as a practical matter, isn't storing user progress data on the client side a really bad idea from an anti-cheating standpoint?

Not necessarily.
Storing it on the client and sending it back from the client to the server and having the server trust the client is a bad idea from that standpoint, but just storing it on the client isn't, as long as it is also stored on the server and the server doesn't get it from the client. The description isn't clear on the exact role of the client-side store in this regard: if its kept on the client just so the client never has to round-trip to the server to get it, only getting push updates as needed, there's no problem, its just a performance optimization.
Re:Not a bad proof of concept, but... by nschubach · 2012-03-27 09:03 · Score: 1

There are various suits you can get off monsters... one of them I got was a temporary fox suit that made you extra dodgy I think.

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Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Re:Not a bad proof of concept, but... by nschubach · 2012-03-27 09:06 · Score: 1

A simple hurdle for those wanting to hack... the client could send the server a hash of the local data, and compare it to the server hash to detect "cheating." Of course, you'd have to send the hole binary blob up to the server to do it so the client couldn't just fake the hash. On second thought, it sounds like a PITA. Just let them hack saves for a tech demo.

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Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Re:Not a bad proof of concept, but... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 09:19 · Score: 0

I found the foxy one too (and only that one after exploring every place etc.), but is was temporary, that guy stayed like that all the time.
Re:Not a bad proof of concept, but... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 11:35 · Score: 0

Chrome developer tools allows you to manipulate the Local Storage. I did this and unlocked all achievements but you can also change your weapon, armor, etc.
Re:Not a bad proof of concept, but... by thereitis · 2012-03-27 12:14 · Score: 1

The nyan was an NPC. You can find this in the world_server.json:
"nyan","28357"
Also:
"rick","33544"
Not sure what the number means yet, but I'm going to find out!
Re:Not a bad proof of concept, but... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 12:41 · Score: 0

It's just to show off HTML5. It's such a trivial game there's no point cheating. No point in anyone caring about anyone else cheating either.
Re:Not a bad proof of concept, but... by Zuhiat · 2012-03-27 14:37 · Score: 1

That was probably me. You can edit your armor in the local storage to any sprite you want. It's fun to run around as the boss in the boss chamber.

Cute, but a demo by Chris+Mattern · 2012-03-27 08:35 · Score: 1

I beat the final boss and got 17 out 20 achievements in about 15 minutes. I wasn't going to stick around to take 5000 damage or find the two hidden achievements.

Re:Cute, but a demo by timothyb89 · 2012-03-27 10:25 · Score: 1

They only took about 10 minutes for me to find, and both are (spoiler-ish) fairly blatant meme references like many of the other things in the game. I'd love to see this developed more as it seems to run pretty well and could have some real potential. I've half-assed some JS RPGs myself and its always nice to see it being done "right" and with a playable final product.
Re:Cute, but a demo by thereitis · 2012-03-27 12:06 · Score: 2

Check out the source code. Sounds like you need to find a "Rick" NPC character to talk to: if(npc.kind === Types.Entities.RICK) { this.tryUnlockingAchievement("RICKROLLD"); }

Ironic. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 08:35 · Score: -1

BrowserQuest: The quest for a better browser. (Here's a hint, it's not ConstantUpdateFox)

Re:Ironic. by Drinking+Bleach · 2012-03-27 11:20 · Score: 1

BrowserQuest 2: The Search for More Money

the famous last words... by sick_soul · 2012-03-27 08:48 · Score: 1

When you start to play, your browser opens up a WebSocket connection to one of several load-balanced game servers.

I guess they are all VIC-20s then, given how fast they got slashdotted.

Re:the famous last words... by Fallingcow · 2012-03-27 09:13 · Score: 1

They're running NodeJS.
NodeJS: letting everyone write their own servers in Javascript like that's a good idea since whenever the hell it came out.

Server Load by Drago3711 · 2012-03-27 08:48 · Score: 0

You can also look at their servers as they load balance: http://browserquest.mozilla.org/status/

Re:Server Load by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 09:03 · Score: 0

Oh geez, even /that/ appears to be broken.

Mystery Achievement by bobaferret · 2012-03-27 08:52 · Score: 1

Does any one know what the 'Mystery Achievement' is? I've got 19/20...

Re:Mystery Achievement by bobaferret · 2012-03-27 08:58 · Score: 1

don't answer that....
Re:Mystery Achievement by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 09:15 · Score: 0

There's a maze of caves off on the right hand side of the map somewhere, try exploring them...
Re:Mystery Achievement by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 09:38 · Score: 0

Go to the cave north of the castle that's a maze.

isn't stuff like this by sdnoob · 2012-03-27 08:53 · Score: 2

supposed to be posted early in the morning, instead of at the end of the work day?

Re:isn't stuff like this by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 21:09 · Score: 0

depends on timezones ;)

Built on bleeding edge technology by loufoque · 2012-03-27 09:06 · Score: 4, Funny

Threads, networking, sound, graphics...
What next?

Maybe someday, web developers will be on par with applications developers from the 70s!

Re:Built on bleeding edge technology by Shadowhawk · 2012-03-27 09:41 · Score: 2

I know I'm feeding the troll here, but what application developers has access to threads (or sound or graphics even) in the 70s? First reference to threads I can find is SunOS 4.x, which came out in 82. The 80s is also when some sounds and graphics became available on many computers (Commodore Vic-20, Atari 2600, IBM PC, Apple II, etc). There might have been specialty computers that had those features, but nothing available for the average application developer in the 70s.

--
My mind works like lightning. One brilliant flash and it is gone.
Re:Built on bleeding edge technology by loufoque · 2012-03-27 10:33 · Score: 1

UNIX had multitasking since the 60s or 70s.
Granted, that's not exactly threads, but the difference is sufficiently small for it to matter.
My original statement didn't mean to be accurate anyway.
Re:Built on bleeding edge technology by dzfoo · 2012-03-27 10:33 · Score: 1

You know that application developer does not necessarily mean "PC" or "microcomputer" developer, right?

--
Carol vs. Ghost
...Can you save Christmas?
Re:Built on bleeding edge technology by Darinbob · 2012-03-27 10:59 · Score: 1

All threads are essentially are lightweight processes (some times they are even called LWPs). What a thread exactly is depends upon the implementation, sometimes it is shared memory, some times it is not, etc. Basically most operating systems before the 70's implemented processes that very much looked like what we'd call threads today.
Re:Built on bleeding edge technology by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 11:47 · Score: -1

It's bullshit like this that drove me (a former Netscape developer from the 90s) away from Firefox and over to Chrome. Instead of focusing on stupid bullshit like this, they should be improving their browser's stability and memory management.
Re:Built on bleeding edge technology by Daniel+Klugh · 2012-03-27 18:31 · Score: 1

Not sure about the VIC-20 but the Atari VCS and HCS (Home Computer System) and Apple ][ came out in the 70s. ProLogic's "Flight Simulator" for the Atari HCS is a good example of a game that utilises multiple threads of execution to simulate flying a airplane via polygonal graphics. This is in contrast to most games that have a main thread and a background thread ran by the vertical blank interrupt.
(and perhaps a third ran by the horizontal blank interrupt)
And don't forget Texas Instruments' TI-99/4 (and 99/4A), which also came out in the 70s. And, for that matter, the Intellivision; whose OS would move sprites for you (i.e. the game programme) via a background OS thread.
All these 70s systems had graphics and sounds effects.

--
Daniel Klugh
Re:Built on bleeding edge technology by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 23:06 · Score: -1

hey, this is the brave new world of html5 - get with the delusional hype machine and start learning how to throw your career away learning how to make useless spaghetti code that won't run on anyones machine unless its a mac.

war is ta unit test? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 09:15 · Score: 0

Where is the unit test? How can they push out code and have no unit tests?

Does it have... by jonadab · 2012-03-27 09:27 · Score: 2

Does it have a cheap plastic imitation of the Amulet of Yendor? I'm not interested if it doesn't have a cheap plastic imitation Amulet.

--
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.

Re:Does it have... by alexo · 2012-03-28 05:06 · Score: 1

Does it have a cheap plastic imitation of the Amulet of Yendor? I'm not interested if it doesn't have a cheap plastic imitation Amulet.
Greetings to a fellow CoCo-nut, you just killed my productivity for today.
Re:Does it have... by jonadab · 2012-04-03 01:56 · Score: 1

I have no idea what a CoCo-nut is.

The cheap plastic imitation of the Amulet of Yendor is found on the fake bones pile on the "Rogue level" in NetHack, and sometimes also in real bones piles (when the former player died with either a cheap plastic amulet or the real AoY in his possession). The cheap plastic amulet is also what you get if you try to wish for the Amulet of Yendor. When not formally identified, it appears as "The Amulet of Yendor". Unlike the real Amulet, however, the cheap plastic one can be put into containers. It does not do anything useful when worn, carried, or invoked, so most players immediately stow it in their Bag of Holding until they can get it back to a stash. It makes excellent polyfodder if your armor-slot strategy allows you to take advantage of amulets of life saving, but if you are wearing GDSM and relying on your amulet slot for reflection (in order to keep your shield hand free for #twoweapon and/or to avoid getting things welded to both hands by a curse) the cheap plastic amulet is effectively worthless. The latter situation is particularly likely for chaotic characters (who cannot easily wish for slotless magic resistance) and neutrals who like to do early sacrificing for an artifact weapon. Lawfuls, who can #dip for Excalibur and thus do not need to sacrifice until much later in the game, can usually get slotless MR from the castle wand, provided they haven't found a bones pile full of junk artifacts. Although, I think there are some variants where only knights can #dip for Excalibur, which might put more lawful characters into the same position as neutrals.

--
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.

No, it isn't (digital signatures FTW) by F69631 · 2012-03-27 09:30 · Score: 1

It's possible to use the client for data storage but sign and/or encrypt all the data so that you know the client hasn't modified it.

This approach has actually been gaining momentum lately. For example, everyone knows that cookies shouldn't be used for storing important data (such as whether the client has logged in to a web service and what his user id is) so the traditional method is to store session data on the server and just store the session id in the cookie. However, play! (a framework that finally makes java web development tolerable) aims for more stateless architecture and stores all the session data on the client and just uses digital signature to make sure that the data client sends to server hasn't been tampered with.

turtles all the way down by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 09:41 · Score: 0

Great. Now I can get a virus inside the game inside the operating system inside the sandbox inside my browser.

When we finish bootstrapping everything again, can I have control of my desktop and the extra CPU cycles back?

Really -- I don't need anyone with the ability to take out a banner ad to be able to fork bomb my browser.

Seriously, browser apps are great. But I don't want every fuckwit advertiser on the net running sites that will crash when I delete their local storage, rewrite the browser to deny them a canvas or deny them 3d processing.

In fact -- I don't even want my browser using webgl. Ever.

But can I please, use your website without it?

Re:turtles all the way down by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 10:14 · Score: 0

No.
Re:turtles all the way down by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 23:15 · Score: 0

not to worry dood.
apart from in the minds of a few idiots that don't really understand the web or the underlying technology at all, it's pretty obvious that html5 won't be around for long.
as far as still-born technologies are concerned its pretty much the worst case.
this time next year even the most diehard apple creeps here on slashdot won't be bothering, that much.

NoScript by DrYak · 2012-03-27 10:41 · Score: 1

Noscript for Firefox will provide you the necessary protection against any unwanted scripting (be it canvas, webgl, or whatever) from any non-white-listed website.
Alternatively, AdBlock will block interactive content from blacklisted providers (most ad servers).

With both, you get a nice clean Web 1.0. And activate the fun Javascript+DOM+CSS+HTML5+WebGL+Audio+LocalStore+... only for the sites you trust

--
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]

Re:NoScript by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 15:15 · Score: -1, Flamebait

Welcome to brokenInternetland, population: NoScript and Adblock users.
Seriously, I don't give a shit if these people break their own internet, but if they're coming to my site for my content, they are getting everything or nothing. The only reason I don't just hide all the content under a pile of javascript is because the site is much faster as flat html and no OOP bullshit javascript, I took the effort of making the site fast, the least you can do is not consume my content for free. I have to routinely break greasemonkey scripts because 4chan and reddit shits all over efforts to making a living at providing free content.
Re:NoScript by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-28 05:35 · Score: 0

"making a living at providing free content"
There's your problem. You can't make a living providing free content.
What you're trying to do is make a living by showing ads to people. Oddly enough, many people reject your product. Damn hippies, don't they know they owe you money when they take your free content?

Won in about 30 minutes by n1ywb · 2012-03-27 11:20 · Score: 1

Well that was kind of fun for about 30 minutes, by then I'd gotten the Ultimate Sword and the Golden Armor and I demolished the Skeleton King and then there wasn't much point to keep playing.

--
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com

Re:Won in about 30 minutes by dewatf · 2012-03-28 22:39 · Score: 1

I spent an hour exploring it all and completing all the quests. For the get 5000 damage I just stood next to a skeleton and went and had lunch. There were a few players doing that which looked quite funny.

Once you know where everything is you can sneak past the monsters in your T-shirt and get to an unguarded drop where you can get everything you need kill the Skeleton King in a couple of minutes. It is just a simple demonstration of the technology. As it is open source someone might make a dungeon with good gameplay out of it.

IE 10 requires Windows 7 by tepples · 2012-03-27 11:28 · Score: 2

But then most IE users who bought their PC before the fourth quarter of 2009 are left out because IE 10 requires Windows 7. So one either has to upgrade to Windows 7 or switch to Firefox or Chrome. The latter is cheaper, but which happens more often?

Re:IE 10 requires Windows 7 by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 12:17 · Score: 0

At this point, why would anyone use IE unless they had it forced upon them? I upgraded to Windows 7 a few months ago. The first thing I did before anything else was install Chrome.
Re:IE 10 requires Windows 7 by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 15:30 · Score: 0

I installed a free copy of Windows 7 a couple of weeks ago.

What has this got to do with anything?

Nothing whatsoever - I'm just proud to be a pirate.
Re:IE 10 requires Windows 7 by Wattos · 2012-03-27 17:31 · Score: 1

I thought the only use for IE is to download chrome or firefox?
Re:IE 10 requires Windows 7 by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 18:43 · Score: 0

It is 2012. That is almost 3 years ago and by the time IE 10 is done it will be 3 years old. Sounds perfectly reasonable as this is how Apple and certainly most software developers supporting things prior to 2001
Re:IE 10 requires Windows 7 by ae1294 · 2012-03-28 06:51 · Score: 1

ftp.exe
Re:IE 10 requires Windows 7 by tepples · 2012-03-29 03:05 · Score: 1

Then the only use for IE is to discover the FTP URL of Chrome or Firefox.

AC shouldn't waste resources by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 11:31 · Score: 0

Why bother typing that message when cancer is still uncured, killing thousands? Seems awfully selfish and inconsiderate to piss away ones time with these pointless comments when we still have AIDS, cancer, and other diseases. Who knows? Perhaps we could have had a cure for one or more of these if your time taken to type that had been directed towards doing medical research.

Of course this would require you to actually think about someone other than yourself.

Sheesh by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 11:46 · Score: 0

Wow. One click auto-attacking rats on the very first screen (in a town, no less), and achievements that pop up every other second... SIGN ME..... RightTheFuckOut.

Q: How do I kill other players? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 11:58 · Score: 0

This fails as a MMOG. There doesn't seem to be a way to kill the other players. All you can do is pick up easter eggs.

Impressive by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 12:00 · Score: 0

This puts the horrible CNC Alliances to shame. That game can break a 7990 and a dual 6-core Xeon with hyperthreading

chromium crasher by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-27 12:13 · Score: 0

stupid game. one of the rare sites that causes chromium to crash

Rocks + Source by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-28 05:06 · Score: 0

This rocks, and can't wait to see what others do with the source code!

Yes it's a big win by JcMorin · 2012-03-29 03:35 · Score: 1

First WebSocket is not raw socket. It's TCP over IP (packet ordering and delivered garanties). The right now, there is no freaking way the server PUSH data to the client. For instance but a very very simple chat room. Everyone in the page type stuff and everyone see it. Well if you don't use WebSocket you need to make sure every single client refresh the page every x seconds. - There will be a lag - There will be huge waiste of bandwith and server processing for nothing. With WebSocket, when someone send a message, you just push it back to the all clients on the page. You can just send a notification that will trigger the browser make jQuery http request to refresh the page, at least you have a way get notification...

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Mozilla Releases HTML5 MMO BrowserQuest

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