Ok, I think I see what you mean by losing nothing and gaining some by using Java. But what I was really trying to get at was that any way I did it, there was no way of writing the pages without excluding some browsers, much as I hate to do it (note that I actually agree with the original poster, in that on general principle, people who knowingly exclude users from using their stuff should be shot).
And the thing with Java is that I would have to load all the graphics in one huge lump at the beginning, which would be many, many megabytes (as it currently stands). The way I'm currently doing it, you just load the graphics that you need on each page, which would currently come out to less than 50k per page, absolute max (actually, usually a lot less). The game itself spreads out across several hundred pages, not all of which are necessarily loaded. Only about 1/6th of the total pages are needed to be accessed to finish the game, the rest are just there for extra "diversions" and stuff. Basically, there are a lot of graphics which may not ever be seen by any given player. I tend to regard it as being a bit of a waste to make each player download all of that, regardless of whether or not they need it.
Of course, I will be releasing the source (prolly GPL or something), so anyone who wants to make a port (to Java, or whatever else) will be able to. -- - Sean
Well, I'm afraid I have to disacree with you on this one.
Personally, never liked the FF series that much; my speed is more Daggerfall, Ultima Online, Civilization, etc... where in the first, you have absolutely no obligation to follow the storyline, and the game can still be just as entertaining, in the second, there is no set storyline, or in the third, you can happily ignore everyone else (except for the occasional border defense), and do whatever the hell you wanna do with the game for a couple of centuries.
I've been playing the same character in Daggerfall for getting on 2 years now, and still haven't advanced much past about 1/4 the way through the "official" story. In fact, I pretty much ignore the built-in storyline except for when I come across it accidentally, and yet, I'm still having a lot of fun with the game.
Civilization (Civ 1... still the best), I still play 2 or 3 times through per week. It's freeform, randomized maps, with little to no enforced direction make for infinite playability, which I love!
Once those types of games come out for a console system, I may seriously consider getting one, otherwise I'll stick to playing games on my PC.
What do you do if you want to include content that goes beyond what is defined by the HTML standard?
I'm actually posing a serious question, not flaming. I'm developing (make that: trying to develop) a website right now that has all sorts of fancy, on-the-fly stuff (actually an online game). Except I've run into the problem that a lot of the stuff I want to do simply isn't supported by HTML. I'm basically left with only a couple of options:
Java. Not really acceptable. For one, the application would be extremely large, since there are a lot of graphics. Also, a lot of browsers don't support Java anyway, so any advantage dies there.
JavaScript/VBarfScript. Not powerful enough on their own. Combined with other stuff, it can work. See below. Besides. VBarfScript is MS-proprietary, again killing any browser-independance advantages.
Funky plugins, à la Shockwave. Maybe, except for the overhead cost. This is probably the "best" solution, except I simply don't have the money to sink into buying the licenses and stuff.
ActiveX. I won't even entertain the thought (for what I think are obvious reasons). If you can give me any good reason why I should, speak now or forever hold your peace.
So what I've ended up going with is a hodge-podge of approaches. The back-end is CGI in perl, which serves one of two sets of pages, depending on the browser. If you're MSIE, it serves DHTML (IE-specific) pages that can respond adequately to the user. If you're Netscape, it serves "standard" pages that use a clunky combination of JavaScript and CSS/Layers (Layers being Netscape-specific) to more-or-less achieve the desired result. If you don't have either NS or IE, you're SOL. I don't like it, but that's the only realistic solution I can come up with.
So what do you reccomend? If anyone has any ideas, I'd be more than glad to entertain them! -- - Sean
The ones that are built in to Windows are the API, which is what they are trying to emulate (ie: rebuild). Anything left comes with the app and is added by the app's install program. They will get added whether the underlying layer is "true" Windows or Wine.
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--
- Sean
Ok, I think I see what you mean by losing nothing and gaining some by using Java. But what I was really trying to get at was that any way I did it, there was no way of writing the pages without excluding some browsers, much as I hate to do it (note that I actually agree with the original poster, in that on general principle, people who knowingly exclude users from using their stuff should be shot).
And the thing with Java is that I would have to load all the graphics in one huge lump at the beginning, which would be many, many megabytes (as it currently stands). The way I'm currently doing it, you just load the graphics that you need on each page, which would currently come out to less than 50k per page, absolute max (actually, usually a lot less). The game itself spreads out across several hundred pages, not all of which are necessarily loaded. Only about 1/6th of the total pages are needed to be accessed to finish the game, the rest are just there for extra "diversions" and stuff. Basically, there are a lot of graphics which may not ever be seen by any given player. I tend to regard it as being a bit of a waste to make each player download all of that, regardless of whether or not they need it.
Of course, I will be releasing the source (prolly GPL or something), so anyone who wants to make a port (to Java, or whatever else) will be able to.
--
- Sean
Well, I'm afraid I have to disacree with you on this one.
:-)
Personally, never liked the FF series that much; my speed is more Daggerfall, Ultima Online, Civilization, etc... where in the first, you have absolutely no obligation to follow the storyline, and the game can still be just as entertaining, in the second, there is no set storyline, or in the third, you can happily ignore everyone else (except for the occasional border defense), and do whatever the hell you wanna do with the game for a couple of centuries.
I've been playing the same character in Daggerfall for getting on 2 years now, and still haven't advanced much past about 1/4 the way through the "official" story. In fact, I pretty much ignore the built-in storyline except for when I come across it accidentally, and yet, I'm still having a lot of fun with the game.
Civilization (Civ 1... still the best), I still play 2 or 3 times through per week. It's freeform, randomized maps, with little to no enforced direction make for infinite playability, which I love!
Once those types of games come out for a console system, I may seriously consider getting one, otherwise I'll stick to playing games on my PC.
But again, that's just my $0.02...
--
- Sean
What do you do if you want to include content that goes beyond what is defined by the HTML standard?
I'm actually posing a serious question, not flaming. I'm developing (make that: trying to develop) a website right now that has all sorts of fancy, on-the-fly stuff (actually an online game). Except I've run into the problem that a lot of the stuff I want to do simply isn't supported by HTML. I'm basically left with only a couple of options:
So what do you reccomend? If anyone has any ideas, I'd be more than glad to entertain them!
--
- Sean
The ones that are built in to Windows are the API, which is what they are trying to emulate (ie: rebuild). Anything left comes with the app and is added by the app's install program. They will get added whether the underlying layer is "true" Windows or Wine.
--
- Sean