I was curious as to why byond is making their move to flash, after adobe has decided to ditch their efforts in advancing the language any further and instead plan on creating Adobe Edge that will support HTML5 and etc.
So why are we incorporating a soon to be less popular language that is known for being inefficient and buggy? Is it really in BYOND's best interest to do something like this?
I wouldn't call it a move, so much as an expansion. Browser support for HTML5 is still varied. Lummox JR has mentioned that most of the work was in updating the server to support the Flash thin clients, and that an HTML5 client would be possible in the future without too much effort.
Also, Flash has better encapsulation and larger game portals. I'm not sure how you would even securely set up an HTML5 game portal, I guess you would have to use iframes and a separate domain like ebay does. There's some more information scattered on previous topics about the Flash client, you can try using the forum search if you're still curious. | |
Ah, I see.
I was reading that Tom was planning Flash to be used so that people wouldn't have to come to the site. I don't think I've come to the site to play a game for a couple of years. I usually just go through my pager...but in another thread I recall someone talking about byond being sort of on a tight budget because we're barely generating any money from memberships. I can understand that we want more people to be able to connect, but wouldn't we also want them to visit the site for a somewhat better ad revenue? As opposed to gambling on who buys a membership I think we would be better off having more people show up onto the site. (Maybe that's just me.) More importantly, when will BYOND support multithreading? | |
I think Tom has said that initially the Flash client will be limited to the BYOND site, so my mention of game portals is looking into the future a bit. However, I'm sure once the kinks are worked out and they decide on a revenue stream they'll come up with a scheme that allows us to upload them anywhere.
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The Monster Atlas wrote:
More importantly, when will BYOND support multithreading? Not any time soon, there's no real need for it. If your game is using so much CPU that it needs to utilize a second processor core you're probably doing something wrong. | |
Nadrew wrote:
The Monster Atlas wrote: Well I was thinking of making a "3D" Isometric game (similar to wakfu in character designs and animations.) I wouldn't say it's doing it wrong, just doing it wrong for byond :P | |
Isometric by itself isn't hard on the CPU ever since it was natively supported.
A lot of other stuff (more specifically, doing a lot of things per tick for a period of time) easily freezes Dream Seeker, though. | |
Only time I ever use another thread is if I'm utilizing a specialized DLL (or SO for Linux users) that requires such threads to prevent freezing of the entire server. :P
That's the only reason really to use multiple threads in BYOND is if you're handling certain tasks that freeze the entire server without them. | |
Cloud Magic wrote:
I'm sure we could conjure up some sort of graphic-intense isometric game. Single thread can draw a lot of things, if you manage to hit that limit in 2D game you're doing something wrong, or need to optimize code. | |
I find the whole 'If your game is maxxing out a core, you're doing it wrong' pretty irrelevant. Theres no doubt that being able to utilize multiple cores and threading would be an effeciency boost for BYOND. However, the cost of that for the programmer would most likely be a severe increase in complexity.
Handling deadlocks and race conditions is no fun in languages that provide superb debugging tools and have thorough documentation on a stable and developed API meant to make dealing with threading easier. Doing so in BYOND would be more pain than it is worth, more than likely. | |
As a Mac user, having games in flash is significantly better than not having it at all.
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Has there been any updates on the Flash Client?
Will the first version support interface controls? | |
What I'm more concerned about right now is how long it'd take for the Flash client to support skins like the Windows client can do now. Even if the Flash client were released tomorrow it'd be useless for our needs since we're using the skin for a couple of things now.
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Tom said many times that the flash client will be a map with input/alert boxes. Games like Casual Quest and Decadence are already like that, and are pretty awesome still.
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The good thing about the Flash client project is that it's fleshing out a more generalized and light-weight protocol for BYOND that will make it easier to port to things like HTML5 in the future.