I know its been awhile and I'm sorry for that, but I've been really busy. With 2aw in fact. I looked at trends in the gameing industry and saw that more and more games are moving away from the standard approach.
Thats why I wish to take a new direction with AFF:2AW. A browser based direction. I see so many things move to the browser; E-mail was the first to move, then news and docs, later Interactive things moved, and now I feel its time for games… any game.
I don't mean flash games or old style browser based games, I mean games that are normally played on consoles and computers. Rich games, FPSes and RTSes. All games you have played!
I love the digital frontier. There always are new grounds to cover and new things to discover. That is why I love to code so much. I feel like rich games on the browsers have not been done properly before. I hear the digital frontier calling my name. I switched from working on my panda3d engine and switched to the new webGL engine.
WebGL is a big improvement from VRML, Director and other web 3D technologies. Just look at whats possible: Chromeexperiments.com. Browsers supporting all those things and more will be with us in a year or two.
I am amazed at how much I learned on working with the old panda3d game. How many dark corridors I had to venture. I feel like the webGL 2aw is moving much faster, like I know what I need to implement and how I need to implement it. I know what doesnt work, what does, and how. Before even writing it. Basic functionality should be up and running in no time.
But not all browsers support webGL, nor are all browsers fast enough to play games. But it is not hard to install or update to the newest version of Chrome or Firefox that can easily run it. Right now 2aw works best on Chrome, since only Chrome has all functionality configured properly (and also because I test in Chrome). The latest Firefox build is almost as good, and I will add full support later on.
In the days to come i'd like to explain more about how WebGL works and how I use that to shape 2aw. Prepare and hold fast.
Hey, Good thing I never stopped watching this project :)
Glad to hear you are making the switch from Panda3d to WebGL :)
BTW - thank you for the link to Chrome Experiments :)
hmmm not sure......
Good glory of Antarean space mushrooms riddled with globs of space caterpillars! Your telling me ran off me some other engine and just now are telling us after so long?! You cheated on Panda3d?! You wanna see Bowser play video games on the internet? It's brilliant! I mean the real game in a browser bit instead of a console... The technology can handle it, you must do it! It will be very impressive to see you pull this off. But next time at least say something over the course of the year so we can support you and provide any help if possible. Good luck.
Oog, for a second I thought this was a Planetstorm update and was crestfallen because I have no freaking idea how that game could possibly run in a browser. Teach me to go not reading things. A RTS certainly could work better for this. Hope things turn out well.
For the record, Planetstorm utilizes Unreal Engine as their game engine and yes, Unreal Engine can run in a browser.
OWWW! you suck. im not tracking this annymore. alright!. ill keep tracking this but if the next news post does not anounce going gack to an actual PC game platform instead of online browser based platform. i will be mad!
this is one of the VERRY few AFF games out there and i was so looking forward to seing it progress into a propper game.. (!Annoyed face!)
What exactly is the difference to you between playing it in a browser or installing it? All it really does is eliminate one step. Looking at Unreal Engine and Unity3D (both of which support web deployment), it's not like it will graphically suffer. Graphics are up to the developer. And I'm sure it will have a fullscreen option which will make the fact that you're running it through your browser unnoticeable.
yes. graphics arent really affected by this. but, you see that people with really slow internet connections but super computers wont be able to play this game verry well at all. the graphics or the server or the browser arent in question here. but the individual internet connection to people
not to mention the people that do not have a connection at their home but have to go to friends houses or a hot spot just to get onto the internet
and fullscreen makes it a fraction slower on browsers
plus+ if this becomes a browser based game then "LAN" and likeley "online" play will be eliminated! especially "LAN"
and LAN is like a favorite get together of friends with a game witch is most of the time very funn
oh, and again, not to mesion that the loading times for annything will bw massive compared to the loading time if it was a propper installed game
Seccond part of message -_- (Damn 2000 character limit)
Example: take "youtube" as an example. you have to go find you video that you want to watch then you have to click on it then you have to wait for the page to load then you have to wait for the video to redy it self then it has to buffer then it starts to play.. BUT if you have a bad internet connection. the video stopps after about 5 second of watching because the video is not being downloaded fast enough. so you have to sit there for 3 minutes for the video to load about 6 to 7 minutes of video and depending on how long the video is. the loading should have finished by the time you reach the end of the video.
playing a video remoteley:
you find your video and open it with your preffered media player. then the video starts without readying for more than a second
My point being that SO Manny things can go wrong and SO manny things can cause low FPS making the user annoyed in browser based "Anything!"
installed games (Made right) are nice and stable. it wont slow your mascine down unless you have the graphics set to high or your computer is not good enough
oh and not having a good computer and having a bad internet connection is even worse that annything above
oh and a nother note. if you have a crappy computer but the best connection in town. it will still be really crappy.. does not matter what you do, even a normal flash game will struggle in this case. so to play this game people will need good computers and better internet connections
even if the game will be downloadable as a .SWF file. a crappy computer will still not handle it but a good one will most likeley be fine
This is NOT something I am looking forward to, and I have been biding my time waiting for an update on this project for at least a year.
Sorry, you made somebody lose interest.
yes, i second this (and i think its been about two years for me now -_-)
Honestly last I remember reading on the website was that you were no longer developing it at all. I could be wrong about that, but that's what I had been believing all this time.
It's good to hear that it's still going to be developed, I wish you all the best in the new direction and I'll watch eagerly for new updates!
OH MY god please dont tell me that this will HAVE TO be runn in Google Chrome! PLEASE FOR CHRISTS SAKE anwer me on this one fast!!.
I WONT EVEN BE ABLE TO PLAY IT NOW if its true!!! GOOOOOOD!
and in advance. do you have anny idea how ****** GC is! and how it literally invades and breaks our privacy without breaking anny laws!!!
just read throught the Terms of agreement or whatever it is right before ou download it (The thing where you have to press "Yes i agree to these terms and conditions") just look around the bottom area where is says thet if you dawnload it thet google will have acess to all your files on the computer including pictures documents videos, annything and it even says something about a Third Party in there!!
im not kidding. i have read through the whole thing myself and i was shokked when i came to the bottom. needles to say i did not download it
(Rant over)
Long rant is long... and actually marginally informative.
I disapprove of this move to webGL because this almost guarantees the game will be subscription based. At best, free to play but pay for more content.
If you really want to break the mold, have the game pay once to play forever. If you're low on money while making more content after release, make the expansion content pay once as well (DLC style).
agreed. retail+DLC is better than online browser based
and like in all my previous rants on this page alone. it can become verry destructive
(When i rant(not often) i have a good reason to rant and i really "Spill the beans!" or in other words i have facts to back up "Most" of my claims)
I agree with Hell Diguner, and a little skeptic about the change though it may work quite well, we'll have to see how it shapes up in the future, i'll still be tracking this.
Unlike email, many games don't need internet connection. So I don't most games moving to the browser anytime soon. And I don't see an issue with installing plugins to run Unity or Panda games, at least you can also make proper standalone versions of the games as well.
Plus pure WebGL will require far more development time.