EleTD on silverlight

[Guest xen]

Hello,

I would like to quickly introduce myself.

I am currently working on porting EleTD to silverlight, so people can play directly from a web browser (a la Flash EleTD, but with the full gameplay of EleTD 4).

I will let you know as soon as it will be close to an alpha/beta (should be in a few weeks, hopefully).

As of now, most of the gameplay is now working. We're still working on finishing gameplay and UI.

Multiplayer will be added as soon as possible too (should be pretty quick to do in a not very secure way, but will take a bit longer for a secure version).

Don't hesitate if you have any question.

xen

[Cisz]

I don't use silverlight.

[Guest Void]

I don't know what silverlight is. xD

[Twilice]

^

|

|

*quotes*

[Karawasa]

http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/overview/default.aspx

[jolin012]

jolin goes

[Cisz]

Hm, that link forces me to install before I get info. I don't like that.

Alternative:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Silverlight

Aha, so it's a commercial proprietary MS product with a limited availability on linux. Yet another rendidtion of "taking a look at what works, doing an own but incompatible version, ignore standards and formats in existance, destroy competition by mass releasing the ms version bundled with windows or for free"? So they are trying to destroy flash now. Hm, can't really blame them, I mean, if I were trying to rule the world, I would do that too.

So the question is: If there is an established aplication for "rich internet applications", which most of the users allready have installed, and which is dominating the market, why not use something completely different, that has also got the charm to be one of microsofts evil marketing schemes?

I feel used allready.

[Guest xen]

Well, sometimes I feel a bit hopeless when I see that kind of opinion. I think your vision of thing is just the stereotype of what typical people thing of Microsoft. However:

1/ It turns out Silverlight and .NET are much more open than Flash: http://www.mono-project.com/ offers open source implementation with commercial support by Novell (in cooperation with Microsoft, so it's really official). MacOSX is supported by Microsoft and Linux is officially handled by Novell.

Just compare with any open flash implementation... Linux people are at the mercy of Flash people, who can decide when they release 64 bits version and other architecture.

2/ In terms of technology, it's _much_ more easier to do what I'm trying to achieve using Silverlight. Flash is really an horrible language to use as soon as you want to do very complex application (ActionScript is not a very good language). Silverlight allows someone to use a bunch of language, including C#, Ruby, Python, Perl, VB, etc....

On top of that, it's much more efficient: whole suite for designing (Blend) allowing external people to work on UI.

Standarized controls (I don't know for you, but I am bored of Flash where everybody has to reimplement listbox and button with different behaviors than standard one).

Silverlight is also a subset of .NET/WPF, making easy transition between web and desktop application. A lot of people are proficient with the main language behind it (C#).

3/ Also, I don't feel like doing advanced gameplay in ActionScript. No wonder why games in flash are always simple. I don't know about Flash 10, but at least in Flash 9, it's impossible to do:

- Multiplayer because lack of real socket (only way to communicate is http/XML).

- Possibility to share server and client code (otherwise it would _really_ be horrible to support both a client and a server, because server would be in another language anyway).

- Run in a VM, so very good both on client and server for security: very stable.

- Contrary to what you might believe, server can run fine on Linux using Mono (in .NET). Portability is really great.

- Advanced data mining (implementing such a complex gameplay would be REALLY a mess on Flash) and easy access to databases (MySQL, etc...).

4/ Silverlight = 30% coverage as of today (http://riastats.com) and some big companies use it (NBC, Beijing Olympics, etc...).

If you want EleTD in a browser, trust me, it's the only viable option. Nobody will be able to do it in Flash in its current state. I'm just bored to always face that kind of negative view just because it's Microsoft, without analyzing the technology behind: they actually did a better technology than others in that case. I used to bash Microsoft, but I am not stubborn to the point of refusing a good technology because of that.

Anyway, I'm sorry but the game is nearly ready in Silverlight, so I'm not going to recode the whole thing in Flash and waste 1 year of my existence.... Doing it in silverlight was very straightforward and we did great progress in approx 1 month.

Sorry for being a bit offensive, but I wanted to clear up opinions on that when I saw all of you who just complained without checking in depth (not even mention googling) before. I'm not saying it's the perfect technology, but going with flash would just have been really dumb.

Check what other flash games achieve, and just find one that offers such a complex gameplay... I don't think there is many, and there is a reason for that.

And I'm done "defending" it. Just wanted to clarify my choice -- which is definitely not because I'm a MS fanboy (I actually use Linux for the server and at home). I'm just a pragmatic that want to achieve his project in time and make it the best possible. And I'm still convinced it's the best choice when I see the current progress rate of things.

[Cisz]

All your points sound very debatable, I found different opinions on all on them. Especially the "I don't know flash 10" leaves you a bit open to criticism.

My standard example is the casual collective. They do multiplayer td for ages, and most of the time (lag exists, you know..) it's a smooth run. They have done a dota clone and several other multiplayer games, and also something they call eletd, which is not really it, and only single player. All that in flash 9. (Armorgames and Kongregate are flash too, so if we want to go into other big online gaming sites, we can't do that in silverlight.)

I'm no coder, so the technical stuff is mostly lost on me, but obviously it is very possible. I mean, I've been playing mpdtd for years.

I can see that you love the toys you get, and I can easily respect that. Still, what I say about "evil marketing schemes" is true, and was true much to often before. You like the tech, I hate the ethics. And I am pretty sure I am not the only one out here. So what do you do to win us over?

I think we need a plan for that and that's why I'm giving you a hard time here. You focus on the technical part, the social bit needs to be covered as well.

So far I claim a 2-1 for my side. I'm willing to give you "it's so much better for me to use" (that's your personal opinion and ofc true for you), and I get "people hate ms" and "why don't you use flash 10".

[Karawasa]

The standard example of the CC does not really apply here. An authentic Element TD port is going to be far more complex than anything the CC has done. The CC guys are great at stealing gameplay ideas and making them into simple and addicting games. They don't have the vision that we do, and I doubt you will ever see something of this level from them.

Flash 10 doesn't just come by default. I'm pretty sure you have to download, or at least update something. I don't see how that is any better than installing Silverlight. Ethics aside, MS is behind Silverlight and for the majority of the world that uses IE that is a trusted name.

How to win people over? Simple, show them the end result. Word spreads on the internet fast, so if our game lives up to expectations then it will be fine.

[Guest xen]

All your points sound very debatable, I found different opinions on all on them. Especially the "I don't know flash 10" leaves you a bit open to criticism.

My standard example is the casual collective. They do multiplayer td for ages, and most of the time (lag exists, you know..) it's a smooth run. They have done a dota clone and several other multiplayer games, and also something they call eletd, which is not really it, and only single player. All that in flash 9. (Armorgames and Kongregate are flash too, so if we want to go into other big online gaming sites, we can't do that in silverlight.)

I'm no coder, so the technical stuff is mostly lost on me, but obviously it is very possible. I mean, I've been playing mpdtd for years.

I can see that you love the toys you get, and I can easily respect that. Still, what I say about "evil marketing schemes" is true, and was true much to often before. You like the tech, I hate the ethics. And I am pretty sure I am not the only one out here. So what do you do to win us over?

I think we need a plan for that and that's why I'm giving you a hard time here. You focus on the technical part, the social bit needs to be covered as well.

So far I claim a 2-1 for my side. I'm willing to give you "it's so much better for me to use" (that's your personal opinion and ofc true for you), and I get "people hate ms" and "why don't you use flash 10".

Yes, first I would like to apologize if I have sounded offensive or anything like that in the previous post. I was just a bit mad at first when I saw a lot of non-constructive reaction first (without any explanation). I like discussing/arguing and eventually changing my mind if proven to be wrong, but not against a "I don't want/like it" without any further explanation.

On top of that, I was probably surprised to have such feedback when Karawasa told me it was fine and having worked really hard over the last month to port it. Hope you understand...

To explain you better my situation:

What I'm working on is not only EleTD, but a whole platform for doing videogame that you can play online with friends. There is already 3 games running (site is not really open in the sense that we didn't do any advertisement, I was waiting for EleTD to be ready. you can check it at http://youlii.com but remember those 3 games are more of prototypes than actual games, especially compared to EleTD). However, if EleTD prove to be successfull, it will likely become the main game of our platform, and I would really like if it ended that way.

A friend and I started the whole idea 6 months ago when Silverlight was still in beta and we noticed its perfect feature set to achieve multiplayer online gaming. We worked over the last 6 months in order to have a good server backend that support multiple games in a scalable way, have a lot of reusable elements for the game engine and have a few games ready.

Then I wanted to implement a game that I really enjoy playing, EleTD (with Karasawa permission). What I'm trying to say is that I'm working on EleTD on silverlight not because I felt it was a better choice for EleTD, but more because silverlight is the central element of our project (even tho I really love EleTD, please don't think it's not good because it wasn't our first objective. I am really putting a lot of effort into porting it).

If you really don't agree with it, which I totally understand, I'm totally fine if someone else works on a Flash version. However, in our case, not working with the toolkit I have spent the last 6 months to develop would be really counter productive (especially since most of the game is already ported, Karawasa told me it was fine and I didn't expect to have such negative feedback from rest of the team).

As of Silverlight itself, please keep in mind that the first real usable version of it (2) came out only in November 2008, 6 months ago. 30% coverage (still increasing sharply) is very good IMO in such a short time frame. Studies tend to prove that people usually don't mind installing it the first time as it is only 2 MB (compare that to Wc3/TFT ).

Now (and please don't take it as an ultimatum, it really isn't) working with flash are really not in our plan, for a bunch of previously stated reasons (not really adapted for large scale complex code, both of us are not proficient in this language, etc...). So please let me know quickly if silverlight is really not an option for you.

Don't forget it's just our spare time project (just like you with EleTD). We're not earning money from it, it's not our real job, so we prefer to keep it fun, otherwise it will be hard to motivate ourself to work on it on a regular basis, and it would just end up dying like so many projects.

Anyway, I will try to soon show you a preversion of the game, and hopefully it will convince you it was the good choice.

Most of the gameplay is working, I am just waiting for graphics to be a bit better because otherwise it would give you a bad first impression

And last thing, existing games in flash are nowhere to be as complex as EleTD. Just implementing all the different tower behavior would really be a lot of work in flash. Some code construction are simply not present in the language at all to allow such a gameplay to be easily implemented without putting a lot of work into it. Even if I could code it, I would really hate every maintenance/update because thing would incrementally breakdown due to lack of MVC separation paradigm, lot of hacks everywhere, impossibility to reuse code in server... And flash may be adapted for simple laggish multiplayer game, but wouldn't you prefer to have something ready that can handle real multiplayer for the masses?

[Karawasa]

It is absolutely true that I gave my blessing for this project. It looks as if you guys are having a healthy debate so I won't interject further.

[Cisz]

The following is not the point:

<not the point>

Silverlight still has no official support for network technology, right? Just kidding, I know it will have eventually.

Is it true that silvelight files are twice the size of a flash? So you install smaller, but transfer more when loading the game?

As for complexity, have you played gemcraft and mpdtd? They are about the same level as eletd (although not quite). Gemcraft has the gfx power of a decent game, and loads of mechanics going on, and mpdtd has fluent multiplayer action. Also there is gemtd, which is a more or less 100% port of the tft map of the same name. That is: with all the complexity of the towers copied faithfully. But it looks terrible, gemcraft is my reference for looks in flash. If you don't know them, check them out:

http://armorgames.com/play/3527/gemcraft-chapter-0

http://www.casualcollective.com/

http://www.gemtowerdefense.com/

Those three games should settle the "it can't be done" or the "it hasn't been done". That's simply not true imo. Flash EleTD is very possible.

But all the technology is not the point, as you and I allready pointed out.

</not the point>

The point is: How do you, or hopefully, how do we market a game on such an unpopular platform?

I neither do know a lot about the technical side nor do I care. I do ballance, testing, community management, and game design.

And as a community manager I tell you: If people have problems liking us, we are screwed. So the image of silverlight with the endconsumer is the one and only problem here.

Right now nobody uses silverlight. Youtube, myspace, myvideo, google video, casual collective, kongregate, armorgames, all flash sites. Silverlight is an upcoming competition on a market dominated by flash. The flash player is on probably over 90% of all machines (adobe claims 98%). 30%, allthough not bad, does not mean 30% use it, they just came across it and didn't uninstall.

Installing the player is imo not a minor issue. Not having to install something was the main reason for doing a flash version. Otherwise we could distribute a standalone game. A full EleTD is quite possible in under 2mb.

And, if you like it or not, and if it's based on facts and not just weird conspiracy theories or not, microsoft has a bad image. The ammount of people that dislike ms is much bigger than the ammount of people that dislike adobe.

Silverlight limits our userbase.

It's harder to market a game on silverlight, simple as that. So what are the plans to deal with that?

Here is what happened when I heard about silverlight, and what I fear will happen a lot if we do use it:

Me: "What's silverlight? Never heard of it."

Answer: "It's like flash, only better."

Me: "Um, like flash? Why not flash then?"

Answer: "It has cool new features and allows for much cooler aplications."

Me: "I do happen to know that flash10 is around the corner, so why not use that? That's also much cooler."

(Doing some google)

Me: "Apparently experts are divided about whether flash10 or silverlight is better. Sounds like basically the same product again. But why should anybody do another flash, if there allready is one? Who is behind this?"

Answer: "Well, that's the problem.."

In short words: I don't see a difference other than that microsoft want's me to use their version. So basically it boils down to if I like microsoft enough to have the same tehnology twice.

Or even shorter:

Microsoft says "Please use ours instead, because we say so."

[Guest xen]

<not the point>

Silverlight still has no official support for network technology, right? Just kidding, I know it will have eventually.

Of course it has support over this... (simple socket class).

Is it true that silvelight files are twice the size of a flash? So you install smaller, but transfer more when loading the game?

I haven't checked for an empty app (I would say it's very possible in that case), but a few images/sounds are going to make them very close to equal anyway.

As for complexity, have you played gemcraft and mpdtd? They are about the same level as eletd (although not quite). Gemcraft has the gfx power of a decent game, and loads of mechanics going on, and mpdtd has fluent multiplayer action. Also there is gemtd, which is a more or less 100% port of the tft map of the same name. That is: with all the complexity of the towers copied faithfully. But it looks terrible, gemcraft is my reference for looks in flash. If you don't know them, check them out:

http://armorgames.com/play/3527/gemcraft-chapter-0

http://www.casualcollective.com/

http://www.gemtowerdefense.com/

Those three games should settle the "it can't be done" or the "it hasn't been done". That's simply not true imo. Flash EleTD is very possible.

I have to say, I knew a few multiplayer flash games, but I didn't knew this td one. Thanks for pointing it out.

Now, I don't know the internal, but either:

- hosted by server (which I doubt considering different ping choice in the game) and would be very hard to do since they would have to code a whole server capable of parsing messages. Really a mess to keep in sync (except if the server trust client and doesn't run simulation on server side).

- hosted by people => probably bring the usual port forwarding issues, security issues, etc... hard to build a trustable ladder on game hosted by individuals.

Also, maybe in term of simple TD they are good (I espescially like the GFX of the first one, thanks for the link). However, what I think is hard to do is things such as:

- having _real_ UI like a minimap that you can click, smooth zoom and scrolling over a bigger area, etc...

- implementing 50 different towers without hardcoding them at the core of the game and have border effect (like a bunch of tower that don't interact well, ugly hacks to implement specific behaviors, etc...).

Also, I suppose those three games needed a lot of effort (maybe that's why each of them is good only for one thing: either multiplayer, gfx, etc...), imagine the effort to get all those features in the same game.

Let me remember you we managed to do most of EleTD single player in less than a months and approx 3000 lines of code, seems hard to beat. I don't want a game that could eventually be out in 1 year.

The point is: How do you, or hopefully, how do we market a game on such an unpopular platform?

Silverlight limits our userbase.

You're right, that's the real problem.

Well, as I explained earlier, it's a bet we have made when we started this website... Now, the thing is that we made this choice 6 months ago, and considering our free time available, changing now would be dumb. My friend would probably not follow me, and I would probably lack interest.

Again, I'm not saying it's the best tech, but it definitely is the best choice if we want to achieve this game in a short time frame with better effect than possible with Flash.

Now, question is, if we keep going on silverlight, would you be up or not?

I'd really prefer to keep this discussion short because I would like to focus on getting the game ready asap (especially since our choice with silverlight is already done, so no real point discussing it...).

Please let me know if it's for you really a big problem (like, up to the point I should stop it).

And remember, if everybody thought the same way, technology would never evolve.

Our whole idea behind our project was to start with this new technology before big companies and other lambda people does. Sometime you have to task risks. But considering 30% adoption in 6 months, I don't really worry: I doubt flash did even half that in its first year.

And if I use this MS solution, contrary to what you believe, it's because it's actually more open: we can decline an executable server version that runs on Linux very easily. We just take the .exe and run it with mono on linux, as simple as that.

BTW, silverlight has been used by NBC, Beijing Olympics for event rediffusion, AOL Mail, etc...

[Kaini]

Just compare with any open flash implementation... Linux people are at the mercy of Flash people, who can decide when they release 64 bits version and other architecture.

Well there is one already and 32 bit flash worked long ago with 64 bit systems.

And if I use this MS solution, contrary to what you believe, it's because it's actually more open: we can decline an executable server version that runs on Linux very easily. We just take the .exe and run it with mono on linux, as simple as that.

Hahaha... joke of the day?

First I clicked on "Get Silverlight" then this popped up:

Microsoft Silverlight wird von der Hardware oder dem Betriebssystem Ihres Computers möglicherweise nicht unterstützt. [aka Silverlight is not supported for your operation system.]

I manually installed Moonlight (the Linux implementation of Silverlight)

And then surprise, surprise:

The version of Silverlight installed is:

Version 1.0.30401.0

But the newest version of Silverlight is 2 and I can't watch the demo of it. (And I can't use your site...) Yeah you are right portability is great if you work with an two(?) year old version...

[Cisz]

I couldn't install silverlight too. And I have no idea why.

And the javascipt button on the microsoft page that is supposed to show me the system requirements is not working. Probably it IS working if I don't use firefox, but the good browser.

(Does a test.)

Yes, the microsoft silverlight page buttons are not working on firefox, only on ie. So much for the compatibility of ms products, I guess I get a "told you so" point.

[Guest xen]

I couldn't install silverlight too. And I have no idea why.

And the javascipt button on the microsoft page that is supposed to show me the system requirements is not working. Probably it IS working if I don't use firefox, but the good browser.

(Does a test.)

Yes, the microsoft silverlight page buttons are not working on firefox, only on ie. So much for the compatibility of ms products, I guess I get a "told you so" point.

With firefox, first time you go to a silverlight website, it asks you if you want to DL it. I did it several time and it works just fine.

Otherwise, http://silverlight.net/GetStarted/ -> right side, silverlight 2 box, just click windows runtime.

[Guest xen]

I couldn't install silverlight too. And I have no idea why.

And the javascipt button on the microsoft page that is supposed to show me the system requirements is not working. Probably it IS working if I don't use firefox, but the good browser.

(Does a test.)

Yes, the microsoft silverlight page buttons are not working on firefox, only on ie. So much for the compatibility of ms products, I guess I get a "told you so" point.

With firefox, first time you go to a silverlight website, it asks you if you want to DL it. I did it several time and it works just fine.

Otherwise, http://silverlight.net/GetStarted/ -> right side, silverlight 2 box, just click windows runtime.

Direct DL link: http://silverlight.dlservice.microsoft.com...erlight.2.0.exe

[Cisz]

Won't install. I guess sp1 is considered the stone age.

[jolin012]

I mean, I've been playing mpdtd for years.

don't mean to go offtopic but just for your information, roughly a week ago casualcollective released desktop td pro - more in this topic: https://forums.eletd.com/index.php?showtopic=1615

[Cisz]

That's the current version of dtd/mpdtd. Nothing very pro or special about it imo.

[Cisz]

So - what now.

xen - I really want to know what you think.

Let's assume for a moment that it will work. You do a great port, and silverlight is da bomb. Then all is fine and there is cake, right? You can quit school/job, and all are happy. I will shut up and get a silverlight tatoo (well, maybe a temptoo). No problem here.

And what do we do if not? If noone cares for a great game on an unpopular platform? Or if I am right and people won't play it when it's on a ms system? Are you willing to switch plattform? Or do we call it a day and part ways and someone else does it on flash then? And how do we find out? What if after 3 years we have 30000 registered users? Would you accept if we say "thats not enough for us, sorry"? Or are we going to fight then, over "what about all the work we put into this" (and both sides will say that ofc) and "it's your fault, because you didn't advertise/code/design/test/ballance/paint/fry it properly". Do you have a solid exit strategy? Do we have one?

Oh, and maybe for some reason silverlight will be slightly weird on firefox. Or will run slow on Mac. Each and every more or less comlex website has to be done in at least 2 versions, because for some reason, no browser can display html (and netscape is about as guilty as ms here). Are you prepared to do several versions of the game if that happens?

What are the plans? I want plans.

[jolin012]

does silverlight work on sites such as http://kongregate.com and http://newgrounds.com or would we have to stick to your site, our site and sites like http://silverarcade.com ?

[Guest xen]

does silverlight work on sites such as http://kongregate.com and http://newgrounds.com or would we have to stick to your site, our site and sites like http://silverarcade.com ?

silverarcade and mashoo does that as of today. Hopefully, we can expect some major sites such as kongregate to switch as silverlight game takes off (we could eventually mail them about that).

So - what now.

xen - I really want to know what you think.

Let's assume for a moment that it will work. You do a great port, and silverlight is da bomb. Then all is fine and there is cake, right? You can quit school/job, and all are happy. I will shut up and get a silverlight tatoo (well, maybe a temptoo). No problem here. smile.gif

And what do we do if not? If noone cares for a great game on an unpopular platform? Or if I am right and people won't play it when it's on a ms system? Are you willing to switch plattform? Or do we call it a day and part ways and someone else does it on flash then? And how do we find out? What if after 3 years we have 30000 registered users? Would you accept if we say "thats not enough for us, sorry"? Or are we going to fight then, over "what about all the work we put into this" (and both sides will say that ofc) and "it's your fault, because you didn't advertise/code/design/test/ballance/paint/fry it properly". Do you have a solid exit strategy? Do we have one?

Oh, and maybe for some reason silverlight will be slightly weird on firefox. Or will run slow on Mac. Each and every more or less comlex website has to be done in at least 2 versions, because for some reason, no browser can display html (and netscape is about as guilty as ms here). Are you prepared to do several versions of the game if that happens?

What are the plans? I want plans.

OK, as explained before, my current plan is to develop it on silverlight. It is part of an effort to have a solid place in this market before it is crippled. Flash is very lucrative but overcrowded. I though it was much more interesting to wait for a new good technology, exploit its best feature and hope for the best.

If it happens to fail, I don't plan to do a flash port. Note that a flash port would be a totally separate effort and everything need to be redone from the ground up, so it should not really matter if we are doing it or not.

My personal plan would probably consist of switching back to make 3D engine/middleware, d3d/opengl games or larabee raytracers, etc... Flash is really not my cup of tea, I have a bunch of other things in mind I would rather do over that.

Now, up to you to believe in it or not. I'm offering you an opportunity, clearly stating what you can expect of me and what not to.

[Karawasa]

OK, as explained before, my current plan is to develop it on silverlight. It is part of an effort to have a solid place in this market before it is crippled. Flash is very lucrative but overcrowded. I though it was much more interesting to wait for a new good technology, exploit its best feature and hope for the best.

I like your mindset xen. The reason the original Flash Element TD brought in over $50,000 is because it was the first. The game itself blows .