Flash Multiplayer Virtual Worlds电子书

Flash Multiplayer Virtual Worlds

Table of Contents

Flash Multiplayer Virtual Worlds

Credits

About the Author

About the Reviewers

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. Developing Flash Virtual World

What is a virtual world?

Using virtual world for business

Using virtual world for education

Using virtual world for game

Background

Benefit of using Flash to build virtual world

Connecting players in a virtual world

A brief introduction to transport protocols

Peer-to-peer

Client-server network

Polling

Socket-based connection

Socket server

Available socket servers for Flash

SmartFoxServer

ElectroServer

Flash Media Interactive Server

Red5

Writing your own socket server

Choosing the right server

Application architecture of a virtual world

The whole picture of virtual worlds

Common features in virtual world

Avatar

World to explore

Home

Items

Quests

Non-player characters

Social features

Casual game design versus MMOG

Existing virtual world games

Club Penguin

Mole

Dofus

World of Warcraft

Summary

2. Installing the Servers

Comparing SmartFoxServer Lite, Basic, and Pro

SmartFoxServer Lite

SmartFoxServer Basic

SmartFoxServer Pro

Modifying the behavior of server

JSON/Raw data protocol

Accessing the database directly

Comparing different package options

Developing and deploying virtual world environment

Adjusting server setting for the deployment environment

Hosting SmartFoxServer, web server, and database in one server

Hosting SmartFoxServer in dedicated standalone server

Benefiting from setting up SmartFoxServer, web server, and database in different machines

Setting up the development environment

Installing Java Development Kit

Installing JDK On Windows

Installing JDK on Mac OSX

Installing JDK on Linux

Installing for General Linux

Installing for Ubuntu Linux

Downloading SmartFoxServer Pro

Installing SmartFoxServer Pro

Installing on Windows

Installing on Mac OSX

Installing on Linux

Running the SmartFoxServer

Starting SmartFoxServer on Windows

Starting SmartFoxServer on Mac OS

Starting SmartFoxServer on Linux

Using embedded web server and database

Running the embedded web server

Running the embedded database server

Downloading third-party HTTP and database server package

Installing WAMP on Windows

Installing MAMP on Mac OSX

Installing LAMP on Linux

Connecting SmartFoxServer and MySQL server

Downloading JDBC Driver for MySQL

Setting up the JDBC driver

Configuring the server settings

Configuring MySQL server connection in SmartFoxServer

Restarting the server

Running examples

Loading a simple chat application

Setting up the administration panel

Logging in to administration panel

Locating the Flash Client API

Summary

3. Getting Familiar with SmartFoxServer

Configuring a basic SmartFoxServer

Overview of the configuration file structure

Configuring the server

Automatically binding all available IP addresses to server

Listening port for connections

Setting policy load data from machines in other domains

Setting timers for idle user logouts

Blocking bots connections

Setting administrator login and password

Limiting access of the administration panel to specific IP addresses

Displaying zone information before connecting to the server

Defining the information separator in raw protocol

Configuring the Zones and Rooms

Configuring a zone

Naming your zone

Assigning default names to users

Broadcasting the user count

Limiting the users that can connect to a zone

Limiting numbers of rooms in a zone

Limiting the number of rooms a user can create

Getting all room variables along with room list requests

Setting moderators for the zone

Creating rooms

Regular room

Game room

Limbo room

Properties of a room

Comparing the available properties of each room type

Introducing the events of rooms

Comparing the available events of each room type

Debugging in local machine

Downloading the latest debugger version of Flash player

Creating the mm.cfg file

Testing the debugger log

Locating the Flash log output file

Reading the Flash logfile

Open the flashlog.txt in web browser

Using a Firefox add-on to read the Flash logfile

Reading the log with FlashTracer

Reading the log with FlashBug

"Tail" the trace log file in terminal

Flash Security Sandbox

Configuring master socket policy server

Configuring SmartFoxServer to send socket policy

Loading policy file from Flash client

Enabling the network access for the Flash document

Keeping updates to Flash player security policy

Creating a Flash document to connect to the server

Logging into a zone

Creating a cooperative drawing whiteboard

Testing the cooperative whiteboard

Summary

4. Creating Map and Ground in Isometric View

Comparing different game views

Top-down perspective

Side-scrolling view

3D view

Isometric game view

Getting an isometric projection view

Isometric coordination

Making an isometric map

Creating the base tile of an isometric map

Creating a basic isometric tile map

Drawing seamless shore border

Texturing an isometric map

Texturing a big map

Converting between screen coordination and isometric map coordination

Building a map editor

Summary

5. Creating Avatars

Designing an avatar

Determining the direction numbers of avatars' views

Rendering avatars in Flash virtual world

Drawing an avatar using vector animation

Rendering avatars using bitmap sprite sheet

Rendering avatars using real-time 3D engine

Rendering avatars using 2D bone skeleton

Drawing an avatar in Flash

Drawing the idle and walking animation

Creating an avatar class

Logging in SmartFoxServer with avatar

Using user variables in virtual world

Adding name to the avatar

Customizing your avatar

Customizing different styles

Customizing the color

Adding customization to avatar class

Designing a customization panel

Making our customization panel

Integrating the customization into SmartFoxServer

Summary

6. Walking Around the World

Creating the world

Holding states of the player

Moving the avatar

Movement synchronization

Making avatar able to walk

Walking by keyboard

Introducing path finding

Implementing A* search

Understanding the heuristic function

Balancing between accuracy and speed

Walking by mouse click

Broadcasting where you walked

Scrolling the world

Saving the position for next time

Creating an avatar database table

Creating a new zone in config.xml

Programming our first server-side extension

Saving and loading last position

Summary

7. Creating Buildings and Environments in the Virtual World

Placing buildings on the map

Outputting building from 3D software

Loading the building map data

Ordering the buildings

Ordering the movie clips in Flash

Determining an object's location and view

Shaping the buildings

Rendering z-order for l-shaped buildings

Rendering z-order for rectangle buildings

Rendering z-order for square buildings

Creating a loop to sort the z-order

Designing a big virtual world

Dividing the big world

The pros and cons of the seamless world

Partitioning the world into rooms

Connecting rooms with portals

Adding sound to the virtual world

Mixing art-based background with tile-based map

Building map editor for buildings

Summary

8. Creating an Inventory System

Classifying items in the virtual world

Different types of items

Items for avatar

Weapon

Tools

Riding

Entertainment

Material item

Collecting items

Collecting items that appear in the open

Collecting items that are hidden

Getting items after archiving some quests

Buying items in virtual shop

Trading items with other players

Buying from real shop

Displaying items in different forms

Defining the data structure of inventory items

Setting the item ID

Implementing inventory in the SmartFoxServer

Coding the server-side extension

Implementing the item panel

Loading the item definition

Loading the items list from the server

Moving items

Implementing the item operation in RAM

Creating items

Exchanging items with other players

Introducing the economy in virtual world

Balancing the items virtual economy

Setting the price of the items

Preventing the inflation

Hosting special event

Adding fatigue to items

Limiting the total amount of high-level items

Preventing the virtual economy from affecting the real world

Trading with real money

Government policy on virtual items

The responsibility to maintain a good economy system

Summary

9. Communicating with Other Players

Communicating using several methods

Sending public messages

Sending private messages

Sending group messages

Communicating in real-time voice

Potential problems of using voice communication

Consumes a lot of server bandwidth

Message filtering problem

Number of users limitation

Logging and revisit problem

Chatting with public messages

Showing chat bubble

Scaling the chat bubble

Implementing the buddy list

Creating buddy list panel

Knowing others with profile panel

Dispatching custom event in ActionScript 3

Creating an advanced buddy list

Adding buddy mutually

Introducing the buddy variables

Offline buddy variables

Creating custom buddy list persistence class

Summarizing buddy list configuration setting

Sending private messages

Capturing private message in server-side with internal event

Sharing object data between players

Making the trading items system

Summary

10. Interacting with NPC

Running virtual world smoothly with NPCs

Classifying different roles of NPC

Placing NPC in virtual world

Putting our first NPC in the virtual world

Preventing the NPC from disconnecting

Resolving a potential problem of using provided NPC feature

Advanced SmartFoxServer extension technique

Controlling NPC movement

Controlling NPC to walk in predefined path

Directing NPC to walk using path finding algorithm

Talking with NPC

Communicating with NPC using text parsing

The advantages of text parsing conversation

The disadvantages of text parsing conversation

Menu-driven conversation

The advantages of the menu-driven conversation

The disadvantages of the menu-driven conversation system

Keyword-based conversation

Choosing the right conversation system

Designing the characteristic of the NPC

Trading with NPC

Buying items from NPC

Selling items to NPC

Summary

11. Designing Quests

Introducing quests

Triggering quests

Getting quests from NPC

Getting quests from reading documents

Getting quests from collecting items

Getting quests from the last quest

Setting up server environment for quests

Setting up database

Designing the quest panels

Displaying available quests

Getting available quests in server-side extension

Displaying the quests in different statuses

Displaying quests for the avatar

Running daemons for quests

Managing quest daemons

Creating our first quest — Tom's Question

Introducing achievement

Completing quests

Rewarding the players when finishing the quests

Rewarding gold

Rewarding items

Rewarding avatars advancement or experience

Extending the quests with mini games

Creating the duck shooting game

Implementing the duck shooting quest daemon

Making the quest system better

Avoiding linear quests

Indicating the availability of quests

Summary

12. Social Community

The benefit of using social network features in virtual world

The complicated data flow

Integrating Facebook platform

Setting up Flash Facebook API

Registering the virtual world in Facebook

Putting the virtual world as a Facebook application

Using FBML rendering

Using iFrame rendering inside Facebook

Authorizing a Facebook account

Getting the profile name and picture from Facebook

Getting friends list from Facebook

Update the Facebook status

Sending news feed to Facebook

Reading news feed into the virtual world

Capture a screenshot and share to a Facebook album

Integrating the Twitter platform

Publish latest virtual world news in Twitter

Choosing the right social network service

Summary

13. Deploying and Maintaining Flash Virtual World

Hosting the virtual world

Hosting that supports SmartFoxServer

Hosting SmartFoxServer in dedicated server

Hosting SmartFoxServer in cloud service

Comparing the hosting solution

Scaling up the virtual world

Earning money from the virtual world

Google AdSense

In-game advertisement

Monthly subscription

Point-based subscription

Selling virtual items and virtual currency

Operating the virtual world

Tracking the cost of maintaining a Flash virtual world

Paying the hosting fee

Licensing the Socket server

Hiring customer service

Losing players

Losing players at sign up process

Losing players at a certain level

Losing players after updates

Losing players due to the low quality

Product lining

Analyzing players actions on a virtual world

Tracking players actions with funnel analysis

Data mining

Gathering useful information

Logging the data

Rapid development with OpenSpace

Editing with advanced map editor

Raising the avatars from the flat platform

Creating custom tile events

Updating and patching the virtual world

Keeping an eye on the virtual world industry

Putting our virtual world in mobile

Small screen size

Low RAM

Relatively slow CPU

Limited network bandwidth

Benefit of porting virtual world into mobile

Extending the virtual world to other platforms

Apple iOS

.Net and Unity

Java and Android

Ajax

Summary

Index