The charges agaisnt AS3

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explain to me why AS3 is so good for game development? as apposed to using AS2?

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1 - On screen assets can be removed from one parent and attached to another

2 - Depth management can be a real issue with certain game types in AS2

3 - Onscreen assets can be removed from the display but remain in memory and be manipulated accordingly

4 - E4X = less complicated loops and traversing of XML data

5 - separation of engine from visual assets. It is possible to have a code .swf and a separate skin .swf

6 - Introduction of channels for sounds (something many other languages and middleware leverage).

I could probably come up with more, but this is a good start.

If your game consists more of something self contained, compact and about the size of most of the tutorials in books and about the web, then all of these points may not apply. However, if you want to push flash to any level of a console quality experience, then AS3 is inevitable.

I just finished up an Isometric game with about 8 - 12 hours of play. Granted it is done in AS2, but we had to cut some features and build ALOT of work arounds to deal with issues that would have been a snap in AS3. But again, we are talking about a project that 780kb is just code alone. So it's pretty huge.

Again, I feel it depends on the project, scope, and size.

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Originally Posted by Gohloum

1 - On screen assets can be removed from one parent and attached to another

2 - Depth management can be a real issue with certain game types in AS2

3 - Onscreen assets can be removed from the display but remain in memory and be manipulated accordingly

4 - E4X = less complicated loops and traversing of XML data

5 - separation of engine from visual assets. It is possible to have a code .swf and a separate skin .swf

6 - Introduction of channels for sounds (something many other languages and middleware leverage).

I could probably come up with more, but this is a good start.

If your game consists more of something self contained, compact and about the size of most of the tutorials in books and about the web, then all of these points may not apply. However, if you want to push flash to any level of a console quality experience, then AS3 is inevitable.

I just finished up an Isometric game with about 8 - 12 hours of play. Granted it is done in AS2, but we had to cut some features and build ALOT of work arounds to deal with issues that would have been a snap in AS3. But again, we are talking about a project that 780kb is just code alone. So it's pretty huge.

Again, I feel it depends on the project, scope, and size.

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taking your points..

1. Yes that is very useful.

2. Never had any problem with depth in AS2/FP8.

3. That's nice for those assets, but explain why is that useful?

4. How many games use XML? not many. Mine never have.

5. Never needed to do that.

6. I'm fine just with attaching sounds to the timeline or if I need some kind of seperate to other Mc's never needed to do anything else.

Yes come up with more, because there's nothing there that is of much use to me (apart from maybe point 1)

Console quality? with Flash? maybe in 2 years time, but not yet (unless you mean bejeweled/card games), or are you refering to consoles from 8 years ago?....and even then you admit your game was done in AS2!....

I'm all for Flash games getting better, and being higher quality...I just don't see any need for AS3 yet. Like I said the only area it makes sense to me is physics/3d and possibly multiplayer. But for everyting I'm still not convinced sorry.

Not sure I can agree with your examples, Gohloum. These are mostly improvements that could be included in AS2 too, and have little to do with structure of language. New commands have been added to every version of Flash so new cool stuff can be made, but language itself remained same.

As about pushing Flash to "console quality experience", exactly which console you have in mind? Even F5 was more powerful then GB, reason we dont see games equally good has probably more to do with business models. Spending millions of cash and several years on Flash game will be possible only when you can assure investors the game can earn them profit.

Taking point 5 specifically (separation of logic and visual assets), if that doesn't seem useful to you, I think we're doomed to just talk past each other forever.

I think the AS2 faction sees the stuff on stage as primary, and the code is there to get it to do stuff. The AS3 faction sees the code/abstract logic as primary, and the stuff on stage is just one of many possible outputs of that code. This is such a fundamental difference that it's no wonder neither side understands where the other is coming from.

Let me tell you about some of my AS3 projects that I've done, am working on, and plan to try. You tell me if any of them seem like something that might be useful to you as a game developer.

Done:
1) face detection in bitmaps.
2) Genetic algorithm framework
3) Markov chain framework
4) Symmetric art generation (was going to use this to generate enemies for a shoot em up)

In progress:
5) 3d multiplayer turn based game - don't want to get into too much detail as I plan to enter it into a contest
6) an AIR app to create self-verifying, self-extracting encrypted swfs

Planned:
7) 3d model and texture generation from camera input (plan to use as an 3d avatar generator)
8) 3d sketching using camera input and pv3d

Tony, let me address you first...

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Originally Posted by tonypa

Not sure I can agree with your examples, Gohloum. These are mostly improvements that could be included in AS2 too,

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What could have been and what cards we have been dealt are 2 different things. I'm all for adding features a little at a time. This would be a whole lot easier than dealing with a learning curve to move to the next revision. But that's not reality. It would also be really nice to get the time back I had to invest in order to start using AS3. So yeah, added features would have been the preferable route for me as well.

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As about pushing Flash to "console quality experience", exactly which console you have in mind? Even F5 was more powerful then GB

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Something above click management and match 3 games. Granted competing with todays console is not a fair comparison, but a game with some sense of story, planning and exploiting higher levels of engineering than a 4 week coding project would be a better way to express capabilities.

Again, I am not placing all my cards in 1 camp. As stated, I did a project in AS2, however many of the features would have been considerably easier in AS3.

Now for Boombanguk....

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2. Never had any problem with depth in AS2/FP8.

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Just because you haven't doesn't mean you won't... or ever will for that matter, so your comment is understandable.

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3. That's nice for those assets, but explain why is that useful?

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Maintaing state of visual element processing outiside of what is going on in view. This is a standard practice of 3D games - processing AI or Enviornment object outside of camera culling.

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4. How many games use XML? not many. Mine never have.

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Your statment is logically flawed by use of mis-information of data. Where are the facts to back up your claim that not many games use XML? It's also circumstantial as depending on how you catagorize apps as 'Games' and what specifically are the criteria that outline this?

However, what can be proven is many multi-user servers for flash are designed to work with XML Sockets. And many games that use these technologies are public releases and generating revenue. Look at Club Penguin - it was bought by Disney for $700 million and turns a profit of approximatey $50 million anually.

Then let's add a new piece of statistical data - did you know that over 100 MMO's have been funded this year? Yes, in the coming years you are about to see a flood of Habba Hotels, Barby Girls, and the like... I was very suprised to find this out from our company's CTO. What's even more interesting is one of them managed to get $300 million (yes 300 million) in seed money. It will be interesting to see how they spend it.

Now how many of those are going to be Flash front ends with SmartFox or similar backend? Probably alot.

Note on the above data - This bit of information is factual to the best of my CTO's abilities and research, so she may have missed a few, but the count of 100 is true and I have personally seen the report. Also it would be damaging to our company for her not to try and be factual as we make business decisions on such data and try to support as best possible with impericism.

So again, what are you considering a game? Maybe your statement should have said:

"I have not found any use in my games for XML so I don't see this as necessary"

Boombanguk, the thing that bothers me about your post is that you asked a question but then snydely respond when when I gave you a list. Maybe I have misunderstood your post which is entirely possible since this is merely text and emotional content is subjective to interpretation, but it would seem to me you were trying to give me a 'Smack Down' for whatever reason, which is uncalled for. This is a community where we all try to help each other out. I may be good at some things in Flash, but I lean on the knowledge of others here when I can't find a solution. So can we all play nice??? And if I completely misunderstood your response to my post, please excuse me addressing you in this manner.

Thanks!

TJ

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Originally Posted by 5TonsOfFlax

I think the AS2 faction sees the stuff on stage as primary, and the code is there to get it to do stuff. The AS3 faction sees the code/abstract logic as primary, and the stuff on stage is just one of many possible outputs of that code. This is such a fundamental difference that it's no wonder neither side understands where the other is coming from.

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I'd say you bullseyed that one... :)

Heh heh.. your post totally reminds me of the scene from "Pirates of Silicon Valley" when Steve razzes up the Mac team against the traditional Apple team and has them ribbing each other...

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Originally Posted by Boombanguk

Yes come up with more, because there's nothing there that is of much use to me (apart from maybe point 1)

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So you're not asking why AS3 is better for game development, you're asking why it's better for someone like you who has decided it sucks.

The bigger the project, the clearer the advantages become. If you only do small games then I can see why it's not that obvious why it's a much better language.

You can get pretty close to XBLA/WiiWare/PSN quality with well optimized AS3 code if you're clever and had the resources. Those games usually have atleast $100k budget. How many Flash games have been made with that kind of money?

I know these discussions never go anywhere but whatever, atleast they're fun

I gotta say you AS3 guys really get bent out of shape, if you say anything bad about AS3 :)....if you want to spend hours creating classes for every single little thing, then cool, more power to you....but the rest of us don't want to do that :)..results is what matters to the rest of us, not how well something is coded under the hood so to speak, or how "efficient" the code is...I don't give a crap about any of that, the only thing I'm interested in, is how quickly and well can I take the idea spinning around my head, and make it into a cool , nice looking game, I don't want to get caught up in trying to get the language to do what I want it to do, I just want to make something happen, and in my opinion AS2 is better at that then AS3. Development is a means to an ends to me, not an ends in itself.

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if you want to spend hours creating classes for every single little thing,

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I repeat Java envy...

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Originally Posted by Boombanguk

results is what matters to the rest of us, not how well something is coded under the hood so to speak, or how "efficient" the code is...I don't give a crap about any of that, the only thing I'm interested in, is how quickly and well can I take the idea spinning around my head, and make it into a cool , nice looking game, I don't want to get caught up in trying to get the language to do what I want it to do, I just want to make something happen, and in my opinion AS2 is better at that then AS3.

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Originally Posted by mr_malee

NO ONE IS FORCING YOU TO USE AS3!

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oh and Boombanguk, every single one of my games use xml, even the as2 ones. As3 is a dream with it.

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Originally Posted by Boombanguk

ok probably dumb question, but what will that mean for future Flash game development? will AS3 be dumped? changed?

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Mike Chambers respond is "AS3 will not get dumped":
http://www.mikechambers.com/blog/200...-ecmascript-4/

This of course is only way Adobe could respond to such news atm. It wont affect F10 since its already done but will have implication on next release of Flash. Thing is, Adobe itself has drummed a lot about "AS3 following ECMAScript standards". But they rushed ahead and made it follow ES4, a standard that does not exist yet and probably never will. There is good chance AS3 will not be compatible with next ECMAScript standard (whenever it gets agreed on) so what choices Adobe has? If they want AS to follow next ES they have to change AS or they can abandon ES and simply say AS is somewhat similar but also different language. Both are bad choices considering how much effort Adobe has put into making AS to follow ES first place.

I dont think its that much important.As long as the player does what the real world wants i could not give a damn if the language he uses is based on what the ecma guys think the others would like.
Now, one interesting thing to notice, is what this show about how adobe works: 'hello mister tarded, look how beautifull is our stuff because is based on the wonderfull ecma' and now its like:'from day over night our stuff is not ecma anymore, well, ecma was not that important really, were just kidding'

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Originally Posted by mikechambers

As Alex noted in his post, if it wasn’t for non-standard feature implementations (by browsers or plugins) then standards would never really move forward.

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http://www.mikechambers.com/blog/200...-ecmascript-4/

i hope things to get added back into AS4 or AS3.1 or whatever.
i used AS2 for a while an got very good at it. i tried learning AS3 a few months ago, and quit after 2 days.
It didnt take long to work out the classes, but i got lost at all this display object stuff and how hard it is to reference movie clips and put new movie clips on the stage and things.
im staying with AS2

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Originally Posted by mr_malee

oh and Boombanguk, every single one of my games use xml, even the as2 ones. As3 is a dream with it.

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congratulations.

Was speaking to a colleague of mine the other day and he informed me that ActionScript will no longer be following the ECMA script specification. They are ditching development on AS4 and instead are going to create some version called 3.1 that pulls in some of the features they were going to put into AS4. Let's see what they come up with.

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Originally Posted by Boombanguk

congratulations.

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What a retort!

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Originally Posted by hatu

You can get pretty close to XBLA/WiiWare/PSN quality with well optimized AS3 code if you're clever and had the resources.

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That's a pretty ridiculous statement. You seem to be under the impression that because a game is delivered and sold via XBLA, or WiiWare that it is somehow using a different set of very inferior hardware. XBLA = same hardware and abilities as XBOX 360; WiiWare = Same set of hardware and abilities as core Wii products. The only difference is the cost and scope of what was developed. I can't imagine AS3 (as it currently stands) to even come close to delivering a full 3D textured platformer like the gorgeous Lost Winds. It just can't be done (yet).

However, a couple more years, couple more improvements to FP and a couple more improvements in people's hardware specs and will WILL be pretty close to N64 level of graphics.

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Originally Posted by kortex

Was speaking to a colleague of mine the other day and he informed me that ActionScript will no longer be following the ECMA script specification. They are ditching development on AS4 and instead are going to create some version called 3.1 that pulls in some of the features they were going to put into AS4. Let's see what they come up with.

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oh great....they really need to sort out whats going on with Flash. Like I said before I think they need to decide on what they want it to be, but I think there's confusion with that. It seems that they were trying to position AS3 as a wonder language for all uses across the net, which I think was a mistake.

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Originally Posted by Ray Beez

That's a pretty ridiculous statement. You seem to be under the impression that because a game is delivered and sold via XBLA, or WiiWare that it is somehow using a different set of very inferior hardware. XBLA = same hardware and abilities as XBOX 360; WiiWare = Same set of hardware and abilities as core Wii products. The only difference is the cost and scope of what was developed. I can't imagine AS3 (as it currently stands) to even come close to delivering a full 3D textured platformer like the gorgeous Lost Winds. It just can't be done (yet).

However, a couple more years, couple more improvements to FP and a couple more improvements in people's hardware specs and will WILL be pretty close to N64 level of graphics.

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Pretty much agree with all of that. But as has been discussed a 1000 times, if Flash can do all that stuff in 3 years time, will it still be Flash or would it of evolved into something else by then? Squize was saying before that, it's good that designers can design and coders can code and I get the point but personally I like to code myself the idea's that I come up with, but I just want that process to be as easy as possible haha, which is why I love AS2 I can knock up a prototype of a game idea in no time at all. All I want is the same easyness of AS2, but just with more power! with that combination, then I have no doubt you will see some amazing things done in Flash gameswise in 3 years time, also as long of course that the revenue models are in place to capitalise on it.

I was just thinking about this and this is probably a dumb question, but why can't they just build into Flash option for the player to use the machines graphics card? say something like useGraphicCard = true; so people could still develop with Flash to run in software only mode for say mobile devices, but if we need it we can just flip the switch and use the graphics card, or is it not as simple as that :)

honestly, this thread is so tiring- i can only bear it after i've had a few. i think in the history of the internets, this may be in the top 10 most frustrating reads (behind the top 9 creationist forums). tonypa had some interesting points, but the large of the "AS3 blows" camp, i've determined, is bat**** crazy. it's like watching a pre-algebra class argue that math really ****ed it up with calculus. or that the earth is flat. there's just no sympathy from those of us that know you're wrong.

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Originally Posted by Boombanguk

I was just thinking about this and this is probably a dumb question, but why can't they just build into Flash option for the player to use the machines graphics card? say something like useGraphicCard = true;

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because you would complain that flash player should do it for you. or that it wasn't in as2... and you know, that's what you're used to!

ok, i've been a bit ridiculous, but come on; if you want to have an argument, back it with substance.

"Squize was saying before that, it's good that designers can design and coders can code and I get the point but personally I like to code myself the idea's that I come up with"

And that's why the little baby Jesus invented as2 :)

All designers are frustrated coders, as they feel that if they could code it themselves without pain in the arse coders they'd be much closer to their vision without all the hurdles they have to go through.

Much like all coders want to be able to design so they don't have to cope with constant amends and "great" new ideas during development that when said out loud don't sound like much, but in reality take a lot of re-coding to drop in.

As to this thread, it is all getting a bit pointless now. I think everyone who's got a view has said it, and now it's just a case of repeating it over and over in the vain hope that people in the other camp suddenly click and go "Oh yeah, you're right".

If you want nice fast physics, 3D or a bullet hell shooter, as3 is the way to go, and you get pay back for the extra effort it takes. You can actually see the benefits on screen. If you don't, then as2 can do it just as well.

Squize.