- Flash Multiplayer Virtual Worlds
- Flash Multiplayer Virtual Worlds
- Credits
- About the Author
- About the Reviewers
- Preface
- 1. Developing Flash Virtual World
- What is a virtual world?
- Background
- Benefit of using Flash to build virtual world
- Connecting players in a virtual world
- Socket server
- Available socket servers for Flash
- Application architecture of a virtual world
- The whole picture of virtual worlds
- Common features in virtual world
- Casual game design versus MMOG
- Existing virtual world games
- Summary
- 2. Installing the Servers
- Comparing SmartFoxServer Lite, Basic, and Pro
- Developing and deploying virtual world environment
- Installing Java Development Kit
- Downloading SmartFoxServer Pro
- Installing SmartFoxServer Pro
- Running the SmartFoxServer
- Using embedded web server and database
- Downloading third-party HTTP and database server package
- Connecting SmartFoxServer and MySQL server
- Configuring the server settings
- Configuring MySQL server connection in SmartFoxServer
- Running examples
- 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
- Introducing the events of rooms
- Debugging in local machine
- Flash Security Sandbox
- Creating a Flash document to connect to the server
- Creating a cooperative drawing whiteboard
- Summary
- Configuring a basic SmartFoxServer
- 4. Creating Map and Ground in Isometric View
- 5. Creating Avatars
- 6. Walking Around the World
- 7. Creating Buildings and Environments in the Virtual World
- 8. Creating an Inventory System
- Classifying items in the virtual world
- Collecting items
- Displaying items in different forms
- Defining the data structure of inventory items
- Implementing inventory in the SmartFoxServer
- Implementing the item panel
- Exchanging items with other players
- Introducing the economy in virtual world
- Summary
- 9. Communicating with Other Players
- Communicating using several methods
- Chatting with public messages
- Implementing the buddy list
- Sending private messages
- Sharing object data between players
- Summary
- 10. Interacting with NPC
- Running virtual world smoothly with NPCs
- Placing NPC in virtual world
- Advanced SmartFoxServer extension technique
- Controlling NPC movement
- Talking with NPC
- Trading with NPC
- Summary
- 11. Designing Quests
- 12. Social Community
- The benefit of using social network features in virtual world
- The complicated data flow
- Integrating Facebook platform
- Authorizing a Facebook account
- 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
- Choosing the right social network service
- Summary
- 13. Deploying and Maintaining Flash Virtual World
- Hosting the virtual world
- Scaling up the virtual world
- Earning money from the virtual world
- Operating the virtual world
- Analyzing players actions on a virtual world
- Rapid development with OpenSpace
- Updating and patching the virtual world
- Keeping an eye on the virtual world industry
- Putting our virtual world in mobile
- Extending the virtual world to other platforms
- Summary
Social networking has been a hot trend on the Internet recently. People want to know what their friends are doing on Internet now and their behaviors will influence their friends. For example, when several friends are doing one thing in the social network, their friends will have a higher chance to follow their behaviors. When they are playing one social networking game, the chances of their friends joining the same game becomes high.
We can enhance our virtual world by adding social network community. We will use the social networking features from existing social network services and use these services to help spread the virtual worlds to potential players.
In this chapter, we are going to integrate several key features of Facebook and Twitter. We will also learn how to use the API provided by those social networking services to put and fetch resources with them.
The main purpose of the social networking services is connecting friends together. We can benefit from it by letting players and friends form their community inside the virtual world. Friends can share news of the virtual world to other friends that are inside or outside the virtual world. The news sharing mechanism increases the exposure of the virtual world and attracts more friends to join.
Players can easily interact with others with SmartFoxServer. By further integrating the social network services, they can socialize inside the virtual world in almost real-time.
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