Any chance I could use your library?

Larry

Im also interested in such a library.
would appreciate if hearing how your progress goes.

Larry

Still, there seems to be repitively baaaaad signs from Sun's business targets.

I personally think their recent accomplishments with mobile devices is a good move...

but the way things are going I get this horrifying feeling that sun is slowly slipping below the horizon.... eclipsed by the dark shadow of Microsoft...( background darth vader theme tune).....

I guess its just survivial of the fittest and I hope its not the case a few years down the line, when we tell our kids bed stories "once apon a time, in a galaxy far far away there was a sun....

For clarity, I dont think bluetooth is appropriate for MMOg but added it as an aside for multiplayer gaming.
( 1-on-1 or team of 4)



I like the beer analogy. In south africa beer is about 50c euro. It takes 1 beer to put me out for an entire evening, so actually remains cheaper in my case

Hi David,

I heard this from an engineer who I was consulting, who works
for a reputable distributor of a java bluetooth stack implementation.
I was describing my intention of testing bluetooth communication with a nokia emulator and pc. He mentioned that nokia did support a bluetooth, but it was not JSR82.

I just doublechecked the classes with the Series60_ConceptMIDP_betaa3 device and it seemed to confirm with JSR82. After contacting the engineer again, it seems there was a misunderstanding somewhere and that nokia DOES support JSR82.  At least with the 6600. Id assume this also means that the device classes for the emulator are also JSR82 compliant.

Apologies for the confusion.

Larry

hey all,

I checked out the nokia developer suite as David suggested and there exists a bluetooth API.

maybe Im a bit slow, but however, I just found out its not JSR82 compliant. Thought it was useful info to share..

Hi Lawrence,

:-/
Im not sure if I fully understand your question...but here's a go
at a fuzzy answer...

Ive mainly looked at phone applications, but some phones like Sony p800 has similar attributes to a PDA ( stylus, large screen).

Personally, I would implement the game in MIDP2 as it is pretty standard across devices. MIDP2 also offers some new impressive features, absent in MIDP1.I also prefer java coding to C++ Symbian coding (never tried coding for palmOS or Windwos CE though). However, each manufacturer has their own specialised libraries, so the standardised bonus begins to fall away when you start relying to much on device-specific libraries.

The main decision for you, would be your target device. If its PDA's then what manufacturer, what model? Do you focus on 1 type of device or preferably a range of devices? Do you intend to focus on devices that may support the new MIDP2(e.g. nokias first MIDP2 devices only come out end of this year)? Does your game require use of specialised libraries if you were to implement in MIDP2? What kind of performance, memory, connectivity do you need (java connectivity in MIDP1 has been a bit buggy/sluggish in comparison to using Symbian C++ for e.g.)?

Once you've answered these, you can determine your technical setup and development solution.

hope that helps.

good sites are:
- gamasutra.com (they have a special mobile game resource, if you find it, its very informative)
- this place
- forumnokia
- sun's wireless and j2me sites

theres a very nice article on mobile MMOG at gamasutra,
you will need membership to read it.

http://www.gamasutra.com/resource_guide/20030916/palm_01.shtml

This article nicely summarises the potential for mobile gaming and includes some notes on J2ME. Most importantly, J2ME remains buggy and limited in comparison to C++.

This reflects my experience too, however, MIDP2 opens up a lot of
possibilities and its just a matter of time before MIDP is robust and powerful enough to support enticing apps. I really did not enjoy the tedious Symbian coding.

I think bluetooth is a key element too, it fits the mobile gaming model perfectly.  ( mr Price... any word on that bluetooth demo

enjoy..
Larry

Id wait for the nokia 6600 which will support MIDP2

thanks for the info Shareme, yep are you referring to the java specialists newsletter? its often got interesting stuff!

very worthy point!

yep, that seems to be the reason.

A simple "hack" to save memory would be to use ints
and treat them as a byte array[2] using byte masks and bit
logic.

Larry

What did you use to measure the memory?

Hi Bab,

Theres a great article at the nokia forum:
http://www.forum.nokia.com/

called : "Game animation with Java MIDP"

it has a class which manages a tiled background layer, coded from ground up.

hope it helps,
Larry

Very nice release, thanks for all the info.

I found your succint overviews impressive, in that it was to the point and focused on important info.

thanks!

Its great to see sp much interest in this discussion.

The best reference Ive read so far is the book "bluetooth for java" ( as David mentioned). author is Bruce Hopkins.

There's also a nice short article on bluetooth and J2ME on the sun java website.

Other than that, there are some fantastic articles at nokia forum providing in-depth MIDP gaming design and coding. ( much better docs than the Symbian C++ stuff! - Dave if youre somehow responsible for this, thanks!)

sun's java website also has some really informative, succint articles on MIDP2 gaming support and examples, mostly by the legendary - Jonathan Knudsen...

Im looking to go fulltime into development from October,
till then Im playing around, I'll keep in touch, hope u all do too!

Larry

You can get an evaluation license from both vendors.
I know the antinav evaluation license is only valid for 15 days
and the restriction on the rococo license is that it runs on linux.

Im still have to install linux, and will get back to you on how it went.

Larry

Well we could offsett this by hijacking some innocent .net developers, tie them to totem polls at the meetings and... hmmm... or alternatively if we synchronise our meetings, the multiple javadev "rift centres" could offset eachother, ensuring continuos space-time continium...hmm.. maybe I should get back to work

Im an expert, by no accounts on such an issue.
but Im sure you've already looked em up.

I think it depends on the type of game, the architecture you're supporting, the pace of your game, the amount of data that must be synchronised and the inherint network latency.

Im sure you can analyse your system and try hone down your data synchronisation to the bare minimum. Moreover, you can identify which data are continuous or require immediate updates (e.g. velocities) and which data doesnt (e.g. new player login). But Im sure you've done all that.

The simplest solution would be Athomas Goldberg's suggestion which would be to replicate processing on both client and server.

The only other solution I can think of is, writing some sort of rules-engine on the server which determines whether a new velocity, etc. value from a client is "legal" taking into account its previous state and states of other objects in the world.

but I suppose this amounts to the same as the 1st solution.

Larry

Im playing around with something now bab, but havent got very far.

If I get somewhere, I'll let you know but in the meantime Id appreciate anything you find as well.

currently Ive just managed to get some bluetooth SDK's which you can get from rococo or antinav ( java SDK's).  
hope that helps.

Larry

Hi,

Kevglasses survey idea got me a thinking ( while chewin' on me strand of grass)..........

it would be really nice if we could organise some socials.
I know we live in disparate places, but if the survey could also give indications of our locations we could arrange some bi annual meetings. It would be really nice to meet the faces behind the smileys behind .gifs behind the names  

Im sure someone must'v proposed this before.
While on the topic of location, Im currently based in the Netherlands
but Im planning a 6month break to South Africa, so if any of you guys are in the area let me know.

Larry

Looks impressive,
Ive always thought the java gaming model perfectly applies
to a board game adaption.

The artwork looks great too!

any thoughts on trying something similar for mobile?

Im lactose intolerant, so I guess my fiver is better spent on some jelly !

yep, it would be interesting to estimate when most phones will be MIDP 2.0 enabled, some already are e.g. nokia 66100

whats also really interesting is the bluetooth API.

Since I dont have time to develop quickly Im quite happy to experiment with MIDP 2.0 and have the game ready around the same time when MIDP 2 is more common.

thanks for the input

Id recommend going for MIDP2.0,

the graphics related advantages are a real bonus and I think the market potential for MIDP2.0 is relatively substiantial within the near future.

Larry

thanks for that useful info shareme,
so I guess MIDP 2.0 is the way to go for most J2ME applications.

It all depends what you consider "commercial quality".

If its quake, warcraft biggie type of game, Id say no.
but if its a fun game with great playability and very successful
in terms of amount of people playing it ( and indirectly the amount
of revenue you get from selling it) then yes.

Look at Cas' game for example. Granted he's put in a lot of effort
and time, however he did basically by himself and a graphics artist.

mobile games are also a great market to pursue some small indie
developments. However, looking at the rapid speed of mobile
device enhancements, quake-like standard games will be
flooding the markets very soon.

Hi,

Id like to know what you guys think of the various j2me configs and profiles with respect to gaming.

Its fantastic to see MIDP2.0 supports some useful functionality for gaming, but you are still restricted to the filesystem. If i wanted to create a community based game and use contacts in my phone Id have to use JavaPhone with CDC config.

Also, each phone manufacturor have their own souped up API's which provide magnitudes of functionality and performance above the standard Java API (e.g. Nokia Javaphone api provides binding to the impressive Symbian C++ os).

I personally prefer MIDP as its standard and can be used by all phones, but at what cost?

Larry

I think this messageboard is done in php?

My scoop on the MMO genre is that its requires so much work, technology and time that maintaing and creating such a game requires HUGE cashflow.

Thus, MMOs are quite demanding on getting monthly subscription fees from members who not only have to pay constant subscriptions but also have to spend huge amounts of time playing, to gain some level of importance in the game.

This makes selling such a product over a long period of time difficult. The only way an MMO can really succesfully compete are therefore:
1 - make the game original: unique fun to the many others
2  - limit subscription fee
3  - somehow change the gaming model so that
     joe-schmoe who only has 1 hour every odd day
     to play can enjoy it.

these restrictions along with the need of breaking many technological challenges ( security, latency etc) is tough one which can only be supported by a handful of rich studios with access to huge memberlists and groundbreaking internet:gaming technologies.

I initially thought that the home-alone developer could break in with a cool game on mobile phones, but after working on commercial product, the costs and skills involved in such work coupled with the graphics abilities of upcoming phones (nokiq ngage) makes it a difficult target for the garage startup developer.
Larry