I was just testing the site and ran into a problem with Flash image loading. I found that when loading a nonexistent file, Flash still reports progress info, and after reaching 100% it shows nothin...

ActionScript for Multiplayer Games and Virtual Worlds Book Overview The demand for multiplayer games and virtual worlds has exploded over the last few years. Not only do companies want them for site stickiness through social networking, but developers have tremendous interest in exploring this niche area. While developing multiplayer content is challenging, it isn’t as difficult as you might think, and it is fun and highly rewarding! ActionScript for Multiplayer Games and Virtual Worlds explains fundamental multiplayer concepts from connecting to a server to real-time latency hiding techniques. In this book you’ll learn: How to connect users to achieve real-time interaction When to make decisions on the server versus the game client Time synchronization techniques How to use dead reckoning smoothing to hide network latency About tile-based games the isometric view Techniques for customizing and rendering avatars in a virtual world In addition, you’ll learn everything that goes into building: A real-time multiplayer tank battle game A real-time multilayer cooperative game A virtual world

Today I placed an order on Taobao for the fourth edition of the Dungeons & Dragons core rulebooks. I actually wanted to pre-order back in July, but I was short on cash at the time… Official website: http://dnd.zongheng.com/main.shtml Also came across this video online: hardcore TRPG players running a live tabletop session:

I put together a World of Warcraft arts expo blog, dedicated to collecting material about Warcraft culture http://www.flashj.cn/wow/ It mainly covers character biographies, books, diaries, letters...

Thoughts inspired by a cat Half a month ago, a cat came scrambling in off the balcony. It lives with me now. At first, its demands were simple: just a place to crash. So much so that on the first day it refused to leave — even though I had nothing to feed it. I opened the door and carried it out; it darted straight back in. I carried it out and quickly shut the door; it stood outside yowling at the door, dead set on getting back in. Later I got it some food, gave it a bath, bought cat food and kept its bowl full every day, bought cat litter and set up a toilet.

Yesterday I heard from Fenix that Blizzard had registered a new trademark. At the time I figured it was a new game. And I thought to myself, pfft — with Diablo 3 and StarCraft 2 delayed this long, any new game has to be at least 10 years out.

Last night I watched The Barber of Siberia until 1 a.m. before going to sleep. My mom said a friend recommended it — a really good film. Jeanne could have had a beautiful romance, but precisely because she made her living by deceiving people, misunderstandings piled up and complications multiplied. In this way, she unwittingly caused Andrei to accumulate more and more jealousy, until finally it spiraled out of control. Andrei’s jealousy drove him to do a series of things that would shape his entire life. Hot-blooded and young, he challenged a classmate stronger than himself and ended up badly wounded. When Jeanne whispered to the general to plead on his behalf, in his eyes it became an insult and a provocation from the general. In the end he attacked the general with a piano wire, was exiled to Siberia, and ruined his own future.

I remember, back before I switched my blog over to WordPress — that was more than a year ago now — I came across an amateur-made fighting game online. Most of the characters are played by real people. Hilarious, brilliant, seriously impressive. I remember the author’s blog was called “Jiangxi Dinosaur’s Lair” back then. There were only a handful of characters, the story wasn’t finished, and there were plenty of bugs, haha. I downloaded it and played for a while, but after I reinstalled my system I never went back to it.

Cheat mode In the game, you can use Niko’s phone to enter the following cheat codes and activate the corresponding cheat functions. Note: don’t save your game after using them, to avoid unforeseen problems. Some cheat codes may affect achievement unlocks. Replenish health Dial “ 3625550100 “ on your phone. Note: this code affects the achievements for “Cleaned The Mean Streets”, “Finish Him”, “One Man Army”, and “Walk Free”.

There’s word on IMDB.com that David Wenham may play Arthas in Sam Raimi’s World of Warcraft movie. Wenham is from New South Wales, Australia, played Faramir in The Lord of the Rings, and has appeared in Frank Miller’s 300 and in Van Helsing. The origin and accuracy of the rumor have yet to be confirmed.

Based on the design, I found that Flash CS4’s Slider component is too thin — it needs to be thicker, i.e. I have to change the Slider’s height. I checked the API docs, and there’s nothing for setting the SliderTrackSkin’s height. Looks like I’ll have to dig into the UI components myself. Exploration… Result: In Flash CS4, the UI component files are under [X:\**]\Adobe Flash CS4\Common\Configuration\Components, and the source files are under [X:\**]\Adobe Flash CS4\Common\Configuration\Component Source\ActionScript 3.0\User Interface

To do size control on a Flash site, you usually need the Flash movie to scale up and down automatically along with the window size. The approach I took: put a container div in place to hold it, with the Flash set to 100% width and height inside. JS listens for browser window resizing and then resets the size of the container div. The Flash side listens for stage changes and moves views to the corresponding positions, etc. The problem showed up in the jQuery window-resize listener. Code:

On August 4, 2009, the Sailian Scanlation Group released the World of Warcraft (WOW) official comic: Ashbringer — collected edition, epilogue http://www.transfans.com.cn/thread-2086-1-1.html

The client is still downloading right now, so I can’t get in and play — all I can do is watch videos. I’m really looking forward to the comic updates; Jaina and Varian Wrynn have probably fought t...

The game soundtrack Echoes of War: 战争的回响, produced entirely by Australia’s Eminence Symphony Orchestra, collects the full orchestral renditions of music from Blizzard’s blockbusters Warcraft III, World of Warcraft, and Diablo III, and is now available for online order. The idea came from the World of Warcraft tracks previously sold on iTunes, which unexpectedly won the support and purchases of many players. Players said that music is an important form of leisure in many people’s lives, and that being able to buy it openly let them listen to World of Warcraft music on their commute to and from work — until they got home and couldn’t wait to turn on the computer, log into World of Warcraft, and set off on their own epic journey.