Game g = new Game();

I never got around giving Flex a serious try.

The most interesting features, like the Live Cycle Data Services, allowing server push-based RIAs, are very expensive, and I did not had the need for anything else that I could not handle using some simple (Y)UI thrown together and hooked into a DB using Grails.

Now, the current implementation of our Atlantis backend polls every n seconds from the server and new messages are added, via AJAX. This led to some browser stability problems and a general bottleneck if several AJAX-”windows” are opened and each of them refreshed every n seconds, respectively.

Affter some research, I stumbled across BlazeDS, which might solve this problem – another part of Adobe technology that was released open source, and should provide the basic functionality needed to access hibernated Java objects from Flex, plus allowing push subscriptions and notifications from the server to the client.

I will check out this tutorial about getting Flex, BlazeDS and Hibernate to work together.

Also, there is a great post about the differences of the various flavors and licensing details, as well as another one.

I will post my findings here.

I worked with Alex Champandard during my time at Rockstar Vienna.

He launched his site AiGameDev.com a while ago, and is now re-opening the premium section:

We’ll be reopening the Premium Membership Area on Wednesday, May 6th. In the process of relaunching, we’ll fill you in on what’s changing in the world of game AI, show you the techniques and ideas you need to stay on top of, and give you a whole bunch of bonuses and extras from our very best content.

If you are even remotely interested in AI, check it out!

It seems the space for 3D gaming via web browser plugins is getting more and more crowded.

Of course, Quake Live created a big buzz (and long waiting queues) when they launched, GarageGames started their InstantAction portal and technology a while ago, same goes for the Unity web player, and now Google released their O3D API.

Still, there is no standard format – I’m not the expert, but for me VRML seems to be dead for over a decade now… (though I just read that it morphed into X3D, but are people actually using that for more than experimental GUIs, like… games?)

For some time now I have been looking for a flexible reporting solution.

The thing was – I had a couple of SQL queries ready, and everytime somebody asked, I copy/pasted them into phpMyAdmin and copy/pasted the resulting tables back. Easy yes, quick sort of, elegant – certainly not.

At first, I tested a couple of charting libraries – JFreeChart, Google Charts, XML/SWF Charts, Open Flash Chart. (Note – if you like Google Charts but do not want to send your data to Google, take a look at Eastwood Charts. It implements the Google Chart API, but on your own server.)

All of them are fine and can produce some stunning results – but ideally, at least for this scenario, I do not want to bother translating the SQL resultset into the data format the charting library expects, write some server code to run the query, render and present the charts, add some user authentication and the option to parametrize some of the queries, … etc.

Then I thought, maybe a complete reporting framework would do the trick. I came across this excellent list of open source charting and reporting tools. JasperReports seemed like the defacto industry standard, with many other frameworks (like iReport or OpenReports) building upon it and extending it’s functionality and usability.

But as I’m not a reporting pro, I did not want to waddle through hundreds of PDF manual pages before I understand how to produce a simple bar or pie chart.

Enter ART – Art Reporting Tool. (Yes, recursive acronyms still seem “in” to some. Hey, if it’s good enough for VISA = Visa International Service Association…). From their website:

ART is a lightweight, multiplatform web based query tool and reporting environment. SQL queries can be published in a few minutes. It supports tabular, crosstab, charts, scheduling, email alerts. Results are exportable to spreadsheet, pdf or can be embedded in a portal-like page to create a simple but effective Business Intelligence solution.

And that’s simply the case, period.

I deployed the ART webapp to a local Tomcat, set up the DB connections, and used my existing SQL queries to create some charts, some of them with parameters, some static. The charts are certainly not the best looking ones, but they definitely do their job, including value details via mouseover-tooltip.

Same goes for the admin GUI – it looks and feels pretty outdated for today’s standards, but once you accept that, it gets the job done – and in the end, that’s what counts.

I had set up some portlet page, showing 5 charts, each of them refreshing in a different interval (to have the more expensive queries updated less frequently than the cheaper, quicker ones).

I then set up some user account, granting it access to view the portal page – worked perfectly.

So, for the time being – and my investment of around an hour from first stumbling across ART, having it downloaded, installed and configured, and defining the queries, charting details, user account and privileges and portlet page – it seems I will stick with this package.

(I will have to research some more, how to schedule the contents of the portal page to be exported as PDF and emailed regularly, though. Not sure if that’s possible.)

It is done – well, almost. The beta, at least.

Last thursday plazz entertainment, the company I’m working for, launched it’s new virtual world aimed at kids, AT.LANT.IS, as beta open for everyone.

Now, since this is a rather technical blog, I will not bore you with marketing blah about why and how great this platform as – nevertheless, we are pretty proud that we are live, finally.

Here are some screenshots.

During the beta (which will last for a couple of weeks), all users have access to all the features the platform has to offer, for free, like

• creating your own avatar
• chatting and exploring Atlantis
• go swimming in the ocean
• learning about the backstory by finding and reading infosources
• playing minigames, single and multiplayer, earning ingame money
• competing for highscores
• spending ingame money on new clothes for your avatar
• inviting your buddies into your own private home room
• exchanging ingame-mails with your buddies

(Note: Not everything is live, we will keep adding content and features during the beta phase.)

Even if it’s “just” the beta, the security and safety of our beta users is very imporant to us.

The platform is  moderated by staff members who answer questions and watch the chat and mail logs in realtime between  8 hours (on weekdays) and 12 hours (on weekends) every day.

At night, chatting is only possible in “supersafe mode” using predefined text phrases; and no ingame mails can be sent to others.

So, I invite you to go check it out, let us know what works for you and what does not. All feedback is very welcome – either comment here, or use the feedback form on the site.

Of course, I will continue to post updates, including some more technical background info.