Re: Games in Java?

[Erik <br0ke@math.smsu.edu>]

On 14-Apr-2000 Bert Peers wrote:
> 
> 
> Jan Ekholm wrote:
> 
>> But, would people play such a game if it's in Java? Would anyone even
>> bother downloading it? Would you do it? It's no point in doing anything if
>> nobody will play it...

If the game looked cool, I'd download and try it (and if it was cool, naturally
I'd tell all my friends how much it kicked ass...)  But Berts observations are
good, I think... 

> 
> (assuming a standalone app :  )

The performance and capability of modern browser JVM's is absolutely pitiful.
Most of javas bad reputation comes from the substandard browser jvm's, it's
actually fairly decent using a real jvm... (still memory heavy and a bit slow,
but much better than what the browser gives you)

> Well, apart from the usual speed issues, I also had an interesting
> chat with the guy who made the Java MD3 viewer (KLR8); that app is
> wildly popular, but it turns out that requiring a Java 1.2 (ie 2.0)
> on people's machines is a support nightmare.  It's either unavailable,
> or it's very buggy, or people are clueless on how to install it
> (properly), or people just don't appreciate a 6Mb SDK for a 100Kb
> app (so to speak).  So those are some simple, practical concerns
> (which frankly hadn't occured to myself yet either with all the
> usual debate over language features, pro and con of garbage
> collection, runtime speeds, blabla)...
>   It's like the lib-dependencies problem but ten times worse :)

this could be an issue and is one that didn't even cross my mind until you said
it :) Since I have java 1.2.2 installed and working correctly (I code in java
once in a while), I didn't even think about it. I'm going to hope that the
pluggable java interface in NS6 will result in more machines having properly
set up recent jre's. If sun would relax their licencing stance, the system
distributors will be able to distribute new jre's/jdk's more easily (debian has
a package that demands the tarball or zip file be downloaded from sun and
placed on /tmp). A very strong game will probably overcome the size/difficulty
of installign the jre, look at UT and q3 demos... 50 megs and plenty of "how do
I make this work" questions in web forums (like forums.linuxgames.com). :/

> 
> Bert
> -- 
> 
> -=<Short Controlled Bursts>=-
> 
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        -Erik <erik@smluc.org> [http://math.smsu.edu/~br0ke]

The opinions expressed by me are not necessarily opinions. In all
probability, they are random rambling, and to be ignored. Failure to ignore
may result in severe boredom or confusion. Shake well before opening. Keep
Refrigerated.
        

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