Flash virtual worlds are some of the most exciting-and profitable-online business being built today. Using Flash, developers can build interactive environments where users can interact with the virtual world and one another, compete, and have fun. Creating a playful environment on an electronic network presents unique challenges as you combine a fun, upbeat frontend with some serious and complex server logic.

This handy book assists you in building amazing virtual worlds in no time by implementing ActionScripts in a Flash IDE. With this book in hand, you will build virtual worlds that have avatars walking around and interacting with non playing characters, completing challenging quests, and allowing users to link with real-world friends.

The fun begins with first exploring existing virtual world games such as Club Penguin, Mole, Dofus, and World of Warcraft. We will then design our virtual environment. Then we will create avatars and move the avatars in the virtual world. We will add some triggers to add amusement and life to the virtual world. We will allow the avatars to interact with other players and create a buddy list for each user. Then we will integrate buildings and other environment to the virtual world. We will also let the players interact with non-player characters to complete some tasks. Finally, we move on to add interesting quests to the virtual world, which need to be accomplished by the player to gear up to the next level of the game.

This example-rich, hands-on guide sequentially develops a multiplayer virtual world-the platform, the environment, quests, avatars, non-playing characters, and interaction between them.

A hands-on guide to building multiplayer virtual worlds in Flash

What you will learn from this book

• Create a whiteboard that every connected user can draw on
• Create the map, basic map editor, and ground of the virtual world
• Optimize graphic workload by selecting the appropriate method to render avatars
• Move avatars using keyboard or mouse and synchronize their movementsCreate buildings and the environment for the virtual world
• Create a basic item inventory system for an avatar and implement some basic item management with the server-side extensions
• Create a basic chat system and a buddy list for your avatar
• Control the Non-Player Characters to move around the world and interact with the players by chatting or trading items
• Enhance your virtual worlds by integrating several key features of Facebook and Twitter

Approach

This is a step-by-step, hands-on guide that is filled with examples and screenshots of building a multiplayer virtual world. The virtual world is built gradually; each chapter in the book sequentially develops the virtual world. The author explains the fundamentals with examples from existing virtual worlds such as Club Penguin, Mole, Dofus, and World of Warcraft.

Who this book is written for

If you are a Flash or an ActionScript developer who wants to build powerful and immersive multiplayer games, this book is for you. This book assumes that you have some experience with ActionScript 3.0.