Evony Review a Free Flash / Flex Game

For all those that don't know, Evony is an online real time strategy game. It is written in Flex & Flash and thus runs in your browser and takes download / software installation or updates. I first stumbled across it after seeing the advertisement so many times, I decided to have a look.

From the first time I signed up and started playing, I was hooked. There are a large number of buildings, technologies and troops that can be built over time and the levels of units are deep and well balanced.

A lot of these types of games, I have trouble getting into, they are either too simple or too complex and you just end up being frustrated. But this game is different, it has a series of quests that instruct you through the game, it's almost like playing a campaign while playing a multiplayer game at the same time, very clever indeed.

These quests are both things that you need to learn how to do and you learn them by doing them. The quests are also level based, so you complete one, it opens up others and so on. I found just by doing the quests I learnt about the game, it was really enjoyable.

At some point through the game a quest to join an alliance is undertaken, you join forces with up to 100 other players, who can them help you, send you resources and even reinforce your town if you're under attack.

Alliances can declare war on each other, be friendly etc. There is a dedicated alliance chat, where you chat only to your alliance members and there are heaps of active players. I'm really not that into multi player games normally, but I enjoyed the quests and it just transitioned perfectly into an online multi player experience, now I'm sending alliance members resources, having them teleport next to me for protection and helping in battles.

Probably my favourite feature of the entire game, is that it's real time, even when you're not playing. This is good for all the people who have jobs and lives, you can leave buildings being built, your workers working, your troops training and come back tomorrow for another adventure.

Some of the buildings I need to build are now taking 50-100 real hours to build, and while you can't queue buildings there is always something to do, with three cities now, I'm finding its always keeping me busy even for the couple hours a day I play.

One final point, they advertise this as Evony Free Forever, this is 100% true, the game is 100% free, it doesn't cost you anything but your time and you can do everything you need to do if you're prepared to invest the time. However you can also buy items that will speed your progress through the game without having to wait to win or find them within the game. I think this is a good model and more common of late.

I recommend people give it a go, if you want to see me there, join Server 34 and select Lower Lorraine, I'm in there and look forward to meeting you online

http://dale131970.evony.com

What will the ColdFusion IDE Bolt be named?

Flex Builder will change names at version 4 to Flash Builder 4. This is a move that I support, there is confusion between what Flash / Flex really is, and I think this naming change both removes the confusion and strengthens the Flash brand.

This got me thinking about what Bolt should be named. Firstly I really hope that Bolt is just a code name, because if you search for Bolt you mainly get references to the Dog Movie. Secondly, like strengthening the brand, it needs to strengthen the brand of either ColdFusion or CFML.

I would propose either

ColdFusion Builder
CFML Builder

I prefer the later and they could develop this in such a way that it is the defacto IDE for CFML, regardless of if you use ColdFusion, Railo or Open BlueDragon, then to call it CFML Builder makes sense.

I hope that the CFML advisory board could put this to Adobe or at least have a say as to what they think it should be called. Adobe have the right to call it whatever they like however, but they do listen to opinion.

Windows 7 RC Build 7100

Been working with Windows RC Build 7100 now for a couple weeks, found it to be even better then previous releases. Ie8 is now final and doesn't seem to crash which was my biggest issue with earlier releases.

It also seems faster again, although that might be due to the reinstall.

I also noticed they changed the default window sounds, it's amazing how they stand out, compared to the old sounds that you were so used to you hardly noticed.

My thoughts on Bolt

I have been thinking about Bolt and what it will offer. And while I'm keen on the idea of an official ColdFusion IDE, I was wondering why Adobe are doing this and why now.

I will almost certainly adopt Bolt, not just me but our team here where I work. But it will come down to one thing, price!

If they charge for Bolt, which I think they will, it had better be worth it, after all I currently use CFEclipse on Flex Builder, and that works fine, so what are the benefits for the dollars.

One line of thinking is that ColdFusion might change the pricing model, charge for the IDE so that the server can be less expensive or free. This appeals to me if they do this, I prefer this model, it is somehow easier to spend $X hundred dollars for each developer rather than X thousands of dollars for each server.

If Adobe decide to keep ColdFusion pricing as is and still charge for Bolt, then I think they have misread the market. Given cost cuts in business and the competitors having free offereings, Adobe need to make some brave moves on pricing, and they need to make them now.

iPhone Missing Features - Email

This is the first in a series of posts I'm going to make about the iPhone. After months of use, its just amazing that they iPhone is missing core features that I need and want, I was holding off thinking they will be included with the next update, but they don't seem to be coming.

This post I will talk about the features missing in Email.

• You can only view 200 messages, that's like a day's worth for me, useless, cant get to messages I received or sent last week. The blackberry had a last 30 days option, with the iPhone memory there is no logical reason to have such a small limit.
• You can't search messages, if they fix the limit of 200 messages, they need to add search so that you can search and find a message your looking for.
• When you reply to an email you get an icon indicating you replied, but there is no way jumping to or seeing that reply
• No way to set message importance, don't get this, it's like iPhone decided no one uses this and left it out.

I encourage you post your issues with iPhone email features, they have done a really half ass job of this, and its all fixable via a software update. When BlackBerry people talk to be about how I like my iPhone I tell them I miss the features of a BlackBerry. You can't really do business email on an iPhone.

How Close is ColdFusion 9?

Am looking at setting up some new servers which will require some additional ColdFusion licencing. But was wondering how far ColdFusion 9 is.

I don't want to be one of those people who buys a licence and then a week later sees the post of anyone who buys now gets a free upgrade to ColdFusion 9 and I've wasted my money.

Reading between the lines of a lost of posts etc, it seems pretty close to me, but I'm not sure if that means 3 months or 6. While I might be able to hold off 3, 6 will be a stretch.

So anyone with any info on when it might be available or when they will announce buy CF8 now get CF9 free when it's released, let me know

ColdFusion 9 Needs ActionScript Support

I've talked about this in part in other posts and on other blogs. It seems everyone I talk to about it thinks its a good idea, but that doesn't mean it will happen.

What am I taking about, well it is now common knowledge that ColdFusion 9 will support full script syntax, that means that if you wish you can write all your cfc's without a single tag.

Great, cant wait, there is no place for tags in clases IMHO, and yes they are classes as far as I am concerned not components.

Adobe are on a big push about how ColdFusion 9 and Flex 4 will play so well together, well if they are serious about this, they need to bridge the gap and do it now, not in ColdFusion 10 or later, as they will miss the boat.

And by bridge the gap, I mean, they need to have a common (or similar) syntax between both ColdFusion & Flex. There is no reason they cant do this, the cfc's are parsed and compiled before anything is executed, so its just a bit of extra parsing.

Some examples, if I may

Script: var q = new Query();
ActionScript: var q = new Query();

Now technically ActionScript 3 would have
var q:Query = new Query();
But seeing as ColdFusion is loosly typed, this isn't necessary, thus the above two are equilivant, perfect, Im a happy man.

But this isn't always the case.

Script: Component {
ActionScript: public class {

This one annoys me, why ColdFusion people needed to call a class a component is beyond me. Especially annoying since a component in Flex is something completly different, everyone else calls it a class, so lets call it a class.

The next one is annoying because of how often you write it

Script: private function query getEmployee(employeeId) {
ActionScript: private function getEmployee(employeeId):query {

now this might seem minor, but if you are swapping back and forward from CF to AS all day, it will be very annoying.

Now the major reason they should do this and now, is that there are a lot of legacy Flash developers, moving to ActionScript 3 and Flex who are looking for a back end. They try things, I've seen them on twitter asking what to use, amfphp, weborb, coldfusion. Now if coldfusion supported an actionscript style syntax, it would be a no brainer, and we might turn a large user base of ActionScript people over to ColdFusion.

Now, I'm not saying we should drop old school cfscript syntax or tags, these should work also, as backward compatibility is important, but there is no reason why the parser cant support both. I urge all you who agree to comment, post a blog, comment on the Tim Buntel or Ben Forta blogs. Make a noise and lets lock in a long future of Flex and ColdFusion.

Windows 7 Is Ready For Release

Ive been running on Windows 7 now for a couple weeks on my work computer, and it is awsome. I have two identical laptops, both Dell XPS 1530's one at home, one at work.

The home one I still have running Vista Home Premium. I can honestly say I have more issues at home than at work, Outlook always wants to repair on Vista, works fine on Windows 7.

Every single device on my Dell worked with Windows 7, I didn't have to install a single driver from Dell. Im running Windows 7 64 bit, and so I get to take advantage of all my ram, but I also figured that the 64 bit version might not work with all hardware & software. But it does, even the multiple beta's that im running.

The only issue I have is with browsers.

IE8 crashes about once or twice a day, this is annoying, but the rest of the time it works. And firefox always starts in safe mode for some reason, once again, just annoying.

I really think they should release it sooner rather than later, it's more stable and faster than Vista.

I really hope I wont have to go back to Vista if they end the Beta

Windows 7 Beta Rocks

Ok,

I'm not sure I ever installed a beta of Windows before, not sure what it was that drove me to want to install this one, perhaps the fact that Vista is slow or to use 64 bit and take advantage of all my Ram.

But I don't regret it, I'm not one for half jumping in, install in a VM or a separate Partition, I just reformatted my entire work Laptop and installed from the 64 bit ISO.

The install was a breeze, the speed of the whole thing is much quicker than Vista, I swear Vista must have a for (i=0; i<1000; i++) loop after every statement.

So far all my applications run and run well, this gives me a good feeling, because if they run well on a Beta O/S it can only get better. I'm also running quite a bit of Beta software, some I can't name due to NDA's. But Skype 4 Beta and Flex 4 Beta both work as do others.

I like the new task bar, once you get used to it, and use it's benefits its great, I must admit I always stick with the new way things work, it is tempting to change to the old style, but they changed it for a reason, try to stick with it.

I also like the name, Windows 7, I wish they would just stick with numbers. from 1, 2, 3, 95, 98, XP, Vista, 7. It's easy to forget that this is the seventh main release, that's not a high number, given how long its been around. And especially if you compare it to other software that has been around a lot less and might be at version 13 or higher.

I had also tried the IE8 beta several times and didn't like it, but IE8 (which is what comes with Windows 7) seems prety good, all my regular sites worked and besides a couple minor quirks, I haven't had the need to go install anything else.

The release is late 2009, but I recommend you get onto the beta and try to use it until then. As soon as I can buy a key, I will.

Good job Microsoft, looking forward to what gets added between now and release.

Please test your site in IE.

This is really annoying, I use IE almost exclusivly. But more and more, I am finding problems with major sites not working with IE.

I then proceed to try them in FireFox and they work, now you might say well just use FireFox, but that is not the point, there is nothing wrong with IE, this is a problem of lazy developers failing to test their code properly in multiple browsers.

Our company uses one site in particular, which I wont name, and I contacted them to tell them that half their site doesn't work in IE. Their answer, was it works in FireFox use that.

Pathetic, does this mean they really dont care about the 50% of people using IE, its just pure laziness.