Official Torque 3D Web Player Plugin

#1 That kind of wouldn't work whenever you modify the source of T3D...

#2 @Michael Putters
It would require a separation of 'T3D launcher' and 'T3D Application', you would installed the 'T3D Launcher Plugin' once, and then it would handle loading the T3D Applications from websites you view.

#3 The issue with one official plugin is that because C++ isn't a secure language you could easly write the "erase your hard drive" game put it on a website. Who gets the blame there.... you or GG?

#4 GG as the plugin would provide that feature. If the apps within the plugin are really capable of that, then its no browser plugin just an exe starter that can be launched from within a browser. Not exactly what I expect when I read deploy to browser and similar advertisement.

Also the possibility that a plugin could do something like that definitely wouldn't raise any trust in the technology at all as it would get a pretty low security classification

#5 The game needs to run in 'protected space' since it is a web based game. Windows runs programs that are ActiveX Based in a different area on the persons machine that has fewer machine rights in general so an "erase your hard drive" isn't possible with games that have limited runtime rules unless it is marked as a full trust application. Unity does use their own web player plugin, not sure how it works behind the scenes though, never bothered asking other than it is also an ActiveX based object as far as I am aware.

Torque3D needs to push out the web based as a DLL that is executed by the ActiveX plugin they create with some sort of MD5 HASH key exchange between the player and the game so that it knows the game should be allowed and if the hash doesn't match, then don't bother. Other than that, I am not sure how they are going to handle it.

#6 @Jonathan> while it's true ActiveX runs in a limited environment, it is easy to get out of it and do whatever you want...
Anyway I agree with Tom, GG would get all the bad advertisement from malware that runs through their plugin...

#7 I have to agree with Tim. Downloading a bunch of pluggins is always a pain, but...I also agree with the others in this thread. It would open up GG to all sorts of problems. The only sinceable way I can see doing a web pluggin is the way it is already setup.

#8 The ActiveX and Netscape plugins load the game engine... which certainly isn't under ActiveX's sandbox... which doesn't even exist under Firefox, Chrome, or Safari...

We decided against Torque 3D's web deployment requiring signing certificates which are both expensive and complicate binary generation/distribution.

We also wanted to make sure that licensees had full control over their games and web technology, which is a cornerstone of our offerings.

If you want to buy a code signing certificate, apply it to the plugin (which you can compile as there is full source), and then use something like libcurl to suck down the rest of your game... that is pretty easy. Though, I wouldn't suggest doing this...

I think it is better to leverage our (standard) NSIS based web deployment installer.. so you can handle dependencies such as DirectX, PhysX, etc... put a shortcut on the user's desktop so you actually have a chance of getting players back to your site... and also include standard uninstall functionality... which I hear people appreciate :)

The plugin technology comes with domain locking so you can ensure that it is only running from your domain. It also provides a JavaScript <-> TorqueScript bridge with function level granularity for controlling *exactly* what can be called from the web -> engine.

... and yes, there would be a tremendous amount of liability for GG to provide a binary web plugin, especially a signed plugin... and then everyone would have to keep their games up to date with whatever changes we had to make to it... and there are already examples of Malware in similar "centrally controlled" web plugins... which hurts everyone using them.

- Josh

#9 I think there are a few missunderstandings in what is beeing asked.

What is beeing asked for is a webplayer plugin which actually is exactly that.
A plugin that handles the whole "play" part. The whole interaction etc and the building process generating a player file thats executed then within this webplayer plugin sandbox. Similar to how flash, shockwave, unity, ... work


I don't think anyone wants or sees a use for certificate signing. But as long as every has his own plugin we can just as well drop the webplayer feature as it is no webplayer feature. How is it intend to get some install base if it is not unified?
How is it intend to get a good reputation if a single morron can create a webplayer driven game that infects or destroys target machines? Do you think that after 1-2 bad reports on major tech pages, anyone will be stupid enough to even touch T3D webplayer games with a 10 feet pole any longer unless we jump through half a dozen hoops? And yes they will know its T3D, thanks to the logo enforcement.
Not even considering fundamental webplayer features that likely are not possible with this setup like streaming in mission packages one after the other and alike.
Right now, I don't think the tech can even hold up against OSA Kit

At least for me, the deploy thats current present is no webplayer capability and shouldn't be called like that in the feature list as it can easily be missinterpreted as something it isn't (and it will as anyone has played at least 1 flash game)

#10 @Marc

You seem to know exactly how it should work.

So how do you propose you would get your custom C++ engine code into this unified Torque Webplayer and ensure its secure and won't harm the end users system?

#11 There are some definite valid points here, which is unfortunate. Signing is a pain, but so is downloading a large number of plug ins. I'm just trying to figure out how to make the entire process as smooth as possible, hopefully it won't be as large of a deterrent as I'm imagining.

#12 I have a partial idea how it should work.


1. The Webplayer plugin functionality is stable. It can grow but not shrink or change in the function declarations.
2. The engine gets an abstraction layer for those things that interact between the game / engine and the system. In case of the regular build, this layer would be handled through the game as normal, in case of the webplayer, the webplayer manages those interactions and ensures that the "rules of play" are followed.
This layer covers especially input and fileIO
Any attempt from code to bypass that layer would result in the game beeing shut down.

There are likely problems in that I guess.
Some of them related to the fact that T3D is a heavily source driven tech, which has the side effect that it might require per game plugins. In the end it will potentially boil down to "who do you want to have play your game".
Casual users obviously not as they won't install plugins just for a single game.
And in that case I have to ask myself if it makes sense to offer it in the browser at all as they feel likely more comfortable to have it on the desk within the full understood and used control of their security measures.

Personal:
The webplayer plugin would fit / fits TGB better actually I think. TGB is far stronger script oriented which makes security far easier enforcable.
TGBs system requirement make it also a far more logical choice for a webplayer game than T3D ...

#13 We'll be talking about our lower end hardware support soon... The Den level from Beta 1 is actually running at over 25 fps here on my Netbook with an i950 integrated graphics card and Atom processor... and that's with a 5000 polygon skinned character!

The same scene runs at over 60 fps on a 4 year old 1.6 ghz with i950 accelerator... which could be found for less than $200 new these days. So, if the goal is to make a smaller web deploy game without high system requirements or gigs of assets... I definitely think this is possible...

Another thing to keep in mind is that "Casual" is NOT synonymous with "Web"... if you want to completely avoid end users not having graphics drivers/DirectX/ancient hardware... there is Flash, of course, Flash isn't Torque 3D... and comparing the two is kind of like comparing apples and monkeys...

We DEFINITELY have lower end hardware in mind, even in Beta 1 it is working quite well (Basic Lighting)... and the same engine scales to some of the really amazing shots we've been seeing over the last days... with advanced lighting and the works :)

BTW, another good thing about the web deployment is that the install of your game/plugin isn't fragile... in that the user deciding to close a window or navigate away from your web page doesn't cancel it...

#14 @Marc:

Quote:Casual users obviously not as they won't install plugins just for a single game.

This isn't true of casual gamers, or of hardcore gamers. You do realize that FusionFall uses a custom plugin, right? Quake Live uses it's own plugin that's used on any other game. On Gametap now, many of the games can be played by installing custom plugins.

I'll agree with you that the landscape is not optimal for creating a new "standard" in web-game technology. I don't think anyone, not Microsoft, not Google, not Quake, and certainly not Unity are in a position to push something that will be quickly adopted as a standard the way Flash is now, and that's what it takes to leverage ubiquity. The really crappy thing about the way browsers work right now, and what games require to run securely in the web, is that you have to sandbox each particular authoring package in such a way that it's safe to execute. To get both safety and performance, you have strictly bind what authoring tools can be used. This is what prevents standardization. Unity won't be able to force people who want to make web games to use their product across the board. Neither would we.

The ubiquity play is madness. It would take a concerted effort from Adobe, Microsoft, or Google to push a new web rendering standard that could be adopted by existing game engines, without big sacrifices in performance to really change the web game landscape. This could happen, and it looks like people are trying, but they've got a long way to go before a serious game developer would adopt them over per-game (Quake, FusionFall) or per-technology (Unity, Flash) options.

The cool thing about working with Torque though, is that we've got our eye firmly fixed on whatever the best web-game options are now and will be in the future. There's clearly huge opportunity in being able to reach high traffic destinations with low barrier to entry. High-end games have higher barriers than Flash right now, just because of the ubiquity deficit, but there's no question that developers should be able to deliver a sufficiently richer experience to overcome it.

#15 Also...no one really talks about them any more, and they had a bad reputation in the early days, but Wild Tangent rakes in money with not-to-impressive games as a result of *smartly* leveraging what you can do in the web. It's no joke. You don't hear about them much these days because they don't ship a lot of over-hyped titles, but they're FAR more profitable than a lot of major publishers.

#16 BTW, Wild Tangent just offers their plugin as a "console" setup.

screen grab

#17 ... and yet another angle: I think it is safe to say that the Desktop and Web aren't merging at some distant point in the future... they have merged and you can be confident that your users are online... and that is a GIVEN if you plan on making web enabled games for community, ecommerce, presentation, etc...

So, you can also consider using embedded web technology... to get all the benefits of the web, consistency with the browser, etc. WebKit is just awesome stuff... I recently posted about this in the context of Torque 3D here:

http://www.garagegames.com/community/forums/viewthread/90851

#18 The games to which you compare on the webend are more than just a bit out of scale for anything anyone here will do (at least with a 99.5% probability)


Quake is a brand with a massive value among the FPS players, so is id and their reputation.
You do not really expect to create anything thats even near comparable from the PR force.

FusionFall is a double different topic:
1. It has a web technology (its unity defacto). It has level and asset streaming and all the other core features of a web technology. It was actually fusionfall which lead / helped / influenced to the development of the assetbundles and their streaming introduced Unity 2.1.
2. Its a very specific game for a very specific type of user and backed up by well established brands worth multiple billions


Comparing your T3D development to either is totally unrealistic, as I highly doubt that you have the brand and PR force to get the same kind of attraction. Neither are you a decade established company nor do you own a whole TV station network for PR purposes.


Might be that Unity does not have the install base of flash at the time.
But until April it was a mac only dev environment.
That should never be forgotten, to which degree it was able to grow without even beeing available to windows devs.
But thats not really the point here.

There are obviously different approaches to web technologies and different needs and requirements to fullfill so there are solutions which will be great for some users but won't be great for others.
Thats how technology development works :)

Good thing is that the web deployment in T3D is pretty painless and thus will find more friens than previous attempts have had like the webplayer kit floating around for the old torque techs for a good 2 years or alike now

I don't mind much, I haven't bought T3D for web deploy, as I could have done that with the techs I own already (TGEA + IA / OSA Kit, Unity Pro, Java + JMonkeyRender, ...). My point was just that the advertisement is a bit missleading as customers will likely have expectations with flash, unity and from personal experience even runescape beeing known to some degree

#19 FusionFall actually uses a custom plugin which can conflict with the Unity player causing problems :/

We're providing (and talking) technology here... so, bringing up Quake LIVE is from a technical standpoint... I think comparing Torque 3D's web deployment feature with Quake LIVE the brand would be a bit absurd myself :)

#20 Technically they might be similar
But the brand makes it much easier for id to justify the distinct plugin than it is for a backyard 2 nose company.
That was what I meant about my brand point.

per game plugins are not bad per se, but they are a problem if your company or brand is not known as it raises the barrier significantly.
There are already enough concerns with Unity plugins and that is a single plugin for all games.

There might be games where the plugin approach of T3D is beneficial.
Lets take Dreamlord for example, where people likely would install the plugin because it is a partially browser driven game and people who play it know it.

But at the same time, I think you would have problems justifying a distinct plugin install for something like marble blast only. Its a casual users game and independent of how laughable it might seem, they are worried about additional plugins on their system due to security concerns (-> horror stories they heard from someone about problem after installing plugin xy, not because they really have a reason to be worried).
For us devs and tech adicts, installing a plugin is hardly never a topic, but my GF is a casual gamer, prefering browser games, and you wouldn't believe what kind of absurd discussions I already had with her in the past. On the other hand, it raised my sensibility for this topic, as I myself would never have believed that it is such a large topic at all.