OK... since none of the Photics.com Volunteer Game Designers have completed their projects, it's time to take matters into my own hands. I have ordered Macromedia Studio 8. I also purchased "phpArcadeScript" for organizing the games. The script is already installed. You can check it out here...

http://games.photics.com

I will be creating my own Flash Games. Wooo hooo! :D

I think my head is going to explode, thanks to all the new stuff I'll be learning over the next few months. But if all goes well... Photics.com will have a ton of fun Guild Wars web games. Maybe this will encourage others to share their own Guild Wars web games with the Photics.com community.

Time will tell :)

__________________
Michael Garofalo
Webmaster - http://photics.com

how much did that cost? I'd like to give game making a shot but i have no idea where to start. Can anyone give me some tips on how to get started?

I think Macromedia has trial versions (14 or 30 day) of their software available for download, and there are lots of flash tutorials on the web.

It's spendy :lol:

Yet, I believe enough in this website that I'll see that money back... eventually anyway. RogueBATTLE was $129. It generated a profit, which I put back into the site as an upgrade. The storage and bandwidth has been doubled. My book has been selling OK too, which I put back into the project with an ISBN and Global Distribution. I hope that will increase book sales and increase site prestige. Who knows, maybe one day a movie will be made out of my book. I believe the story is that good.

Since I already had Flash 4, I bought the upgrade to Studio 8 for $399. That's a lot of money to me, especially now. However, this is what I do. Plus, Studio 8 is $1000 for the full version. I decided to take advantage of the upgrade offer. FrontPage just isn't doing it for me anymore. This site uses PHP, style sheets, flash and other nifty web gadgets. Even if I don't make a single game, I can use the new features to improve the monthly magazines and make updating the site a lot easier.

Yet, I'm pretty determined. I have an idea for a Guild Wars web game that I would like to make. I think I can learn some stuff... and slowly bring the arcade up to a web hot spot. Then once I know how to make one flash game, I could make more. Hopefully others would join in... and we could have competitions.

Quite frankly, Photics.com lost out on the first wave. I didn't see a significant increase in traffic from the release of the game. There were server issues and this site wasn't working well with the search engines. I'm gearing up for the release of chapter 2. Google does a lot better for Photics.com now. Plus, I'm happier with the new web host. (The issues that happened last week and earlier this week should be resolved now. Heh... but I don't want to jinx it.)

There is going to be a lull in Guild Wars related traffic. There is no doubt about it. Yet, while I watched many Guild Wars sites decline in traffic, Photics.com had a surge in traffic in August. This was directly related to RogueBATTLE. That's why I'm developing an arcade. I believe that if there are a bunch of games to play, there will be a steady flow of traffic. This forum will pick up in popularity too.

So I'm not kidding when I say book sales help with this site. If everyone that visited my website bought a copy of my book... I could do some amazing things.

Hopefully, this forum will become a place to discuss ideas n' stuff like that. Apparently, a lot of engineers have found their way into The Crusaders. Jizato is right, there are trials at the Macromedia site. I haven't found a good site for flash tutorials though. They all seem so confusing and incomplete to me.

__________________
Michael Garofalo
Webmaster - http://photics.com