Hey everyone,

 I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself to the Silverlight community :) This is my first time trying out Silverlight and I have one simple question:

I wish to create an online multiplayer game using C#, but is Silverlight the answer? or should I stick with Flash or Shockwave?

 One good example is Habbo Hotel (http://www.habbo.com) which is a MMOSG (Massively Multiplayer Online Social Game) that uses Shockwave. Of course I will first have to learn the basics of Silverlight before I can even begin to delve into creating an online game, but maybe knowing that Silverlight is the answer, I'll have a little more determination!

Thanks alot,

Leon Weon

Just like everything it depends :)

Flash/Flex have 2 big advantages over Silverlight that you have to be very cognasant of for casual game development:

• graphics:  Flash 10 has 3D capabilities and some hardware acceleration.  Integrates very nicely with the other Adobe products
• Market penetration:  Flash is factors more popular than Silverlight (hundreds of millions installations).  Some have the stats as high as 95%!

Those two things are very important in making that decision.  If you plan on writing a game where a plugin needs to be installed you might turn away 20% of potential users.  That might be hundreds of thousands page views.  If you plan on doing advanced graphics Flash is a no brainer in terms of capabilities and performance.

Silverlight 2 however has 2 big advantage of its own:

• .NET:  your code is using a first class framework.  Computational speed is factors beyond what ActionScript can do.  Furthermore, you also get multithreading support that Flash/Flex simply can't compare with.
• Data connectivity:  Microsoft has a very powerful service framework (SOA) called WCF.  Furthermore, it has additional frameworks based on WCF like ADO.NET Data Services that fully integrate with ORM and SQL Server.  This is analogous to Adobe being integrated with PhotoShop/Illustrator etc

So what does this all mean.  If you are creating a game where graphics or maximizing user experience is important Flash is your RIA tool.  If your application is heavily going to do complex computational things (i.e. multithreaded AI or complex pathing)  Silverlight will be faster.  Silverlight also has a major edge in creating the data and exposing in services.  Even though some people are complaining about that it is not 100% supported...this will even get better.

What makes me the authority on this?  Nothing.  However, I have actually researched this information for a client that wants to write a game like (tribalwars.com or mobwars.com) on Silverlight.  I am not NDA'd on this so here are some basics:

• These games are powered by the database at its core and making the UI a little prettier goes a long way. 
• Market potential is ridiculous.  The client's goal was to write this and make money off of ads.  The site after 3 months of coding had a valuation of over 400k!  Very nice upside here.
• The prototypes I did scaled really nice with dynamic loading with Silverlight.  Custom content that can be purchased as additional assemblies can be distributed easily to the client (additional revenue)
• Facebook integration....yup Silverlight/Flash both have it.  This is a potential biggie here if you want to do some quick free PR for your site
• If you are able to get in now and have a VERY unique idea...you actually might be able to get some resources from MS.  they won't send you a developer, but they can provide licenses for VS and give u a few consulting hours.

Check out some articles on my website (below) about Silverlight computational speed etc.  I am actually interested in doing my own idea for something very similar as the deal above fell through.

Please "Mark as Answer" if any of my content helped
Bart Czernicki
http://www.silverlighthack.com | http://www.twitter.com/bartczernicki

Silverlight and Flash both accomplish the same thing in that they both make good clients.  I think that you'll be better off in the long run using Silverlight for your front end because there are better tools available for that kind of developement (specifically, Visual Studio) and you have more flexibility with choice of language.  However, you'll still need a server on the backend to support your multiplayer game in both cases.  I hope that this helps!

-Ken

http://kenwatts.blogspot.com/

Please select "Mark as Answer" for posts that are helpful. Thanks!

kwatts:

Silverlight and Flash both accomplish the same thing in that they both make good clients.  I think that you'll be better off in the long run using Silverlight for your front end because there are better tools available for that kind of developement (specifically, Visual Studio) and you have more flexibility with choice of language.  However, you'll still need a server on the backend to support your multiplayer game in both cases.  I hope that this helps!

-Ken

Id have to agree. Even ignoring the major, large, and significant flaw :) of the current blend with visual studio workflow* the quality of the tools and languages is alot better than mxml/actionscript/flexbuilder imho (disclaimer my roots are java development).

* you're expected to use both apps when designing and coding silverlight, which if you're doing both as one person causes profanity every time you have to confirm the reload dialog, or switch to studio to do things that blend should really know, (xaml completion for example) then switch to blend to do things that you have been able to do in studio for asp.net.. Its definitely workable, but cant wait for the next versions. Having said silverlight wins me over more each day.