I see you are using Java afterall, and it looks nice.

Consider me envious. Very well done.

I would really suggest that you rewrite your applet into a real java application. This will make it a _lot_ less dependant on browsers (in fact you dont need them at all). By going away from being an applet you will also face a lot less security limits and gain a lot of more freedom on how to make the program.

You can still achieve the nice feature of "click a link to play" by using java web start. It will also do nice things like install the program into start menus and keeping it up2date.

Switching a java applet into a real program isn't much trouble, andyou gain a lot of stability and a much nicer looking program IMO.

Yes, we considered that, but it has two problems:

1. Webstart requires Java 1.2.2.
About 49% of users are still running an older version. Requiring that they download Java 2 in order to use our client isn't an option. The barrier to entry has to be as low as possible, given that a text interface is already doing overtime as a barrier to entry for most people.

2. Webstart is a bit flakey. This isn't a black or white problem, of course, but for instance, Puzzle Pirates (a pretty solidly developed graphical mud) managed to crash on us the 2nd time we ran it due to Webstart problems.

Overall though, it's #1 that's the real problem. We may develop Nexus into a proper application, but until Java 2 is on 90%+ machines, we'll have to maintain a Java 1.1 compatible client as well.

--matt

Old thread, but I just found it. I just wanted to say that I once tried to create a fighting system with the java client, but you guys don't support key binding to the keys insert, delete, home or end. If you read this, please fix that!

Yeah, all those little things like that are being worked on. This release of Nexus is mainly about making it prettier and doing some work on the scripting, but we've got plans for a couple versions beyond this. It's going to be pretty #### nice when it's done. Thanks for the feedback!

--matt