Chapter 13. Dissecting a Chat

Introduction to the Chat

Hands-On Tour of the Chat

Points to Remember

In the gaming industry, a chat is not just the act of communicating, but an online place where people can go to talk to each other using text messages. Some people visit chats just to pass the time, to get information, or to try to meet new people. For our purposes, a chat serves as a meeting ground for users who want to participate in multiplayer games. Before you attempt to create a multiplayer game, it is important to set up a chat, because users need a place where they can talk to each other and decide whom they want to play in a game and, of course, what to play.

Not only is it important to have that chat, it's important to understand how the chat works, so that you'll be able to add or change the chat's features (or build a chat from scratch). It's very difficult to modify a chat if you don't understand how it works. And believe me, once you get started with multiplayer gaming, it's pretty much a given that you'll want to create a chat from scratch or modify the one we discuss in this chapter.

To fully understand how this chat works, you should know all of its features, how they work in the finished file, the structure of the source file, and the ActionScript used. And by the end of this chapter, you will.