Soon all creatives wanted to be his friend. This did not please the Lord of the Manor, Sir McRow. Sir McMed was so adored by the craftsmen. They liked his tools, they were light, powerful and easy to use. Not like the tools of the Lord of the Manor, which were heavy and clunky. So they cast down the tools Sir McRow, the Lord of the Manor had given them in favour of the new ones Sir McMed had brought with him. Sir McMed was so popular that the Lord of the Manor, Sir McRow turned his attention instead to his other interests, and let Sir McMed go about it's own business.
At first the tools of Sir McMed, were special and unique, and fitted perfectly the needs of the craftsmen and creatives. They didn't want to fiddle with silly details, but just enjoyed designing things. But slowly over time the tools Sir McMed gave them began to change. Slowly but surely they became heavier, and clunkier, and each time the craftsmen were told how much more useful their tools had become. Slowly, slowly they began to resemble the tools the Lord of the Manor, Sir McRow once gave them, until eventually they even had to start doing work that was not creative and fun, and had to fiddle with with silly details to use the tools fully.
Some craftsmen were able to learn the new methods of using the changed tools, others though, just had to make do, knowing that the heaviness of their tools should let them do so much more, but weren't able to manage it themselves. Other creatives had to hire other people to use their tools for them, in order to make them do all they were meant to do.
Then one day, a few of the craftsmen and creatives began to wonder what had happened to the light powerful tools they could use on their own. But when they went to look for Sir McMed they found that now another Manor house had been built, and there were two Lords of the Manor.
The End, and now it's bedtime. >_>
But seriously, I do wonder if Macromedia have left their original audience a bit.
I don't have any complaints really about the developments. This has allowed them to capture much of the designer and web developer market. It has also meant improvements in technology that allow faster and more engaging content on the web. But with all this, I do think they have begun to leave the humble designer out in the cold.
Designers (okay, I'm not a designer) like me have ideas, revel in creating, but dont have the time to learn programming, actionscript, and how to make what is essentially and animation interface accept programming. Nightmare.
What I really want, and what I hope Macromedia will deliver, is the code-less creativity that was one of their champions in the beginning.
There is software out there that lets me create computer games, without knowing or learning any programming. Such software as the old Klick n' Play, software like Game Maker, and even The 3d Game Maker.
If this technology exists, my question is why don't Macromedia, (who own all the know-how of Shockwave 3d, Shockwave and Flash) produce similar software for creating interactive media, web games and the like.
For games you can leave the timeline behind for much of the creation. You are interested in actions, reactions, gravity, if thens, keeping score. If the software I just mentioned can let you create games that have all of that, but without programming, then in my opinion Macromedia need to take the same steps to producing a code-less interface for web game creation.
Keep the timeline for making your movie clips, but build onto it a new area, the Playing Field, where I can attach movements, interactions, choose outcomes of collisions and other events in the game. But all without me having to code a single line of actionscript. Some people can code flash animation by hand, but why bother. In the same vain, when the technology is there, why do we have to code interactions and the like, thousands of them could be prebuilt and parameters changed, just like the javascript events in DW.
This is my vision for flash and director. Does Macromedia share it? There have to be 1000's of designers out there who could put that kind of technology to work. Lets see it.
By so doing they will be back in touch with the designers like me who like to create without having to get into programming. When that happens, we have a verion of Flash or Director that's really worth upgrading for.
Summary
1. Is there a program that I can make Flash games with little knowledge of coding?
2. If there is, what.
3. If there is no program, what lanuage would be used to make a flash game?
