This is just a weird hobby thing and I'm not a programmer so please go easy on me, I'm hoping I don't get laughed off the board. It's called World War 3 (3.1 .... 3.2 etc) and it's a strategy game This game is a bit different. For starts it's using Google Earth as the play area. And then it's using MS Excel as the engine. Yes I just said MS Excel. It's got some aspects I think are decent for a beginner 1 man band, but I'm sorely lacking in programming knowledge and I'm hoping someone will give me some advice/encouragement or take me up on a collaborative approach. Basically I want to re-platform it onto the web using the Google Earth API for a more interactive thing. It has 3D models (Google Sketch-up, drawn by eye) and some graphics I did myself. Not sure how to post pics here but try these for what I'm working on right now: SA-15 SAM system in Iran: http://i38.tinypic.com/9rr6fk.jpg The engagement envelope of that system: http://i33.tinypic.com/htguo3.jpg A moving target: http://i33.tinypic.com/2usigl3.jpg You can download the previous release here http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/ubbthreads.php?ubb=download&Number=840561&filename=WW3_RELEASE_31OCT09.zip And the how-to with lots of pics is here: http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?t=168003 Some Excel 2003 users are getting bugs also so another reason to move off Excel. so for web based programming I know jack sh*t but am optimistic since I got this far in a couple of months of occasional tinkering. Immediate questions: * Would I need paid web space? * I do VBA. Is .Net (VB based?) the natural choice for a web interface * Where are things like tables stored in a web interface? * Is the game promising enough to be worth it?

Quote:* Would I need paid web space?

Not necessarily. For development and basic testing, no. You can host locally during development, and get a spare machine for a test server. Once you launch it to the outside world, you'd want a domain name and a static address for your server. You may or may not be able to manage that with your ISP.

Quote:* I do VBA. Is .Net (VB based?) the natural choice for a web interface

If you're familiar with VBA syntax and don't to learn a more C-like language, VB.Net is a pretty good choice. Its not really the same language as VBA, but close enough that you'd feel comfortable.

Quote:* Where are things like tables stored in a web interface?

Usually in a database.


[Edited by - Rycross on November 5, 2009 8:28:52 PM]

Just out of curiosity, I tried running it in OpenOffice 3.0 on Ubuntu. As expected, it didn't work - choked on some of the syntax in the VBA macros. I've never used Google Earth API before, but from looking at it, it seems to be &#106avascript based. I (perhaps naively) believe that VBA and &#106avascript are similar, so the learning curve should be very manageable. If I'm reading this right, you will also not necessarily need hosting - you can write it all in &#106avascript and distribute html+js in an archive. If you want a web interface that's really a web interface then of course you will want your own domain and web host. That way you can also offload some/many calculations to the server, and perhaps add community features like a leaderboard or forums (or host a blog to inform about your development efforts). Dunno bout .NET but there is a lot of cheap PHP/MySQL hosting out there.<br><br>Also, Excel is a respectable beast. I remember reading about a whole 3D software renderer implemented in Excel a while ago.