Hi guys,

It is great to see progress on the HTML5 client.  I think it is great to 
pursue that route.

Responding to a couple emails, one from netrek-forever:

On 5/5/2015 8:02 AM, Lawrence Brass wrote:
> On your last comments about your interest in evolving the game, my opinion is that the right people for the task is already around, probably with less spare time than years ago but I would bet that there is a genuine and common interest in the same direction. I remember a few years ago in this forum someone trying to revive netrek. He had this "entrepreneural" stance, too ambitious in my opinion, never gathered steam as far as i know.
Maybe you're talking about me.  I have a day job(s) to pay bills but I 
am still working towards this end.  Who knows when I will finish. Don't 
wait for me.

My goal (definitely ambitious): create a newfangled game with lots of 
crazy stupid fun ideas (because I want this for myself), draw a crowd, 
and provide netrek (or as close to verbatim as I can get) as a free 
gameplay mode (whether the game is purchased or not). (And/or provide a 
netrek client as part of the game and use the existing server code.)   
Basically, the new game would be free marketing for netrek, and be able 
to leverage assets and development work that people would (hopefully) be 
paying substantial cash for. (If the netrek playerbase revived, I would 
want to be careful to not compete for attention over the playerbase, but 
since the playerbase is basically nil I guess I don't have to worry 
about that at the moment.)

On Sun May 17 22:09:54 CDT 2015 - Zachary Uram:
 > Found this:
 > https://github.com/jaredthirsk/DotNetrek
 > Code that may be useful for building a .NET *netrek* client

Zach asked me if I had more code.   I have code from my own engine that 
I have not carved out, but if let me know if anyone is going a C# route 
and I'll see what I can do to help.

BTW, I'm primarily targeting Unity3D (languages: C#, Boo, some imitation 
of Javascript, and whatever else its old version of Mono will handle), 
which has a compelling cross platform story IMO.  I also am using 
NoesisGUI (not free) for Unity3D which allows the use of XAML to define 
interfaces, similar to how WPF/Silverlight interfaces are defined.

I have also been learning cordova/phonegap and think it is promising so 
long as it can deliver on performance and networking, so like I said, I 
am glad to see progress on that front.  (I am concerned when people want 
to do something in Java/C/C++/python because the game toolkits for those 
seem weak and I don't seem to see a lot of serious cross-platform games 
come from them.  But I think Unity3D and Phonegap are both strong 
choices that have staying power and strong ecosystems, and strong 
cross-platform potential.)

BTW, if we did a kickstarter to pay someone(s), I wonder how much we 
could raise for someone to quit their job for a while, or someone like 
me with casual part time contract work to devote a few cycles?
I also have got my first taste of outsourcing, hiring a group from 
Elance.  So far I think it is a good thing, although we went with the #1 
team on the site.  Also there is https://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome

-Jared
aka Mahalalel back in the day