User blog:Martirsadota/The Great HTML5 Switcheroo: How it Affects TTKs Like You

So as we all know, Kancolle is about to abandon Flash in favor of HTML5, and I have seen this cause some panic within the community; in particular, there has been some recent fears that the upcoming migration to HTML5 would force players to play without their viewers as these would break when the migration is completed.

Hopefully this post would alleviate those fears. But first, as I always do in my blog posts,a little history:

=Why the Sudden Switcheroo?=

We would continue to be happily playing Kancolle if not for a sudden announcement from the mother of Flash, Adobe. Adobe recently announced that they will be declaring Flash as end-of-life by 2020, encouraging developers and content creators to migrate to modern web technologies like HTML5's canvas and video. The company cited Flash's inherent security flaws and the resources required to maintain Flash as reasons for abandoning it.

Whatever the reason, by 2020, Flash would be end of life. This means that browsers will stop supporting Flash by that time, and you won't be able to run Flash-based content (like Kancolle as it is right now) in the browser.

With roughly three years left before the inevitable, Kancolle made the switch to HTML5.

=What is HTML5?=

HTML5 is the latest version of HTML, a language for creating web pages. If that sounded like nerd talk to you, think of it this way: HTML can make you cake, while HTML5 can make those fancy cakes with a photograph printed directly on the icing; it's still cake, just more multimedia.

HTML5 adds multimedia features like video and audio playback without the need for plugins, as well as a canvas element that allows for programmatic rendering of 2D elements (basically 2D animation).

Canvas is of particular interest, because this is the element that could, by any stretch of the imagination, be capable of creating the user interface for an HTML5-based Kancolle client. And if you want proof, look no further than KC3's replayer.

="Sure, that's sweet tech and all, but how about me?"= Okay, I put my opinion as what the devs may use to migrate Kancolle to HTML5. But the important question is: "Would this affect my gameplay?" Here is where I place the thesis of my case:

=Notes and References=