ID:194515
 Dec 20 2000, 11:17 pm
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I worked with Dung a little then got distracted by school (these things happen). I was wondering how Dan and Tom got this thing started and how they kept it going. Just curious.
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On 12/21/00 2:15 am Tom H. wrote:
We weren't too concerned, because we figured it would take about three months to get this all working On a very regular basis, I continue to see very smart people say something along the lines of "I'll just whip up my own 2D multiplayer system. Won't take more than a couple of weeks/months." Strangely, I have yet to be awash in 2D multiplayer engines. I am very excited for the future, and I think the next few months will be very telling. I don't know that we'll ever make anyone rich, but in my never quite humble enough opinion, the games produced in the last couple of months show that BYOND has finally achieved its purpose. Not only does the small community suddenly seem to be churning out games with amazing regularity, but several of those games wouldn't be possible without the features added in the last year. The browser functionality and the overlay functionality seem to be the final tools we needed to achieve our goals. Think of how many recent games wouldn't be possible without those things, or not possible in the way we want to do them. And the best indicator of all for at least the moral success of BYOND: it is being used to create games that Dantom could never have foreseen. You know you have a good tool when people start making stuff that was never previously conceived of. | |
On 12/21/00 9:26 am Deadron wrote:
On 12/21/00 2:15 am Tom H. wrote: Heh... you also see on a very regular basis "Oh, it's a new BYOND game I'm making... it'll be done in a few months, tops!" Three guesses as to whom that statement applies... =) (I'll give you a hint... his alias starts with 'S' and ends with 'm' =) I know, that's not your point... I might even sound a little detrimental here... but what I mean is that BYOND isn't a bad thing... it's so addictive, you can't HELP but make lots of games! That surely must mean something, if I'm using a valuable part of my year simply fooling around with something that won't pay my bills... then again, in a few months, it might! =) You know you have a good tool when people start making stuff that was never previously conceived of. Definitely! DragonSnot? Switcheroo? The Living and the Dead? SpaceTug? Sheep II? Those are things that would totally and utterly be impossible in "game creation tools" like 3DRAD or RuneSword. Sure, you can make OK games with those too... but the variety leaves something to be desired (ooh, another action game, or ooh, another isometric single-player RPG... what expansiveness! =P). Not so with BYOND! You can do just about anything you want; it's almost as powerful as a standard programming language, and it's almost as easy as reading a book. Let's see Visual C++ (or even Visual Basic!) get that power with that much ease! | |
On 12/21/00 2:15 am Tom H. wrote:
We may have only a small following, but I think that the dedication of our users is second to none. Thanks, Tom. Hearing such a personal story that includes your, you know, hopes and dreams only makes me feel more loyal. I feel a bit protective toward BYOND. On the most basic level, I like the system because to me, it's power. I would say "the power to realize my dreams" but that's very hokey so I won't. But all my life I've liked to create things, and a lot of the time the ideas have gone nowhere for lack of suitable tools. (You can create a lot on a Fisher Price weaving loom, but in the end it's not a very good means of making tapestries.) BYOND allows me to manifest my computer game ideas in a form that most closely compares to the visions I have in my head. And I think it does have a match of high flexibility/power to high ease of use that's perhaps unequalled among all the many ways one can make a computer game. But even with that, its biggest advantage may be that its designers are so willing to work with the users. J | |
It's very similar to me as well. I love to create, I have all these ideas, but until BYOND I was always struggling to make them into reality.
I've been involved with MUDs since 1988 and thought, "Only if...". Attempts to put my ideas into code with C and LPC were extremly slow. BYOND makes it very easy. | |
Unfortunately it's not exactly a Hollywood script, but maybe it will end like one, "happily ever after" and all that BS.
Basically this started out as a pet project one summer while we were in college. Dan and I were pretty good friends and had worked together on a couple of pseudo-sciencey projects in the past. This was in 1995 and 1996, when the Internet was just starting to become fairly accessible to the masses, and I think Dan just wanted to learn about the network technology. He snagged a book from somewhere and after a torrid few weeks of coding approached me with a nifty little model and asked if I wanted to help make it into a game. I think some of that original code may even still be around! I distinctly remember when he whisked me off to see that original demo, because it happened to be during some outdoor physics banquet when we were presumably supposed to be chatting with our superiors and discussing our future. Who knew.
Well, to make a long boring story short and boring, we spent the good part of our senior year developing this project and forgetting to look for jobs like good little students. We weren't too concerned, because we figured it would take about three months to get this all working ("this" being somewhat ambiguous at the time .. and, come to think of it, even now). We would then make our fortune and be able to live free for the rest of our lives. I guess things don't always work out as planned though!
I won't speak for Dan, but I personally have had a lot of financial help from family and both support and mockery from friends. We've both worked other software jobs on and off (I am gleefully off right now) and have basically put everything gained from those into this venture. I am very excited for the future, and I think the next few months will be very telling. If we didn't believe in this project, we would never have stuck with it for this long. I believe our passion makes us either prophetic or highly delusional. A lot of my confidence comes from the enthusiasm and talent of this very community. We may have only a small following, but I think that the dedication of our users is second to none.