Sep 24 2009, 1:32 pm
In response to Foomer
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Vic Rattlehead
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Which is rather absurd that people even think that's what original means, considering it's not even close.
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Zaole wrote:
i don't think there's a "next step" for Tom/Lummox to make that would pull BYOND out of its cesspool of bad 'games' and return it to mature, quality material unless they were willing to wantonly delete all unacceptable/ripped content and ban the offenders, which we'll never see happen (and for good reason- i don't think that would ever be an appropriate route to take) Which we'll never see happen because most of BYOND is funded by the parents of those 8-year-olds who create the ripped content all day. Ban the kids, and BYOND goes bankrupt. | |
Vic Rattlehead wrote:
Which is rather absurd that people even think that's what original means, considering it's not even close. Once upon a time an original game was a game based on an original idea, not original code. The fact that people even feel the need to state that their game uses original code is sad. They should all use original code! | |
Foomer wrote:
Although something just struck me that I'm going to rant about for a moment: If people designed their games to be played with a single player, but with the possibility of playing with multiple players, then the game would still be fun even if there was nobody else online. But it would be MORE fun with additional players. A lot of BYOND games cannot be played at all unless there are other players, which instantly kills any already unpopular game. I completely agree with that and feel foolish for never thinking about it. I believe that there are truly people who are looking for non anime games to play. There are quite a number of them as well, but as you have stated, they are not in a playable state to be played alone. By allowing players to play single player, you could perhaps build a small community. Within that community, people could create a hosting schedule where the avid fans could meet up and play. Nice suggestion, once again. I am seriously going to consider this with my next project. | |
I assume for the BYOND Anime people, it's too hard to type out "the programming is original", so they have to say "original gaem u get lv5 gm 4 wurkin on it".
Another problem with the community - they seem to think workers on the game will want to moderate it. | |
Calus CoRPS wrote:
Foomer wrote: Good. The more people who follow my suggestion, the bigger my guild gets. :) | |
Once I finish some more artwork for my game (I work at my own pace, the true reason I don't hire anyone for my games), I'll post updates on my blog about it.
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It's because everyone who has talent is looking for a decent amount of compensation for their work and efforts, and are too lazy to lead the endeavor to make an amazing game without really getting anything out of it.
Right now, all I ever really do on BYOND is hang around Chatters, visit Dream Forge (which is still under development, join the occasional Solar Conquest game, and join the occasional LRS game. Don't fret though. There is currently a 3 month long game development competition going on, and I do have a very talented team together for the competition. We're going to be putting out something that's jaw-droppingly awesome, so be sure to be about when that happens. :] | |
I would enjoy another tower-defense game, Castle used to be fun but the new owner broke any form of balance the game had.
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Foomer wrote:
Although something just struck me that I'm going to rant about for a moment: If people designed their games to be played with a single player, but with the possibility of playing with multiple players, then the game would still be fun even if there was nobody else online. But it would be MORE fun with additional players. A lot of BYOND games cannot be played at all unless there are other players, which instantly kills any already unpopular game. that's actually one of the things i aimed for in stick world 2, and that actually turned out quite well (although a lot of other issues plague it). it can be enjoyed just fine single player, but you can also group up with 2 other buddies and form a close-knit party. with any number of players past that it is instead your typical ORPG | |
Airjoe wrote:
D4RK3 54B3R wrote: http://www.byond.com/members/ AZA?command=view_post&post=82480 | |
Zaole wrote:
at all of the games you mentioned: are they being played right now? Lode Wars has been consistently hosted for the past few weeks now. It has had anywhere from one to seven players online at a time. these games you mentioned USED to be popular, and nobody will argue that, but the point is that there is no audience for good games anymore. BYOND's crowd is just a bunch of 8 year olds who enjoy ripped naruto games. A semi-recent poll says the majority are on the younger side of teenagers, the rate of those under the age of ten is considerably less than that of those over the age of sixteen. Zaole wrote: anyways, to at least partially answer your question, BYOND's community has been dragged down in the mud even further by the 8 year old subspecies of anime fans who spew out endless iterations of shameful, abominable rips, causing real artists and programmers to shy away from using BYOND, which has put a real dent in the "games that are actually worth playing" section of BYOND to the extent that there... aren't any at all, really (that have been made recently) Those monsters, infesting our BYOND with their filth! Zaole wrote: "if you build it, they will come" is simply not true on BYOND. there have been good games created recently that received no attention at all simply because there is no audience left Then why is this one of many threads that consists of several users stating "there is no good games"? If this statement is as true as you think it is, there wouldn't be treads about this. The audience is there, people just aren't trying hard enough to get their attention. --[edit] Hell, I spend my time in a game you're all too familiar with. During the summer holidays it consisted of anywhere from 50 - 100 players at peak hours, and no less than 25 - 30 in off-peak. And most (if not all) of the time, it has more players than any other BYOND Casual game. It certainly isn't a predominant anime title. It's a simple building game, which more often than not is used for role playing. | |
SuperAntx wrote:
Another game that fits this mold is SS13. This game was a great concept, that pretty much fell to pieces as the community progressed. But the point is SS13 is still going, and it has a very specific target demographic. Funny you would say that, I had a project back in the day called "Submerged" -- I never really got into SS13 too technical for me, but it would play more like a SpaceTug. The goal was to get to the surface of the underwater compound with multiple scenarios: Devasting Fire, Floods, Ancient Seamonster(s) (playable characters), Oxygen levels low, etc. The biggest thing that would make it the "it" game would be that it was always random AND it could be a combination of several things. The levels wouldn't be the same they would be change, every single game! That way the game would be interesting. I've realized that my skills as a programmer are not very good and I just simply do not have the desire/knowledge to program a game. I would love to head up a team that cranked out hits, that would be amazing, but formulating a team is difficult and since most (all?) BYOND games are low-budget -- this would be a difficult task. | |
While I am on the topic -- Lummox, Nadrew, and any other programming greats: How much? Seriously, if somebody formed a development team for BYOND, how much would you need to be compensated to meet deadlines, etc. Kind of like subcontracting a house remodel, I would love to "contract" a game team together.
Think about, when Xbox, PS3, WII titles come out, they take several months if not years to come out and there is an ENTIRE TEAM devoted to creating that game. BYOND doesn't have these "hit" games becuase its just one person doing EVERYTHING, and hit a roadblock (like I did when I made my games) and just didn't continue. They get an idea going and do not really plan it out (usually) with gameplay, advancement, etc . If BYOND could sponsor a "Community" project with the best of the best or even the OFFICIAL BYOND game creation TEAM -- things like this could get done. Use all of our resources to great a great game to get new members/gamers for the community! If not, like I said, Nadrew, Lummox, etc LET ME KNOW HOW MUCH ITS GOING TO TAKE so I can have an idea of what its going to take for us to get some original, sustainable multiplayer BYOND games online! | |
Tiberath wrote:
A semi-recent poll says the majority are on the younger side of teenagers, the rate of those under the age of ten is considerably less than that of those over the age of sixteen. Perhaps he was intending to refer to their mental age. | |
Sariat wrote:
While I am on the topic -- Lummox, Nadrew, and any other programming greats: How much? Seriously, if somebody formed a development team for BYOND, how much would you need to be compensated to meet deadlines, etc. Kind of like subcontracting a house remodel, I would love to "contract" a game team together. Great programmer or not, in this economy I'd be happy with anything comparable to a stable job. Ironically, at the moment, some older (and relatively poor) friends of mine are paying me minimum wage to help remodel their house three days a week. So assuming I only dedicated 18-24 hours a week to working on a game, I'd be happy making around $150-200 each week to work on it. The real question is how many hours of work does it take one person to build all of or part of a game? Most of us do it as a labor of love so we don't keep track of the multitudinous hours spent working on our dear projects. Lets just for a moment consider Solar Conquest. I built Solar Conquest in about two weeks of dedicated work, so we'll assume 12 hour days, and probably another series of 6 hour days working on fixes and updates for another week after. Now if I were making a sad minimalistic wage on that, $8 an hour, we can assume that I'd expect around $1,700 for it when I'm done. And keep in mind that Solar Conquest relied primarily on graphics that I had created for earlier projects. If you expected me to create all new graphics for that game, you can probably add another week's work at least, setting you around $2,500 for that game. If you expected people who already have an honest job making better than $8 an hour, well, you'd have to pay them more. (Tomb Explorer only took me 2 days to build plus lots of small updates, so it might be a mere $300 game. Assuming I didn't get paid for figuring out the gameplay elements beforehand or designing levels.) | |
I believe there aren't many powerhouse teams because:
1.) BYOND developers are self-taught and as a side effect they don't comment and their code doesn't mesh very well. Since BYOND is pretty simple to use, it's sometimes best to just make everything by yourself. Said person is then plagued by reason #2. 2.) Since ripped games are generally more successful and some people are able to make money off of copyrighted material, one could say ripping is encouraged. This in turn causes developers to keep a tight grip on their source code, preventing them from taking part in collaborative efforts. 3.) Artists and programmers don't seem to cross-pollinate well. More often than not I see an artist looking for a programmer to make their game, or a programmer looking for an artist to draw them a bunch of assets. You don't see many people sitting down together and starting from scratch. 4.) The same lack of cross-pollination exists between the developer community and the majority of BYOND players located in their own subsection of the site, BYOND Anime. | |
Because the lack of unity. Sariat. When I first came to this community the first thing I noticed was a bunch of uptight "oldbies" who disrespect everyone and still do to this day. I don't know where the stick is shoved but it is sure wedged tightly and it seems like they have nothing to do but come to byond and insult people.
Also the lack of respect and the lack of ability for people. Everyone wants to team up, but when they do their source gets stolen and released and all the real programmers just tell people to do it themselves. With such a lack of unity there will never be a team that produces decent games over and over. So far the only way to even assure that sourcecode isn't released is to work alone (thats what I am doing) and that means that games will not be as good as they can be and they will take much longer to develop. I tried to build a team about the same time you say byond was peaking, but due to no programmer help and little unity eventually the project fell short and one of the subpar childish "coders" released the source and another game (that is completely flakey - so much so that it has southpark characters in it...so lame) was built from the source. Its the mentality that the community depicts is whats holding it all back. Its targetted to young audiences and those audiences have zero respect and zero ability. Don't forget greed. People want those who receive no income to pay them to program. This is not logical and very impractical. You're asking children to pay you working wages when they make nothing. | |