Tales Number TwO wrote:

One
Byond Membership - Honestly, most of the people on byond are byond members because they get benefits that others wont get.

A BYOND Membership cost $18, you get a forum avatar and a blog that will show your new posts on the front page. It is up to the game owners to provide benefits to those who financially support BYOND.

Two
Byond Games - Too many super powers especially in anime games. If you look at the games on byond there is always this one game that overpowers the rest. These games will have like 100 players in it, while the rest only have 3 or 4.

This should motivate you! Try creating a game that is better. There is basically three options. First, we can sit here and complain how anime is taking over, and nothing will ever get accomplished. The second option is that we can use our free time to support game developers or create our own game. Or, we can simply leave the community.

Three
Members! - In addition to reason number two, byond does not have enough members to support everyone.This can effect the gaming business. Members who have worked hard to create their games are now in trouble because they have to face the Superpower of their gaming community.Moreover , these games are often neglected and dropped.

Can you explain this a little better?

Four
Level of Attention Beginner Coders- I was once a beginner coder and from my personal experience i hated when i asked for help and i was immediately given the link to the DM. I admit the DM is useful but it did not help me at all. Imagine someone that has never coded before and then thrown to a page full of weird numbers and letters.

Make suggestions as to what you believe would help beginners. I am fairly sure the staff are always open to suggestions.

Calus CoRPS wrote:

Tales Number TwO wrote:

One
Byond Membership - Honestly, most of the people on byond are byond members because they get benefits that others wont get.

A BYOND Membership cost $18, you get a forum avatar and a blog that will show your new posts on the front page. It is up to the game owners to provide benefits to those who financially support BYOND.

Actually you get alote more than that, but i understand that byond is using the money.
http://www.byond.com/members/?command=membership_info

Two
Byond Games - Too many super powers especially in anime games. If you look at the games on byond there is always this one game that overpowers the rest. These games will have like 100 players in it, while the rest only have 3 or 4.

This should motivate you! Try creating a game that is better. There is basically three options. First, we can sit here and complain how anime is taking over, and nothing will ever get accomplished. The second option is that we can use our free time to support game developers or create our own game. Or, we can simply leave the community.

There is more to the issue , if you do create a very good game but has 3 players in it then people will ignore it because they want a game with at least 10 players because its alote more interesting.

Three
Members! - In addition to reason number two, byond does not have enough members to support everyone.This can effect the gaming business. Members who have worked hard to create their games are now in trouble because they have to face the Superpower of their gaming community.Moreover , these games are often neglected and dropped.

Can you explain this a little better?

If we had more people on byond then maybe it will be able to fill in the empty seats in games with a few players.Instead of they same 98 players playing the same game maybe the new members might try or look at the other games.

Four
Level of Attention Beginner Coders- I was once a beginner coder and from my personal experience i hated when i asked for help and i was immediately given the link to the DM. I admit the DM is useful but it did not help me at all. Imagine someone that has never coded before and then thrown to a page full of weird numbers and letters.

Make suggestions as to what you believe would help beginners. I am fairly sure the staff are always open to suggestions.

I think it will be more fair if the staff either correct the newbie coder or direct him to the exact location of the DM that the newbie needs to work on. However i have seen some staff members give like a lesson on the issue which is very helpful. ex.(http://www.byond.com/developer/forum/?id=725086)

Tiberath wrote:

Byond Membership - Honestly, most of the people on byond are byond members because they get benefits that others wont get.

The majority of users are in fact not Members. This is the problem. BYOND Members is the primary source of income for BYOND and without it, BYOND would promptly cease to exist.

There are children that play byond, i have seen people around the age of 12-17. I dont expect these members to actually pay for byond membership because they are under 18. Maybe the majority of byond is under age?
Byond Games - Too many super powers especially in anime games. If you look at the games on byond there is always this one game that overpowers the rest. These games will have like 100 players in it, while the rest only have 3 or 4.

Nothing can be done about this. Superior games are superior games. We can't in good conscious tell people off for all congregating on the one game when there are hundreds of others that simply do what it does.

Then i dont really see the point for anyone to create a game if their are Superior games. What would happen is that someone will find someway to get the files of the superior game and RIP their ass off.Then you will see about 4 different DBZ games that looks exactly the same.(I've seen it happen before)
Members! - In addition to reason number two, byond does not have enough members to support everyone. This can effect the gaming business. Members who have worked hard to create their games are now in trouble because they have to face the Superpower of their gaming community.Moreover , these games are often neglected and dropped.

I'm not quite sure what you mean. If you're referring to the amount of users on BYOND and not just the amount of people who paid for memberships. The player count has gone down due to the fact the americans have gone back to school. When they get their next school holidays, a fair few users will return to continue where they left off.

I live in America and quit playing byond a 2 years ago and decided to make my own game.
Level of Attention Beginner Coders- I was once a beginner coder and from my personal experience i hated when i asked for help and i was immediately given the link to the DM. I admit the DM is useful but it did not help me at all. Imagine someone that has never coded before and then thrown to a page full of weird numbers and letters.

That's why we link them to the guide as well. People tend to get the same dedication from the people who help them as they put into their questions. If someone asks for help and has clearly done nothing to find the answer out on their own, the people with the answers will most likely not bother to give them what they want because they wont learn anything. People in this place are in business to teach, not do peoples work for them.

OK

In reality, BYOND is gaining more users than it's losing IIRC. Those 'supergames' you're complaining about happen to draw in quite a few new users.

OK

Tales Number TwO actually did reply more than one word, but he formatted the response horrible and thus it is not easy to see hit replies. I took the replies from the posting with paragraphs, so that you can 'fit' them into Tiberath posting for a mental image of the replies ;)

There are children that play byond, i have seen people around the age of 12-17. I dont expect these members to actually pay for byond membership because they are under 18. Maybe the majority of byond is under age?

Then i dont really see the point for anyone to create a game if their are Superior games. What would happen is that someone will find someway to get the files of the superior game and RIP their ass off.Then you will see about 4 different DBZ games that looks exactly the same.(I've seen it happen before)

I live in America and quit playing byond a 2 years ago and decided to make my own game.

OK

OK

There are children that play byond ... the majority of byond is under age?

I find this true for the most part.
But however, if you closely pay attention to the amounts donated like $20, 40, sometimes $100. It adds up.
Also, there are many many young adults on BYOND using it as a stepping stone for greater purposes in life.
Some older veterans use BYOND as a place to relax and join a community that they possibly didn't when they were in programming.

Then i dont really see the point for anyone to create a game if their are Superior games ... I've seen it happen before

Pretty much the entire collection of people in this community have.
From Final Fantasy to Naruto to Resident Evil to Dragonball Z to Pokemon to Space Problem Solving and more.
It's comical drama that is started because people think they are high and mightier because they ripped a game's icons or changed one little number to something bigger so now 'Training is the fastest on BYOND'.
Currently I am in development of bringing the 'Superior' Game called Resident Evil Online 2 to a competition level.
So far, I'd say I'm half way there and I'm only in pre-beta.
With hard work and determination, people progress.
In my opinion, there is no superiority in games.
Some game makers are luckier they have more funds, or time, or something.
Some are unlucky and deal with real life issues.

And yes, I agree with them, I suggest working on displaying some sort of means of seperating your text from something you are replying to.

Calus CoRPS wrote:

Sure, if you create a game that does not already have a cult following behind it (i.e. Resident Evil or Anime), your game will not automatically get noticed and played. But you could always advertise off of BYOND, to a community that is more interested in the type of game you have created.

give me a single example of a recently created (non fan-based) game that successfully garnered popularity equivalent to an anime game either by 'being good enough and patient', or sucking in new users from outside of BYOND.

you can't, because it's never actually happened. people have tried, and gotten maybe 1 or 2 responses of "maybe i'll look at byond" out of thousands of views, but it simply does not help them at all, especially when there are a greater number of responses that are "byond is trash, don't go there, it sucks" that ward off other potential players. byond is stuck in a catch-22 of "people want to play good games, but byond doesn't have any / developers don't want to create games if there isn't an audience"

But still, what do you expect the BYOND staff to do about the anime games? These games are bringing in a ton of new BYOND members, who providing financial support.

of course the staff can't really do anything about it, but the issue itself still stands

Ham Doctor wrote:

I disagree that BYOND will just cease to exist without subscribers. Let's not forget that for years BYOND managed to survive just fine without subscribers.

Tom can go into more details about this if he likes, but suffice it to say you're wrong. BYOND managed to survive all that time in spite of having no dependable stream of revenue, and that was basically because of the dedication of Tom and Dan. We are still in a constant struggle to maintain and grow our Member base. BYOND right now supports only one full-time staff member, and that's mostly thanks to our Members. The support of Members has allowed BYOND to keep going; we cannot overstress that point, nor thank our Members enough.

And the beauty of BYOND is that even if it does die, it will still be around, because BYOND isn't dependent on the hub or website. As a matter of fact, Keeth was even able to replicate the while BYOND Central Hub at one point in time.

BYOND is frankly more dependent on both of those than you acknowledge, particularly with regard to the new system of scores and medals. This is actually a good thing because our goal is to get a lot more activity going between the games and the site, to encourage positive player interaction.

As for Keeth replicating the hub, that doesn't sound remotely plausible. No offense to Keeth, but the hub is complex and most of our top programmers would be lost without source code to work with. We've had people who built decompilers--working entirely on their own--who would have great difficulty (at best) replicating the hub, but they're among the few I think would even have a shot at it. And this is with the hub having been drastically simplified over the last couple of years.

I don't buy a membership because I don't feel the $18.00 a year provides adequate services for that money. Plenty of websites have what BYOND is offering for that $18.00..... For Free. If BYOND tacked on something else that made me want it, then yeah, but until then, no thanks.

I'd wager more of our Members signed up in order to support BYOND than for the perks. 5 cents a day isn't much to contribute to something you enjoy in order to keep it growing, see new features appear, and keep the lights on. It seriously can't be said enough that our Members make all the difference.

But we do want to make BYOND Membership a rewarding experience for those who have helped keep us going. There are a number of features on the site, and in some games, that are Members-only, but we are always willing to entertain suggestions for how to improve the incentives for membership. If you have any ideas, they are most welcome.

Lummox JR

Zaole wrote:

give me a single example of a recently created (non fan-based) game that successfully garnered popularity equivalent to an anime game either by 'being good enough and patient', or sucking in new users from outside of BYOND.

you can't, because it's never actually happened. people have tried, and gotten maybe 1 or 2 responses of "maybe i'll look at byond" out of thousands of views, but it simply does not help them at all, especially when there are a greater number of responses that are "byond is trash, don't go there, it sucks" that ward off other potential players. byond is stuck in a catch-22 of "people want to play good games, but byond doesn't have any / developers don't want to create games if there isn't an audience"

I cannot give you a recently created game as an example, but Space Station 13 has constructed a following off of BYOND.

But there are several reasons as to why you do not see this happening with newer games. One, the games owner has the same attitude as you, "If one or two games cannot assemble a following off of BYOND, then it is not possible to do". Two, their game simply sucks.

If you actually took time to create a game worth playing that far succeeds the quality of other BYOND games. Along with that, if it is actually finished, and not a game that is in its alpha stages with temporary graphics and buggy game play, I am fairly sure people, who have no clue what BYOND is, would be willing to support it.

Or we can continue to complain and wonder why people will not support our non-polished games.

Calus CoRPS wrote:

Zaole wrote:

give me a single example of a recently created (non fan-based) game that successfully garnered popularity equivalent to an anime game either by 'being good enough and patient', or sucking in new users from outside of BYOND.

you can't, because it's never actually happened. people have tried, and gotten maybe 1 or 2 responses of "maybe i'll look at byond" out of thousands of views, but it simply does not help them at all, especially when there are a greater number of responses that are "byond is trash, don't go there, it sucks" that ward off other potential players. byond is stuck in a catch-22 of "people want to play good games, but byond doesn't have any / developers don't want to create games if there isn't an audience"

I cannot give you a recently created game as an example, but Space Station 13 has constructed a following off of BYOND.

But there are several reasons as to why you do not see this happening with newer games. One, the games owner has the same attitude as you, "If one or two games cannot assemble a following off of BYOND, then it is not possible to do".

that's part of the catch-22 i already described; developers see zero incentive to develop a game here.

Two, their game simply sucks.

Efencea sucks? as i've pointed out before, Efencea is a recently created game and is not 'sucky' yet garners little to zero attention.

If you actually took time to create a game worth playing that far succeeds the quality of other BYOND games. Along with that, if it is actually finished, and not a game that is in its alpha stages with temporary graphics and buggy game play, I am fairly sure people, who have no clue what BYOND is, would be willing to support it.

http://www.byond.com/games/Nielz/FinalFantasyLegacy

this game meets your criteria and has been advertised outside of BYOND, yet the responses it received are the exact ones i'm referring to- VERY few willing to try it out of many views, and lots of extremely negative responses

Or we can continue to complain and wonder why people will not support our non-polished games.

i'm not complaining and i'm not wondering. i'm simply pointing out why it happens

Schnitzy wrote:

Teridal managed to gather a couple again, due to recent updates (more than 50 players would seem at least capable of competing with some of the fan games).

true, however i wouldn't consider a rename and updates enough to consider it a 'recent game'. it already has an existing fanbase (which frequently rose well above 50 players in the past) from the several years of its existence, which made boosting the numbers possible

Tales Number TwO wrote:

Two
Byond Games - Too many super powers especially in anime games. If you look at the games on byond there is always this one game that overpowers the rest. These games will have like 100 players in it, while the rest only have 3 or 4.

Sorry to say this and i know i stand for a lot of people when i say is that the reason they have 3 or 4 people in the game is because most of the games like that are rips and i say reason were losing players is because of all the rips in byond i mean 90% of the naruto games are rips 80% of the dragonball z games are rips about 85 to 95% of bleach games are rips you can barely find any non rip games with little people most of them have up to 100 players.
EXAMPLE GOA:NON RIP - 50 to 100 players A day
EXAMPLE 2 Duel Monsters Unlimited:NON RIP - 50 to 100 players A Day
EXAMPLE 3 Naruto Beast: RIP - 3 to 5 players A day
EXAMPLE 4 Bleach: Heart of the Vaizards: RIP - 0 to 5 players A DAY


i can go on and on with examples of how this rip and non rip works and i can't say i haven't riped because i have and i believe everyone on byond has riped SOMETHING one way or another



*SORRY FOR MY GRAMMAR IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT DON'T READ IT*