Compile to EXE

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Jan 7 2023, 11:15 pm
In response to NSBR
NSBR wrote:
Multiverse7 wrote:
Some of us are not showing Lummox JR, BYOND's sole developer, the respect he deserves. This is the first time that this discussion has actually gone anywhere, so try to have some patience. Screaming the same thing over and over while jumping up and down isn't going to get you anywhere.

This discussion hasn't actually gone anywhere yet. Lummox has just reused the same post he made in 2017. 6 years ago. It can only move forward when he actually engages with the topic.

Asking us to have some patience is like pouring gasoline to a fire. The feature has been asked for 11 years. For how much more should we wait without any clear indication? 1 more year? 2? Will BYOND be up then?

Some have literally graduated, had kids and some literally have died whilst waiting for the feature.

I don't know when this all started, but at least in this thread, it just looks like years of repetitive asking, until now. I believe that what Lummox wants is a clear and detailed outline, describing the best way of implementing this, that avoids any copyright issues.

NSBR wrote:
Multiverse7 wrote:
It isn't fair to compare BYOND to the biggest, most popular engines in the video game industry. BYOND has more in common with Xbox, PlayStation, or Nintendo, than it does Unreal Engine, Unity, or GameMaker.

Besides the points Legobumb already made, BYOND was founded in 1996. Unreal Engine in 1998, GameMaker in 1999, Unity in 2005. We can compare it. It didn't make as much sucess as those because, either or, it wasn't their goal, their market attempts failed, they made bad design choises and they failed to keep up with demand. It was capable of being up there.

What about Vylocity? You can compile to exe there.

The way that these engines started out is not relevant here, and BYOND took an extremely different path, where it has evolved into something that is no longer comparable. Even in the beginning, it's hard to make a comparison, as in BYOND, all DM code is executed by the server, unlike these other engines that have always been much closer to the hardware. Vylocity seems to be a much better comparison. Neither BYOND nor Vylocity are anything like those other engines.

NSBR wrote:
Multiverse7 wrote:
Selling the standalone feature doesn't make sense either, as workarounds are trivial, and important communities, like SS13, would just leave in response. An open-source alternative is already starting to emerge, that will enable games written in DM, to leave the BYOND engine, and never return.

Making your own standalone launcher and having no ads on your game can be done outside of byond-supported methods. But it's not officially supported. That's what we're asking for here. If it's trivial, and communities would leave, they would have already done so. SS13's devs are more than capable of doing so as is. And how would they "leave" if they would need to be paying BYOND either way?

Also, if it's something trivial, it should be available by default.

What I'm saying is that eventually, SS13 will no longer need BYOND at all, so it could simply leave. Much of that community has been actively working on projects that will enable them to do just that, so BYOND needs to try to retain as much as it can. I agree that some form of standalone option should be available by default.

NSBR wrote:
Multiverse7 wrote:
BYOND's engine is nowhere near the point where developers would be willing to buy it, instead of the more popular alternatives.

That doesn't make any sense. If the devs are spending years of their time on the engine, what is paying 20 bucks a month? Can't you see the sheer support of the community on having this available on this thread alone?

A fixed price seems unusual for that sort of business model. Normally, the engine would take a percentage cut of a game's profits, which would be far more viable and sustainable for BYOND.

NSBR wrote:
Multiverse7 wrote:
Like it or not, ads are the future of BYOND, and the sooner they are embraced, the better.

Something that isn't working as is is the future? If it pays that much, what is the problem of charging that same ammount to game developers? There would be no revenue lost here. And the plus side? Players wouldn't have to look at annoying ads! And if it's the future, but not the present, why not have it avaiable till this future of yours arrive? It sure as hell isn't here yet (as ads don't even work).

You're also forgetting that the longer games are suffocated by the platform without being able to get fresh air (read players) outside of it, the more the platform gets close to it's death.

It is a serious issue. The ads should be fixed, enforced, and overhauled, while developers can just pay to have them removed. A system is already in place, so why not try to fix it? Much of BYOND's community, especially SS13, revolves around free and open-source software, and they may all leave if BYOND shifts to a business model that no longer represents their values, if they are not planning to already.

NSBR wrote:
Multiverse7 wrote:
This is literally the title of the byond.com home page:
"BYOND - Make & Play Online Multiplayer Games"

You're comparing the homepage title with the name itself that the acronym stands for. Also, saying this isn't a garage project for developers (both for the game devs and for lum) is beeing too out of reality.

That's being taken out of context, but I understand your point. I don't consider this to be a contradiction. It's just a representation of BYOND's intended business model, and what it aspires to be, even if the reality is currently underwhelming.
Jan 8 2023, 12:04 am
In response to Multiverse7
Multiverse7 wrote:
This is literally the title of the byond.com home page:
"BYOND - Make & Play Online Multiplayer Games"

Also on the very same page:
"BYOND is the premier community for making and playing online multiplayer games. As a player, enjoy hundreds of games created by our community, by people just like you. As a developer, make your own indie sensation with an easy-to-learn language, built-in online support, tools for developers, and plenty of articles and tutorials.

And did we mention it's all free?"

BYOND is an engine at its nucleus, which is surrounded by BYOND the platform. It has always been a combination of engine and platform, hence the "Make & Play". The platform provides some revenue that helps the engine grow.

Yes, a game dev engine. And without it, there would be no community to play its games. The heart and soul of BYOND is the game development aspect. Yes, I know it also provides the ability for its devs to host on the very same platform for players to enjoy, but that's really just to further enable the developers to... well... develop their games more easily. Just about all the game dev platforms do the exact same thing - it's pretty standard practice in this day and age. Everywhere from Unity and Unreal to BYOND and Vylocity; they all have their own in-built communities to enable their devs to host their projects on their sites using their engine. And all of these companies make decisions that primarily target the game devs. I'm sure they make some decisions that affect the player community as well, but I am fairly certain their target demographic is their game developers.


Multiverse7 wrote:
If it really is that simple, then a browser upgrade is desperately needed. I don't believe WebView2 supports any kind of addons or extensions, so if you can get an ad blocker running on there, it's probably not something that most would ever figure out how to do, and it would certainly be more difficult to block ads than it is currently. It would also be more secure.

A browser upgrade is sorely needed, however I think I remember at one point in time Lummox saying that it isn't entirely possible, or if it is then it wouldn't be easy, for one reason or another. I wholeheartedly disagree with your statement saying that ads are the sole direction BYOND is and should be headed towards. There's plenty of evidence out there on all of the different game dev platforms for Lummox to pull inspiration from on a direction. Hell, he could even throw a combination of ad-revenue AND asset store -esque implementation and reap the rewards. It's entirely up to him on where he wants to take it. I think what we're looking for here, is for him to finally make a grand decision for which we can all move forward with and start throwing ideas his way. In any case, I doubt it'll be an easy thing to accomplish, which is where the patience comes into play.

I'm sure if Lummox steps forward and says "OK here's the plan..." then everyone here would jump in with feedback and a round of applause.

Multiverse7 wrote:
That's pretty much what I was suggesting, but with a little more control over when and where an ad is shown. For example, it might only appear on the outer border of a main menu screen, or maybe when a specific pane or GUI is displayed. If it was persistent like that, then the ads should at least have some down time, so that it isn't too intrusive. With ads, there has to be a fine balance between profitable and tolerable, that way everyone wins. Of course, you should also have the option to pay for your game to be ad-free for all players.

What I was thinking, was adding a new interface control that's strictly to display ads. Sort of like a browser control, I guess. And the developers can more or less be given new tools in Dream Maker to pull from a pool of ads or just set it to autopilot or something. Maybe come up with some kind of agreement with BYOND devs that after a certain amount of average ad-revenue generated from their game, they will receive a cut, similarly to Youtubers/Twitch-streamers. Could even allow for sponsorship ads? Again, similarly to Youtube/Twitch. Just tossing ideas around at this point.
Jan 8 2023, 1:21 am (Edited on Jan 8 2023, 1:27 am)
In response to Legobumb
Legobumb wrote:
Multiverse7 wrote:
This is literally the title of the byond.com home page:
"BYOND - Make & Play Online Multiplayer Games"

Also on the very same page:
"BYOND is the premier community for making and playing online multiplayer games. As a player, enjoy hundreds of games created by our community, by people just like you. As a developer, make your own indie sensation with an easy-to-learn language, built-in online support, tools for developers, and plenty of articles and tutorials.

And did we mention it's all free?"

BYOND is an engine at its nucleus, which is surrounded by BYOND the platform. It has always been a combination of engine and platform, hence the "Make & Play". The platform provides some revenue that helps the engine grow.

Yes, a game dev engine. And without it, there would be no community to play its games. The heart and soul of BYOND is the game development aspect. Yes, I know it also provides the ability for its devs to host on the very same platform for players to enjoy, but that's really just to further enable the developers to... well... develop their games more easily. Just about all the game dev platforms do the exact same thing - it's pretty standard practice in this day and age. Everywhere from Unity and Unreal to BYOND and Vylocity; they all have their own in-built communities to enable their devs to host their projects on their sites using their engine. And all of these companies make decisions that primarily target the game devs. I'm sure they make some decisions that affect the player community as well, but I am fairly certain their target demographic is their game developers.

The main platform of Unreal Engine is their own Epic Games Store, which also happens to host games made using third-party engines, which makes this store more like Steam or GOG. Unity and GameMaker do have massive communities, of course, but no real centralized hub or store for hosted games. The closest thing they have is a showcase of selected games. Vylocity is quite similar to BYOND, in the way that it also has a centralized hub for its games. Unreal kind of does it, but the Epic Games Store is effectively a separate entity that kind of competes with Steam and other game stores.

Legobumb wrote:
Multiverse7 wrote:
If it really is that simple, then a browser upgrade is desperately needed. I don't believe WebView2 supports any kind of addons or extensions, so if you can get an ad blocker running on there, it's probably not something that most would ever figure out how to do, and it would certainly be more difficult to block ads than it is currently. It would also be more secure.

A browser upgrade is sorely needed, however I think I remember at one point in time Lummox saying that it isn't entirely possible, or if it is then it wouldn't be easy, for one reason or another. I wholeheartedly disagree with your statement saying that ads are the sole direction BYOND is and should be headed towards. There's plenty of evidence out there on all of the different game dev platforms for Lummox to pull inspiration from on a direction. Hell, he could even throw a combination of ad-revenue AND asset store -esque implementation and reap the rewards. It's entirely up to him on where he wants to take it. I think what we're looking for here, is for him to finally make a grand decision for which we can all move forward with and start throwing ideas his way. In any case, I doubt it'll be an easy thing to accomplish, which is where the patience comes into play.

I'm sure if Lummox steps forward and says "OK here's the plan..." then everyone here would jump in with feedback and a round of applause.

A browser upgrade definitely won't be easy. It would require an entire release cycle to complete the transition, but I think it would be well worth the effort. No, I don't believe ads need to be the sole direction that BYOND should head towards. I just really don't think they should be eliminated. There should always be multiple sources of revenue, so that when one falls behind, the others can help pick up the slack. This discussion is a good start, but it will have to get a lot more technical before it can be seriously considered.

Legobumb wrote:
Multiverse7 wrote:
That's pretty much what I was suggesting, but with a little more control over when and where an ad is shown. For example, it might only appear on the outer border of a main menu screen, or maybe when a specific pane or GUI is displayed. If it was persistent like that, then the ads should at least have some down time, so that it isn't too intrusive. With ads, there has to be a fine balance between profitable and tolerable, that way everyone wins. Of course, you should also have the option to pay for your game to be ad-free for all players.

What I was thinking, was adding a new interface control that's strictly to display ads. Sort of like a browser control, I guess. And the developers can more or less be given new tools in Dream Maker to pull from a pool of ads or just set it to autopilot or something. Maybe come up with some kind of agreement with BYOND devs that after a certain amount of average ad-revenue generated from their game, they will receive a cut, similarly to Youtubers/Twitch-streamers. Could even allow for sponsorship ads? Again, similarly to Youtube/Twitch. Just tossing ideas around at this point.

That's pretty much exactly what I was getting at in this post:
http://www.byond.com/forum/post/ 2228000?page=3#comment26392099
Jan 8 2023, 7:52 am
In response to Multiverse7
Multiverse7 wrote:
A browser upgrade definitely won't be easy. It would require an entire release cycle to complete the transition, but I think it would be well worth the effort. No, I don't believe ads need to be the sole direction that BYOND should head towards. I just really don't think they should be eliminated. There should always be multiple sources of revenue, so that when one falls behind, the others can help pick up the slack. This discussion is a good start, but it will have to get a lot more technical before it can be seriously considered.

Okay, but it can't get more technical without Lummox's help. I'm not the only one sharing this sentiment. We can't get into the nitty gritty details unless some of them get shared openly with us to discuss. This goes doubly so with the exe compiler. He wants a clear direction, but we can't really give that to him. He's the ultimate decision-maker on such a thing. We want to throw our two cents at it, as you can tell with everyone chiming in with support for the idea. But as of right now, it looks like we're throwing our two cents at a wall instead of down the wishing well.

Multiverse7 wrote:
That's pretty much exactly what I was getting at in this post:
http://www.byond.com/forum/post/ 2228000?page=3#comment26392099

Then it sounds like we're on the same page for that idea. Maybe if Lummox can at least weigh in on such an idea like Julius Ceaser giving his thumbs up or thumbs down to decide its fate lol
Jan 8 2023, 2:13 pm
In response to Legobumb
Legobumb wrote:
Multiverse7 wrote:
A browser upgrade definitely won't be easy. It would require an entire release cycle to complete the transition, but I think it would be well worth the effort. No, I don't believe ads need to be the sole direction that BYOND should head towards. I just really don't think they should be eliminated. There should always be multiple sources of revenue, so that when one falls behind, the others can help pick up the slack. This discussion is a good start, but it will have to get a lot more technical before it can be seriously considered.

Okay, but it can't get more technical without Lummox's help. I'm not the only one sharing this sentiment. We can't get into the nitty gritty details unless some of them get shared openly with us to discuss. This goes doubly so with the exe compiler. He wants a clear direction, but we can't really give that to him. He's the ultimate decision-maker on such a thing. We want to throw our two cents at it, as you can tell with everyone chiming in with support for the idea. But as of right now, it looks like we're throwing our two cents at a wall instead of down the wishing well.

I think these ideas can get more technical. What is needed is a clearly presented summary of the theoretical, technical details. Feature requests that have this, have always been more likely to be considered or implemented. That's something that this feature request does not yet have, despite being around for years.

Feature requests that have not had much effort put into them are not taken very seriously, because if it looks like those who request the feature don't feel that it's worth enough for them to put in much effort, then why would it be worth the effort of the one who would have to implement it? This is not my personal opinion, so don't take this the wrong way. I'm just explaining what I think is actually happening here, but from a different perspective.

Legobumb wrote:
Multiverse7 wrote:
That's pretty much exactly what I was getting at in this post:
http://www.byond.com/forum/post/ 2228000?page=3#comment26392099

Then it sounds like we're on the same page for that idea. Maybe if Lummox can at least weigh in on such an idea like Julius Ceaser giving his thumbs up or thumbs down to decide its fate lol

Maybe, but this isn't really something that will have a simple "yes" or "no" answer.
Jan 8 2023, 2:20 pm
In response to Multiverse7
I already made a technical suggestion about a new membership.
Jan 8 2023, 2:36 pm
In response to Multiverse7
Multiverse7 wrote:
I think these ideas can get more technical. What is needed is a clearly presented summary of the theoretical, technical details. Feature requests that have this, have always been more likely to be considered or implemented. That's something that this feature request does not yet have, despite being around for years.

Feature requests that have not had much effort put into them are not taken very seriously, because if it looks like those who request the feature don't feel that it's worth enough for them to put in much effort, then why would it be worth the effort of the one who would have to implement it? This is not my personal opinion, so don't take this the wrong way. I'm just explaining what I think is actually happening here, but from a different perspective.

How much more technical can we get when we talked all about how other game dev platforms' implementations? NSBR even presented a few screenshots of Game Maker's subscription model. I'm not sure how much technicality is being sought after. If we can summarize an idea in a couple of sentences and provide screenshots to illustrate what we're talking about, then that's what we're going to do. Why should we have to write a 10 page essay? I think it's unreasonable if that's the case. Possibly even a cop-out. Being vague enough for Lummox to mold our ideas for the platform into his own vision, to me, is better than getting hyper-specific and leaving zero wiggle room for him to be creative with the idea and do his own thing with it.

Personally, I don't see anything wrong with implementing something very similar to Game Maker. It seems standard practice, and as long as the price is reasonable, plenty of people will have no problems paying the extra cost to have the ability to publish their games outside of BYOND. It's literally a win-win all around for both Lummox and the developers here on BYOND. Not a single person has argued against this idea from what I can see, so why don't we start looking into this apparently-necessary-but-not-really write-up you seem to think Lummox is looking for?

Multiverse7 wrote:
Maybe, but this isn't really something that will have a simple "yes" or "no" answer.

Maybe not as simple as yes/no, but why can't it have a simple answer? It's called a pitch. We pitch it to Lummox and he can say yes or no if he wants, or he can be a little more specific about it and state a difficulty of how hard it would be to implement and then we can dive into specificities based on his initial impression of the idea being pitched. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm fairly certain the general flow of presenting new ideas to a company is to first pitch the idea to the boss(es) and see if it sticks in any sort of way. And if it does, only THEN are specifics explored. With that said, people did quote Lummox saying he'd be interested in distribution of the exe compiler, but at no point did he approve anyone's ideas for implementation or come back to us with his own ideas. That's what, I think, we're all looking to do now; an exchange of ideas.
Jan 8 2023, 4:27 pm (Edited on Jan 8 2023, 4:34 pm)
In response to Legobumb
Legobumb wrote:
Multiverse7 wrote:
I think these ideas can get more technical. What is needed is a clearly presented summary of the theoretical, technical details. Feature requests that have this, have always been more likely to be considered or implemented. That's something that this feature request does not yet have, despite being around for years.

Feature requests that have not had much effort put into them are not taken very seriously, because if it looks like those who request the feature don't feel that it's worth enough for them to put in much effort, then why would it be worth the effort of the one who would have to implement it? This is not my personal opinion, so don't take this the wrong way. I'm just explaining what I think is actually happening here, but from a different perspective.

How much more technical can we get when we talked all about how other game dev platforms' implementations? NSBR even presented a few screenshots of Game Maker's subscription model. I'm not sure how much technicality is being sought after. If we can summarize an idea in a couple of sentences and provide screenshots to illustrate what we're talking about, then that's what we're going to do. Why should we have to write a 10 page essay? I think it's unreasonable if that's the case. Possibly even a cop-out. Being vague enough for Lummox to mold our ideas for the platform into his own vision, to me, is better than getting hyper-specific and leaving zero wiggle room for him to be creative with the idea and do his own thing with it.

Personally, I don't see anything wrong with implementing something very similar to Game Maker. It seems standard practice, and as long as the price is reasonable, plenty of people will have no problems paying the extra cost to have the ability to publish their games outside of BYOND. It's literally a win-win all around for both Lummox and the developers here on BYOND. Not a single person has argued against this idea from what I can see, so why don't we start looking into this apparently-necessary-but-not-really write-up you seem to think Lummox is looking for?

No, you shouldn't need to write a 10-page essay. It just needs to be both very concise, very detailed, and formatted in a meaningful order that clearly shows how everything fits together, like a thorough outline.

The standalone just cannot be that simple in BYOND's case. Three different variations of the standalone would be required:

1. A free, simple, default standalone, that comes with built-in ads, and without the Steam integration.

2. A basic, cheaper, paid standalone, that simply removes the ads, but has no Steam integration (it could remove ads for the BYOND hub release as well).

3. The current, premium, paid standalone, that comes with no ads and full Steam integration, but can only be purchased for games that qualify as original (again, this may also remove ads for the BYOND hub release as well).

Legobumb wrote:
Multiverse7 wrote:
Maybe, but this isn't really something that will have a simple "yes" or "no" answer.

Maybe not as simple as yes/no, but why can't it have a simple answer? It's called a pitch. We pitch it to Lummox and he can say yes or no if he wants, or he can be a little more specific about it and state a difficulty of how hard it would be to implement and then we can dive into specificities based on his initial impression of the idea being pitched. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm fairly certain the general flow of presenting new ideas to a company is to first pitch the idea to the boss(es) and see if it sticks in any sort of way. And if it does, only THEN are specifics explored. With that said, people did quote Lummox saying he'd be interested in distribution of the exe compiler, but at no point did he approve anyone's ideas for implementation or come back to us with his own ideas. That's what, I think, we're all looking to do now; an exchange of ideas.

Ideally, a pitch would be all that you need, but in BYOND's case, you kind of have to put a bit more work in, than just a simple pitch, to help make Lummox JR's job a bit easier. BYOND has to rely a lot more on its community than most projects of this size, as most projects of this size have more than just one developer. Of course, an exchange of ideas is always nice, but Lummox has a lot on his plate right now. He's fixing mountains of bugs, looking for performance improvements, and working on other features, so he understandably doesn't want to spend too much time on these forums, which are probably not getting much traffic anyway. Everyone is on Discord these days.
Jan 8 2023, 6:18 pm
In response to Multiverse7
Multiverse7 wrote:
No, you shouldn't need to write a 10-page essay. It just needs to be both very concise, very detailed, and formatted in a meaningful order that clearly shows how everything fits together, like a thorough outline.

The standalone just cannot be that simple in BYOND's case. Three different variations of the standalone would be required:

1. A free, simple, default standalone, that comes with built-in ads, and without the Steam integration.

2. A basic, cheaper, paid standalone, that simply removes the ads, but has no Steam integration (it could remove ads for the BYOND hub release as well).

3. The current, premium, paid standalone, that comes with no ads and full Steam integration, but can only be purchased for games that qualify as original (again, this may also remove ads for the BYOND hub release as well).

Why do 3 versions of the exe compiler need to exist? I think starting simpler here, the better. Just have the one that exists for the time being since it's already existing - which I assume is the full "premium" version. And once Lummox has time to dive back into this whole debauchery, he can expand it into 3 separate tiers as you suggest. But in any case, this is the kind of technical detail I'm sure he wants to see.

Multiverse7 wrote:
Ideally, a pitch would be all that you need, but in BYOND's case, you kind of have to put a bit more work in, than just a simple pitch, to help make Lummox JR's job a bit easier. BYOND has to rely a lot more on its community than most projects of this size, as most projects of this size have more than just one developer. Of course, an exchange of ideas is always nice, but Lummox has a lot on his plate right now. He's fixing mountains of bugs, looking for performance improvements, and working on other features, so he understandably doesn't want to spend too much time on these forums, which are probably not getting much traffic anyway. Everyone is on Discord these days.

This is why I totally agreed that patience is key here. I fully understand that Lummox is just one guy and he's got the full scope of the platform in front of him. And I've got no doubt in my mind that if he were to drop everything and give us the exe compiler in some fashion, it would only serve to add even more onto his already heaping plate sitting in front of him.

Yeah, I'm not sure why we don't have an "official" BYOND discord at this point. It would absolutely make life a lot easier on Lummox to have a few mods that can tend to the sheep and have bots that can throw up feature requests onto a github for him to more easily sift through than what's on the BYOND website.
Jan 8 2023, 6:26 pm
Why does the BYOND team need to be concerned about the copyright status of standalone projects made using their software? Richard Stallman does not care if I create a movie ripoff game with gcc.
Jan 8 2023, 6:43 pm (Edited on Jan 8 2023, 10:36 pm)
The issue is that the current, private standalone that's mainly used to help publish games on Steam, comes with Steam integration, so it must comply with Steam's terms of service. If someone were to try using this special standalone with a random fangame, it could get BYOND in trouble. [CORRECTION: This is not quite true, but NSBR has provided the real issue, with a similar resulting problem.] That's why it hasn't been made public, and that's why we need multiple tiers of standalone. The free tier would be appropriate for some open source projects, such as SS13. The basic tier would literally just be the same type of standalone used for the free tier, but you would have the option of removing the ads. This means there is really only one new standalone that actually needs to be developed. The free/basic standalone is the one that would be integrated into Dream Maker, but the premium standalone would not be.

I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.
Jan 8 2023, 6:49 pm (Edited on Jan 8 2023, 7:02 pm)
In response to Multiverse7
There is no such thing dude. Just because a game is compiled with the tool, it doesn't make it automatically accepted, or easier to be, by Steam, nor does it make BYOND responsible for any infringement (of copyright manner or not).

This is false.

Also, the reason it hasn't been made public originally was disclosed in this thread, just look it up. It was because it was in the plans to be substituted by CEF and the webclient, which were never completed.

I have been told this, but can't confirm, even more so when this topic is treated like a secret, is that, right now, the exe is handled like (but not exclusively) a bussines deal with Lummox, where the parties agree on percentages of income to be shared. Since this is a personal hand-out, with the generation of a specific key for each project, Lummox can't do it for fangames, because it would mean he had a say in it and/or direct deal with it.

Account locked compiles wouldn't have this issue since it would have no direct relation with the project.

You're derrailing the thread with misinformation

We don't need multiple levels of standalone.
Jan 8 2023, 7:27 pm
In response to NSBR
This is built into BYOND's current standalone:
https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/sdk/api

Lummox goes into some of this here:
http://www.byond.com/forum/post/2086098

Correct me if I'm wrong, but to my knowledge, no fangame has ever been approved to use this standalone.
Jan 8 2023, 7:34 pm (Edited on Jan 8 2023, 7:52 pm)
In response to Multiverse7
Again, having the API doesn't make the game automatically accepted in it's content, or easier to be, by Steam, nor does it make BYOND responsible for any infringement (of copyright manner or not).

No fangame has ever been approved because of the reasons shared on my post above. Lummox can't make a deal to profit over the game because of copyright issues being able to reach him. And he won't give it out for free for fangames since he's charging original ip's games.

If he allowed the standalone for every paid account, this wouldn't be a problem.
Jan 8 2023, 7:44 pm (Edited on Jan 8 2023, 10:14 pm)
In response to NSBR
That's probably more accurate, but either way, it's still effectively the same result, which I think warrants more than one tier of standalone, that way the special one can remain special, as is clearly desired.
Jan 8 2023, 7:48 pm
I was thinking that "Compile to EXE" for single-player games could be as simple as bundling a DMB and RSC file into a statically linked version of Dream Seeker, and customizing the location where savefiles go (AppData\Roaming\YourGame instead of anything with BYOND in the label).

Standalone isn't the same as Steam and does not imply integration with Steam.
Jan 8 2023, 8:28 pm
In response to Multiverse7
Multiverse7 wrote:
The issue is that the current, private standalone that's mainly used to help publish games on Steam, comes with Steam integration, so it must comply with Steam's terms of service. If someone were to try using this special standalone with a random fangame, it could get BYOND in trouble.

This is simply untrue. The standalone isn't specifically geared towards steam, it's just the only way to get your game off the BYOND hub and out to a wider audience.

Also, If you violate steams TOS with Unity, Valve isn't going after Unity.

You also don't need to make use of any of the steamworks sdk in order to publish a game on Steam, so trying to scrape more income off of it wouldn't go over well.
Jan 8 2023, 8:38 pm (Edited on Jan 9 2023, 2:22 pm)
In response to F0lak
While I think you are mostly correct, the way Lummox JR refers to it as a "gentlemen's agreement on royalties" makes me too uncomfortable to say for certain. [Disregard that.]

Actually, I stand corrected, even on this. I was most likely misremembering the issue that NSBR more accurately pointed out. I'm sorry about that. Anyway, let's try to stay on topic.

I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.
Jan 8 2023, 9:40 pm
In response to Immibis
Yes, and that would constitute a separate, public tier, as opposed to the private one that comes with Steam integration. Throwing in a free one with ads should also make sense, as that's how the hub is currently supposed to work. Executing a game directly like that currently bypasses the mechanism that tries to display ads, and if the ads are broken anyway, it should make sense to fix them and move them into Dream Seeker itself. This would also prevent abuse by those who deliberately use custom standalones in order to bypass the ads.
Jan 10 2023, 9:56 am
bump. theres no single feature you can do that will bring more players and devs than this. this should not be on the back burner. ads don't even work currently so I don't know why that's being used as an excuse
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