Yut Put wrote:

Zane was the first person to really popularize the idea of having a 64x64 player base icon when Dream Maker first became capable of handling larger icon sizes. Therefore, in the eyes of many BYOND dwellers, Zane's art became the standard for how a "good" BYOND game should look. A short time afterwards, Sphinxe1 was doing pixel art for the (arguable decent) character base that would become the player sprite in Naruto Evolution. The anime game playing community on BYOND found the art style to be more appealing than BYOND's traditional 32px icons and was automatically drawn to it(and, evidently, still is).

The reality of all this is that it truly doesn't matter what your player base looks like. It's an entirely subjective topic that should have never been "standardized". A game's art direction can be whatever the developer chooses it to be, and I try to indirectly advocate this as often as I can(zen's gray hopping block men, ASWB's sword&sworcery inspired pixel-character, Epic's out-of-perspective circle people).

There are two kinds of posts about player bases: The ones which are merely for the development of an artist(like this one, and I have no issues with posts like this), and the ones that are trying to display the nonexistent accomplishments of confused "game developers".

Zane is indeed an amazing artist and I've worked with him before he got "popular" but I was a douche ass teen back then. Anyway, I didn't read all you said because most of it is stuff I know but, Naruto Evolution was on the same boat spirit age is in, in my opinion through observation and instincts. People were hype about Naruto Evolution in the GOA community, it's like when Guild Wars 2 was coming out and everyone says it's a World of Warcraft killer like "Rift" and "SWOTR", however it didnt get far and they were forced to make it a free to play game. Spirit age is in the same boat, don't believe me? Only time will tell, people have amazing talents but go in the wrong direction. We'll see, but it's just a repeat of whats been happened.

Like Naruto Evolution.

1.Work hard on a game that looks sick.
2.Releases, turns out it's not that fun and got old.
3.Developers felt like they wasted ALOT of time making all those icon states for the fancy base and overlays for them.
4.Game dies, forgotten slowly.
5.Next big thing comes out everyone's hype about it.

Only time will tell like its done before, small base or nothing.

Murrowko, I think you might be confusing the graphical appeal of a game with the actual elements of design that make a game fun.

I think you might be hinting that making larger base icons takes more time than making smaller ones and therefore cuts into the development of real solid gameplay mechanics --a fact I would dispute any day.

The trouble with smaller graphics, is that you have less surface area to describe your subject. Larger isn't always better, as larger icons can pack more detail, and it's more room for failure. However, the pixel to detail ratio is higher on smaller icons, so small mistakes add up quite a bit.

In the end, I think you are arguing a trivial and needless point, which is completely subjective.

The subject of game design is very complex, and really shouldn't be boiled down to how many bytes of data the character's representation consists of.

Murowko wrote:

Exactly, nice observation. More to it, the strategy for BYOND players is, making BYOMD<-- Games. BYOND gamer's are on BYOND for a reason. BYOND holds a different type of gaming, small, and fun, when you try to be too different and be like games outside of BYOND, you wont get BYOND gamer's, simple. Decadence, I would we play that when we got a ps3 or an Xbox 360, or fps PC games. Entertains us for a bit, but sooner or later, yawn, next.

And BYOND isn't able to pay the bills.

More players are turned away from BYOND because the games aren't "fun" than are attracted to it.

I think BYOND developers are going the wrong route when it comes to securing the longterm viability of their platform, with a notable few exceptions.

There's nothing wrong with the way that the mainstream gaming industry is making games. There's nothing not fun about them. Indeed, if they weren't "fun", I don't think that they would sell as well as they do.

The problem with the mainstream gaming industry, is that it is graphically focused, moreso than gameplay focused. The products produced are meant for a production cycle, whereas the indy approach is to pack as much fun into a small package as possible.

BYOND developers often massively overreach when they plan to create a game, because too many of us are focused on niche gameplay elements with open worlds and all kinds of silliness that just isn't really that easy to pull off.

BYOND developers to some degree, needs to focus much more on drawing in a wider audience, because spending six months or more on a project that only hits the hands of thirty people (most of whom are so self-entitled that they do their best trying to chase everyone else away from "their" game) is not acceptable.

Largely, BYOND is suffering heavily from a "small community" complex, in which anyone who isn't part of it is thought badly of, and anyone who is trying to become a part of it is ostracized. This leaves us with an audience of people who believe that BYOND is "their" community, and thus want it to yield to their wishes, rather than leveraging the system provided to achieve their goals with it.

In all honesty, I'd have pulled the plug on this baby a long time ago were I Tom, and quietly swept it all under the rug. Patience of a saint, that man.

What killed BYOND was taking players freedom, simple as that.

No. Not even remotely.

The changes that were made to the Anime games kept BYOND alive only because had we not complied, Tom would have been sued.

BYOND didn't take any freedom away from you. Tom just complied with existing laws so that he wouldn't be seen to be profiting from copyright infringement.

If you are really arguing that BYOND's best off being a haven for copyright infringement and code theft... Well, you are beyond reasonable help with that opinion.

I should make a video on this topic.

You really shouldn't. I can't actually believe that you are arguing that those Dragonball rips were the best of what BYOND had to offer.

The only reason that those games were so widely played, as because they have the benefit of having an existing fanbase because of their copyrighted content. People don't have to know what they are to know that they already like what the game is based on.

That's where those games got their playerbase.

Frankly, they didn't get play because they were good. Not at all. They got play because people like the anime games.


I don't think Masterdan is the best guy to be protecting in this case. He basically got into a massive e-peen contest with a bunch of people, and started a lot of back-community drama over some really petty stuff back in the day.

While it is true, that the ripping community has kept BYOND afloat, they are also the reason that BYOND can't grow. We have to phase them out slowly in order to get a decent playerbase, because they got here during a time where the developer and player community was supposed to be unified --which turned out to be a MASSIVE mistake.

The biggest problem that we have now, is how to wean ourselves off of the anime community portal method we have now, without totally alienating our entire paying playerbase, and attract a new community that won't further endanger the viability of the platform itself with C&Ds and lawsuits.

Case and point, I'm done.

P.S

And before anybody tries a trap card, look at the whole conversation, because I don't see how someone liking something that you don't is wrong, maybe in your eyes, but in someone who treats everyone equally, no..

Smh, still here.
Ter13 wrote:

In all honesty, I'd have pulled the plug on this baby a long time ago were I Tom, and quietly swept it all under the rug. Patience of a saint, that man.

So of-course I wont expect anything positive from you, not even thinking.

LMAO he snapped, for no reason, and fell completely off topic.

I made a video on it.

Anybody who thinks there opinion that matters more than anyone else's will do whatever they can to win a argument no matter how much sense the right person makes. I guess disliking a group of people for liking rips is the right way. *shrug* Game supremacist.

Murowko wrote:

LMAO he snapped, for no reason, and fell completely off topic.

I made a video on it.

Anybody who thinks there opinion that matters more than anyone else's will do whatever they can to win a argument no matter how much sense the right person makes. I guess disliking a group of people for liking rips is the right way. *shrug* Game supremacist.

i don't dislike people who like rips i dislike people who create, allow them to exist and all of the above... personally i don't believe a rip should be hosted if the original game is still being hosted. I also don't think people who make a profit off of these rips should be allowed to be on byond, make games or even host games as it ruins byond.

Reason why i say this is... http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w249/Southend53/ Untitled_zpsb829da32.png <--- stuff like this should not be accepted at all...

Murowko wrote:

Southend_boi wrote:

Murowko wrote:

LMAO he snapped, for no reason, and fell completely off topic.

I made a video on it.

Anybody who thinks there opinion that matters more than anyone else's will do whatever they can to win a argument no matter how much sense the right person makes. I guess disliking a group of people for liking rips is the right way. *shrug* Game supremacist.

i don't dislike people who like rips i dislike people who create, allow them to exist and all of the above... personally i don't believe a rip should be hosted if the original game is still being hosted. I also don't think people who make a profit off of these rips should be allowed to be on byond, make games or even host games as it ruins byond.

Reason why i say this is... http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w249/Southend53/ Untitled_zpsb829da32.png <--- stuff like this should not be accepted at all...

Yeah I know about Naruto Exodus, a prime example, the same guy that hacked Masterdan owns it, and gave himself permission to be the only GOA rip to exist on the hub, but people don't know what goes on behind closed doors. People are clueless and say whatever, this community has a-lot of secrets. But it doesn't ruin BYOND to profit from them but it's wrong, very wrong and I don't like it neither.

how doesn't stuff like this ruin byond ? any developer that makes a byond game will have to be worried about this happening to them... the fact that byond admins or Tom would allow this ruins byond.

I love that you are still trying to convince yourself that I said that people who like rips shouldn't. I was speaking about accessibility to content and product viability.