I don't know. We have a client that basically works (it's been that way for a couple of years). There's an issue with sound because you can't legally stream MP3 and that's what Flash uses, so we have to get in an ogg-replacement that we have played with, but haven't quite figured out.
The main holdup isn't actually a technical one, but rather the issues that come up if suddenly we have this web-BYOND, because then we'd want to integrate with social networks etc. I just didn't want to deal with that since it complicates things. But I guess there's nothing requiring us to do that and we could just release the flash client as an independent thing people could distribute themselves.
At the very least, if we open-source, we'd hand over whatever flash stuff we had too. It's not actually a lot of code; it's mainly a protocol change to make independent client generation easier (so in theory you could make an ipad client etc).
Fundamentally our issue is that we have a lot of things going on but none of them make any money, and as I've completely ran out of money, I can't justify working on them any longer.
Honestly, we probably need to face the facts that it's too late to really save BYOND as a whole. It needed a swath of amazing and profitable games like, five years ago and they never came.
When it comes down to it, the majority of BYOND's player base doesn't care about supporting it (as evidence by the general reaction to the new pager having as) at all and spends all of their time stealing each other's poorly made games, carrying out denial of service attacks on each other, and whining on the forums every time they get banned from their favourite rip. The minority of those who do know how to program have either already left or seem to spend all of their time on the forum trying to prove they're better than each other and stirring up drama to keep each other away from success, or complaining about the majority of the community. And then of course we have the vocal minority who absolutely seem to hate the service and find it inferior to others, yet refuse to leave and linger around to complain about how it isn't better than X engine or Y language. The community is so broken and divided over everything and virtually everyone refuses to work together. And fixing it is impossible. Gakumerasara wrote: A.T.H.K wrote: I very seriously doubt they'd get past the step of having to compile it. Building a working executable from legacy C/C++ code is much, much more difficult than just clicking the compile button in Dream Maker. ;) | |
You keep mentioning money, I understand why .. but why aren't you trying to get some, ad's aren't bringing in the bacon.
Why aren't you trying other steps.. why aren't you on kickstarter? are you ashamed of BYOND? ... you can try plenty of other things to raise money .. just ask people Tom. Ask for donations have a link on the site, have a link on the pager .. | |
LordAndrew wrote:
I very seriously doubt they'd get past the step of having to compile it. Building a working executable from legacy C/C++ code is much, much more difficult than just clicking the compile button in Dream Maker. ;) Well, we have some intelligent users here who have built decompilers, reverse-engineered the protocls, etc. So I don't doubt that, if they were ambitious enough, they could do something with the source. The problem is that a proper open-source project needs some central body to maintain changes, as well as the fact that BYOND itself relies on a centralized server so we'd either have to remove that aspect or figure out a way to hand it off. It's just not as easy as it sounds at a glance. Also, we do rely on obfuscation in certain places and, while that isn't good practice, it works for the most part and obviously opening up the source kills that entirely. | |
A.T.H.K wrote:
You keep mentioning money, I understand why .. but why aren't you trying to get some, ad's aren't bringing in the bacon. Honestly ATHK, I'm just tired of it. I don't think BYOND has what it takes to be a successful business. It is a niche product that is probably best suited as an educational tool or to make smaller games. Perhaps we could have sold it that way from the outset and made a business but it is too late in the game to change that. I greatly admire those of you who have made somewhat successful games in BYOND and even earned some money that way-- it can and has been done. But for us to thrive as a business under a revenue sharing, we'd need many such games and there just isn't enough interest. Indeed, some of these games made their operators more this year than we earned from BYOND itself. The ad system and Membership "nagware" may make enough to keep us afloat, but I can tell already from looking at the preliminary numbers that they will not push us forward. And that's fine. I am not heartbroken over this. We've had a good run. | |
You have had a good run, it's sad being a member since 2001 to see it go or fall apart.
In the end it's a decision that has to be made, you aren't making those millions you wanted ;) perhaps a new project could bring that sort of money. Oh well. | |
It's been a while since I looked at it, but last I recall the Flash client was basically functional (there is video showing NEStalgia using it). It is, of course, client-only (the server has to be hosted via DD). Like I said, although the sound works fine, I believe it is not legal to use it to stream MP3 so we'd want a solution where we either convert to OGG or pre-embed the game's resources (embedded MP3 is fine for some reason, even though it's the same thing). The UI is fixed with just a map and an output and a lot of the language isn't supported.
I think the easiest way to distribute games is through the standalone installer since it supports the full BYOND functionality including updates, and is a very small base distributable to which you can embed your resource files. The downsides are that the user has to trust your exe and it only works on windows. | |
Yut Put wrote:
It wouldn't bother me if this thing went down as a whole, because it seems inevitable, however I'd still like an easy way to distribute E:L once it is finished. They way you described the flash client sounds really nice. Tom has said that there will be a graceful close, if the project is closed at all. This means people with money / servers would be able to host their own key server / master server (aka your own hub) and keep your own project running. Bare minimum, we have that to look forward to if this thing falls apart. I honestly do not want it to become open sourced because then you will have SERIOUS cheaters and hackers and DM won't offer much of a way to deal with it. Anyone who would want to combat that would have to compile their own build... | |
Tom wrote:
You've actually been using BYOND since 2006 and haven't contributed a cent, so I don't really care about your input. And it's that attitude that ensures you'll be eating nothing but ramen for the foreseeable future! | |
Biggs Mclargehuge wrote:
Tom wrote: Its not the best attitude, but you can't blame him for being bitter. Having something lose money for 10 years isn't fun. | |
I'm not actually bitter, FIREking. I just don't give much weight to the opinion of users who complain but don't contribute. I know that goes against the prevailing Internet attitude that the consumer runs the show, but I don't really care. I've paid for every shareware product I've ever used for more than a month.
| |
Tom wrote:
I'm not actually bitter, FIREking. I just don't give much weight to the opinion of users who complain but don't contribute. I know that goes against the prevailing Internet attitude that the consumer runs the show, but I don't really care. I've paid for every shareware product I've ever used for more than a month. Better than I, I would be bitter. I have given more than my fair share, I have multiple keys all with memberships. I know others aren't as fortunate, but I know people who have extreme struggles and still "give back". Its the "give back" attitude that everyone needs to have in order for this to work. Unfortunately, the crowd is mainly made up of 14 year olds who believe everything should be handed to them, and haven't learned the concept of giving back when it is clearly deserved. | |
I've contributed to Space Station 13 for that period of time, and it's the most popular, most played and get this Tom: Most publicized game on the BYOND network. We bring in more users to BYOND than any other game on here combined.
I'm sorry it's not working out for you, but your business strategy has been non-existent for the last decade - you barely acknowledge our game exists, and now I've discovered you can't provide valid criticism unless I hand over money. Well how about my 2 cents. | |
Biggs Mclargehuge wrote:
We bring in more users to BYOND than any other game on here combined. New SS13 users *stay* on SS13 and don't touch the rest of BYOND. So no, you don't bring new users to BYOND. | |
Biggs Mclargehuge wrote:
I've contributed to Space Station 13 for that period of time, and it's the most popular, most played and get this Tom: Most publicized game on the BYOND network. We bring in more users to BYOND than any other game on here combined. What are you asking for? BYOND doesn't have a marketing team. You'd be better off paying for your own facebook ads. Everyone in the BYOND community already knows about Space Station. That's the peak of what BYOND can provide, and has already provided to the marketing side of Space Station Thriving. It's a cult hit already. | |
Super Saiyan X wrote:
Biggs Mclargehuge wrote: Beat me too it. | |
Biggs:
SS13 has been very successful and I hope to see it do well in the future, whether that be on BYOND or in their new ambitious development. However, to be clear, it hasn't helped us because SS13 users rarely visit BYOND to play other games, contribute to ad revenue, or help other users. People assume that "more traffic == good" but that is only the case when that traffic nets you something. Now perhaps we'll make something through the interstitial ads from SS13 users although I tend to think, from my encounters with many of them, that they'll just complain and stick to the old pager, which is fine. You are correct about the business strategy. While it isn't non-existent, it isn't working, and I consider it a very hard problem (much harder than any of the technical developments). This is because we didn't attempt to make money until well into the project and fundamentally that is just the wrong way to go about things. I actually wanted to make a post on this to hopefully help others who may venture down this entrepreneurial path. My issue with your comments is that everyone wants us to just go full bore 100% into improving the technical end as we did for so many years. But that takes time and money which we don't have, and doesn't bring anything back for us except maybe more players who don't pay us anything. We are in a tough position because our website is big enough to cause maintenance problems but not big enough to actually bring in any revenue just from volume. | |
Geeze. I stop looking at the forum for like a week, and now I'm completely lost. I skimmed over the last page or two, but there's too much for me to wrap my head around.
Is the new ad system already looking like it's going to fail? Also, what I've read is giving me the impression that the best we can hope for is BYOND stays afloat but stops progressing and being developed? I am beyond confused, which is funny if you consider that wording, but at any rate am I right to assume those things, and that no matter what a user like myself does there is no saving everything? I didn't think it would be easy, but I thought with the new ad system, a few motivated users, and an increase in top listing worthy games that At Least make BYOND a small profit and boost in activity we could still save everything. Recent readings are giving me the impression it's too late, and there's little to no hope, though. I'm not complaining or anything. Just kind of lost, and asking for a quick sum up of things so I understand, and can possibly think up something or respond further. | |
Maybe if BYOND wasn't such a steaming pile people who encounter it would be more inclined to spend money instead of growing to hate it.
Some actual debugging support, a timer with a resolution finer than ticks, meaningful error messages (BUG: Finished erasure with refcount, anyone?) BYOND has been the most frustrating platform I've ever worked with in my life. It's good at making things very easy for people who don't know very much about computers but when it comes to trying to get some work done it does nothing but throw roadblocks in your path. Just saying. " I am not disappointed by BYOND the software " makes me wonder if you've ever tried to work with BYOND the software. It's pretty okay for a free toy but if you really think to build a business around this you're going to be disappointed. | |
As if that ever stopped the rippers...