Advertising BYOND - The problem of stagnant growth

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Sep 28 2008, 8:51 am
In response to Tom
Tom wrote:
Yes, it is quite evident that having quality mainstream games will attract more users. However, this is also somewhat circular, because we need the users to build these games.

Although true, I think we both already have some quality games, as well as a community that has the potential to make more. It's just finding those games is the problem. What we have now is pretty much "here's a list of games people made. Good luck finding a good one!"

Perhaps adding in like a rating system (like youtube has with the 5 stars). This could help people narrow down the search for things they might want to play. Before anyone complains about how such a system could be abused, I don't believe it would really be all that bad outside of maybe some of the anime games having rating wars with each other. Maybe even the return in some form the published games list, where you list the really very best stuff according the community (and we can of course can exclude BYOND anime from this for the most part, more on this later), as well as safeguard those games.

Something I noticed when you guys made the jump to BYOND members a lot of finished quality games died because you guys got rid of file hosting for non-members. Take WildBlood's games for example, you can't play them anymore unless you go hunting for the hosting files that a fan may be generously hosting (and to this day I've only managed to find 3 of his games left for download, all of which weren't hosted on anything that had to do with his game). Although Wild pretty much left BYOND his games were finished, but can no longer be played. Who knows how many other games were lost.

Although we have a decently-sized community right now, it is almost exclusively centered around a niche (Anime) genre that doesn't appeal to the mainstream. As such, we don't have a large volume of mainstream games being output, and I suspect we lose a lot of users-- potential contributors and developers-- who view us as an Anime site or what-not. The guilds system was an attempt to mitigate this effect by segregating the different genres, but it hasn't really worked out that well because the non-Anime sites haven't grown.

This is definitely a problem with people viewing this site as an anime-focused site. I do think the failure of the guilds though isn't attributed to them not working, but rather the mindsets to the two seperate communities it formed. The only section of the community that's actually seems motivated to make games, and improve themselves is the anime community, and then on the other hand you have everyone else who all they seem to do is whine and moan about how the anime community is ruining BYOND while sitting on their rear ends doing nothing (this does not apply to everyone).

I mean about 90%+ of the active posters in the pixel art guild are people from the anime guild trying to improve their artwork. One of the problems with the anime community (and BYOND) is we're not really doing anything against the rips. As I posted in the anime guild we should really just flat out remove all the rips from the guild aside from the popular ones (as to not to neuter BYOND's member-making machine), and then remove those as they wane in popularity. Deny any new rips that might be contributed to the guild. Now before anyone says this is impossible, it might be impossible for the staff to do it but keep in mind the Anime Guild has quite a few motivated people (that are familiar with the rips!) wanting to clean it out. I mean if you've been even visiting that section of the site for the past year or two it's pretty evident that the anime members hold the same sediments for rips as the rest of BYOND.

I'd also like to add that there's quite a lot of decent people in the anime section that could contribute to BYOND. We should work on getting them out of just anime, and into other things as well. How we do this I don't know.

If the solution is simply "build a hit game and advertise it", then we are far worse off than I hoped, because such a thing is not so easy (nor something I can contribute to with a very limited budget-- it'd have to be up the users). I also don't believe our community is really in a position to accomplish this anytime soon. Before we abandon our existing assets, I'd at least like to explore what BYOND currently has to offer the mainstream audience and see if we can't leverage that. Perhaps by building off some existing games we can bring in some users in the short-term, which will drive production in the long-term (shortcutting the catch-22).

Perhaps. Maybe we revive some of the older no-longer supported games with 4.0 features? A little extreme, but it might do the job as well as some of my ideas I talked about earlier.
Like I said earlier, I do think we currently have a number of decent games that could appeal more widely if we had a community for them (again, back to the circular argument). Many of these were developed a number of years ago and could just use some of the new 4.0 glitz and some advertisement. For example, I used to have a blast playing 'Tanks' -- a clever action/strategy game in the spirit of Bolo (which was immensely popular at one time). I could see something like that having mass-appeal, especially if it were constructed in a manner that allowed it to accept runtime content, that sort of thing. There are a lot of games of this sort that could theoretically take off in the right environment. The RPG games probably have more lasting power.

I'd like people to offer some concrete ideas on things that we can actually do now to improve the situation. Blanket statements like "BYOND needs better games" really don't accomplish anything.
Sep 28 2008, 8:59 am
In response to Maggeh
Perhaps adding in like a rating system (like youtube has with the 5 stars). This could help people narrow down the search for things they might want to play. Before anyone complains about how such a system could be abused, I don't believe it would really be all that bad outside of maybe some of the anime games having rating wars with each other. Maybe even the return in some form the published games list, where you list the really very best stuff according the community (and we can of course can exclude BYOND anime from this for the most part, more on this later), as well as safeguard those games.

Sounds like a good idea; it's like a refined version of the old rating system. That way votes would be anonymous, and no one could have "ranking benefits" anymore. We still would have ranking problems, but meh; who really cares about the Anime section anymore? Way too many of the same game. BYOND can also have featured games (like youtube :P) where new, fun, games are showcased on the front page for a certain amount of time.
Sep 28 2008, 10:04 am
In response to Jeff8500
Only problem with a ranking system where anyone can rate a game is that is can be abused easily. This is even more so the case when ranking is anonymous.

People will invariably try to use underhanded methods to get their game a higher rank than it should have and probably try to get other games lower ranks than they should have.

Also, the bad games on BYOND tend to have more players than the good games. It is only natural that these games with a lot of players will end up with higher ranks than games with fewer players.

You'd have to put in safe guards against this sort of, put provided that is done I don't really see why such a system wouldn't work!

But yeah. Anything that can make stuff on the BYOND website easier to find is worth a shot!
Sep 28 2008, 10:09 am
In response to The Magic Man
You're forgetting that most of that underhanded community is located inside of BYOND anime.

Also, another suggestion: The option to sort your search by guilds rather than by one guild. For example, I want to play a strategy game or an RPG, so I just set it to search the RPG and strategy guilds. Or I want something from any guild but anime, so I just check everything besides anime. You get the picture.
Sep 28 2008, 10:37 am
In response to Maggeh
Perhaps adding in like a rating system (like youtube has with the 5 stars). This could help people narrow down the search for things they might want to play. Before anyone complains about how such a system could be abused, I don't believe it would really be all that bad outside of maybe some of the anime games having rating wars with each other. Maybe even the return in some form the published games list, where you list the really very best stuff according the community (and we can of course can exclude BYOND anime from this for the most part, more on this later), as well as safeguard those games.
I'm generally against number ratings. People have popularity votes through their favorites for that purpose.

However, more importantly, we have the published games list. They are now called "featured games". The problem is that we lost the CSS options. The only way someone can know what games are featured is to look on the front page of a guild (or memorize what banners are common). However, there is little reason to look on the front page of a guild. People head to the games lists, forums, or specific blog posts. We need the CSS back so people can immediately tell the difference between what is promoted and what is simply collected. (Of course, I'd prefer a more general tag system.)
Sep 29 2008, 12:32 pm (Edited on Sep 29 2008, 12:44 pm)
In response to Maggeh
Everytime we brought up some sort of plan to remove the rips from the guild, SSGX would tell us that "Theres just too many and not enough people to help out..."

I think that there really should be some sort of removal of rip(s), and I specifically know that there are anime members (And most likely masterdan) who would be willing to devote time in evaluating these generic and bland games.

I am sure you could create a system to make it so that they dont show on the anime guild; thier hubs can be private if they want to play them.

Also, I agree. good portion of Anime guild members and Non alike, dislike this influx of generic/poor quality rips.

I believe in the whole "Build your own dream net", but where is the "building" part, or the "your" part.

Without those it's just OND.
Sep 29 2008, 10:18 pm
In response to The Magic Man
The Magic Man wrote:
...Game Maker has a lot of really innovative games too (something BYOND lacks)...

Let's clarify: Game Maker does *not* have innovative games- its community creates the games. BYOND can (and has, albeit briefly) be used to create innovative games just as well. The community just hasn't done so yet. This is not the fault of the system, but of the lack of quality developers.

And yes, I do get around. For all it's benefits, GM lacks in some places, and BYOND lacks in others.

As Alathon points out, this thread is about developing ways to promote BYOND.

...Game Maker even has MORPGs that are better than anything BYOND could produce...

Again this is only because there are not enough quality developers with the time and patience to do so. There appears to be no-one here who is capable of doing it who has the time or (for those who actually have time) wants to get their head out of their butts to work towards that goal. Very few here (nearly none) can get past their egos to work on a team project (I know, I've tried several times to form a serious development team but get drama and whining instead). Unfortunately that's because the majority of developers here aren't old enough to drive (or shave for that matter). We need to attract people who are serious about making games with BYOND.

BYOND has certain benefits and advantages over GM as a game development language (the least of which is that everything is free in BYOND - you have to pay for advanced things in GM) - and we should promote them, even in an educational setting.

BYOND is certainly capable of doing a MORPG at the same level as GM (without the 3D) - especially with Alathon's recent multi-server project. Just need people to do it!
Sep 30 2008, 1:02 am
In response to digitalmouse
The Weak Spots:

digitalmouse wrote:
We need to attract people who are serious about making games with BYOND.

It takes two type of workers to make a game. If one is serious and the other is not, how far will you go? Truth is, you cant compare the amount of serious programmers to serious pixel artists on this site, wouldn't you agree? It's pretty obvious, the programmers on this site own the pixel artists in both experience and intellect. Group two is not supported well enough so not many people care for it. Most programmers have claimed there's a "depletion of pixel artists on Byond". So they make their own pixel work which most of the time results in a graphical disaster thats impossible to advertise. No support means no public interest; thats the reason why you'll barely see a pixel artist with a key more then 5 years old. Then you have the players(such as myself) who've spent half a decade on byond without even knowing they have any talent because they were really never motivated to even attempt pixel art. All it takes is a simple pixel community where discipline and professionalism is emphasized along with visual inspiration.

This is really nothing compared to my last post on the issue, which I felt expressed my emotions a bit more accurately.

Trust part 1: Neglection.

@Rugg
Everytime we brought up some sort of plan to remove the rips from the guild, SSGX would tell us that "Theres just too many and not enough people to help out..."

I think that there really should be some sort of removal of rip(s), and I specifically know that there are anime members (And most likely masterdan) who would be willing to devote time in evaluating these generic and bland games.

The things that alot of people dont realize is that there's alot of flexibility on the internet and to get things done you need to think beyond the norm. The staff obviously don't have the time to be doing things like this but we know they're trying to improve the site. Clearly they cant do everything alone, they have the community, they just need to let them get involved and let the players help this place like they've been wanting too since the leak of zeta.

We can't go very far without trust and it's been shown in the past. For example, SSGX didn't trust anybody and that was his downfall, we learned from that. Then there was the time everyone within the anime community gasped from the forums, games, and IMing clients when Tom asked the most hated person on the anime forum to lead that guild (Which was basically like Bush going to Iraq and choosing the leader himself >.>). Funny thing was, it turned out to have a positive effect on the place and that hated person sort of mellow downed himself. We learned sometimes you got to take a big risk if you want change and we should take a few more if we want to get anywhere soon.

Trust part 2: The Plan.

Take a good look at your closest advisors, grab the most intelligent anime <players who intervene in anime politics and give them the task of removing the rips.

I mean I got a hefty Msn contact list, connections here and there and I'm willing to bet anyone in Gods world a team like: "LegendaryGoku10, Maggeh, Masterdan, Hyren, DMV, Rugg, Latoma and TNN" could wipe the horde of rips on this site within three weeks. I'd sell my Macintosh.

Sep 30 2008, 1:35 am
In response to digitalmouse
Again this is only because there are not enough quality developers with the time and patience to do so. There appears to be no-one here who is capable of doing it who has the time or (for those who actually have time) wants to get their head out of their butts to work towards that goal. Very few here (nearly none) can get past their egos to work on a team project (I know, I've tried several times to form a serious development team but get drama and whining instead). Unfortunately that's because the majority of developers here aren't old enough to drive (or shave for that matter). We need to attract people who are serious about making games with BYOND.

[Snip]

BYOND is certainly capable of doing a MORPG at the same level as GM (without the 3D) - especially with Alathon's recent multi-server project. Just need people to do it!


I also believe that an MORPG can be done in BYOND. (I've sometimes caught myself designing one.)

However, I think the reason there are not many people trying it is because the commitment level is quite high. That goes along with what you said about time, but my point is that developers can't just build the game. They have to maintain it and add new content. MORPGs are a service.

That might be fine if the staff knows how to market the game and distribute income. It might be fine if the game is somehow the staff's all-consuming lust. However, if neither applies, then it's just a barrier to other projects.

One seems better off just writing random libraries for games in the genre when the mood hits them. It's not likely to directly bring people to BYOND, but it will foster the games that do.
Sep 30 2008, 2:31 am
In response to Tom
Tom wrote:
I guess the central question is, do we not have the kinds of games that can attract new users, or is BYOND not even capable of producing such games?

I periodically wonder this myself. Personally I find on those occasions when I attempt to develop something, that BYOND seems to have 75%-90% of the features I need to pull it off smoothly, but there always seems to be SOMETHING lacking. Its obnoxious because I can't point a finger at any single feature and say "You need that!".

But for example, using 4.0 to design a game's interface, you can basically make the interface, images and all, resize to whatever aspect ratio you want while running the game. Except the only thing which doesn't stretch is the map, which 99% of all games use.

I guess BYOND just suffers from inconsistency issues, where things don't seem to be streamlined, so while a game may require that a certain feature be present 100% of the time, in reality only 90% of BYOND's functionality allows for that feature.

Another example would be alpha transparency, which allows you to create really fancy images on the map, but its only supported in one section of the interface.

Too many features are only partially supported by various elements on BYOND. I think that alone can hinder the development of good games, but fixing it would be asking a lot.


To put it another way, since GameMaker is far superior to BYOND in most aspects, what's keeping developers like yourself around? Do you see some value in BYOND over these other systems and communities, and, if so, how do we advertise that?

Aversion to change, large amounts of web space, and a hopeless attraction to grid-based systems. Oh yeah, and telnet support (or at least partial support).

Maybe BYOND's problem is that its trying too hard to imitate systems that are already superior instead of building its own niche?

Or maybe its just my lack of sleep talking.
Oct 1 2008, 3:31 pm
The biggest problem with BYOND, in my opinion, is that it's a comprehensive site. A one-stop shop, in other words. Wikipedia frowns upon this because it doesn't have "independent" material, not realising that a very large proportion of BYOND's site is third-party information from its users.

All told, I don't think BYOND really is notable by Wikipedia's standards. However, I think this is a failing of Wikipedia's standards, as BYOND is very notable from a public-interest perspective and easily competitive with most other game development software in terms of quality.
Oct 1 2008, 5:44 pm
In response to Maggeh
Maggeh wrote:
The only section of the community that's actually seems motivated to make games, and improve themselves is the anime community....

I mean about 90%+ of the active posters in the pixel art guild are people from the anime guild trying to improve their artwork....

I'd also like to add that there's quite a lot of decent people in the anime section that could contribute to BYOND. We should work on getting them out of just anime, and into other things as well. How we do this I don't know.

Now there's an idea. BYOND's biggest influx of new members comes from anime fan games. If we want to increase the number of new developers and new games, we need to encourage our new anime players and developers to expand outside of that genre into the general development section.

Perhaps engaging the developers there directly with challenges and contests to encourage new original content could led to better migration from anime to the mainstream developer communities. That would influence many to come to this section looking for ideas and solutions they can't find in Anime.

Perhaps. Maybe we revive some of the older no-longer supported games with 4.0 features? A little extreme, but it might do the job as well as some of my ideas I talked about earlier.

I think that's a good idea. If we can round up developers like Shadowdarke and SSGX to update their popular games like Tanks and Murder Mansion to 4.0, I think that would be easier to accomplish than trying to create fresh polished games from scratch.

One problem is this lone wolf mindset most developers seem to have. It seems the best programmers here would rather die than work with anyone else, even though their own ability to complete a task solo often fails miserably. There's a great deal of wasted effort and false starts because we're all competing to out-code or out-tweak the next developer, instead of working together to make good games, we settle for making our games, often failing to realize just how much work that requires. The BYOND acronym's ugly side.

We need web-based games that don't require BYOND to be installed to play. There's a general casual player who only goes for something they can play in their spare time, often in the browser they already have open. Tons of flash games are currently taking up mjority of these player's game time. BYOND can make really interesting web games too, if we put some effort in that direction. This may help BYOND gain notoriety as well, since many of these casual gamers come from non-gaming backgrounds and environments. They may not be the development resource we're looking for, but they are a great way to spread the word. We're more likely to gain positive public notoriety from outside gaming circles right now. >.>
Oct 1 2008, 11:51 pm
In response to Xooxer
Xooxer wrote:
Perhaps engaging the developers there directly with challenges and contests to encourage new original content could led to better migration from anime to the mainstream developer communities. That would influence many to come to this section looking for ideas and solutions they can't find in Anime.

Agree with the challeneges and contests, but maybe branch out to other sites also? Gamefaqs and maybe a few indie MMO games that accept advertising? Or is this not feasible?

Perhaps. Maybe we revive some of the older no-longer supported games with 4.0 features? A little extreme, but it might do the job as well as some of my ideas I talked about earlier.
I think that's a good idea. If we can round up developers like Shadowdarke and SSGX to update their popular games like Tanks and Murder Mansion to 4.0, I think that would be easier to accomplish than trying to create fresh polished games from scratch.

If they wont/cant or dont 'revise' there game to 4.0, and this games were such a blast,right Tom? woudnt it be much easier for someone to just remake them? Hopefully not as a SOLO project, but a 'BYOND Team' project. Knowing that we do have indeed quite a few skilled pixel artists in our community could spice up those old souls.

One problem is this lone wolf mindset most developers seem to have. It seems the best programmers here would rather die than work with anyone else, even though their own ability to complete a task solo often fails miserably. There's a great deal of wasted effort and false starts because we're all competing to out-code or out-tweak the next developer, instead of working together to make good games, we settle for making our games, often failing to realize just how much work that requires. The BYOND acronym's ugly side.

I see this as our problem, kinda like global warming o.o even tho there is a lonewolf mindset for some, I bet theres a few ppl who would like to help BYOND grow, Ex..you? Find other like yourself, make a team, build,share. Maybe Tom would give memberships or other things for the help?

We need web-based games that don't require BYOND to be installed to play. There's a general casual player who only goes for something they can play in their spare time, often in the browser they already have open. Tons of flash games are currently taking up mjority of these player's game time. BYOND can make really interesting web games too, if we put some effort in that direction. This may help BYOND gain notoriety as well, since many of these casual gamers come from non-gaming backgrounds and environments. They may not be the development resource we're looking for, but they are a great way to spread the word. We're more likely to gain positive public notoriety from outside gaming circles right now. >.>

What BYOND needs is to make things easier for the newbies to learn how to use BYOND in fun ways.

And since most of are users are in fact Anime fans, me being one. It would be nice to have a couple extra tutorials with references on how does 'this code does this like in this anime/show/real life', making it more imaginative of the sorts.

And for gods sakes the biggest problem I find is our Developer page...WTF is up with this Tom!? How can I send someone there and not get totally lost? Literaly, I sent my cousin and his like.."is this a maze game"?

Could this page http://www.byond.com/developer/ be in a totally different format than the site?

What format to use j00 a$k? lets look at what works...

http://gmc.yoyogames.com/

http://gmc.yoyogames.com/ index.php?s=91bea1c5dbe9dca785ff9de98c8099ff&showforum=2

http://gmc.yoyogames.com/ index.php?s=91bea1c5dbe9dca785ff9de98c8099ff&showforum=28

this one work Tom, this ones. Its easy, modular and to the point.

Everything else seems fine Tom,tho my couse been having problems with that first Zilal tutorial, he says its missing something, ill look into that soon. Just REALLY change that developer page format. We need to show that BYOND really is easy to use and effective.
Oct 2 2008, 12:11 am
In response to Bragging Rights
Sending people who don't know what BYOND is directly to Dream Makers is a waste of time. Did you consider sending them here instead?
Oct 2 2008, 3:23 am (Edited on Oct 2 2008, 3:28 am)
In response to Tiberath
Tiberath wrote:
Sending people who don't know what BYOND is directly to Dream Makers is a waste of time. Did you consider sending them here instead?

He has been playing BYOND games for a bit over a year. Just got interested in how BYOND works.

And your comment is not understandable by me. So you must play BYOND to actually program BYOND,hmm?

also... I dont think your comment have anything to do with the 'problem'.

'Problem' being, BYOND is mostly used for ANIME games, and ANIME gamers. Because thats what it currently has..mainly.

My solution idea is, Make BYOND programming easier to get in to. And worth to get in to.

Not by changing the code to be easier, is that possible!?

But by having more libraries,examples and information that is as easy to read and find.

Then throw in a few contests, a couple at a time and every now and then by BYOND, prizes could be memberships or money or whatever.

Contests of what? Game play mechanics, pixel art. Being more specific to have more variety"physics,A.I" or "Best animated animal,trees,volcanos,skys,water,etc".

This could also be beneficial to BYOND as a whole if they could work something out with a couple artists/programmers that are willing to make free resources for BYOND use, while maybe getting some compensation on the side? Resources could be anything really. Audio or Visual.

Also giving a touch up to the IDE,Icon Editor and Map Editor would be best for easeir use.

In example BYOND and Game Maker.

BYOND has a much simpler language than GM.

But GM can make things withought programming, can make arcade type of games in like record time,has a very good looking interface and very good icon editor and map editor and most of all a HUGE community and a very easy to use forum oh and it has an awesome book. Also the fact that its built in movement is perpixel is a godsend.

BYOND scales very low by most programmers and gamers, its very good for, guess what? Fan games.

Game Maker used to be looked down upon by 'true' programmers and it still is, but it has caught the eye of a few also. Its community grew exponentially. And its great for testing design concepts.

My take is easier, start with forums, then the IDE, when BYOND shines of cuteness and ease'er of use go and promote it. Then make a book WITH Color! It could be a few of em, I dont care.

I find it kinda funny, if GM would get the benefits of BYOND, it would rule the world. If BYOND were to get the benefits of GM it would rule the world =P.

So, how would you make BYOND better?

Oct 2 2008, 5:11 am
In response to Bragging Rights
Bragging Rights wrote:
He has been playing BYOND games for a bit over a year. Just got interested in how BYOND works.
And your comment is not understandable by me. So you must play BYOND to actually program BYOND,hmm?
also... I dont think your comment have anything to do with the 'problem'.
'Problem' being, BYOND is mostly used for ANIME games, and ANIME gamers. Because thats what it currently has..mainly.

Ok, if that doesn't satisfy you. Sending people who know what BYOND is directly to Dream Makers when they want to start programming, is also a waste of time, unless they have eyes. Send them directly to this post. For some reason, people have an issue with looking in the "Helpful Links" box to the top right and clicking the big START HERE! link.

My solution idea is, Make BYOND programming easier to get in to. And worth to get in to.
Not by changing the code to be easier, is that possible!?

No, a complete redesign of the language would be necessary. In doing that, all the games, documentation and resources we currently have would immediately become worthless, thus negating the rest of your post.

Also, BYOND is worth getting into. It's a doorway for more advanced languages. Without DM, I dare say, it'd have taken me twice as long to learn PHP. Now I can sit back and happily use one with the other, and that is just cool.

But by having more libraries,examples and information that is as easy to read and find.

If you want to write some libraries, demos and documentation, go for it. I'm certainly not going to stop you. But I'm also not going to do it myself. I know DM, I know enough to get by and to solve most problems I come across. But I don't feel comfortable helping others because I lack faith in my own ability. And most of the time, others are just looking for quick fixes and don't really want to learn. This among other things, annoys me beyond any sense of rational thought.

Then throw in a few contests, a couple at a time and every now and then by BYOND, prizes could be memberships or money or whatever.
Contests of what? Game play mechanics, pixel art. Being more specific to have more variety"physics,A.I" or "Best animated animal,trees,volcanos,skys,water,etc".

Setting up site wide contests aren't very easy. And in doing so, those will probably only gain the attention of the users we already have. At the very least, they'll produce more free resources for developers, but to what end? There will be new resources for developers download, enjoy making use of, and going back to their daily BYOND-life. A BYOND membership is only useful to those who enjoy BYOND, a new-comer probably wont find much use for one until they've gotten to know the community a little better. And offering cash as a reward is a waste of time, because the object of the exercise is to make money, not burn it.

This could also be beneficial to BYOND as a whole if they could work something out with a couple artists/programmers that are willing to make free resources for BYOND use, while maybe getting some compensation on the side? Resources could be anything really. Audio or Visual.

Although the idea of making a contest that forces programmers to work with pixel artists is promising. One side is bound to have more than the other (to date, I'm not sure which is winning, programmers or pixel artists. I'm fairly sure programmers are ahead, but you never know. I've been surprised before). And as such, anyone who's not quick to get in will end up without a partner and thus, unable to participate. Then you also have the problem of varying ability. Having seen some of the stuff that Pixel Art guild can do, and knowing one or two of them very well, I'm afraid, most pixel artists who know they aren't as good as them, will see it as a waste of time because they can't possibly win and give the entire thing a miss. Same deal with programming competitions where code is an issue. If Lummox and I were to join a competition where programming is a factor, he'd bash my head into the wall, and use my clothes as a whip to force me to clean up the mess. In other words: He'd own me, swiftly and effectively.

Also giving a touch up to the IDE,Icon Editor and Map Editor would be best for easeir use.
In example BYOND and Game Maker.
BYOND has a much simpler language than GM.
But GM can make things withought programming, can make arcade type of games in like record time,has a very good looking interface and very good icon editor and map editor and most of all a HUGE community and a very easy to use forum oh and it has an awesome book. Also the fact that its built in movement is perpixel is a godsend.

I don't see how the IDE can get any easier. File->New and away we go. The map editor is also fairly easy to get your head around. I've never had an issue working with either.

The Icon Editor I can't say because I don't use it. Pixel Art isn't my thing, I have about as much artistic talent as a dead goat. Though I've noticed discussions about it popping up every now and again. We'll just have to wait and see what Tom decides to do with it.

BYOND scales very low by most programmers and gamers, its very good for, guess what? Fan games.

Yes, it is. And those very fan-games you all hate so much, at the moment, are probably a good reason BYOND still exists. Fan-Games are bringing in the players (yes, even the rips), and those players are buying memberships for one reason or another. It's fairly safe to say, BYOND Anime is a large portion of BYOND's income at the moment. So you all probably shouldn't hate them as openly as you do. You could be driving off a source of income! Bad boys/girl!

Game Maker used to be looked down upon by 'true' programmers and it still is, but it has caught the eye of a few also. Its community grew exponentially. And its great for testing design concepts.

Game Maker didn't catch my eye. I don't like it, I've never liked it. Whoopie, I can make a ball bounce, but if there's no effort involved, what I have really done? Nothing. And I can find better ways to do nothing.

My take is easier, start with forums, then the IDE, when BYOND shines of cuteness and ease'er of use go and promote it. Then make a book WITH Color! It could be a few of em, I dont care.

The forums are fine. They're easy to navigate, browse and use. I like BYOND's forums. I've fallen in love with the forum style BYOND uses, and on several occasions, I've recreated it myself using PHP (none that were ever released though... well, not yet!). As I stated earlier, the IDE is fine just the way it is. It offers all the customisation a programmer needs. (You want Intellisense or whatever it is, write a third-party IDE (You can do that now, that's what that little dm.exe is for). Keep that crap out of BYOND, seriously.)

The website itself has never been easier to navigate. The head bar will take you where ever you need to go. The guilds will point you to games that take your specific interest. And with all the user-made guilds out there, someone is bound to share your interest in something, so no doubt, there is probably a list of games you'll enjoy. This whole "I shouldn't have to look" thing irritates me beyond rational reason.

I find it kinda funny, if GM would get the benefits of BYOND, it would rule the world. If BYOND were to get the benefits of GM it would rule the world =P.

As stated, I don't like Game Maker. I'm much happier that when the time came for me to choose it or BYOND, I chose BYOND. I've made a lot of very good friends here, and I've learned a lot about programming. I feel the experiences I've gained with my time here, I couldn't have gained else-ware.

So, how would you make BYOND better?

Well, I wouldn't sit at the drawing board and state "We need more resources! We need more competitions! We need more updates!" Because that's just unfair and has been repeated many, many times in the past.

You can't in good conscience ask for more resources. The developers of BYOND (I'm talking community developers, not Software Suit Developers) also have lives, and we can't spend all our time writing up libraries for every little thing. Anyone serious enough about BYOND shouldn't really need libraries for anything other than a reference of how to do something (just like a demo) (that's not to say they're a bad thing). I find myself only ever using three libraries. Mobius Evalon's Timestamp Generator and Wiznet libraries, and a small compilation of procs I find I've used in every project at some point or another. Otherwise, I handle everything myself, it feels more comfortable. And I'm willing to bet a lot of other programmers on BYOND follow this method as well. If it's your code, you know it inside and out, far less room for mistakes or inclusion errors.

The same can be said for the pixel artists I imagine. If they really wanted to release lots of free resources, I'm sure they will. The problem is still, no one likes to work for free. BYOND developers have it in their minds that they can make money off the system (I tend to agree), and as a result, we all try to earn where we can. The only problem is, there are too few of us with jobs that can actually afford to pay. In five years or so, if the younger generation is still here, they'll have grown up and have jobs and be able to pay for such services. I'm afraid, for this aspect, it's just a matter of wait and see.

Personally, I'd rather the software suit developers spend more time adding features than worrying about competitions and what-not. The less time that's spent on the software, the less bug fixes and stable versions we will get. In my opinion, it's far better to show off a stable BYOND than an unstable BYOND that has pretty pictures on it. In my books, performance matters.

So back on topic, how would I help BYOND? Well, short of donating memberships and whatnot (which I'm so far behind in the race now, it's not funny), I reckon we do just the opposite to what most people are saying. If money is the main concern, then we rape the fact BYOND is good for fan-games for all it's worth. BYOND needs money? Hit out a few anime communities with links to current popular anime games. And before anyone pipes up and says "do we really want more thirteen year olds!?" My response is as follows: Yes, if they bring in money, why not? And also: I'm close enough to be considered twenty years old, and I still enjoy anime. My brothers are twenty-five and twenty-seven, they also share an enjoyment from it. There's no divine dictation out there that states all anime fans must be thirteen. Find some more mature anime audiences (the ones who remember Sega and NES/SNES) and invite them to join. Who knows, we might get lucky.

After the community has grown enough to gain the attention we oh so deserve, we hope some of the new comers like us enough to open up Dream Maker. If that is the case, we might get lucky and they might produce something that isn't anime orientated.

(I had a mini rant to finish my post off, but I decided it didn't fit the forum and I dragged it away (much to it's discontent) to my blog. You can read it there.)

(Also, it occurs to me my tone in this reply might be some-what aggressive. Think nothing of it, I'm not trying to be unkind or anything, I'm just not a very people-person at 1am.)
Oct 2 2008, 7:11 am
In response to Tiberath
No, a complete redesign of the language would be necessary.

I belive i said something along the lines of makig it more sucessible to new people.

Also, BYOND is worth getting into. It's a doorway for more advanced languages.

True

Yes, it is. And those very fan-games you all hate so much, at the moment, are probably a good reason BYOND still exists. Fan-Games are bringing in the players (yes, even the rips), and those players are buying memberships for one reason or another. It's fairly safe to say, BYOND Anime is a large portion of BYOND's income at the moment. So you all probably shouldn't hate them as openly as you do. You could be driving off a source of income! Bad boys/girl!

I also did not by any means say I hated Anime or Anime games, I play anime games and thats the reason I came here in the first place.

Just saying, if we make it easier to get into we will bring more people, who ever they are or like, will in turn mean more games.
Oct 2 2008, 7:27 am
In response to Tiberath
How about "Want to make games? Get started here!" over to the left next to "Earn rewards with the BYOND Referral Program!" and "Download the latest version of BYOND."
Oct 2 2008, 7:28 am
In response to Bragging Rights
Bragging Rights wrote:
No, a complete redesign of the language would be necessary.

I belive i said something along the lines of makig it more sucessible to new people.

That is either "Accessible" or "Usable". I'm not sure which word you mean, so I'll give an example of both (no offence intended sir):

Usable: The language is very usable, and is very easy to learn. If someone is really serious, they can hammer out most of it in a week, and improve themselves over several months. The problem with most BYOND users is they're young, and they like to think anything is possible in a day in a bit. So they start learning with unforcely (it's a play on words. Ungodly and such, but since I like Star Wars, I say, 'unforcely' - just to clear that up) large projects. RPGs and such are not good starting projects. When you're new, you'll make mistakes, you'll make things using methods that are too terrible to explain. This will have a negative effect on your project, because it will cause unnecessarily large processor usage, which in turn can cause latency issues for client and server. And most people tend to hate that "lag" thing, no matter how much people who complain about it irk me. Beginners really should knock off the basics with chat programs, board games and whatnot. Hell, I learned by messing around with verbs for a day, and moving onto variables, and taking it steps at a time. (I literally had no programming knowledge before I came to BYOND.)

Accessible: I don't really see how the language is inaccessible. The DM IDE is right there when you install the software, it's not hard to find. Neither is documentation on how to use the language. As far as I'm concerned, BYOND has one of the better references for programming languages I've come across. Second maybe, to PHP. Which is clean, concise and allows comments.

I also did not by any means say I hated Anime or Anime games, I play anime games and thats the reason I came here in the first place.

It was an anime game that brought me to BYOND as well. That's true for a lot of post 2002 developers, I reckon. But my comment was more general. I wasn't referring to just you, sir.

Just saying, if we make it easier to get into we will bring more people, who ever they are or like, will in turn mean more games.

DM is easier to get into than most languages. As stated, it comes with the IDE when you download it. It's by far easier to get into than something like PHP. To which you have to setup servers and whatnot (or give up and pay for them...). As it stands, BYOND is a very nice little software suit. Small download, easy to use, quick to learn and all of that. The problem lies with motivation more than anything else.

Competitions and what-not a one thing, but you can't rush motivation. It comes slowly, and everyone experiences it in bursts at different times. There is a wealth of BYOND games out there (that I've made mention of else-ware) that people don't seem to notice. Gazoot and Nadrew's versions of XO - Five in a Row is one the most enjoyable board games I've ever played. And Nadrew and I used to play it near daily (and we now have the occasional game) and I loved every minute of it. If more people were to play it, I'd be a happy, happy man. Mobius Evalon's chess game experiences a wealth of players every now and again. The classic board games exist on BYOND, just no one seems interested in them. If anything, we should be taking games that already exist, are polished and working well, and advertising them. That's at least, the first step of the process.
Oct 2 2008, 7:46 am
In response to Maggeh
Maggeh wrote:
Perhaps adding in like a rating system (like youtube has with the 5 stars). This could help people narrow down the search for things they might want to play. Before anyone complains about how such a system could be abused, I don't believe it would really be all that bad outside of maybe some of the anime games having rating wars with each other. Maybe even the return in some form the published games list, where you list the really very best stuff according the community (and we can of course can exclude BYOND anime from this for the most part, more on this later), as well as safeguard those games.

They had such a system in place in like 2007. Remember, the BYOND Ranks and the Goditz debacle by saying if people rank his game they get benefits and what not? Not to mention Xeal's "DBZRelegr8" or whatever it was called stunt. They pretty much decided to drop the system because everyone was complaining.

So that idea was in the books, but dropped. And I doubt it'll come back any time soon. It was tried, abused to the point of no return, and replaced with the review system.

However, there is potential in it, if the reviews counted for listings and what not, that might have potential. But then you'd see petty game owners writing up negative reviews of competition just to make their own game a rank higher. I really can't see a system where you could make this and have it work fairly.

Something I noticed when you guys made the jump to BYOND members a lot of finished quality games died because you guys got rid of file hosting for non-members. Take WildBlood's games for example, you can't play them anymore unless you go hunting for the hosting files that a fan may be generously hosting (and to this day I've only managed to find 3 of his games left for download, all of which weren't hosted on anything that had to do with his game). Although Wild pretty much left BYOND his games were finished, but can no longer be played. Who knows how many other games were lost.

Something like that is easy to fix. I was considering setting up a small file hosting service for BYOND Games. But I ultimately decided against it, because I didn't want to potentially take away funds for BYOND. I can reinvestigate the idea though, if you wish.

Everything else I didn't quote and comment on, you can assume is just an agreement. =)
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