BYONDcast Video Forge Program

ID:119907
 
Oct 13 2011, 3:18 am
Keywords: videoforge

Hello everyone, we're coming to you today to announce a little project/program that I've been thinking about for quite a long time after seeing some complaints and queries on the community blogs.
People want to learn how to become popular on BYOND, and you don't need to wonder why if you look around at BYOND. Everything's constantly changing. Games are becoming more and more professional looking. The language and libraries are becoming stronger and easier to use.

But what are you, the developer, supposed to do once you've completed your large project and claim to fame? You've got to get your name out into the community!

But how would you go about doing that, you ask me. There are tons of ways to get this done, and this is only but another option which can be very helpful for beginning developers who haven't created a name for themselves yet. You can use the BYONDcast Video Forge to get your name out there to an already established community.

It's really simple to do, you simply contact me either through email, msn, skype, or byond pager and tell me you're interested in being a part of the Video Forge program. You can do pretty much whatever you want as long as it pertains to BYOND in some way. Tutorials, gameplays, reviews, casual chat, showing off your game, livestreams, contests, tournaments, pretty much anything you'd like to post!

After you gain my trust (which is pretty easy as long as I haven't had problems with you in the past) you'll be able to submit content without a BYONDcaster's approval. And then you're basically a BYONDcaster and you put your name on every article, video or event that you create! Easy popularity!

There are only a few things that are needed when applying for the Video Forge program listed below. If you're unsure about any of them, feel free to ask in the comment section below.
* Does not apply to article writers/arranging events.

#1: You need a microphone of average quality.*
#2: You need audio/video recording software.*
#3: You need to be able to type in complete sentences with proper punctuation.
#4: I don't expect a ton out of your video quality, as long as your audio quality is good and people can tell what's going on in the video without difficulty I won't deny you.*
#5: You must have some form of contact that you can provide me with. Skype or MSN is preferred.
#6: If you decide to contribute content on a schedule, try to continue with that schedule.
#7: Despite being a fairly open and freely-run blog, we do have standards.

Feel free to split off from the BYONDcast Video Forge at any time, transfer your content to your own blog and begin building your own separate community as the BYONDcast did from BYOND Journalism. We're just glad that you've been recognized for your hard work! (:

Good luck, and happy community-building!
-Oasiscircle
Oct 13 2011, 3:59 am
I'm super lost right now. What's the benefit of sending all the content to you? As far as I'm concerned, I'm going to view content created by, say Forum_account, regardless of where it's located. I also don't think Forum_account is missing out on viewers just because he opts to use his own blog for all his videos.

People choose to follow people because they're interested, not because it's on a certain blog. The only way I could see this being useful is for people who don't have a membership. Other than that, developers who already do have one are more than capable of building up a good reputation on their own.
Oct 13 2011, 4:19 am
I think it's useful to have people submit content to a common place because it helps to improve quality. If people who would submit videos here just posted them on their own blog instead, they wouldn't have anyone holding them to a certain level of quality. Well, they'd be held to whatever standard they hold themselves to, but in the case of most BYOND users that standard is pretty low.
Oct 13 2011, 6:39 am
Sounds Interesting. I'll give it a try then.
Oct 13 2011, 7:10 am
They would have someone holding them to a certain level of quality. You have 74 fans because people notice you're talented. Otherwise, you would be ignored ( no fans, no downloads of your programs, no comments and feedback on your blog ). There doesn't need to be a separate blog for people to like and dislike things - people will do that completely on their own.

People are told constantly their work isn't quality, or that they need to improve, but that only makes them more pissed off. If someone submits something and it gets rejected, I think they'll just say "Screw you, my work is good, and I'll use my own blog to display it" rather than "You're right, I'm bad and I must improve". Anyone who has been on BYOND long enough knows the majority of the people on this site are not very good at taking criticism. Rather than listen, they lash out and make excuses instead of making an attempt to better themselves.

I don't think this will work because a lot of people won't want to try and meet these standards and most of the people who are talented already have a reputation and don't need a new blog to start posting their content on.
Oct 13 2011, 7:43 am
EmpirezTeam wrote:
They would have someone holding them to a certain level of quality. You have 74 fans because people notice you're talented. Otherwise, you would be ignored ( no fans, no downloads of your programs, no comments and feedback on your blog ).

You're assuming that people are good judges of quality. I'm sure I can find a ripper whose blog has more fans, but those fans aren't doing much to hold the ripper to a high standard. The ripper posts a preview of an awful title screen and the fans all say it's awesome.

There are many BYOND developers who know that ripping is not game development. They have the sense and knowledge to look around, see bad development habits, and realize they are bad. There aren't many good examples of how you should be developing games. They can tell what's bad but they have no clear way to know what's right - and often they assume that because they're not following those bad habits (ex: ripping) that they must be right (this mentality doesn't help when it comes to taking criticism). I think there are many DM developers that would be highly receptive to these good examples.

As long as we have so many bad examples, it's easy for people to say "well, I'm better than all those rippers, so I must be a good developer - not outstanding, but decent at the very least". This makes developers who are still newbies think that they're intermediates (which is probably why so many people take criticism poorly - they think they're more advanced than they are, they think they're past getting criticism and should only get praise). All of the blog posts by people who go about game development in the entirely wrong way give people a weird sense of perspective on game development.

There are different ways to deal with the problem. Creating a central blog that hosts quality content is one way. I'm not sure that it'll work, but it could - by putting quality content on one blog you're saying "here's how you should be developing games. don't read the trash development posts you see on the members page, just read this blog." Another way would be to have site features that let (or force) users to see better forms of content (ex: this feature request).
Oct 13 2011, 8:15 am
Very interesting idea, I hope this works out!
Oct 13 2011, 9:57 am
Shadow813 wrote:
Very interesting idea, I hope this works out!

Oct 13 2011, 11:21 am
this is off-topic but i would like to know who made that GFX text style, and a way of contact. I would like to have some text styles like that for my game :)
Oct 13 2011, 2:14 pm
@Kaigne: I got that font from dafont.com, search Rexlia.
And I did the actual graphical work with the brushes and whatnot in Gimp2. (:
Oct 13 2011, 4:46 pm
thanks
Oct 13 2011, 5:49 pm
I think this is a great idea and if I had any intentions of creating any visual or audio media, I would totally use this.

Even if its ends up just being non-members use this sort to method of submitting content that still a great improvement. We non-members have things we like to discuss as well (and we don't all feel the need to inform you of the latest dbz and Naruto rip either.)
Oct 13 2011, 6:47 pm
I think it's a great idea as well. It's really great for the non-members as they have a place to do this kind of stuff without having to have a membership.
Oct 17 2011, 12:20 am
Good idea, although I'm unsure if I'd use it personally. I prefer putting in all the effort myself.