What happened to byond?

ID:1239204
 
Apr 16 2013, 5:06 pm
A few years back this site was great. Its went down hill a lot, where the hell did all the great games go.
Apr 16 2013, 5:08 pm
Either dead or hidden, because most of the "great games" were rips and/or FUNimation(etc) IP, both of which are no longer listed on the site.
Apr 16 2013, 5:58 pm
Murrowko, that's not how it happened, why it happened.

Tom was forced to crack down on the anime community at the behest of the owners of the copyrighted content listed on his site. Tom has for the most part, been neutral on the fan-game issue since I've been here (12 years), and for the most part just kept a policy of "as long as they aren't going too far with violations of policies, we'll live and let live."

He did eventually have to start sorting the site into categories and guilds, as well as refusing to list content in violation of international law, and that was mostly in an attempt to improve the perception of the community as a whole. The entire time, though, he was attempting to leverage as few restrictions on the fangame community as possible whilst still not encouraging it.

The community's freedoms weren't taken away. The community stopped making it easy for people to violate copyright law and display it prominently on the site.


As for what happened to BYOND? The community has segmented. We don't have a strong core group of knowledgeable devs anymore like we did when I first got here. We have 2 groups, the fangame community, and the site community. Largely, the fangame community is the only group prolifically making games (albeit using stolen graphics, code, and using outdated approaches and interface elements).

BYOND is kind of living in an age of easy-access game development as well, so that's going to hurt the initial appeal of the software. Back in 2001, you had one option for online multiplayer game development outside of BYOND, and that was "write your own networking engine". Now, we live in the age of Unity, UDK, etc.

I'm convinced we can turn it around with a few solid releases, as well as some more involvement of the more talented people here, coupled with advertisement and good teamwork.

Unfortunately, about 4/5 people here hate each other so much that they cannot do anything but throw insults at one another. It's in a sad state, but I think it will get better soon. As it stands, I'm kind of looking at this as a "phasing out" time, where we bleed off people who are just fed up, tired, and angry, and try to attract some positive, motivated new blood with the new client.
Apr 16 2013, 6:17 pm
In response to Ter13
Ter13 wrote:
Murrowko, that's not how it happened, why it happened.

Tom was forced to crack down on the anime community at the behest of the owners of the copyrighted content listed on his site. Tom has for the most part, been neutral on the fan-game issue since I've been here (12 years), and for the most part just kept a policy of "as long as they aren't going too far with violations of policies, we'll live and let live."

He did eventually have to start sorting the site into categories and guilds, as well as refusing to list content in violation of international law, and that was mostly in an attempt to improve the perception of the community as a whole. The entire time, though, he was attempting to leverage as few restrictions on the fangame community as possible whilst still not encouraging it.

The community's freedoms weren't taken away. The community stopped making it easy for people to violate copyright law and display it prominently on the site.


As for what happened to BYOND? The community has segmented. We don't have a strong core group of knowledgeable devs anymore like we did when I first got here. We have 2 groups, the fangame community, and the site community. Largely, the fangame community is the only group prolifically making games (albeit using stolen graphics, code, and using outdated approaches and interface elements).

BYOND is kind of living in an age of easy-access game development as well, so that's going to hurt the initial appeal of the software. Back in 2001, you had one option for online multiplayer game development outside of BYOND, and that was "write your own networking engine". Now, we live in the age of Unity, UDK, etc.

I'm convinced we can turn it around with a few solid releases, as well as some more involvement of the more talented people here, coupled with advertisement and good teamwork.

Unfortunately, about 4/5 people here hate each other so much that they cannot do anything but throw insults at one another. It's in a sad state, but I think it will get better soon. As it stands, I'm kind of looking at this as a "phasing out" time, where we bleed off people who are just fed up, tired, and angry, and try to attract some positive, motivated new blood with the new client.

Murrowko?
Apr 16 2013, 6:19 pm
In response to Gensho
His reply was deleted.
Apr 17 2013, 9:10 am
I feel that as developers we haven't really taken advantage of many of the features we've requested that they've put in.

It took me years since the release of 4.0 to make a half decent interface, I also have about 3 isometric projects out of hundreds, but none of them three have been released.

I'm starting to feel old now, I started Wargames in 2005 and I'm still going with it now in 2013 without any significant breaks (I think there was one period of about 6-9 months of no activity on my part). I don't think any other developer has kept up with a project that long.
Apr 17 2013, 10:17 am
In response to Acebloke
Except Tom and Lummox. Lol
Apr 17 2013, 12:28 pm
In response to Acebloke
Apr 17 2013, 1:08 pm
Doesn't count. Ex only worked on it for a year. Aza and I maintained it for three years without access to the source. Hobnob decompiled it and AZA and I decided to open it up for further development. Ex has barely spoken to anybody in years. The goons claim he's directly sanctioning them, but he's never confirmed it to those of us he actually hired.
Apr 17 2013, 1:36 pm
In response to Ter13
That's one of the more interesting interpretations I've heard about how things went down, but I'm not particularly interested in correcting it at this stage.

In terms of Exadv1 'sanctioning' the goons, he has to me, and changed the hub's website link as a result.
Apr 17 2013, 1:44 pm
Apr 18 2013, 12:51 pm
Heh :p I guess I kind of walked into this one.

Still, fresh stuff is better, I just wish I could make my fresh stuff polished enough to show off.
Apr 20 2013, 10:25 am
We just need some great new games to come out and i think byond will get back on the right track
Apr 20 2013, 11:56 pm
i can tell you that a new great project is coming up real soon.