My opinion on this kind of stuff used to be "this is ruining the whole comunity" and actually that's the reason I stopped coding a long time ago.

But right now, I don't seem to care anymore.
The BYOND ranking makes sure that good games, made by people who have good ideas of what gameplay is and are able to code, get some extra attention.

So I guess I am not bothered about things like this.
People will only manage to enjoy BYOND when they can create games on their own. Sooner or later anyone that is "making" a game by just customizing code will start to get bored and will end up either learning how to code or leaving BYOND.

Atleast that's what I hope will happen >.<

Anyways, nice to see a Topic like this, because long ago i felt kind of left behind when I tried to make clear this was a bit of a problem for BYOND. Although I don't see it as a problem anymore, it's good to see someone that's thinking the same way I am.

- Fint

If you are so wise as to know which games deserve the rank, why don't you create your own website dedicated to properly ranking BYOND games? If done well, it would probably be listed under partners right next to DigitalBYOND and BYONDscape. Good luck!

Thats something byond could really do with, I know theres a few review sites some members have done, keep forgetting the links, but someone who could review the games without bias (ie: a loner player that doesnt make games himself-which will be hard to find).

While this particular hub entry looks like it's pretty much just garbage, I would disagree with you (and indeed the majority opinion of BYOND) as far as the general sentiments regarding freely distributed code.

As I see it, beginning coders can be roughly split into one of two categories:

1. People who have no real interest in coding or even game design who just want a game so they can say "Hey, look, I have a game!" and mess around with admin commands. These people will generally make unoriginal clones no matter what.

and

2. People who may not have much knowledge of coding, but want to truly make something unique and are willing to put some effort into learning how to make something all of their own. These people have little to no interest in making a game if it's just like everyone else's and will strive to make their game as unique and individual as possible.

In practice these distinctions are very general and rather hard to make, and the same person may move from one category to the other or even have simultaneous tendencies in both directions, but you get the general idea.

Now suppose you take a good code base for a game and publish it freely: what happens? Those people who more or less fall in category 1 are likely to take the code base, make as few changes as possible, and call it their own. The result is that you end up with a bunch of crappy clones of the original code base. Most people stop here and conclude that releasing source code must be inherently bad. However, what this fails to take into account is that these people are perfectly capable of making crappy clones without needing any source code to work with at all! If you have a certain game (let's call it game A) and you have two crappy games (games B and C) that clumsily copy the first game as closely as possible, does it matter if game B is a crappy clone made from the source code of A and game C is a crappy clone that's coded from scratch? Chances are the only difference will be that a game copied directly from the source code is going to be less buggy and more playable than a game crudely based off the original put together from scratch by an inexperienced coder. But in general, there's not going to be a whole lot of difference as far as outward appearances go.

Thus, as far as the people in the first category (unoriginal rip-off artists), releasing source code doesn't have a terribly huge impact. Withholding source code certainly isn't going to stop them from trying to rip-off as many ideas as possible from popular games. As far as the second category goes, the availability of freely available code is similarly going to have little impact: they don't want to have a game like everyone else's just for the sake of having a game, they want their own particular game. They may use any source code that's available, but they will put every effort into tweaking it and using it in original ways, to the point where any outside code they use is not readily visible as such.

To put it succinctly (even though I hate the term "rip" as in common use, as it's not really very accurate or precise): source code doesn't make rips. Rippers make rips.

Acebloke wrote:

Thats something byond could really do with, I know theres a few review sites some members have done, keep forgetting the links, but someone who could review the games without bias (ie: a loner player that doesnt make games himself-which will be hard to find).

You basically typed a paradox there. A game review is one person's OPINION of a game, it cannot be unbiased. One person might write a really good review for one game, and a really bad review for that same game.

I read GamePro all the time, and I specifically remember a letter or e-mail from a person that basically said "You wrote a bad review for this game but it's one of my favorites." GamePro responded "That's what a review is, one person's opinion of a game. This is why we have numorous editors for the magazine, to get different opinions."

Cheetoz wrote:

Rankings aren't anything anymore. Now, you see zeta rips, or unoriginal games ranked ahead of the true games that should be there. All that happens now is most developers get their friends to rank them high. When only a few of them deserve the rank.

Yeah, but that would happen with any voting system. The current system at least requires a $15 entry fee, which keeps the results somewhat exclusive.

Besides, if you see a game you know you won't like, it's easy to just skip over it. The highest-ranked DBZ game is rank 20. I count 8 Naruto/DBZ games on the first two pages of rankings. That's a mere 8 out of 60, which is less than 14%!

Granted, the proportion of fan games is larger, but by and large the ones on the first page or two are decent ones. There are exceptions, but they're incredibly easy to ignore.

Quit yer complainin'! =)

Justin Knight wrote:

Now, Last Robot Standing is number one. I still don't understand why it's number one, but at least it's a game. An addictive, fast paced, almost board-game-like strategy game no less.

LRS is number one because it rox your box.

I actually think it's a GOOD thing that Dragonball Z fan games are getting a good rank.

The really good thing it shows me is that there are DBZ games that actually have some quality. If many paying people like them, it shows that they definitely have some merit as games whether or not they are based on DBZ.

I was a #2 when I started. =)