Ter13 wrote:

By the time they realize that they were using BYOND wrong, or hadn't learned some very important techniques

Exactly my main concern about the need to teach and lower the barrier to use BYOND.

Stephen001 wrote:

You need to install the platform, register within the platform (realistically) to play games available on the platform.

As most online based games. This is easy and people are used to it. And its even better with BYOND. One account, multiple games. The HTML5 client will not delete that process, people still need to create an account, somehow.

Stephen001 wrote:

I'm happy to note it's not the only step, and learning resources, presentation and platform communication all have parts to play. But without the core platform accessibility issue sorted ... the rest of it is *shrug*.

Windows alone is 85%+ of the computer consumer market. Making it available on Mac and Linux would take care of the rest. Going to a new client will involve new limitations and more work, in every single way.

That development time could have been used for a rewrite(Yes!) or portability improvements and feature upgrades.


The HTML5 client will need so much work to make it behave like the regular VM. Might aswell go for a DM language implementation on top of Dart and its VM. Might take some time but in the end it would be a new BYOND and not some glued BYOND.

In my opinion, BYOND should worry about what it is and improving upon it. Not trying to be something else. Why not add DS into the browser? Like, Flash or WebStart? The "Download and Install problem"? If the game is worth it to someone, it wont be a problem, as always.

If your game is more accessible with HTML5 and it sucks, they will leave just as quickly.


The extra work needed to use HTML5 will not bring people here. There are many other things to do HTML5 games.
This is helping the ones here, the ones that know already, not bringing new people here.

BYOND is waiting for a homerun, like Nintendo, instead of attracting all the indies like Sony and Microsoft; getting a slower but more promising increase in revenue.

Then all the issues of HTML5 wont be present?


(Do keep in mind what my main concern has been, not the update. But how BYOND treats itself, not growing, not teaching, not presenting itself better, etc..)

And actually, what my thread is about. No information yet?

The HTML5 client makes BYOND a much more attractive proposition to /new/ developers, as I explained in another topic. So yes, it is a core, and integral step in making BYOND grow. As I said earlier.

CSS and DOM aren't rendering techniques for 2D games. They haven't mentioned a rendering model yet, my guess is either WebGL or Canvas, as those are the only two real options.

Browser compatbility is a non-issue, as HTML5 is a global standard.

Data storage is a non-issue, as the HTML5 client won't need to store data long-term. It's a thin client.

Web audio is a non-issue, as HTML5 features the very first standardized sound support browsers have ever had, so again, it's a non-issue.

Webworkers and page stalling are non-issues as well. Since the client doesn't have a VM, only the rendering loop and network communication will run in HTML5. Server connectivity is a problem with any approach, and not unique to HTML5.

No.

Because the server, that the HTML5 client connects to, is elsewhere.

The same way I don't need the entirety of facebook on my hard-drive, to access facebook.com.

http://caniuse.com/#feat=canvas

Canvas support is over 80%. Java support is falling, but at its peak, it was around 80%.

To put this in perspective, the windows OS has about 68% of the global market share.

Essentially, we hit support for 80% of the global user-base by moving to HTML5 while only implementing a single additional client, whereas, targeting ARM/IOS would give us about a 25% market share at the price of two projects, targeting linux would give us around 7% of the marketshare (of users, not servers) at yet another project.

HTML5 gives us more cumulative bang for our buck by giving us rapid deployment capability to the majority of users that currently play online games.


A lot of this stuff is well beyond what I would expect people around these parts currently to know, but it's becoming increasingly obvious that you don't have much familiarity with BYOND itself, the language (DM), game authoring and deployment as a whole, or the internet as a whole.

Tom has been very clear that he doesn't want people waiting on new-fangled features to start developing games, and if they want a more capable environment than the one we already have, they need to move on.

So really, if you are interested in making games with BYOND, go ahead and do it, as the language is way more capable than what it's currently being used on.

As for your repeated questions on what Tom/Lummox plan to do to help teach people how to use their software? Well, that's the people in this thread talking to you. They expect the community to help itself. Those of us that are doing it hang out here. If you are interested in making games, and learning how to use BYOND, we'll gladly help you learn.

If, however, you are just interested in second-guessing Tom and trying to backseat-drive the software suite whilst lacking an argument with substance, I think this conversation adequately demonstrates though, that there's not much of value in this discussion, as one side of it lacks the knowledge about what BYOND is, much less what technologies it could utilize to improve itself.

It caches the resources in the web browser and also uses IndexedDB when available. It may be the case that this will only work best with Chrome or Dartium be since those will be available everywhere it will still be more cross platform than the current.

The client is thin and the protocol will be open (has to be since it is javascript). Still needs a lot of server support.

Exactly! As Tom said.

Ter13 was making it sound like game streaming.

Not sure how you come up with me sounding like a moron when what Tom said supported what I have been saying.

Kozuma3 made a "joke" towards me, for no reason. I was right.

"There is no long-term data to store on the client." <- This is wrong. And the push of it(by others) mixed up the conversation.


And by your advice, what would it be that which I have to learn?