I'm currently developing a game and then a question pops up into my head "What can i add or do so that BYOND players love my game?"
I'v been looking through many games and notice NEStalgia with over 200 players currently playing. That caught my attention so i gave it a try and sees the graphics/icons. I know that it was intended to be an 8-bit RPG but I was like why? I mean I really like the cut scenes and the scene at the beginning and there's also barely any lag with 50 players so i ask myself "How can they have an 8-bit images and still have lots of player?" I didn't know the answer. Just so you guys know, I'm not knocking Silk Games or anything, i'm just amazed how they have so much players and wanted some advice on how to do that. By the way, i haven't played NEStalgia for long so dont be going like "Keep on playing, it'll get interesting in the middle" because im already playing it ;D
I believe that its like this: You start off with a couple players then they advertise it to their friends and get more players then when new BYOND players comes in, they see your game with like 50 players and they be thinking "Oh. thers alot of players, im guessing this is a good game and plays it everyday without seeing other games"
What do you guys think BYOND players have interest in?
is it the:
Graphics
Storyline
Abilities
Quests
No lag
Many to discover
Many things to do other than leveling up
Original
MMORPG
Games that has 'rounds' like round 1 round 2
or just plain luck in time like what i believe
Oh and also, i see games with like 6000 fans but i always see only 50 people playing and NEStalgia which has around 900 fans and have 200 people playing everyday then i was like "what the..?" Now is it just me or some BYOND players is misunderstanding the meaning of being a "fan"
ID:181219
 Mar 23 2011, 4:40 pm (Edited on Mar 23 2011, 6:05 pm)
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Mar 23 2011, 5:00 pm
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Duelmaster409
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Most people on BYOND prefer games that are based off a copyright franchise.
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"How can they have an 8-bit images and still have lots of player?" I didn't know the answer. The answer is that when you're on a site for 2D games where most things are 32x32, most people aren't too concerned about the graphics. Then again, most people here just get on a DBZ game consisting of recolored icons, hit self train and go afk.. | |
Yuuki Kei wrote:
"How can they have an 8-bit images and still have lots of player?" I didn't know the answer. Ya, i really hate it how people go afk with these 'self train' systems. I mean like games are for playing and being afk isn't really playing the game. I dont get how people create games and put something similar to afk training and expect people to play it. Well, some games with afk training are actually getting popular and i dont even know why. When like 90% of the players are afk, i dont get what the point of the game is when barely anyone is playing them. In some games, after afk training, those people expect to 'kill' someone but they whine about no one moving or being killable or out of the safezone or something. Ya, i can understand that new BYOND players dont really care about the graphics since most popular games that they will most likely play first aren't really that good in graphics. (i was the same when i first joined BYOND) but after they search the site and see good graphic games, they'll slowly leave the bad graphic ones and play the good graphic games. <-- im not really sure if thats true, just talking about myself <-- So in my opinion, if good graphic games are more in the front line for new BYOND players, they'll see the way i see right now | |
While I'm no expert at making extremely popular games, there usually is only one common element between them: fun. It's a very vague term but MOST of the time, it usually works like this:
Developer makes a game based on a idea THEY like --> players play it and find something in it that THEY too like --> players continue playing and tell others --> game becomes popular So basically, make a game that you yourself would like to play that so happens to appeal to others and you should have success...Generally. | |
Mecha Destroyer JD wrote:
While I'm no expert at making extremely popular games, there usually is only one common element between them: fun. It's a very vague term but MOST of the time, it usually works like this: That is true but its basically a gamble if your not sure that enough players will actually like your game. Even though it is a gamble, that's what i am exactly doing. I am currently making an Anime game but im not so sure what most BYOND anime players will like so i decided to add EVERYTHING that comes into my head that is related to that anime. Quests, scenes, lots of classes, hundreds of spells, unique and amazing customizations and graphics, lots of places to discover, and many more. Even though if your game turns out to be the best game you have ever seen compared to other games, that is still YOUR OWN opinion and is gambling that other players will like it just because you do You are also gambling whether the players tell others or not because its not like they really HAVE to. You need a good source of advertising and advertising in the right moment where most players are online or else you'll just end up bumping your topic (if advertising in the forums) Fun is absolutely needed for games but in my opinion, fun will only come AFTER your game gets popular because you will have barely anyone to share your spells and how strong you are in game | |
I've got blog post in the works about this with advice for other BYOND developers. The secret to NEStalgia's success was simple, and can be divided into two equally important pieces.
First and foremost, the unique game concept is what made people want to check NEStalgia out. The idea of an 8-bit MMO automatically piques the interest of anyone who played classic consoles games as a kid, and as of right now there really isn't anything else like NEStalgia out there. The phrase "Dragon Warrior 3 meets World of Warcraft" is what sold NEStalgia. That type of line is a common device used to pitch screenplay ideas, and it just happened to be the perfect way to describe the game. If you come up with an idea for the game that is unique or interesting enough to grab people's attention, you're off to a good start. Second, the game itself delivers on the promise of the concept. NEStalgia is a well planned, well designed, and well made game from top to bottom. There are still a lot of improvements to make and a lot of work to be done, but NEStalgia is an incredibly solid and polished game. Once new players join the game, most of them end up sticking around. Getting NEStalgia to the level that it's at in terms of polish/playability has been no easy feat, and has been incredibly time consuming. I think a lot of BYOND developers neglect the fact that making a "real" game takes actual work. So yeah, my advice to you would be to think about what would make for a fun game, not what would make for a fun BYOND game. Keep it simple, keep it manageable, and pour a lot of time, effort and love into it. General rule of thumb: if your game is just "good by BYOND standards", then it's not good at all. Your goal shouldn't be to impress other BYONDers with technical tricks or great coding feats - your goal should be to come up with a unique concept for a game and follow through on it. The blog post that I'm going to make in the next week or two will have more specific advice, but I hope that helps :-) | |
Mecha Destroyer JD wrote:
While I'm no expert at making extremely popular games, there usually is only one common element between them: fun. It's a very vague term but MOST of the time, it usually works like this: You forgot something important. Player Ideas --> More player Ideas --> Good game --> NEStalgia in a sense. | |
For graphics, consistency is more important than quality. I could use a digital camera to take pictures of trees, grass, and walls to use as icons in my game. With using pictures of real trees, the game will look realistic, right?
It's not that easy - the graphics aren't consistent. The more realistic details you add, the more people will expect. You'd expect real trees to cast real looking shadows and you'd expect real grass to blow in the wind. A game like NEStalgia doesn't try to have realistic graphics so it doesn't give you expectations like that. Some people try to create realistic shading in their icons but it ends up drawing attention to the lack of realistic shading - mobs don't cast shadows, objects that should act as light sources don't, etc. Other problems can come from trying to hide the tile-based nature of maps. Sure, if you have a nice grass icon it'll be hard to see the grid lines, but mobs will still be positioned on the grid. If you make some sprite animated, those that aren't animated will stand out. If you take one step towards having more "realistic" graphics you have to take ten steps, otherwise it just won't look right. The 8-bit style is just a way to provide consistent graphics while making some obvious sacrifices in terms of realism. If you evaluate a game's graphics based on consistency and not on how nice some individual icons look, you'll find that its easy for games with simpler graphics to be more visually appealing. That being said, I don't think that people care too much about graphics (if they did, they wouldn't play BYOND games). People might care about some visual aspects of the game (ex: being able to customize what their character looks like) but they don't care about the quality of the character sprite itself. | |
No one can really tell you how to make a game popular. The best you can hope to do is make a good game (and I mean an actual good game, BYONDs standards are terribly low, so good on BYOND is not good everywhere) and spread it around. Then you just have to hope that the game is interesting and good enough to attract people.
One shortcut is to make games that appeal to certain groups of people. I have tried it, and the game got a lot of interest. Anime games on BYOND do it, and were (and probably still are) the most popular games on BYOND for a long time. NEStalgia did it, and look at how many players it got. Outside of BYOND Minecraft is a good example. It is a terrible game, horribly made, buggy and looks like ass. But it's concept had mass appeal, and due to this it ended up becoming very popular. The downsides to doing this are that you might not be interested in the game you're working on. You also probably wont attract people who are not interested in the games concept or idea. In short, you need to put in the effort to make a good game, find a target audience, and then you need some luck on your side and hope things work out. | |
The Magic Man Thank you for reminding me, I really like your example of Minecraft. Minecraft is extremely childish in graphics but it clearly follows the laws of physics and common sense through the system which I'm guessing attracts the player's attention. Also, i'm starting to believe that Minecraft or any popular BYOND games becomes popular through the system and what the player's abilities in game are. Now that i think about it, i started playing BYOND and Minecraft for one common reason "I want to create what i want". I should make a game that lets the player have many customization both in graphics and abilities to make it more THEIR style to get interested to my game since their character is almost like created by themselves alone which they most likely will like. Forum_Account I really like your idea of consistency about graphics. It actually makes sense that if your graphics looks extremely polished and amazing at start, people will want to expect more and better ones during the game. It is sort of like grabbing the player's attention and you telling them that "The Graphics will be amazing when you play longer" and encourages them to look forward and expect more but it turns out differently than what they expected. You can make your game's graphics more simpler or i believe that you can also make it the same style compared to other icons in the game so that it'll be more appropriate in the game environment. I should keep my game balanced in graphics and have the same style compared to other icons meaning if i were to have iconners, we should have the same style of shading or be editted by the same person so that the players wont find a difference in style and will find the graphics more similar and appropriate to the game environment. Silk Games First of all, thank you for replying. Your advice really is more reliable coming from the creator of NEStalgia and i don't mean that everyone who replied to this topic isn't reliable, everyone's advice is actually helping my senses of developing a game get better. Uniqueness is definitely one of the most needed element for BYOND games to become truly popular. Ripped games from popular games isn't really assuring that it will get popular. I mean, it's true that many players will play them but it is positive that they won't last long. I'm a very secured person meaning that I will certainly assure and triple check everything that i do (it's really annoying in coding but i just cant resist) An idea, 1 strong idea is not enough for me to assure my game's popularity. I'am currently combining all these ideas that pops up into my head no matter how hard it may sound, systems that has never been made or seen before by alot of players, hundreds of abilities that a player can do (such as spells since i am developing an anime game) , hundreds of different customization through clothing, and many more. I will certainly make this a unique game that no player have ever seen or played before so that i can assure my game's popularity Thank you for everyone's advice, i hope some of you also learned from this, combining all our brains together. | |
XskyflakezX wrote:
I'm currently developing a game and then a question pops up into my head "What can i add or do so that BYOND players love my game?" I would say when making a game don't worry about attracting the most amount of players. Use your imagination and create a game from that. Don't try to look at a popular game and try to copy it in the hopes it will attract a lot of people. Many have done this with World of Warcraft and failed miserably. However, if there is a fantastic mechanic in a game and you can't think of a better method or means of expanding on it then by all means borrow it. In the end though it might be helpful to think about: what would make my game fundamentally unique. Use your imagination, think outside the box and in the end you'll have a unique imaginative world. Maybe you won't have the largest player base, but whats better the sheer number of players or the quality of your player base all enjoying the world you have designed? | |
Multiplayer online games based on popular media such as anime.
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Aegon wrote:
Multiplayer online games based on popular media such as anime. ...or you could work to design a game not targeted specifically at the current BYOND community, but on those outside the community. I would encourage the OP to develop a game fundamentally different from what is is conceived that the BYOND community is after. Should the BYOND eco-system just be a bunch of games based off of anime, or should it be a diverse eco-system with many creative and original ideas? I would say work on something that is fundamentally unique and bring in players from outside the BYOND community. I think it would be a sad state if the entirety of the BYOND community just becomes this rigid box of which no one knows how to think, be creative, or imagine outside of that box. My suggestion: expand the borders of the current BYOND box, take a risk and strive for creative innovation and disruptive change. | |
It seems that in this community, and really most ORPGs I know of outside the community, people want to feel like they made a mark in the world.
In multi-player games I think the story is a little less important in a sense of linear path of play. However, players tend to make their own stories and games within the game. It is about creating a world and making it look lived in. The more you allow the player to shape their character and its place in the world, the more people will want to continue to play. This can mean simple things like custom colored clothes or houses (which are not the best gameplay mechanic but people love to show off) to grander ideas like allowing players to compete to be the king of a region or mayor of a city. Graphics - don't matter. As long as they are somewhat consistent and easy to understand. People spend way to much time on graphics. (that said, flexible graphics are a good thing. Instead of having 20 types of walls why not just one or two but allow that one to be modified/destroyed/rebuilt) Storyline: Important for a great game but not in a good game. You can make an enjoyable game with no real story or a simple story. I think it is more important to let the characters make their own story. Abilities: A few is good enough. To many starts to distract from the game. Quests: Important as long as they serve a purpose. No Lag: Obviously Discoveries: Important, at least from my perspective. I love looking for hidden things but don't make the game depend on people searching for something for hours. | |
Asielen wrote:
It seems that in this community, and really most ORPGs I know of outside the community, people want to feel like they made a mark in the world. You bring up some great points, especially when it comes to players leaving an impact on the world. The one thing that we can do here that most large scale MMOs can't is allow the players to shape the stories and history of the worlds. In an MMO there are way too many players and not enough GMs around to facilitate roleplay so they have to depend on a theme park world instead of an open sandbox for the players. Basically if you log into a large scale MMO there is lots of things to see and do, to ooh and awe at, but there isn't really much in the way of allowing players to shape the story. Instead the story is already laid out for you in the quest system. What we have the opportunity to do here in our BYOND worlds is allow a sandbox for players to create the history and story of our worlds. We can have GMs to help facilitate roleplay and give the players an enjoyable experience in which their actions determine the course of history. The challenge for us as game designers is to design a games where the mechanics facilitate the player's ability to shape the world. | |
In my opinion, I much prefer RPG games where you quest, level up, obtain better gear, ect. You don't necessarily need a bunch of different classes to pick from. The only thing i require from a good RPG the bare minimum as follows:
1) Balanced and efficient Game Mechanics I -HATE- RPG's who use very linear mechanics, they're boring and redundant. This is mainly for EXP, coders simply use an experience needed algorithm like this: Exp_Needed = Level * 1000. This just makes me feel like the creator put almost no effort into it and just stuck something that sounded good. It also bugs me when people don't scale basic attacks to base HP. People just think that they're two separate stats that can be calculated separately. This is simply untrue and leads to attacks either killing a mob too slow, or 2-Shotting them. 2) Better Items Gear makes the world to 'round! It's the reason people want to do all of the hardest level quests and achievements. You can create Dungeons for a party of players to go through that drops some of the best gear. Watch out though. To keep your players interested in the dungeons, you need to make sure that bosses have fun but challenging mechanics. This makes it much more than spamming 3 moves to deal the most damage before they die. 3) Plots If you're just told to kill 5 of these mobs, but aren't told why, it's not a very fun quest is it? Now if the quest giver tells you, "You must help with our assault on the lair by thinning their ranks!" this gets you excited and wondering things like *Is there a quest where I participate in this assault?* and keeps your focus. Long quest lines can even end in a multi-player dungeon encounter where you work together in a party to defeat a big boss to complete the quest, earn experience, finish the plot line and close off the loose ends, and a chance to gain better gear. It's hooks like these that keep your players playing your game. 4) Diversity No RPG has ever gotten good because every player was the same. It's boring to play without some sort of role distinction for each player. This is best handled with Classes and Skill Tree's. A Cleric is a healer while a Warrior Deals Damage and keeps the mobs attention. Or if you don't want to use classes, Skill tree's for each role can be used. Such as, Healer, Damage, Tank, Pvp Healer, Pvp Damage, ect. You can have tons of different combinations that bend around a players style. 5) Free World Roaming An RPGs main staple is the ability to move around the whole world and explore. Without this, players are also easily bored, with no game content to see, and limited quest space, things turn sour very quickly. 6) Level Caps You MUST distinguish a level cap in order to keep everything balanced. Without it, the game is less like an RPG and more like a(for lack of a better term) Pissing-Contest to see who can get the highest level and maintain it. Making a set level limit also gives players a concrete goal to achieve. Instead of, "I have to get to a higher level than this guy" you think, "Man, I've got to get to level 100 so i can group with my friends at level 100 as well." This keeps everything balanced and doesn't let any single player get to a God-like status above everyone else without actually being so good at the game that they can't be beaten. This means even newer players can eventually catch up and be on par with veteran players. PLEASE NOTE that i did not once say that Graphics were a must, nor did i say that sound, fancy cut scenes, or even being original were required. These things are to simply give the game a more professional look. Take NEStalgia for example, 8-bit graphics, low sound quality, and based on the old NES style RPG's. Why it's one of the best games on Byond, and if i'm not mistaken, in the top 34 computer games list, is because NEStalgia used ALL of these methods and did it in a clean and optimal fashion. You don't need to be original or know how to icon tiles worth a flip. All you need is to know basic Math skills, know how to write a convincing story, and be a little imaginative. Other than that, the only skill you need is how to have fun, If it's not fun for you, It most likely won't be fun for your players. If you do that, I guarantee that you'll have at least a few loyal players. | |
actually i disagree,
I have played a MMMORPG 15$ a month and you could do many things while AFK Some things were against the rules such as AFK killing in a newbie quest spot, but anyway back to my point. AFK is O.K. in my book, reason behind that is that you are still playing the game just not sitting in front of the computer, and some people DON'T like or can't sit by a computer and play the entire time that they would like to, and honestly AFKing in my MMORPG i used to play had limits of course, such as being disconnected after a certain time, or server restarts, and what was good about the AFKing was that they couldn't really AFK anything that was worth AFKing to the point that they were better than another player, SURE after many many many hours of being AFK and someone who hasn't had that many hours online compared to that AFK player, that AFK person might just have an upper hand but in PVP that AFK person probably wouldn't do so good which in most of these byond games it seems to be mostly combat related gaming. So to fix AFKing to a point where you don't lose your playerbase is make them want to play, and/or don't let them be able to get the upper-hand while AFKing here would be an example of AFK effecting that person "okay going AFK" /train 30 minutes later they're experiance gain has been severely decreased and the longer they stay afk the lower it gets. IDK just a thought, i mean yes they gain xp... but is it worth it? just my 2 cents! :) | |
It seems to me that any game that has a grind (most MMORPGs) or AFK training, a game that isn't actually played, is a flawed game mechanic and bad game design.
The ultimate goal, I think, should be to eliminate any sort of "grind." Re-Focus the player on actually playing a game. I don't know, just my thoughts. | |