Schnitzelnagler wrote:

Zaole wrote:

i quite often see really wonderful artwork paired up with really awful programmers, and the programmers are so lazy and bad that the game never gets released and all the great artwork gets wasted.

Easy solution.
Convince these artists to create a good, free art collection, since obviously, I can't.
If a bad programmer uses this art, the game will at least shine through eye candy and if a good programmer catches some nice graphics, even better.
Not to mention that these graphics should be in dmi format (best released as library and directly linked), with a detailed copyright description and contact (compensation) information, because this way a programmer might actually even find an artist s/he'd like to work with.

Through structured easily accessible information and fast contact comes success.
Neither of both is the case right now.

Why force good artist to work for free when every programmer on here (even the ones who lack any skill) ask for 200 dollars a week for a game that is going to be played for free?

The main problem is self preservation (human nature) and Greed (Communism).

Tiberath wrote:

Lode Wars has been consistently hosted for the past few weeks now. It has had anywhere from one to seven players online at a time.

you see, this made me excited, because i then went to go play lode wars and there was a single afk guy in the game hosting, no one playing-- i couldn't get a match going

oh well, i guess that if 1 of the 4 mentioned games has a single afk person hosting, that basically defeats my point that these games don't get played, doesn't it?

A semi-recent poll says the majority are on the younger side of teenagers, the rate of those under the age of ten is considerably less than that of those over the age of sixteen.

refer to foomer's post

Zaole wrote:

anyways, to at least partially answer your question, BYOND's community has been dragged down in the mud even further by the 8 year old subspecies of anime fans who spew out endless iterations of shameful, abominable rips, causing real artists and programmers to shy away from using BYOND, which has put a real dent in the "games that are actually worth playing" section of BYOND to the extent that there... aren't any at all, really (that have been made recently)

Those monsters, infesting our BYOND with their filth!

you seem to have completely missed my point. what i said here is NOT that "waaaah i keep trying to make dumb people play smart games but they don't wanna", but rather "all of the dumb people scare away potential game developers, thus constraining BYOND's quality game pool"

Zaole wrote:

"if you build it, they will come" is simply not true on BYOND. there have been good games created recently that received no attention at all simply because there is no audience left

Then why is this one of many threads that consists of several users stating "there is no good games"? If this statement is as true as you think it is, there wouldn't be treads about this. The audience is there, people just aren't trying hard enough to get their attention.

these threads come up frequently for two reasons:

- the good games that ARE out there get played so little that the people making these threads fail to even notice the games' existence
- there aren't a decent amount of good games; just because there's one or two in total doesn't mean BYOND is filled to the brim with games of a genre that that particular person would enjoy

--[edit]

Hell, I spend my time in a game you're all too familiar with. During the summer holidays it consisted of anywhere from 50 - 100 players at peak hours, and no less than 25 - 30 in off-peak. And most (if not all) of the time, it has more players than any other BYOND Casual game. It certainly isn't a predominant anime title. It's a simple building game, which more often than not is used for role playing.

i don't get what your point is here. the game's community is the audience we're speaking negatively of-- the immature kids who only play anime games (or in this case, a game which allows you to roleplay as any anime character you want). next are you going to point out that naruto GOA has 100+ players? >_>

And oh the teams we had.....


Hi Branks.

And Sariat.

That's good to hear - BYOND needs more tower defense games. Castle was once a great example of what I'd enjoy from one, but now it's the opposite.

Foomer wrote:

I was half-heartedly thinking of making one too. I'd just like to come up with something that involved machine guns but without any slaughter. I'm thinking junkyard robot wars. :)

I'm looking more at range from stone age to modern day, where the units that "invade" will progress through history and the players will upgrade their "towers" through the eras to keep up. Or something along the lines.

I had a lot already done using placeholders, but I think the upcoming BYOND changes will make me want to redo the project.

We'll see.

Foomer wrote:

Which upcoming changes?

The changes to maps and icons and what not. I have a feeling that isometic isn't the only thing being done.
http://www.byond.com/members/ BYOND?command=view_post&post=81776

Which sort of relates to this post here. I think said changes will bring better games and developers to BYOND.

Vic Rattlehead wrote:

Games will be forced into isometric-ness (for a lack of a better word) after the update?

No. BYOND will just be able to be used to make isometric games easily. Isometric is optional.

But it's been said that isometric isn't the only thing in the upcoming changes. I assume custom icon size, non-32x32 tiles, and many other things are included, which is why I am waiting to do anything.

I tend to think the game creation side of things is fine. While an artist or someone with an AI focus might be nice, the team member I want most is a cheerleader and/or PR manager for advertising.

'Cause, you know, crap like this just makes me feel guilty:
;)

UmbrousSoul wrote:

So far the only way to even assure that sourcecode isn't released is to work alone

This is by no means true.

Choka asked ^[link] something similar and the reply^[link] is still true.

What you could and should do though is modular programming.
By exposing only the interface (together with a detailed documentation!), you allow for complete interaction with your code, while you warranty for good object oriented design, security and stability.

Imagine you'd be writing a library.
These have to apply to these exact rules.

Given a detailed and reliable, well phrased Functional Specification there is no need to know any of the 'other source code' you try to interact with.
Imagine this like one of BYOND's built in functions.
They have been created without needing access to your source code either.

And, though simple, it is rather true that what you don't have, you can't steal.


As for your comments on bad behaviour by other more skilled developers than you, it is somewhat tricky.
If you treat them nice, listen to advice and ask in a polite instead of a demanding way, I assure you that you are bound to get a decent answer.

Like the lecture on failing at failing with game programming advices, if you just provide several pages of source code, then comment that yo know you did nothing wrong, you are bound to receive a sarcastic reply. If you ask why function x does not yield the result y, when provided with argument z, you are bound to get a detailed explanation.
If you still have questions, do not phrase them as:
'Why not use usr in proc, work for me!', but start a discussion which actually provides reasonable arguments, such as, 'This is strange, since when I used usr in Click() is suffered no problem, could you elaborate on your concern in more detail please, since I'm a bit stunned here.'

Last, but not least...
Where have you seen any decent programmers asking for such payment recently? I read through the Classified Ads (Developers) section on daily base and got to have missed that. And what are these programming related issues you're suffering? Mind to drop me a line on the pager?

Schnitzelnagler wrote:

Where have you seen any decent programmers asking for such payment recently? I read through the Classified Ads (Developers) section on daily base and got to have missed that. And what are these programming related issues you're suffering? Mind to drop me a line on the pager?

He's probably referring to [link], which is me describing how much I'd like to make to be recruited as a game-developing contractor with deadlines and such. :) Free work = no obligations. In order to force myself to program, I'd have to be able to make a living off it, since I do have to support myself somehow. Otherwise, programming gets kicked into a much lower priority.