AbyssDragon wrote:

What about people that enjoy the Zelda world and would like to roleplay their own characters in it? In that case, making it online does serve a purpose. (I, however, doubt that any of the people making Zelda games will actually do that, but the point stands)

I'm not averse to taking single-player concepts and reworking them for multiplayer. The real problem with redoing something like Zelda would be that it's a big copyright no-no. Since all designers have their own thoughts on what they would have liked to see in such and such a game anyway, it makes a lot more sense to create a similar environment and play style but with a different name, different characters, etc. Then what you have is a game in the same genre instead of an attempted replica right down to the name.

BTW, your link doesn't work; you should include http:// in all links or else it's interpreted by the browser as a relative URL.

Lummox JR

Sounds awesome... This idea had crossed my mind one day while thinking about the GameCube/Game Boy Advance connection...

I decided that it would be awesome if there were all kinds of games for the GBA that acted like your one player game... You play an RPG with a character of your choice (depending on which game you picked out of the lineup) and built that character up by playing the game...

And once you had a sufficient character...you could connect the GBA to your GC and plop in the GC game that would be like your online version... And your character would be immersed into a whole new, much bigger world...

Anyways.... Sounds awesome... Here's to hoping that Nintendo will get this idea...lol

Well lets hope that Dragon Warrior Online was just a practice run for SilkWizard, I'd like to see more original games from him in the future since he apparently know's what he's doing.

I'm curious as to how you feel about taking multiplayer "paper and dice" games and making multiplayer onlin games. These types of games are always different, depending on who is "telling the story". While these games are normally set in past times, they can be adapted to any time period that you can imagine.

I'm sure there are many fine paper and dice games that have been turned into computer games. Vampire: The Masquerade being one of them. I particularly enjoy the single playered version because the people online don't know how to properly DM a game.

Evilkevkev

Foomer wrote:

But you didn't go building Pipe Dream Online, now did you?

People making DBZ-type games could easily change the names of what they're working with, put in a new concept or two, and have a (supposedly) totally new game. Replace Goku, Vegeta and Gohan with Kobian, Sarik, and Atheria (randomly generated) and no one will point you out as "another stupid dbz game", but they don't seem to understand that.

I think the reason they don't get it has a lot to do with their liking DBZ in the first place. It attracts fans of a certain age and mentality.

Basically, we're dealing with extremely unoriginal people who just latched onto DBZ so strongly that they want to do something to participate in the story. Hence they want to play one of the characters, or interact on one of the storylines, or some such. Because they're an unoriginal bunch, once one person did "pbags" it became all the rage among our resident DBZers. Each thinks they can take one person's game and just do a few things better with it--or else they want to do something totally original, but they don't have the basic creativity to escape the conventions of other games.

Ultimately the problem with our DBZers is that they're not in it to make a good game; they're in it to make something DBZ-related. This is a far cry from what Deadron does, or other serious developers have done, where the goal is to make a game; perhaps the basic concept of an existing game is taken and then modified considerably, but they don't simply rip off the names and images of something else.

Lummox JR

The thing is, though... is that tower from Dragon Warrior? I bet it isn't... Dragon Warrior has towers, but this sounds like an original level lay out to me. And what's the problem with that? Simple -- it isn't Dragon Warrior.

This is the paradox of the fan/rip-off game... whatever makes an individual fan game "cool" defeats the original purpose. The more cool stuff Silk puts into DWO, the less and less Dragon Warrior it becomes. With a game that's original to begin with (although it can still be inspired by, or an homage to, an existing work), you don't run into this.

Lummox JR wrote:

they want to do something totally original, but they don't have the basic creativity to escape the conventions of other games.

This is something that I constantly struggle with in all of my creative endeavors, whether they be games, music, movies, whatever. Without fail, I always find that my projects start becoming more and more familiar as I work on them. Eventually I'll figure it out and discover which existing work I've been copying all along. I want to create something original, but I'm pretty sure I completely lack the true creativity to do so.

I have a theory (uh oh, not another one of these crazy ideas...) that most people like the familiar. It's more comfortable, not scary, and requires less brainpower to absorb things and situations that are familiar. The DBZ crowd loves watching DBZ. DBZ is familiar. It makes them feel good. DBZ games are familiar, hence they enjoy playing them. What could be better than creating something familiar, something that you already love, something you already know a lot about. Creating something totally new would not only be a lot more work, but it wouldn't be as fun for that part of the brain that loves the familiar. What if it doesn't turn out right? DBZ (in their minds) already turned out right, so how can you go wrong with it?

I'm certainly not defending the mentality, I'm just trying to understand it. I think there is a little bit of that in everyone. The difference is whether people choose to put that aside and be truly creative. The luckiest ones will create something truly great, possibly even revolutionary. The unlucky ones will create crap and be tempted to go back to what they already know and love (DBZ or whatever). This hinges on innate creative ability and the drive to develop and harness that ability. Some people have more, some have less.

It's kind of funny, I see myself as having two opposing sides when I'm working on something creative. My subconscious wants the easy, safe, known route of creating something that's essentially already been done. My conscious mind wants to create something truly unique and mine. Unfortunately, my subconscious is strong and usually wins out. I've discovered that I lack much true originality, but I'm damn good at creating a slick, polished product that's mostly a ripoff of something that already exists. It'll probably have a few of my own personal touches, but that's about the extent of it.

I only consider one of my current games to be even remotely original. The rest are blatant ripoffs, no better than the scores of DBZBlahBlahBlah games. The only difference is that the hub isn't infested with Pac-Man clones, Uno clones, or Bejeweled clones. If it were, I'm sure the same griping and hostility would apply towards them. Same goes for the other stuff I like to do. I haven't written or recorded a song that didn't sound quite suspiciously like some other song I like. The only difference is that usually I'm consciously trying to make something new with my music, while all of my games have been conscious attempts to rip off. The end result is the same.

Where am I going with this? Eh, I don't know. I'll leave it up to the rest of you whether what I do is wrong, immoral, pointless, etc. Personally I think it's no different from the people who make DBZ games (in fact, I'm one of them, if I ever get my butt back to work on it). Do I think it's wrong, immoral or pointless? Perhaps, but it's the best I can do and I don't lose any sleep over it.

Air Mapster wrote:

Personally I think it's no different from the people who make DBZ games (in fact, I'm one of them, if I ever get my butt back to work on it). Do I think it's wrong, immoral or pointless? Perhaps, but it's the best I can do and I don't lose any sleep over it.

I'm sorting through my feelings on this, since they are clearly biased by the fact that you are a fun, intelligent person so I automatically want to give you a lot more slack than others.

Personally, I'm bothered by Dung-Man because it is such a straight taking from a commercial copyrighted property. I think it's been very helpful as a demo of what BYOND is capable of, but I'd sure be more comfortable if it was a game that took the "progress through a maze by eating pips" concept as just a starting point, and then made some signficant departures that turned it into its own game (what I hope we've done with DragonSnot). For myself, my departure point would be to think about the ghosts and what they provide for the game, and what other interesting ways there might be to provide that factor for the game.

Where ripping off stops and new creation starts I don't know, and I certainly still worry that we aren't all the way there yet with DragonSnot.

ShapeShifter bothers me less, both because I think you have done your own look and feel for the game (haven't played the original so I might be wrong) and because the game concept you are borrowing is so basic that I'm not sure it can legitimately be "copyrighted". That is, "select things in a pattern to eliminate them" is a tried and true concept throughout the ages, and fair game for anyone, as long as you aren't using the characters and such created by someone else. So in the case of Dung-man, clearly the characters and look and feel have been appropriated, while with ShapeShifter it's my impression that you have done your own take on a simple and common game theme.

Now to get back to the title and a tangent: It's not about DBZ.

Sure many of us aren't happy with many of those who tend to be part of the DBZ craze. But I did a thought experiment: What if the Chess community or Backgammon community found BYOND, and instead of a DBZ infestation we had a Backgammon infestation?

Sure many of us oldbies would probably get along much better with the Backgammon players, but if there were 30 versions of half-working Backgammon games cluttering up the list and obscuring everything else, and every post was about Backgammon, and Backgammon developers showed no interest in creating other kinds of games, I think we would react similarly to the DBZ thing.

We'd be saying "Hey Backgammon is cool, but we don't want people to come here and think BYOND is just a Backgammon tool. It's much more than that and we want a broader set of developers than that."

So it's about diversity, not (just) about DBZ...

Foomer wrote:

The total lack of originality. People are always looking for games to rip off and covert to byond's multiplayer mode. Multiplayer Mario, Multiplayer Zelda, Multiplayer this and that and never anything original! Why can't people stop ripping off other people's things and build something of their own for once! (Strangely, the only people who ever seem to do this are the people who actually know what they're doing...)

Actually, they dont know what they are doing, that's why most of the ripoff bad ones are on more than the good ones. The reason no good original ones are out (excluding good ones like tanks) is because allot of effort is being put into it, and not thrown together into a little world with donation verbs and things that would ask for coders (slop typers) and icon artists (mouse painters).

DWO wasn't terribly original although it has a different story but it is still one the best games out there on my opinion