Any specific points that you want me to elaborate on, or explain?

The purpose of BYOND has always been to create a more accessible venue for anyone with the desire to create a game to be able to pursue those desires. The people on this website aren't professionals, and probably never will be. Expecting a high level of quality from amateurish work is unreasonable.

That doesn't matter, though, because the point of BYOND isn't to get a bunch of intellectuals together to make quality games for one another to enjoy. The community's user-driven, and I think that's how the BYOND staff would like to keep it.

What you're proposing's more of a GameSpot.com (I think that's the website?) for indie games. You want a review site, not a community. That's not inherently bad, mind you - review sites have their place. It's just not what I (or most other users, more likely than not) want to interact with when I log on to BYOND.

I appreciate the personal nature of the site. The fact that I can design, develop, submit, and host my own bloody game without ever having to deal with the administration directly is a plus in my opinion. If I had to sweat everytime I added my game to the Hub because it might not meet BYOND's "Quality Control" standards (and thus negating dozens of months of hard work), I'd never come back, nor would the bulk of the userbase.

Thankfully, the only quality control we have right now is popularity. If people like your game, they'll play it, and it will show up in the Live Games. If not, it'll collect dust in the Hub. That's how it ought to be - players decide for themselves what they enjoy, instead of having their games spoonfed to them by people with inflated opinions of their gaming preferences.

I loathe Dragonball and Naruto as much as the next reasonable individual, but I recognize the presence of a high number of individuals who do not share my opinion. That's fine with me - they can play their games and it won't hurt me a bit. The worst thing that occurs in that situation is my having to sort through an entire 3 pages of unpublished games to see if there's anything I'd enjoy playing. Maybe it's just me, but... that's not really that bad.

There's a need for the BYOND community and its personal touch. On the other hand, I believe there's a need for something closer to your ideals too - a formal review system that does pick out the proverbial cream of the crop and publicize them to the community. I just think they ought to be seperate, much like government and religion.

This isn't the first time I've seen hints that something like a review site needs to be created. You're a clever fellow and I imagine you could get people to follow you if you weren't so impassioned about your opinions. Why not found something along those lines? It's a viable solution to the "problem" presented, and it still lets everyone else keep their beloved, twisted community.

Just my two cents.

(I make the claim of knowing what BYOND's intended purpose is. I draw these ideas from the blurbs posted on various sections of BYOND's website, and from my own impressions of the administration. While I think I'm right, you might disagree... which is cool. It's just my opinion, and I realize it may be completely off.)

(Probably isn't, though. =P)

Disturbed Puppy:

What we(the concerned BYOND members like yourself) need to do is give them(developers) more time to continue to make BYOND greater, and eventually they will get to the underlying problems.

First off, let me clarify that I'm not picking on you, so don't take it as that.

The whole "there isn't enough time" thing is a load of crap. One thing that the BYOND Staff is good at is making excuses. They've brilliantly put the idea into everyone's head that things are bad around here because "they don't have time" to deal with it. That is not the case.

A lot of the changes that would improve things dramatically would take them a day or two worth of effort. How did the Members blogs, Guilds or the recent removal of hub forums happen if the BYOND Staff doesn't have time to deal with stuff?

The real problem is that they don't KNOW how to fix the problems. A contributing factor is that certain members of the BYOND Staff leadership no longer care about the system, and want to wash their hands of it.

I completely understand real life intervening... hence all of the Acheron's Awakening delays. That said, BYOND problems are not due to a lack of availablity on the part of the staff. BYOND is systematically getting worse and worse.

One other thing to add, Disturbed Puppy:

Why are people willing to hand over $15 for a membership to BYOND if the staff isn't willing/capable of putting in time to improve things? Would the BYOND Staff really have the audacity to take people's money if that were the case?

Four of them, actually.

Actively hunt down all "rips" and ban the people who make them

I'd like to know how this would help BYOND, especially when it seems to me that it would hurt very much. There is a certain "culture of laziness" around ripping, but that's only a side effect. Naruto has a vast number of fans searching the internet for games to play. N-Bottles, itself a rip, is bringing many new users into the system; imagin the combined power off all of these rips. I'm of the opinion that a substancial block of Plunder Gnome's user base was brought in via ripping. Instead of abolishing anything Naruto or DBZ based, why not focus on integrating these users into the system? New users are the life blood of any community, and it seems your plan would do a great deal to stagnate us.

I mention abolishing anything Naruto based, because there's no clear way to judge wether or not something is a 'rip'. Xzdog himself released the Izou source, so do the 'rippers' do wrong by using it? Do 'legitimate' Naruto games do wrong by making fan material, which really belongs to the makers of the Naruto series? I would like to know how you would address all of the myriad details surrounding the buzzword.

Abolish guilds

Have you considered the reasons behind the staff's plan for guilds? I understand that you feel the current system to be 'half-baked' (a position I sympathize with), but you have provided no analysis of how the current implementation has failed to achieve these goals, or how aborting the project half way through would be of any benefit to the community.

Abolish the ranking system.

We all understand that the ranking system is not highlighting the quality games we would like it to. But why wail against such a boon? The ranking system has exposed a great truth about the BYOND website and community, one which we should all be taking advantage of. I believe our efforts would be better put into learning how to tap into this vast fan base, than spent breaking apart a useful diagnostic tool. The ranking system is passive, it shows what is happing within the community; I suggest investigating the active mechanisms behind the poor results we all see.

Put an end to the culture of elitism around here.

Like 'rip' and 'ripper', 'elitism' is a very nebulous term, at once concrete in our minds and very hard to define. That being said, limiting Elitism, especially the type which attacks new users, is a noble goal. I would like to see a strategy that the community as a whole, and especially the 'Gurus' individually, can take to help minimize elitism, the logic behind such a strategy, and how it would be superior to our communities current practices.

Also, please remember that 'Gurus' arn't just the developers. There are people who are seen as 'Guru' just for the efforts to build community, and there are Gurus who have just been around for a long time and people like to play games with them. It doesn't take a prolific programming career to be a mature user who contributes positively to the community.

JimmyWimmy wrote:

I'd think you of all people could relate. You can't even finish your game within months of several expected relase dates, but you're going to say that the BYOND Staff, who probably have busier lives than you do, actually do have the time fix everything instantly.

Like Silk said...he probably could release AA as it is right now, but he wouldn't have the audacity to take peoples money for an incomplete product.

JimmyWimmy wrote:

Okay, you're right. You know what stresses the hub and what doesn't because you have access to that information.

Let's see here... what do I have for you in my box of ownage?

Oh yes, a quote from Tom!

Tom wrote:
"While it does accrue some server overhead and issues (such as rampant spamming), those were not central to the decision of pulling it. Rather, like you inferred, we needed extra incentives for users to subscribe. While I would prefer to introduce pay-per features rather than pulling them, it's just not practical given our timeline."

"Put an end to the culture of elitism around here."

That's all I need to quote.

You're probably right - I'm probably inserting what I think would solve alot of the problems some users have with BYOND into your post as an imagined undertone.

What I'm seeing, though, is that you would rather see the bulk of BYOND games be cut away completely, and leave only the quality games.

The changes you're suggesting seem like they would completely break down the community as it exists now and make it cold and unwelcoming to anyone who doesn't meet the established standards.

I'll try and readdress each issue in turn in the hopes of communicating myself a bit better.

Abolish the ranking system.

It reflects what the vast majority of users feel ought to be seen. If a bad game makes the rankings, it's the users' fault, not the system's.

Re-enable the pager for all users.

It's useful, but not necessary. I used BYOND for a long time without the pager. Making it a pay perk generates more income for BYOND to keep running (not necessarily develop new features - gotta keep things around before you can improve them.)

Re-evaluate the published game channels.

I was under the impression that "Published Games" were just finished games. Am I misinformed?

Promote published games.

Agreed.

Re-enable automated paypal subscriptions for published games.

Subscriptions are nice, but usually not necessary to keep games running. I don't miss the BYONDime economy and all the dishonest users that came with it.

Abolish guilds.

Having not used them, I've no opinion on this topic.

Replace BYOND Member blogs with BYOND Member webspace.

I like the blogs. I've had free webspace given to me with memberships to places before and I simply haven't used them because I'm not a web designer and have no interest in spending an extravagant amount of time on a site hardly anyone's going to see. Blogs use less bandwidth, anyway.

Take a no non-sense approach to banning.

I wholeheartedly agree here. I've met more than one user who's been "BYOND Banned" before and is just using a different key or got the ban lifted somehow.

Revamp the "Classified Ads" forum.

Don't frequent these, so I don't have an opinion.

Actively hunt down all "rips" and ban the people who make them.

It's my understanding that alot of the "rips" that exist on BYOND right now weren't always rips. The child who wrote the source shared it with a friend or someone offering to help with the game. In the inevitable falling out that occurs a month or so later, the parties part ways on less than friendly terms, and the child demands their source back, even though it was freely given to the friend.

The whole "rip" community's mostly just children who are playing their primary school games with one another. I think sectioning them off into their own little corner of BYOND's well enough - once they've matured and realize how ridiculous they've been, they can start contributing games to the rest of the community, instead of just the other children.

Put an end to the culture of elitism around here.

Welcome to the internet. There will always be people who think they're better than someone else. I'm sure you hold yourself above Zeta rippers, and feel justified in doing so because they participate in an act you disagree with vehemently. Several of your posts have an "elitist" air about them. Many of mine do, too - it's just how people are.

It occurs to me that the biggest problem you have with BYOND is all the children flooding it and influencing the community in a negative manner, and the subsequent inaction of the administration concerning these troubles. There is, of course, also your issue with how BYOND's website's being handle, but we'll just have to agree to disagree there.

Maybe that cleared something up? Probably not - I'm not very articulate this afternoon.