BYOND 3.5 Beta 1
(Update) (Notes)
A new beta version of BYOND 3.5, the next step on the way to 4.0, is now available for download. The Windows updater requires that you install BYOND 341 or below (download) prior to upgrading. This beta has some known issues, but we have found it to be relatively stable thanks to a group of dedicated testers. Please report any problems in Bug Reports.
BYOND 3.5 includes a few significant changes that are necessary for us to get to version 4.0 (see the notes above for a full list of changes):
- The pager is now separated from Dream Seeker as a standalone application. In 4.0, this will help allow game developers to fully customize the Dream Seeker interface. In 3.5, we retain the traditional Dream Seeker interface, but the plumbing between Dream Seeker and Pager has changed significantly.
- We now support a variety of new sound formats, thanks to the FMOD sound library. See the release notes for a complete list.
- BYOND 3.5 includes a number of new features exclusively designed for BYOND Members. What's a BYOND Member, you ask? Read on!
BYOND Members
As you may know, BYOND 4.0 has been in the pipeline for a couple of years now. What's been the hold up? Quite simply, we all need to eat and pay the bills. BYOND's development has slowed because members of the development team have had to work outside jobs for regular income, leaving little free time available for improving BYOND itself. No more!
In order to ensure that BYOND can cover its own costs (bandwidth, servers, etc) and pay its development team to improve the software, we are now introducing a new service: BYOND Membership. With your contribution, we will be able to resume developing BYOND at a faster pace, finally pushing towards version 4.0 in the coming months.
When you purchase a BYOND Membership, you receive all of these benefits and more:
- A full year's subscription to BYONDscape.
- Your own customizable BYOND website, complete with a blog and more.
- Enhanced pager features.
- Enhanced forum features (including an ultra-cool forum avatar!).
- The satisfaction of knowing you've helped us bring BYOND 4.0 to fruition that much quicker!
See the complete list at the BYOND Membership Info page.
For the entire month of June, we are offering a free trial to everyone who is interested in test driving this new service. Go the the info page linked above to activate your trial. We've already gotten a month of great testing and feedback from several beta testers (special thanks to all!), and we welcome everyone's feedback. During the trial period, we will continue to add more features and try to incorporate as much of your feedback as we possibly can.
In another week or two, we will begin accepting payments for BYOND Membership, once a few last administrative details are worked out. Everyone who signs up before the trial period ends will receive an extra six months added to their first year of membership!
At the end of the trial period, we must unfortunately disable a few non-essential features for those who choose not to purchase a BYOND Membership. As of July 1st, non-Members will no longer be able to send instant messages via the pager (there will be an exception when a Member has initiated a conversation with a non-Member). Non-members will also no longer be able to see the exact locations of other people who are online.
The reasons for this are several. These two features tax our servers more than anything else we offer, so limiting them to BYOND Members will help reduce the load and ensure that we can provide better service during peak times of the day. We also hope that offering these as Membership perks will make the package more attractive. And finally, we believe that with the abundance of external instant messaging systems (MSN, AOL, Yahoo!, ICQ, just to name a few), sending instant messages via the BYOND Pager is a non-essential feature.
As always, the BYOND software will remain completely free of charge, and the vast majority of our hub services will also be free. We hope all of you will check out this new service and consider giving us your support. Become a Member, and help us make BYOND 4.0 a reality!