Where's the problem, exactly?
Random DBZ Game: Now With More Cursing is submitted to a guild by someone. If it's an official BYOND guild, it gets tucked away in some corner. If it's a private guild, the guild takes one look at Random DBZ Game and decides, "No way, nuh uh, I don't think so" and rejects it on the spot.
The good games get their spotlight, the bad games get tucked away for the people who really want to sift through them (the site's not done yet -- Dantom and crew have a history of doing things in little steps lately). If it's a good game, then you bring it up with a guild and do your own advertising to try and attract your fans. If it's not a good game, in terms of how many people actually like it, it slips away into obscurity.
The central Hub is good and all, but it was trying to be something it wasn't. Reading through most of the posts about people complaining that games will vanish forever, I haven't seen even one mention of anyone considering advertising on sites other than BYOND for their games. You're not exactly going to get fresh blood for your game if you're advertising amongst a community you're already familiar with. Granted, once you build up a reputation for yourself in BYOND, it's good to advertise here too, but BYOND is not and never should have been some sort of completely arbitrary governing body where all things lead straight to the top.
It's funny that people complain that there's no central system, then they complain when they get a central system which gets filled up with pointless crap, then they complain when the central system gets policed, then they complain when the central system stops being policed, and then they complain when the system becomes decentralised.
I think of it as like five wasted years that are finally going somewhere.
amen jt! the squirrel has spoken!
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I agree with a lot of what's been said.
As for advertising, I did spread Wargames out across the net quite a bit last year, but I'm quite self concious so I won't advertise something I'm not happy about. I'm going to try advertising off-BYOND again soon, and I hope it will attract a few dozen players at least. | |
This issue really boils my blood, because the moment there is any sort of change on BYOND, they don't bother to try to learn about it before spamming their rants on the front page.
I have been hoping for this change for years. The fact that games were getting advertised on the main site simply because they were live made people lazy and filled BYOND to its rims with crappy games. The guilds accept games under very loose rules; basically all you have to do is actually do some work on your game, you know, like every other game making site on the web has been doing for years. That's NOT elitist. If that's not your style, the staff was still nice enough to allow you to make your own guilds on the site so that can advertise crappy games if you so please. The only problem that I see is that it will be harder for people to get beta testers.... But really, how many do you need? You could easily get some without being advertised on the main site, and "some" is all you need. | |
Son of a bitch... after Tom blocked a ton of posts about the Games Live! section that were negative from the members page, he'd better damn well block this one.
No offense to you personally at all; it jus strikes me as funny that a post in support of the system is allowed to survive when Tom's excuse for blocking the other posts was to "centralize" the discussion. | |
He may just not have gotten to this one yet.
Though, most of them were just turning into "help us spam the front page to get it back!", so I could see his apprehension towards the negative ones and not this one. However, I think it should still be centralized to prevent a lot of confusion, even if this one is respectful and mature. | |
I don't really have to many problems with this new system, and yes what was said here changed my mind on a few things. But I don't like how the guilds are run by normal people, mostly what I'm scared of is that some people will be biased towards others, and that'll affect the upcoming game, in terms of getting into the guild or not. I just hope the guilds are overlooked by the BYOND staff.
My only real problem with this new system is that it was implemented way to early, there is still quite a bit to be done before they go changing the whole thing. | |
@SilkWizard: I thought the same thing, but there was another small post arguing against the changes before this post (and there are more now). It seems like there was just a certain point where the blocking method was accepted to be futile.
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If I'm understanding this correctly... I could have a game with a hub entry, publically host it with my pager turned on so that info is communicated with the hub page, but if I haven't taken the step of submitting it to a guild, people who don't have the link to its hub page are extremely unlikely to stumble across it?
Because I like that possibility. I don't think I'm the only one who can foresee the potential for a game powered by BYOND but publicized separately or not at all. | |
The only problem that I see is that it will be harder for people to get beta testers.... But really, how many do you need? You could easily get some without being advertised on the main site, and "some" is all you need. It seems a Beta Games or Testing guild would be suitable. | |
SilkWizard wrote:
Son of a bitch... after Tom blocked a ton of posts about the Games Live! section that were negative from the members page, he'd better damn well block this one. This post is actually a direct copy of a post to that thread that I decided to abort and turn person-neutral. I was responding to one of the people in question and then wanted to make it a broader address... but wouldn't have been able to do that by responding to the topmost post because my post would have nothing in common with it. I felt it'd be better to put my post as a sort of Gettysburg Address than to reply to the OP with something that was completely irrelevant. This isn't so much asking for discussion as it is stating my opinion on the subject and a whole "love it or leave it" principle. I couldn't care less what sorts of discussion it spawns, I'm just happy the way things are going. ;-) Incidentally, to clarify for anyone else who doesn't know, while I am a BYOND forum moderator, I have no significant creative input or direct communication with the BYOND staff at this time. The various website upgrades come as complete surprises to me. All I'm aware of is the existence of BYOND 3.5++. =) I am biased, sure, but sometimes BYOND's community has been pissing me off (some forum posts make me wish murder for stupidity was only a misdemeanor), so I'm not a hopeless acolyte of the BYOND clergy. | |
Mind you, the current state of the site mirrors their fears. There are indeed games which are currently missing. Games Live was taken away before many of the games were sorted into guilds. Sure, there are people who should be reading responses from those in the know before posting, but being initially shocked seems to be a reasonable response.