I'm sure most people of note have already realized that Ira has returned to byond (Huzzah!). What depresses me though, is that the quality of games hasn't gotten much better :-/ Now I tend to gravitate towards the anime-spin-off games, simply because of my love for anime, games, and hours of seemingly pointless pandering to people half my age. (Anyway...) The popular games are still the most trivial - and I have absolutely no love for them. So as my final 'review' (bash) - I'm going to simply list all the things that piss me off in byond games - and any designer who cares to read can simply *not* do said things.

1) Don't use the same damn source code over and over again. Seriously. DBZ had one (or two), Naruto has one, and Bleach now has one. This tired out code that's been rehashed again and again - and people still play them. These games were sub-par when they were new! And now they're scrapped together with little add-ons that are supposed to make them better like 'fast levels!' >.> The only people this calls upon are too simple to enjoy a real game anyway, so they can have it. The rest of you ignore them.

2) Non-interesting grind: We've all seen it before - Walk up to log. Punch log. Level up. Punch Log more. Level up more. HOOWAH! I'm uber powerful now from all that log punching. *Attacks for #.INF dmg* <.< You fail uninteresting game designers. First of all, if you're going to do something like this, the least you could do is throw in many many MANY stats! That way grinding doesn't seem that tedious because you can always do 'something else'. Bleach Las Noches >.> I'm looking at you. Been around a long time, and you seem to be popular..but you're prime example numero uno. Surprisingly this doesn't happen much in Naruto based games, and DBZ games have already learned from this lesson and have made training quite complex (what few are left).

3) Administration: Let's face it, your game involves people - or else you wouldn't have made it. But sadly, some people out there shouldn't be in your game. Due mainly to character flaws that prevent them from adapting well to normal society (*ahem*). Anywho, a game needs moderation to ensure its proper eb and flow, no matter how well its coded. (That's right, GM's aren't just there to host tourneys and get you 'unstuck') They're the peacekeepers, the authority figures, and in most games I've come across....idiots. Look, you can't just choose a GM/Admin based on your own buddy system, or who's been playing your games the longest mentality. GM's need maturity as well as a complete and total understanding of the rules of your game (and yes, you need to establish rules). Talking purely in overblown font Announcements - is not proper etiquette for GM's. Hell, I don't even know why they put that feature into games - all it gets is abused. The main culprit to the 'stupid/rude/racist/obnoxious GM' phenomenon is...well...just about every Non-Rip Naruto game out there. Which is sad, because most of them would have potential if not for this fact. Spawn killings, swearing, griefing, ect ect - happens and the GM's don't even seem to care. And players notice! In fact, anarchy seems to erupt and people just do whatever the hell they feel like - the ban button is just a toy that certain people get to play with. Axerob >.> I'm looking at you here buddy. Pretty sad when a person who spends the majority of her free time on the internet gets run off by immaturity and stupidity. But your game...yeesh...I'm not even going to go there today.

4) Tutorials! We're smart people - we have explored the internets. But sometimes, certain gaming concepts can even get us confuzzled - if only every once in a while. So how do we alleviate this? Write a freakin help file - or a tutorial to help get things started! Nothing scares away new players faster than running smack into death the very second they begin the game. Ease them into it, give them a safe place, provide ample documentation (in the form of pop-up boxes) on the different class/race/village/ect so the individaul knows what these are in your game. This takes time and is a little more complicated than some of the coding process, but it'll be worth it when people actually log in and 'get started' without being chased away before they ever had the opportunity. (Vince >.> Hint hint)

Well that's all I can stand for this evening. If I've offended anyone here, then bleh...get over it. I'm as nice as I possibly can be 99% of the time. But for that other 1% I rant. This just happens to be a venue for said rants.

~Irenes / Daemios