It has become apparent to me that some or many users are having trouble navigating the BYOND Website. So, for all those having issues, here's some pointers to help find what you need.
Navigation Bar
The top navigation bar is present on all BYOND pages with exception to the index page (which only comes up to users who aren't logged in). It's your one static guide around every page BYOND has to offer.
- My Account
- Contents: YourKey, View Site, Manage Account, Logout and Membership Info
- Information: This is where all your account options are. From modifying your account settings to viewing your own blog. It even tells you how much time is left on your Membership if you are a BYOND Member.
- Games
- Developers
- Contents: Articles, Forum, Guide, Reference, Libraries & Demos, Art Society and Audophilies.
- Information: This is your one stop developer resource. With links to user submitted articles, the developer forums and other such resources. Here you'll be able to find whatever you need. The Guide is your "Programming in DM" book, and the Reference is your cheat sheet of knowledge. The forums listed in this link are considered the main community forums.
- Community
- Contents: Blogs, News, Terms of Service, BYOND Action, BYOND Anime, BYOND Casual, BYOND RPG and BYOND Strategy
- Information: This menu provides links to all the user submitted content on BYOND. Including news about BYOND's up and coming plans. It also has a link to every individual official BYOND Game guild for easy navigation to and from.
- Help
- Site
- Information: The contents of this list are too dynamic for me to comment on. This is where all your permissions for the blog you are viewing are displayed. If you can submit posts, games, administrate the website etc.
BYOND Members
BYOND Membership are the key financial support BYOND Receives. For a small yearly payment of $18.00(USD) you receive a tonne of features and the knowledge you've helped support BYOND financially. Anyone who loves BYOND and has the money to spare, a BYOND Membership is a good way to go.
- Purchase a BYOND Membership (Contains a list of features)
- BYOND Members Terms of Service
The Guilds
A guild is a group of people of like mind who have gathered in one place to congregate. Be it about specific ideals, or inspecific interests. Chances are, you're bound to find a guild that interests you. Presently, there are nine official BYOND endorsed guilds and countless unofficial player created guilds.
Guild Information
- Unofficial Guilds
- Unofficial guilds can be created by any BYOND Member who wants to create one. There are hundreds, possibly thousands of player created guilds on the BYOND system presently. Look around the member blogs to see if you can find one you're interested in. They number in the many, something is bound to get your attention.
- Joining Guilds
- To join a guild, you must be a BYOND Member. Otherwise, guild masters can add non-BYOND Members to the guilds user list manually. Doing this will give the non-BYOND Member the privileges set to the rank they are given. The join links are located in two places, the player listing contains a join link under the View all * members link. And the second link is located in the Navigation Menu, under the "Site" Category. This link is named Join Site.
- Leaving Guilds
- Leaving a guild is much the same as joining a guild. The leave links are put in place of the join links. These links are named Leave and Leave Site respectively.
- Leaving a guild is much the same as joining a guild. The leave links are put in place of the join links. These links are named Leave and Leave Site respectively.
User Assistance Guild
- BYOND Help
- Guild Masters: Crispy and Danial.Beta
- Information: That's right, the site you're viewing right now. This was setup as a means for users having software or website related issues to communicate with those who have the knowledge to fix or debug their respective errors. If you're having any non-development issues with the software or website, we're the people to ask.
Development Guilds
- Dream Makers
- DreamMakers contains programming resources. Various articles written by members of the BYOND community to help people learn the DM Language. Also the best place on BYOND for people to ask for help about their programming problems. Discuss the philosophy behind designs or just chat with other community members about things of interest.
- BYOND Art Society
- Guild Masters: AmonR, Flick, Maggeh, Pmitch, TheMonkeyDidIt and Zenigwolf
- Information: BYOND Art Society is all your artistic requirements. With many talented BYOND artists to be found, you'll hopefully find any artistic resource you're looking for, be it someone to do pixel art for you (probably for a price) or tutorials on learning how to create your own pixel art.
- Audiophiles
- Guild Masters: IainPeregrine
- Audiophiles is your one stop sound resource. With links to sound creation software and free resources, you'll hopefully be able to fulfil your games sound requirements here.
Official Game Guilds
- BYOND Action
- Guild Masters: DarkCampainger and D4RK3 54B3R
- Information: BYOND Action deals with any BYOND game that is classified as an Action Game. If action is the game you're after, here is the place to look. Alone with action game news and reviews, this is your one stop action shop.
- BYOND Anime
- Guild Masters: SuperSaiyanGokuX and Masterdan
- Information: A guild dedicated to Anime based fan-games.
- BYOND Casual
- Guild Masters: Foomer
- Information: BYOND Casual are your relaxation games. Chat rooms, board games, card games, possibly even drinking games are all located in this guild. With casual game reviews and news posts, you'll never run out of things to do in this guild.
- BYOND RPG
- Guild Masters: Audeuro, Tiberath and Nadrew
- Information: So you're a serious RPG game player are you? Come stop by BYOND RPG and take a look around at what we have to offer. With game reviews and a few RPG's to try, something will hopefully take your fancy. Don't forget, BYOND RPG is also open for developers to ask the community what they desire in an RPG. Stop by and have a look!
- BYOND Strategy
- Guild Masters: ACWraith and Jon88
- Information: Are you a Chess Master? Perhaps checkers is your game. If not, maybe you like real time strategies? All of which can be found here. If you're looking for a real thinking game, this is the place to find it. BYOND Strategy is also known for it's long time running magazine "Along the Tech Tree", with news and information about recent user developments around BYOND.
Finding Resources
A lot of people seem to have trouble finding game resources. There are five main ways to find resources on the BYOND website.
- Google Search Bar
- The search bar in the navigation menu is a Google controled search which displays to you pages that Google thinks is relevant to your search. It's a nifty tool, but can often be a hit and miss scenario. You don't want to search for programming libaries here, because any forum or blog post which mentions what you're searching for will be located here.
- Resources Search
- This is found in a link on the Dream Makers page called "Demos & Libraries". Use this search to find free resources (including graphics) people have released using the BYOND Hub. It's a more specific method of locating the specific thing you're looking for.
- Blog Searches
- There are tens of thousands of blog posts on the BYOND system. If you're lucky, someone might have already made a blog post about what you're looking for. Always good to have a look here and see if you can find something of interest.
- Forum Searches
- Each forum you visit will contain a search option. Use this to find anything you might be looking for. Be it specific posts on how to make an icon or specific posts on how to program in a say() verb. Your question might have already been asked, it's quicker to find a result than it is to wait for people to answer your question.
- Ask for Assistance
- The BYOND community is a relatively friendly community. Most of the time, if you word your request with an attempt at correct spelling and a polite tone, you'll find the users will be very helpful in giving you advice or linking you to a particular resource you can't find.
Hub Pages
Game hub pages are a free advertising resource for BYOND Games. These pages can be favourited by BYOND Members and linked to in BYOND Guilds.
- Information: There are various links in the right hand menu that provide you, the player, with information and options regarding the specific hub page.
- Download: This gives you the option to download the game yourself, whether to host it for others to play or to play the game in single player. Some games are limited to only one or the other.
- Play Live: This link will scroll you down to the bottom of the page where you'll see a list of online servers and who is currently playing inside them.
- Launch Game: This is the same as clicking the above mentioned "Download" button.
- Join waiting list: If the game is currently offline, and you are a BYOND Member, this option will send you a notification via pager of when the game is hosted without you needing to favourite the game.
- View website: If the creator has an off-BYOND website they've setup for the game, they can provide a link to it in the hub creation page. This link will direct you to that website.
- Forum: Same as the above website setting, if the creator has a forum somewhere they've setup for the game, this link will direct you to it.
- Referrals: This link will take you to a page where you can get a referral link for the game. If you like the game and want to recommend it to other communities, you can use one of these links to earn Referral Points.
- Add to favorites: This link only appears if the game currently isn't listed as one of your favourite games. This will add the game to your favourites list.
- Remove from favourites: This undoes the above action.
- Watch in pager: This link will add the game to your pager for you. If your a BYOND Member, it'll inform you when the game becomes live and display to you any status information the game is using.
- Stop watching in pager: This undoes the above action.
- Submit to guild: If you're a part of any guild that allows game submission, this link will display a list of guilds you can submit the game too. If submitting to an official guild, please make sure it fits the correct genre.
- Review this game: If you're a BYOND Member and part of any guild that allows post submissions, this link will take you directly to the review page of that guild where you may write a review for the game.
- Listed in Guilds: This box shows you the up to six guilds which have this game in their listings.
- Players Also Like: This box shows you other games players have enjoyed. This box is only influenced by users who currently have the hub page you're viewing favourited. Think of it as a "we also suggest these great titles".
- Icons: There are various icons on pages used to denote a games status. Hovering over them with your mouse pointer or looking at the top of the page will tell you what they mean. But here's a quick reference for you regardless.
You're free to download and host this game.
This game has been favourited by the user/staff of the blog/guild you're viewing.
Screenshots of this game are available on the hub page.
A video of this game is available on the hub page.
The game currently has an active server for you to join and play
This game can be played in a single player mode
This game can be played in a multiplayer mode
This game supports BYOND Members by giving them additional benefits while playing the game.
If there is anything else you are having trouble with, please let me know via comments and I'll endeavour to update this post.
The information at the time of this post is accurate. Past this time I can not promise it's accuracy. If you feel this post has become outdated, please let us know on our forums. Thank you.