Bases in my opinion are kind of important. I mean a good percentage of players actually care what their base looks like because it describes their personality. Some people dress up their characters to show that they are able to achieve something others cant. For example clothing in game that costs a lot. Some player would wear this to show that they are proficient in playing and can gain things more faster then a regular play could. Then, players would fear them because they obvious know how to play the game. Yes, even tho a game doesn't revolve around how the base is lied out it's still pretty good to know that your character can look different then another player. Creating thousands of accessories helps the player choose from an endless possibility of pieces of clothing to look unique.

Again, the lack of a "Like" button on the forums bothers me...

Forum_account wrote:

BayJune wrote:

Bases in my opinion are kind of important. I mean a good percentage of players actually care what their base looks like because it describes their personality. Some people dress up their characters to show that they are able to achieve something others cant.

We're not saying that it's bad to have those things, just that from the game developer's perspective this is a very small part of the game. It's one line of code to add an overlay and another line of code to remove it, but some people spend months working on this one part of their game when they have hardly anything else done.

I think you're giving these people too much credit, as if they're actually working on something, but it's just not getting done. The problem lies where people have the, "Best game idea ever" but are clueless on how to put in down into some hard medium. It's the loss of motivation (Or general lack thereof) that binds these projects to Pre-Alpha. Opening the project file and touching up an icon or two does no constitute "Under Development" status.

It's when people I say
"I want to make a [insert cliche] game!"
That you see development on something with no actual substance. It's a problem when you don't have a main purpose/goal/task for the player to enjoy in your game so instead you build art around a theme. I know the cycle from experience. Fortunately I'm a changed man.

Also I find that starting off making smaller games of simple to more difficult complexity hones the skills of a programmer, and is better than starting on a large project. In the latter option, your motivation is crushed by the weight of the perfect game you envision.

All the games in your Creations list are fan games - of course you're going to side with the people who obsess over bases.

And here 3/4 years later you're still missing the point. A developer's priority should be the gameplay. Of course, it's up to the developer what he/she wants to do and what order they want to do it in but at the end of the day, there's an efficient and inefficient way of doing things. Spending 90% of your time on aesthetics and the last 10% on gameplay isn't really smart since players are going to play your game based on how fun it is and not necessarily on how good/bad it looks.

You beg to differ? Then tell me, name some games you play solely because the game looks good. If you can't come up with any, you've proved my point about people playing games for gameplay and not for artwork. Nothing is flashy about Minecraft, yet millions of people have purchased the game and enjoy it.

People's productivity level speaks for itself. The people who focus on art 24/7 take months to get a game out or never get around to finishing at all while Epic, an example of a game that prioritized gameplay, was released and playable pretty quick. Yut is a good artist - he could have easily spent months making awesome HUDs and flashy bases, but that's not what makes a game worth playing. Art, sounds, music etc. are all there to improve the game experience, not vice versa.

EmpirezTeam wrote:

Spending 90% of your time on aesthetics and the last 10% on gameplay isn't really smart since players are going to play your game based on how fun it is and not necessarily on how good/bad it looks.

Keep in mind that these are BYOND games we're talking about. The potential to make a game with good graphics is very limited. If a BYOND game looks good, that doesn't mean it rivals Crysis 2, it means it's on par with games from 1992. Compared to modern commercial games all BYOND games will look bad. People will only try BYOND games out because of their gameplay. That's why people like indie games. Modern commecial games have to have mass appeal - indie games can offer gameplay that other games can't/won't.

And it's not to say customization is a bad thing. It just is if you think it's more important than the actual game. It's like a chef making a cake, except he only spent 5 minutes on the actual cake and the other one or two hours perfecting the icing and candles. Who's going to care about how great the icing and candles are if the cake is hard and flavorless? Besides Killalongjohns.

Or you can spend one or two hours making the actual cake and another one or two hours perfecting the icing and candles. Who ever said you only have 2 hours and 5 minutes? Unless each developer on BYOND gets a deadline, everything you've said percentage/time wise is invalid.