Aug 2 2010, 11:59 pm
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Techgamer
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How is anyone trolling? Calling it a WoW-clone is hyperbolic, but from what I've seen it really doesn't bring anything new to the table besides polish that very very few byond games have.
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Your paypal donate button is epic. I need one that looks like that.
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SilkWizard wrote:
NEStalgia is the amalgam of everything that made those classic games so much fun. Console RPGs weren't fun because they were excellent games, they were fun because they offered something new. Most of the popular Atari games took place on one screen (ex: Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Asteroids, Warlords, Combat). Many NES games contained only one-dimensional progression through linear maps (ex: Super Mario Bros., Contra, Ninja Gaiden). Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy offered large areas you could wander through*. The novelty of this made up for the otherwise poor gameplay, but it's hard to cash in on novelty 20 years later. * To provide some contrast: Zelda, Metroid, and Crystalis are games that also offered large environments to explore but had excellent all-around gameplay too. The Zelda and Metroid franchises are still successful and remain close to their roots while DW/FF games have tried almost every gimmick to cover up boring gameplay. Geldonyetich wrote: BYOND is a remarkably flexible platform. If you want to make a game that resembles a NES RPG, you can. If you want to make a game that resembles Mega Man, you can. From playing with BYOND for just a few minutes it's pretty clear that you could use it to make an RPG, certainly one that resembles an NES rpg. It's not entirely clear to outsiders (or even to most BYOND users) that you could make a game like Mega Man. Making a polished game is a good thing (good for BYOND as a whole) because it shows that people can tolerate using the software long enough to create a polished project. Making a game that pushes the envelope (technically or design-wise) shows what BYOND is capable of and what BYONDers are capable of. Games that push the envelope are the ones that will impress outsiders. It's kind of like how flash was originally for making silly animations on the web, but now it's a serious game development platform. People have shown that flash is capable of more than just silly animations. This wasn't done by a single, polished game, but from a large variety of games. | |
Forum_account wrote:
Console RPGs weren't fun because they were excellent games, they were fun because they offered something new. This statement is actually completely contrary to reality. Re-releases and remakes of old games are all the rage right now (and for good reason). Just look at the success of the Wii Virtual Console, the huge community that has formed around classic console ROMs, and even modern games like Mega Man 9 that are made to look and play like the old stuff. Heck, I think almost every single RPG from the NES/SNES era has been re-released or remade several times over. Those re-releases sell well because the classics are indeed great games that are fun to play. Even the remakes rarely modify the actual gameplay, and instead just provide a new coat of paint. 20 years later the simple gameplay holds up incredibly well. In terms of BYOND itself, NEStalgia "pushes the envelope" to the extreme. It is easily the most technically impressive BYOND RPG, both in terms of how it plays and the level of polish. Everyone who has actually played the game and not just taken a cursory glance at the 8-bit art style already knows this ;) On a side note, pixel movement on BYOND is an overrated fad that has yet to produce a decent playable multiplayer game. There is nothing wrong with tile-based movement so long as it fits the project... and it certainly fits NEStalgia. | |
@SilkWizard
Ha ha! That's that legendary Silk Wizard ego. I'm not going to deny much of what you say rings true here, but I will put a slightly different slant on it: It's not so much that BYOND is the "Special Olympics of game development" and it's a "miracle" when somebody makes a real game here. Rather, I think you look upon the greater body of game development, for each fully realized game, there will be hundreds of half-completed projects you never hear about. That's not "Special Olympics," that's just the default state of an art studio. If BYOND changes anything, it's only that it makes these half-completed projects as lot more visible. Not only because it gives you a somewhat playable platform by default that makes it easy to unleash an ill-wrought-but-playable baby game, but also because the whole BYOND portal service makes it easy to announce efforts from the provided development blog. There's no art directors here telling you that you can't unleash an embryo on the public, and that'll rub you the wrong way if you adapt an eye for quality. It makes me wonder if BYOND could benefit from some kind of ranking mechanism, not based on popularity but rather judges of technical merit, which could influence the visibility of games in order to put its best face forward. @Forum_account The only issue I have with this is, if your goal is to make a MegaMan game, there are engines a bit better wrought for shmups. BYOND is remarkable in that you have that kind of flexibility, but in terms of "pushing the envelope" it seems a bit circuitous to leverage what is, at heart, a MUD in the direction of being an action platformer. I think it's better to focus on BYOND's online capabilities, which are unique amongst free gamedev suites. | |
SilkWizard wrote:
Heck, I think almost every single RPG from the NES/SNES era has been re-released or remade several times over. Those re-releases sell well because the classics are indeed great games that are fun to play. Even the remakes rarely modify the actual gameplay, and instead just provide a new coat of paint. 20 years later the simple gameplay holds up incredibly well. That was a poor choice of wording on my part. I was talking about game design, not money. It's hard to use novelty to make a quality game 15 years after the novelty has worn off. It's undoubtedly easy to literally cash in on the novelty, re-makes are cheap to develop. On a side note, pixel movement on BYOND is an overrated fad that has yet to produce a decent playable multiplayer game. It hasn't produced many decent, playable multiplayer games because very few decent, playable multiplayer BYOND games exist. Pixel movement is not a fad, it's crucial to lots of games. Imagine Asteroids, Super Mario Bros., or any racing game with tile-based movement. There is nothing wrong with tile-based movement so long as it fits the project... and it certainly fits NEStalgia. I'm not suggesting that NEStalgia push the envelope technically, that wouldn't make much sense for the game. That's why I also said "design-wise". A DW/WoW mashup doesn't show that BYONDers have creativity much more than all the anime games do. | |
Forum_account wrote:
Pixel movement is not a fad, it's crucial to lots of games. Imagine Asteroids, Super Mario Bros., or any racing game with tile-based movement. I'm speaking in terms of BYOND games. Trying to squeeze pixel movement out of BYOND for multiplayer games makes as much sense to me as trying to use BYOND for 3D. I'm all for pushing the limits, but the fact is that there are limits to what BYOND can do and trying to force something like that always ends badly. Forum_account wrote: A DW/WoW mashup doesn't show that BYONDers have creativity much more than all the anime games do. BYONDers have a very messed up definition of creativity and originality. Calling NEStalgia a DW or WoW clone would be like calling Banjo Kazooie a Mario 64 clone, or Half Life a Doom clone. Sure the games have very similar gameplay and feature sets, but that's not what makes those games what they are. The creativity is in the details, in the presentation, in the story and in the style. Using your method of reasoning we could conclude that there hasn't been a creative or original game made since the 80s when the foundation was laid for almost every different genre of game. I'm not going to go out and invent a ridiculous new RPG system for the sake of doing so. Look at what a horrible mess FF2 NES was because they tried to do just that. By the same token, I'm also not going to abandon using a mouse and keyboard simply because all other games do that as well. On top of all of that, I've never seen another 8-bit styled MORPG. NEStalgia is an original, unique mashup of two completely different genres of games from two completely different generations. It's a shining example of BYOND at its very best. Perhaps you ought to try playing it ;) | |
SilkWizard wrote:
Forum_account wrote: What do you think is preventing pixel movement from being practical for multiplayer BYOND games? I agree that there are limits to what BYOND can do but there's no reason that pixel movement is not practical for multiplayer games. Several people said that Kajika's Mega Man game ran fine with multiple players (link). tsfreaks was hosting A Miner Adventure this morning and it ran almost as well for me over the Internet as running it locally. Pixel movement isn't as demanding people make it out to be. Think about what the server has to do. Sending updates to each client about each mob's pixel offset isn't asking much from the server when you consider how much data is already being sent to all clients. It's probably more demanding to have large, on-screen interface elements (like this) because the server has to tell the client the location and icon for all objects on the screen. | |
I'll give those games a try when I'm at a PC and I get a chance - I'd love to be proven wrong!
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Should be noted that there were updates semi-recently that improved how networking was handled and a benefit of the changes was that pixel movement because far more feasible for multiplayer games. Before that though, it was near impossible to get it working right without major hackery.
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Forum_account wrote:
It's kind of like how flash was originally for making silly animations on the web, but now it's a serious game development platform. People have shown that flash is capable of more than just silly animations. This wasn't done by a single, polished game, but from a large variety of games. I'm sorry but in what universe is Flash a "serious" game development platform?. I'm at University in the UK doing a BA Hons in Computer Games Art and not once have they said during lectures or practicals "Right today we are going to be using Flash" Just because its used for Web based games that doesn't make it a serious developement software, It just means a few smart kids thought there was a niche market for Browser games. | |
Where have you been, Mecha? In the last five years Flash has become a major game development platform. There are a ton of successful flash games out there, and a billion more that aren't as successful. Flash has proven itself able to do the same things that most of the major platforms can pull off.
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MechaCloud wrote:
I'm sorry but in what universe is Flash a "serious" game development platform?. I'm at University in the UK doing a BA Hons in Computer Games Art and not once have they said during lectures or practicals "Right today we are going to be using Flash" Just because its used for Web based games that doesn't make it a serious developement software, It just means a few smart kids thought there was a niche market for Browser games. Does your university not provide students with Internet connections? Alien Hominid is a flash game turned PS2, GameCube, Xbox, GBA, and Xbox 360 game. Many of the games on armorgames.com have been played millions of times. We're not talking about a "few" people making games for a "niche" market. I don't expect that flash gaming will put console gaming out of business, but the decline of PC gaming (especially casual PC gaming) is certainly helping browser-based gaming. | |
So many recolors of Dragon Warrior sprites and he wants to charge subs for this to help you out?
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Forum_account wrote:
MechaCloud wrote: | |