I dont want to make this post, but I kind of feel bad for the developers now, they're trying really hard at making BYOND make money and have people use it, but in the end they have no idea what they're doing
Right now, they're milking a cow dying from hunger instead of simply feeding it (even though doing so would be harder)
Its horrible to play
BYOND is basicaly a synonym for lag now, any reasonably sized game (SS13 specially, and thats basicaly BYONDs only popular game) is really hard to get into because of the delay on movement, and is sometimes near unplayable because of the hideous lagspikes caused by the oddest of things
Its horrible to develop for
DreamMaker is one of the buggiest IDEs I've ever used, opening an icon file can take a minute on older computers, the code randomly stops rendering properly, constant crashes and it often randomly unchecks all or some of your files
Not to mention the language, which gets pretty horrid to use after a while, the "use friendly" stuff usually just results in that you have to do the dumbest of things to achieve what you want (e.g putting a list in a list)
The causes
Most of BYONDs code is hideously old, but the most inherent problem is probably the design of the BYOND VM, it's the most problematic, stupid and slow design I have ever seen, the rest of the problems are basicaly caused by the really old code being really bad
Not to mention the compiler, which doesnt even have a pinhole optimizer, which isnt hard to implement at all (although with the current instruction set and code layout, it probably is)
Other than that, the way the server communicates with the client is flawed in every possible way
Fixing it
I dont think remaking the pager, although a probably reasonably necessary thing, is going to help much in the long term
Long term aims should be fixing the compiler, networking and VM (and the instruction set to go with that), neither of which have been touched in any major since BYOND started (from what I know)
ID:1274919
 May 25 2013, 4:21 am
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They've had more than half a decade to do this, Super Saiyan.
I think they should feed the cow before they milk it. | |
They spent over a month or two at the new pager, it would have taken less time to fix some design problems with the instruction set, the compiler or the networking
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Not to mention, SS13 developers are trying to move it off BYOND because it cant handle the game
SS13 is pretty much BYONDs life support, if it moves off about 75% of all users just got chopped off | |
Ok, let's take a look.
http://www.byond.com/members/Tobba?tab=favorites * Space Station 13, correct. http://www.byond.com/games/Exadv1/SpaceStation13 * 300+ Players, only 1~5 are BYOND Members. Now, tell me, has anybody on that game ever supported BYOND? - Yes. * No, only those who are byond members, the others haven't done anything. How can Tom make them support the engine which created Space Station 13? - He should just update more, it's his fault for making Space Station 13 laggy, etc etc etc. * With advertises on a good-looking pager. Be honest, would you maintain a project which isn't giving you any money? - I'm so great at coding that I would make anything huge, and then I would become rich! * No, so don't give any order to the one who's given us the chance to make our network dreams real. (- would be your response; * if you used common sense). By the way, if you're so great and there are so many engines which offer more than BYOND, how come Space Station 13 hasn't done anything so far to complete their community's dream? 1) Because they already have a good player base on BYOND. 2) Because they are so good at coding, that they require years to move the game into another "engine" with 0% lag (/irony off) | |
I'm sorry to have to knock you off your high horse but I should probably point out that the only way anyone could possibly even hear of BYOND nowadays is via SS13 (unless someone really hates their friends), and they wouldent hear too much good about it either
Also * Advertisting * Good looking Pick one | |
Tobba wrote:
I'm sorry to have to knock you off your high horse but I should probably point out that the only way anyone could possibly even hear of BYOND nowadays is via SS13, and they wouldent hear too much good about it either I have been on BYOND for many years, and none of my friends came here because of Space Station 13, the Anime Games were the ones which attracted them. SS13's players ONLY play SS13, they don't play the rest of games, because they're so intelligent that they don't know there are better games on BYOND. By the way, search "BYOND Games" on YouTube. Space Station 13 has attracted so many cool people that none of them have recorded their epic gaming experience yet, or at least with "BYOND" tag. | |
Eternal_Memories wrote:
Ok, let's take a look.I'm pretty sure Tobba isn't an idiot since he has a point, "common sense" isn't blindly agreeing with all the decisions that the staff makes, whether they are bad or not. You're implying that free members are completely worthless, they're not, they spread the word about BYOND and games like SS13 and got the site to where it is today. BYOND should help the community, listen to their suggestions and make them a reality first before milking it, that way they'll be able to make their games better and draw more users to the site. | |
Eternal_Memories wrote:
I have been on BYOND for many years, and none of my friends came here because of Space Station 13, the Anime Games were the ones which attracted them. SS13's players ONLY play SS13, they don't play the rest of games, because they're so intelligent that they don't know there are better games on BYOND. Lets have an exercise Find one game on the list of popular BYOND games that doesnt have: * Some RP stuff that only attracts a specific group of people * Completely dysfunctional controls with no explaination * An interface somehow worse than that of SS13 * Lag somehow worse than that of SS13 (HOW) You're going to have a hard time | |
Aphtonites wrote:
You're implying that free members are completely worthless, they're not, they spread the word about BYOND and games like SS13 and got the site to where it is today. How come only you and Tobba defend Space Station 13 here? Maybe because you're wrong? You both have only fan'd Space Station 13 so far. I doubt people who only play a game really give any benefit to BYOND. Space Station 13 is by far the laggiest & ugliest game, not to mention that it's community normally hates BYOND because they got told that the game was laggy for being made on it. | |
Eternal_Memories wrote:
Aphtonites wrote: How come only you and SSX defend BYOND here? Maybe because you're wrong? (Also the only reason I have SS13 fan'd is because the new pager was completely dysfunctional in the beta) | |
Tom can barely feed himself ( he's on a ramen noodle every night budget ) so I'm not sure what makes you think he can feed a cow, which probably requires twice the amount of food as the average person.
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EmpirezTeam wrote:
Tom can barely feed himself ( he's on a ramen noodle every night budget ) so I'm not sure what makes you think he can feed a cow, which probably requires twice the amount of food as the average person. Last I checked, Dan made the original code for BYOND when he was in highschool/collage/yougettheidea with Tom, which was in like what, 1998, by all logic, they would have gone 15 years only losing money from BYOND as they claim May want to consider that they might actually have a job and just like ramen | |
Eternal_Memories wrote:
Aphtonites wrote: Uh, I never implied that I was defending SS13, I'm just defending the suggestion that BYOND should focus on optimizing the code to make the games more enjoyable. Nobody wants to go through a ton of ads to play a game that stutters ever 5 seconds. And for the record, SS13 isn't the only BYOND game I play, (I regularly play on games like Murder Mansion and I loved CowRP/Cowed back in 2010.) and it may not be the prettiest BYOND game, but it's clearly not one of the ugliest ones either. | |
Tobba wrote:
May want to consider that they might actually have a job and just like ramen I don't think anyone has ever accused Tom of not having a job. And so what if Tom likes ramen, that doesn't give you the right to insult cows. Cows have nothing to do with this. | |
I myself haven't experienced any of those problems you're having. Ramen is great, you're crazy.
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And none of these things can be done without income from