If you haven't read this post, I'd suggest doing so now.
If you read that post and the comments following, you'd see how everyone seems to be saying that we need to focus on games, and I agree. Now some physical merchandise would be smexy for existing members as well, and this is why I made this topic.
This is a shout-out to the community. BYOND has been working steadily and faithfully, but it's gotten old. It's dying, as all things do. Any members we have are new players that leave within a year or two, or faithful members that have stuck through with us for almost a decade.
As a community, we have fallen. Now for those of you who have an ill relative or friend pardon the rough analogy here but I find it necessary. BYOND is sick, and it is dying. When people get a terminal disease, often they decide to just live out the rest of their lives at home. Why? So they don't have to spend the last of their days miserable in a hospital/hospice. I don't want to see BYOND worry about it's finances continually until it slowly rots away like my father.
I agree we should head down the digital path and supply some games. Now I do not have the skills to make a game, and by the time I'd have learned it'd be too late, but that doesn't mean some good games already released or close to being so can't make a difference.
I'm talking about you,
Pondera,
Legends Online,
The Legendary NEStalgia,
Space Station 13,
A Miner Adventure,
RP Unlimited,
Rise of the Pirates,
and more!
Now just because you may not be fond of some of these games, others are. If we put these and some other games on the Kickstarter page and told people to try it out, maybe they will. Maybe they'll like it. Maybe they'll explore other games or try to make their own.
Or, if this actually gets off the ground, maybe we can convince those and other developers to, perhaps, let Kickstarter benefactors have special in-game perks (up to the developer)? How that could be possible could vary between one-use codes that can be emailed to benefactors that will set up one account for perks for one/all of the games? (Could be a link that does something to your account, IDK what Tom could do.)
So BYONDers, whether or not you agree or disagree with Kickstarter or digital goods or physicals goods, let's brainstorm! Love/hate something, wanna suggest a game (not your favorite bleach rip that has like 6 daily players), or a kickstarter reward? Post away!
~The Fantastic and somewhat Egotistical SeymourG
ID:1291229
 Jun 12 2013, 8:04 pm
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Brainstorm Fire, brainstorm. And I know, 90% of games I see are released in alpha stages, then the developers spend too much time playing and decide to stop developing it.
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Well, I've been working on my game for 1.5 years, and there's something that gets done every single day. But we're doing it the really old-fashioned way, just plain hard work. Everything is animated, and animations take a LOT of time... Years of time. And when specs change, we have to re-animate, which is just the natural progression of going so far that you find something isn't going to quite work as you had hoped.
So, my excuse for having not much to show is, well, it takes a whole hell of a lot of work to get something of quality, and that work is mostly just time-consuming pixel art, composing, and trial and error. The rest of the time is spent optimizing so that it will actually work on a massive scale (we use multi-server setup). Long story short, we've been working on it, but there's still a lot of work to do. | |
And BYOND thanks you for not ripping something like the other half.
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FIREking wrote:
Well, I've been working on my game for 1.5 years, and there's something that gets done every single day. But we're doing it the really old-fashioned way, just plain hard work. Everything is animated, and animations take a LOT of time... Years of time. And when specs change, we have to re-animate, which is just the natural progression of going so far that you find something isn't going to quite work as you had hoped. This, Pondera and pretty much any other quality production are in this same boat. I am planning on releasing a stable version once the game world is complete and I will focus on adding content, as most of the systems I can actually handle are either done or not needed right this moment. Things can always be added in the future and another thing developers fall to is feature creep, the art of continually adding new features and never releasing anything due to bugs and such. It just takes time, especially when most teams are made up of one, or a few people. I've had to accept the thought of finally releasing a stable version, otherwise I would just keep working, polishing, fixing and never get to releasing it ~ I could probably work on my game for Another three years and still be in an unreleasable state if I didn't force myself to do it. Have to start building a community at some point and since I am a jack of all trades I can only do so much with programming, nothing advanced therefor I can't fall to feature creep so successfully. | |
Yeah but the downside of BYOND is you have to download the installer, and it takes quite a long time to make a game.
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SeymourG wrote:
Yeah but the downside of BYOND is you have to download the installer, and it takes quite a long time to make a game. Somewhat true (I don't see the installer much of an issue, you have to install most programs), you only have to make a big game if you want to. There is the art of making arcade style games, where you could easily make multiples of them a year; and honestly I have several games in mind like this but I've wanted to make this ORPG ever since I got on byond years ago. Making small, single purpose driven games that are easy to maintain are what a lot of devs do on here and it is the most practical way of making games ~ you get your name out there, you don't have to struggle on back-story, animations, art themes, etc you just make a game with a simple objective and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't (I can't remember any names to name examples, but there are plenty of arcade style games that are fun to play on byond). The game in a day competitions (and others like them) are good examples of this kind of style of game. | |
Ever heard of LudumDare? Developers from around the globe have 48 hours to make a game based on a certain topic. Give BYOND 48 days and we still got nothing.
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SeymourG wrote:
Ever heard of LudumDare? Developers from around the globe have 48 hours to make a game based on a certain topic. Give BYOND 48 days and we still got nothing. It seems many developers have chosen to make big RPG's which take years to make worthwhile. Mine, I like to say I have been making since 2009 but honestly it has been a 10+year process since I was a teenager of learning every single facet of developing from the server, websites, sound, to the programming and art itself. Personally, I think my consistent art style will attract more people than my programming, but we'll see. Honestly, sound is something I have focused on least (it is about 1% done, if even that) so that I could focus on the other parts of the game and fully intend to leave a lot of things as "polish" such as certain animations (diagonals) and sound effects; Polish that will come much later in development, after it has already been released. This way it makes it much easier on me, the only person doing this thing. But yes I have heard of LudumDare and would of mentioned it but like I said I am bad with names sometimes (mainly when I know about something but am unfamiliar with it at the time). | |
I like how sound, at least, is easy in BYOND to find wide-spread help on. For the coding of BYOND and it's pixel art, it's hard to find people to help outside of BYOND. SOund, however, can be easy to find a helper on (I'd suggest Newgrounds. The project section are classified ads which may be very useful.)
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You don't need BYOND installed for a BYOND game to work... You can contact the support (Tom, lol) and get a BYONDexe key to build your own installer or build your own seeker-client.
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That could work if we put a big BYOND sign before the opening menu (like most games do).
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That's not a requirement of the stand-alone. Also, I don't think you realize we already have this functionality.
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Hello Everyone,
I am actually glad to see this post come up. Mostly going to talk a lot being I want to get everything out and hopefully get some ideas out as well. Honestly, I am grateful to Tom and his team for developing Byond. I plan to keep coding here and wanting to help where I can. Pretty much a sole developer doing everything and having minor help from here and there. I can understand the stresses of trying to get people to help a project. One of the running problems I have gotten with development. Is the number of people that seem to tell us, just go use another coding language because Byond can't handle it. Also being they normally refer to Byond as a child's language or so on. Personally this seems to annoy me how many people think development on Byond is go rip the code from the libraries provided, then get icons from RPG maker and you made a Byond game. This really kind of sickens me on the point I know a lot of developers put in a lot of hard work to get there games running like they do. Mostly wanting to bring this up because of the running though of 'Byond games' seeming to plague my personal life and wonder if it effects most of you? Moving on to solutions being this is something I looked into for a future project. One thing I notice is a lot of players don't see the need to get a membership because well. All the games give me free run, so why should I bother paying so much money to support Byond. Being we are questioning developers, one of the future aspects I am looking into is what would be more of a shareware like system. Being Member commands can be used to give variables to unlock, looking into expanding the game to members like a DLC set up. Hey, your a member you get side quests, the full range of classes, and so on we planned in original release. Not a member, that is cool too. You can still play too. Reason I bring this up is it is just moving to make it so more games have a reason for uses to get membership. It can seem hard being, well that would ruin my idea. But really, look at what players would want. Even going into 'Rips', DBZ games can make it to be a saiyan, you need member. For original titles this can be something small or big. Like a members tag next to your name to the factor of well, closing off areas of a game for the time being. One idea passed around by my team is if your going to update the game, set a var for area access. This being integrated into the story of the game, like needing a pass or something that is supplied though a membership guild. Otherwise, looking to indie games and more so another psychological factor. It would be summed up as the running joke of, Hats. This being that like in setups like Team Fortress 2 and Mine craft. You have little items that make you feel special to other players but not disrupted the balance of the game. This could be like using the medals system to give out a medal for Membership on a game. Putting the ability of like a cape or hat you could adjust the color of in game. Even a tag to say member could do a lot. More just throwing out ideas for time in development being I see a lot of that. Just little things we can do that would help Byond. Being I didn't think of it before, Thinking the medal for being a member I will try in RP Unlimited itself. Thanks for reading -Anthony Hawkina | |
Well that was a long read. That's what I'm trying to encourage here. BYOND members should get rewards in-game, and if we do get a Kickstarter going, then rewards to them too! It's gotta be up to the developer though, and it would vary from game to game.
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Agreed, this being I always wondered about the views on this. A lot of the points I see just leads to trying to support the community. Nothing says you have to like each others. (Thought it would be nice.) If Byond goes down, we are all kind of S.O.L. Anyways. There is not much more they can do on there end, and it does fall to us.
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Thanks for the input, everyone! I do think that AnthonyHawkina is on the right track with having more popular games feature Member benefits-- since really most people are here to play the games. If games would offer non-dealbreaker benefits like extra classes or items for Membership, I think we'd get some signups. In return, the developer does get a small return on the transaction (a referral bonus) but mostly the knowledge that they are helping this platform survive.
But I do want to be clear that BYOND isn't going to go down and even if it were, we would make sure that the games can continue without us. I think that the hub is somewhat underrated as a promotional tool-- you can get players right away-- but a good game can certainly exist without the infrastructure here. I also wouldn't read much into people's opinions of the language or engine. Most of these people have never attempted to write a network game in any language. AnthonyHawkina hosts a game that gets a lot of simultaneous traffic; this is an accomplishment for any developer, regardless of the system chosen. | |
Thank you, for the support on the idea Tom.
Further more, Tom reminded me of the roots of how we made RP Unlimited successful. No better way to put it, besides. Market yourself to other places. Also market someone one Else's project. In the infancy of development, I did little developmental questions on Byond. Going to places outside the hub to ask players. What do you want? What would make role-playing easier? You use MSN chat to RP, let me introduce you to something more fitting. Those simple questions can lead to expansion, being making games for a the hub is nice and hoping someone feels your icon works. Personally, I like using in hub banners to promote my games. More so I prefer going out an telling every MMO, chat site, and so on. I am a developer, come take a look... We are more then just a text game. Developing shouldn't be a mark of shame but pride. Let people know more about what your doing and see what they say. Little constructive criticism and self marketing can do wonders for everyone. Just remember, no one can do this for you. Little things can help. (Heck, it works for homestuck, and that is made in MS paint.) | |
This is also why I usually refrain from letting anyone see pictures of the game because they get all excited. Unfortunately, there's a TON of back-end work that has to happen to make this work (and to support more than 20 - 50 players). If you're going to hit the ground running, you need running shoes on!
While I support anything that will help BYOND, I can't say that LO can be a part of it just yet, it simply isn't ready.
I'm more interested in figuring out how to continue actual development on features and bugs which can only happen if the donations stay above 5k per month, as Tom has said.
I think the kickstarter thing hasn't quite been figured out by anyone yet, in the BYOND community. You need to figure out something to sell, and there's really nothing to sell here.