ID:1793781
 
A lost soul on the internet miraculously finds Byond.(Seriously, try finding byond on google without seaching byond, or "make online multiplayer game")

What should he/she do?

I would play SS13.
Develop a skill and try to create a game.

Or Troll.
Troll. It's about all anyone amounts to nowadays on the internet. Especially on BYOND.
I would never be caught saying that SS13 is something that most people would find and love when joining BYOND.

Disregarding all of its issues, figuring out what to even do when you first begin is enough of a clusterf**k to dissuade people from staying. :/
In response to Albro1
To this day I don't understand what to do lol. All BYOND games just start you in the middle of somewhere and expect you to know what tf you are doing.
In response to Ganite
Ganite wrote:
To this day I don't understand what to do lol. All BYOND games just start you in the middle of somewhere and expect you to know what tf you are doing.

I utterly despise the whole idea that games don't need a tutorial around here. Especially when the only way to talk is to press a button not known to man to be an actual macro. Thus, leading you to pressing 50 buttons, including all of your mouse buttons, just to find out what allows you to speak. And at that point.. you'll have to ask how to play the game still because everything is still complex.
In response to Xirre
Not to mention that before anyone tells you what to do you'll prob exit out the game because of how long they take.
The only thing fun to do in SS13 is play Scientist and blow everything up, or Security and find some BS reason to arrest and/or kill everyone just like police IRL do.

If you can't get those two roles, just pick Assistant, sneak into Robotics, grab a saw and tear people's heads off.
In response to Xirre
Xirre wrote:
Ganite wrote:
To this day I don't understand what to do lol. All BYOND games just start you in the middle of somewhere and expect you to know what tf you are doing.

I utterly despise the whole idea that games don't need a tutorial around here. Especially when the only way to talk is to press a button not known to man to be an actual macro. Thus, leading you to pressing 50 buttons, including all of your mouse buttons, just to find out what allows you to speak. And at that point.. you'll have to ask how to play the game still because everything is still complex.


I actually noticed this after releasing my first game. I hadn't ever noticed it too strongly before it, but after I did and I saw how some other developers commented, and the way new players struggled and reacted I got to thinking about it. It really is entirely too common on BYOND, and it's started bugging me enough that I take time early in development to plan out how to avoid it in nearly anything I work on ever since.

Tutorials aren't the only option, but a lot more games around BYOND need to start doing something about it. I sincerely hope most games coming out from at least this point on start taking it into consideration if nothing else.

I'd rally some kind of protest, or campaign for it if that sort of thing ever actually worked around here, haha.


On Topic: I'm not really sure that there is much to do on BYOND that hasn't already been mentioned here. I pretty much just browse the forums, work on my projects, and sit idle occasionally chatting in a game or two sometimes. When I first joined, all I did was play a game or two, or sit idle and chat in those same games. And I barely found those games, too. I only got into one because I was bored and did a search for Dragon Ball Z, and the other was LRS because a lot of people I made friends with in-game got into playing it occasionally while afk training.