I kind of feel like the people in this community are just beginning to get to know each other. I suspect it is a result of the new and inviting forum system. See what a change in design can do? The community seems to be going through a period of friction, but it will come to pass eventually, and when it does there's going to be a new "golden age" for BYOND!
Tom wrote: This is what BYOND needs more than anything else In more ways than one! That is an example of a very well designed website. You should compare that with the look and feel of BYOND's current website. Most of these things are going to be easier to explain in images rather than words though, so it's going to be a matter of showing it. | |
Tom wrote:
You presumably support this system, so go out and market one of your games. ^ THIS. I'm still waiting for Tiny Heroes to be released. | |
|
#123 Jun 19 2012, 3:36 pm
|
|
Good lord, this thread became nothing but a collaboration of arguments. I know what Forum_Account and the others are talking about, but you guys are throwing minor things out of proportion. "The main screen doesn't say enough! Fix it so it looks like [insert high-end engine's website here]." The biggest issue is that clicking on the 'Create' pane should take people to a summary of what the language is like instead of a list of libraries; seems somewhat intimidating as it is.
I'm not saying these things shouldn't be done, but they're nowhere near as important as they're being made out to be. Personally, I would like to see the UI of Dream Maker improved a bit. | |
|
#124 Jun 19 2012, 3:39 pm
|
|
I think the 'Create' pane's linking kind of misses the beat. It takes you to a page full of libraries. This is wonderful for someone who already kind of 'gets' programming, but not so great for someone who doesn't know what programming is yet - showing them a bunch of libraries means nothing to them.
Perhaps we could put a large pane or banner at the top of that page, linking to the list of useful guides and references? | |
|
#125 Jun 19 2012, 3:46 pm
|
|
Well, there is a section at the top that says "Get Started", but what we could do is make that more prominent, or pull out the best of that material (eg, the pictures and descriptions of the different tools) and make it the contents of that page, with the dev libraries on a secondary page.
But generally I do think this is being blown out of proportion, because I really doubt prospective developers have such short attention spans that they won't bother to spend a minute looking at the existing page and reading about the toolkit. I'm sure a much bigger turnoff is not finding "good" games to play, since these are representing the system they potentially want to use. That's why it's important to get some good games out there and getting some press. | |
|
#126 Jun 19 2012, 3:54 pm
|
|
I definitely agree with that. The lack of quality games hurts BYOND more than a sub-par home page could. What makes it worse is that the few quality games we have are hardly played(save for NEStalgia). Take Decadence for example; Great, polished game but nobody ever plays it. Perhaps you guys could host a contest for a free membership or some sort of BYOND paraphernalia(granted the old store has leftovers) in which the goal was to create a polished game? One hosted by "the man" would likely get more headway than an off-the-wall contest held by members of the community.
Just shooting ideas, here. | |
Deathguard wrote:
I think the 'Create' pane's linking kind of misses the beat. It takes you to a page full of libraries. This is wonderful for someone who already kind of 'gets' programming, but not so great for someone who doesn't know what programming is yet - showing them a bunch of libraries means nothing to them. Exactly! It's a page full of libraries for a tool/programming language the user couldn't possibly know about yet! Even if the user has programming experience, they wouldn't understand what BYOND is and how it all works. The front pages of the site should target potential users, not existing ones. | |
|
#128 Jun 19 2012, 3:57 pm
|
|
I don't think you'll get many more games made with the "members only hub" thing. People in the BYOND community make games for people in the BYOND community. Very few people even care about "global recognition" or "money". They just want a popular game on the website, and they don't care about much else.
Then again, you have to consider that the members made the better games anyway. It's a toss-up, but it's a thought. It goes back to that lack of new blood issue too. | |
Totally agree on that.
Maybe it does indeed prevent unnecessary HUBs that take up bandwidth and whatsoever. And makes control/management way easier. Yet, on the other hand, BYOND should allow at least one HUB with full control for each non-member, to bring up the spirit. | |
|
#130 Jun 19 2012, 5:04 pm
|
|
Perhaps some sort of resurgence of the "Unpublished Games" (Unlisted Games?) thing, where all the playable non-Member games are just piled together without tagging or listing priorities?
Perhaps we can have some kind of system where one 'finished' or 'playable' game nets you one more slot in Unpublished Games for your next creation. We can separate out anime into a sub-group called "Fangames" or something if people want, but that's semantics. | |
Not to be a complete downer but we all know how this would end up. It would be flooded with hundreds of carbon copies.
| |
LordAndrew wrote:
Not to be a complete downer but we all know how this would end up. It would be flooded with hundreds of carbon copies. JUST LIKE THE GOOD OLD DAYS! | |
LordAndrew wrote:
Not to be a complete downer but we all know how this would end up. It would be flooded with hundreds of carbon copies. No, because if I understood DG correctly, you would have to submit polished games to get another unlisted game. The unpolished games would not be viewable. This idea is actually pretty good if you ask me. Non-members are given games that they may create and publish. When they're approved, they can be listed and they can work on something new. However this forfeits a BYOND membership advantage. In fact it makes membership only useful if you want to submit more than one game. Tom's method of getting people to join through success only works if there's someone willing to go to those lengths. How many are there? Very few. Most of us just want to make little doodles of games, sit in chatrooms, and play Mermaid Melody games. | |
|
#134 Jun 20 2012, 4:58 am
|
|
You got something against Mermaid Melody?
| |
Tom wrote:
We already take your advice (along with that of other users); now why don't you take some of ours. You presumably support this system, so go out and market one of your games. This is what BYOND needs more than anything else, and it doesn't even mention BYOND. It's simply the case that to establish credibility among developers, our toolkit is going to have to make games that get exposure. I don't support BYOND, I support BYOND users. There are many BYOND users that put a lot of effort into making games and I'm glad I can help them become better programmers and provide them with better tools so they can more easily create games. These people are trying hard and they deserve to be helped. It sounds like the staff has given up and is just waiting for someone to come along and make BYOND popular for them. Why do they deserve that? Because they've spent the last five months adding maptext? Because they've spent the last few years working on a Flash client that is admittedly simple but still not complete? BYOND is already behind the curve in terms of modern gaming (Android/iOS support, HTML5, Flash, etc.), why should someone make a game using a dated tool that shows no sign of catching up? BYOND isn't in terrible shape, it's just a little bit off in all regards and people don't see it because they've grown used to it (or because what you've currently got is better than what it used to be). It wouldn't take much to fix it but you've got to be able to see the problems. The site is designed for current users, not prospective users. The installer and software focus on game playing, not game development. The GUIs look plain, old, and confusing. The software lacks some basic features game developers would expect to have. These problems aren't a big deal - none of them would take more than a week or two to fix. What is a big deal is that BYOND's not on a course to fix any of these things (and if it is, that's kept a secret). I really doubt prospective developers have such short attention spans that they won't bother to spend a minute looking at the existing page and reading about the toolkit. It's not about their attention span. If BYOND doesn't come across as a serious game development program people will assume it isn't one. If BYOND doesn't look like the kind of program someone is looking for, they'll stop looking. It's not that people have short attention spans, it's that they're adept at finding information and they have a good sense of when something isn't what they're looking for. | |
Forum_account; your assumptions about everyone else completely cloud your ability to hold a constructive dialog going; along with again spending half of your post slandering the current state of BYOND. In your entire last post, the gist of things was: everyone is jaded, no one sees whats going on, the fixes are obvious and easy but no one wants to do them, and that BYOND is obviously on the wrong course.
I understand the frustration that leads you to consider these things as truths, but the bottom line is that even if they were, bringing them up as such is not helpful. I happen to disagree, and I think even this thread disproves several of your assumptions about BYOND; but thats another discussion, better left for Chatters or somewhere else. I agree with a lot of your suggestions, which is why its such a shame that the manner in which you bring them forth completely shifts the focus of this thread from being constructive to being aggressive. | |
|
#137 Jun 20 2012, 6:33 am
|
|
It's completely up to the BYOND staff here. The reason I come across as being hostile is because of how the advice is received. If I make a suggestion and the BYOND staff says "no, that's not a problem, you're blowing things out of proportion", I end up looking hostile. If I say the *exact same thing* and the BYOND staff says "yeah, that's a good idea, we'll give that a shot", I end up looking constructive.
I've said hardly anything here that is, on it's own, hostile. | |
|
#138 Jun 20 2012, 7:10 am
|
|
The thing is, I suppose, you've made the same few suggestions many times now. Which of course is a source of frustration for you, but probably isn't going to change the response you'll receive, because the difference of opinion you are having with BYOND staff on this matter is one of project direction.
But by re-iterating your suggestion quite so many times (in this thread alone), in the face of Tom's disagreeing responses, and your decision to draw intentionally extreme analogy and use a tone that suggests "I can't believe you guys haven't seen this", you do come across as aggressive, certainly. I'm not sure if it's your intention to do so or not, but you are doing so currently. The re-iterating, in the manner you do, triggers a clam-shell effect to your recommendations. Not out of some innate inability to accept suggestion on the staff's part, but out of a fairly natural human response of "Okay, we've discussed this, I've listened to both sides, and I've already explained my final decision. We're not raking over this again". This isn't a problem you've suffered exclusively with Tom, it's one you've had elsewhere also. Say what you will about whether that's a correct response to you, it's a response you garner. The BYOND staff in my experience, develops a plan forward over a period of a few weeks or so of consideration, then pursues it till a release. Rinse, repeat, mostly. So at present, they're pursuing a release, on the plan of the flash client and installer for some of their more successful game developers. Until that occurs basically, you won't see staff agreeing to an awful lot, beyond "We'll think about it". Or ... Nevertheless, I'm certain we'll update things again at some point because we always do | |
|
#139 Jun 20 2012, 8:25 am
|
|
Stephen001 wrote:
The re-iterating, in the manner you do, triggers a clam-shell effect to your recommendations. Not out of some innate inability to accept suggestion on the staff's part, but out of a fairly natural human response of "Okay, we've discussed this, I've listened to both sides, and I've already explained my final decision. We're not raking over this again". I get what you're saying but the discussion is never that clear. I'm not sure if this is a BYOND phenomenon or an internet one, but people seem to fear disagreements so much that the clam-shell response kicks in way too early and discussions get cut short. There's no closure. Most people get to the point where they just want to stick their fingers in their ears and say "that's your opinion, that's your opinion, ..." when really the discussion is just starting. I don't have that same clam-shell response so I try to keep the discussion going. A lot of good things have been mentioned in this thread. I can only imagine how much better things would have progressed without the complaints about "you already said that!" or "you're being negative!". We're all on the same side here so there's no need for defense mechanisms. Acting defensively creates the negative environment because it gives the impression we're not all on the same side. Whether I re-iterate things or not, I can't fix that negative environment. use a tone that suggests "I can't believe you guys haven't seen this" It's not that I can't believe they haven't noticed these things, it's that I completely understand why they haven't noticed these things. People get used to the way things are and lose perspective on the situation. It's inevitable. That's why I hunt for user feedback about my libraries - I know I'm too close to the project's development that I'm bound to be overlooking some problems. | |
The most popular games being played today are those that take concepts from non-computing or very early-computing and add multiplayer to them. This is because they put a modern twist on something that every generation can relate to. This happens to also be something BYOND does pretty well. There really is no reason that someone can't make a moderately successful BYOND game with the tools we have today. SilkWizard is just one of the very few trying. We're doing what we can to provide a better infrastructure to encourage it further.