Perhaps some sort of resurgence of the "Unpublished Games" (Unlisted Games?)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Perhaps we can have some kind of system where one 'finished' or 'playable' game nets you one more slot in Unpublished Games for your next creation.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.
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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. | |
You got something against Mermaid Melody?
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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. | |
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. | |
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 | |
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. | |
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. 'Closure' happens in 6 months time, when all of the changes being planned now actually happen. The tone of your posts implies you want everyone to commit to doing what you say, right now, and have it done by tomorrow. 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. Then make your points once, in a single post, from now on, and don't constantly bring them back up after someone has acknowledged your post. They've read it, it's cool. You don't need to say it over and over in case they forget. | |
Deathguard wrote:
The tone of your posts implies you want everyone to commit to doing what you say, right now, and have it done by tomorrow. I don't see the problem with this. It's not like you guys have lives or anything. Chop chop, I want Flash client by midnight tops. Then make your points once, in a single post, from now on, and don't constantly bring them back up after someone has acknowledged your post. No. Our plan is to nag you every waking moment for the rest of your lives until you meet our demands. | |
Deathguard wrote:
'Closure' happens in 6 months time, when all of the changes being planned now actually happen. The tone of your posts implies you want everyone to commit to doing what you say, right now, and have it done by tomorrow. I'm not saying that these changes have to be made immediately. Given the responses I've seen here, it doesn't look like most of these issues will ever be addressed. It's not that these issues have to be fixed immediately but that they can at least be recognized and identified now. Here's a quote from comment #135: Forum_account wrote: 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). There's no reason why things have to take so long to be changed. BYOND's development process is unnecessarily slow and you probably assume that's just how things have to be. That makes it seem like I'm overstating the immediacy of the situation by saying that changes should take a couple of weeks but I'm not. Deathguard wrote: Then make your points once, in a single post, from now on, and don't constantly bring them back up after someone has acknowledged your post. They've read it, it's cool. You don't need to say it over and over in case they forget. 1. They've read it, but did they understand it? When I say something, there's a pretty good chance it wasn't understood exactly as I meant it. Either side could be at fault and I usually assume it was that I didn't explain things well enough. It's inevitable that I'll try to explain something again when I seem to be misunderstood. All of the complaints about negativity in my posts (which doesn't actually exist) is only going to make me think that I'm still being misunderstood. 2. I'm not saying the exact same things over and over. We're discussing the same topics and are working with the same ideas about how to improve BYOND. Not every post is going to contain 100%, all new information. That's just how discussions work. Repeating an idea doesn't mean that someone is hostile. This is the same kind of fear of discussions that makes people label any back-and-forth exchange an "argument" or "flame war". | |
The BYOND website is easy to navigate and looks inviting; therefore it does its job well. There will always things to nitpick and differences of opinion about the design, but the argument that the site is currently structured so poorly that it drives away new developers is bizarre.
Also, claiming that the BYOND Staff doesn't listen to feedback is incredibly ignorant. One of the defining features of BYOND is that its development is driven by feedback from its user base. Heck, I'd even say that they put too much weight on the opinions of their users. Again and again you've proven yourself to be incredibly negative and hostile while ignoring 90% of everything that Tom says to you, so the fact that he chooses to respond to you at all anymore is a miracle. Forum_account wrote: There's no reason why things have to take so long to be changed. BYOND's development process is unnecessarily slow and you probably assume that's just how things have to be. I suppose that you have access to Tom and Lummox's schedule? It's amazing to me how people who obviously have tons of extra time on their hands are always the fastest to criticize what genuinely busy people do with theirs. Whatever BYOND has done, it's been enough to keep you around this site for the better part of three years. If the dev team is half as clueless as you claim they are, then you must place absolutely no value on your own time... otherwise why spend so much of it here? ****** It's not that you shouldn't be critical of stuff, it's that your means of doing so completely overshadows any valid points that you may make. I'm not sure what you do for a living or what makes you an expert at all of this, but you certainly haven't made the case for why you're in a position to be talking down to Tom. Let's forget about BYOND for a moment and look at your own work. You've created some great games that no one plays, and excellent libraries that no other developer has yet put to good use. Whatever it is that you're seeking to accomplish on BYOND, you are failing at it because you are thus far incapable of properly promoting your own work and drawing people in. Ironically, that is exactly the same thing that you are criticizing BYOND for in this thread. | |
SilkWizard wrote:
Also, claiming that the BYOND Staff doesn't listen to feedback is incredibly ignorant. One of the defining features of BYOND is that its development is driven by feedback from its user base. They might listen to the requests but they rarely implement them. There's no way to tell. It might be that they read every feature request, add it to the list of things to add, and just don't tell people they're working on it. Then, because of the slow development pace, the feature never gets implemented. It's not that they're not listening to feedback at all, but that most feedback doesn't get used. I suppose that you have access to Tom and Lummox's schedule? It's amazing to me how people who obviously have tons of extra time on their hands are always the fastest to criticize what genuinely busy people do with theirs. Aren't Tom and Lummox working on BYOND full time? I can't recall a stretch of more than two weeks where it seemed like BYOND was receiving constant work and attention from them. Most BYOND users don't know any better because they don't have much real programming experience - they'll just accept that this is how long it takes to work on a project like BYOND. It's also hard to defend BYOND's development schedule when most BYOND users have full-time jobs or are full-time students and still find ways to make more progress on their own projects. Average users who haven't been managing the same project for 10+ years are able to update their games in a timely manner, stay up to date with posts on their game's forum, and post previews of the updates they're working on. Let's forget about BYOND for a moment and look at your own work. You've created some ... excellent libraries that no other developer has yet put to good use. Epic uses a few of my libraries and it's one spot behind NEStalgia in popularity rankings (and it's never been promoted externally). Whatever it is that you're seeking to accomplish on BYOND, you are failing at it because you are thus far incapable of properly promoting your own work and drawing people in. Ironically, that is exactly the same thing that you are criticizing BYOND for in this thread. The difference between is that I'm not trying to make a living from this, it's just what I do in my spare time. | |
What are you possibly hoping to accomplish here?
There exists a meager hope that this thread is still remotely useful for those in charge, to actually receive some feedback on things which we all seem to think are quite (if to varying degrees) important. And it dies a bit more every time it becomes a contest to display how no one understands what you mean and how most people are just ignorant fools. How about you flip that around instead: Lets assume Tom and Lummox know what they are doing, and that we're not all dribbling fools. And that if you suggest something that isn't immediately adopted, or even responded to, that at least its been heard and read, and thats more than you can say for a lot of other places. And if they find that its a good idea, they'll go ahead with it. Because lets face it, if they don't, its not as if calling them slow and horrible at meeting deadlines is actually going to improve your chance of getting something looked at, is it? If you're doing this 'for the users' as you say, then how about making it less about being acknowledged and agreed with, and more about providing feedback in the way they want the feedback, so that it is most useful to them? | |
Forum_account wrote:
Epic uses a few of my libraries and it's one spot behind NEStalgia in popularity rankings (and it's never been promoted externally). ...and I'm sure that the reason that no one is playing it right now is exactly because it hasn't been promoted externally. I'm not familiar with that game, so this isn't intended as a criticism of them: to focus on the BYOND popularity rankings is small minded. Especially in light of all of BYOND's apparent massive flaws that you're so quick to point out. Forum_account wrote: The difference between is that I'm not trying to make a living from this, it's just what I do in my spare time. You spend a *ton* of time on this site harping on Tom's every move, so acting nonchalant about it is a total cop-out. If what you do in your spare time is to relentlessly criticize the owner of a business that you claim to have no stake in, then that says a lot about you. | |
CAN'T WE JUST GET ALONG HERE
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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.