You know, I've been involved in BYOND off and on for more than a decade now... more off than on the past few years. I missed out on some really exciting developments in DM and DS both.
When I came back to BYOND eager to try my hand at reviving some of my old game ideas, I wasn't expecting half of the new features that are now integral to my project. And you know what? I was prepared to use BYOND anyway. I wasn't sitting there grumbling about limits on working around the built-in interface, I was... expecting to work with the limits. Because I already knew what BYOND could and couldn't do, and people were still making games with it, anyway, just like they've been since the beginning.
BYOND is better than it was, better than I imagined it could be, and I am confident it's going to be better still in the future.
And how did it get here? Well, it all started off as a little pet project, a labor of love. Looking at the forums and the blogs, I think a lot of people don't get that.
I think BYOND could be more than it is, yeah. I think it could reach a wider audience. But this is not going to happen through the people who have already given their all to the project somehow giving even more, and it's not going to happen by a massive overhaul to make the basic program compete with professional game developing tools or the community compete with professional software delivery systems (like Steam). It's going to be through people making fun games that they love... games that hit a special place in their heart that no big game on the market can hit, that draw people in. Not necessarily a lot of people to one game, but people. That's all it takes.
[Edit]
I'm turning off comments on this post. I would have done so sooner but I was under the impression that would delete all previous comments. The point of this post -- this thing up here -- is just to inject positivity and express appreciation.
My responses to stuff down below is responses to stuff down below.
Anybody who's looking for a common thread between everything I said or an overarching agenda I'm trying to advance throughout all of my replies and this initial post is invited to explore the works of Dan Brown, but be advised: he often puts more than one paragraph in his books.
ID:121505
 Dec 1 2011, 12:23 pm (Edited on Dec 2 2011, 12:04 pm)
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Dec 1 2011, 12:29 pm
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Tom
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Thanks for the kudos. I just wanted BYOND to be a fun way for non-programmers to realize that they can create stuff too, and, in the process, become programmers themselves. Unfortunately, the programmers found out about the software and now we have to support things like pixel movement. LOL.
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Truth.
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Tom wrote:
Thanks for the kudos. I just wanted BYOND to be a fun way for non-programmers to realize that they can create stuff too, and, in the process, become programmers themselves. Unfortunately, the programmers found out about the software and now we have to support things like pixel movement. LOL. Well at least supporting such nit pit things can improve the appeal of the software a bit. (: | |
I agree that BYOND just needs people. The problem is that in 10-15 years, BYOND hasn't attracted enough of the kind of people it needs. That's enough time that we can safely figure it's not going to happen on its own - BYOND doesn't attract the type of developer that it should.
I also agree that BYOND has enough features to make it a capable platform for creating many types of games. However, it still needs improvements because: 1. Improvements would help to attract more of the types of people that BYOND needs. 2. Game development evolves. 10-15 years is a long time and while BYOND was never exactly "current", it can't expect to remain popular if it falls too far behind. | |
You have an epic case of not getting it. From reading my reply to your blog post and only taking away from it the idea that I was telling you not to brag to... well... this. It's a shame because your technical know-how is valuable, but... I'm really not sure it makes up for everything else you bring to the table... to be specific, self-important short-sighted negativity.
Life tip: any time you find yourself about to say something about the right kind of people, you would be doing yourself a favor if you closed your mouth and re-thought what you're about to say. Chances are excellent that it's going to be asinine at best. 10-15 years is a long time, yes. You know what's longer than 10-15 years? The time since the Bard's Tale Construction Kit came out, or Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures, or Megazeux, or any of a number of other quick and dirty adventure game/roleplaying game making kits and people are still messing around with them. And that's to say nothing of all the MUD and roguelike codebases, or the way people are still making new original games in the mold of those things. Back in the day I would have an idea for a game and I'd spend a weekend cobbling together the basics and then a week or so fleshing it out and I'd throw it up just to see if people liked it and I'd get dozens of people who loved it. The graphics were crappy, and I mean that compared to what I'm working with in RetroQuest. The games would be buggy and glitchy as heck but people would insist on playing anyway because the games engaged them. My old games always collapsed under the weight of their own bad coding because my ideas exceeded my grasp at the time, but they burned out gloriously. And you know what? That was awesome. That period of my life was some of the most fun I ever had. For brief shining periods, I was everything I'd wanted to be as a kid... running a game, running a world, shaping a story that people could participate in... and people loved it. There hasn't been a year where I haven't thought about dusting off Hedgerow Hall and trying to get it running again, even though it would no longer be state of the art even for BYOND. I think people would still play it, for all the reasons they played it before. For the reasons people still play MUDs, and the reasons they still play pen&paper roleplaying games. A poorly made game that speaks to people will beat a technical triumph every single time. If BYOND were to transform itself into what you seem to think it should be, it would be nothing. The right kind of developers would be making games with it, but that wouldn't matter to the people playing it because BYOND would be a suite for developers, not a hobby kit. Not something approachable. Not something that someone can cobble together a game out of spaghetti coding and sheer force of will. BYOND needs people to make games they care about, because this is how things work in the interstices. You write a story that appeals to the mainstream and you're competing with the whole mainstream. You try to make the next Superman or Spider-man and you're competing with the last Superman and Spider-man. But you write or draw (or make a game about) what speaks to you, what moves you, and it will speak to and move other people who can't find anything out there that speaks to them in the same way. | |
I posted this in a comment on my own blog, but it's probably relevant here too:
"I'm not saying "as a paying BYOND member, I'm entitled to regular software updates and progress updates", I'm saying that as someone who would like to see BYOND continue to grow and succeed, it's in BYOND's best interest to communicate regularly with its users." AlexandraErin wrote: BYOND needs people to make games they care about BYOND has people who care about their projects. StaffNNG is passionate about Naruto NewGate Br, but it's still a crappy rip. Oasiscircle is passionate about his games, but many of them never get finished. BYOND has lots of developers who care about their projects but passion isn't everything. BYOND needs game developers who also have the patience, ability, and time to complete their projects. If BYOND were to transform itself into what you seem to think it should be, it would be nothing. The right kind of developers would be making games with it, but that wouldn't matter to the people playing it because BYOND would be a suite for developers, not a hobby kit. Not something approachable. Not something that someone can cobble together a game out of spaghetti coding and sheer force of will. I have no idea what to make of that. I don't know where I've explained what I think BYOND should be, so I'm not sure what you think I think BYOND should be. I have a feeling that you're reading too far into what I've said. | |
As I suggested in a comment on your own blog, if you're really interested in helping BYOND you need to learn to be less of an ass about it. You want better communication from the staff, practice better communication towards them. For instance, not wrapping up your request for better communication in a self-important rant about how little they're getting done and how mysterious it is to you that you have less information about other people's lives than your own would be a good start.
If you want to encourage communication, the best way to do it is by actually welcoming it. If you want the staff to reach out more, you should be working on creating an environment where they feel like reaching out more. Does that sound unprofessional? You're dealing with human beings, Forum_account... human beings who've chosen for the time being to spend their lives on this thing. BYOND isn't a big company that can hire people specifically to deal with the public, it's a couple of guys who are doing this whole thing as a labor of love, and that means motivation is going to be a crucial part of everything they do. And they're doing it all for you. Not for you in particular or you specifically, but that shouldn't matter to you when you receive their labor. When you look at what you accomplished in terms of making libraries and such in a month and compare it to what has been done on BYOND, the emotion that should be filling your head is gratitude. Because everything you did depends on what they have done, what they did for you to create a world in which you can make your little sidescrolling games and your libraries. And you have made your vision for BYOND fairly clear. Your own habitual inability to read between the lines doesn't mean that it isn't a valid practice when approaching a body of text. You probably don't think of it as a vision as such... you just have a hardcoded idea in your head of what is good/right/necessary and it probably seems so manifestly obvious that when other people are playing by different assumptions you assume they're working towards the same goal but doing it poorly. BYOND needs people to make games they care about I stand by this. You gave me two examples of people not making games they're passionate about... one person who slapped up a rip and one person who often fails to make games. More people making (key word here, it implies producing themselves and finishing them) games they care about == more games that will stand out, more games that people in a crowded marketplace will feel like giving their time and/or money to. | |
BYOND isn't a big company that can hire people specifically to deal with the public, it's a couple of guys who are doing this whole thing as a labor of love Most BYOND users post information about their own projects because they've realized it's beneficial to post about their projects. They're not big companies either, they're also individuals who devote even less time to BYOND than the BYOND staff does. I act like this behavior is obvious because it *is* obvious (and also because I've mentioned it to the BYOND staff before). everything you did depends on what they have done, what they did for you to create a world in which you can make your little sidescrolling games and your libraries. Everything I've done also depends on: 1. The person who assembled my laptop. 2. The person who loaded my laptop onto the truck. 3. The person who drove the truck to the store where I bought the laptop. 4. The people who built the roads the truck driver drove on to get to the store. 5. The people who built the store. 6. The people who worked in the store. 7. The people who built the car I drove to the store. 8. The people who built the roads I drove on to get to the store. The list could continue on for quite a while. It's not being ungrateful to not mention these people (or to not consider them at all) because they didn't do their work to earn my gratitude. You seem like the kind of person that does work for gratitude - you're happy to have a game that a dozen people enjoy playing for a week. Not everyone has that same kind of ambition or motivation. I stand by this. You gave me two examples of people not making games they're passionate about... one person who slapped up a rip and one person who often fails to make games. Rips are games and their developers are passionate about them. You should hear the things they'll say about your mother if you make fun of their game. That's passion! Oasiscircle has a lot of games that are incomplete, but an incomplete game is still a game. I agree that passion is important, it's just not everything. If it was, the BYOND community would be in better shape than it is. | |
Pfffffffffffft, you couldn't be more wrong about me.
Firstly, the reason I don't have more time for RetroQuest is that I am accustomed to being paid for my creativity, and while I do in fact expect RetroQuest to generate a supplemental revenue stream for me I can't afford to ignore my actual bill-paying creative endeavors on what would be a gamble for an unknown pay-off. I get paid for my writing. And because I'm crowdfunded, I have nobody between the audience that pays my bills and me. If I'm not writing, I'm not getting paid, and if I'm not explaining to my audience what's going on, nobody else is. So you don't have to explain the benefits of keeping the fanbase informed to me. But what I'm telling you is from lived experience: when even just one guy in that fanbase is being abrasive enough or ungrateful enough every time you reach out, then it stops mattering how beneficial it is to your career to reach out. Because as a businessperson you're still a person, and if it's killing you as a person to keep up an ongoing presence/contact, then it doesn't matter if it's stifling your growth as a business not to. Because I couldn't live on gratitude, no, but if I writing and being read didn't give me emotional satisfaction I wouldn't be doing it. The money lets me devote more of my time and energy to it than I would be able to otherwise, but I wouldn't be able to engage in it at the level I do without passion. I can sympathize with the BYOND staff's position because I don't make a ton of money on my writing and it's largely because I've chosen to write exactly what I want rather than going for mainstream commercial appeal. I get told on a regular basis how I could attract more readers (by changing this, getting rid of that, having more of the other thing) or sell my work to a traditional publisher, and a lot of the time it's the exact opposite of what I want to do. So I'm making a trade-off, and a conscious one. I'd like to be more successful at what I'm doing, but the emphasis is on "what I'm doing"... if I changed everything and quadrupled my readership, I wouldn't be doing what I love any more. I don't know what's going on inside the heads of the BYOND staff but I do know that even in this economy there are better paying jobs that Lummox JR could have taken, but he's here and he's plugging away and again, he's doing it for you. This doing something that matters to oneself for less money but doing it anyway because it matters vs. doing something that will be a financial success because it will be a financial success means that the creators are, on some level, working for the emotional payoff. In the decade+ that it's been around, BYOND has not become a huge financial success for its creators/staff. This suggests it's not likely to become a huge financial success. You appear to look at this and finish that thought as "...without serious changes, which I shall outline here, here, and here." Me, I look at it like this: not everything has to be a huge financial success to be considered successful. I think if we (the community as a whole, and the staff) approached BYOND as something that's either a crowning financial success or a failure and a waste of time, the most likely outcome is the crash and burn. I'm more interested in seeing it become something that can sustain flight than something that reaches the sun. Secondly, I laugh at the idea that I'd be satisfied by having a game that a dozen people play for a week. Fortunately, I've never had that problem. When I was actively making games on BYOND I had scores of players clamoring for me to host my games. I *still* hear from them for time to time, wondering if I'm ever going to revive/finish/fix ___________. (Insert Endless Lands, Hedgerow Hall, Miner League, Guildmastery, or any number of other projects of mine into the blank.) I know that some of my old players are still around, though I imagine the largest mass of them have moved on. That doesn't really matter. I have channels outside BYOND to publicize my game to. If I never mentioned my game on this site, hosted it invisibly and and kept it off the hub, I'd still get more players at a time than NEStalgia. I really wish I had more development time for RetroQuest, because I could give BYOND such a boost if I had a finished/playable game. Look, I don't mean to sound like you're the worst of the worst or an absolute total asshole. You're not like Falacy or however he spelled his name. I can tell that you mean well. But you don't appear to have a lot of empathy, and when I say that I don't mean that you're not as nice as you could be, I mean that you lack a key part of what it takes to understand other people and their motivations. I imagine you think of yourself as a fairly logical person with a good solid handle on reality who's just telling it like it is, but the thing is that reality includes people and people have emotions and motivations and if you don't have a good solid grip on how those work then you're missing out on something that's the key to understanding any situation you find yourself in. And re: rips. I didn't say they're not games. I said the people hosting them haven't made a game, emphasis on made. We're talking about what kind of developers BYOND needs, right? I don't count rip-off artists as developers. We can get into a whole semantic debate about the platonic ideal of "game" and "development", but that gets away from my central point: BYOND would benefit from an influx of people putting their hearts into creating little games they care a lot about using the tools it has now than a concerted effort to bring it "up to date" so it will appeal to professional-level developers who aren't exactly lacking in options already. | |
when even just one guy in that fanbase is being abrasive enough or ungrateful enough every time you reach out, then it stops mattering how beneficial it is to your career to reach out. I had always assumed the BYOND staff didn't actively post about their progress because they don't realize the value in it, or don't realize the impact their presence has on the community. If there was a time that the BYOND staff was better at communicating but stopped because of an abrasive response, it was such a long time ago that there's no longer a record of it on the website. In the decade+ that it's been around, BYOND has not become a huge financial success for its creators/staff. This suggests it's not likely to become a huge financial success. You appear to look at this and finish that thought as "...without serious changes, which I shall outline here, here, and here." I wouldn't consider it much of a success in any sense, financial or otherwise. I'm not focusing on ways to make it more successful financially, I'm looking for ways to make it better (which would probably help it financially too). Many BYOND features and improvements are driven by user feedback, it'd be silly for me to not provide feedback. | |
BYOND would benefit from an influx of people putting their hearts into creating little games they care a lot about using the tools it has now than a concerted effort to bring it "up to date" so it will appeal to professional-level developers who aren't exactly lacking in options already. I agree that that'd be most beneficial to BYOND, but the second half of that sentence is what causes the first half to happen. The influx of perfect BYOND game developers hasn't spontaneously happened in 10-15 years, so either we can continue keeping our fingers crossed or we can do something that'll actually increase BYOND's appeal to the type of game developer it should have. BYOND will never appeal to professional game developers, that's not what I'm suggesting. It's appeal will always be indie and hobby game developers, but indie/hobby game development is huge. You seem to be assuming that BYOND is in a much tinier niche than it's actually in. I think we're more or less in agreement about the type of game developer BYOND should have, I'm just not sure why you think that no actions need to be taken. | |
I'm not telling you not to provide feedback. I'm saying that if you can't provide it without wrapping it up in accusation (both implicit and explicit), it's less helpful.
The definition of success is the achievement of a goal, Forum_account. If BYOND were not a success in any sense, then Tom would be the stupidest, stubbornest, or most Quixotic person in the world to keep working on it. But it is a success. At this point, Tom could wash his hands of the project and say to himself, "You know what? I did exactly what I set out to do, and a hundred times more. That's a win in any book." and be absolutely correct. I hope that doesn't happen, but it's not going to alter my plans any if it does. I had always assumed the BYOND staff didn't actively post about their progress because they don't realize the value in it How up yourself do you have to be to think this is even possible? If there was a time that the BYOND staff was better at communicating but stopped because of an abrasive response, it was such a long time ago that there's no longer a record of it on the website. I'm not saying that happened in so many words. I'm saying if you want them to communicate more, stop being so abrasive towards them. Give them an emotional reward for being more open, because at this point it has got to be mostly good feelings about what they're doing that's keeping them involved in BYOND at all. I can't really see this conversation turning productive. If it were just a matter of having differing viewpoints it would be one thing. But you don't seem to have the inclination or aptitude needed to even see another viewpoint. | |
Wow, I'm glad you made that second post because I was wondering if my last paragraph of my comment was necessary or not but you drove it home.
I agree that that'd be most beneficial to BYOND, but the second half of that sentence is what causes the first half to happen No. I think we're more or less in agreement about the type of game developer BYOND should have No. I thought it was weird that you came to a post that was so clearly made to state a disagreement to you and you responded with what amounts to "Yes, you're right, and that's why [all the stuff you clearly disagree with]." Man, we aren't on the same page. We're not even in the same book. At this point we're not even speaking the same language. | |
Mmm, not so much that it was a time long ago, just that the record of it was (quite rightly) wiped. Truth be told, I have no doubt that Tom and Lummox suffer from 'death by a thousand papercuts' on the matter of offering up their progress, taking feedback from the community at large and processing feature ideas.
Tom more or less always gets it in the neck about whatever BYOND is up to. Lord knows, I was quite good at dishing it out regarding the old website's look and feel, and community management philosophy, as were more than a few others. Some people will no doubt be giving him hassle on both of these things as they currently are, and will again when whatever new layout and design for the website he has comes into force. The funny thing I've noticed Tom suffers, is he can provide preview of upcoming features in detail, even betas and demos for it, and the feedback isn't there. Everyone kind of nods and goes "cool cool", then saves the actual job of giving feedback until after the feature is implemented in full, in the form of complaint. Suggest a change? Get abrasive blog post or 4 back. Perhaps it's community nature to be contrary. To point out the fault of something, say we don't like it, or it "should be changed". Usually no-one specifies what to, I find, but that's how we as a community seem to roll. In a moderative position, you see this attitude all the time and the questions it brings (is X a rip) tend to permeate the moderative mentality, as much as I'd like to remind people it should not, and we could be taking a much more positive approach. The software develops, funnily enough. The community has been having groundhog day for a little while. | |
AlexandraErin wrote:
I had always assumed the BYOND staff didn't actively post about their progress because they don't realize the value in it Maybe the sentence wasn't clear. I meant that they didn't realize the value in posting about their work, not that they didn't realize the value in their work. I'm pretty sure the first time I asked why the BYOND staff didn't post more, Tom said that it was because he figured it was better to just work on things and let their work speak for itself, rather than split their time between "doing stuff" and "writing posts about doing stuff". Man, we aren't on the same page. We're not even in the same book. I have no clue what's going on either. From what I've gathered, you believe that BYOND would benefit from getting more of a certain type of game developer. Do you believe BYOND already has these developers and they're not active? Or are these developers that haven't yet found BYOND? Do you think these developers will find BYOND on their own? BYOND is an excellent game development platform and most of the problems come down to marketing. The kind of user that would love BYOND (which is also the kind of user BYOND would love to have) would look at byond.com and have absolutely no idea that it's the right tool for them. | |
Very useful commentary, Stephen001... I think one of the problems is that when you're in a fan community addressing the person at the top, you're not seeing how it looks from their point of view when everyone's coming at you... because in your mind, you're not part of "everyone", you are An Actual Individual With Important Thoughts That Must Be Shared For The Good Of The Community.
But the person you think desperately needs your insight is hearing it from other people at the same time, has heard it before, and also has people coming at them saying the exact opposite, and nobody thinks that they're yelling but it's very, very loud in the room. And none of this is to say that such thoughts shouldn't be shared! Just that more thought should be given to how feedback is presented, and that we should take our time to let the staff know that we appreciate what they do. | |
Stephen001 wrote:
The funny thing I've noticed Tom suffers, is he can provide preview of upcoming features in detail, even betas and demos for it, and the feedback isn't there. Everyone kind of nods and goes "cool cool", then saves the actual job of giving feedback until after the feature is implemented in full, in the form of complaint. Suggest a change? Get abrasive blog post or 4 back. The longer it takes to add a feature, the more people's hopes will build. By the time a feature is added there's no chance it can meet people's expectations for it. It's also inevitable that people are unsatisfied with one thing or another. I'm not surprised these things happen. Hopefully the upcoming website changes will be the "website changes to end all website changes", so they can focus on other things instead. Website changes will always get mixed feedback. I think it'd be great for the staff to instead focus on managing some community projects. The staff could spend their time writing a skeleton in DM for an RTS game, then hold a BYOND-wide RTS game design contest. It might seem like that job isn't something the BYOND staff should be doing because that's generally not what they do, but it's getting to the point where those kinds of projects could be of a greater benefit to BYOND than having them work through the feature tracker. It doesn't have to exactly happen that way, but it'd be an activity that the staff works on which ends up producing actual BYOND games. It also shows to the outside world that BYOND is about game development. | |
No, the sentence was clear. My response was geared towards the meaning you just explained. I am understanding you, Forum_account, which requires a bit of effort on my part because we're working from different viewpoints.
Man, we aren't on the same page. We're not even in the same book. I have no clue what's going on either. This is another example. I do understand what's going on here. I actually do understand your viewpoint and the argument you're advancing. I don't agree with it, but I understand it and I'm offering counterarguments to it. But there's a comprehension gap on your part, and again, it comes down to willingness/ability (I'm not going to speculate about which) to understand other people's viewpoints. You might have an intellectual understanding that a person could disagree with you, but you seem to default to assuming everybody accepts with and agrees with your basic premises. Understand, I'm not saying there's a thought in your head saying "I'm going to assume they agree with and accept my basic premises." I'm saying that your thought process works with this assumption at a low level. From what I've gathered, you believe that BYOND would benefit from getting more of a certain type of game developer. Where did you gather that? Was it where I said that anytime that someone is talking about attracting the right kind of person, there's a good chance they're about to say something asinine? Was that where you got the idea that I was in agreement with you about the kind of person BYOND should be trying to attract? | |
AlexandraErin wrote:
From what I've gathered, you believe that BYOND would benefit from getting more of a certain type of game developer. When you said: BYOND would benefit from an influx of people putting their hearts into creating little games they care a lot about using the tools it has now than a concerted effort to bring it "up to date" so it will appeal to professional-level developers who aren't exactly lacking in options already. | |