Nov 11 2009, 5:50 am (Edited on Nov 11 2009, 5:56 am)
In response to Mobius Evalon
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Jeff8500
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I'm not sure about that, Kuraudo and Stephen001 were once looking into digging into the VM to speed it up. That would definitely be a benefit if they could decrypt Dan's code.
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Mobius Evalon wrote:
The ideas for expanding BYOND cover a vast array of differing viewpoints, and I'm sure that all of those diverging in SVN would cause a ton of headache and uproar when things get shaved off. Not to mention that trouble with different syntax on added functionality. With the average developer we have now, even a single, standard reference is too complicated to understand. Go figure the chaos with a couple different versions. You could see a little peek preview if you followed the many a 'beta' postings in Developer How-To and Code Problems lately. And that was just a single, consistent update. | |
Jeff8500 wrote:
I'm not sure about that, Kuraudo and Stephen001 were once looking into digging into the VM to speed it up. The problem would be a 'effort against benefit'-calculation. How much time would Tom/Lummox have to invest into getting the two of them into the code and their visions? How many more people would a faster VM attract? There would be some topics that could be tackled on by dedicated developers without a single line of help by the BYOND team (asides of maybe an Email, asking for permission ;)) and would potentially serve the project a lot better in terms of customer gain. Take Tom's idea of porting BYOND to Flash for example. Once you understood enough (managed to decompile BYOND's byte code), you could solve this without having access to the source code, since you'd have to rewrite and invent a lot of things from scratch. Yet, you can bet that being able to natively embed BYOND games into a browser would get you a considerable customer boost. | |
A faster VM would probably attract everyone that has ever left BYOND/shrugged it off as nothing because "it's too slow".
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Schnitzelnagler wrote:
Mobius Evalon wrote: I just noticed I used the wrong term in my post. Damnit. | |
So, how many would you estimate this to be, compared to other features you could build in the same time-frame?
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Schnitzelnagler wrote:
I think I misunderstood you, sorry ;) The point you gleaned was what I was saying, I was just pointing out use of an incorrect term in my original post. The thoughts for the direction for BYOND are so varied that agreeing on a single path would be nearly impossible. Some people want 3D, others want client side processing, some want to cover up my taskbar with the map, the list goes on and on. BYOND would end up with countless different distros and it would destroy the simplicity of the platform as it exists in present time. | |
Hehe, I guessed you meant that and just intended to add the point of syntax.
Btw. you are mean! I had such a nice reply to your posting and you deleted it before I could hit send :( Mobius Evalon wrote: I have no idea what you're asking. =D Jeff suggested optimising the VM would get more customers to use BYOND. I very much agree with this, but, doubt that it is the best possible 'effort per gain'-rate, since in the same time you spend on optimising the VM, you could implement new functionality (like with the isometric support) that would (in my eyes) get even more people than a faster VM. So, I intended to ask how many additional customers he'd calculate with (per manhour). Can I have the pancake (I never ate one in my whole life, so I'm a bit curious on how they taste, guess I should try one some day at some fast food chain ;)), if you keep the poor rabbit? | |
I wouldn't be able to give an estimate, but that's one of the major reasons why people leave, or why skilled programmers push it away.
Also, remember it would be Kuruado and Stephen trying to speed it up in this case, so normal development could continue. | |
Where do you see BYOND in 10 years?
-10 years is a long damn time...Everyone gone except for Garthor. -A new ownership, or some sort of mixture of new faces and talented individuals from all over the net. -A simple looking site that isn't difficult to navigate. A more consistent look throughout the site. -The talent of the community being utilized. For the staff and the community to have a more trustworthy relationship. The people who know art start handling things like the layouts and all that. The people who have all this knowledge sitting around and doing nothing with it expect correcting people start using it towards making byond a better software. (there's like 5 idle software engineers/ computer scientists on byond and 20 people who just know too much for their own good). -Falacy Banned. -Byond hits 50,000 users. Zeta played its part in bringing the first swarm and was the best game of a generation. But the real swarm will come from a new age of decent anime games. -After finishing gathering intellect, Darkwizard will return. There will be a giant cyberwar between the Byonders. Where he has defeated LJR(he caught him afk) and company. The only one who will be able to stop him will be the chosen one. -It is from that swarm that real developers will develop and branch out from anime, making creative/unique games that fit into other genres. -Class of 2013 will be the year of the best programmers. It is from this group that the chosen one will arise and bring BYOND to the attention of CNN,Fox. (They will come from swarm 2). -Art Society develops and raises the bar for byond art. Goodness is defined for what it should really be (what is found at pixeljoint/pixelation). | |
BYOND started with a fairly mature and experienced/bright user base. When I joined, there were a lot of amazing developers (like Leftley) around who have disappeared and become completely inactive over the past few years.
Also, over the past few years, anime games became very dominant in BYOND. Of course they were always here, but they seem to be more numerous and influential in our community. I know, there's nothing wrong with anime games in general, but anime games on BYOND have practically no standard for quality and I'm kind of ashamed that they represent a good piece, if not a majority, of the community. I may be a bit cynical when I say this, but I think that this trend with declining quality standards is going to continue over the next decade. The people around who know what they're doing typically don't feel like making BYOND games (Or those who do rarely "complete" their games), and so the less-experienced developers have no standard of quality to pursue other than what the other inexperienced developers produce. I would like BYOND to be a community and system through which indie developers can make some money. Subscriber features used to be somewhat commonplace when I first joined BYOND (MLAAS and Lode Wars come to mind). Lately though, it seems almost as if having subscriber features is looked down upon. | |
D4RK3 54B3R wrote:
I would like BYOND to be a community and system through which indie developers can make some money. I'm very open to improving this. We do offer a pretty good subscription system that requires authorization, and a few have used it to make some cash, but it is not a big part of the community as it used to be and maybe that is not as appealing to potential developers. On the flip side, it is much easier for us to maintain; the reason the BYONDimes system was scrapped is that it was costing us far more money than it was netting due to the mass quantity of scams. However, perhaps we could have a compromise where we could bring back an internal commerce system to approved users, or have it so that only BYOND Members could use it, or some permutation thereof. | |
_>, I'll still be around, simply because this is where I first learned to program, and I'd like to help others learn, too. | |
Sariat wrote:
Where do you see BYOND in 10 years? Not to be a dick, but I think it will probably be about where it is now, but with more advertisement and tweaks/features. And I'd like to see the language move away from the engine a bit, and I'd like to see more power and trust given to developers. If this means a completely separate product, I'm all for it. The language is genius, the engine however feels a little too constrained for my taste. It'd be great if it were easy to drop in 3D models for isometric games, and it'd be nice if we could squeeze a bit more speed, or even drop down to lower levels of programming once in a while. The dll trick is nice, but right now it's a bit limited. Finding some way to allow clients to have dlls with out the security hazard of someone simply swapping the dll would be a trick and a half, but it'd be nice to have. It'd also be nice to have UDP communication, rather than just TCP. If this was taught at my college, I would have fainted. We spent a lot of time in assembly/C/C++, and I'm not really sure why, since all we did was make tedious little math problems and other inane tasks possible. After a while it got to be redundant and short-sighted, but then I had an old professor who hated all new languages and technology. The internet was the devil to him. For me, I think BYOND will see a more mature base | |
I personally dont think byond is doing to well, i feel like byond is empty and thats nobody is here anymore.You can easily see that in the posts,when you post something on here it will appear on the forum main menu as the newly posted comment for a good 4 hour before anyone posts something new.I dont know any competitions with byond but i did introduce my friends on here and they liked it at first but they got bored and left byond for good.
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Tales Number TwO wrote:
I personally dont think byond is doing to well, i feel like byond is empty and thats nobody is here anymore. There are currently 3721 people online. You can easily see that in the posts,when you post something on here it will appear on the forum main menu as the newly posted comment for a good 4 hour before anyone posts something new. This is a forum, not a chatroom. I dont know any competitions with byond but i did introduce my friends on here and they liked it at first but they got bored and left byond for good. The Build A Space Game contest is in progress. Do you mind asking them what was the exact reason as to why they left? Giving feedback as to why you dislike BYOND would be great. That way, the staff could perhaps fit BYOND to their needs. | |
Tom wrote:
D4RK3 54B3R wrote: The subscription system in place right now is good, aside from two things. One, it takes two months for the money to clear. And two, it doesn't tell you which key somebody gift subbed. Nothing major. Other than that, it's a decent system. BYOND has probably made at least $50 off Iccusion subscriptions the last 6 months or so, so hopefully the system is working out on your end as well. | |
Tom wrote:
the reason the BYONDimes system was scrapped is that it was costing us far more money than it was netting due to the mass quantity of scams. However, perhaps we could have a compromise where we could bring back an internal commerce system to approved users, or have it so that only BYOND Members could use it, or some permutation thereof. One way of doing this would be to have a "BYOND Points" system like Microsoft has for Xbox Live. Users would buy BYOND points directly from BYOND and spend them on games. It would be similar to how BYONDimes worked only this time players wont be passing around money. I think a direct 1:1 ratio would be best, 100 points being equal to a dollar. Points are non-refundable and non-transferable. When spending points they aren't transferred to the hub author like BYOND Dimes were, instead they count towards the author's "point income." All games would able to take in points, though only non-copyrighted games count towards the author's total point income. BYOND Member access would come along with some sort of "license" enabling the developer to withdraw money based on their point income. As a deterrent to scamming, anyone caught abusing the system would be stripped of their points, point income, BYOND Membership, and would be banned from the program forever. | |