I don't set foot much on Byond often anymore, only occasionally trying out some random game in hope of finding a diamond in the rough or visiting Final Fantasy Online, seemingly the last contender in a formerly large community able to draw up to 40 people simultaneously.
Looking over some of the games of this community which I felt a strong bond to, its somewhat sobering to see the current state and numbers of each of these games.
My rough guesstimate is that combined, they probably can draw in about 40-75 people combined generally but that seems a mere shadow compared to the lively numbers they once contained.
Dragon Warrior Online
Dragon Warrior Quest
Dragon Warrior: Shadows of Erdrick
Dragon Warrior Legacy/Chat Room
Dragon Warrior Monster Adventures
Dragon Warrior Mythology
Final Fantasy Legacy
Final Fantasy Online
Final Fantasy: The Hunting Grounds
Final Fantasy 5: Another World
Some of these are dead, some are populated sparingly, but at one time these could be up simultaneously and draw numbers that individually nearly equaled the combined total of them all now. In contrast to the Dbz community which has sustained itself over the years and the Naruto/Bleach communities that have exploded onto the scene over the last few years to surpass Dbz, the FF/DW community has shriveled as its new members have not been able to keep pace with the decay of losing its old members. The community will probably always exist to some degree but its sad to see so many games, once full of life, either dead or far far quieter then they were in their hay-day.
ID:182002
 Mar 19 2009, 3:04 pm
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Mar 19 2009, 3:06 pm
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Stephen001
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I'm still mourning the loss of early 90's point and click adventures. I'm sure this particular genre on BYOND could do fine, if they actually advertised.
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Point and click adventures were a good part of my childhood when I was about four, five, and maybe even when I was six (on my sixth birthday, I got pokemon blue version along with a GBC, so I don't know how often I played computer games after that, though I know I still played them a bit).
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Where have you guys been? Point and click adventures are still here, and still awesome!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Point-and-click_adventure_game#Decline_and_rebirth Lists just a short few of the modern releases that have come out. | |
Another one, for the iTouch/iPhone is 1112 or something like that. The lite version I played was pretty good, but I don't want to pay 7 dollars for each installment in a point-and-click game with limited replay value when I could get the Oregon Trail for 6 dollars.
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And good riddance :)
I dislike the Final Fantasy games. Sorry :( | |
The guild system created such a hodgepodge that all niche games like Dragon Warrior got lost in the shuffle. And they have stayed lost ever since.
I mean the guild system has the capability to create a community out of the regular players. But that's absolutely not the way to get more players. The majority of our player base used to be new users; generally people who had never even heard of Dragon Warrior before and would just find the game by browsing games live. | |
Meh. Good riddance. 99.9% of the "Dragon Warrior" games were made by lazy developers who saw the success of DWO and decided to use the DW tileset for their crappy RPG.
I suppose they figured that given how popular DWO was at the time, just calling their game "Dragon Warrior" would attract hordes of players. Sadly, they were right. | |
SilkWizard wrote:
Meh. Good riddance. 99.9% of the "Dragon Warrior" games were made by lazy developers who saw the success of DWO and decided to use the DW tileset for their crappy RPG. Someone needs to learn a little lesson in humility, much? :) | |
Flame Sage wrote:
Someone needs to learn a little lesson in humility, much? :) The only other Dragon Warrior game I ever played on BYOND that didn't make me sick to my stomach was Tarq's DWL. The rest were tileset rips, and calling those games "Dragon Warrior" is an insult to the source material. Anyway, I've been saying this for years, so get with the program ;) | |
From what I've played SoE was quite a good Dragon Warrior game, better than the last good version of DWO, even.
Frankly, DWO was only good because it was unique at the time, it still had tons of annoying (and in some cases show-stopping) bugs and could only keep you entertained for maybe a week of play. It could have been a whole lot better if you would have released a real update to it, but by the time you released the half-assed 1.9 "update" the competition was already outclassing you. You can't really judge your own game against other games without bias, so stop thinking you can, thanks. | |
Hey there Nadrew, haven't talked to you in ages! How's it going pal?
Yup, yup, those sure were good times back in the day when you spent over a year as a lead moderator for DWO, and even hosted my forums for me. Wasn't it just a gas when I finally gave you a unique icon in the game after months of holding it over your head and making you beg for it? Golly that's a swell memory! What's this? You feeling like Debbie Downer about things now? Oh, put a smile on that face! Yup, I know you were ostracized by the DWO community for "allegations" of power abuse, but that doesn't do anything to diminish the hours upon hours that you played the game! You had a right old fantastic time, and no one can take that away from you! Boy after all these years it sure is nice to reminisce with an old friend. How are things going for you these days, buddy? Oh no, your internet is getting cut off?! Well gee whiz, that's bad news! Perhaps I shouldn't be taking up your time with idle conversation, as I'm darn sure you have more important things to worry about. Anyhows, it sure was nice talking to you! Don't be a stranger now! | |
SilkWizard wrote:
The rest were tileset rips, and calling those games "Dragon Warrior" is an insult to the source material. I ripped all the turfs from DW3 myself. Do I win? Not that I have a finished project or anything. | |
Foobar Master wrote:
I ripped all the turfs from DW3 myself. Do I win? Not that I have a finished project or anything. I don't think anyone ever made a BYOND Dragon Warrior game with the DW3 turfs... I'm sure that the thought of putting in the effort scared them away. Whatever happened to your game? And where the hell is Sarm these days? Also, Cable Monkey pulled a "Silk Wizard" on me back in the day by letting me briefly log in to his and Lufia's DW/DQ project. He got my hopes way up, then crushed them by never finishing the damn game. | |
I hate to double-post, but I just felt I had to back up Silk's declarations of "tileset rips" and games that make him sick to his stomach. Some more in-depth:
Dragon Warrior Quest - Sure, the game kept expanding, but not in the way it should have. As the game world itself got larger and larger, features that were left out at the beginning stayed out, such as parties, multi-monster battles, and a complete menu system. The mixing-in of SNES, GBC, and PSX sprites didn't help either. Shadows of Erdrick - For better or worse (I'll get into that in a second), SoE may be one of the most time-consuming games on BYOND. The endless amounts of quests and the lack of an as-yet-reachable level cap make for hours and days of weeks of gameplay. Unfortunately, you'll be grinding countless hours to gain a single level. I've made it to level 22 on the game, and I don't think I have the patience to go again. Compound that with the fact that at any given time in the game, any enemies that give you halfway-decent experience (which isn't saying much) can fry you in one round of battle if you're unlucky. About the only way to circumvent this is to get someone of a higher level to train you; unfortunately, there is rarely someone around who is willing to help. And did I mention the horribly mismatched graphics? Hero's Destiny - What is "Pysche"? Shame I have to see that typo every single time I get into a random encounter. The monster sprites are a little blurry, which leads me to believe they were taken from JPEGs. I probably spent about 30 minutes on this game before I was completely turned off. Oh, and the DWO 1.90 introductory scene blows this game's away by a longshot. That's all I can think of for now. Dragon Warrior Monsters Adventure had a few of the complaints of some of the above games, but it was pretty addictive for a while. And, as its hub page says, Dragon Warrior Legacy is the best DBZ game on byond, so there's no knocking that. | |
Rubius came close to the DW3 thing - he used the 4 turfs, but used the DW3 overworld for one version of DWQ. That version disappeared pretty quickly though, if I remember. As for me, the only thing that's stopping me is the fact that I can't code to save my life. Sarm is still around; my pager says he's on FFO most of the time.
I remember CM's project. I know I wouldn't have the patience to rip all those SNES turfs, much less implement them in a byond game. | |
Douche bag much Silkwizard? This thread was supposed to be about the failing internal games and communities, not whining about something you didn't find appropriate or cutting someone down. Way to make the thread into a total dump.
I never liked Dragon Warrior Online, it lagged like a mofo. | |
You'd probably change your reply if you knew Nadrew like we did.
And lag? Sure you were playing on CableMonkey's server? I don't remember having lag problems on DWO. | |
I've been on BYOND long enough to just know SilkWizard is just out of line as much as I was with my comment. Why the hell did this thread have to turn into what it was?
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Trosh Kubyo wrote:
This thread was supposed to be about the failing internal games and communities Indeed, and I expressed my opinion on the topic at hand. I personally believe that the Dragon Warrior community on BYOND deserves to fail... and as the person who actually started the Dragon Warrior community here, I certainly have a right to an opinion. Everyone who replied to me has been trying to goad me into some sort of flame war, and it hasn't worked. Your reply was a nice attempt (say, 6.5 out of 10?), but I think that Nadrew scored a 7.5 out of 10 with his. Keep trying though, because I heard that there is free cake for the person who musters a perfect 10. | |