In response to Jaredoggy
Jaredoggy wrote:
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.

So basically the functionality that still exists?
In response to Airjoe
Functionality means nothing if it takes a million steps to get somewhere. I wouldn't buy a phone if it took 2 minutes to navigate to the screen where I could call people.

Tricking the current BYOND website into letting you find an actual game takes skill, dedication, and patience.
In response to Foobar Master
Foobar Master wrote:
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.

DWQ was nice because there was so much content. Tons of classes, a long story, you could really waste some time away. I think the problem stemmed from an incompetent and *$$@(%^ staff, which led to the lack of features you noted. I recall entereing DWQ once upon a time and saying, "You know what might be neat? A party system," and being greeted with "We don't need a <expletive> party system. *kick*"

I'd kill for an RPG on the quality and feature level of DWO with the content of DWQ.
In response to SilkWizard
SilkWizard wrote:
Functionality means nothing if it takes a million steps to get somewhere. I wouldn't buy a phone if it took 2 minutes to navigate to the screen where I could call people.

A million steps?
Step 1: Go to BYOND.com
Step 2: Click games
Step 3: Click "See All Games"
Step 4: ???
Step 5: Profit!

See? I even had time to stick an internet meme in there.

Tricking the current BYOND website into letting you find an actual game takes skill, dedication, and patience.

So rather than complain, why not make some suggestions? It's pretty well known that programmers can have difficulty with interfaces, which is why people can get college degrees strictly in HCI. BYOND depends on its users for suggestions and is actively trying to give both existing and new users an easy and effective way to find new good games.

In response to Airjoe
Airjoe wrote:
So rather than complain, why not make some suggestions?


Technically, if I really wanted the current layout to change, I'd start writing blog entries about how great it is. People would turn out in droves to disagree with me and call for change. ;)

Joking aside, I made plenty of alternative suggestions back when the Guild System was first being implemented, as well as warned of the potential downfalls. The phrase "I told you so" doesn't even begin to describe how right I was.
In response to SilkWizard
SilkWizard wrote:
And where the hell is Sarm these days?

Aw, someone remembered me. <3

Yeah, I've been on FFO lately. I miss updating my old Byond journal with stuff but I ran out of ideas long ago and most of it was just garbage in the first place, so I didn't bother renewing my account.

Final Fantasy Online's community has been pretty lively lately, but progress on the current version has slowed down a ton as Gakumerasara has been putting most of his efforts into shedding the entire FF theme of the game and making it stand on its own.
In response to Airjoe
Airjoe wrote:
DWQ was nice because there was so much content. Tons of classes, a long story, you could really waste some time away. I think the problem stemmed from an incompetent and *$$@(%^ staff, which led to the lack of features you noted. I recall entereing DWQ once upon a time and saying, "You know what might be neat? A party system," and being greeted with "We don't need a <expletive> party system. *kick*"

DWQ definitely had a lot in it for a Byond game, but I'd be hesitant to call the majority of it content. If the game ever had a story, I definitely didn't notice during the entire time I actually played the game.

What I think was one giant problem with the class system was the fact that most of the skills were absolutely worthless, but most players ended up NEEDING to change to every single one of them (at least up to level 26, if I recall correctly) just to get credit for doing it, so that you could eventually unlock the "best" class that the rest of the game felt like it was designed around.

The "bonus" content wasn't any better, either. That terrible, terrible dungeon that was put into the game that cost money to enter, and had unavoidable random encounters and a background effect that made you weaker with every step you made? And the "expert" arena where one of the players actually farmed for an entire month for consumable stat-boosts before he was able to beat it? No thanks. :<

Sometimes, content deserves to be skipped.
In response to Trosh Kubyo
Honestly, this discussion about old animosities between the various DW games (I myself had largely forgotten after this time) is far more interesting and relevant than the thread hijacking to discuss point 'n click adventure games that was going on until today. Now that I think about it, this is how I remembered things progressing over the years:

DWO started it all back in 2001

DWQ was begun by a group of outcasts from DWO who were made unwelcome by the DWO community.

DW:SoE was created by fans of both games and tried to take DW in a new direction which was viewed as awesome by some and as utter crap by others. Depends on who you ask basically.

DWOCR/DWL was made by Tarq, a long-time DWOer and became the defacto hangout for the DWO community when not on DWO itself.

DWM had a neat concept, taking DWL's battle system and making it into a single player game. But it also ripped DWL's resources (I should know, my self-made custom icon for DWL became the icon for the #2 guy on DWM). So DWM was basically a creative butchering of DWL.

So ya, there wasn't much love-lost between the various DW communities when I think back on it now, except DWO and DWL but that's because they were one and the same basically. But I guess its like how old warriors reminiscence for the old days when the new world (i.e. Byond) seems so alien to them, even old animosities can seem like bonds.
In response to SilkWizard
I really wouldn't call sitting in the game and chatting "playing". That's all any game like that comes down to after a few days of actually playing it, sitting there and chatting. These aren't big professional projects, they don't have enough content to keep you excited for much longer.

I wasn't trying to flame you, I was just mentioning that your game is no better than any of the others, it still became the same thing, a bland chatroom with a game that happened to be going on in the background.
I was in a bit of a rush to type it up and I can see how it came off as a personal insult type thing, but that's not how I intended it.

The chatting was more than enough to keep us all coming back though, it was a good community back then. But eventually even that got stale and people moved on, but unfortunately there wasn't much to move on to.

Just try to lay off insulting the other games that tried and failed, because you tried and failed too, happens a lot, nothing to get mad about. We can see how you get when you think someone is insulting your work, imagine how you're making them feel.
In response to Nadrew
Nadrew! Old friend! Gosh I'm so happy that you seem to have solved your internet problem! Just imagine the great times we'll have now! Oh boy, I sure am excited!

Maybe we can visit our favorite hangout and chat with all of our old friends! I know that all of them will surely be so happy to see you! You could make up stories for us, and we'll listen with with such enthusiasm and awe! It will be just like the old days!

Now that you're back, things are going to be just grand!
In response to SilkWizard
Actually I didn't, but thanks for the sarcasm anyways.
In response to SilkWizard
I hear the new president isn't Republican.

Ohhhhhhh!

EDIT:
SilkWizard wrote:
Everyone who replied to me has been trying to goad me into some sort of flame war, and it hasn't worked.

Oh, God. This makes me sick.
Forgive me whilst I reach for my uvula.
In response to SilkWizard
SilkWizard wrote:
Technically, if I really wanted the current layout to change, I'd start writing blog entries about how great it is. People would turn out in droves to disagree with me and call for change. ;)

You're making the hilarious assumption that people disagree with you because you're somehow correct. Yea, faulty assumption there.
In response to SilkWizard
I'm under no obligation to wait for you to actually spell out flames; this is where common decency and respect comes into the picture.

Knock it off.
In response to Flame Sage
Flame Sage wrote:
Someone needs to learn a little lesson in humility, much? :)

Maybe, but not because of anything he said there. DWO was the source of the Dragon Warrior games. Just like DBEO (and to a lesser extent DBZ-SPAR) was the source of the DragonballZ games. DMO was the source of the Yu-Gi-Oh games. Even Hedgerow Hall inspired a few cash-ins after Lexy went quiet.
It's how BYOND works. Quality games draw in users and those users decide to try and make their own version of the games they enjoyed. New developers don't usually make very good games. When we're lucky those users go on to make great things, but by the time they do they've usually grown out of what original drew them to BYOND.

So Silk did make an excellent Dragon Warrior game which started the Dragon Warrior community on BYOND. Most of the Dragon Warrior games were pure garbage.
In response to DarkView
Yes, DWO had an awesome community, but there are so many other factors into why it had a great community over other DW games on byond, that it is ridiculous to definitively say it was for the singular reason of DWO being awesome and that all other DW games on byond are crap.

Not only are most people biased towards loving their first byond game/community a little extra because it was their first, but for quite a few of us DWOers, it was our first true internet community that we felt a part of. The community's size was right, the forums brought us together, and just the timing that DWO emerged versus the age in our lives and our exposure to the internet seemed to have enhanced our love for the DWO glory days. I know that I, for one, will always cherish those days as the days that I have enjoyed the most on byond, and with a good chance I'll never enjoy anything else on byond quite as much, since I'm a different person now, who is not as easily pleased.

I think that a lot of us would do well to take our biases into account when passing judgement. Of course, whether you're truly qualified to pass judgement or not is another story.
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