ID:67351
 
Keywords: anime, programming, rip
Basing the creation of someone's net dream on (most often bad) source code has "gone from being seen as necessary (...), to a necessary evil(...)."Stephen001, but why is it seen as such by that many people?
The problem seems simple at first glance.
They fail to create a project from scratch, as they lack knowledge of the language used to achieve this.
The reason for this absence is less obvious and less trivial though.
Short attention span (due to young age) and a low frustration endurance come to mind, but can this topic be really dashed so easily?
BYOND is created for and advertised as simplifying the process of creating certain types of games, so this is the measure that we should apply.
BYOND grants fast visual success compared to languages like C, but the main guide doesn't make much use of this.

Now, how can this be changed?

One main benefit would be a "click and play"-"drag and drop" like interface for BYOND, as seen in a large variety of game creation tools.
But as the attempt would be resource intense, it is logical that the BYOND team can not aim for this direction.

Better tutorials and guiding material would be another way to go.
Not only would new innovative media (such as interactive video) look better, but the quality, sloop of progress and topic could need adjustment (not to talk about completeness even).
A tutorial based on common "tasks" for animé games (like "jutsu") and resulting in a skeleton game is likely attracting more attention than a lot of developer articles.
And again, this is a very resource intense task. Too intense for the BYOND team to tackle on, in fact.

If nothing can be done, is it a lost battle fought by a few determined people?

I would not think so, as both could be done by a group of developers on BYOND.
Outsourcing tasks to a community is a new and successful business strategy that should work here, if people could force themselves to cooperate and work under one official supervisor.
I stopped reading after How Can This Be Changed. We can't ever stop kids with low patience who lack skills to create an original game. But some people just do it for the Power (GM) but they even lack the skills to moderate a game without abusing.
It's definitely not a losing battle. BYOND anime rejects all rips that aren't edited well enough, and doesn't feature rips. Most rippers acknowledge that they want to make an original game eventually and that originally made games are better. Call me naive, but BYOND is handling rippers just fine the way it is right now.
sloop of progress

Arr, matey! There be motivation and inspiration starboard! Man the poopdeck!

I would not think so, as both could be done by a group of developers on BYOND.
Outsourcing tasks to a community is a new and successful business strategy that should work here, if people could force themselves to cooperate and work under one official supervisor.

Give a man a jutsu tutorial, and he now has a jutsu system copy pasted into his code.

Give a man a rough explanation of how to do a jutsu system? He now kicks and screams and tells you it's not good enough and he needs the exact code in order to "learn" how to do it.

These camels aren't going to drink.
One main benefit would be a "click and play"-"drag and drop" like interface for BYOND, as seen in a large variety of game creation tools.
But as the attempt would be resource intense, it is logical that the BYOND team can not aim for this direction.

Ugh. Such interfaces breed bad programming. Programming is hard, and there's no way to obscure that fact. Either you produce substandard click-and-drag crap that leads to horrible, messy, spaghetti code and people who know no more about programming than they did when they started, or we stay where we are and people write horrible, messy, spaghetti code by hand, hopefully learning that it's not a good idea in the process. And maybe picking up syntax along the way.

I have a low opinion of 'magic' interfaces.
People don't rip because they 'don't know how to program, but want to make a good original game anyway'. You're working off of an assumption you've made about their motivations, an assumption I don't think is true.

Step One: The average Naruto player (or DBZ, or Bleach, or whatever is on TV at the time) sees Naruto on TV and is hooked on all things Naruto. Eventually, they get the idea that playing a Naruto game would be cool. They then search Google for "Naruto Game". Some of them come to BYOND and try out a game.

Step Two: They tell their friends about the Naruto game that they played, givening them exact instructions on how to get into the game (bypassing all the introductory stuff BYOND tries to tell them about itself in the process). You now have a cluster of kids somewhere between grades 6 and 12 playing a specific Naruto game. They interact in-game as a group, and if they move to a different game, they do it as a group.

Step Three: Someone in that group gets banned or given GM and then things went sour. The cluster of players, having gained a few outsiders and lost a few originals, either takes a copy of the source they were given as part of their GM deal or finds a source online, and starts hosting. Now the cluster is playing their own game.

Step Four: The core group of players wants to make themselves GM. They also want to add that cool Sexy Spelling Bee jutsu that the admins of the last game wouldn't make. After searching around for a moment, maybe asking in all the wrong places until someone directs them, they find the developer forums and ask "where do I put beams for chunin but only if they have enough gen?" The fledgling developer learns how to make his friends GM, but doesn't get why the other stuff is so hard.

Step Five: "I don't want to learn how to program, I just want to make my Desiccating Frog jutsu!" The developer asks other people for The Code, and doesn't understand why no-one gives them a straight answer. Everyone is hostile, and everyone is yelling about being 'original'. Don't they get how original the Desiccating Frog jutsu really is? They may learn enough to get by editing from demos and harassing forum goes until they get a usable code. During this time they'll also take on helpers to do the tough programming, to make the icons original, or to GFX.

Step Six: The fan base splits. Perhaps he banned the leader of that big group of highschool students that joined his game. Or perhaps the guy working on the titlescreen started up his own game using the source he was given. Whatever the cause, his player base is somewhere else, and his computer has crashed, and he edited some part of the code and broke something vital that he doesn't know how to fix. At this point the game's hub proudly displays "87% original, almost finished", is listed in seven guilds, and will never be used again.

Step Seven: The user now must choose between four options. 1) Leave BYOND. 2) Stay on BYOND as a player (perhaps begging for GM somewhere). 3) Try and find another source, a "better source", to start from, and then make it original. 4) Become a developer, though they don't quite get what that entails.

As you can see, people who find our site don't want to Build Their Own Net Dream, they just want to Own Their Own Net Game. This is a natural phase our Anime players (and players who come here searching Google for "Dragon Warrior" "Online Game", etc.) have to pass through. We just need to provide them with a reason to stick around once they've passed through that phase. We need to hook them on other games so they'll become BYOND players. The ones who are inclined to pursuits like programming will naturally become developers, given time and resources.
Aixelsyd wrote:
It's definitely not a losing battle. BYOND anime rejects all rips that aren't edited well enough, and doesn't feature rips. Most rippers acknowledge that they want to make an original game eventually and that originally made games are better. Call me naive, but BYOND is handling rippers just fine the way it is right now.

Kinda agree here, ripping has been around a while. BYOND is still here though, the biggest problem is just the Anime section in general which is mostly one big pile of suck. I totally just left a comment on your page.
I stopped reading after
One main benefit would be a
""click and play"-"drag and drop" like interface for BYOND"

Are you mad?
You think there are one two many kiddies on byond now? You just wait untill after that, the developer average age will drop by about 5 years.