You don't get it.
I am not saying we need to wait around for someone to make a great game ( whether they use a pre- canned framework or not). I am saying there are games right here on BYOND that could be successful right now if they were to get into the proper mediums for mainstream exposure. Your games could be successful. I am honestly surprised when people spend a lot of time making games and then don't go the extra mile to get anyone to play them. Some of that is our fault for making the process to get into a BYOND game somewhat cumbersome, so we've taken steps to remedy that. But it is largely on the developer for being unwilling to step out of the comfort zone here.
The framework idea is a nice one but I think you overestimate its impact. The developers here have all heard of your libs and it's not like they are hard to incorporate right now. No matter what cookie-cutter tools we supply, a successful game is still going to require a clever idea and lots of work.
That said, why not try a contest? We have a forum just for that purpose. When your ban expires, feel free to try your idea out. In the past, the GIAD contests have turned out a few good games and maybe this framework contest could do the same.
It could also be because there's really nothing encouraging people to do that. Once you make a game, the only thing people know to do afterwards is to "put it on the hub". There's no "Post-Game Completion" guide telling developers where they can post their games, what sites there are that allow people to create free websites, no nothing. Had I not gone out and done the research myself, I wouldn't know either because BYOND has no such information ( or if it does, I haven't seen it and it needs to be more visible ).
I don't think Flash is the only solution. A guide like I just mentioned could have probably been all our users needed. Something like this, except with a list of sites like TIGSource, Wordpress, etc. that help with game exposure. If you want people to promote their games, you should start with simply telling them to - which is what I tried to do last year. | |
Tom wrote:
I am not saying we need to wait around for someone to make a great game ( whether they use a pre- canned framework or not). I am saying there are games right here on BYOND that could be successful right now if they were to get into the proper mediums for mainstream exposure. Every BYOND game would be more popular if it had better exposure but there are very few that would be financially successful. While a game like Feed is entertaining for a little while, there are plenty of free Flash/mobile games that are much better. The framework idea is a nice one but I think you overestimate its impact. The developers here have all heard of your libs and it's not like they are hard to incorporate right now. You'd be surprised at how many people aren't aware of the developer resources. Most BYOND users started with no idea how to make a game and had to reach some understanding of game development on their own. Often, the view of game development people come up with involves a lot of base icons and classified ads asking for mappers and coders and doesn't include developer resources at all. The impact comes from BYOND having built-in support for frameworks. If Dream Maker directed people towards using libraries and frameworks they'd be used a lot more. Instead of saying "there are some resources on the BYOND website that you may or may not discover and may or may not ever use" you'd be saying "if you want to make a game, here are the resources you should use". Also, some of the impact I described earlier would be side effects of the support for frameworks (ex: better tutorials, quality standards that games are held to, etc.). No matter what cookie-cutter tools we supply, a successful game is still going to require a clever idea and lots of work. Clever idea - yes. Lots of work - no. Robot Wants Kitty has over a million plays on Kongregate and it doesn't require much more than a platformer framework would provide. It'd take some work to make the graphics and a map with interesting puzzles, but code-wise it could be as little as 500 lines of code. I am honestly surprised when people spend a lot of time making games and then don't go the extra mile to get anyone to play them. If you don't promote BYOND because you expect it's someone else's responsiblity to run contests, it shouldn't be that surprising that people don't put in more effort to promote their own games either. People expect that their creations will get popular on their own but, as you are aware, that doesn't happen automatically. In the past, the GIAD contests have turned out a few good games and maybe this framework contest could do the same. It wouldn't be a framework contest, it'd just be a contest and because frameworks would be a large part of how BYOND games are developed, the contest would also make use of them. I haven't seen any contest that had a good turnout (given the size of the community, even the GIAD contest has a small number of entries) and it's often because nobody cares about contests because they're organized by users. If the BYOND staff organized a contest it'd turn out much better. EmpirezTeam wrote: It could also be because there's really nothing encouraging people to do that. Once you make a game, the only thing people know to do afterwards is to "put it on the hub". There's no "Post-Game Completion" guide telling developers where they can post their games, what sites there are that allow people to create free websites, no nothing. Exactly! Though I'd also note that there's no "Pre-Game Completion" guide either. BYOND, because of what it is, attracts novices but does nothing to guide them in the right direction and Tom is surprised that people aren't moving in the right direction. | |
Forum_account wrote:
You'd be surprised at how many people aren't aware of the developer resources. Most BYOND users started with no idea how to make a game and had to reach some understanding of game development on their own. This is so true. I started doing a RTS game, but my understanding of game development was completely wrong. I'd first thought that you should make a "collection of features" to make a game, like: 1- Make a unit; 2- Control the unit; 3- Make a second unit(archers); 4- Make some kind of enemy; 5- Make hp and mana bars for them; 6- Make o third unit(healers); 7- Make a chest; 8- Make a special enemy that guards the chest; etc... Then one day I read here that this features thing is completely wrong(I think it was you who said that, F_A), and that I should make something playable first for lot of reasons... (given the size of the community, even the GIAD contest has a small number of entries) This make me think: What is the size of the community? | |
The community is large, but the number of members that actually participate in the community is incredibly small.
BYOND has well over 10k users but only about 100-200 actually keep up to date and focus on the site. Or at least this is what I've seen. | |
Bravo1 wrote:
The community is large, but the number of members that actually participate in the community is incredibly small. Mostly agree | |
i agree with Bravo1 because it says on the byond site that there is over 5000 members online. i really doubt that this site is as busy as it states. i personally stumbled on byond. perhaps most of the online members are just playing the games while a few percent of those members are posting messages.
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Forgive my arogance for I have stopped reading at the middle of page 2.
It seems the slowdown is all due to money. As it appears to me, real progress that could be made from incorporating user library contributions into a wizard is the matter of distribution the 'probable' income Byond would generate if a wider audience was present. Right now the staff tries to handle everything by themselves just to keep the future income to themselves. Thats a good beginning of a succesfull business model. Unfortunately it may turn out dead. For sure it will swallow up lots of time to succeed. Good luck! | |
Bravo1 wrote:
The community is large, but the number of members that actually participate in the community is incredibly small. Those numbers sound reasonable. It seems like BYOND has a lot of active game developers so it seems overly terrible/disappointing that so few decent games are being made. Really, there are only those 100-200 people who are trying at all and many of them still go about it the wrong way. The large number of people who are completely failing at game design makes the situation look worse than it is. If we make some small changes that help 5-10 game developers get on the right track and start producing better games, that'd have an enormous impact. Tor Crowley wrote: It seems the slowdown is all due to money. That seems to be what the staff is saying but I'm not sure why they're saying that. Generating more income might let the staff spend more time on BYOND but the problem now isn't just the time it takes to add features but the features themselves. Whether they have 5 or 50 hours a week to spend on BYOND's development they need to spend their time wisely. There are some promising features (better support for compiling games to .exe files) but most of the features they work on aren't helping to make BYOND more appealing and ultimately more profitable. | |
i agree with you FA byond is add some amazing features but also adding feature which most people dont like e.g having membership for HUBs, some people even came with the idea that they could have certain slots which would allow non members to post hub, but again everytime they post that request it gets deleted. I am not saying its important but what i am saying is byond allow other non mem dev to post their game on hub with their own key instead of using some one elses, that also makes them to having to give that person admin in game. Byond could just limit hubs for non members like 3 hubs then if they want to make more than 3 hubs they can just buy membership.
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I agree. However, there is always the possibility that if there are frameworks laying all over the place than people who don't know how to script won't ever truly learn.. Idk.. More fun games would defiantly be a plus...
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Whether BYOND is a great program or not, it just doesn't seem like the kind of software project that's fun to work on. I'm guessing this is the explanation for the lack of progress. Pixel movement was a feature that was very much a new thing and the staff seemed more excited and motivated to work on it than you guys are about other things.
Mathematicians had the requisite knowledge to develop calculus for hundreds (maybe even thousands) of years before it was actually developed. Just because it's technically possible to make a decent game with BYOND, that doesn't mean it'll actually happen anytime soon. BYOND has potential and its users have potential but there's something preventing people from doing anything with all of that potential.
BYOND's appeal should be that it has a community full of game developers who are constantly producing new and interesting games because BYOND makes it easy to put ideas into action. BYOND users, when left to their own devices, often decide that the most noble pursuit is to make an MMORPG-type game. The size and scope of the game makes up for the fact that its developer has no idea how to make the gameplay any fun. Deciding how many kinds of spiky hair styles you want to have in the game doesn't push or improve your game development skill. These users do have potential but aren't on a course to improve to the point where they can use that potential.
You don't have to just hope that a BYOND user makes a decent game, you can do something to help. Frameworks make it easier to create games and easier to run contests. Pick a flash game (this platformer, for example) and have a contest to make a similar game with BYOND. Using a platformer framework (and maybe some demo code provided for the contest), people could easily have the game running in a few hours. People could then take 20-30 hours to work on the powerups, map, and enemies to make their game unique. In 2-4 weeks BYOND has a lot of games that are unique takes on an interesting idea and the participants have more game development experience than they started with. People will also be able to get ideas from the other games that were produced and some discussion about game development will naturally follow. Instead of talking about base icons and HUDs people would be talking about interesting games that are 100% playable (and don't have verb panels).