ID:95958
 
Keywords: byond, suggestions
I stopped by Chatters earlier and someone asked me about the past and future of BYOND and that sort of jazz. I figured I may as well relay my thoughts here instead:

These are suggestions in part as someone looking at BYOND as a community, and in part as someone looking at BYOND as a software platform. As always, the luxury of being on the sidelines is that you don't have to consider the technical implications of implementing features.

Community-related stuff



  • Merge guilds. All of them. Segregating a diminishing community just kills you faster.
  • Create a FaceBook app that helps people spread the word about their game.
  • Get rid of inactive guild leaders, replace them with someone who has the time and inclination to do the work. If one of those goes inactive, find someone new. Stop getting caught in not replacing inactive spots. Someone who is routinely too busy to update something more than once a month, semester or even worse 6 or 12 months is not in a position to lead a guild. If guilds get merged, this is less of an issue
  • Offer game suggestions based on a balanced amount of each subgenre, internally classified in ways similar to how they are now. This gives genres with a lower number of games more face-time, which helps them. It raises competition in the active areas, which helps spur more development.
  • Revamp the website. There have been countless suggestions on this, many of which have been viable. The click count is way too high, the color scheme is off, the website needs more fluidity and glitz, etc
  • Audio/Graphics marketplace where people can share free resources or sell them for cool cash. Take a share of the money there. The idea here isn't to make loads off expensive artists, but to flood the marketplace with free icons and sounds that developers can use as they please.
  • Stop the stay-at-BYOND incentives. Creating features that cause inbred advertisement hurt you! You want players and developers to go *outside* of BYOND and advertise, not advertise within BYOND. Blogs and way too much hub space are examples of this. You want game developers to put up their own websites, so they will go out and advertise them elsewhere as well.
  • Consider looking at something like the Steam launcher, that places prominent ads for top-ranking games in the game launcher.
  • Video advertisement. Get it. Do it.
  • Contests. Start em. Most creative advertisement banner for a game; best medals for a game; most exotic artwork featured in a game; most creative gameplay feature; most well-reviewed hidden gem(unknown game); etc. etc. - Small prizes. Must be started by BYOND officially or they will not be run with any success. Someone with a key that doesn't represent BYOND (any key other than something starting with 'BYOND', 'Tom' or the 'Lummox Jr' key) will not be able to run these with success.
  • Stop micromanaging your community too much. The amount of lenience shown to trolls makes moderation useless. Removing ads with scantily-clad girls removes revenue - They generate clicks, they're not worth removing. Ads directly advertising sex or viagra or similar obviously don't fall within that ballpark.
  • This way of scooping certain individuals out of the public and into closed testing is counterproductive. Its also removed you from posting very much in public forums, compared to what you used to. It simply doesn't work anymore, it barely did back when I started being around there. Plug it, move on, and breathe life back into the public forums.
  • The 'dont announce it until its done' mantra is bad. Do announce it. Announce it a lot. Ask for lots of feedback. There is a *reason* most websites post up-and-coming changes to the public. Don't post features you haven't decided on implementing, of course - But the public is far more forgiving of delays than silence. And the public WANTS to talk about up and coming features, instead of being whacked in the back of the head with them after they're done.

Technical Features, for Polish or Performance / Other



  • Key creation API
  • Custom, small splash screens
  • Fixed version of link()
  • Pre-define small loading screen that the splash loader can fetch from hub entry. Overlay a BYOND logo in the bottom right or something.
  • DLL execution without requiring user authentication
  • Built-in regex
  • Built-in text on screen
  • Ability to overlay primitives in map area
  • Multiple maps
  • True, actual full-screen mode
  • Procedures to query for and more importantly *set* screen resolution as needed
  • Client-side, compile-time scripts that can interface with the GUI, which trigger on events sent by the server. This allows things like accurate, real-time clocks and other to run fluidly without huge network traffic to update them.


I'm sure there are plenty more technical things, but its late and I don't remember them all. The most important ones deal with resolution/full screen, the key API, primitives and text on screen as well as the client-side stuff.
If this was done BYOND would be an incredible place. Just by redesigning the pager and the website would make it so much more attractive.

They seem to spend a-lot of time on the language, thats beautiful and as a programmer I love that, but in all honesty i'd like there to be a larger community for my games as well.

+Yea.

Ideas:

-> Pager graphic redesign.

-> Website redegisn.
Here are some things I'm hoping for as well:

File tabs in the DM editor. DMIDE has this and it probably the best feature associated with it.

Ability to package BYOND with a game into a single executable.

Built-in pixel collision. Current methods of pixel collision are usually slow and clunky. Just like with isometric support, native pixel collision will make things much faster and easier.

Sound emitters. Movable objects which broadcast sound based on their location.

Custom server icons. Having repeating hub icons looks kinda tacky, this would just add more professional polish.

Resource file encryption. I'm glad to hear it's working with byond.rsc, but what about rsc files packaged with dmb's?

More flexible control_freak settings.

Allow hub comments from ordinary accounts!
I think taglines would work better for games instead of guilds. Such as when people view games they see:

Genre - Fantasy, RPG

mmorpg.com uses this and it works fairly well.
While advertising outside of BYOND is beneficial, why not advertise the content directly? Perhaps a rare BYOND-related website may, with more effort than the average BYOND developer is capable of, generate worthwhile traffic. Then what? It will get referenced for news and BYOND won't get the ad views.

Instead, I suggest collecting a list of already populated sites that welcome unsolicited game links/posts. Avoid the intermediate step. Drive the traffic straight to BYOND.
@ACWraith:

Gamedev.net
ACWraith wrote:
Perhaps a rare BYOND-related website may, with more effort than the average BYOND developer is capable of, generate worthwhile traffic. Then what?

Then the game becomes successful and the creator can point back to BYOND saying, "I used this to make it" at his own discretion. He shouldn't be on a damn leash or piled in with other BYOND games he has absolutely no relation to.

I believe we should promote the content, not the platform. A platform is nothing without the content.
But I am suggesting promoting the content. I'm suggesting advertising the games directly instead of creating, maintaining and advertising new websites.
Isn't that pretty much what Alathon meant with, "stop the stay-at-BYOND incentive?" Make it easier for developers to package their stuff and promote it outside of BYOND on their own.

Hub entries are neat and all, but they have almost no room for customization. A game is more than a tiny banner, hub icon, and play button. They're a poor substitute for a dedicated website.
No, he said, "You want game developers to put up their own websites, so they will go out and advertise them elsewhere as well."

I say the content is the point and the website is a distraction. Advertise the content outside of BYOND. If you want to create a website then go for it, but I don't see the advantage for BYOND that warrants limiting site features to tempt members with.
I disagree about sites being a distraction. I like being able to point to my own tiny website rather than directing people towards BYOND itself. I have more control over what's being said, the game isn't associated with anything I don't want it to be, and I'm able to use a theme which matches the game. It's a launch point for people who want to be introduced to the game without just downloading software and logging into a game server blind.

Though, I do agree cutting back on hub features would be silly.
It's good to bring this stuff up periodically, but the problem is that it's all been suggested so many times but never really acted upon. If we can get to the point where the BYOND Staff actually want to move forward, I think we might actually get some of this stuff done. On the other hand one might argue that there's still a lot to be done as far as debugging BYOND and the focus should be set in that direction.
What you're talking about is something like this for an example: http://www.ffanotherworld.com/

The content is really old, and the website is being replaced, but it's good enough for an example.
Just as an aside, I didn't bring these things up hoping they'd actually change. All of these points have been made in the past, considered and rejected.

About the game-developer on a leash thing: It doesn't much concern itself with not associating with other BYOND games. The problem is this:

1) BYOND Business model wants as many in-website clicks as possible. This means you want people using byond.com, this is your money.

2) BYOND as a platform wants as many out-of-BYOND PR opportunities as possible. This means you want people going to OTHER websites and talking about stuff made in BYOND. This is your steady income of new players and developers.

The two concepts cripple eachother. The proper way to do it is to earn revenue from games and earn developers from click-backs to BYOND that people will naturally reference when they talk about their game. The hub is okay, but once the inflow of people stops it stagnates and you essentially have the same group of people just wandering around between games. This will kill your community.
I call a repost. See also my blog. =D
Stephen001 wrote:
I call a repost. See also my blog. =D

Shush. I'm just venting what I didn't say back then, when we both went the way of the cotato
So much for that, eh.
Besides - My post is much more masterful. I've crafted a bullet-proof, bullet-point list!
Have you considered adding "non-Win32 API interface", or is that for another Christmas?
Stephen001 wrote:
Have you considered adding "non-Win32 API interface", or is that for another Christmas?

I think thats outside the scope of what is possible in BYOND; these suggestions are all possible and viable and don't require extremely major overhauls. A GUI interface that doesn't rely on something that looks like 'ew, Java' would require a total redo of GUI widgets. Basically, it would require a better abstraction between what is function and what is visual.

Oh, and vector graphics.
Page: 1 2