While this is a very nice concept, I'd include another restriction in your list. It might be seen as spam/negative by some communities if somebody gets there and starts advertising/talking on BYOND out of the blue in order to win a contest. You should thus note to restrict the mentioning of BYOND when the forum/community rules kindly ask to avoid such blunt advertisement.

Schnitzelnagler wrote:

While this is a very nice concept, I'd include another restriction in your list. It might be seen as spam/negative by some communities if somebody gets there and starts advertising/talking on BYOND out of the blue in order to win a contest. You should thus note to restrict the mentioning of BYOND when the forum/community rules kindly ask to avoid such blunt advertisement.

Then they cant in such forums, they should know this, since they joined such forums/sites. Im thinking that if you stick to game related/fan related sites, it would be alright. Also, as a signature link, with a small description woudnt hurt, right?

Just let the word out and prove it.

If it cant be done, gladly lock this topic.

but I'm sure you could find a different way of doing so

I cant seem to think about any, so...any ideas?

Calus CoRPS wrote:

Imagine, if someone joined BYOND and their only goal was to promote GameMaker, thus, they post in the Gaming category several times and then disappear.

I'm fairly sure this has been done before, several times, across multiple official guilds. Not necessarily Game Maker itself (though I'm sure that's come up once or twice). I believe the active moderators deleted the posts and banned the users for obvious forum spam.

Which is probably the standard approach for any post that acts like this.

2DExtremeProductions wrote:

Im gonna buy 5 Memberships, for the 5 winners. And also donate $100 to BYOND, when the contest is done.

2DExtremeProductions wrote:

If someone comes up with something better ill help out on the price.

I can not claim that my idea is good, but it should be along the lines of promoting BYOND as a decent platform, which seems what you have in mind, without the problem of using a method that is fawned upon.
It might be worthwhile to give the idea a thought before letting your generous offer come to waste.

First of all, cooperate with others willing to donate. I know that Android Data was looking for something similar and would be willing to offer a bit of money as well. If you can find three or five people to share the impact, you can actually create a decent fund for prices that attract a good deal more attention than the 'earn a BYOND membership'. If you actually manage to muster five hundred dollar, you could offer 200$, 100$, 50$, 25$ and some special rewards, just as an example.

Now, all the preparations, such as creating a trusted and shared money pool, a decent contest description, getting judges and the like aside, you could negotiate on a common topic. Personally, given the blunt lack of decent (non stolen) art on BYOND, I'd consider getting new artists/new free art resources very valuable (there is a reason that Game Maker and RPGMaker both come with pre-made graphic sets). Now, advertise a contest over at Pixeljoint, Pixelation, GameAtisans, ConceptArt, DeviantArt, The Digital Art Community, Newsground and possibly WorldCreator (might negotiate a special price to be one of their sets with them to get an allowance). Ensure that you have one of the BYOND Art Society's artists and maybe some member of some of BYOND's banner guilds as judges and link back to the respective guild. The winning art should become free resource for BYOND.
This way, you do not only spread the word in a positive manner, but you even gain beneficial resources for BYOND's developers. It would seem to be a win-win situation, if the contest spawns enough interest.

Should the idea prove to work out and more people find themselves willing to cooperate, you could get a new contest running, just with playing some selected games this time. Advertise this on respective web appearance (I'll gladly provide a list, should there be any need for this).

If this goes well, do the same with creation of a game, of a web appearance, of an article on game creation, of a game review, of a library/demonstration, and so on and so forth.
I guess you get the idea. Each time you generate positive interest for BYOND in the respective communities and might rake in players, developers, artists, resources, what have you.

The tricky part is in organising the money, in writing up a decent contest description, informing yourself where such contests are allowed to be advertised, finding educated judges and preventing internal fuss when somebody wants to handle things in a different way.

You could try funding games which are already in active development rather than running an advertising challenge or make a game contest like other people do. There are lots of talented programmers who're unable to bring their games to fruition because they can't pay for artwork, hosting, or whatever. Present company included.

Android Data wrote:

If you've got any ideas on a contest (which must involve BYOND RPG somehow) feel free to share them.

All of my suggestions in the posting you replied to relate to BYOND RPG, if you want them to. An art contest can feature a special use in mind, or even theme. Playing through certain games to solve a contest puzzle can easily involve RPGs (which allows you to get for some RGP pages to advertise as well ;)). Creation of a web appearance, game creation article, review and library can focus around an RPG if that is one of the restrictions on a contest.

Schnitzelnagler wrote:

Now, advertise a contest over at Pixeljoint, Pixelation, GameAtisans, ConceptArt, DeviantArt, The Digital Art Community, Newsground and possibly WorldCreator (might negotiate a special price to be one of their sets with them to get an allowance). Ensure that you have one of the BYOND Art Society's artists and maybe some member of some of BYOND's banner guilds as judges and link back to the respective guild. The winning art should become free resource for BYOND.

(...) Should the idea prove to work out and more people find themselves willing to cooperate, you could get a new contest running, just with playing some selected games this time. Advertise this on respective web appearance (I'll gladly provide a list, should there be any need for this).

If this goes well, do the same with creation of a game, of a web appearance, of an article on game creation, of a game review, of a library/demonstration, and so on and so forth.

Albro1 wrote:

RushSoft BYOND

One of the things I often see people doing wrong is initiatives such as this. I have no idea what the non-BYOND section of this "RushSoft" is going to be up to, but the general condition of the website is already telling me that the organisation itself is flawed - experienced people don't generally type "ur" on their website.

Creating websites for your group so you can work on BYOND games is a good idea provided you're actually taking this out as a hobby. But many people - and as far as I can tell this RushSoft thing included - try turning their game creation into some sort of company/organisation, as if their members are part of something big (they're not; they haven't even made anything yet).

I don't wish to sound rude, but I believe that it's better to actually be working on a game than to focus on creating a website for some fictional company that's going to die out in less than a month. I've seen it happen often, and I don't see many of those names succeed.

The reason I signed up for BYOND is because it's a hobby, a fun diversion in the monotone life we all try to run away from. I like creating new and interesting things and making others happy; I most certainly don't like the hype that surrounds foundations such as RushSoft.

Albro1 wrote:

-I had to search for the "ur" you were talking about, and I found it. I cannot do anything to fix that as I do not administer that site, but I know the people and know that that FaceBook section was just a rushed type of thing.

You can't do anything to fix it, because you don't administrate that part of the website. I find this to be very typical: you think you're so big, that you split things up into divisions, and leave only a select few in control of the big picture.

-We have not said we are a part of something big, but we are striving to be.

You're not part of anything big as you haven't created many games, so don't kid yourself and keep to BYOND as a hobby. Until you've released a couple of games, there's no sense in generating an organisation that controls your "massive" development team.

Not necessarily the RushSoft BYOND Division, but RushSoft itself. I wish I could direct you to the forums so that you could see our progress, but alas, these are the Developer's forums. Once the Engine is released, a public forum will most likely be made.

I still don't see the need to join an organisation which has multiple "divisions" like this. I believe RushSoft like any group of people isn't going anywhere unless they work together; instead you guys seem to split up into separate groups already.

I'd expect that a company such as RockStar or UbiSoft has separate divisions, each maintaining a different game or engine. They have reached the size at which they need divisions and a strict organisation; you have not but I think you're over complicating things by pretending to be.

-I also do not wish to sound rude, so please do not take this the wrong way. We started organizing around Christmas time last year, and have been steadily working since then. Due to the lack of responses on my topics asking for help, the BYOND Games production has been slow.

Perhaps the lack of assistance and people willing to join your team is hindered by this whole RushSoft thing. I would have no problems joining a team; but I do have problems joining an organisation such as RushSoft, especially if I'm going to be ordered about (as I expect would happen, since you guys are just a division after all).

I have only recently recruited 2 other members into RushSoft BYOND, and we are hoping to have at least 1 game completed and released sometime this year.

I question the means you're going to use to release your Anime game, and I question the leadership of RushSoft in general if they've put you up to making Anime games over anything else; a genre that's been swamped with so many games already that it becomes very difficult for a team just starting to climb into the world of BYOND to produce anything that would become popular in it.

Look at GoA; it succeeded because Masterdan is experienced with developing Anime games. He's had to work a lot of years to get where he is now, and one could argue that position isn't even so cool as it's thought out to be.

I do understand your thoughts here though, and I have no doubt that every company has chances of failure. I am not going to act like one of those "Yeah, we are dedicated and won't die out" guys, because I know that is illogical. There is at least a 50% chance of failure for all starting groups. This is why I respect your input, but must also include my own.

You're referring to RushSoft as a company. It's not a company because you're not aiming to make profit off of it; and if you are, then choosing to develop an Anime game is a bad choice IMO since you can't charge money off of fan games.

-I do not exactly understand what you mean by "hype that surrounds RushSoft", but I will try to give a meaningful explanation.

The hype that surrounds RushSoft is that you're pretending to be part of this company/organisation that somehow is supposed to be better than everyone else. People who join your group will be placed in a very strict hierarchy and will be expected to work a lot on whatever game you're working on- despite them trying to enjoy their hobby.

If we (RushSoft BYOND) sound too serious, I apologize. I know RushSoft itself is serious, but that is because they are very busy trying to complete the Paddle Engine (Which by the way is almost done, but there is no expected release date yet.).

The problem is that RushSoft both sounds serious and ridiculous at the same time. You have this website with this big shot attitude of "we're going to make it big and be an awesome gaming <s>company</s> organisation" but at the same time I see words like "ur" creep up and the fact your entire focus is on Anime games isn't too promising for a group that is just starting its first steps in the BYOND world.

RushSoft BYOND does not want to be completely serious, because I completely understand your viewpoint of going onto BYOND to sit back and take a break from life.

From what I can see, BYOND is there for the hobbyists: people who want to create games, but not necessarily want to be too serious about it. You have a lot of freedom in what you're going to do and what you and your team are going to create, and you can do pretty much whatever you want. You shouldn't join a group like that until you're ready but instead create your own team, learning BYOND with your group as you go along your own path instead of branching off somebody else's thoughts.

Of course in game production there has to be a bit of seriousness, but the last thing we wish is to pass all of that onto the players.

The players should receive the serious part of your group. It's the communication amongst yourselves and to other developers that seems to be very weird at the moment, and probably the reason you haven't received more developers.

If this is happening to you, please inform me of why and how you would suggest it be fixed.

In a nutshell:
Why do I think your RushSoft BYOND division sucks (and even RushSoft is laughable)?
1) The site doesn't look all too professional, but you're trying to act as if you are.
2) RushSoft boasts that ROonline is going to assist with hosting. Except ROonline appears to be a dial-up provider and I found zero references to any other "ROonline" site out there. Either it died, Google is lying to me, or both. Whatever the case may be, the lack of even a link to their site puts me off from continuing to visit yours.
3) Speaking about being deterred from your site: the sentence "So PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DONT LEAVE!" is actually one of those sentences that is going to cause me to leave.
4) The two divisions aren't properly linked together, which either means that RushSoft doesn't think so highly of you or you both haven't considered updating that part of the site yet.
5) "A: RushSoft BYOND will specialize in non-anime games unless told to do one by its parent, RushSoft. The Anime games here were already in production before the head of RushSoft BYOND joined RushSoft, and this is a good way to finish them." As I said, Anime games aren't a very good way to start off. If the directive is coming from RushSoft, then my point has been clearly proven: you're losing your freedom by sticking with RushSoft.

My suggestion to you: create your own organisation to put your team in, and be more serious towards players and less serious in general and towards other developers. (In fact, you don't even have to be that serious to other players apart from not making things up and maintaining your site!)

I'd even be willing to help out. I've got a pretty powerful server behind me and I could host a website/forum for you. I'll even throw in SVN so your team can work on your first game (which I hope will be an RPG game and not an Anime game; RPG needs you more than Anime =P).

Schnitzelnagler wrote:

Wasn't this thread about helping BYOND by organising contests? *hints at derailing the thread*

The topic has already been refused. If you think that Android Data and I need to take this somewhere else, just let us know.