ID:99185
 
Keywords: blog
Last night, I got a chance to sit down in a short interview with our very own Guildmaster, Stephen001. This brief interview touches on a few things concerning BYOND Anime's future and a bit about BYOND as a whole. Check it out.
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Dougie: Thanks for taking the time out, Stephen.

Dougie: One question I must ask.

Dougie: Why did you take the job as guild master for a guild that didn't necessarily have a good reputation around byond and was really looked down upon by many in the BYOND Community?

Stephen: Mmm, it was mostly down to some discussion between myself and Alathon, as part of his role in community management. We'd had a review of the main guilds, assessing their strengths and weaknesses, and their ability to grow and benefit BYOND. I'd noted that BYOND Anime contained games that you'd be hard pushed to find elsewhere on the internet and so really served players needs well. So it just made sense that I would help out with BYOND Anime and encourage more positive growth.


Stephen: As far as reputation goes, I'm not sure that really factored into it. Reputation is the thing that you end up with as a result of your actions. The guild's previous reputation would naturally change as a result of the works myself and Alathon had agreed should probably be done to help BYOND grow. It didn't affect me, and I don't feel it has really been much of a hindrance.

Dougie: Since your arrival, BYOND Anime has really took a spin for the better and lately, it has been somewhat lively with the new staff changes and some contributing blog posts. At this time, what is your take on the current state of BYOND Anime?


Stephen: I feel BYOND Anime is progressing well. We've got the basics on things like forum / blog moderation and providing feedback to game developers fairly well nailed. These tend to be on-going tasks though, so there have been a few times in the past where I've needed to just give people a bit of a nudge in these areas.


Stephen: Rotating the staff regularly is another area where I feel we've made some nice progress. You have some people who are only really available for contributing over the summer, for example, and some you just come into a quiet spot and want to give a little bit for a random few months or so. Being able to switch it with some regularity lets people drop in and out according to how their own life is going.


Stephen: There are some points I'd love to push further though, naturally.

Dougie: Now that BYOND Anime is progressing fairly well. What do you have up your sleeve for the future of BYOND Anime? Shed some light on what's to come for us.


Stephen: Glad you asked. We've got a couple of things coming up that I'd like to talk about. First up is a regular set of blog posts on quick programming tips, tailored to common things you'll find in an Anime RPG. The idea is to provide people with a clear and thorough explanation of a common problem and a neat and importantly quick way to improve on it. The problem won't always be a bug, it may just be a difficult to use part of the HUD / UI, an unbalanced combat mechanic and so on. We intend to prepare 5 or so of these blog posts in advance and bring them out quite regularly as a series.


Stephen: I have also been exploring advertising BYOND and BYOND Anime. From an automated advertising point of view, I've been looking at getting some google ads up on specialist websites that serve Anime fans. Places like myanimelist.net, some Anime stream websites that serve series we have games for, places like that. We also have a plan to market BYOND in general to UK anime conventions as an indie games development platform, and show off some of BYOND's best games that way. This one is very exciting personally, and is currently in the 'discuss and demo' stage.

Dougie: Yes. In recent conversation with you, we talked about this convention. Mind going into that alittle more for everyone? Talk about what's this about and what can it mean for BYOND Anime and BYOND as a whole.


Stephen: Certainly. UK anime conventions tend to be quite personal events, usually drawing in crowds of 300 - 3000 people. Unlike more commercial events, these are fan operated, and usually have requirements that mean you really need to be over 18 to enjoy most of the event. They are very open to a number of areas aside from just Anime, for example often working indie games development panels into their convention schedule, and looking to promote and distribute indie games in their give-away convention packs.


Stephen: One convention I've attended for a few years now is Minamicon. It's about as small as UK conventions get, but is the longest running. Last year it took in 350 attendees, of which I think only one or two were under 18. Most people I'd met there were in that 18 - 25 age group. A lot of the people attending were very open to both retro and indie games, anything with a neat concept or polish goes down a treat with them.


Stephen: So our intention is to get BYOND Anime and BYOND's best games into these convention packs, and in the best case get BYOND some marketing exposure with potential developers by taking part in these indie games development panels. I have been discussing it with the Minamicon committee as a first go and the feedback so far has been quite positive. I hope to bring up to 10 games, selected from all of BYONDs main guilds, to demo to the committee and show the kind of games we can put on their CDs. That should be something we're going to do in November, when the committe start to get planning the next year's event.


Stephen: This is a great opportunity for BYOND to get out there and promote itself I feel, and to show a new group of players the kind of rich online games and neat single player games BYOND has to offer them. The convention CDs are always very popular with attendees. You'll often catch them throwing them into laptops while in queue for an event, or checking out in groups while chilling at the bar.

Dougie: This will indeed be huge for both BYOND Anime and BYOND. How will you go about choosing which games from BYOND anime goes onto the disk and what will this mean for the game and the dev team?


Stephen: Well the focus would actually probably not be BYOND Anime games so much, but games in other guilds, but there is room for all guilds on the CDs. As far as BYOND Anime games going onto the CD go, it's got to be about polish really. We have a lot of very neat net dreams in BYOND Anime, but taking them and going out promoting them makes it a whole different deal. It's got to look slick, got to play smoothly and without any obvious bugs, and of course it's got to be fun.


Stephen: My hope is Dragonball Online II will manage the kind of level I'd love to take with me to these conventions, and we'll see when it is released. We only really have 2, maybe 3 places for BYOND Anime games in this outfit, so competition is going to be high. It's got to be something I can demo with confidence in November too.

Stephen: For the development teams that get their games into this deal should it go ahead, I think it means a lot. It means I'll be out there in person sitting at laptops with people as they play your game. You'll get all sorts of feedback from them, hopefully get some more regular players and if the game goes down well then you'll be on the tip of everybodies tongue for the convention weekend. For non-Anime games obviously there is the prospect of subscription sales too, where teams have set them up.

Dougie: Definitely some new inspiration for dev teams here at BYOND Anime. Taking a turn back to the future of BYOND Anime. The CSS. Is that a subject for change?


Stephen: The CSS is actually not an issue so much on our end these days. The problem is you can't source someone to change the guild's CSS for love nor money apparently. Apart from a few usability issues mostly with links, it is at least presentable. That said, if someone wants to mock up a "Period Japan" theme for the guild and stick a screenshot in the forum, I'll only be to happy to check it out!

Dougie: What game(s), if any, are you looking forward to here at BYOND anime?


Stephen: I think there are currently two new games that I'm looking forward to, Dragon Ball Online II and Naruto Universe. I'm a bit iffy about the subject material as we already have plenty of these games, but if you're going to do a Dragonball or Naruto game, you've really got to do it well. So I'm looking forward to this pair upping the bar for our classic Anime fighting RPGs.

Stephen: There is currently one existing game I'm looking forward to being developed further, and that's Champloo Ikou Era. I'd love to see the game get polished and fairly bug free. It offers a very nice roleplay experience in an environment that is something a little different for BYOND Anime. And of course I'm looking forward to Ham Ham Rivals Chat and what crazy things MartialArtistAbu will come up with next. Man, I love that game.

Dougie: Awesome. Last question. I know you're indeed a very capable programmer. Is there any future projects from Stephen001 that we can look forward too? If so, is it going to be anime based?

Stephen: I've been very tempted by the idea of an isometric mecha strategy, now that you mention it. I have visions of something that puts players controlling small squads of mechs against each other in same-time or turn-based combat, with Anime styled squad leaders. If you've ever played Valkyria Chronicles for the PS3, they have a still of the character flash onto the screen for a few moments when they activate a special move / trait, and say a punchy line. I love that kind of thing, so I'd love to incorporate these kinds of ideas into a BYOND game one day. We'll see though, when you are guildmaster these things are always a tricky balance between guild and game development.

Dougie: That's awesome man. Thanks for the time. It looks like BYOND Anime's future is in great hands.

Stephen: =P Thank you.

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Stephen will be holding a Q&A topic on the forums for your questions and concerns. Be sure to check that out and next month's featured game. The thread is here: http://www.byond.com/members/BYONDAnime/forum?id=37238

Stay safe. Peace.
Great interview once again Dougie!
BxS0ldi3R wrote:
Great interview once again Dougie!

I agree. ^-^
I'm psyched for what BA will have in the future.
Someday one of us is going to make their mech strategy game their current project instead of setting it on the back burner.
Great interview Woodz. Looking forward to Minamicon :D.
I hope Murder Mansion is one of those few games. It's well polished AND phun!
Great and unexpected interview of Stephen

The future always holds Progress great for the future of BYOND.
Influence others in a very good way and they will advance!
ACWraith wrote:
Someday one of us is going to make their mech strategy game their current project instead of setting it on the back burner.

BYOND lends itself oddly well to the concept, it shocks me that no-one's gone ahead and done it.
Duelmaster409 wrote:
I hope Murder Mansion is one of those few games. It's well polished AND phun!

We'll see. It probably does have the kind of appeal to get played in the cosplay for an hour or so at Minamicon, given it'd be quite a social thing. Running a server for that purpose may be a neat idea.
Awesome got advertising!! thx stephen!