Locked: Where BYOND went wrong in BYOND Discussion

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ID:865856
 
Jul 12 2012, 8:25 am
Hey there, most of you probably don't know me, and for those that do, you may have noticed I haven't been around most of 2012.

Here's a little history about myself. I started BYOND in 2004 with the keyname Killerdragon, being 12 years old and my first game being Mystic Journey by Gunbuddy13. Gameboys were still the greatest thing ever back in that day, and BYOND basically felt like a big, multiplayer Gameboy, which I thought was the greatest idea to come about in my lifetime. In 2005, I began toying with the programming side of things - being bored with Mystic Journey after playing nonstop - and I used Rcet's Tutorial to make my very first game. I began with a significant amount of ridiculously dumb games, all filled with icons I garnered from Icon Chatterz. I began taking programming more seriously, developing friendships with the likes of Bandock, Calus CoRPS, and Evi of au. Cut to today, I'm here with a different name, almost exclusively out of BYOND, programming in the web rather for games, and a lot of it has to do with BYOND's changes (or lack there-of).



BYOND will always hold a little special place in my heart - had my friend never found it and showed me the games, and had I never gotten bored and found out I could make games, I would not be the CS major heading to Berkeley to a pursue a career in software development today. And if I had more money, I'd ensure BYOND never had any financial problems ever again, because it certainly changed my life (corny, but 100% true). However, the site has taken some gnarly turns.

When memberships first came out and blogs got their footing, the number of trolls was minimal to the number of actual content-worthy posts. This was enjoyable, because I actually learned something from blogs here. And even when trolls became more prominent (notably Propaganda rose up), they at least had the class to provide laughable content. BYOND began hosting sitewide contests (the Halloween contest that got literally everyone involved), and BYOND began heading in a direction where games started to flourish more, and the site was in general agreement of happiness with each other. Garthor helped in the developer forums frequently, and between him and my nearly-my-age programming mentors, it was easy for me to gain a footing in the wonderful world of code at 2 a.m.

But then, something that never really happened was BYOND never really escaped 2d. And while I believe 2d games are still incredibly fun, the fact is that after 8 years I can say sometimes 3d is a bit more fun. And 2d wasn't challenging enough. And BYOND players are so cheap that it's not exactly worth one's time to make a game that is possible to make much money off (a few games have exceptions to this rule - NEStalgia being the first of many). With the rise of DBZ games and trolls from every corner (really, did we get swept with 12 year olds again? Even I wasn't that bad when I was 12), blogs eventually got cancelled and switched to BYOND's clever forum system. This however, provided one major problem for me: BYOND drifted over it's time for me from being a place of gaming to a community which I grew to love (not sure why, but I did). Between wiz_chat and my infrequent trips to The Saloon, and Icon Chatterz back in the day, and Mystic Journey when there were dedicated communities, I could always have something to do here besides play the same little Gameboy game, but actually converse and even attempt to get a better knowledge of the wide world of programming languages. And with doing away with the blogs, it did away with me because I didn't feel that connection anymore.

I'm not sure where BYOND went wrong, because I can recall several years where BYOND was probably my favorite place on the net. I guess where BYOND went wrong was when I knew, as I was writing this, that I'm going to get more posts commenting on "how gay this post is", "tl;dr", and various other comments that are intended to be funny, but got annoying 3 years ago. I wish this community would thrive again, and if it does I'll likely return someday, but this is going to be my final goodbye. It's been a good run, I learned a lot. Thanks to everyone who kept me sort of sane here.

- JK
#1 Jul 12 2012, 8:32 am
I love your initials. They provide a nice lightening touch to the end of such a serious post.
I hope the community can straighten up, too! Ideally we would just eradicate all of the rips and force them to start from scratch, but unfortunately that's impossible. Hopefully the standalone and the Flash client will bring in more serious people from other communities.
#2 Jul 12 2012, 8:49 am
Hey there. Been awhile since we've talked. I'm actually surprised that I didn't see this post several months ago, but I had a feeling it would be coming sometime.

It was interesting hearing about your history with BYOND, and I wish that I would've been old enough back in 2004-2005 (was still in fourth grade and barely knew what the internet was still xD) to see BYOND like that and the beginnings of games that I'm seeing what's left of in their final days.

Similar to you, learning Dream Maker was my first main introduction to programming, and I've become interested in making development a career. BYOND has a strong place in my heart too, so I know where you're coming from, even if it's still a completely different BYOND.

Do you still get on Google Talk with the same email? I'd love to talk to you again. I've been messing around with Unity a lot more now, and I remember you were interested in it. :)
#3 Jul 12 2012, 9:34 am
Hey there, TLR! I do occasionally, but that e-mail is primarily dropped. You can e-mail me at hrgdeveloper@yahoo.com and I'll have a new e-mail that you'll be able to contact me at shortly (I'll let you know from that e-mail). I'd love to get started on some Unity work!

Good to see some familiar faces still have a little hope here (I can't say I don't have some hope for this community).
#4 Jul 12 2012, 9:59 am
I guess where BYOND went wrong was when I knew, as I was writing this, that I'm going to get more posts commenting on "how gay this post is", "tl;dr", and various other comments that are intended to be funny, but got annoying 3 years ago.

I'd generally find this to not be the case, actually, for the main forums. There are a few specific cases where banter back and forth between users obviously remains, which is where I think the involved parties are all privy to it, obviously very clearly (by their posts) do not mind, and so on. However by and large, these posts are pruned for their apparent lack of solid contribution to a topic.

We take a lot of implicit criticism for doing that, from some users. We also take a lot of implicit criticism for not doing it enough, from others. Statements such as "Where has BYOND gone wrong", are obviously by no means (I hope) intended as a criticism of Tom's decisions, the moderator's handling of an area and so on.

However, ultimately, it is a criticism, and it lands on our responsibility. My ... difficulty, as a moderator, is that these posts provide analysis that ultimately is not new to me. Tom and I are aware (perhaps better than any other moderators) of the aspects of the blog system which did not work, and where moderator policy perhaps did not assist the process.

We are however, also very aware of the considerations that were current during that period, and how I can assure you that were the system moderated in the manner I think you'd have wanted it moderated, I'd have received a great deal of negative response for it, just as we receive (still continue to, if this post proves testament) negative response about how the system actually worked and what we permitted.

It's just how these things go, you can't please everyone.

The community in general, I think, is in quite a healthy state at present, and has been for some months now. What it is not in, though, is a state of growth. In a sense, largely because this kind of topic is popular, and there is not much in the way of looking forward and growing going on. Perhaps to do better, you might tell us your thoughts on what BYOND could benefit from.

What I find is, when you actually set people to it, we're not short of ideas of what might need building to create the kind of environment people think we need to bring in new developers. What we lack instead usually, is the man-power to do it. Very commonly people will come to me and say "BYOND should have a new hub arrangement, similar to BYONDscape, with supporting articles and a developer blogosphere [I had to say that, it felt good]". Or "BYOND could do with having hub-based object databases", or "listings provided in XML, or JSON".

These are all very doable things. However the people who bring them to me (usually), are actually just looking to me to develop them entirely of my own accord. Which is of course quite frustrating, because I fulfil a bunch of roles for BYOND already and my time to do this is very limited. But I'll be damned if I can ever get some reliable help on this.

And so, these things don't get developed, and people continue to make these posts. I'd love for this to change, and for more positive posts to be made instead, about the future, and what people are DOING about it. We've analysed the past to near-death, it's time to move on and get some action!
#5 Jul 12 2012, 10:26 am
If I can find a solid team that wants to make a good game without the intention of pay, but to "Build [y]Our Own Net Dream" then I'll come back and work on it.

Stephen: I also acknowledge your difficulty as a moderator. I don't really blame much on Tom as much as I do the users, including myself. I've never met the challenge of completing a game, so I can't say I've been a significant contribution to the site. Tom has a ton of respect from me (and like I said, if I had the money, BYOND's stability would be guaranteed), and so do the other moderator's around here. You all have helped a lot to shape where I am at now in my life.
#6 Jul 12 2012, 12:27 pm (Edited on Jul 12 2012, 12:33 pm)
In response to CauTi0N (#5)
The thing is, everyone loves to get paid. Why wouldn't you want a game with subscriber benefits?

As for 2D vs 3D, I for one am a person that plays 2D games 95% of the time. These are the games in the past 3 years that I have played which were 3D:

Call of Duty: Black Ops
Borderlands
Any Nintendo 64 Game
Super Smash Brothers Series
Any Racing Game
#7 Jul 12 2012, 12:55 pm
In all honesty, I don't think anything went wrong with BYOND. I think we all just grew up, and now we see what BYOND is compared to what it used to be to us. We've discovered other languages, learned some new things, and realized that BYOND is just a middle-stage for CS people. It brings you into CS, but it's not a stopping point. You have to move on to "real" languages (and I use "real" not as a sign of disrespect but just as a note that DM is not an acceptable language for software designing applications) to do anything productive.

tl;dr - BYOND is like Trix.
#8 Jul 12 2012, 12:59 pm
Trix are still delicious.
#9 Jul 12 2012, 2:13 pm
I agree with this post for the most part, being here since early 2005 I've seen this community take a turn for the worse; there are a few notable individuals that continue to make good games and I should only hope that they will remain here on BYOND to do so.

One of the main problems with BYOND, and this is entirely my own opinion of course, is that there isn't really much of a chance to complete an original project unless you manage to befriend somebody willing to help you. Classified ads for example, plenty of people will help you... If you pay them. Obviously a lot of the potentially great developers that come here are/were quite young and likely don't have the money to pay somebody to contribute towards their project with art. I've found that finding an unpaid pixel artist (who I would be quite willing to share subscriptions/donations with) is generally near-impossible. As such, I have had to stick to using the art assets of GBA/DS games to create a fangame as the possibility to create something entirely of my own has not been there.

I know some of you may in response to my statement say that I should have had something playable, but I've tried that and unfortunately that doesn't work either. I think if people started working together a lot more unpaid and then sharing subscriptions and donations then BYOND would gradually become a much better place where, realistically, people could make something profitable.

So, in light of what I've said, if anybody would be interested in helping with art assets for an original project or even collaborating with the programming side of things I am sure we could come work something out. I'm very sorry if I've hijacked this post, I certainly didn't mean to :D
#10 Jul 12 2012, 2:29 pm
From a programming perspective at least, I've yet to see a project posted that made me go "Yeah, that'd be a good use of my free time". One can only assume artists are much the same, particularly as their own things will obviously interest them far more than someone else's, naturally.
#11 Jul 12 2012, 2:53 pm
I must admit that removing the blogging, custom css, and such was unfortunate; but I do not blame anyone for that other than the trolls and such that pushed it. I do not think that has impacted things much, aside from the fact that the new forum design is used far more; after all game updates wouldn't be much use if there was a blog feature right?

It is for that reason, and the existence of Twitter, that has prevented me from bothering to make any of my suggestions or feature requests that might bring some form of blogging or similar features back.

Now as for the lack of finding people to work with, I do agree that is an issue, but it is one that is not easily changed. I think the only way that would fix it that actually might get Done is the release of frameworks, free to use icon/tileset packs, and such.

I say this because I am one of those all in one, do it yourself types of developers, and speaking as both a programmer and pixel artists... Stephen nailed it. There are so few good original projects out there, or being made, and it's just so rare to see anything that looks like it would be worth my time and effort.

I do, however, feel that something like free icon packs would be a bit worth it because while I might not make much if any money, it covers such a wide variety of projects that I have a better chance of helping some I'd care about. I say might not on the money, because things like ad.fly can help with making money without charging; texture designers do that with Minecraft a lot.

It's just kind of an ugly spiral. You can't find help for your projects because you can't get others as interested in them as you are without some incentive like guaranteed money, but then you can't help others much because they tend to either give up or don't have things that interest you as much as your own ideas if even any at all.

Heck, that's why you don't see much of my work around BYOND yet. I work mostly silently/secretly, doing most of my stuff by myself because I cannot find people who are interested, they vanish on me, etc; yet I have so many potential project ideas I can't bare to part with them.

The silent part is another issue, that's caused by how judge mental a lot of people on BYOND tend to be, which is likely caused by how common it is for people to make little posts about games and then give up on the game soon after; its left people far too skeptical thus causing team work to be strained even more.

A case in point? The extreme amount of base icon posts lately. That even lead to a joke feature request. The community here is amazing, and terrible, each at the same time; thus what you believe the community to be just depends on which side of it you find yourself dealing with more often.
#12 Jul 13 2012, 10:17 am
I agree... Working on BYOND is great, but you need money in order to find a pixel artist, and now some people'll be commenting: "A good creator would use bad icons, and he'll surely find a good pixel artist when the people see his game is great!" but when has that happened? Never I believe, I know Super Station 13 is great and it's icons quality isn't good at all, but you know it's one of the oldest games on BYOND aswell, and I'm surprised the creator didn't lose the motivation, even though that you must work on don't losing the motivation when making a game...

I mean that finding a pixel artist that way -could- work, but it's rarely seen, and a game without a pixel artist doesn't go far.

I'm not forcing any pixel artist to work for free, I'm just saying that it'd be great if you used different methods in order to get paid, but I understand you dislike working with "subscriptions" money (if there's any ofc), because they could scam you, but whatever, it's still hard to describe the BYOND Games situation.
#13 Jul 13 2012, 11:20 am
Indeed... graphics need to be good in order to attract people, but why would you need an iconner when the graphics are good anyhow, it destroys the purpose.
#14 Jul 13 2012, 12:54 pm
In response to Eternal_Memories (#12)
Eternal_Memories wrote:
"A good creator would use bad icons, and he'll surely find a good pixel artist when the people see his game is great!" but when has that happened?

http://silkgames.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=51

Most of NEStalgia's original monster sprites have been replaced in the past year by artists who found the game after the big public release. Even our Silk Games mark and branding materials were completely redone by someone in the community.

The crazy part is that the vast majority of our artwork and music contributors don't even want money. When you create a game that people truly enjoy, they love just having a chance to support it and to be a part of the development process.

There is no reason why any developer here should get hung up on artwork. Especially with the advent of Kickstarter, if you can create and demonstrate a project with kick ass gameplay, there will be people lining up to give you money in order to take it to the next level.
#15 Jul 13 2012, 3:36 pm
To be fair though, you already had connections via DWO and various other games you've made.

Many of these people don't have those kind of connections.
#16 Jul 13 2012, 3:41 pm
In response to Flame Sage (#15)
Flame Sage wrote:
To be fair though, you already had connections via DWO and various other games you've made.

Many of these people don't have those kind of connections.

Correct me if I am wrong but most of those who've played his game came from websites not related to BYOND. Therefore, they had no knowledge of his previous games.
#17 Jul 13 2012, 3:47 pm
In response to Flame Sage (#15)
Flame Sage wrote:
To be fair though, you already had connections via DWO and various other games you've made.

Many of these people don't have those kind of connections.

There's always an excuse around here. It's what keeps the do-nothings doing nothing.

All of NEStalgia's new artwork was created by people who didn't even know what BYOND was prior to our public release in February 2011. A game that I created ten years prior as a high schooler had no bearing on anything. Besides, every "advantage" I have on BYOND I've earned through the type of hard work that most other developers here spend all of their time avoiding.
#18 Jul 13 2012, 3:48 pm
I was simply pointing something out.
#19 Jul 13 2012, 4:03 pm
There's no reason any of us can't be like Silky here. The only thing he has on us is time/experience.
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