what happened to BYOND development updates? in BYOND Discussion

ID:260975
 
Oct 16 2011, 5:32 pm
The BYOND blog used to be somewhat active. The staff (well, Tom at least) started off this year strong, posting on Jan 13 & 27 and Feb 2 & 9.

It looks like Tom jinxed himself on the Feb. 9th post by saying "Hopefully you've noticed the more frequent news posts here at BYOND. We made a vow this year to improve communication, and the news is part of it." To also quote a BYOND blog post: "You know the old warning about never announcing something you're working on, because you'll lose all motivation to do it?"

I guess by announcing that the staff would post more frequently they were jinxed and didn't really make regular blog posts again (the only other ones this year are March 9 & 29, August 10, and September 2).

Is there a reason why the BYOND staff doesn't use the BYOND blog more?

People get quite interested in development progress of BYOND games, I'm sure I'm not the only person who'd be interested in hearing about the development progress of BYOND itself. It doesn't have to be development updates, it could be any BYOND-related ramblings. I'd be interested in reading posts from the staff about their thoughts on feature requests, submitted games/resources, things they think are neat, ideas they have, features on their wish list, lessons they've learned from working on BYOND, etc.

The BYOND staff seems to keep its distance from the BYOND community. I'm not sure if the staff just doesn't value community interaction or if they don't have the time for it. To have so little interaction it seems like the staff must actively try to avoid it. I think it'd be very beneficial. The BYOND community doesn't have that many good developers so getting regular posts from two more (Tom and Lummox - I think that's the whole BYOND development staff) would make quite an impact.
#1 Oct 16 2011, 6:34 pm
The comments of all the blog posts would just be massive arguments over inane things.
#2 Oct 16 2011, 6:38 pm
Mostly it's just that these projects have (predictably) taken longer than expected. We have tried to be responsive regarding the features we have released, though. For example, we followed and updated the pixel movement post for a long time while that feature was being discussed and tested.

I'll be making a post soon about some stuff we've been working on.
#3 Oct 16 2011, 7:29 pm
This is a silly post. It seems like every other week there's a BYOND update and either Lummox or Tom are quick to reply to questions.
#4 Oct 17 2011, 5:13 am
In response to Tom (#2)
Tom wrote:
I'll be making a post soon about some stuff we've been working on.

The posts don't have to be about things you're working on. It'd probably be better if they weren't all about features that are in development.

It'd help to have a more regular dialog going between the staff and community. A development update (ex: about the flash client) is bound to get a lot of "I can't wait!" responses but they're not useful (they're nice to hear, but not that useful). Other kinds of posts could generate much better discussions. It's hard to give an example, but by making posts that get discussions started, the discussions can take unexpected tangents and end up being very productive and interesting. By not making posts there's hardly any chance of these useful discussions occurring.

I think the BYOND blog would also be a good place to discuss requests in the feature tracker. There are a lot of good ideas in there, but a lot of them are half-baked - it's just not clear what people are asking for, how it'd work, or why it's necessary. Being able to discuss these issues in a place where the staff is more involved and able to preface the discussion by saying "here's why this feature would be hard to implement...", things would go better.
#5 Oct 17 2011, 1:50 pm
In response to Forum_account (#4)
That reminds of me something, oh wait!
http://www.byond.com/members/byondlabs
#6 Oct 17 2011, 2:31 pm
In response to Flame Sage (#5)
Flame Sage wrote:
That reminds of me something, oh wait!
http://www.byond.com/members/byondlabs
and
http://www.byond.com/members/dantomdelbyondo
#7 Oct 17 2011, 2:32 pm
In response to Super Saiyan X (#6)
That wasn't really development updates, more of a contest though.
#8 Oct 17 2011, 2:34 pm
In response to Flame Sage (#7)
Goddamnit man, I don't care. I just said it reminded me of it.