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Keep your account safe!

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:53:21 +0000

Your BYOND account's security depends on you. We want your account to be secure, but we can't do that alone. Here are some tips you can use to keep safe.

Never share your password with anyone

First off, never give out your password to share an account. When two people share an account, it links them in the ban system and if one account is banned, the other might be seen as related. But far worse, you're trusting someone with your password who may not keep that trust--they could misuse it themselves, or share it with someone else. Don't ever share your password for any reason.

This goes triple for anyone claiming to be a BYOND admin. Never give your password to anyone who is or claims to be BYOND Staff--the staff will never ask for your password.

We've also had users tell us their previous passwords when they contact us via the support form. Don't do this; it doesn't help you since we can't look up your old (or current) password, and it just compromises your security.

Look out for phishing

The weakest link in any security system is the human element. I can't even count how many users claimed they were "hacked" because someone stole their password via phishing. Phishing isn't hacking--phishing is the user being gullible. Keep a sharp eye out and don't be fooled by these common scams.

If you see a popup in a game ask you for your password, it's not ours. The BYOND pager asks for your password when you login, but Dream Seeker never will. And I shouldn't have to say this, but if the game uses passwords for other reasons, don't use the same password you use for your account--or any account. There's really no guarantee as to how a game will store any password info, and the connection used to send it to the server isn't the same kind of secure link used by our login system.

Phishing works most often by a threat: The phisher will pretend to be legitimate (in this case, they'll pretend to be BYOND Staff) and will say several bad things will happen to your account unless you reenter your login information at the link they give you. In some cases users have gotten fake emails telling them to set their password to a certain value, all while still threatening to do things like delete their hub entries if they don't comply.

Always, always view such emails with extreme suspicion. It's a pretty rare event that we'll ever tell a user to use a specific password, and when we do it's because we already made the change for them in response to an account recovery issue. (In those cases we also request changing it immediately to something we don't know.) We won't tell you to use a certain password you don't already use, because there would be no reason for us to do that. There's no reason for us to ask for your password either. And if you really needed to login again for some reason, you should go directly to the real BYOND site and login there--under no circumstances should you follow the link in the email telling you that if you don't do it bad things will happen.

Phishers also like to pretend there's time pressure, that if you don't respond immediately you'll face terrible consequences. Don't fall for this. We want you to take the time to investigate. If something smells even a little fishy to you, it probably is.

In the event you ever receive an email from BYOND Staff that you weren't expecting, you can always follow up by asking us to confirm it using our customer contact form. There's no harm in doing this. Usually such emails from us are in the form of: "We heard you were violating Terms of Service in such-and-such a way, so please cut it out." If an unsolicited email is asking you to login or wants to do something with your account info, that should raise a few red flags. Save the email and ask us about it. If it does turn out to be bogus, there's a good chance the phisher left some digital fingerprints behind.

Getting listed in Original Games

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:52:19 +0000

The Original Games forum is for games that have been looked at by an admin, and deemed worthy to be Listed. Unlike fangames, regular listed games are made from original material. That is, you shouldn't find a game in the bunch using a popular anime series or movie/comic universe. You may well find games here that borrow themes and ideas from them, but the key is the intellectual property here is all original.

In this forum, you will see the latest post (made by the author or helpers) from each eligible game's general forum. In this way, games can post updates that are highly visible to the whole community.

To get your hub entry listed in Original Games, here's the process you need to follow:

1) Become a BYOND Member under the account that owns the game.

2) Mark the game as visible for listing, and ready for admin review. If the game is visible but not yet listed it will appear in In Development. Don't mark it ready for the admins if it's still very incomplete. Admins can leave you feedback, which will appear in the sticky feedback thread on your hub forum.

3) Once your game is ready for review, admins will review it. If it is in fact an original game, they can mark the game as Listed. It will appear in Original Games and on our games index page.

Games in progress

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:50:16 +0000

The In Development forum is for games that have not yet been looked at by an admin. This includes games that are ready for review but haven't been checekd out yet, and--the vast majority--those that aren't ready.

In this forum, you will see the latest post (made by the author or helpers) from each eligible game's general forum. Your latest updates will be visible to the community.

To get your hub entry to show up in the gaming section, here's the process you need to follow:

1) Become a BYOND Member under the account that owns the game.

2) Mark the game as visible for listing. This can be done in the hub entry editor's Options tab.

3) When you are ready for review, edit your hub entry and go to the Options tab again, and check the box that says the game is ready. Don't do this if it's still very incomplete; that would just be a waste of the admins' time. Admins can leave you feedback, which will appear in the sticky feedback thread on your hub forum.

When your game is ready to leave this forum, it will go to one of three places:

If your game is original, not based on someone else's intellectual property, it can be listed in Original Games. These are highly visible in the BYOND games index.

If the game is a fangame, but is not a "rip" and is not based on a property that can't be listed (see the Fangames forum for more information), it can be listed in Fangames. These appear in the BYOND games index when searching under the anime tag, or the fangame tag (all non-anime).

If the game is inappropriate, a rip, or a fangame of a property that can't be listed, it will be rejected and will disappear from the forums. A game that would be okay to list if it was more complete will stay in this forum until it's ready or it expires.

Games will be removed from this forum if the owner is no longer a BYOND Member, or the game is no longer active. An active game has to have been played live in the last month, or must be downloadable. In other words, it should be reasonable to assume that if the game isn't downloadable, it will be hosted in the near future.

How to use Developer How-To

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:49:03 +0000

Do you have a question to ask about how to do something in BYOND? This is the right place!

Asking how-to questions

To make the most out of your forum post and get the best help you can, the most important thing you can do is describe your problem clearly. Give us a thorough description of what you're looking for, what you've tried if anything, and maybe even a little info about the game that can help clarify how it'll be used. Here are some examples of what to say and what not to say:

Don't say:

I need a <obscure term> system like <other game> has.

Give me a code to make the user fly.

Do say:

In my game I want to handle battles in a separate arena away from the regular map, except I'd like it to be an action arena instead of a turn-based battle. I've seen <link to other game> do this. What will I need to do to get started?

I have an open-world RPG with a top-down perspective. I want to give some races the ability to fly over some obstacles like trees, but not others like mountains and sheer cliffs. How would I go about this?

When you do get help, people will probably offer you snippets of code as an example. You should not paste this code directly into your game. Remember, the people helping you haven't seen your game--they don't know if the code they gave you will work with it. What they can do is point you in the right direction. Look at their code, see what it's doing, but don't copy it line for line unless it miraculously happens to fit right in with your game. Maybe they used a var called hp and you use one called health, but they mean the same thing; change hp to health.

Sometimes your question may be too big for a short reply. Are you asking for help setting up a battle system for your game? Battle is a pretty in-depth concept and there are millions of different ways to do it. It's going to take more than one post to get you there; you and the helpers who respond will probably have to break it down into smaller steps as you go along. If you're just getting started on the topic, the best response might just be a general overview giving you a list of items you'll need to think about for your battle system, that you can tackle one at a time in other posts.

Remember, with the exception of libraries, code doesn't really work like Legos. Throwing a bunch of unrelated snippets together won't make you a game. There is seldom going to be a solution to your how-to questions that can just be dropped into your code with a perfect fit. More often than not, a good response to your question won't necessarily give you any code to work with but will give you a better idea of how to think through the problem.

Answering questions

Just like in the sister Code Problems forum, we encourage users to help each other and allow people to vote on which answer was the most helpful. If you see that someone else has given a good answer to someone, give their response a vote.

Most of the people who post here will be newbies, so it's important that we encourage each other in good programming habits whenever possible. Please avoid giving advice that uses any of the Big Three newbie gotchas: usr abuse, the : operator, and goto. If you see them using this in their own code, offer a workaround.

Even more important though is that everyone be courteous to one another, in keeping with our community standards.

How to use BYOND Help

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:48:00 +0000

Are you having any problems using BYOND? We'd like to answer your questions. Have some helpful advice for another user in need? Add your voice and you could be listed as one of our most helpful users.

Need help?

If you're having an issue you want to resolve, the first thing you can do is search to see if anyone else has had a similar issue. If they have, take a look at what solutions were recommended. There's a good chance that your question has already been answered, and you won't have to wait for someone to get back to you.

If you do have a new problem, by all means make a new post. When you do post, be sure to describe the problem as clearly as you can. This isn't Twitter, so you have all the space you need to tell us about the issue in detail. Here's a quick list of things you can tell us that might make things easier:

What operating system and/or browser are you using?
What were you trying to do when the problem occurred?
What actually happened, and how did it differ from what you expected?
What steps did you follow?

The more info you can provide, the more likely someone can help you on the first try. In your description, please do use the best English you can. (If you don't speak English, an online translator will work.) This isn't because we're stuffy about spelling or grammar, but because having to wade through a bunch of text-speak only makes it a lot harder for others to understand your problem. It doesn't really take much longer to write out your thoughts in "long form", and it's well worth the effort.

If the issue you're having is something happening within a game, that is something not involving the software itself, any questions should be directed toward the game's owner or posted in its forums. BYOND provides the software that runs and plays the games, but we don't take any responsibility for individual game servers; we don't run them. An example would be if you were having problems with disruptive users in the game, or a shopkeeper didn't work right, or something like that.

Some issues can be brought to our attention via the support link at the very bottom of this page. That's usually just for issues with your account, BYOND Membership, etc., or something of a security-sensitive nature.

Want to help?

We'd like for users to be able to help each other through their problems. With that in mind, this forum allows users to vote for the answer they think is most helpful. Our most helpful users--whether they help by answering or voting--are displayed in our leaderboard.

Getting listed in Fangames

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:45:51 +0000

The Fangames forum is for games that have been looked at by an admin, and deemed worthy to be listed, but are not original. Fangames fall into two categories: anime and everything else. Which one applies to your game will determine which tag it is given ("anime" or "fangame") by the admins.

In this forum, you will see the latest post (made by the author or helpers) from each eligible game's general forum. In this way, fangames can post updates that are highly visible to the whole community.

To get your hub entry listed in Fangames, here's the process you need to follow:

1) If you're making a fangame based on intellectual property whose rightsholder has contacted us and explicitly denied permission, don't bother to create a hub entry; it cannot be listed. You can still make and host such a game at your own risk, but it won't be viewable on the BYOND hub or website. Our advice is to make a game that doesn't use the same IP, but is similar in theme so that people like you who enjoy the original will enjoy a game that reminds them of it. As a bonus, then your game can be listed in Original Games.

See below for a list of games you can't list on BYOND. Now, if your game isn't one of those:

2) Become a BYOND Member under the account that owns the game.

3) Mark the game as visible for listing, and ready for admin review. If the game is visible but not yet listed it will appear in In Development. Don't mark it ready for the admins if it's still very incomplete. Admins can leave you feedback, which will appear in the sticky feedback thread on your hub forum.

4) Once your game is ready for review, admins will review it. If it is in fact an original game, they can mark the game as a Fangame. It will appear in Fangames, and on our games index page when a user looks at results for the anime or fangame tag.

This is a short, but not exhaustive, list of properties we have been told we cannot list on BYOND:

Dragonball (owned by FUNimation)
Final Fantasy (owned by Square Enix)
One Piece (owned by FUNimation)

If you know the property you are basing a game on is owned by one of these companies, chances are they don't allow it, so you're better off changing the game so it's similar but original. For instance, most Final Fantasy fangames are just JRPGs, so you could remove any FF-specific elements and have a perfectly great RPG.

We think most companies are lenient on fangames, and for good reason: It increases their exposure and gives their fans a place to stay excited. But in today's copyright environment, some companies find any fan content threatening. We respect their rights.

Event planning

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:44:46 +0000

Do you have an event or contest going on that you want people to know about? Tell them about it here!

When you post in this forum, you can set a start and end date for your event. People checking the forum will see what's coming up and when, and you can post with updates as the event draws near (or goes on). If you only need to set one date, that's fine.

To choose a date, click in the From and To boxes when adding (or editing) a post. You'll see a popup asking you to set the date and time. This is in your time zone; the display will be adjusted for users in other time zones.

Here's a handy reference (not accounting for daylight savings time when it applies) for some common time zones:

GMT (UK, Portugal)
CEST (Much of western Europe): GMT + 1
EST (Eastern US, Brazil): GMT - 5
CST (Central US): GMT - 6
MST (US Mountain): GMT - 7
PST (US Pacific, BYOND Standard): GMT - 8
Australian time zones: GMT + 8 to GMT + 10

Obviously this is not an exhaustive list, but it should serve as a rough guide for when to expect the most users to be able to get involved.

Listing a demo or library

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:43:19 +0000

The Demos & Libraries forum works in a very similar way to our Gaming forums. This is a place where the latest updates regarding your demos and libraries will appear, taken from their forums.

Unlike our Gaming forums, we don't have separate categories for listed vs. fangame vs. in development. If you have made your hub entry visible, it has two options: listed, or rejected.

If you're creating a demo or library, first you must be a BYOND Member to create the hub entry. Once it's ready to be listed, you can make it visible.

We do want to keep some relatively good standards in this section for what is accepted, so anything not meeting that criteria will be rejected outright. You can always use the feedback thread on your hub entry's forums to talk to the admin(s) responsible for rejecting it, if you want to make changes and have them take another look later.

If you're writing a library, first and foremost it should not be designed so that users need to alter its code to make it work the way they want. If you're doing that, it should be a demo. A library is meant to plug into existing code without needing changes. It should be well-documented and contain good code practices.

For demos, we also require good code practices. Abuse of usr, the : operator, and goto should be firmly avoided. Using comments well is always helpful, though putting pointless comments on just about every line is not. Make sure you put in a tab before any // comments, for readability. A demo is useless to its audience if it isn't readable, after all.

How to use Code Problems

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:41:57 +0000

The Code Problems forum is where you can come to get help debugging your code. Please note: If you do not already have a code snippet to debug, and this is more of a how-to question, please visit the Developer How-To forum instead. If you have more of a question on design, even if there's code to go with it--for instance, you might wonder if the code is as efficient as it could be even though it works--then Developer Discussion (formerly known as Design Philosophy) might be the best place.

Asking questions

The first thing you should do in the template is paste the relevant snippet of your code. Be sure to paste between the <dm> and </dm> tags, so it will be formatted nicely and readable. If you're not sure which part of your code to paste, think about which routine has the most to do with your problem. For instance if your characters are unable to use certain kinds of equipment, maybe the verb and/or procs controlling equipment need to be posted.

If you have a runtime error, you might not be sure which part of the code to post. In Dream Maker, you can go into the Build menu, and in Preferences turn on debugging info for your project. The next time a runtime error occurs, it'll give you a file name and a line number where the problem happened.

Once you have posted code, be sure to describe what it's doing vs. what it's supposed to be doing. (Put your description after the </b> tag, so the whole thing won't end up in bold.) If you got a compiler or runtime error, post that; the text from the error will often be a good clue to other developers who can help you. In describing the problem, be as clear and detailed as you possibly can. (This goes double if you are working on a fangame, where other developers may not be familiar with the terminology used there.) The more and clearer information you give others, the better they can help you.

Bad description: The user is supposed to do a blahby-blah blast but it doesn't work.

Good description: This proc is supposed to make the mob shoot an energy beam in the direction they're facing, but the beam only goes out to one tile of distance before stopping.

When you're done, preview your post just to make sure it's readable. If everything is in order, go ahead and post.

Learning from the responses

Once you've posted, it will take users time to read the post and help you--this is not an instantaneous process. Users may offer adjustments to your code, or in some cases may suggest a complete rewrite of a whole section. Remember that any code you get from them won't necessarily plug right into your project without needing to be modified.

Also if you do copy and paste code (and make adjustments of course), be sure that the indentation format matches your own project. Hit Ctrl+T in Dream Maker to turn on tab display, and then you'll know if you have to make any adjustments to the way the code is indented.

If you think a particular response is the best of the bunch, go ahead and give it a vote. You may not want to do this right away in case a better vote comes in. You can vote on who was the most helpful in other people's threads, too; helping us find out who's the most helpful is pretty helpful in itself!

Responding to a code problem

For those who want to offer code help, we thank you for your input and want to encourage everyone who can help to do so. This is why we have the voting--if your response is voted most helpful, you can end up on our leaderboard.

If you post a code snippet to help someone, don't use a single space as an indent. Use at least two or three, because single-spaced indents are unreadable.

Please avoid usr abuse, misuse of the : operator, or misuse of goto in your response. (These are what I like to call the Big Three.) Intermediate users know when these are appropriate and yes, sometimes they do even belong in Code Problems responses, but most of the time there's an easy if not superior workaround.

Classified Ads and you

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:40:43 +0000

Welcome to the Classified Ads forum. This is the place to go if you want to ask for help making your game.

All posts in this forum are locked. Instead of replying directly, users can respond to you (or you to them) by opening the post and clicking the link for the author's name. This will let you send a private pager message where you can discuss the project. This is available even if the person responding to the ad is not a BYOND Member.

Things to include

When you post your ad, here's a few things you should include:

The name of the project
A little information about the project or your goals
What kind of help you need
Compensation offered
Any other contact info

If you get all the responses you need, you can delete your post. You can also make edits as needed. After a few weeks, the post will disappear on its own to prevent clutter.