Masterdan's site

My shaw was apperantly compromised

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 22:22:08 +0000

<3><3><3>Seems like another douche has happened to hack my shaw webmail,Changed password and security questions.I already contacted shaw support and they are currently investigating the issue; I've reclaimed my byond account and will work to reclaim my other email; As for now The only way to reach me is via pager.
tl;dr: i'm banned from my own game i guess you guys caught the culprit?
</3></3></3>

Epic Moderation Failure

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 16:20:58 +0000

Recently a post was made of a rather irate customer of Nestalgia, he was mad because he has been banned from the game after paying for a subscription and being given no explanation for why he was banned.

Now in the real world, this would be considered a very reasonable thing to make public, other byond players deserve to know that Silkwizard likes to ban people for no reason, indefinately, and thinks a Terms of Service agreement that he has sloppily mashed together with absolutely no requirement to agree to it, covers him from banning any person he feels like.

So in a reasonable community you would expect the following: Blog post made, comments about legitimacy of complaint, eventual disinterest and possible negative reputation impact for Nestalgia.

What happened on BYOND with our backwards moderation policies and bias moderators? The post was surpressed immediately. A second post was made requesting a reasonable explanation for why a legitimate customer complaint was surpressed, the original post was brought back, and then subsequently closed down again.

That is rediculous. Do you know how much BYOND has failed over the last 8 years to control the widespread issue of selling other people's property or hosting rips? Horribly! completely inept and ineffective compared to any comparable community. Quite possibly the worst Laissez faire treatment of serious infractions you would experience anywhere. How does BYOND moderate the blog front page? well quite frankly haphazardly and with extreme bias for some people and against others. BYOND is a small community, and the moderators are a tight nit group. So I come to my major point:

Why is it that people who pay for a membership are treated as if they need to earn the right to make use of the only real benefit a BYOND membership confers? Why is it a privaledge? You are paying 18 dollars for a year membership and the only discernable benefit you have is the ability to make blog posts and reviews in the public BYOND members post listing, and moderators think they have every right to take things down without explanation, without a process, without consistency. Are you serious? If you de-list a blog permanently, or remove a blog post you better have a good reason for doing it. We are not just supporters of BYOND, we are annual subscribers and customers. We have a right to at least be treated with consistency and respect.

I am absolutely at the end of my rope with frustration with the methodology employed by BYONDs moderation team, you treat your customers horribly, you treat those who have toxic effects on the community as though they should not be touched, those who make deconstructive and disparaging remarks constantly are given preferential treatment to the vast majority of the community, even though this person I am vaguely referring to, have not reaped the hyped up popularity that they assured BYOND would result in a new age of profitability.

Stop buying this garbage, treat everybody with respect and free of bias, stop treating your customers like trash, start treating blog supressions more seriously and realize that the vast majority of us support BYOND entirely out of respect for Tom and Lummox Jr and not much else, if some actual black and white policies arent laid out and if moderation does not become consistent then I will completely stop supporting memberships in my community and remove the membership benefits that I have provided for the last few years.

My MSN has been compromised

Sun, 06 Jun 2010 04:01:34 +0000

One of my many followers with absolutely no social life has apparently bruteforced their way into my MSN account and changed my password. I will work on reclaiming this account, but do not consider MSN a safe way to communicate with me anymore.

*Update* Tl;dr: I got my account back and banned the person responsible.

(Me) (E-mail Address Not Verified) says:
what are you doing
and how did you get on my msn?!
Dan(Impostor) says:
easy.
<3
(Me) (E-mail Address Not Verified) says:
no seriously i want to know how lol

Dan(Impostor) says:
K dan
(Me) (E-mail Address Not Verified) says:
i didnt even write th security questions myself
Dan(Impostor) says:
Lol
(Me) (E-mail Address Not Verified) says:
nor did I use my own password
Dan(Impostor) says:
first of all
(Me) (E-mail Address Not Verified) says:
james made that account
Dan(Impostor) says:
am sorry
for hacking u
(Me) (E-mail Address Not Verified) says:
what do you mean hacking
how did you "hack" me?!
Dan(Impostor) says:
am gettign there
(Me) (E-mail Address Not Verified) says:
what exactly did you do
Dan(Impostor) says:
well
i did some research
found out u live in calgry canada
u use shaw
(Me) (E-mail Address Not Verified) says:

_>

Dan(Impostor) says:
as cable/ internet
etc
found out ure age
DOB
and all
not to be stalker and all
(Me) (E-mail Address Not Verified) says:
cool story
no not at all
Dan(Impostor) says:
yea yea yea
anywho
Ourico
said u and him
fucked my byond acct
and deleted my chars
(Me) (E-mail Address Not Verified) says:
what are you on about, why would i do that
a) i own the game
i could delete your account if i wanted to
Dan(Impostor) says:
i was piss
(Me) (E-mail Address Not Verified) says:
b) i banned ourico
Dan(Impostor) says:
becausee i spent 6 months on th`at char
(Me) (E-mail Address Not Verified) says:
so why would i be helping him
Dan(Impostor) says:
and then its gone
so i ploted revenge
(Me) (E-mail Address Not Verified) says:
you could ask nicely and i would just respec you
jesus h
Dan(Impostor) says:
o
e.e
sorry
fine
(Me) (E-mail Address Not Verified) says:
thats fine, whats your msn
Dan(Impostor) says:
my real 1
(Me) (E-mail Address Not Verified) says:
yes
Dan(Impostor) says:
hmm sec
first
leme make sure
(Me) (E-mail Address Not Verified) says:
also whats your byond key
Dan(Impostor) says:
i give u ure msn and everything back
(Me) (E-mail Address Not Verified) says:
we have backups every month
Dan(Impostor) says:
Also i hacked zero_tigers byond acct e.e
i was on
(Me) (E-mail Address Not Verified) says:
i saw that
i was surprised tye was on byond
Dan(Impostor) says:
i noticed his not admin on byond
(Me) (E-mail Address Not Verified) says:
james tell tye that his byond account was stolen
Dan(Impostor) says:
goa*
(Me) (E-mail Address Not Verified) says:
no tye is not an admin on GOA
he doesnt play byond anymore
Dan(Impostor) says:
o
i see
anywho
dan can u please restore my char
<3 and i'll undo everything
(Me) (E-mail Address Not Verified) says:
if you give me my msn back before I go to play starcraft 2
which is in like 10 minutes
so you better hurry up!
Dan(Impostor) says:
Ughh AM ON IT BOI!!
and am sorry
(Me) (E-mail Address Not Verified) says:
no worries
Dan(Impostor) says:
searosly
sorry
Q_Q ure an honest man, andi respect that
o i got john msn and byond
but i returned it
anywho
(Me) (E-mail Address Not Verified) says:
kk
Dan(Impostor) says:
u do realize
if u go back on deal
i'll hvae to rehack u
(Me) (E-mail Address Not Verified) says:
lol just hurry up
Dan(Impostor) says:
oi !!
(Me) (E-mail Address Not Verified) says:
i said id do it
Dan(Impostor) says:
scouts honor?
what should i change ure password back 2?
i can rehack ure acct in less then 5 min.
(Me) (E-mail Address Not Verified) says:
13412
i use that password for everything
Dan(Impostor) says:
dont tell me

_<</blockquote>(Me) (E-mail Address Not Verified) says:
@_@
Dan(Impostor) says:
lol
dont worry dan
<3 *_*
ure coool
soo i wont do shit
(Me) (E-mail Address Not Verified) says:
alright
appreciated
whats your msn
Dan(Impostor) says:
hmm
o yea
angelfrost101@hotmail.com
i have over 50 so hard to remeber
o well
its changine
there goes my plan
for hacking dipic
and editing myself

_> i was gonna do that
(Me) (E-mail Address Not Verified) says:
it wouldnt be very easy to do
Dan(Impostor) says:
yes it would
i know that
(Me) (E-mail Address Not Verified) says:
do you know how our save system works?
Dan(Impostor) says:
yea
dotn worry
(Me) (E-mail Address Not Verified) says:
oh I dont worry
Dan(Impostor) says:
u can edit vilalge and stuff
but u have to be careful
when editing value
or it'll delet the char
am i right?
(Me) (E-mail Address Not Verified) says:
francis peters?
the truth is
the saves are on a weird system
Dan(Impostor) says:
the name is francis koroma
(Me) (E-mail Address Not Verified) says:
even i forget how to edit save files
Dan(Impostor) says:
14 year old middle schooler
(Me) (E-mail Address Not Verified) says:
can i have my account now?
whats your byond key, i need to look up what level you were
your slowing down my starcraft 2 game

Then Dion added my new msn that only the hacker would know about: dionlamar@hotmail.com

During this time Kobata e-mailed me saying that Dion's passwords he uses for everything are the same, and gave it to me. I then changed my account back.

After this we had this conversation:
Francis says:
Hye you there?
Dan says:
kobata broke into this account while we were talking
he like doublehacked
Francis says:
lol kobata a monster lol
am i still gona get a respec?
Dan says:
whats your key?
Francis says:
Dont ban me plox
Dan says:
ill look up what level you were a month ago and add 5
Francis says:
thanx
Dan says:
should be fine
Francis says:
but
can u change my name
ppl hate me
on goa
Dan says:
sure
youll be able to make whatever name you want
ill just set your level
Francis says:
Piro87
Dan says:
thats the key ill find your characters on?
from last month
or would they be further back?
Francis says:
it got deleted
ourico AND em hacked me
Dan says:
i know im checking backups
Francis says:
k
dan
honestly
am sorry
sincerly
Dan says:
this is Dion right?
Francis says:
yea
wow
Can u respec him
so i can fix build
i never knew kobata was a hacker
Dan says:
one sec
well koroma54 isnt a hard password to figure out
Francis says:
shit
how kobata
invite him to this convo plz
>_<<br/>
Kobata has been added to the conversation.

Francis says:
kobata e.e
how did u.. find my pass
ourico told u?
Kobata says:
ourico is blocked.
He might have known it, I dunno.
Why would I tell you who told me?
Francis says:
o anyway e.,e
i thought dan
was working with ourico
and they deleted my char
Dan says:
you must think i have nothing better to do hey lol
Francis says:
=o but i was wrong ;/
Dan says:
if i wanted to delete your character id ban you
it tkaes like 10 seconds to do
Francis says:
Ourico,Jon,and charlie got there own lil hack group
Dan says:
you kids are just guessing peoples security questions
its not really hacking
Francis says:
am 14
Dan says:
well, maybe
Francis says:
am a teen
not a kid =/
Dan says:
hmmm
too young to be trusted with a car or liquor
Francis says:
yea
I wonder who told kobata my password
o well i changed it to rose54
hahah hard to guess
Dan
Dan says:
mhmm
Francis says:
why am i banned lol
Dan says:
oh you ruined my surprise
your character has been restored
Francis says:
-sigh-
Dan says:
but your ip has been banned for stealing my msn account
and yes, i changed my secret question
silly
Kobata says:
It SHOULD be telling him the reason and end date.
Francis says:
LOL
Dan says:
lol
Francis says:
it did
2034
o well
dan
sorry
but
Dan says:
youl be a bit wiser by then
Francis says:
i'll have to rehack u
Dan says:
you can try
i changed all of my security questions to jibberish
Francis says:
:/ i dont need ure danm security question LOL
dont u get it
i dont even know it
LOL
Dan says:
mhmm
Francis says:
but after i been nice
u do this lol
Kobata says:
Yeah, your alternate email thing won't work either.
Francis says:
wow classy
Dan says:
this is your idea of nice hey
Kobata says:
I fixed that.
Francis says:
kobata
i know
i didnt use neither
Dan says:
the password is now over 30 characters long
Francis says:
Lol
Dan says:
even a bruteforce hack wouldnt work
Francis says:
hmmm impressiv
but i'll bet ya
i'll have u hacked by tommorow
by noon
Dan says:
okay
Francis says:
wanan bet?
Dan says:
ill make you a bet
if you can do that, you can have your character back
ill be that impressed
Francis says:
Nah
i dont whant ure char
my char
its K
Dan says:
lol
Francis says:
i'll just fuck around
Dan says:
thats fine
Francis says:
with ure shit and have fun
and delet
Dan says:
even if you get it,
Francis says:
the hotmail
Dan says:
everybody of importance knows its fake
that hotmail is only used for byond, to talk to kobata and dipic
everybody else has it because they foudn out about it
youd be doing me a favor
Francis says:
K thanx
Dan says:
now that dipic and kobata will never send any sources to this account
and they wont
itll be fine
Francis says:
K
u forgoten
about ure shaw acct
Lol
Dan says:
the one i made today
i made sure the password and security questions were not easy
and your the only person on it
Francis says:
dont let ure guard down dan
Dan says:
i dont use msn, dion
Francis says:
U may have won this 1
Dan says:
only to talk to kobata and dipic
Francis says:
lol
I know
wow
i cant believe i trusted u
Dan says:
but good effort trying to get my source
hey i didnt doubel cross you
Francis says:
u banned me
Dan says:
we got the password back before you gave it up
if you were faster the deal would have been legit
and id feel guilty
Francis says:
dont worry
Dan says:
unfortunately you were just outsmarted this time
Francis says:
i'll rehack it
Dan says:
and i probably wont are.

wtf
care.
Francis says:
Lol
i changed iIP
Lol
Dan says:
any down syndrome baby could
enjoy constantly dodging bans
i hope you dont put too much time into a character just to lose it again
Francis says:
yea ;/
Dan says:
dont be such a troll next time
this behavior your engaged in
impersonating people and stealing accounts etc
these are novice forms of identity theft
and thats a very serious crime.
dont get too involved in that type of activity, it will end badly
the type of consequences for people who do things like that are being legally prohibted from using computers, and jail time
Francis says:
:/ i cant believeu actually banned me

"Dan says:
probably easier at this point
you dont know how to change your ip do you.
Francis says:
e.e
well actually am on goa
as we speak
Dan says:
oh rly
Francis says:
duh lol
Dan says:
good
then i dont need to unban you
Francis says:
e.e
u know am lying
Dan says:
mhmm
Francis says:
am not on goa
meant to say am NOT on goa\
silly me
soo tired
forgot what i typed
Dan says:
whyd you say as we speak then
lol
have people ever accused you of being a compulsive liar?
Francis says:
OMG
Dan says:
have you heard that term much?
Francis says:
my mom
>_<<br/> Dan says:
haha
Francis says:
says that
Dan says:
its a real thing. Dion
Francis says:
apperantly am not good at it
because i always get caught
Dan says:
youll always get caught
always
and it will make people dislike you
Francis says:
=/
Dan says:
its true
"
</3></3></3>

I was, Inarticulate

Thu, 27 May 2010 17:25:58 +0000

I noticed after my last blog post that the argument I am trying to make and the argument that is being perceived are vastly different things. For that reason, I am making this post to clarify and correct my previous post.

1) Anime IP holders have the right to send takedown notices to games that feature their intellectual property. This is inescapably true. In a theoretical situation you could argue to the bitter end that a BYOND game that makes no money is just a harmless fan project on a site that encourages learning programming. And the nature of these games would likely never ever attract the IP holder of that anime to bother issuing a takedown notice. We have seen it happen though, and it can happen again to any project and nobody in their right mind would value a BYOND game enough to take it to court.

2) This isnt a correction, its a clarification of my original point: Nobody has a right to take your source code or graphics because they are based on a show or existing video game. The components of a game are individually intellectual property that the person who makes them owns, its not relevant that you have copyright over your source code because you can take somebody to court, its relevant because BYOND the community will absolutely NOT tolerate it being stolen. There have been great strides by the byond administration to stop ripping, and its done for a valuable reason: It makes the experience on BYOND worse. If you think having a rip is something you are entitled to, and that as long as people play on your game and have fun then it is harmless, think again. Its disparaging to all developers when you see source codes in the wild, its horrible for new developers who are tempted to take an easier route by stealing and learn bad practices or never create something new and interesting, and its bad for the fractured game communities in which the allure of cheap tactics such as administrative positions will draw players across hundreds of low quality games instead of keeping people playing on a single, consistent, high quality server.

The issues with ripping arent unobserved, some people naively believe that there are no negative repercussions, but those of us who have been here for several years know that it stagnates creativity and makes BYOND a more hostile and unappealing environment. Whether or not ripping my game or anybody's game will result in you sitting in front of a judge is irrelevant and absurd, however if you host a game that you dont have the rights to, if you make a hub for a game that are rips, if you distribute graphics or programming that you dont own the rights to, the BYOND administration will IP ban you, ban your key (regardless of if you paid for a membership) and rightly so. BYOND's direct intervention in rampant theft is something that most of us know is necessary and would be a step in the right direction, there is no question about that.

Heated arguments are not necessary, I responded to the leak of my game with a great deal of intensity not because I was emotionally upset, but because swift action needs to be taken to set a precedent. I wont allow it because it hurts the community. The truth is I knew about the leak back in early february, and I have not been bothered by it, now that people are trying to make arguments that these servers should stay active and that ripping is okay I will act strongly and immediately to ensure that there is no doubt that this is unacceptable.

In the big picture, there will be no large fallout from this leak. The anime guild is not the unregulated place it used to be and GOA is not nearly as unpolished as Dragonball Zeta was when it was leaked. Projects like Zeta were easy victims of theft because they werent done and the original owner left the scene entirely and BYOND wasnt ready to deal with moderating the sudden influx of rips. Today is a different day, I've never been concerned that BYOND couldnt handle the leak, and I don't hold it against Kobata that the leak happened (It wasn't his fault at all, somebody went to great lengths to actually spoof my e-mail address to Kobata using an illicit method, it is likely a certain already banned individual who has previously gone to great lengths to be obnoxious on BYOND.). The leak is irrelevant to GOA, what is relevant is the discussion about whether its okay to steal fan-game source code, whether its worth the effort to moderate ripped game hubs, and whether strict enough punishment is issued for those who brazenly distribute source code on the BYOND website.

I was inarticulate in my previous post, I can see the controversy in how it was written in hindsight. Could I make an argument that my game is fair use- Yes, would I go to court to make that argument? No, obviously.

You own what you make, nomatter the theme

Tue, 25 May 2010 15:28:30 +0000

It's time I addressed something fairly pressing issue related to my major project on BYOND: Naruto Grand Online Adventure. A few months ago some malicious individuals used an e-mail spoofing service to send an e-mail that appeared to be legitimately from my personal e-mail account to Kobata casually asking for the newest version of the GOA source for the purposes of doing an update. This form of fraud is not childish, nor is being a victim of it grounds for losing IP rights based on negligence (No such rule exists.). Based on what has happened I have taken to the defensive to ensure that I continue to ensure that Naruto GOA stands up as a positive contribution to BYOND and does not end up being a catalyst to a new influx of low quality rip offs which has damaged BYONDs reputation in the past.

Here is a point I am going to make and have made less informally previously: If you program and make graphics for a game, even if it is a fan-game, you own the rights to that source code and have the authority to enforce those rights.

There are two misconceptions on BYOND that I will endevour to clear up.

Point 1) If your game violates copyrights of a big company then it becomes the property of the public domain and there is nothing you can do about it.
A) No, this is completely made up. Most fan games are legitimatetly hosted on BYOND for absolutely no profit and therefor qualify as a "Fair use" project. Now games that blatantly steal graphics from spritesheets of existing games or try to have a subscription or other profit system are obviously ineligible for this treatment, but that doesnt make them open-source games, it means they really shouldnt be allowed on BYOND in the first place (I will not wage a battle on these grounds, but it really is true.). There are 4 attributes that a work needs to follow to be considered fair use in the United States:

1:the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(GOA is nonprofit, it was made entirely to show game design philosophy to the Anime community and demonstrate things such as effective unintrusive administration and use of SQL databases for save infrastructure.)

2:the nature of the copyrighted work;
(non profit, does not compete with any existing Naruto MMORPG.)

3:the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole;
(GOA borrows very little, its a fan game based on a show and loosely borrows from the story indirectly only as a general genre background and does not even directly make use of any specific characters or plot from the series.)

4:the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
(GOA is severely a hobby, the graphics are not competitive with an actual professional studio made RPG. Nobody would disagree that the Naruto copyright holders are in danger in the least to competition from GOA, especially considering our server structure caps out at 200 players.)

If you want a really good summary of fair use law then you can go to the wikipedia page here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use

Anyway, GOA has always been consistently good about being concious of copyright law and what is allowed. That being said are games based on a source code stolen directly covered under fair use if they make no profit? No. Absolutely not. Stolen source codes are direct copies of exact source code and graphics made by a small group of individuals. They are in direct competition with us on BYOND, the small community that we both operate on, and by their nature these rips are absolutely nomatter how you spin it, direct examples of intellectual property theft.

Point 2) Your game is too small and insignificant to have some large intellectual property lawsuit!
A) The idea of being in a big court room fighting Legitz or some other 13 year old who has stolen my source code is a difficult scenario to envision. The fact is that it wont come down to something like that realistically because it doesnt have to. BYOND is the site/community in which these projects get exposure, and BYOND has complete control over the ability for these games to be connected to and accessed. As such the GOA team's rights to enforce our intellectual property rights will be done through BYOND. I know a lot of people think that BYOND is incapable of moderating, and that is an ignorant view of the community. BYOND is effectively moderated every day, blog posts that are even moderately offensive or uncondusive are removed very quickly and spam on the forum or other areas are taken down as well. We have been told that support will be offerred to deal with people who try to host games with the stolen source code, and I am confident that the help will be provided as promised.

I don't know what will happen to repeat offenders such as Legitz who insist on hosting a hub a second time after a takedown, it is my hope that similar to multiple infractions on a forum, that the user will be banned.

Jamckell is obsessed

Wed, 12 May 2010 02:26:00 +0000

Jamckell is obsessed with both race and the christian bible, both of which are retarded things to be obsessed about.

There is no evidence that anything written in the bible is correct. None. Christianity was most probably just the compilation of several other religions, a myth. Several religions came and went back then, several similar religions even. The only reason Christianity is so revered is because it was adopted by the roman empire.
The Mithra Cult: http://www.near-death.com/experiences/origen048.html Very similar to Jesus
Horas: http://www.near-death.com/experiences/origen046.html

Those religions predate Christianity (especially Horus) and the similarities are ridiculous; virgin births, December 25th birthday, died, rose 3 days later.

These pagan religions all had these similar characteristics, and celebrated Dec 25 and Easter for thousands of years before jesus, because those dates were significant to seasons and the stars. If you want to believe in a religion that is fine, but to use it as a source for some sort of judgment on a race is stupid. The Bible is not something to cite, the entire bible lacks citations and tries to pass itself of as the word of god even though we know the books are named after men.

Any argument using the bible as a source is invalid, the bible makes lots of idiotic claims such as slavery being okay, pork being evil and that we should murder women who have sex before marriage. Screw the bible, screw the pope and his protection of pedophiles, but for the scope of byond, screw religiously charged blog posts that make sweeping generalizations and come to ignorant conclusions about entire races of people DESPITE the fact that we have thousands of scientists who know a lot more about human evolution and the real causes of slight variation in skin tone and hair density between cultures.

Jamckell is not only obsessed, but he is obsessed with invalid argument forging, his entire blog is full of nonsense and borderline racism. He bans people who disagree with him and now he has his stupid blog which irritates me every time he posts, like a crazy religious fanatic who preaches at me while I walk to work irritates me.

Also for everybody who I will inevitably offend by my atheist views, no I don't judge you for being religious, yes it is "possible" that some form of sentient god exists, and you are free to believe what you want; just don't preach in public in an ignorant way.

Also, Jamckell you coward, I have no intention of banning you from my blog and I will enjoy rationally combating any nonsense rebuttals you may have.

(Proof that Jesus is Barack Obama based on a depiction done by somebody hundreds of years after jesus' death. )

The jewfro, the single glaring problem with Jamckell's rediculous rant about how only black people have "wooly" hair. He seems to think all white people have perfectly straight hair, ironic that the white jew, has the most rediculous fro of all!

In SilkWizard's Defence

Thu, 01 Apr 2010 21:08:25 +0000

This game currently has more players than Nestalgia: http://www.byond.com/games/hubpic/66742_4022.bmp

That is a freaking crime.

Seriously. I dont really know why those types of games get that sort of attention, I really never have understood it and never will.

Nestalgia: Impressions

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 02:27:22 +0000

No this is not a review, I have not played Nestalgia enough to call this a review, I have entered the game and played for a while and felt that I was able to see the general gist of the game and I'll share my impressions:

It's pretty good.

The problem of course with Nestalgia is that it was marketed and hyped as something that would actually bring a new wave of people into BYOND and completely stir up the community and what have you. It is not up to that level, I know everybody would like to see something that lives up to a description like that, BYOND has been moving at a very slow pace in terms of game releases and general excitement and a new wave of interest in the community would have been fantastic.. but this is overly optimistic.

The good:
The game is well done, this is more than a rarity on BYOND. Almost no games ever get to the point in which they feel polished, where the game maker focuses enough on the user interface and story scenes in such a way that the player feels any sort of immersion. Not only is it hard to make a game feel like an actual nintendo era game with a consistent graphic art philosophy applied everywhere (most games hire many hobby artists whose graphic work clashes and is not consistent in terms of quality or style.).

The party system and PvP are solid implementations of a fun multiplayer component into what is supposed to be a tribute to single player Nes games, to have these features on launch day is quite a pleasant surprise, most games procrastinate on PvP support especially until the majority of the playerbase has already lost interest in the game and left. The solid release of a game that has its vital gameplay components all implemented at once is strange to see as the average hobbyist game maker usually likes to rush completed components to the public for the fame and attention and then hype up modular additions such as PvP or extra quests/classes months and months later. Silkwizard deserves props for setting an ambitious scope and implementing them before release.

It is Nostalgic. There is something that made me genuinely interested in the game when I entered the first town, I really felt a lot of good memories of my experience with games like Final Fantasy 4 which was one of my favorite games from my childhood.

Legitimate Criticisms:

The main criticism I have which isn't really a criticism but more of the main reason why I wont be investing a lot of time with Nestalgia is that its general theme and intended product is simply not something I'm interested in. It may sound silly to say this but in my opinion the concept of bringing back nintendo era JRPGs and making it online is extremely limited in what it can accomplish even with the most ambitious of programmers and graphic artists. The issue with the entire gameplay design is that JRPGs actually had the majority of their value in the fast paced story and character progression that isn't particularly compatible with the gameplay philosophies of MMORPGs. You think of a strong JRPG like Final Fantasy 4,FF6, Chrono Trigger and the like and the one thing that really stands out about these games is that they had absolutely phenomenal story, pacing and characters.

Nestalgia lacks on story, pacing and characters for the following reason:

The story is not phenomenal, and it is very difficult to make a story exceptional when the characters that comprise your party are real people. You can't build a story without character growth and involvement, so when you design the game to be online you essentially lose non-player characters altogether. What you have to do under this gameplay philosophy is essentially create a story that any single protagonist can fill.

I didn't feel very strongly for the story itself.. I didn't feel involved in the story as I was thrown in as a hero who was sent back in time with no back-story or interest in doing anything other than getting gold to buy some leather armor. I understand this is a story-telling device to get the tutorial across and that it directs you on into the story by telling you where to go but I didn't really feel immersed because I didn't really.. care about my objective at all. This happens when you simply appear from 4 red balls coming together and are spoken to telepathically by some unknown person to go to X town and talk to X npc.

Credit where it is due though, in terms of hobby game standards the fact that there is any effort to have a main quest and a story is an accomplishment, however when you consider that the game is trying to bring the love back from years of playing Nintendo and SNES JRPG then you sort of have an expectation that the story will be somewhere in the ballpark of those games, in this case the story was a very weak point for me.

Combat and grinding. Out of all the reasons that certain people will not play this game is simply that the combat is boring. You have skills and you have attack and you have items, in the name of nostalgia the game did not attempt to really innovate anything for combat and unfortunately because the story wasn't particularly compelling the game ends up feeling like an 8 bit MMORPG where you run back and forth on hostile terrain until you run into a blob, you wait your time between attacks and collect your very small experience and gold bounty. The online and PvP focus has really caused the gameplay to go on a tangent into party based creature grinding for the majority. People say that if you join a party then it isn't really grinding, but I don't really see the strength in that argument. Any time you are fighting the same opponents predictably over and over again whether it be by yourself or in a stacked team, you're grinding. Now here's the thing about that, there is this HUGE audience of people who like grinding, they are very happy having a short and a long term objective and just spending hours doing their repetitive tasks and then leveling up and moving on and socializing and what have you. These people will play this game, and they will like it a lot. There's also nothing wrong with being one of these people or having a game that appeals to these people, however for people like me who really never had an interest in MMORPGs and was hoping to see more qualities of the Nintendo RPGs of my youth, well, we will be disappointed.

I basically expected this to be the case, and its unfortunate that this isn't my type of game. Still If every game on BYOND set up an idea that they wanted to achieve and put the same effort/polish/promotion that this game had then we would have a very successful community of presentable projects. At very least a release like this should serve as an example of how to release a game and to put a focus on presentation instead of just trying to implement a bunch of half arsed features which mesh poorly with the rest of the game (a big issue with many projects on BYOND).

So Kudos, hopefully we see some new interesting projects in the upcoming months.

So I got a SC2 beta key a week ago

Sat, 27 Mar 2010 02:10:30 +0000

Its absolutely fantastic in every way. So far I've surprisingly been enjoying the protoss the most. This is unusual as they were my least favorite in the original, also I have been surprised that I actually enjoy the ladder system! In the original I never played competitively, just comp stomp games with my friends or FFA/2V2 games with people locally. Now I actually am finding myself enjoying the ranked system because the matchmaking is so polished.

In summary, this game is phenomenal. I know lots of people probably are skeptical that it will do justice to the first, In the opinion of a guy who has been playing Starcraft 1 since 1997, this game does do fantastic justice to the originals.

Irony is Silkwizards middle name

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 02:09:35 +0000

Excuse my repost, apparently BYOND moderators find it appropriate to hide even completely agreeable posts if people cry enough about it and on principle I have no intention of being delisted for replacing "silk" with the word for a feminine hygiene product.

His current post: http://www.byond.com/members/ SilkWizard?command=view_post&post=93275 is informative and interesting on most points. Except one, his hypocritical rant about how if you make a fan game then you are a part of the problem on BYOND. Interesting.

DWO of course is a Dragon Warrior rip, steals icons straight from spritesheets and gameplay components straight from a game. This isnt an adaptation of an Anime using original gameplay mechanics, this is idea theft of an actual game. Not really a big deal though, its a fangame. Fangames arent inherently bad, they have an audience: other fans of the original game.

I agree that focusing too much on a base icon is retarded, I agree that focusing too much on a title screen is retarded, I agree that trying to be a project manager without knowing how to code is ridiculous. However. What type of game you want to make is your business. Dont ever make a game to impress people, make a game you want to play. If your big concept is an online version of fallout then god-speed (http://fonline2238.blogspot.com/).

Also its even more ironic because Nestalgia is a play on Nostalgia, the game's main value is that it is reminiscent of nintendo era RPGs (and its a huge cop-out on making good graphics or having complicated gameplay mechanics). Regardless, I found his rant funny, I just wanted to point out that hes a hypocrite. That is all.