what do you enjoy in BYOND games? in Off Topic

ID:97480
 
Jun 25 2010, 4:32 pm
so one of the strongest pulls for developing on BYOND over another site is that the games here can fairly easily generate strong, tightly-knit communities.

so with that in mind, what kinds of things do you enjoy in BYOND games that you don't get as much of in other games? i'm curious because i'd like to develop something new, but i'm indecisive when it comes to what major gameplay elements to have the game revolve around

some examples of my own:
working together with a small group of people to hurriedly build a shelter in FFF's Hurricane, so that you can huddle together and watch the place tear apart all around you, with everyone freaking out and trying not to die

an open PVP RPG where you get killed a couple times by someone higher level when you're still new to the game, and so you swear vengeance upon them and level up furiously so you can overcome them and spit on their corpse

hitting PBags over and over


oh and teka is the one who bought me a membership :3
#1 Jun 25 2010, 4:49 pm
"what kinds of things do you enjoy in BYOND games that you don't get as much of in other games?"

Original detailed simplicity.

Make things detailed ( many options to choose from ) but easy ( I'd be able to choose and navigate through the selection of a set of options quickly and easily ).

I want to be able to do complicated things fast and easy ( character creation, selecting skills etc ) and I want to feel like I haven't experienced it before. For example, the boring alert spam you find in many anime/fan games on BYOND upon logging in.

"how much red u want in ur hair"
"wut gender r u"
"which icon u want"
etc.

^ Not my definition of easy.
#2 Jun 25 2010, 5:04 pm
I'd love to see something cooperative and tactical. I like to play campaign co-op in games (like in Modern Warfare 2 where one guy is on the ground and the other guy is up in a gunship raining down missiles. Fantastic.)

Sadly, the only co-op environment I ever see on BYOND is PvP, which just degenerates into a grief fest and troll wonderland.


Also, this single-minded focus on persistent worlds sucks. I'd like to be able to log into a game, invite a couple friends, and then play through a scenario. Instead, I have to spend time getting into this persistent world, chopping trees to build my wooden armor or something.
#3 Jun 25 2010, 5:45 pm
Iain, there are plenty of co-operative games on BYOND. Abra's Castle, LostRealm's Mafia, Exadv1's Space Station 13, and as Zaole mentioned, FFF's Hurricane.
#4 Jun 25 2010, 6:28 pm
IainPeregrine wrote:
I'd love to see something cooperative and tactical. I like to play campaign co-op in games (like in Modern Warfare 2 where one guy is on the ground and the other guy is up in a gunship raining down missiles. Fantastic.)

i've been interested in making something like that, but i'd also want it to fit slightly larger groups if i could (such as FFF's Hurricane- you can play it with 2 or 20 people and have lots of fun). ultimately, that's pretty difficult to balance, and getting more than a few people in any non-anime game tends to be a pipedream, so i think i'm going to settle with something that suits 1-3 people

Also, this single-minded focus on persistent worlds sucks. I'd like to be able to log into a game, invite a couple friends, and then play through a scenario. Instead, I have to spend time getting into this persistent world, chopping trees to build my wooden armor or something.

this is a hard one for me, because i love progression, which is so much easier to add in a persistent world. but large doses of it only belong in RPGs, and i'm looking at making a small co-operative game, so it's certainly going to be session-based. the question, though, is how much progression/'grindy' content can i add to the game to make it fun to see your character grow, without making it a burden (and without making people sad when they lose their characters)?

the game that's milling around in my head right now is something of a short dungeon crawl (each session being something like 15 mins to an hour?)
#5 Jun 25 2010, 8:05 pm
I think the main focal point of why I like BYOND games over other games is:

1) If I don't like Game X, I can make my own.
2) A vast majority of BYOND games gets you in and out of the game so easily, it's as if 1 click does it all instead of take a big MMORPG, you have to do all of this login procedures and whatnot.
3) BYOND games are very small, in a good way. You simply click "Join" or "Download", wait a few seconds to a few minutes and BAM! The game is there. Most other games have intensive download + install waiting times.

So, with that said...
BYOND is basically the Fast-Food of online gaming.
#6 Jun 26 2010, 5:23 am
I've had a thought dwindling in my head of a single player or cooperative session-based survival game. It will take place in a forest, maybe with some ruined industrial buildings(although this could just as easily fit a city.) During the day, the forest will have plenty of food and natural resources to harvest and prepare. However, at nightfall, some kind've zombies or monsters will come out and scavenge for food. The zombies will increase in numbers after each nightfall until the players can no longer handle it. This isn't that complicated of a game, nor would it take a lot of artwork to make it look good either.
#7 Jun 26 2010, 6:22 am
that's something i considered too, zxc, but in a medieval setting (for whatever reason), and the goal being to build a boat to escape from super evil zombie doom island. the only problem is it'd probably be terribly boring if you're the only person, and BYOND games tend to get the ball rolling slowly- 1 guy playing alone for 10 mins, then another guy shows up, then 5 mins later a third guy appears. you'd have to pre-invite friends