2007, and a good several years after. A lot of fun with the fan-games/anime.

I don't even read or watch the stuff, I don't belong here.
2014. I'm a geek, and technology is my favorite thing.
2008 - 2010 </3
I generally enjoyed the time-frame where a bunch of us Chatters personnel (Mikau, Jonithin, Blu, etc. etc.) would gather and play Monopoly on Pogo Games and group video chatted on that one website that I forget.

If anyone remembers the year, kudos to you because I forget. I want to say somewhere between 2010 - 2012 but I may be wrong.
Been a while since I thought about Blu. I had the honor of being captured, tortured, and brutally dismembered by her in a round of SS13. She was fun peoples.
2008-2009. In this period I had my Megaman fangame game at its peak. It really wasn't good, but it was objectively the best-designed Megaman game on BYOND at the time. Great community, great friends, great times, and a great learning experience -- and that's all that really matters in the end.

In 2009, just looking back at my posts, I was very active in development and constantly making posts about my activities. I was even releasing my crappy demos which a surprising amount of people benefited from back then. That was a good time for me just constantly working on my games and excited about them, and having the BYOND community share that excitement.

Oh, to have so much free time and blind, passionate excitement again.
2008-2010 were the best years. Dragon Ball Z: Heroes United was at it's peak, I miss those days. Bleach rips were fun as well.
In response to Stephen001
Stephen001 wrote:
Chatters, and our botting of http://www.lastknights.com/ to be the best country and essentially break the game with 15 people.

The good old days.
For me, it was around 2006-2010 I think, I can't really remember the time period but I know I miss those days, training until 3 in the morning right after a fresh server wipe so that I could have an edge being a Buu on LR. *wipes tears away*

I met a few friends that I am actually still in contact with and still have special memories with. In all honesty, I was a socially inept shut in before Byond, socialising on Byond and on Xbox live was my first real taste of the world outside of where I live (The Bahamas). Not the best experiences all the time but they were lively and now I am a socially inept shut in... that can effectively trash talk.

I even owned a Bleach game for a short period but it was so much fun. Me and the original owner were very close and he was moving and where he was moving he wasn't able to host anymore and so he turned it over to me and I really took that job very seriously... Until one day, it all changed, that was the day the fire nation took over... (aka my computer got fried in an thunder storm) and I was really too young and naive to know about Hard Drive backups and surge protectors and I could not get in contact with the original owner, and that game died... I am still sad to this day because to me, it was the best Bleach Rip to date... it was unique and the community was active. *more tears*

Honestly, Byond might not be as popular as it use to be and a lot of people might be tired of Rips but I would like to remake that Bleach game and improve on it...

Byond holds a special place in my heart and I'd love nothing more than to have it return to it's former glory but I don't know if that is possible anymore v_v and that kind of makes me sad.
Life...
This is a tough choice because I found BYOND at a pretty difficult point in my childhood and it honestly was my way of escaping reality for a long time. Nostalgia and sentiments aside, I'd have to say 2009-2011 was my 'golden girlsyears' because I started to get away from working with fan games and finished my first original game, Zombies!, which set the stage for Feed.

I thoroughly enjoyed the time that got dumped into Feed. I learned a lot and made some friends that I still talk to regularly. I think the best BYOND years are ahead of us, though. That may also just be me being optimistic, so we'll see. (:
I'm somewhat of a failure as far as my BYOND career goes - I never really played BYOND games that much and I certainly didn't make any. I still think my time here was precious.

2005-2007 were fun because that's when I learned DM, my first programming language. I didn't even know what programming *was* and learned how to program through what was basically a trial-and-error process with some bad code demos that were available at the time; change one character, pray the compiler doesn't shout errors you don't understand at you, see what the effect was.

I met a lot of friends through 2008 and 2009, staying in contact with them for many years. Unfortunately, the effects of my increasingly busy life circumstances mean that I've only really (and unfortunately) stayed in contact with one person of the many wonderful people that I met.

Post-2012 I can't say I had a lot of contact with the community. I'm obviously older than most BYONDers at this point (statistically speaking; there are certainly people in this very thread older than I am!) and so it's hard to find shared points of interest with much of the community. In this sense it would've been nice to be a part of BYOND back in 1999-2003 when it attracted an older audience. I'm less interested in programming than I used to be, and a lot more interested in useless computer *theory*, and when I do find myself itching to learn something, or to mess with computers concretely, I have to remind myself that as a grad student I'm already preoccupied with too many personal responsibilities to squander precious free time on things that neither contribute to personal growth nor give me quick, tangible satisfaction.

For me there's a certain magic to making and managing games and gaming communities that is intrinsically tied to my passion for worldbuilding, story-telling, ... and I think the BYOND suite is a wonderful outlet for that because of its simplicity and the almost-immediate gratification it gives you from seeing your code, icons, maps, spring to life with very little effort. I don't think BYOND makes for a competent medium for developing modern, technically impressive games, but much like RPG maker it certainly makes developing the kinds of games it does allow for, fun. This is why I sometimes come back to this community, to soak in the magic. It's not about making games or fully-fleshed out products but about giving yourself permission to entertain your most self-indulgent, bad, or otherwise idiosyncratic ideas (If making a dumb fangame is how you get your kicks, so be it!). Even as a bystander I'm somewhat enchanted by this process, a bubble of creativity without any critical perspective to it, infantile and charming as it is.
Before new pager.
In response to Ghost of ET
Pager's a clear step-up from the previous, though. What did you prefer about the old pager?
In response to NNAAAAHH
I don't think they were criticizing the new pager, they were just using the advent of the new pager as a landmark in time. Ie, BYOND back when it still had the old pager.
We should work on a project together sometime :].
In response to Doohl
Doohl wrote:
Why has nobody done a remake of Lode Wars, goddamnit? That game was so fun... but... the damn savefile bug...

I actually almost have a few times, but I only know the games from videos, I sadly missed out on the real deal. Then I tried to get some friends outside BYOND into the idea, and they said it wouldn't go far.

I've had my motivation for it killed a lot. I'd love to see something like it become a nice little, possibly marginally profitable, webclient game but I just don't know if it would be popular or not.


As for my year... I'd say 2009-2010 or so. I joined in 08, and by 09-10 or so I'd made a lot of friends, got into a couple games, and things were still pretty active. From a software, and development perspective though? Definitely now. I was more active with development a year or two ago due to free time, but I'm improving a lot as time goes on, and the BYOND softwares made leaps and bounds lately.
2001-2003 were good times for me.
In response to Ghost of ET
Ghost of ET wrote:
We should work on a project together sometime :].

I agree. I am not worthy to collaborate with Butt Butt but perhaps the ghost version of myself is.
Yut Put wrote:
i would make a new BYOND game but i'm saving my ideas for a particular event *cough* someonehostGIAD2015 *cough*

how can u save ideas when GIAD tells you the theme bruh

yut put GIAD cheater confirmed, automatic disqualification, rip in ripspieces.
Yut Put wrote:
i would make a new BYOND game but i'm saving my ideas for a particular event *cough* someonehostGIAD2015 *cough*

I hope someone hosts one. Even if they are not up for judging, just having an event with themes would be great.
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