ID:2847330
 
Update: The event is over. See the summary of what was discussed.

Hey,

We're having a broad discussion on how BYOND is currently doing, perhaps airing a few grievances, and setting sights on what we'd like to see moving forward.

The event will begin today at 6:00 PM EST.

Topics can include:
- What can we, as a community, do to bring in new developers?
- What can we, as a community, do to improve documentation around features that developers broadly can't really wrap their heads around?
- What can BYOND do to make a new developer feel at home here?
- What grievances can we resolve with the existing developer base?
- From a casual game player perspective, how does BYOND look?
- Compile2Exe

Here's a server invite mixed with a Discord event link. We'll be chatting in the #state-of-byond-townhall chat: https://discord.gg/cJs2WYdC?event=1062773899500191744
Spevacus wrote:
- Compile2Exe



Is it okay if I join just to listen? Not sure if I have anything to contribute, just curious lol
In response to Nexomify
We're actually just going to be using a text chat, so you're more than welcome to come.
In response to Kozuma3
Kozuma3 wrote:
Spevacus wrote:
- Compile2Exe



I added view permissions to quarantined users. Per your request.
In response to Kozuma3
Kozuma3 wrote:
Spevacus wrote:
- Compile2Exe



You got it easy my friend


To your great joy and relief, I will not be participating in your event. I will just leave my answers here.

1.) Nothing. BYOND has very little to offer game developers in the current game development market. Not when engines like Unity, Unreal and more offer everything for free, give developers access to every publishing platform, including the biggest one, mobile, and can do everything a game should do that BYOND can not.

2.) Hire Tom back to rewrite the reference. I don't know who's doing it now, but the explainations and descriptions are very non-intuitive. They read like stereo instructions and seem to be from the perspective of someone who already has vast intimate knowledge of the engine and its quirks.

3.) Is feeling at home here something that is desirable? You all seem to be very displeased with the comfortable way in which I express myself here. I believe it would be best to foster an air of respectable professionalism, not casual chumminess. That road leads to cliques and drama. We don't want more drama, do we? If so, I'm sittting on a heap of it, ready to go anytime you are.

4.) From a casual game player's perspective, BYOND looks like an outdated and subparr version of the Play Store's indy or retro gaming sections. It looks like a website from the early 2000's, or a site that published fast and dirty Flash games, without the appeal of being a fun Flash game publishing website.

5.) Yes, the best way to improve BYOND gaming is to strip games away from the brand and core so nobody knows it is linked to this site.

You want to improve BYOND? You know what needs to happen. It needs to be on people's smartphones. It needs to be able to create action games. It needs to handle more than 100 players per server. It needs a sprite-based core, not a tile-based core with 100 hacks to make it appear like a sprite-based game. The MUD origins of DUNG and BYOND have not benefitted developers who have no use for those game genres. Everyone is looking to find ways to work around BYOND's limitations and core design schema, and very very very few people lean into the tile-based core concept.

These new graphical additions, big cons, pixel step, planes, vis, et al, are the most god-awful convoluted concepts I have seen in game design. They only exist because instead of building an engine that is designed to be graphical and action-oriented, it was jerry-rigged to appear as if it were, all the while running the same MUD core that Dan created 25+ years ago.

Of course, none of that will happen, which is why the site will never achieve the mediocre success it saw in the mid 2000's. It will continue to cater to the dwindling userbase of nostalgic oldbies, continue to become more cumbersome and convoluted, and never produce a single hit that isn't a troll-infested meme machine, like SS13.

I'm right, you know I'm right, and that's why you hate me.

~X
We had the chat on Wednesday night, here's kinda what we arrived at:

What can we, as a community, do to bring in new developers?

We've considered the idea of a community-curated wiki that holds examples for common use-cases for existing technology that the engine provides. Something like this is a somewhat large undertaking, and as an idea is still half-baked, but it's something for us to think about. The end goal would be to get it officially referred to in the BYOND reference for specific examples about specific things. Again, incredibly half-baked, more to chat about here.

We've also really kinda came to the conclusion that the forums are archaic and not really great for the kind of faster-paced discussion that current online culture has shifted to, so we'd like to continue trying to get the userbase integrated in the Discord servers we have about and continue using them to socialize, while we opt to use the forums for formal ideas and discussion.

Also, we should do Game Jams, because some of the finest developer work has been done under the pressure Game Jams or Game in a Day events provide.

What can we as a community do to improve documentation around features that developers broadly can't really wrap their heads around?

Same kinda idea as before, a wiki with code examples for BYOND reference features could be quite useful. We also discussed a variety of places where the existing documentation is insufficient and would like to start encouraging folks who discover these not to brush them off as "Oh that's just the reference being useless again" and instead offer constructive, meaningful alternatives or improvements to the guidance that already exists.

Further, we identified a number of new developer resources that are sorely out of date and noted that it would be nice if we could not only update them but also identify related shortfalls in the engine that prevent new players from making something simple but cool. In essence, we want the ability for a new developer to make something awesome ungated by the engine's complexity. That's... broad, but, that's the very large generalization of what we chatted about here.

What can BYOND do to make a new developer feel at home here?

One of the biggest points we discussed was that the existing demos are old and there could certainly be a number of newer ones that work out-of-the-box as a specific style of game that can then be adjusted and added onto. The onus of this is on the community to create these so new developers can download them and give them a whirl, and when they're comfortable, adjust them.

From a casual game player perspective, how does BYOND look?

The biggest gripe to come out of this question was that the /games page still sorts by a no-longer-really-used metric, Fans. People typically favorite the game they want to play and ingress into that one and that one alone. A lot of games on the top of the Games page have been there for years yet are still inactive or haven't been updated in years. A default sort of "Active" should be set instead of "Popular" since the metric for popularity is antiquated. Those who fanned a game years ago and are no longer around to play it shouldn't be hoisting the game high on the front page.

Compile2Exe

A lot of this is now in the Compile 2 Exe thread, and Lummox JR has responded positively to the points raised, so I don't feel comfortable rehashing them here. Lummox is quite busy tying up 515 and there's no reason to distract him with this request at the current time.

What grievances can we resolve with the existing developer base?

Honestly, when we reached this question, we just started talking about all the other things listed above, so I'm not going to iterate on this.

In the end, I was quite surprised how constructive this ended up being even if it was a bit haphazard. I'd like to do this sort of thing again and see if we can focus on less topics and more sufficiently flesh out the details of what we talk about.
It was a positive discussion, and with the exception of Folak, people brought considerate, nuanced, and mature points to bear.
Not sure why you felt the need to drag Discord drama onto the forums. Can't miss an opportunity to spill the tea? Please, don't tease us. What did the bad F0lak do? Dish!
What did the bad F0lak do?

Nothing. He's just a degenerate of the highest order, and I respect, love, and cherish him too much to ever call him considerate, nuanced, or mature.
o7
The only points I brought to bear were the points of my spear!
From the perspective of someone who has been around for years, passionately interested in a small number of BYOND games, I had never felt the desire to join a BYOND-centric community. It was sufficient to involve myself in the communities of games I was playing.

Then I decided to defeat my demons of procrastination and learn to code. Unfortunately, the current state of the BYOND Discord borders on social insanity and decidedly checks the boxes of hypersensitivity.

Not all programmers (or would-be programmers) wear knee-high socks.

There is much more I could say on this, but I don't have any illusions that your introspection will lead to meaningful change here. Just know that the current community appeals to some people, and repulses others.
Ourico, the first thing I see when clicking on your profile is that you identify yourself as a far right label. Such people are usually not welcome in very many places, and it's entirely self-inflicted.
In response to Ourico
Where possible, we do try to make the communities we run as accepting as possible. I know we're never going to be able to attract everyone, but I'd like to think that most people get along there. If we repulse some along the way, eh, I think it's just the way it is. Thank you for weighing in, though.
In response to Immibis
There's no need to get personal or political.
In response to Ourico
Ourico wrote:
repulses others.

Nowhere in existence is everyone accepted.
In response to Ourico
Ourico wrote:
Then I decided to defeat my demons of procrastination and learn to code. Unfortunately, the current state of the BYOND Discord borders on social insanity and decidedly checks the boxes of hypersensitivity.

Just so everyone knows, this is a guy who got banned for DMing a mod threats after he was told the expectations of how to behave and that he was more or less on the verge of being banned.

He was then immediately banned.

As for "sensitivity", if you join his and his friends' discord you can—in very short order—find repeated use of n****r, f****t, and a plethora of other slurs of the sort you might expect. "Hypersensitivity" here is blatantly a misnomer for "not letting a loser and his loser friends proudly faff about".
In response to Popisfizzy

Well, I guess we can be done now. Not going to entertain any more back and forth after those replies.