Our ReVolt Pub

The BYOND community is a programming community which hosts the "BYOND Suite", where you can create games in Dream Maker (DM). The premise of DM is that it makes it very easy to create network games and software, such as a chat room in two lines of code.

Now, we're having a little dispute about what new people who visit think of this community, so I was hoping to get some feedback from people who most likely know nothing about it - that means you! The community is intended to appeal to both game players and game developers, so if you're remotely interested in that kind of thing would you mind taking a look around the site and telling me what you think of the community? Maybe I can even get some quotes out of you.

Looks cool to me. I've heard of BYOND before, I think from you, oddly enough.

Aeon, you are so right about "active posters".
Seems that I'm the only one who replies to your things beside Manmountain and a few others.

Hmm, I wonder if I could make my own games without screwing anything up? Probably not.

Looks interesting, and it is free (so many things linked in the RV community cost $), so I might attempt it sometime. But I said the same thing about C++ and look where I am right now. Absolutely nowhere.

Adamodell @ Jun 23 2008, 12:34 PM wrote: Looks interesting, and it is free (so many things linked in the RV community cost $), so I might attempt it sometime. But I said the same thing about C++ and look where I am right now. Absolutely nowhere.

I've tried to learn C++ a few times myself and I've never gotten very far, mostly because I can't stand the unnecessary syntax issues that it has. The language used with BYOND has much, much better syntax (its like C++ without all the annoying garbage).

But BYOND also has its fair share of downsides. It runs at 1/10th seconds online (it can go faster for single-player games), and it restricts things to the grid, even though there are a number of ways to get around that. All in all, its fairly slow, albiet powerful, so its only really good for certain types of games. You'd never get anywhere trying to make a game like Re-Volt, or anything in 3D for that matter. But you could make some pretty neat strategy games, RPGs, board games, roguelikes, and so forth.

It also has a very long, gradual learning curve. It'll be a very long time before you stop getting better at it, and making a perfect game isn't going to happen for someone who's been working at it for years anymore than for someone who's new.

The community also has a good number of issues. Five years ago it was a nice, small group of intelligent developers. But since then, a huge mass of anime fanboys has showed up and they make literally thousands of clones (stealing each other's source code and what not) of the same games over and over. This has also pushed the experienced developers into a somewhat xenophobic state, so its hard to get people to help you out.

But yeah, every community has its quirks. You can also purchase a membership for about $20 which gives you your own site/blog and storage space for a year, which is pretty nice to have. That's the primary means of income for the people developing it, and aside from that and a few games which charge for subscriptions, most everything is free.

Still, you probably won't find a lot of people getting excited over your work, since most of the players are only interested in anime games, and most of the experienced developers don't make anything because no one appreciates their work.

Its kind of like here, actually. Only with a lot more people.

More anime!? God!
I've seen enough anime since Robenue joined (the avatar on my forum is just for poking fun)

Japanese is cool, in moderation.

I'll probably learn C++ before I make a video game though, so, yeah.

Adamodell @ Jun 23 2008, 01:44 PM wrote: More anime!? God!
I've seen enough anime since Robenue joined (the avatar on my forum is just for poking fun)

Japanese is cool, in moderation.

I'll probably learn C++ before I make a video game though, so, yeah.

Yes, anime is definitely something the world could do without.

Aeon @ Jun 24 2008, 12:42 AM wrote:

Adamodell @ Jun 23 2008, 01:44 PM wrote: More anime!? God!
I've seen enough anime since Robenue joined (the avatar on my forum is just for poking fun)

Japanese is cool, in moderation.

I'll probably learn C++ before I make a video game though, so, yeah.

Yes, anime is definitely something the world could do without.

My God, how I have changed! *looks at avatar*

Seriously, I've warmed up to everything Japanese.

You can't deny how cute it is.

*gasp*

Did I...? No way! That word shouldn't be in my vocabulary.