So... Byond is sucking... we can barely get anyone into the good games. Games that WERE popular, are now a distant, fading memory with no one to care for their greatness. The few popular games on Byond are time-consuming, role-play savy games (check the "Games" page of Byond and the top 5 games are mostly RP or RPG-esque games with a now rather cancerous playerbase (Dragon Universe and Space Station 13 from my experience). But now, our once strong numbers are falling, and our risk of contracting cancer is rising as some of our other Byonders have resorted to recording footage of some of their favorite games, with thankfully a mature audience (hopefully).
Right now, we are in our dark ages. Our games are being played by people who unfortunately have few others to communicate with (Russian/Brazilian/Spanish/Portuguese servers) and because of this, they are forced to create their own servers that can scrap together 10-21 players based on the time of year. Yes, what happens to other games shouldn't be of our concern as we have our own matters, but if there are few games that can fit the interest of other people with too few people to even have fun, then what's the point of using Byond at all?
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When I was 10 years old, in 2010, on October 24, I, David Lawrence (yes, that is my middle name) Rhodes, began with Naruto GOA (a really popular game at the time, with about 60 players on average), the same day my pa made my Byond account for me. Then, slowly, I went on to play Dragon Ball Z: Tournament Fighters 2 (again, really popular game at the time). Then, Freeze Tag Hideaway, then Resident Evil Online v2.0, then Dragon Ball GT : Mystic World. Not so long after, I stumbled upon The Last Conflict (named Resident Evil 2 Online, since Capcom didn't bust down on their asses) and I finally found my place on Byond. I was in love— until my mother put a restriction on Byond because I was too young for the mature and older demographic I was exposed to for those 8 months on the site. So I continued my life as normally, some games I used to play popped up in my mind here and there, but ultimately knowing that returning to my nostalgia would result in my mother uninstalling the application, knowing I can open it anytime I want. Fast forward to May 2012, where a somewhat smarter 11-year old David is playing the low budget games of Roblox, the memories of his past hangout clinging on for dear life as they slowly faded from existence. Except... one of the many games he played materialized and stuck, tormenting the naive child as he tried to forget those days; days he will be given a harsh punishment for even bringing up. David walked to his mother, and asked "Ma, can I play Byond again?", and to his surprise she sighed and said "go ahead." David raced to the computer, updated the Dream Maker, opened a game called Dead World (Resident Evil 2 Online), and tears of joy welled in his eyes as he was greeted by a couple of familiar faces. He felt at home, and he finally felt like nothing can separate him from his e-family. To this day, that very game is now known as "The Last Conflict", a former shell of its glory days where the chat was full of life and there were always 20 or more people online.
Aspiring Dream Makers face so many obstacles (such as: copyright strikes, lack of funds, school, bandwidth, work, communication management, and the worst of all — growing up and moving on for a better life) that their projects end up getting abandoned, becoming a distant memory like the other cancelled projects and obsolete games of the past. All we have now is hope that our home won't be abandoned as these days go on.
The main question of this topic is as is: Byond is losing players, what can be done to fix that?
