BYOND - Some retro Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest MMOs still worth playing today.

[javy]

For anyone that's interested:

What is BYOND?

https://www.byond.com

A few of the current BYOND FF and DQ MMOs that survived the great DMCA more than a decade ago:

FFIV Project

https://www.byond.com/games/Cecil81067/SuperRPG

Hands down the best RPG made in BYOND, and the server has a great tick rate. (Still being updated).


The Hunting Grounds

https://www.byond.com/games/Kija/ProjectWar

Used to be full of FF assets, tried to become its own thing after the DMCA. Also has great tick rate.


Final Fantasy Legend of the Crystals

https://www.byond.com/games/Dpheonix7/FinalFantasyLegendoftheCrystals

A recently published game, with multi-jobs and simpler mechanics (8bit FF).

Dragon Warrior: Shadows of Erdrick​

https://www.byond.com/games/8bitdream/DragonWarriorShadowsofErdrick

Long running and updated DQ MMO, which even customized the BYOND UI. (Still being updated).


Some of these games have an active Discord servers, but are semi private. PM me if you want an invite.

Among the lost games are:
A FF5 inspired multijob MMO. A DQ3 inspired (16bit) single player game.
Just last year 2 more DQ games that were frequently updated stopped hosting. Not to mention the dozens of others which are now lost to time. (Using assets from other games like Pokemon, Zelda, Lufia, Megaman Battle Network and many more).

BTW I'm always open to join a party on one of these games, feel free to reach out!

 

[RanmyakuIchi's icon RanmyakuIchi RanmyakuIchi]

I haven't thought about Byond in years. I remember spending so much time on an old Bleach MMO there years ago.

 

[LiberoVulpesLiberoVulpes's icon]

Its easy to forget there is more in Byond than Space Station 13.

 

[javy]

I haven't thought about Byond in years. I remember spending so much time on an old Bleach MMO there years ago.

I admit I spent way too much time on a mediocre Naruto MMO there too.

The anime MMOs were so popular that it caused some friction between the developers, most of which were stealing each others code. IIRC some developer's rage turned into them contacting Bandai and other license owners so they would DMCA the anime games...which in turn Bandai themselves contacted SquareEnix. Thus BYOND's downfall...

A bunch of Pokemon MMOs were also delisted. Pretty much only original games stayed online after the purge.

It's a real bummer, plenty of legitimate good games were lost.