BYOND

BYOND (Build Your Own Net Dream) is a software suite for creating and playing online games, launched in 1996 by Dantom, a company formed by Dan Bradley and Tom Hehre. The suite was initially called DUNG (Dantom's Universal Network Game), before being rebranded as BYOND.
BYOND is a tool for creating online games, providing a pre-built network structure, a GUI, and an Icon/Map/Code Editor suite. Although geared towards RPG style gameplay, it is highly extensible and has been proven to work well with card games, board games, and non-game computer utilities.
All BYOND games require free registration on the BYOND website, which provides access to a user forum, a unique key commonly used for identification of gamers, and other services. The keys are stored canonically, to prevent 2 users from having names that are only different by non-alphabetical symbols, or spaces.
The BYOND software suite, which allows the user to play, create, and publish BYOND games, is free. A paid BYOND Membership includes benefits such as more features on the BYOND Pager (an Instant Messenger tied to the BYOND Key system), file storage space, a personal blog, and the ability to rank games on an individual user page. On June 29, 2006, "Guilds" were added to BYOND.Users can create a guild dedicated to almost anything, and can add games to their guild and rank them. For a short time there was a global Top Ranked Games list but due to abuse by the game owners was removed and replaced with the above guild system.
Category:Online