User:WindowsErrors

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"Time crumbles things; everything grows old and is forgotten under the power of time" – Aristotle

A crash course in Space Station 13's history. Sources are listed below any relevant sections.

Paleolithic Times - 1995

BYOND began in 1994, when Dan Bradley approached Tom Hehre with the idea of creating an online multiplayer dungeon crawler game (think of it like Diablo) from scratch. The next year, in 1995, the two now graduated college students formed a company known as "Dantom International" (Dan + Tom = Dantom) to develop this game. However, as the scope of the game became more and more complex, they realized they would never be able to achieve their original goal and decided to repurpose their project into a game making suite, essentially to allow others to finish the game for them. This game builder was given the name "DUNG", an acronym for "Dantom's Universal Network Game", which can be interpreted as either a clever shortening of "dungeon", a poop joke, both, or neither.

Much like today's BYOND, it used a special programming language called "DM", presumably as in "Dungeon Master". Originally, DM was a system for creating spells in the MUD Dan and Tom were initially developing. However, it grew so incredibly complex that it started becoming the game's very own proprietary programming language, prompting Dan and Tom to switch to developing a game engine.

Also like modern BYOND, DUNG was intended as a quick and easy way for programmers to quickly and easily create online graphical games without having to deal with networking or graphical interface creation code. Quoted below:

DUNG is not revolutionary in providing this technology; networked graphical games have existed for quite some time now. Until now, however, creating such a game required a large amount of programming knowledge, especially in the frustrating field of networks and graphical interfaces. How many creative game ideas were abandoned because the otherwise capable programmer became overwhelmed with the [intricacies] of the interface? Many, to be sure. The advantage of DUNG is that these elements are automatically handled for you. You can design simple DUNG worlds, such as graphical chat servers, in a matter of minutes. And if you are interested in making more complex worlds, you can use the powerful DUNG language, DM to complete the task much more readily than with a traditional language. [1]

Once again much like today's BYOND, usernames were called "keys", fitting into the vague dungeon-crawler metaphor. Interestingly, users were granted a key for only a limited amount of time. If someone wanted to keep their key permanently, they had to participate in the testing for DUNG, create and make games, and submit them to a particular Dantom-related email. If the Dantom team liked their creations, the team would grant the user the privilege of permanently keeping their key, and possibly other perks, including advertising and even hosting their games.

In 2000, DUNG was renamed into the more marketable BYOND. However, the original start page for DUNG has been preserved on an obscure page located on a cycling website. One of the cyclists, aka BIKE GODS, featured on the site was one of the members of the Dantom team (I'll let you find out who).

The BYOND Revolution - 2000

Despite the name of this section, for the most part, BYOND was basically the same thing with a different coat of paint after being rebranded from DUNG, aside from the renamed tools and the endless cavalcade of BYOND/beyond puns that still goes on today. BYOND still billed itself as a powerful yet easy to use engine that was going to empower creators (which were often referred to as "wizards", old habits die hard) and revolutionize the Internet (I suppose it did, in its own way). DM was still called DM, though this time it meant "Dream Maker", and like today, it had single inheritance and the area-turf-object-mob system that mappers today know and love. Dream Seeker was a thing as well, although it was used both for hosting games and joining them, rather than having hosting handled by a different program (Dream Daemon) like today.

BYOND also still sold itself as a step up from the older multiplayer dungeons, offering many improvements that were revolutionary at the time but are today quite commonplace, across games in general and in SS13 in particular, such as embedding icons in text and using hyperlinks (modern GUIs). This time though it also its emphasized its compatibility with older MUDs, noting its ability to interface through telnet for telnet-based MUDs (something which it can still do today).

Many of the first BYOND games were card basically online versions of simple tabletop games, e.g. card games, word games, and board games, often with copyright-friendly names of varying cleverness, e.g. Una vs Uno. There was an occasional role-playing, usually inspired by some kind of popular anime, which in 2000s was Dragon Ball Z. Several have been lost to time and copyright hunters, but some still miraculously remain viewable on BYOND. Among them are Drummond Cribbage, XO, QuickStep, and Lexiconomy, which are also some of the oldest games still on BYOND's Hub. There are also still a few titles from Dan himself, including Golden Stool and NightMud, which hearken back to the Night Soil: the quest for the golden stool RPG from DUNG.

Afternote - It is unknown if Tom (the other DUNG creator) never created any titles of his own or if he did and they were merely lost to time.

Just as it is today, and ever shall be, BYOND was free, but unlike today, rather than premium memberships with perks, BYOND used a variety of methods for funding. There was pedestrian fare, such as selling physical books about BYOND and DM and getting money from ads, and BYOND also proposed potentially offering game CDs and even commercially releasing games. Most curiously, BYOND also experimented with a currency called "BYONDimes", which a good analogue would be Steam Wallet funds.

Afternote - It is unknown if there were actually any BYOND CDs or games released commercially.

People could buy BYONDimes via credit card or check at a rate of 1 BYONDime per 10¢ USD. They could then use the BYONDimes to purchase game content, with extra levels being BYOND's go-to example when explaining the system, and the money would go towards their creators. On the code end, buying content through BYONDimes was done through a simple inbuilt PayDimes() procedure. BYONDimes could also pay for various hosting plans from BYOND, which had names like "The Launch Pad" and "The Moon", on a X BYONDimes per day basis.

In addition to selling content, people could also receive BYONDimes through BYOND's developer referral program. If someone introduced another person to BYOND through a personalized link, and if that person bought a hosting plan or the DM physical guide book (which in BYOND's eyes meant BYOND was gaining a developer), that someone who shared the link would get a 10% cut of the proceeds as BYONDimes, with dividends being handled out on a monthly basis.

BYOND made its money through transaction fees incurred when people redeemed their BYONDimes for cash. If someone wanted to exchange their collected BYONDimes, BYOND would take 50 BYONDimes and 10% of the amount as a transaction fee and mail the remaining amount as a check. BYOND essentially acted as a retailer for wholesale content creators, handling the legal and security matters of credit cards for them, though BYOND did offer to assist high-volume sellers in becoming full-fledged credit card merchants. In some ways, it's similar to BYOND acting as a game development kit and networking platform for game developers.

Genesis - 2003

Space Station 13 is a free-to-play open source game played on BYOND. BYOND has been home to a whole great varied sort of games over its decades of history, but Space Station 13 has weathered the tests of time and stood above every one of them by all regards.

While all sorts of games such as Cow RP or the countless Naruto and Dragon Ball Z spinoff games have long since died out today in the 2020s, Space Station 13 has actually grown and evolved since its inception, recently with all sorts of influential public figures on the internet bringing attention to it and BYOND as a whole. But how did we get here, of all places?

It all began on the cold Wisconsin day of February 16th, 2003...

The Archaic Era - 2003/2007

The original version of Space Station 13 was created by one man and him alone, Exadv1 (pronounced Exa-div One), and posted onto the BYOND website. Chances are if you found your way to this article, you've heard the story about how the game started out as a gas simulator. Unlike many of the things that people say about the early history of Space Station 13, this one is actually true, the game really was originally designed to be an atmospherics simulator for a college project, to contribute to his engineering degrees.

While Exadv1 himself cites a lot of things as as "huge influences" on the game, the two works that directly caused him to make it in the first place involved increasingly advanced computer simulation technologies being developed at the time. One was an article in Game Programming Gems 3 that outlined a basic framework for using cellular automata to simulate air physics, and the other being a BYOND game called Space Tug, an Alien homage game notable for its exaggerated hull breach physics. Together, both of these works is what directly inspired Exadv1 to implement his own vision of simulation.

Afternote - Imagine walking by an airlock and getting instantly sucked out into space in less than a second because someone hacked an airlock wrong. That's basically what Space Tug was like.

Many of the game's central mechanics we have to deal with today were added simply to make the air simulation more interesting. Plasma, every security officer's worst nightmare and every griefer's favorite gift, was added because Exadv1 wanted an easily flammable gas that was visible in air and thus more pleasing to work with. Even the setting serves second fiddle to the atmospherics. Initially, the game was set on the surface of an Earth-like planet, but was moved to outer space as an excuse to include vacuum physics.

After a few months of this, including a week for the atmospherics code, SS13 was released in BYOND on February 16, 2003. The original lore, in all its flowchart glory, was posted some months later.

Afternote - Does it surprise anyone that about 2/3rds of the original lore was retconned by pretty much every SS13 server out there?

Like many other things on the internet, it was not a very popular game during these formative years. A few independent servers were available, but player numbers rarely reached the double digits. The hardcore community itself consisted of less than two dozen people, with 5 of them, including Exadv1 himself, holding admin powers. Unlike today, most of them knew each other from other, far more popular BYOND games and would have had each other on their friends list prior to Space Station 13.

Much like today, most people spent their rounds battering each other's bones apart with metal tanks and construction tools. While there were jobs like Medical Doctor, Station Engineer, and Toxins Researcher, these were mostly just roleplay roles as actual content was quite sparse, so many were bored with nothing better to do besides beat each other up. Unlike today, hardly anybody minded. Most people saw it as friendly horseplay or a "forgive & forgot" arrangement.

Of course, that's not to say there wasn't any negativity at all, hardly such. There was the natural tension between players who preferred roleplay and those who preferred action, and when hosting files were distributed later on during this era, there were plenty of admins and server owners known to abuse their powers. That said, it was of a hilariously smaller scope and is really peanuts compared to what goes on in modern Space Station 13 on a daily basis.

Afternote - Some things never change.

And that was really all they ever did.

Initially, there were no game modes at all; the "round" ended whenever someone decided to take down the server, or the shuttle timer ran out. However, some weeks and months after the release, Exadv1 did add a handful of game modes.

  • Traitor: One crew member was actually a Syndicate agent tasked with assassinating someone, usually the Captain. The crew would discover the identity of the traitor by using research. Later on, traitors gained uplinks and access to a handful of weapons and tools.
  • Meteor: Poorly-drawn meteors would occasionally collide into some random part of the station, tearing up any walls, windows, machinery, and people (though not any floors) in the way. Has a rather poor reputation as being unfun.
  • Extended: No antagonists or hazards would spawn, so the station crew were free to build things and beat the crap out of each other without any space rocks or assassins to interrupt them. So-called because the shuttle timer went longer than usual, i.e. the round length was "extended" for a while longer.

Later on, a few more were added:

  • Monkey: One player was a monkey with a disease that turned other people into monkeys. Reception is still rather mixed on this one.
  • Nuke: A crew of Syndicate operatives attempted to destroy the station with a nuclear bomb. Unlike in modern times, the nuke required inserting the green disk, activating lots of weird random toggles until you got some combination right, and then inputting the special code.

Over time, Exadv1 gradually drifted away from SS13 to focus on other projects such as real life. In the years since, the SS13 community stagnated but by no means was dead. The team Exadv1 appointed continued to develop his code and maintain the SS13 forums and website. One of the team members, a programmer going by AZA, attempted to remake SS13 four times, with little progress. Meanwhile, a user named Hobnob was hard at work reverse-engineering SS13, decompiling host files and splicing binaries, eventually managing to create his own mapping tool.

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