Guild of Writers

Okay, I was wondering a few things, in case we eventually DO have to take Uru's future into our own hands. The following things are entirely rhetorical, and I am not implying anything by this. I just want to know if the following is POSSIBLE for a form of Uru CC/UU/Live:

1) CLOTHING

What program does Cyan use to make clothing. Is it possible in any way to make our own clothing items. If so, how is this done and how could clothing items be implemented into Uru CC?

2) RIPPING AND CUTTING

Now, I know there's a program out there (somewhere on the MOUL forums) where someone made a program that can rip textures, sound files and such directly from MOUL and Uru: CC. Now, assuming we can use this, we can take the textures and files from Uru. One place is especially brought to mind: K'veer. If we could continue with Uru, isn't it possible to move the fallen rocks on the hallway paths and open small rooms of K'veer one at a time? I had a dream where the rocks were moved. They were sitting on a flat surface, with a small set of six stairs leading up to another flat surface. The way was blocked, but a small opening sat in the wall. I walked inside, and a small study was there, pretty much a stone table with shelves against the wall. However, on the table was a Linking Book. I woke up then (damn). So I'm asking, isn't it POSSIBLE to add areas to Ages if we have access to their textures and design?

3) MYST ISLAND, URU AND MYST V

Now, Uru and Myst V used different versions of Plasma (if I remember). However, being that they are of similar components, something came to mind. Isn't it POSSIBLE (albeit hard) to take the setup of Myst Island, take it from Myst V, get rid of all of the outside elements and camera angles and cinematics... and actually add all of Myst island to the small Library that we had a view of? Think about it... ALL of Myst open to the public. I think that'd be a big thing for people to see Myst again in an Uru form, and might bring people back to Uru thinking: "Wow, they're bringing things together we never saw in Uru before..." Comments on this?

4) GAHREESEN'S WALL

Isn't the coding for this still in MOUL, or URU:CC in some way? Isn't it possible we could fiddle with this and try to bring the Gahreesen Wall back into existence? I think that'd be a huge thing for Uru.

5) NEW BOOKS AND PANELS

Is there any way to design new book covers for Relto Library books and such, and also ways to imprint images into the Linking Panels to make them look more authentic than black panels? Comments?

One last thing: I KNOW this is all rhetorical, and that most of this is not possible without violating Cyan IP. I just want to know if things like this are POSSIBLE. Please comment if you must, but don't flame me for putting out ideas.

~Nek

Technically anything is possible. It would just take lots of time figure it out..

About Myst island: it would be possible to do it, but it would be so long and difficult, that it might just be easier to re-create it from scratch. Myst isn't such a big Age, with a couple solid weeks of work it could be easily done.

Ya, I always thought it'd be cool to be back on the raining Myst Island.

A possible "Explorer Project" could be to visit Myst and plant seeds or something... something involving Myst and evntually end the rain on Myst, bringing it back to it's former glory.

Would be pretty cool ^_^ Plus, we could use Myst's library as a second Relto Library as we added more ages ^^

Look folks: You are talking about Cyan property.

All of Nek'rahm's beautiful dream (both of them, in fact -- the night time dream and the day time one above) -- all of this is very jealously guarded by Cyan lawyers. These property rights Cyan sees as its bread and butter. They are not about to simply let all these proprietary issues just dribble out to the public willy nilly. In fact, as long as Cyan is in existence, they will be energetically enforcing their claim to this gold.

The alternative is two fold, i guess:
1. Try to make agreements with Cyan for each name and each copyrighted idea – that is, one item at a time; or
2. Rip them off and change them sufficiently, so that Cyan cannot support their claims in court.

This latter alternative is out of the question in my book. It is not morally supportable and i would not be party to its products. However, there is the alternative to this alternative: Recreate an Uru-like scenario. That is what TwoCities is about: It does not deny the existence of a D'ni world, and works in hand with it – a parallel universe; one that is in concert but also different.

Surely, there are many other scenarios too, that do not cross the line into D'ni property rights – scenarios that are not Cavern dependent and filled with the children of D'ni?

Of course, this deals only with the content problem. It says nothing about all the programming that must be generated to avoid Cyan property rights. If this is the new post-April reality, is not everything else mere fantasy?

The Gahreesen Wall idea could be made into a CC patch.

~Lontahv

When Star Trek was cancelled, the fans mounted a letter campaign to bring it back. They asked, for the most part nicely. They did not, as far as I am aware, burgle the studios for props, sets, costumes, cameras and scripts. If they had, they would have got into serious trouble.

Information is a strange kind of property--you can give it away, if you choose, and still have it. But it is still property. Just because these Ages, these programmes, exist only in the form of strings of numbers, which Cyan would still have even if we took them, does not mean that we have any right to take them if Cyan chooses to withhold them.

You'll say you know all this, and point to the disclaimer in your post...but there is a reason why we don't even talk about doing this kind of thing. When Cyan emerge from the smoke-filled room or whatever and are deciding whether to talk to us or not, it is vital that we appear to them as people who will respect their decision whatever it may be, as people who understand the concept of intellectual property and know better than to try to make an end run around it. Otherwise they will simply wash their hands of us, and Uru will stay locked in their vaults where nobody can get at it.

I am as hopelessly in love with the D'niverse, its concepts and its Ages as anyone, probably more than most. Not only can I not now imagine a way of creating worlds other than by Writing them, I don't want to have to. But it belongs to Cyan. Any attempt to appropriate it without their approval is like Trekkies jemmying open studio windows and making off with someone else's property. It won't work, and it will only hurt us.

To answer some of your questions (and not howl at you about copyright laws that you obviously know about, as do others):

Avatars cothing are textured skins. Placing an object in a Fan Made Age, that adds to your Relto closet is not possible, YET, the coding is all there, the tool team simply has to figure out how to do that and include it with the plugin, etc.

Adding linking panels to Fan Ages is possible down the road. If you look at the current version of the ULM, Trylon was working on that at one time. It may be that in his next version, we'll be able to add that.

Changing book covers is a bit different. Currently the way we cover journals and linking books is by using an existing texture that we put in the Age we make on a plane that is out of sight (like below the ground you're walking around on). To change any book covers in Relto, we would have to modify something. We'd either have to change the files for Relto, or add python scripting to Relto that would point to a texture that we make. That could be considered a violation.

You already got an answer on the Wall. Stuff is there for it, others would just have to figure out how to turn it on.

Ripping and Cutting.
Right now, with the tools we have, it is entrirely possible to export any and all textures that are already in Uru CC. It is also possible to import a Uru Age and export various things in the Age, if not the whole Age itself.
However, this is a direct violation of a promise made by Writers to Cyan way back, which is not to use their stuff like that.

Modding an existing Uru Age has been done before. Take a look at some of the work that Chacal has done with Ae'gura. And again, as Aloys stated, just about anything is possible given enough time and persistance.

However, as you can see, with the exception of the Avatar clothing and linking panels, everything else is a copyright violation of some sort and would need written permission from Cyan. We might learn how to do these things (or in fact can do some of them now), but proceeding with some of this stuff with out their permission would be........not a good thing.

Nek'rahm wrote:Isn't it POSSIBLE (albeit hard) to take the setup of Myst Island, take it from Myst V, get rid of all of the outside elements and camera angles and cinematics... and actually add all of Myst island to the small Library that we had a view of?

Someone named "bjclark" did that back in January 2006 and posted his results here. A couple days later, Greydragon warned the community about doing this here.

So, let's not recreate any of Cyan's worlds and just stick to our own.

Changing book covers is a bit different. Currently the way we cover journals and linking books is by using an existing texture that we put in the Age we make on a plane that is out of sight (like below the ground you're walking around on). To change any book covers in Relto, we would have to modify something. We'd either have to change the files for Relto, or add python scripting to Relto that would point to a texture that we make. That could be considered a violation.

That get's me to wondering. Did Cyan put texture for all the slots on the bookshelf (like Phil's Relto,) or just added them in as needed. Does that also mean we could use any texture that already exists in Relto? Currently when we add a book to the shelf, does any code get added to Relto by ULM, or is all that stored on global variables?

ULM edits the Python code for Relto. This actually is somewhat of a nono as well, but editing Cyan files is the only way we have to reach our ages.

Despite of that ULM was approved by Cyan if I am not mistaken.