Putting Our Ages On Shards

General debates and discussion about the Guild of Writers and Age creation

Postby Robert The Rebuilder » Sat Mar 25, 2006 3:30 am

What an exciting time for age builders! We are finally getting permission to develop and distribute our ages - through UU shards, nonetheless!

The details on how we would go about doing this are still a bit fuzzy. What I would like to work out in this topic is a proposal for how we would go about putting our ages on a fan-run UU shard. The idea is that each interested shard owner (after obtaining permission from Cyan) would follow the proposed methods for making ages available.

So, here's a suggestion on what the the proposal would contain:

1. Permission. Before a shard owner places content on their UU shard, they need to request permission from Cyan to host these ages.

2. Which ages to distribute. The proposal would only allow ages for which the author has received the fan created content agreement to be made available - in addition to the standard set of Cyan ages, of course.

3. Shard Notice. A shard that hosts this fan created content would need to display (in the text that appears when you select a shard to visit) that the shard contains fan-created content, not produced by Cyan. It should also mention that these ages each have received an agreement from Cyan that permits them to be made available on this shard.

4. Incorporating the ages. So the shard owner copies all the age's files onto the server. But how will people link into the age? One of the Cyan ages must be modified in order to have a linking book. The shard owner can do something similar to what UruAgeManager does: modify the Relto python file to add a book to the shelf, which contains page(s) for each fan-created age. This mechanism should be described explicitly in the proposal, so that Cyan will know exactly which of the Uru files have been modified. Ideally, only the python file within Python.pak would be modified.

5. Audit support. In case there is ever any doubt by Cyan as to whether an age on a UU shard has been given permission for distribution, the shard owner needs some evidence. So, I propose that the age author submit the reference number (that accompanied the reply from Cyan in the subject line) to the shard owner - and perhaps the date that the reply was received. The owner files the reference number somewhere, along with the age name. If Cyan requests an "audit" of the fan-created ages, the shard owner simply sends Cyan the list of reference numbers and age names (along with the dates). Cyan then verifies this in their records.

Once we get the details of this proposal ready, I'll send it to Cyan. Then we just need to find a willing shard owner to host our ages!

EDIT: Here is a link to a draft of the proposal:

UU Shard Proposal

Comments/suggestions?
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Postby myridean » Sat Mar 25, 2006 11:27 am

[quote="Robert The Rebuilder"] What an exciting time for age builders!  We are finally getting permission to develop and distribute our ages - through UU shards, nonetheless!

The details on how we would go about doing this are still a bit fuzzy.  What I would like to work out in this topic is a proposal for how we would go about putting our ages on a fan-run UU shard.  The idea is that each interested shard owner (after obtaining permission from Cyan) would follow the proposed methods for making ages available. 

So, here's a suggestion on what the the proposal would contain:


4. Incorporating the ages.  So the shard owner copies all the age's files onto the server.  But how will people link into the age?  One of the Cyan ages must be modified in order to have a linking book.  The shard owner can do something similar to what UruAgeManager does: modify the Relto python file to add a book to the shelf, which contains page(s) for each fan-created age.  This mechanism should be described explicitly in the proposal, so that Cyan will know exactly which of the Uru files have been modified.  Ideally, only the python file within Python.pak would be modified.

Once we get the details of this proposal ready, I'll send it to Cyan.  Then we just need to find a willing shard owner to host our ages!

Comments/suggestions?


It sounds all very possible. I'm still willing to see though for either the new library age they create or they finish Ae'gura library for it to go one step further and that each age has its own book, unless these are just different areas of the same age, which I've heard could be in development. The cataloguing and classification system that the DDTF is currently working on is generally coming from that perspective.

As for the book spines, don't worry about those yet. :)
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Postby Zrax » Sat Mar 25, 2006 10:01 pm

Ok, well I guess now's as good a time as any to start publically announcing the Volcano project...

For those that already have heard of it, you know that there's a lot involved in it and that it's been ongoing, in and out, for several months now. For those that haven't, this is basically a project which focuses on bringing new content, both from fan-made content as well as other Cyan content (The Cyan content is not available yet though -- this is more complicated both technically and legally). There are also multiple shards involved in this, including both The Desert Shard and D'ni Safety Guild, as well as a few private ones and some shards that are either using components or are looking toward setting up for Volcano-compatibility.

One major advantage of the ways we've been working on here is that it allows an extremely easy way for players to not only visit the new ages without worrying about using a special tool to keep them up-to-date, but it also checks the shard for what it has available so you don't end up accidentally screwing up the vault because you didn't know it was missing an age or something.

Sooo, maybe now one can see why this was such an opportune time to bring the Volcano Project to light -- for the technical side, we're actually *very* close to having a fully working client (and patcher), and for the legal side, we've left ourselves open to allow very easy control over all the issues at hand... I'm not saying that this is the only, or even the best, solution, but it is something to consider for the exciting future of Until Uru. Also, as the project leader, I would not object to this info being included in any sort of proposal that is generated here *wink*.

- Zrax

EDIT: Oh, and I guess I'll remove the little sneakiness that made it look like you were in "relto" on my shard whenever you went to a custom age... ;)
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Postby Tsar Hoikas » Sat Mar 25, 2006 10:18 pm

EDIT: Oh, and I guess I'll remove the little sneakiness that made it look like you were in "relto" on my shard whenever you went to a custom age... ;)


I think that I'll remove the sneaky-ness from my shard too. Just don't die of shock when you see people in PotS ages (I do that a lot).
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Postby zib_redlektab » Sun Mar 26, 2006 7:46 am

so wait a minute, is this like another alcugs project?

...where do i sign my shard up? :D
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Postby ShadowDude » Sun Mar 26, 2006 8:04 am

[quote="zib_redlektab"]so wait a minute, is this like another alcugs project?

...where do i sign my shard up? :D

Sort of...

Alcugs works by adding multiplayer to Pots, but we did the reverse of that. We simply figured out how to add ages to an Until Uru server, such as fan created ages and Pots ages (but only fan created ages will be open to the public in this release).
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Postby zib_redlektab » Sun Mar 26, 2006 8:13 am

ok then, but where do i find said patcher/where can i find how to put ages on my shard?

(is this that thing thats in the admin wiki? :huh: )
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Postby ShadowDude » Sun Mar 26, 2006 8:25 am

The patcher hasn't been released yet, the last minute legal/technical details are still being worked on ;)

I don't think we've actually discussed allowing other shard owners to put ages on their shards... probably should :P
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Postby Tsar Hoikas » Sun Mar 26, 2006 9:55 am

Simple, just upload the age and sdl file to your shard and link to the ages :P
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Postby Zrax » Sun Mar 26, 2006 10:41 am

Actually because of the vault-protection I added to the client, there's a couple more steps involved than just adding the data to the server... However I have no intention of leaving any shards out that want to join, so there will be full instructions for how to set up a shard for Volcano-compatibility when the project is released ;). Maybe a patcher eventually for that too, but we're still focusing on releasing the client first, and then we can worry more about the servers... Be great to have you on board though ;).
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