Guild of Writers

Nobody really gets it, because there is no current and official Cyan's position on fan-made Ages.
All we have is some short sentences from some Cyan employees dating months or years ago, spoken in vague terms about hypothetical situations.

This is normal because the situation of Uru Live has evolved dramatically over the years, and no Cyan policy could have survived those changes.

The only thing that is clear to everyone right now is that, while Cyan has a philosophy og welcoming user content, the exact way this will happen is not known, and Cyan has neither the time or the resources right now to flesh it out.

The most probable hypothesis right now is that Cyan is waiting to see how the guild system idea is floating and what direction it will take.

My own hypothesis is Cyan will not reject a proposal that, in order of importance:
- helps MOUL have a longer life by boosting interest;
- assures a high level of security for the MOUL system (in terms of availability, confidentiality, integrity);
- assures a satisfactory level of quality;
- assures the respect of its intellectual property.

Notice that I place the IP criterion in last place. It should be evident to all that if the three first criteria are not met, then Cyan will no longer care about IP because MOUL will cease to exist, and there will be no third chance.

This is why in my 4-model proposal here, I have kept the discovery models, because there is nothing right now that leads me to think Cyan will reject it. This goes also for Ages with D'ni references, library Ages, existing Ages, etc.

Let's be brutally frank: MOUL is not working. Cyan will be lucky to get a second season from Turner. Without our content, it will be February 2004 all over again. And no revival this time.

Let's be brutally frank: MOUL is not working. Cyan will be lucky to get a second season from Turner. Without our content, it will be February 2004 all over again. And no revival this time.

It constantly blows my mind how people make statements like these.

Cyan has said repeatedly that they are very happy with the direction that MOUL has been going, and very happy with it's success. Game Tap continually promotes MOUL as one of the best games that you can play on Game Tap.
Greydragon himself came both to the forum and to the Cavern to calm everyone that seem to think that there is not going to be any 2nd season, or that MOUL was shutting down any time soon. Quite the opposite in fact.

Saying that MOUL will fail without user content is a rather......arrogant statement. Cyan has always said that they would like to have user made content.

MOUL would fail due to lack of player involvement. NOT user content.

Greydragon also recently stated that they would rather any fan made ages not have anything dealing with the D'ni. That's their story. They want us to come up with our own stories. Our own ideas and creations. They simply do not want you to create Ages were the D'ni have already been. They would much rather you create your own cultures (or lack there of) and worlds.

Why people insist on looking at Cyan with doom and gloom is beyond me. They have said several times over that everything is fine, that yes, they would like more money and staff, but that is something that will have to grow. That they are looking forward to doing the next season (yes they still had discussions with Game Tap. Things like this take months to plan. And most of what Cyan talks to Game Tap about is more than likely not really any of our business).
As a Greeter, my wife can testify to the fact of how many new users are signing on daily, and no, not alternate avies, but full blown new people.

MOUL could stand some improvements. Yes. And maybe we can help here and there.

But saying that it's not working? That it's doomed?

Sounds good, BAD. Split the thread if you have to and let's keep on discussing that important topic.

You believe what you want, Andy. Of course Cyan sounds all cheery, that's corporate talk and it's expected. I live in the corporate world and i hear that every day. But they never provide any kind of figures. And what I see is an empty cavern between episodes.

I'm more interested in what your wife says about the number of new people, now that's more concrete information than anything Cyan has said since Uru started. The trick, of course, is to keep those people subscribing.

What I see is this: there is no way Cyan can provide new content at the necessary rate with their current resources. Remember GD saying it took them 9 months to come out with Kadish Tolesa. For each Kadish Tolesa that Cyan produces, there has to be several smaller Ages that we can provide.

There ya go. Have at it.

MOUL would fail due to lack of player involvement. NOT user content.

Ah, but it's all related!

You've heard it over and over again...
"There's nothing to do on Uru."
"You know what would be cool? In game journals..."
"I'm bored with this game."
"I wish there was more new content."
"Well, Cyan is understaffed and has a small budget..."
"I'll wait around, but if things don't improve..."
Well, what makes you think the situation is going to improve any time soon? It has been five months since Uru officially launched in February, and as far as I can tell, no one has mentioned an increase in the new content which has been provided for us. If the flow of new content has not accelerated significantly over these past five months, then why should it significantly accelerate over the next five months? The fact is, the amount of new content Cyan can release will always be limited by their low staff and resources. And the only way for their staff and resources to increase is if more people play Uru more often--or to add advertisements, which most people dislike. So what is the best way to get more people to play Uru more often?--why, more content of course. It's a cycle--more content means more people means more money means more content means more people means more money...etc. It can be a cycle that leads up and up and up, or a spiral that leads down and down and down. Right now, Uru's popularity may be increasing, but if so it is slowly. Basically, if Cyan continues releasing content in the same way they have so far for the next five months, I doubt we can expect to get much more new content per month than what we've received up till now. And compared to the Ages we've come to expect from the Myst games, the amount and quality of the new content we've seen is very low indeed. We all hope that someday Cyan will make Ages as gorgeous as the ones we've already seen, but I doubt very, very, very much that it will be anytime soon (at this rate).
Now let's play a little numbers game: Suppose that for one particular month, Cyan gets $1 from its Uru revenue. And over the course of the next month, it spends the $1 on creating new content for us. And when the new episode comes out and we enjoy the new content, Cyan gets $1.05 from its Uru revenue since people enjoyed the new content and played slightly longer than they did last month, thus bringing in more money. So, over the next month, Cyan spends that $1.05 on creating even more new content for us and releases it in the next episode. And because we received more new content than last time, we play slightly longer than before and Cyan gets $1.10 from its Uru revenue, which it invests in even more new content for next month, and the cycle continues slowly but steadily. Maybe someday Cyan will receive $2 a month and we'll get twice as much content as we get now. But suppose for a moment that instead of investing that $1 in the next month's new content, Cyan invested it in buying an Age-making machine. The machine requires minimal maintenance and produces one small, quality Age a month. Next month, Cyan goes back to its regular routine of spending its $1 on creating new content for us. However, meanwhile the Age-making machine has been at work, and it effectively contributes another dollar's worth of new content. As a result, instead of getting $1.05 back in return for the new content, Cyan receives $2.05, which it invests in creating new content. But again, the Age-making device is still working and produces another load of free new content for Cyan, worth about $1. So instead of getting back $2.10, Cyan gets back $3.10, since people played longer because they played through the Age-making machine's new content too. The next month, Cyan has $3.10 to invest, and the cycle continues onward...
So you're thinking: "Oh great, another thread about Age creation tools. Must we rehash this over and over again?!?" Yes, I think we must--because it is very important that we leave the $1, $1.05, $1.10 cycle and enter the $1, $2.05, $3.10 cycle. Don't you think when Cyan is getting triple their current income you'll get triple the amount or at least the quality of new content? I'm not saying what we're getting now isn't nice, but don't you want astonishing Ages? Of course, everyone does! (Yes, my model is overly simplistic, I was just illustrating a principle)
Here are some popular arguments against Age creation tools:
1. "Only a few people will be able to use Age creation tools, so only a few people will be actually entertained by them. Cyan should focus on creating content that everyone can enjoy instead of just a few people."
Well, what about when the few people who can use Age creation tools create an Age? The masses would enjoy exploring that...
2. "Fan created Ages can't be beautiful, they will be ugly no matter what. The masses won't enjoy that at all!"
Are these pictures (from fan created Ages) ugly? http://ilathid.bluegillweb.com/en/gall.htm And here's what Rand Miller has to say: "We're always amazed at what our fans are able to accomplish, frankly, and by making those tools [Age creation tools] available, I think we'll be even more surprised." You aren't going to contradict Rand Miller, are you???
3. "Okay, some fan created Ages can be beautiful, but the majority will be ugly. Who wants that?"
So how about some quality control, to weed out the ugly ones?
4. "Who's going to decide which are ugly and which are beautiful, you?"
Sure, why not. Make a rating system and I'll cast my vote. There are a bazillion solutions to this problem that have already been suggested, and all Cyan has to do is pick one out and we'll fall in behind it like complaining sheep.
5. "Well, I still don't approve of fan made Ages, no matter what you say."
That's fine; Cyan will still deliver new content every month for you. So why worry about it at all? Fan created Ages can only help Cyan get more new content to you, not hinder...
So what's the point of this? Simply to raise awareness of the fact that Age creation tools should be high on Cyan's the priority list. You see, according to an oft-cited interview with Rand (interview here: http://www.joystiq.com/2006/09/28/joyst ... an-worlds/) Age creation tools are supposed to come 6 months after Uru launches. So starting in midmonth, February, March, April, May, June, July, August... Age creation tools are supposed to come out one and a half months from now. And I'm not seeing any signs yet suggesting that Age creation tools are on the way... Meanwhile, our potential is wasted. Imagine that out of the entire population of the Cavern, a mere 100 people spend 1 hour per day working on creating an Age together: 100 hrs of work per day. And imagine that 20 people at Cyan spend 10 hours per day working on creating an Age together: 200 hrs of work a day. I really do think we could produce one pod Age a month, at least... We could decorate it with lovely stained glass windows, courtesy of the artists in the Cavern, and place ecology journals and plant/animal identification books in it to read, courtesy of the DZS (if they wanted to--just an example). We could add beautiful music, composed by the musicians in our talented group. So there you have it: new content which costs Cyan virtually no labor or money to produce in comparison to the costs of making an Age themselves. New content that brings in more people and more money for Cyan so that it can make us bigger and better Ages. There is no better, quicker, or surer way to increase Uru's new content and thus Cyan's budget and Cyan's new content than to release Age creation tools. So after Jalak, let's invest that $1 on an Age-making machine!


As you can see, I wrote that some time ago. The basic principles still hold true, although obviously we know now that Cyan gets paid on a subscription by subscription basis instead of a time-played basis.

Exellent argument!

I am half a-wondering whether Cyan are actually not only watching closely, but considering everything that players are doing right now; forming guildlets on their own, etc, as official part of the gameplay, as far as they are concerned - even to the point that they see the fine efforts of the Trylons and Paradoxen and so on, as metaphorically rediscovering the art IC. Of course; that'd mean they were condoning reverse-engineering of their product - not so likely, maybe...

I like your metaphor of the age-making machine.
That machine is us.

I'm also confident that our in-house geniuses can make better tools than Cyan can.
All we need from Cyan is the specs, and a green light.

We've already been through this discussion so many times it's not even funny anymore. And as much as I agree with you Jennifer that it's not totally wasted energy to rehash all this once more, Cyan's silence these last months is a bit disheartening at times. I'm sure they have their reasons, but when you see so many people complaining about it on a daily basis you know something is wrong. But that's not the point of this discussion.
People are complaining about the lack of new content these last 6 months, and I'd like to expand on that a bit.

Live finally started for real this february. Discard the Prologue, discard 'To D'ni' and 'PotS', discard Until Uru, this is finally the real Live with its own content for the first time. So, eventhough most of what we saw these last months seems old and rehashed, Cyan is just finally doing what they always intended to do. And they have finally unrolled the Live content the way they intended to do it back in 2004. (If we exclude Minkata and Jalak). This whole season was always planned like that. Of course some adjustments had to take place, but for the most part that is what was always planned. To D'ni and PotS were not. UU was not.
We have to keep in mind that, as far as Live is concerned, content is tied to story. We can talk all day about the ressources and the budget at Cyan, but disregarding that, the hard truth is that content is, and I guess will always be, tied to story. I'm pretty sure even if they had the ressources to they wouldn't release new Ages daily. This is not Second Life, this is not WoW. They released the content the way they did because of how the story was planned. And they couldn't fast forward that or skip half of it just to get new content out. Like it or not that's the way it is. And in that regard Minkata and Jalak were gifts given to us, which is probably not gonna happen every month. Because as much as some people enjoy them (and I'm sure Cyan is glad we do) they are not the core of Live.

So Cyan have finally done what they always wanted to in terms both of content and story, and finally only now are they ready (and able) to move on. We can't judge Live's content by its first season, Season 2 will be the real test.

As far as how (and whether) Explorer-written Ages will fit in season 2; and how Cyan should interact more with us on this, I have personally spent enough time discussing this, and I think the best way for us (or at least for me) to convince them is to work on our Ages. So I will leave it at that for today and go back to work.

I totally agree