Great Shaft - Some Ideas?

[Maurus]

Hello Writer's Guild folk -

It's probably not my place to make suggestions, considering I have no idea what I'm talking about or how any of your stuff works - but I had a few ideas about the Great Shaft I thought I'd share. Again, I don't know how this stuff really works, or even how much control you guys have over the content - but you seem to have pulled off some clever, and not entirely dissimilar, stuff before, so I thought I'd give this idea a shot with y'all.

My main/central thought is this:
Why not place a Direbo book in CC's Descent?
Once again, I don't know what I'm talking about, and this may very well have more to do with Drizzle itself than how things are run server-end. That being said, if this were possible, it seems like it would fix several different problems at once. For example, as far as I can tell from the forum, it looks like some users have been having difficulty finding the Myst V content. Not only does this provide another convenient avenue, it makes perfect sense as well - that rest area as it appeared in Myst V also had the book to Direbo there, plus, a book is actually shown in the linking panel image for Descent. Things are tied up quite nicely, and now players have a convenient way of accessing Myst V's Great Shaft without having to jump into the Cleft Volcano (while this was a clever idea and well implemented, it always struck me as a bit of a stretch). Plus it won't have any negative impact on those folks who haven't Drizzled in Myst V, at least not any more than the linking book to Todelmer in the museum already does (I have no idea).

This on its own is a pretty nice fix, I think, but while we're at it, I feel like we can go even further with this:
Why not have Direbo's "Descent Stage II" book redirect to CC's Descent?
I have to commend the folks who painstakingly worked to convert Myst V's Descent so that it would work in Uru and with the avatars, but it is admittedly not without its faults. The ambient music doesn't play in areas where it should, items that should be clickable aren't (which I'm not saying is bad; that's actually more appropriate in an Uru context), and standing on certain areas, like the elevator platform, causes players to fall through the ground and plummet down. Most of that makes sense in the context of adaptation, but it seems like it unnecessarily takes the player out of the moment. For instance, while I get the elevator-floor thing was probably done intentionally so players could easily get down to the next level, it seems unnecessary when players could just as easily use Direbo to link to the next section.
But effectively replacing Myst V's link to the rest stop with CC's version of it fixes a lot of these problems. There is now just one rest stop location accessible in-game, one which complies with established Uru canon with the items available in the room, etc, plus the music is left intact. If players wish to travel to another section of the Shaft, they need only use the Direbo book.

Of course, while I really do like my "make Direbo how we navigate the Shaft" idea, it's not perfect. Here's another idea I like, but does admittedly have a minor problem:
Why not lower the Great Shaft floor?
This idea is flawed, and I'll get to why later, but first, here are some points in favor of this: Frankly, the look of the shaft with the lowered floor is classic, and something we've been used to seeing since To D'ni came out. It's really just aesthetics, but it does look a lot cooler with the lowered floor. Also, as it currently is, the avatar sort of hovers over the raised floor as it walks on it due to the differing heights from the platform, which is a minor point but it does look kind of silly. Lowering the floor would remove that issue. Finally, the main reason the player has to raise the floor in Myst V is to access the area underneath and open the door to the hallway above. However, since the door is already open, and the hatch leading to the area underneath is open as well, we don't need the floor raised to access this.
Now, the problem is, that's not the ONLY reason the player has to raise the floor. The floor also has to be raised in order to reach the Stage III rest stop. Lowering the floor means that players linking in to the stage III shaft from Direbo only have access to a tiny section of the shaft from there (unless the player is capable of jumping off the platforms, which actually would be kind of cool). Note that this wouldn't be a problem if Cyan had not intentionally put a barrier in the surrounding walkway. Granted, players would still have full access to the surrounding area via the Stage IV rest stop, it's just slightly less convenient.

Again, I have no idea how valid any of these ideas are, but I figured I'd bring them up with y'all, because it seems like it would work well. Feel free to shoot me down and tell me I'm overstepping my bounds here if I'm just being ignorant. I figured it couldn't hurt to share, though.

Shorah everyone,

Maurus

EDIT: Writing this post got me thinking about the relationship between Myst V and Uru content, and how appropriate Myst V content is in Uru's established universe, so I made another long post talking about it on the MOUL forums. If you like my rambling, you might like to hear my thoughts on this as well:
http://mystonline.com/forums/viewtopic. ... 97#p402197

[Sirius]

Putting a book to Direbo is a valid idea, IMHO. However I think making the Direbo book link to CC's Tiwah might be a bit confusing since all other books in the same Age link to the Myst V version.

About the various ideas for the Great Shaft: no one ever spent time making collisions for the elevators, or make the clickables un-clickable (mainly because it takes a lot of time and the Age would still be bugged in most places). Raising the Shaft floor probably seemed like a good solution to reach the 3rd tomahn (so that players don't walk on an invisible collision in the air - although lots of collisions are still missing and some objects can be walked through in the Age).

Also, since that's somewhat related, you might be interested in seeing this topic, which proves fixing things for the Great Shaft is possible, although not easy.

The main problem is to release these updates. Some of them can be applied to Python files redistributed in the Offline-KI, but some others require modifications that can only be done by updating Drizzle, and there aren't many people who can/want to do it (and that's why my previous fix is not applied when you convert Myst V Ages).

[Maurus]

However I think making the Direbo book link to CC's Tiwah might be a bit confusing since all other books in the same Age link to the Myst V version.

That's the thing. I see where you're coming from, but I think that's just because we're used to the different versions. On the outside, it seems like it might be confusing, but don't forget, they are supposed to be the same place. If a player starts in Tomahn I, links to Direbo, and then from Direbo links to Descent, from the player's perspective all they did was move further down the shaft, even though technically, as far as the game is concerned, it's a different "age" - but it should actually be a pretty smooth transition. Now, instead of the converted room from Myst V, which is slightly bugged in DI, we've got the *same* room, in a version *designed* to work with Uru - and as long as the Direbo book is there, we've still got access to the other three sections of the Shaft.

I'm basically suggesting we pretend it's the same age (which, canonically, it is) even though it's not.

The only downside I can think of would be that now, the other sections of the shaft show supports, while Tomahn II does not. My answer to that, though, would be "Shhhhhhhhh."

Thanks for the response and thanks for the link, by the way! Neat to see there's been work done to make the clickables work. Don't get me wrong, though, I wasn't implying that these things should be fixed for Deep Island / Drizzle. Uru seems to be more about exploration rather than puzzle-solving at this point, and so as long as everything is explore-able, it seems like not having the clickables is perfectly fine.

That being said, still really cool to see that working. Nicely done.

[diafero]

Those are interesting suggestions . And the Direbo book in the CC Shaft is a good idea - I would probably accept such a patch into the Offline KI. There's always the problem though that we would, once again, modify Cyan's ages, and I think most age writers don't like others meddling with their creation. Of course you can say that we long crossed this line by making various visible modifications to the city and the hood, and some invisible modifications in the Cleft and some more ages. (Not mentioning the countless bugs fixed in many ages, but those just restore functionality that was there in other versions, or should have worked anyway.) You mention that the book is actually visible in the linking panel, which is a good indication that this modification could be considered "canon".

However, I agree with Sirius that using the CC Shaft from Direbo would be counter-intuitive. Of course you are right that those two versions of the Shaft are an issue, but the proper solution - in my eyes - would be to merge them to have one age. However, due to technical and legal problems, I doubt that's going to happen.
The configuration of the floor was chosen such that every part of the age can be accessed. The best thing would be the floor mechanics to actually work, which Sirius could probably do if we bug him long enough but then we still have the issue of distributing these changes.
Btw, the elevators in the Shaft have no floor because they are broken. This was not a conscious decision, it's just that the current state of physics is the best we (which is mainly Dustin) found to map Myst V behaviour to Uru behaviour.

[Annabelle]

Btw, the elevators in the Shaft have no floor because they are broken.

This is perfect for me. I use these "broken elevators" as launching platforms to reach the bottom of the Shaft

[Ehren]

There's always the problem though that we would, once again, modify Cyan's ages, and I think most age writers don't like others meddling with their creation. Of course you can say that we long crossed this line by making various visible modifications to the city and the hood, and some invisible modifications in the Cleft and some more ages. (Not mentioning the countless bugs fixed in many ages, but those just restore functionality that was there in other versions, or should have worked anyway.) You mention that the book is actually visible in the linking panel, which is a good indication that this modification could be considered "canon".

You can see a book on the Nexus pedestal of the Great Shaft room in the link panel for Descent, but I would assume that it is an old picture Cyan made from when they probably intended to put a Nexus book on the Nexus pedestal, rather than a Direbo one. Then they simply never updated that picture in any version of Uru... But hey, I guess it's hard to say for sure what that link book is since you can't make out the distant panel itself.

Honestly, I don't like fans adding their own permanent additions to the Cyan ages (adding newer stuff that Cyan themselves had made or something that is at least based on the logic of how Cyan did it is a different story). But we already have some weird additions to the city that I've wondered about:

Two bahro stones in the city (Courtyard and Concert Hall) that link to MOUL's Kirel. There seems to be no logical reason why links like these were added to those spots in the city, and it is pointless anyway given that the Nexus contains link to there by default. Even if it's a link to a Cyan age, seems weird to just be adding those kind of fan additions to any old place in another Cyan age.

(A Direbo book in Descent would be a lot more reasonable though, as it is at least based on an idea Cyan did for Myst V: Direbo books in the Great Shaft.)

Another city bahro stone is the one in the city pub that links to K'veer, I can't think of a reason why a stone like this is in the pub. What is the connection between the Kahlo pub and K'veer? A K'veer link could be made just to appear in the Nexus by default, rather than needing an external way there first. The KI hand slot in K'veer would then add nothing to the Nexus, but that's already the story for the Ferry Terminal KI hand slot.

[GPNMilano]

There's always the problem though that we would, once again, modify Cyan's ages, and I think most age writers don't like others meddling with their creation. Of course you can say that we long crossed this line by making various visible modifications to the city and the hood, and some invisible modifications in the Cleft and some more ages. (Not mentioning the countless bugs fixed in many ages, but those just restore functionality that was there in other versions, or should have worked anyway.) You mention that the book is actually visible in the linking panel, which is a good indication that this modification could be considered "canon".

You can see a book on the Nexus pedestal of the Great Shaft room in the link panel for Descent, but I would assume that it is an old picture Cyan made from when they probably intended to put a Nexus book on the Nexus pedestal, rather than a Direbo one. Then they simply never updated that picture in any version of Uru... But hey, I guess it's hard to say for sure what that link book is since you can't make out the distant panel itself.

I never liked, personally, the Direbo linking books on the Nexus pedestals. This was rather lazy work on Cyan's part. Instead of making new book pedestals they just threw some books on there and changed the textures. Lazy writing at it's finest is present throught Descent in MOULa.

Honestly, I don't like fans adding their own permanent additions to the Cyan ages (adding newer stuff that Cyan themselves had made or something that is at least based on the logic of how Cyan did it is a different story). But we already have some weird additions to the city that I've wondered about:

Two bahro stones in the city (Courtyard and Concert Hall) that link to MOUL's Kirel. There seems to be no logical reason why links like these were added to those spots in the city, and it is pointless anyway given that the Nexus contains link to there by default. Even if it's a link to a Cyan age, seems weird to just be adding those kind of fan additions to any old place in another Cyan age.

First, no links should ever appear in the Nexus without being collected first. It was obviously the intention, with the exception of the initial city link, that all links need to be collected to add to the Nexus. Bevin, Kirel Kveer, the city links, the Great Zero etc. However stuff got messed up with MOUL and it became simply acceptable to dump Nexus links in there for new places. Prior to that, all areas required the link to be collected.

This could have been done with Seret and MOUL's Kirel however, there's no Nexus Station in the MOUL versions of Kirel or the Neighborhood. Instead, they have simple book pedestals to do away with having to register a Nexus link. So the links now appear there by default I guess. It could have technically been done another way, but in doing so the Nexus now would rely on Yeesha magic to add a book to it, cause again...no Nexus Station in either of those.

(A Direbo book in Descent would be a lot more reasonable though, as it is at least based on an idea Cyan did for Myst V: Direbo books in the Great Shaft.)

Again, done at the behest of lazy writing. There never was supposed to be so many links to Direbo in Descent. There was only ever one, and not on the Nexus Station. That would have been a Nexus book. (Indeed it was a Nexus book originally.)

Another city bahro stone is the one in the city pub that links to K'veer, I can't think of a reason why a stone like this is in the pub. What is the connection between the Kahlo pub and K'veer? A K'veer link could be made just to appear in the Nexus by default, rather than needing an external way there first. The KI hand slot in K'veer would then add nothing to the Nexus, but that's already the story for the Ferry Terminal KI hand slot.

Again, the way things are now, and that you've become accustomed to. Was not the original intention of that contact. The Nexus was intended as a mass transit system to get players around the city and to their invited ages. However it was to be treated like Relto. You'd need to be sent an invite to get to an age, you'd need to collect a Nexus Station link to get to that area etc. It was during MOUL that all that went to hell with lazy writing by Cyan, and was unfortunately carried over to the offline KI cause no one seemed to want to disable the links in the Nexus before being picked up.

[Tweek]

The problem I have always found with the Great Shaft is after the D'ni council stopped the breakthrough and the project was basically shelved the impression I got was no one when along the tunnels until Aitrus mapped them out when D'ni fell.

The D'ni seem to have a habit of building stuff and if the project fell through they'd make it look neat then basically forget about it. So why would there be Nexus pedestals there? This could be argued by the fact the Nexus system was slowly being implemented in the time leading to the Fall so if they figured the Great Shaft was going to be a busy area they would want that included. But this is further compounded by the addition of Direbo, the Age being in the Great Shaft just doesn't quite sit right with me in terms of the impressions that are put forth by lore.


In regards to Ehren's concerns. The likelihood of Cyan adding stuff to Uru is very slim (them adding new Cyan content that is). I see no reason why we can't add to their Ages, in fact there are a lot of issues with Cyan's content that the fans could fix and straighten out. As for adding stuff to Cyan's Ages to expand on the lore? I would trust about 3 or 4 people in the fan community to handle that in a logical lore friendly fashion, and one of those people is myself.


Unfortunately MOUL introduced a lot of (understandably) laziness. Yeesha/Bahro Magic was a fix for a lot of stuff that should have been handled in a more lore-friendly manner. Bahro stones which were once a bit of a rarity got plonked down anywhere to get around the no inter-age linking rules to make things easier.

[GPNMilano]

The problem I have always found with the Great Shaft is after the D'ni council stopped the breakthrough and the project was basically shelved the impression I got was no one when along the tunnels until Aitrus mapped them out when D'ni fell.

I didn't get this impression. Given the massive amount of tunnels shooting off the straight path to the surface that Tiana got lost in, I assumed that they were building a spider web of tunnels for future expansion projects. It was only towards the end of the construction that they changed these plans and decided to build the Shaft as a means to get to the surface in one quick straight shot. Until then they didn't seem to really be building a straight path to the surface but were creating multiple paths to different caverns within the rock. Why do this unless they planned on a larger expansion project? Plus they found Tiana in the tunnels if I recall. How's that possible if no one was using them?

The D'ni seem to have a habit of building stuff and if the project fell through they'd make it look neat then basically forget about it. So why would there be Nexus pedestals there? This could be argued by the fact the Nexus system was slowly being implemented in the time leading to the Fall so if they figured the Great Shaft was going to be a busy area they would want that included. But this is further compounded by the addition of Direbo, the Age being in the Great Shaft just doesn't quite sit right with me in terms of the impressions that are put forth by lore.

To be fair, the KIs were being handed out at the time of the fall. It's obvious they didn't exist, nor did the Nexus at the time of the Shaft being built. So they had to be developed following the completion of the Great Shaft. If I'm remembering right, the council had decided to revisit the idea of breaking through to the surface just before Tiana arrived in D'ni. So, I'd speculate that in the intervening 28 years after the sealing off of the tunnel to the surface, and before Tiana arrived, is when the KI/Nexus was first developed. Anticipating the council approving going to the surface, Nexus's and a KI machine were installed within Descent. They were all turned off however and no books were installed in the Stations to ensure that they weren't used prior to the council's decision. Then, towards the fall is when the council approved that the KI be distributed to the public, rather than just to the Maintainers. So Gahreesen was renovated to accommodate the arrival of D'ni citizen's collecting their KIs. Books to Gahreesen started being placed in common areas like the Hoods and A'egura Library. Once they got the KI they'd then use the pedestal next to the KI to get to the Nexus and be able to travel back home via Mass Transit for the first time.

As far as Direbo, the age was meant purely for rest. Until now we've been under the assumption that the rest houses in Descent were simply that, rest stops on the way to the surface. However, other than the beds, there's no seating of any kind there. Just beds. However Direbo would make sense being that while people would sleep in the beds in Descent, if they were just taking a break from the walk, they'd then be able to use the Direbo book, lounge out underneath the tree in Direbo, soak in the sights and sounds of the age, relax their feet for awhile and then head back to Descent to continue the walk. It was clearly meant as a contemplative rest stop for traveling D'ni. While the Eder Tomahn's were meant for sleeping.

[Tweek]

The problem I have always found with the Great Shaft is after the D'ni council stopped the breakthrough and the project was basically shelved the impression I got was no one when along the tunnels until Aitrus mapped them out when D'ni fell.

I didn't get this impression. Given the massive amount of tunnels shooting off the straight path to the surface that Tiana got lost in, I assumed that they were building a spider web of tunnels for future expansion projects. It was only towards the end of the construction that they changed these plans and decided to build the Shaft as a means to get to the surface in one quick straight shot. Until then they didn't seem to really be building a straight path to the surface but were creating multiple paths to different caverns within the rock. Why do this unless they planned on a larger expansion project? Plus they found Tiana in the tunnels if I recall. How's that possible if no one was using them?

Actually it was more of a by-product from how the D'ni worked. They dug tunnels and sounded the surrounding rock to see which is the more structural intact path to take, when a path seemed like it could bring the rock down around them they would search out an alternate path. They eventually got a bit impatient (ironic for the D'ni) and decided to build the Great Shaft to get to the surface quicker.

My other concern with this (which came to mind earlier as I am currently re-reading the books). The D'ni originally wanted to make contact with the surface, yet are extremely xenophobic and protective of their culture and definitely of their Ages. Now if this is the case, why would Nexus terminals be installed where any surface dweller could stumble upon them. Sure without a KI they would be stuck but if they left Direbo for people to visit too that seems rather reckless for the D'ni.

The D'ni seem to have a habit of building stuff and if the project fell through they'd make it look neat then basically forget about it. So why would there be Nexus pedestals there? This could be argued by the fact the Nexus system was slowly being implemented in the time leading to the Fall so if they figured the Great Shaft was going to be a busy area they would want that included. But this is further compounded by the addition of Direbo, the Age being in the Great Shaft just doesn't quite sit right with me in terms of the impressions that are put forth by lore.

To be fair, the KIs were being handed out at the time of the fall. It's obvious they didn't exist, nor did the Nexus at the time of the Shaft being built. So they had to be developed following the completion of the Great Shaft. If I'm remembering right, the council had decided to revisit the idea of breaking through to the surface just before Tiana arrived in D'ni. So, I'd speculate that in the intervening 28 years after the sealing off of the tunnel to the surface, and before Tiana arrived, is when the KI/Nexus was first developed. Anticipating the council approving going to the surface, Nexus's and a KI machine were installed within Descent. They were all turned off however and no books were installed in the Stations to ensure that they weren't used prior to the council's decision.

That is a fair point, but given how the D'ni liked to take their time on things I could see the council wanting to make their decision before allowing for any Nexus terminals to be installed. But your thoughts do provide a solid concept as to why Nexus terminals could be in the Eder Tomahn. Whilst I disagree with you because I could see the council waiting first, I'll accept your idea because it makes me feel comfortable about the Nexus terminals existence there which has bugged me for ages

Then, towards the fall is when the council approved that the KI be distributed to the public, rather than just to the Maintainers. So Gahreesen was renovated to accommodate the arrival of D'ni citizen's collecting their KIs. Books to Gahreesen started being placed in common areas like the Hoods and A'egura Library. Once they got the KI they'd then use the pedestal next to the KI to get to the Nexus and be able to travel back home via Mass Transit for the first time.

On this I agree.

As far as Direbo, the age was meant purely for rest. Until now we've been under the assumption that the rest houses in Descent were simply that, rest stops on the way to the surface. However, other than the beds, there's no seating of any kind there. Just beds. However Direbo would make sense being that while people would sleep in the beds in Descent, if they were just taking a break from the walk, they'd then be able to use the Direbo book, lounge out underneath the tree in Direbo, soak in the sights and sounds of the age, relax their feet for awhile and then head back to Descent to continue the walk. It was clearly meant as a contemplative rest stop for traveling D'ni. While the Eder Tomahn's were meant for sleeping.

Again we run into somewhat of an issue with Direbo. I agree that a rest house would make sense to not only have beds and what-not but to also have a rest Age. I see 2 problems with this however.

1. If we follow your above example where the D'ni installed Nexus terminals in preparation for the Council's decision they would be planning on adding a Linking Book to a rest Age (which may or may not have been Direbo originally but that is besides the point). However with everything being powered down and Nexus Books being taken with the advent of Ti'ana finding D'ni then they would take Direbo with them too.

2. As mentioned above, the D'ni are very secretive with their stuff when it comes to outsiders. Had a connection to the surface been made then the tunnels and Great Shaft would have become a busy "road" from D'ni to the surface. I'm not convinced the D'ni would leave Linking Books lying around for any Tom, Dick, or Harry to use. Especially given the fit they pitched when they discovered Ti'ana had used one of their Books.