New Post by Chogon

[Darien]

What programme did Crowthistle use to run before it was on Drizzle?

Crowthistle was a self contained first person program (I can't really call it a game). All you could do is move around and look at stuff. I believe it used the Myst V version of plasma. (someone correct me if I'm wrong.) It also shares a file with Myst V called vpd.properties. It's good to know that this file is used by both programs if you're going to be moving files around.

As for continuity concerns, the two "ages" have a Myst/Uru feel to them and don't seem out of place. Of course if you've read the books you'll recognize some landmarks but even so there's nothing that seems out of place with the Myst/Uru universe (except perhaps for the ghostly woman walking around in the Great Marsh.)

Not having seen enough of MagiQuest Online, I don't know if it has the same Myst/Uru vibe that Crowthistle had.

What I feel Cyan needs to realize is all the stuff you can add to Uru CC may be what has kept it on the map, and kept it popular.

I wouldn't say it was popular. You can pick it up from many online dealers for less than $10 US. I paid less than $20 US for it back in '05 at a brick and mortar retail store. If it were popular (or at least having supply not meet the demand) it would cost more. It's hard to find a copy of realMyst for less than $50 US.

[Dakro]

One thing I think everyone needs to understand is that Cyan isn't telling us what's legal and what's not for the sake of asserting their authority, its to preserve the quality of their game. And if they didn't care about the game, they would let us do whatever we want with it.

Now if you think that putting Magiquest worlds into Uru read this again very carefully

Rule #5: "Writers must not use the intellectual property of others, This includes references to trademarks, copyrights, etc. Writers cannot write an Age where their character meets Captain Kirk, their Age cannot contain a Coca-Cola machine, etc. Everything in their Age or mentioned in their storyline must be their own work."

Also understand that Uru is not your game, its Cyan's, they made it, they sold it, so it belongs to them, so I think they've earned the right to tell us what can and can't be done to it. I know I wouldn't want someone to hack into my computer and modify it and put things on it I didn't ask for. And I think to respect that is the least we could do for a company that cares about us so much, that they took an online game that died and found some miraculous way to bring it back (I can't think of any other online games that had that rare oppurtunity), and not only that, but work on a release of open source for the fans. They could have stopped at Myst V and locked Uru away forever, but they didn't. How else could they show that they care? Some good things, take a lot of time (remember Riven, four years of development).

I know you're losing faith in Cyan, but think of it like this: If Cyan couldn't make Open Source Uru for us, they would say so, and let us create our own servers. Obviously they would tell us otherwise if they weren't interested. And since they are, they're going to make sure (like the rest of us) that Uru remains a great game. And I only want to see it get better.

Remember what the story of Uru is actually about, and what braught us to it to begin with, and ask yourself what these other worlds have anything to do with it. Lets respect Cyan while they work on our gift.

[kaelisebonrai]

@Dakro: Btw, they are telling us to assert authority.

What makes you so certain that they will tell us? They have a rather notable history of NOT telling anyone until after the event.

What makes you so certain they'd let us create our own servers? What makes you think they'll tell us when they're no longer interested?

Cyan doesn't exactly have a great history of being even half-way decent community managers.

Perhaps they should look into how a company who runs an Online Game handles a fan community. Because the job they're doing right now, is at best, half-assed.

They don't even speak to us half the time, and when they do, its to drop announcements from On High.

Uru would have been nothing if it wasn't for the community. Sorry, but, Cyan screwed up.

I lost faith in the claim of Cyan "preserving the quaility" of their game when, you know, I learnt about the difference in that "quality" between Prologue-era Uru, and MOUL.

And, they may've sold it, but, the only form of Uru that could be vaguely considered a success, was Until Uru, the other two variants, well, I notice they were failures. UU was shut down by Cyan because MOUL existed.

The "hacking" analogy is irrelevant, look at almost every game since... Doom, or perhaps even before Doom, there have been unofficial, unauthorised changes. Mods. "Hacks" if you will. This does indeed include many online games. Guild Wars, WoW, etc. All these things have been shown to lengthen the life of the games. This is what we do, all Fan Ages are "Mods" "Hacks", they are Modifications. This community attributes derogatory terms to them, but, many others have embraced Mods and find that they give life, and improve games, regardless of whether the game's developer approves of them, or not.

Its time for our Mods and Modders to step out of the shadows, and actually get down to the business of improving things, remaking things that have been left out, or left unfinished.

Let the deep city breathe again!

[CyricD]

This does indeed include many online games. Guild Wars, WoW, etc.

Actually, that'll get you banned pretty fast in most online games. GW tolerates Texmod, because it's just replacing textures on your side. I don't know about WoW, But hacking anything on Perfect World Int. will get you booted pretty fast, too.

I'm not saying anything that happens here shouldn't happen. I'm just saying I think that wasn't the best example. Companies that are actually making money from their games are pretty strict about the players doing anything that they didn't intend. If not, they wouldn't fix 'exploits' as soon as they were found and ban anyone that used such exploits.

My opinion on the new Magi...whatever.. levels? Well, if it's a new game that Cyan is going to profit from, and we find a way to get the ages without paying for them and merge them with URU, that's wrong. No company should tolerate anyone stealing their property. The reason I don't apply that same logic to URU is because, I honestly believe, Cyan is done with it. Regardless of what is guessed, I don't think they EVER plan to spend a penny dveloping anything new for it. What we get is what we already have, or what we make from scratch.

And I think it's obvious the real reason OSMO (or whatever it's being called today) isn't in our hands already is because they realized 'Hey, we could still make money off this clunky 'ol engine'. So they've had second thoughts about just dumping it out there for anyone to use.

Of course, as always, I could be totally wrong.

[Tweek]

WoW allows for addon's to the user interface and for the allowing of tracking of certain in game things.

Modding the game outside of that is a no no and will get your account banned pretty damn fast.


Personally I just see this as Cyan commenting over their stuff to keep Creative Kingdoms happy, like they did with GameTap. If they really were against what goes on with the modding community then I think they would have taken more action against it. They need to be seen as being in control of their stuff, even if they are fans of things like ULM/UAM/Drizzle etc, I don't really see much point in blowing up over it.

[greendragoon]

Chogon has made the following followup post.

I know it is easy to try to read more or less into a statement than what was actually stated because there is a lot of grey area all around.

The reason for the statement is that from various communications Cyan has seen in the last month, a number of people think that Cyan Worlds has officially either sanctioned, given permission to, given the "OK" to or approved of certain shards, tools, etc.

The statement is simply that we have not given any such official permission or approval or sanctioning.


Cyan Worlds will in the near future reveal it's future plans and intensions. Hopefully, with a town hall kind of meeting, questions can be answered and a way forward charted.

I know that there has been a lot of confusion for the last year and a half. Not only in the community but also inside of Cyan Worlds. There are *so* many things we want to do from getting everyone back in the cavern to new fresh ideas. We have had to re-adjust our thinking but the dreams are still alive.


And Bodger, if you know where the ponies are would you please turn them lose. Wink


Thanks,
Chogon

[ddb174]

As I said at GoMa, there is nothing new here, this is what they've been saying for a long time: note that they're not asking people not to use these things ;)

[Nalates]

The announcements in SL of Pelishard reopening and this announcement are within days of each other. That may be coincidence.

I am also betting that Cyan is not building MQO. I think that would take more than the few people working at Cyan. I have not heard of them hiring the numbers of people that would be needed for that. I would expect they are consultants helping the Creative Kingdom's design team.

The use of MOUL and other Myst content puts Cyan's ownership of those properties in jeopardy. The use of those cross licensed properties is probably causing problems among license holders and Cyan.

I'm not sure if this is just a clarification, which it probably is, or a warning to back-off or CYA in preparation for a nuclear strike. Time will tell.

[Tweek]

The announcements in SL of Pelishard reopening and this announcement are within days of each other. That may be coincidence.

I am also betting that Cyan is not building MQO. I think that would take more than the few people working at Cyan. I have not heard of them hiring the numbers of people that would be needed for that. I would expect they are consultants helping the Creative Kingdom's design team.

Hi all,

As some of you have seen in a recent Wired magazine article, Cyan Worlds is working with Creative Kingdoms to create an online continuation of the MagiQuest journey.

We hope to answer all your questions about this new endeavor as well as what Cyan Worlds' future plans are in the near future.
In the meantime, please explore our new friends at Creative Kingdoms. I think you'll find many similarities between us.


Thanks,
The Cyan Team

Useful links:
http://www.cyanworlds.com/
http://www.creativekingdoms.com/
http://www.magiquest.com/

[kaelisebonrai]

This does indeed include many online games. Guild Wars, WoW, etc.

Actually, that'll get you banned pretty fast in most online games. GW tolerates Texmod, because it's just replacing textures on your side. I don't know about WoW, But hacking anything on Perfect World Int. will get you booted pretty fast, too.

I'm not saying anything that happens here shouldn't happen. I'm just saying I think that wasn't the best example. Companies that are actually making money from their games are pretty strict about the players doing anything that they didn't intend. If not, they wouldn't fix 'exploits' as soon as they were found and ban anyone that used such exploits.

My opinion on the new Magi...whatever.. levels? Well, if it's a new game that Cyan is going to profit from, and we find a way to get the ages without paying for them and merge them with URU, that's wrong. No company should tolerate anyone stealing their property. The reason I don't apply that same logic to URU is because, I honestly believe, Cyan is done with it. Regardless of what is guessed, I don't think they EVER plan to spend a penny dveloping anything new for it. What we get is what we already have, or what we make from scratch.

And I think it's obvious the real reason OSMO (or whatever it's being called today) isn't in our hands already is because they realized 'Hey, we could still make money off this clunky 'ol engine'. So they've had second thoughts about just dumping it out there for anyone to use.

Of course, as always, I could be totally wrong.

@CyricD: What I meant with reference to Guild Wars was, indeed, the TexMod modifications. Texture replacement is still modding. (and is one of the older forms of modding.)

@Tweek: Indeed, WoW UI modding is what I'm referring to.

Uru is a little different, in that it has an offline /and/ an online version, right now, we're primarily limited to offline gameplay, though, the shards are our only "online" place to experience Uru.

However, what we do here, is Modding and hacking. Its about time we embraced it.

EDIT:

@CyricD: Well, for the first, in 1985 the US supreme courts decided that Copyright Infringement is NOT Stealing. So, no one is stealing anything. I'm planning on signing up for MagiQuest, so I can get the files, in any case. I hear its $10 for unlimited access, so, that's no issue for me, if I can get new content for Uru.