Guild of Writers

Aloys wrote:As for SE: I assume they are making progress, but the total lack of communication in nearly a year and a half is annoying to say the least.. :/

Hm, yeah. Probably a mix of Cyan being involved and requiring more discretion, combined with covid, and working on stuff that isn't really interesting to show. Let's hope we'll get more news soon.

Word on the street is the silence is because of their incorporation into the so-called "Cyan Ventures"

Also, I should mention that EAA has dropped a few more goodies on twittles.

The Dahtamay design docs feel the most interesting cause of how different Uru (or Parable as it was in 2000) was conceived. I mean we would have had NPCs (perhaps maybe played by Cyan staff?), an economy with currency, rankings, upgradable vehicles etc. Which is all interesting considering how back in 2003, Rand spoke of how Uru Live would be different from MMOs in that you wouldn't level up like traditional MMOs, and progress would come via solving puzzles and engaging with the storymode. Would Dahtamay have been too divergent from the goals of Uru as we know it, or would it have made it more appealing, without coming across as a traditional MMO?

Uru is a mix-mash of many concepts. Having multiple activities besides exploring and puzzle solving feels like it would fit.

Personally I think it's a great idea since it means every activity is optional and you and your friends can switch whenever you feel bored, since each activity is its own Age. That's something that became popular more recently in games like Fortnite, Minecraft servers, or more recently Core games. With the exception that Uru's lore still ties it all up together, so you can go chill in Kahlo to discuss the latest tournament, or check who is the highest pellet-dropper. Immersion is important to Myst fans.
In contrast, leveling in other MMOs is only there to keep content away from you. What little minigames they have is (in my experience) trash and not really tied to the story, so most of the time spent is on boring grind.

The problem, as we've said with Aloys, is that this vision of Uru means a huge amount of developer work, and thus a high cost. Every new Age means redoing from scratch the gameplay programming and environment building. Few companies can do it, and even then you have to cut some corners.

(How many different activities were supposed to make it into Uru ? Let's see... Exploring, puzzle solving, socializing, climbing, discovering D'ni's past, playing marker quests, dropping pellets, looking at the wildlife from the Pods, playing games in Jalak, driving vehicles, racing in Kahlo, hunting people in Rebek, gathering materials in Dahtamnay, climbing the Gahreesen Wall, playing Ayhoheek, raising Lakis, hunting in Pirahnay, shooting lasers in Jellyfish, battling on chicken-back in Pento, and I probably forgot more of those. That's plenty. And that's without counting the out-of-the-game activities.)

I have just spent the afternoon looking at these Intangibles. Here are my musings.

I have Max 8 and I have been able to open those files (errors thrown up are mainly to do with the location of the material files not being where Max expects them)

The following have just concept art: Dahtamnay, Katha, Museum Pod, Negilahn, Pento, Pirahnay and Venalem. All very beautifully painted - lots of ideas. Some have text descriptions but I have been unable to view these .doc files.

All the others have .max files with construction underway, some are pretty much finished. Most have materials/textures. Some even have .age files and age sequence prefixes. Rebek has just about everything you'd need (including music!) but no .age file.

I have found the .max files interesting - to see how they are built and what/how Plasma components are used is going to be helpful to me for my own Ages.

For some of the Ages, it might be fun to put in colliders and export to have a run around! I might try this just for my own amusement.

Sirius wrote:(How many different activities were supposed to make it into Uru ? Let's see... Exploring, puzzle solving, socializing, climbing, discovering D'ni's past, playing marker quests, dropping pellets, looking at the wildlife from the Pods, playing games in Jalak, driving vehicles, racing in Kahlo, hunting people in Rebek, gathering materials in Dahtamnay, climbing the Gahreesen Wall, playing Ayhoheek, raising Lakis, hunting in Pirahnay, shooting lasers in Jellyfish, battling on chicken-back in Pento, and I probably forgot more of those. That's plenty. And that's without counting the out-of-the-game activities.)

Wait, there's an even scarier way to do it : near infinite bullet point list:

• Exploring,
• puzzle solving,
• socializing,
• climbing,
• discovering D'ni's past,
• playing marker quests,
• dropping pellets,
• looking at the wildlife from the Pods,
• playing games in Jalak,
• driving vehicles,
• racing in Kahlo,
• hunting people in Rebek,
• gathering materials in Dahtamnay,
• climbing the Gahreesen Wall,
• playing Ayhoheek,
• raising Lakis,
• hunting in Pirahnay,
• shooting lasers in Jellyfish,
• battling on chicken-back in Pento,
• and I probably forgot more of those...

Yep, scary. There's a name for that in game development : "feature creep."

Hahaha, I actually refrained from using bullet points because I didn't want my post to be too long Yeah, feature creep is already bad, but it's even worse in a multiplayer game.
And like I've said, if you count all the ARG, fanfiction, fan content & others in the forum, you can probably lengthen that list even further.

Semjay wrote: Rebek has just about everything you'd need (including music!) but no .age file.

That music reminds me so much of Haven ! Love it.

Semjay wrote:For some of the Ages, it might be fun to put in colliders and export to have a run around! I might try this just for my own amusement.

If I wasn't already working on other stuff or was less lazy, I would be experimenting with that too Oh well. At least it's cool that anyone can have fun with those files now !

Looking at these again it is so tempting to work on some of those Ages, especially those that only exists as concept art and maps... Especially Khata island and Venalem. Those have just enough material to start throwing together a few 3D mock ups. Not that it would be reasonnable to do so... (not when I already have 4 Ages that needs to be completed)

Heh, that's my daily Uru life. No time to work on anything, but a big backlog of stuff to finish.
I even have my own version of Katha on my computer, but even if I had time to work on it, I'm not sure I could do justice to Cyan's concept arts. They set the bar horribly high.
Venalem I'm not sure, I have a hard time picturing what the completed Age would look like. Dahtamnay, on the other hand... Prototyping it in Unity would be a blast.