From my hands

From my hands

Postby Paradox » Sat Aug 07, 2010 3:51 pm

I... haven't touched Blender in 2 months.
I haven't done any meaningful work in Blender is far longer.
It's sad for me to say that, because I have things that I want to do and ideas that I want to develop.


We're losing people. I've seen more people lose interest over the past 6 months than I have in any other period of Uru. We've been given hopes and promises, and now we're all waiting for something that might never come. Times change and people get busier, and I feel that need to seriously ask myself why I'm still here.

It's not because I enjoy it: Uru is depressing these days, and I don't want to build Ages that nobody will ever explore;
it's not for the community: I've seen almost all the good people lose interest, leaving only the idiots on MOUL worshiping their Holy Blue Lords of Cyan;
it's not for the potential: time killed whatever potential was left in Uru.
It's not even for Plasma anymore, the more I see of it, the more I realise how much it could be improved and yet there's no way to do that.

I thought things would be more open when MOULa started, but instead they're more closed than before. Any incentive to work on stuff is crushed by Cyan's continued silence, and the overwhelmingly vocal disapproval of many community members. We all have bad days where we ask "Why do I put up with this?"; but when you're seriously asking yourself that question every time you think of Uru, maybe it's time to move on. I don't want to be part of this anymore.

Uru's dead, more dead now than before MOULa started. I keep wanting things to change, but I can't keep pretending that they ever will. Cyan can't make Uru work. They've lost direction and fragmented so much that the only thing keeping them in business is rehashing existing games on new platforms. The "Golden era" ended with Prologue, and came to a crashing halt after Myst V. MOUL never managed to bring any of that back.


The future is uncertain. I can say for sure that prpl-uruki will probably never be finished, and libHSPlasma development has mostly stopped as all the developers lost interest. PyPRP2 is up in the air, very dependent on what happens with Blender and whether there's still enough interest to keep developing it. Without maintenance and support for the current tools, Age builders will lose interest and drift away, and with them goes any lingering hope for Uru's potential.

For now, we keep waiting... but maybe someday you have to accept that the story's over.
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Re: From my hands

Postby Tweek » Sat Aug 07, 2010 4:57 pm

I share your feeling on this.

I'm not really sure what the future will hold, I think a lot of it depends on what I do.

My plan was to finish the various Ages I have planned for my current story arc, seeming it's been running for the last 7 years I would like to at least wrap it up. Having done that my plan was to build something new, something not D'ni so I would have to jump through canon loops, wouldn't have to give a damn about Cyan, wouldn't matter if the community QQ'd over it because it would be my canon.

But as each day passes I find myself less and less interested in continuing, it feels like more of a chore than an enjoyment. At the moment I'm thinking I shall at least finish the Third Path stuff, but whether I continue with things after that remains to be seen (and whether I actually do finish it).

I do think the time of Myst/Uru has passed, I can't say I have any confidence in Cyan to turn things around, and if they do I have no desire to have to witness the community reaction if they did, tired of the zealots, tired of the "all hail the blue lords" BS that seems rampant, tired of the hypocrites and witchhunts..
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Re: From my hands

Postby N. Sigismund » Sat Aug 07, 2010 7:02 pm

I think many people have been waiting for such a long time that they've forgot why they were waiting in the first place.This feeling of dejection is actually the core theme of the project I'm working on.

Me, I'm still a newbie and I'll stick with Uru and age creation until there is nothing left to be gained. This version of Uru is never going to be a "success" of becoming the thing Cyan wanted, but many improvements are still possible, especially down the roleplaying and social front.

I will agree that, as far as I can see, Cyan is going to be stuck in a rut until either they hit on some luck or BoT enters development. But I don't especially mind - Myst is one of my favourite gaming series, my project will take an age, no pun intended, to finish and if Cyan release more code in the meantime I'll be happy.
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Re: From my hands

Postby rivenwanderer » Sat Aug 07, 2010 9:48 pm

I keep thinking back to pre-Uru days--before we even knew Uru was coming out. I remember (perhaps erroneously) a great feeling of creativity and love for the canon in the community, even though the possibility of a sequel was unknown and the books and games were finished stories. There was less clamoring to be the focus of some current! exciting! drama, perhaps. Or maybe I'm just looking back on the past with rose-colored glasses. The point is, I think that fandom doesn't need to be predicated on something ongoing from Cyan--maybe it even reduces the pressure on creators to just be writing stories, not figuring out how to be part of The Big Story. Goodness knows Tolkien fandom will still go on regardless of whether a new movie comes out, for example :) Maybe the answer is instead of mourning the loss of the kind of community we might have had, think about what kind of community and creative possibility exists in a static canon instead, and work as though the canon were in fact static and the Uru engine was never going to become more usable by us. Maybe it's time to follow the Starry Expanse project's lead and leave the Uru game engine behind in favor of the Blender game engine. Maybe we should think about making content that works in a web browser on an iPhone. Maybe we can play in the shadowy gaps left behind by the canon and never worry about Cyan shining their flashlights there. Explore and invent things from the height of the D'ni empire, before the fall, make their Ages and tell their stories. And if we're wrong--if someday the canon begins to move again--we'll have learned much and made wonderful things in the meanwhile, even if they're flawed or incompatible in some way. I don't question that Uru has been running out of steam for a long time, but the Myst universe is vast and beautiful. When one tunnel collapses and can't be re-excavated, start digging another tunnel :)
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Re: From my hands

Postby Rabbit » Sun Aug 08, 2010 12:05 am

I have put a hold on everything I have been working on and put it all away. Yes, the Cavern is back, but with only a very, very small number of regular visitors, it seems to have all died and fizzled out. I am losing interest in the whole Myst thing, Cavcon 5 seems to be forever unobtainable and maybe something we will never see. Progress to fan Ages also seems nonexistant. There is hardly any reason to come into the game anymore, let alone work on a project no one will ever see, or be intereted in.
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Re: From my hands

Postby diafero » Sun Aug 08, 2010 11:53 am

Unfortunately, I also begin asking myself that question. It doesn't cost much time or resources to just stick around, but unfortunately development has pretty much come to a standstill. I'd really like to see libHSPlasma and PyPRP maturing, for example, but I don't feel like investing weeks or even months into learning Blender and it's API in such a situation. I mean, there will definitely be an Offline KI 3.3 release, but then I'll mostly wait what happens, making bugfixes for Alcugs and the KI, and hoping for better times. I still believe there is a lot of potential in the community and the idea of the game, but with old people leaving and Cyan themselves not doing anything to improve the situation (quite the opposite, actually), so that only the little group of people hardly caring for Cyan giving direction keeps our fire up, hope is down to a minimum. There are many that just eagerly read the MOUL forums for news from Cyan, and those more open-minded that check out other forums, but are unsure about whether to stick with Cyan or go our own way seem to resign or calm down or wait for anything big to happen, done by whomever. The 3Ds max plugin, albeit being very useful, also had PyPRP almost abandoned. Remembering the outcry when I released Offline KI, I was surprised nobody even cared when I publicly announced multiplayer compatibility - it seems people know about what we technically can, but don't care, since Cyan still says they plan something. Had they just said "Do what you want" months or years ago, we would be leaps ahead, but people waited and waited and didn't want to hear of any alternatives, of voices suggesting we should stand on our own feet. And now it may be too late.

So I, too, am just waiting. Maybe that is wrong, but I don't see much else to do, and I don't want to leave that game I put so much work into, that I loved and like so much. Hope never dies, but maybe at some point it shrinks so little that it's not worth it anymore.
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Re: From my hands

Postby BAD » Sun Aug 08, 2010 1:57 pm

I've been hovering around lately but being completely uninvolved. I apologize to all of those who I have made promises too. Those I had made promises, please PM me about it and I'll do what I can to clean that up with you.

Simply put, I just don't care about Online Uru anymore. I still love the game and love all the experiences I had playing online, so don't think me actually hating the game please. What I cannot abide is the stagnation of the game. I can totally get how some of the fans can be content with just having what has been released. In some respects I will be back in the cavern for those reasons many devoted fans have given for remaining in MOULa. This, for me, will only be an occasional thing. A return to reliving and reminding of all the fun in the game. Like rereading a favorite book.

Lastly I thank all of the people who made Uru happen over the last decade. Players, creators, supporters, and publishers. Uru influenced my entire life in a way that I feel has left me with a sense of freedom and power in the way I choose games and my professional outlook. I have experienced how a game can rise and fall, rise again and fall, and rise and fall a third time. I won't hang around for this fall maybe I'll be back for the next rise.
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Re: From my hands

Postby GPNMilano » Sun Aug 08, 2010 4:07 pm

Perhaps I'm less jaded then most of us. I don't feel an ending to this. Rather I'm still inspired to create new places. Maybe it's cause I keep to myself and just do my own thing. Maybe it's cause I still desire to see and visit a living D'ni that is ever expanding. Or maybe it's just cause I realize that without activity from Cyan, this community get's dejected that nothing is happening. Then the moment it does we all get excited again. It's happened before, it's happening now. It's a pattern that won't end till we get what we want. Then we get it, and we're excited again till the furvor dies out, and we wait for the next "big thing". So i continue to work. On my own things, on others. Cause I know, that despite what many of us may say or do...the moment something big happens like a 3ds max file for one of the ages, or the server binaries or source code, it'll drive this community to a high well-spring of activity again. And there's not a doubt in my mind that everyone in this thread whose become dejected and said "i think i'm done" will be back the moment it happens, ready to create again and inspired to do so. I know this because I know each and everyone one of us in some way. And some of us may not love Cyan's actions, some may not love all of those out there in the MOUL community. But all of us, love D'ni in some way. We wouldn't have stuck around this long if we didn't. And so we'll all be back when somthing happens that expands our ability to explore D'ni and it's history. So I wait, and I work, with the hope that I will inspire someone else out there to do the same with my work. To build something like I have, to etch out a corner of D'ni and it's worlds. Or create their own worlds to explore. Create a new tool to do something neat. Or expand another one that will do something else.
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Re: From my hands

Postby Eleri » Sun Aug 08, 2010 5:08 pm

I've never been part of the dev world, but I do know what it's like to not have the resources to follow a passion, so my empathy level is way up there. Whatever the flame is that keeps Uru going is pretty much down to a smouldering ember, but I don't know if it is *possible* to put it out completely. There's too many people in various capacities that still have "what if..." and "maybe" in their heads, even if they aren't actively *doing* anything about it.

People are still around, and always will be. Mysterium happens every year, ideas get shown off, thoughts go flying. CC is still around, the D'ni Refugees in SL are still around. Little pockets of Uru-ness that aren't dependent on Uru at all.

What you guys have built here is an amazing resource of talent and skill. Mebby those skills can branch out... Revive Ages of Ilithid maybe? Make some little Uru spin-off games? Art and building projects for community members for other games and such?

Sure, we're all pissed at Uru for imploding, and burnt out on trying to keep it afloat. Doesn't mean we have to sink, too.
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Re: From my hands

Postby theclam » Sun Aug 08, 2010 6:47 pm

It is depressing. There are a handful of ideas I have to inspire more Myst-like multiplayer. They've sat in some sparse .text and .blends and .py for a while.

If I had dug in this last year and really tried to implement any of them, they'd be unplayable. Not because they'd be only partly finished, not because they weren't up-to-date, not because any sticks-in-the-mud needed to be convinced by playing them firsthand, not because of anything I could put effort into. There just continues to be no public way to play new Ages with people.

Do I start implementing now? Is there any indication that by next year MOUL will see more activity?
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