A serious proposal to Cyan. Can WE get MORE up and running?

[Lontahv]

J'Kla, about building our own engine to run Uru content on...

I am working on such a program. http://lontahv.googlepages.com/PlasmaVi ... t28.08.jpg

That is a pic of it from a while ago. It's much more than a viewer now. I have a control system that would make turning it multi-player fairly easy. I'm working on integrating ODE into it for Physics.

My plan is: build a regular engine (not like Plasma) that is designed to run Plasma content.

The reason I haven't talked a lot about it is because I don't want lots of people bugging me and trying to be devs. I can't deal with having a team for this for now. I'd rather work the the engine than have to coordinate other (possibly without the same vision of the end program) people.

This uses libPlasma which means any PRP from any game can be viewed on it.



EDIT: to give you a taste of the real thing I have a windows binary here http://lontahv.googlepages.com/PlasmaVi ... .29.08.zip . I've disabled the Spawn-point stuff is disabled for now to you'll be spawned at 0,0,0 (or somewhere near there--don't remember if it's set to exactly there) this is intentional.

The consoles and stuff can't do much yet (or at least not anything too interesting for anyone except myself). You'll see instructions printed out of the terminal window when you start it up. To load a .prp or .age file: drag it to the viewer exe.

Note: Just clicking on the program won't be enough. You NEED to drag a prp or age file to it.

This can also work on Linux even though a Linux build hasn't been made recently.

[diafero]

Thanks for the links
I couldn't yet get it working though - with wine, I get a crash while loading FreeMono.ttf, and compiling (the stable directory as there is no Makefile in the unstable one) fails with

Code: Select all

./src/prpengine.cpp: In member function »int prpengine::loadHeadSpinMipmapTexture(plKey, int)«:
./src/prpengine.cpp:464: Fehler: »glXGetProcAddress« wurde in diesem Gültigkeitsbereich nicht definiert

I expected some problems as it's still a development version, so please don't spend hours fixing those . I guess I'll have to boot windows to try it out

EDIT: On Windows, I get the error that the "application configuration is not correct" and that I should reinstall the application (it would be that the rror message is a bit different on English system, I just translated the German message I got).

[J'Kla]

I understand your reluctance to go public. Combined with your resistance to become a project developer. However I do like the idea that a Linux build is even possible.

As an age builder and story teller I find this interesting if it can give me a quick view of an age without launching the full program this could be a useful development tool.

If nothing else I would like to see a Cyan response to this.

I have not downloaded anything yet, at the moment I am more interested in using a finished version rather than developing it myself.

I have had an idea for an independent non Myst universe story that would be a suitable client for this engine when finished.

[Jamey]

Ok everyone, I did some brainstorming yesterday. And I thought of a few positions we need to fill before I make the proposal to Cyan;

Server Maintainers

Client System Managers

Promoters of the project

Age Writers

Concept designers for how things will be able to be run

UU server Experts

People with close contact with Cyan employees (Tony Fryman, Chogon, Rand, RAWA, etc)


Can you guys think of any other positions we need to fill?

I'll edit this post if more positions come to mind.

[BAD]

Though I love these plucky attempts to get Cyan on the ball, I feel a bit of reality needs to be injected into the conversation.

Right now, Cyan has less than 10 employees in the game design end. By all means write up a proposal and send it to Tony, but please do not be disapointed when you recieve no response.

I'll let you know, from a perspective of an employee of an entertainment company that is feeling the burn from the economic situation, right now, Cyan is focusing on staying in business.

You may believe your idea could help Cyan get back on it's feet, but your motives are backwards. You want Uru online again more than you want Cyan to be a successful company again. Cyan is focusing on rebuilding their business.

[Lontahv]

Thanks for the links
I couldn't yet get it working though - with wine, I get a crash while loading FreeMono.ttf, and compiling (the stable directory as there is no Makefile in the unstable one) fails with

Code: Select all

./src/prpengine.cpp: In member function »int prpengine::loadHeadSpinMipmapTexture(plKey, int)«:
./src/prpengine.cpp:464: Fehler: »glXGetProcAddress« wurde in diesem Gültigkeitsbereich nicht definiert

I expected some problems as it's still a development version, so please don't spend hours fixing those . I guess I'll have to boot windows to try it out

EDIT: On Windows, I get the error that the "application configuration is not correct" and that I should reinstall the application (it would be that the rror message is a bit different on English system, I just translated the German message I got).

Ok, on windows you need to install the MSVC redist. I thought the dlls were enough but blah. Just google it. I used MSVC 2008.

[J'Kla]

You are absolutely right BAD.

Cyan have made it clear what they want to do. They want to work at something other than MORE and use the money they get from that to play with our minds using MORE. (By play with our minds I mean entertain us with Yeeshas' story)

It does look like they don't want money for writing Uru or any of it's incarnations. That is just what they want to do with their money once they have it.

They are artists looking for a rich patron or sponsor. We become their audience their adoring fans. O.K. here is me doing the cynical bit again if in two years time they come up with some wonderful solution to some on-line problem, and get paid oodles of cash. They can wheel out Uru write another chapter and if the old fans are not around then their consummate skill will endear a new generation of followers.

So what if the old fans have withered on the vine.

Can we make them (Cyan) do anything?

No.

Can we do something?

Yes.

Will we incur the wrath of the Cyan sycophants?

Probably.

All I expect from Cyan is either an outright denial of this assumption or challenge to try our worst, or probably the most unlikely an offer of the I/O that goes with the plasma engine.

There has been an undertaking not to interfere with Cyans' IP rights, the story of Yeesha and her family is sacrosanct.

Written into the licence that went with the distributed binaries that constituted the UU plasma server, was an explicit undertaking not to reverse engineer the code.

If Cyan are not prepared to let us play with any Cyan/Uru shard of any ilk other than the stand alone CC one we currently have access to. If we are to obey the letter of these agreements and want to further our desires to see a near future with a shared Uru existence our only option must lie with self reliance.

We can build ages. Cyan do not have an exclusivity of artistic talent. If we want to enjoy these ages as a common shared experience we either wait for some mysterious benefactor (A lot of people believed this was Turner/GameTap) to sponsor Cyan or we build it ourselves. Cyan just do not appear to want us as paymasters.

So we either do this with either
1) Cyan support.
2) Cyan approval.
3) Cyan threats of litigation.
4) Cyan silence.

While I would hope for 1 or reluctantly 2 I doubt 3 and expect 4. Silence appears to be the Cyan way, while I do expect an outcry from some sections of the community. Even following a Cyan Support response. I expect that's me just being cynical again.

Is it too much to ask Cyan for one of the above first three responses I can't say four as the last one would be illogical.

[ddb174]

Neat; I wish you luck! You may be interested to know that there was another engine made to run Uru content. I can't remember the site off hand, but it was also named H'uru (but not Cobbs.ca nor Huru.info). I've got the source *somewhere* in my collection. A problem you'll run into is that creating an engine is relatively easy, but precisely matching Plasma's quirks when you only see the surface manifestations is very hard. And last I checked libPlasma doesn't handle the vertex coder for HexIsle, so it can't display those prps yet. Anyway, I hope it goes well!

By the way, you're legally obligated to release your source under the GPLv2 (you can multi-license your particular files, if you would like) since that is the license libPlasma is under. And it applies even if you're dynamically linking to the library, unlike say, the LGPL or MPL. Currently you've distributed a derivative without any kind of offer/instructions for getting the source, which terminates your license, which means that this is copyright infringement. Just a heads up.

[Lontahv]

The source can be found: http://uru.zrax.net/svn/PlasmaViewer . Since it hasn't been built on Linux for a while it may need some altering and the make file will need to be rewritten. Sorry for not posting the link earlier.

It's licensed under the same GPL as libPlasma.

I'm currently working in the "Unstable" folder.

Dustin, thanks for the info. There's also that "7d7" thing. But yeah, I remember hearing some stuff about an engine called H'uru. I think this was a private H'uru project.

Bah, forgot to give specifics about license and source in my main post earlier. Also forgot to include a copy of the license in my binary package.

I guess I'm _that_ out of it. <.<

[J'Kla]

It does look like this is something that's already in work, and I would still like to know where Cyan stand with this.