Guild of Writers

In November 2015, Zeke365 founded Developer's' Hood, a public hood to serve as an environment for Age creators to meet to hone their skills.

Zeke left us a few weeks ago, and in his wake the care of this Hood has fallen to me. What was Zeke's vision for this Hood? An environment to hone skills, yes, but beyond that functionality provided by the Guild of Writers' Hood? We don't know. I have a vision for this Hood though: I think it should be a showcase for Fan Age efforts and a point of coordination for expeditions and tours.

In order to showcase Fan Ages in the manner I'd prefer, I'd like to be able to post graphics from those Ages in the Developer's' Hood imager.

I don't yet know how to bring outside images into the KI system. If anybody reading this knows how it is done, please tell me.

Expeditions? That is a target! Organizing events in the Shards to explore the more exceptional Fan Ages is an activity that I'd like to make an objective of this Hood.

Fan Age Tours is another objective, if I can find any actual developers who are willing to conduct tours of their Ages for our members and visitors.

... And maybe this hood will become a tech clearing house too, but if so it will start with support for getting explorers access to Uru Shards.

Obelisk KI #6735056

Theo1728 wrote:I don't yet know how to bring outside images into the KI system. If anybody reading this knows how it is done, please tell me.

The Greyhats use to,do that every once in a while

When we set up the Obductees' Hood in MOULa, we wanted to post the Obduction concept art images to the hood viewer. This apparently required two steps: one, to convert the images into the right format, and two, a Cyan team member to upload them. I got the ok in principle. But the Cyan team were so horribly busy with making the game that I gave up on the idea. I never got into the detail of what the correct format was. So this isn't much help

This is actually already present on the GoW hood

"Actually already present on the GoW hood" Imager? There's a series of images from the Gehn Shard, yes, but not from any others. That tells me that it can be done, but not how. There are screen shots or KI Pics from Fan Ages in a few other Imagers too, at least in Hoods and Bevins, if not also in Guild Pub Imagers. None of these, though, tell me how to do it. If I want to show images from Ahra Pahts, Laki'anay, Argosy, the City of Dimensions Ferry Ride past the Arch of Kerath, or shots from Negilahn outside the Pod, and lets say that I want to change these every couple of days, I don't know how to do that and nothing that displays in your Imager tells me how.

I don't want to restrict myself and my efforts to GoW's Shards, or even to shards that presently exist. I'm not insuring equal coverage, but I do intend to provide some level of balance based on merit of content.

This is just one aspect though. I don't see this Hood being successful unless it has expressions of interest, either in membership, or invitee status, or activity announcement subscription status. So far, I'm not getting those. I also haven't gotten an answer to my question of what Zeke365's vision was for the Hood beyond services already provided by the GoW as an environment to hone skills in the Art of Fan Age Development.

How long should I hang on to something like this without substantial feedback before I abandon the effort? Will GoW see my objectives as things of merit, and undertake similar efforts as well? Has GoW ever organized a Multi-Explorer Expedition or Tour of any Fan Age in any shard? Something that was actually scheduled and announced? If all people wanted was a few Pics, they could take those with Drizzle. I'm talking group and interpersonal events here. Maybe I'm woefully ignorant. Maybe you've been doing this sort of thing for years and I haven't heard about it, but I've never seen any announcements about activities like this posted in the Cavern, nor heard anybody talking about them there.

Shorah gah bigtotee b'Shemtee !

The thing about the developer hood, which is the same point I put forth to zeke when he was talking about creating it. is that it is reinventing the wheel. There is no need for a developers hood when we already have a Guild of Writers hood.

As for customized images on the imager, this is something that is added by the Shard Admins. When I used custom KIimages in the Beneath hood I had to email them to Greydragon I think it was back then, who then added them to my KI folder in game. It's not (as far as I know) something you can do by yourself.

I don't want to restrict myself and my efforts to GoW's Shards, or even to shards that presently exist.

Yet if you plan on doing Fan Age tours you will be restricted to other shards. Gehn is the only MOUL shard that has fan Ages (to the best of my knowledge) outside of that the only other shards that have fan Ages are old UU shards which, correct me if I'm wrong, require a copy of Uru ABM/CC? I have not played UU shards in a looooong time so my memory is hazy as to what the requirements are there.

Now, if you want to organize things that would benefit people interested in content creation, go for it. But I would recommend doing it in the GoW hood not the unnecessary developer hood. When we finally get new Ages working on Cyan's shard then yeah doing tours of Fan Ages is a great idea. Maybe you could ask some of the builders to tag along now and then and explain how they build the Age or something.

Thank you for writing, Tweek, it's nice to see that we can politely disagree at such a fundamental and existential level. Developer's' Hood unnecessary and redundant? GoW's Hood can handle it? How long has it been since GoW's Hood showed in the MOULa Nexus, publicly available? Weeks, as far as I can tell. Accessible people? I sent Adam {Hoikas} a KI Mail weeks ago in MOULa to which I have yet to receive a response. When he responded, it was here, and not to me but to others with technical information that I already have, though GoW's Hood had since dropped off the Nexus. Correct you if you're wrong? Do you have anything in GoW shards that does all of the above? (I didn't hit upon that list by mere chance; Ahra Pahts, Laki'anay, Argosy and Negilahn landscape are not available in Gehn Shard, to my knowledge, and the Ferry Ride past the Arch of Kerath is not featured in anything provided by the GoW).

Not aware of non-GoW shards? That may be a good reason right there to involve yourself on Dev Hood efforts. Of course we'll be using UU shards, and using them heavily - if we limited our efforts to Fan Developments in Gehn Shard and TOC, we'd run out of interesting stuff pretty quickly. Of course, not every Uru installation works equally well for every explorer. I've met explorers in MOULa who couldn't run Uru: DI, and at least one explorer in Uru: DI who couldn't run MOULa, (only meeting one is not surprising, as Uru: DI is usually deserted, though yesterday's concert in Cathedral was well attended). Just as some Cavern Tours had been so successful that they were repeated for the convenience of explorers in other time zones, so also might some Fan Age tours in one UU shard be repeated for those who can't run it in another UU shard. And if such exploration and tour efforts add support for the eventual inclusion of Fan Developed Content into MOULa, so much the better.

The ending will never be written as long as the called remain to continue on the path of those who came before!

Theo1728 wrote:Correct you if you're wrong? Do you have anything in GoW shards that does all of the above? (I didn't hit upon that list by mere chance; Ahra Pahts, Laki'anay, Argosy and Negilahn landscape are not available in Gehn Shard, to my knowledge, and the Ferry Ride past the Arch of Kerath is not featured in anything provided by the GoW).

You're kind of missing my point there.

The correct me if I am wrong was about needing Uru CC to run UU. As I mentioned I've not touched UU ina long time (not since D'mala popped up and the DRC Liaison fiasco).

Nor was I suggesting using the GoW shard. My point was you didn't want to have to go to other shards for your tours and stuff. I highlighted the fact that Fan Ages do not currently exist on Cyan MOULa shard so you would have to do tours on the GoW Shard (which has a few Fan Ages) or UU Shards which have many...thus you would have to go to other shards.

Not aware of non-GoW shards? That may be a good reason right there to involve yourself on Dev Hood efforts. Of course we'll be using UU shards, and using them heavily - if we limited our efforts to Fan Developments in Gehn Shard and TOC, we'd run out of interesting stuff pretty quickly. Of course, not every Uru installation works equally well for every explorer. I've met explorers in MOULa who couldn't run Uru: DI, and at least one explorer in Uru: DI who couldn't run MOULa, (only meeting one is not surprising, as Uru: DI is usually deserted, though yesterday's concert in Cathedral was well attended). Just as some Cavern Tours had been so successful that they were repeated for the convenience of explorers in other time zones, so also might some Fan Age tours in one UU shard be repeated for those who can't run it in another UU shard. And if such exploration and tour efforts add support for the eventual inclusion of Fan Developed Content into MOULa, so much the better.

I'm not aware of other shards because I have no interest in other shards. I have said many times in many places I do not care for the online Uru I prefer the offline version (hence why I build everything for UruCC). I let the GoW use stuff on the Gehn Shard because they have a very similar view on content that I do, and I plan on putting stuff on the MOULa shard because that was the point of the Gateway/Intangible project. Outside of that I have no interest, the only time I play online is when I attend the occasional AGM to give an update on Intangibles which is rare in itself.

Now, I would have no problem hopping on the MOULa shard to join a tour of Fan Ages and explain a bit about the processes used in making said Ages..the community needs more content builders after the others left and I would like to see said content builders push themselves to build Ages/areas that are at the level to go into Uru (which sadly a lot of them are not).

Question for you. How active (and I don't mean is the hood viewable in the Nexus) is the Developers Hood? How active is it compared to the GoW hood? If it's not active, has no events going on then how is that any worse than the GoW hood?
The GoW is the defacto center of content creation and has been long before OpenUru was set up. In terms of "branding" it makes more sense for the Guild of Writers name to be used in reference to Age creation than "Developers Hood".

Okay, gotcha! You do need Uru:CC to install the UU shard Uru: Deep Island, but after you've installed it you don't need to keep a disk in the drive. You don't need Uru:CC to install and run UAM Shard, which is entirely download based. There has been some controversy over this in the past, (viewtopic.php?f=10&t=6807&hilit=uam+shard), but I look to Cyan to tell us if they think that there is a problem with the way non-commercial individuals and organizations use their open-source product. As far as I can tell, Cyan World's fans are more loyal and supportive of their source company than Trekkers/Trekkies are of CBS-Paramount.

I want to feature Fan Developments, both in Fan Ages and in crossover developments like The Open Cave's City of Dimensions. The more diversity I can feature, the better, as far as I'm concerned.

I understand having a preference for stand-alone content, but I don't know what it would take to make City of Dimensions or the Gahreesen Wall playable solo, (not that it's completely playable in Uru:DI; it doesn't seem to be quite there yet). Most Fan Ages are available through the Uru Age Manager to play solo in Drizzle, even if they didn't start out that way. I wish that Laki'anay/Argosy/Giloto/Cholanay were ready for MOULa, but they are not for multiple reasons.

How active is Dev's' Hood? Zeke never really got it off the ground. Was this because time zone differences kept people from meeting for group activities? Was it because his vision of the Hood was too narrow? Was it because he didn't advertise it and promote it adequately? I don't have those answers. He is, unfortunately, not available for comment. I didn't name it, nor create it, nor did I even come up with this new vision for it until I was asked politely to take it over by someone who was less suited to it than I am.

I only got the related forum postings up in the last week or so. As I asked on Friday, "How long should I hang on to something like this without substantial feedback before I abandon the effort?" And I asked because I really don't know. Everything has to start somewhere, and the Post-Zeke version of this Hood is just starting out now, thus I cannot attribute relevance to the present level of activity or lack thereof. I believe in allowing things to advance based on their own merits, and in my opinion GoW hood is very likely not fulfilling its potential, based on its merits, because it doesn't have the in-game personal support that such fulfillment would require. If I were trying to join GoW Hood, how long would I have to wait for somebody to respond to my KI Mail and get me in?

GoW may look like the defacto center of content creation to those who are it it, but I think that the New Uru Content Project group that produced the Laki'anay-series Ages from 2012 to last April has effectively shown that things can be done in secret and brought forth when they are ready, and that they will take you all by surprise. I hope that there will be more such projects. I have no idea how many are in the works right now, nor who is doing them. I hope that they will be worthy of you, and of Cyan.

Theo1728 wrote:I believe in allowing things to advance based on their own merits, and in my opinion GoW hood is very likely not fulfilling its potential, based on its merits, because it doesn't have the in-game personal support that such fulfillment would require. If I were trying to join GoW Hood, how long would I have to wait for somebody to respond to my KI Mail and get me in?

You have to remember that, like Tweek, a lot of us usually just stop into MOULa on the rarest of occasions these days as we generally work in the background. I can guarantee Hoikas isn't checking his MOULa KI mail regularly or even semi-regularly. Best to send him a PM either on the MOUL forums or here on these forums to get a much more timely response (Real LIfe (tm) permitting, of course).

As for the Developers' Hood, I did try to stop in once back when it first started and Zeke had loosely set up a time for people to meet...but nobody showed up, including Zeke. Plus, IIRC, he had a stipulation of needing to join an avvie to the hood, which probably soured people who were happy with their current hood and/or weren't keen on creating yet another new avvie to join to yet another hood. A simple KI invite or keeping the hood bumped in the Nexus would suffice.

In my opinion, us droning on via text or voice chat in-game doesn't really help many people and will most likely bore them to death. The best course of action would be to point them to the materials found at this site and elsewhere to get started on Age-building and Python programming, then offer tips and tricks as they get stuck on certain things...pretty much all things that would not be conducive in a MOULa hood chat, IMHO.