New Interview with Rand regarding GOW and Uru's Future

[robbieagray]

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now I know that we may have permission to do this1

Halliuh!

[GPNMilano]

Okay wow. Last night during a discussion on Uru Live about the MOUL ages being availabe on gametap or offline, the discussion veered towards age creation and the like.

Now the discussion stayed open, no one discussed the tools, or the ages. What I asked for was clarification from the mods, to why it is that the offical position, for the MOUL forums is that age creation is a hack. Now, i didn't mention tools, was actually as polite as I could be, just wanted clarification over mixed messages. Tweek commented, others did as well. The thread was closed with the mod saying that such discussion is not allowed. We we'ren't talking about the tools, or the ages, but rather about the policy itself regarding the forums. Is it just me or is that a bit much.

[Chacal]

In that particular case, it could be because you were actually discussing a moderation issue (why is it considered a hack on the MOUL forums). On most forums including MOUL, it is forbidden to discuss moderation issues in public.

It is a bad policy of course (as are all zero-tolerance policies), but it is popular on most boards because mods can't or won't monitor discussions closely enough to prevent abuse.

[GPNMilano]

Chacal, I PMed the moderator to ask why the thread was closed. The response I got was that discussion of UCC, in any form, even discussion of the policy regarding discussion of it on the forums, is prohibited.

[Tweek]

Yeah I'm not to keen on the zero tolerance policy that is in place over at MOUL but I can see why it is that way.

Think of it like this, you're Mr G Tap (or Mrs) and you're all for doing some kind of deal with Cyan to give them the MOUL content rights back, you stop by the forums to see that MOUL ages have been back ported to Uru CC. Now that can be a deal breaker and from what I can gather Cyan would rather not have things like that cause them issues for getting Uru Live to return despite the fact that they are all for Age Building.

To put it another way Cyan are saying this: "Look, we're cool with you doing this...but we're not supposed to be, so here is a dark room hidden underground in which you can continue your activities"

A while ago I was trying to think about Uru and what would be regarded as hacking and what would be classed as modding, safe to say most of it was the same (hacking and modding). I was trying to come up with a solution as to where there would be certain things classed as hacking, thus not talked about on MOUL and certain things classed as modding which could be.

Basically it comes down to this, if you talk about Uru in any way that isn't about how the game originally is (i.e., merging 2 ages together, adding new fan made ages, clothing items etc etc) then it isn't allow to be talked about yet.

[Marten]

To the mods' credit, several of them have started saying things like "A better place to discuss this is..." and they've pointed to this site. By comparison to earlier thread-closings and deletions, that's practically glasnost.

[GPNMilano]

You know, thinking about Uru's future, the UCC content, I got to thinking what it would be like if this happened.

The way I envisioned it, Cyan would, when in a better financial position to do so, release new official content continuing the story where season 1 left off. While at the same time, we would be creating the "unofficial" user created content. The guilds, as more popped up would serve in this function.

The writers would write the ages, model and programing etc.
The maintainers would beta test them. Eliminating Cyan's need for beta testers. Now members of the Maintainers guild would be the beta testers for ages.
The messangers job would be to get news out to the community via newsletters, ki messages etc.
The Greeters would continue to serve in their current capacity.

Down the road as minor guilds emerged, they too could serve actual functions in the process.
Guild of Architects could take the strain off of the writers by designing models in blender that could then be imported into new ages.
Guild of Artists could be in charge of creating the textures used by the writers to texture the ages.
Guild of Musicians could compose the music and sound effects used in the ages.

The possibilities are endless. Rather than a single guild creating ages, it would be a multi-guild cooperative effort. With the minor guilds creating the brass tacks of the ages, and the writers/maintainers using those works to sculpt ages and beta test them before handing them off to Cyan to be included into Uru.

Thoughts on this anyone.

[Nadnerb]

I'm not sure I see the point of splintering the age creation groups into smaller pieces, when the entire age building community put together isn't that large to begin with. Not to mention that nobody is actually going to adhere to their own guild's role. For instance, Andy is more of a writer than a maintainer from my point of view at this point, and if the guilds had more narrowly defined roles, those roles would end up being completely ignored.

Of course, if you're talking purely about what Cyan would have done, then we have to remember that Cyan never really seemed to have a handle on the age creation process to begin with. It also seems that their roles for the guilds were pretty simple. Of course, no one can see the future that might have been.

[andylegate]

Ah shucks!

I guess I'd better start wearin' mah tin badge, an tote my six shooter 'round then......