Rand's visit and news for Age Creators

[Zardoz]

Apologies for further depressing you, Aloys, but I think it is telling that Cyan's latest outreach to the community was to allow a small set of fanz access to the MOULagain server to drum up IC chatter prior to the MOULagain launch. You can tell who many of them are by perusing the KI list in this MOUL forum post - look for the four digit KI numbers. And so Cyan is apparently not shy about reaching out to the community, just not this one - which seems absurd because that part of the community that is good at IC chatter seems the least important to open-source's chances of long run success.

[Aloys]

At least the IC launch teasing was fun.. And you got your pony!
It's definitely interesting that they managed to trust us about that and it happened pretty easily, yet the OSuru project doesn't seem to benefit from the same attitude.. It's not like one community has been more active than the other.. I'm not sure where the roadblock is. I fear that they are clinging to the only thing they have control on; but it's definitely not in their interest.

[Tsar Hoikas]

Apologies for further depressing you, Aloys, but I think it is telling that Cyan's latest outreach to the community was to allow a small set of fanz access to the MOULagain server to drum up IC chatter prior to the MOULagain launch. You can tell who many of them are by perusing the KI list in this MOUL forum post - look for the four digit KI numbers. And so Cyan is apparently not shy about reaching out to the community, just not this one - which seems absurd because that part of the community that is good at IC chatter seems the least important to open-source's chances of long run success.

I'd put my money on this just being Cyan showing again who their favorites are.

[GPNMilano]

Now MOUL starts again, but that's not what was expected or even needed, and that's aggravating and demotivating to me.

First I don't see how this wasn't expected. Rand in just about every communication he's had with the media, and with the community told us that they wanted to start their own server first to bring the community together. And that after that they would open-source, but sort of be the keeper of it. I'm paraphrasing but really that's pretty much what he's been saying right along. What people selectively hear should not be blamed on the speaker but those listening to the words.

I do understand that MOUL is supposed to be a first step toward the eventual release of the codebase, but we're not getting actual news regarding that. We've offered our help several times, and haven't really heard any concerte reply (positive or negative) other than 'hear hear'. Maybe I'm just running out of energy. We're taking baby steps, at best, when we don't really see any real obstacles to progression. Cyan keep mentionning that they need to plug out 3rd party code and replace it or document the missing parts, if that's the only obstacle that's something we can take care of, we have told them, they won't answer.

Answer me this. How on earth do you plan on pulling out 3d party code from a plugin, when you yourself are not liscensed to see that 3d party code? I really would like to know the answer to this as this is the exact reason why the GoW and anyone else whose not employeed by Cyan, can't pull out said code. You can't pull out something you're not allowed to see in the first place. Hence why Cyan must do this.

[D'nial]

I see some great irony here... Cyan wants to put fan Ages on their MOUL server before releasing any source.

None of our Ages are compatible with MOUL.
None of our plugins are compatible with MOUL until Cyan releases theirs, or Blender 2.6 is released and PyPRP gets a major rewrite.

It's a perfect Catch-22 situation.

I don't see anything that suggests that.

[D'nial]

I do understand that MOUL is supposed to be a first step toward the eventual release of the codebase, but we're not getting actual news regarding that. We've offered our help several times, and haven't really heard any concerte reply (positive or negative) other than 'hear hear'. Maybe I'm just running out of energy. We're taking baby steps, at best, when we don't really see any real obstacles to progression. Cyan keep mentionning that they need to plug out 3rd party code and replace it or document the missing parts, if that's the only obstacle that's something we can take care of, we have told them, they won't answer.

Answer me this. How on earth do you plan on pulling out 3d party code from a plugin, when you yourself are not liscensed to see that 3d party code? I really would like to know the answer to this as this is the exact reason why the GoW and anyone else whose not employeed by Cyan, can't pull out said code. You can't pull out something you're not allowed to see in the first place. Hence why Cyan must do this.

As I understand it, pulling out the code is the easy part. Filling it in with new code is the hard part. Cyan does the easy part and we take over for the hard part. We don't see any code that we're not allowed to.

[ddb174]

Now MOUL starts again, but that's not what was expected or even needed, and that's aggravating and demotivating to me.

First I don't see how this wasn't expected. Rand in just about every communication he's had with the media, and with the community told us that they wanted to start their own server first to bring the community together. And that after that they would open-source, but sort of be the keeper of it. I'm paraphrasing but really that's pretty much what he's been saying right along. What people selectively hear should not be blamed on the speaker but those listening to the words.

They haven't been saying this all along, this was more recent. Indeed, at the time, several people pointed out that this might be backpeddling: opening a server to keep people happy, and keep people from complaining about open-source. After all, most mystonline.com users could care less about open-source so long as they have a shard to play on.

I do understand that MOUL is supposed to be a first step toward the eventual release of the codebase, but we're not getting actual news regarding that. We've offered our help several times, and haven't really heard any concerte reply (positive or negative) other than 'hear hear'. Maybe I'm just running out of energy. We're taking baby steps, at best, when we don't really see any real obstacles to progression. Cyan keep mentionning that they need to plug out 3rd party code and replace it or document the missing parts, if that's the only obstacle that's something we can take care of, we have told them, they won't answer.

Answer me this. How on earth do you plan on pulling out 3d party code from a plugin, when you yourself are not liscensed to see that 3d party code? I really would like to know the answer to this as this is the exact reason why the GoW and anyone else whose not employeed by Cyan, can't pull out said code. You can't pull out something you're not allowed to see in the first place. Hence why Cyan must do this.

It's actually pretty straightforward: Cyan simply hires them as (very-low-paid ;) contractors. It's been done before.

[GPNMilano]

They haven't been saying this all along, this was more recent. Indeed, at the time, several people pointed out that this might be backpeddling: opening a server to keep people happy, and keep people from complaining about open-source. After all, most mystonline.com users could care less about open-source so long as they have a shard to play on.

When MORE was announced in 2008:

+ MORE servers will be restarted. These will be run by Cyan and run on machines that are either owned or leased by Cyan. The software and game assets will be as it was when Myst Online was shutdown on the GameTap servers. However, all the accounts and avatars from the GameTap servers will not be available and will have to be re-created.

Then the open source announcement made it clear that a data server would be set up and run by Cyan to feed content to users.

THEN at Mysterium 2009 he once again made it clear that he wants to set up a centralized server that would be for official story run by Cyan, AS well as open-source. That they would be steer the ship so to speak, but still have open-source.

Then again at the end of 2009, Rand addressed the fans and let them know the plans were to set up a server before anything else.

Since GameTap shut this thing down Cyan has continually said they wanted a server run by them alone to be around. Open-Source would go along with it, but their server would be for any official story and content. People need to really pay attention to what is actually being said, and not only what they want to hear be said.

It's actually pretty straightforward: Cyan simply hires them as (very-low-paid contractors. It's been done before.

LOL Let me understand the logic in this. You want Cyan, to hire fans (With money they're getting from donations by said fans) to pull out code from a plugin/client so that they can then open source said code, and give it to the fans that are pulling out the code? Is that about right?

EDIT: Sorry Dustin. Love ya, but sometimes your logic fails on me at a fundamental level.

[Paradox]

amonre and Tweek are doing most of Cyan's website work as "interns"... as volunteers. But somehow I don't see this happening with regards to code.

[ddb174]

MORE was the Myst Online: Restoration Experiment, and has long since died. (Though I know many fans would call whatever MORE, including fan-ran shards if the open-sourcing had happened.) A data server is not a shard. And the Mysterium 2009 announcement was what I was referring to, when some people thought it sounded like back-peddling.

"Hiring" is just a legal formality; it is not to say that they receive anything beyond an honorarium. It's not about giving the developers money, it's about bringing them aboard the company so that they can be given 3rd party code. Really, it's not a out-of-the-ordinary thing at all, and I've been involved with organizations that do this sort of thing. (Please note that I'm not saying whether Cyan should do this or not, simply that it would be easy for them to do it if they wanted to.)