Community Nexus

[kaelisebonrai]

made some improvements to the nib, etc, still no book holder...

[nathan2055]

and stopping people from using the relto stuff is the worst idea in this thread

Calm down. It would only block access to reward Ages (any Ages a user of the WNexus pedestal wants users to register their KI to use). After all, allowing anyone that knows how to locate file names to enter reward Ages without beating the Age is ridiculous. Besides, admins can still use /link to go to Ages.

Well, all the Cyan locations currently found in Nexus are public, aren't they? So what would change there, according to your suggestions, Chloe?
I can easily imagine the KI invites to appear in both Nexi. However, doing anything "properly" with the old Nexus would mean doing a complete re-write of the internal scripting. And since our Nexus is supposed to have a better GUI, it needs a different script. I am looking forward to getting a proper fan-age Nexus, and doing code work for it, but I am not really planning to do that twice

Nothing would really change, except of course removal of the Cyan age invite system. I'm not opposed to it, and if we want to keep it in the Regular nexus i'm okay with it, but personally I'd rather see the Cyan-Nexus be strictly D'ni location based, with both Cyan and Fan D'ni areas. I have issues with the D'ni Cavern being instanced at all, and that's just my pet peeve. Other than the E'rcana City Silo, there's no need to have areas of D'ni be instanced.

I don't agree with the instancing thing, but all Fan Ages should be limited to a toggle in the WNexus GUI that allows Public, Hood, or Private instances to be accessed. Cyan Ages and areas of the city should still use the KI invite system. Fan Ages that are located in the city should be in a D'ni category at the WNexus (check wiki for details).

I've been planning to add the book holder - check out the concept.... ~_~ The concept has the bookholder, and it does appear similar to the nexus screen... which I mentioned in that post, too. Its coming. =P

Remember that little thing when i posted it? "this is an early, early thing of the model" =P

And @Pavitra - I actually copied the design of one of Cyan's textures (with the nib on it, that is), but i suppose i can make it flatter.

You are doing a great job,we are well on our way to a new Community Nexus and pedestal!

Well, all the Cyan locations currently found in Nexus are public, aren't they? So what would change there, according to your suggestions, Chloe?
I can easily imagine the KI invites to appear in both Nexi. However, doing anything "properly" with the old Nexus would mean doing a complete re-write of the internal scripting. And since our Nexus is supposed to have a better GUI, it needs a different script. I am looking forward to getting a proper fan-age Nexus, and doing code work for it, but I am not really planning to do that twice

Nothing would really change, except of course removal of the Cyan age invite system. I'm not opposed to it, and if we want to keep it in the Regular nexus i'm okay with it, but personally I'd rather see the Cyan-Nexus be strictly D'ni location based, with both Cyan and Fan D'ni areas. I have issues with the D'ni Cavern being instanced at all, and that's just my pet peeve. Other than the E'rcana City Silo, there's no need to have areas of D'ni be instanced.

If you make a public Er'cana, you can avoid instancing the Silo too... >_>


I'm kinda against Nexus-type setups, because they feel too much like solely gameplay mechanics. The Guild of Writers wouldn't have had a mechanical Nexus with KIs, they would have had a private library to showcase Ages and probably an archival vault of Ages based on author/family rather than generic terms like "jungle" or "exploration" (How many Ages are designed solely for exploration? That sort of thing would never have been approved by the Guild of Maintainers!).

Of course, Cyan theoretically still has a ban on creating libraries; and a library is totally impractical in terms of game play.
But if we're going to go with a bad idea (Nexus), can we at least not pretend that it was used by the original Guild of Writers in the D'ni days? There are plenty of modern day explorers who understand the Lattice well enough to write a Nexus for us

Yes, but it looks like everyone has voted for Tweek in terms of story, I guess let's wait and see.

Hi guys

I need that file that makes blinder better. I cant find it any were. the one I downloaded seems busted. blinder is just as boring as when i got it! HELP!

If you mean PyPRP, the plug in to allow creation of URU Age File format Ages (the only format that works with today's URU), you can find it at the PyPRP wiki page. If you need Blender help, try the Blender wiki page. Either way, the majority of the GoW believes that the paid 3dsmax tool (with Cyan's plugin) works better than the free Blender. But, at least Blender is free!

I'm kinda against Nexus-type setups, because they feel too much like solely gameplay mechanics. The Guild of Writers wouldn't have had a mechanical Nexus with KIs, they would have had a private library to showcase Ages and probably an archival vault of Ages based on author/family rather than generic terms like "jungle" or "exploration" (How many Ages are designed solely for exploration? That sort of thing would never have been approved by the Guild of Maintainers!).

Of course, Cyan theoretically still has a ban on creating libraries; and a library is totally impractical in terms of game play.
But if we're going to go with a bad idea (Nexus), can we at least not pretend that it was used by the original Guild of Writers in the D'ni days? There are plenty of modern day explorers who understand the Lattice well enough to write a Nexus for us

Well see that's the thing, and something i mentioned to Kaelis. When I first approached this idea of the Writer's having a Nexus at all I thought about why they would. And it occured to me that, besides the Maintainers being the first to visit an age, the writers themselves must have surveyed it as well after the initial link, for any flaws in the age before it ever passed into public areas where people could get at it. So what I thought was that a Nexus would better suit this than a library like area that could be accessed by anyone smart enough to get into it. And then people suggested the viewer and the idea kind of flowed from that, than rather than the Nexus being used by the D'ni GoW's for archival purposes it was used by them for in part with the writing phase. Thus it would go

1. Age is Written
2. Age is linked to by Maintainers
3. Age is placed in Writers Nexus for review by GoWs
4. Age is approved and sent to libraries or archived.

Thus the viewer, the imager, and the terminal itself would all fit the idea that it wasn't so much as a way of archiving the ages for use, it was a step in the process that the Writers used to approve ages after Maintainers deemed them safe.

Having a Nexus to explore Ages would work much better than a library to get around. Reasons:

1. Players can deem an Age "Reward" by blocking access to it until a player found a WNexus pedestal.
2. Players would have to wander around a library looking at hundreds of books until they found the one they want. A Nexus can find a book in a matter of seconds.
3. It doesn't have to stick with my storyline. If everyone wants to, I'm happy to let someone else handle that.

made some improvements to the nib, etc, still no book holder...

I can't keep up with these posts! Anyway, I was thinking a more "flat" look with a sort of point at the end, like the pen in my signature logo (yes, no one on earth can describe D'ni pens, except D'ni ).

[Tweek]

1. Age is Written
2. Age is linked to by Maintainers
3. Age is placed in Writers Nexus for review by GoWs
4. Age is approved and sent to libraries or archived.

I think it would be more akin to;

1. Age is Written
2. Guild of Writers checks book for flaws
3. Age is Linked to by Maintainers if ok.
4. Age is approved and sent out.

Writers would likely check the Age again after Linking, a lot of it comes down to who or what the Age was Written for.

I could see the Writers having a Library perhaps for this kind of thing, not necessarily a Nexus though, but the Nexus idea is tooting ahead at full steam.

That sounds somewhat reasonable (meaning it's better than Jalak's explanation).

I agree the viewer idea is awesome, but I also have to ask whether Atrus was the one to discover what could be done with crystals or whether the D'ni knew that. Let's not add any more inconsistencies to canon
*waits for Guildmaster of Canon, his holy waffleness Tweek to weigh in on this*

Atrus was both behind and ahead of the D'ni in those regards I think. He was able to get sound and images from Ages not Linked to, D'ni could communicate sound and static images via the KI but from Ages they had access to.

I think his kind of technology probably wasn't something the D'ni worked with. That said, there is nothing saying that the imager has to show a "real time" image of the Age, it could be that when the Book is added to the GoW nexus, a KIimage is attached when the book is filed which is called up when people are using it.

[kaelisebonrai]

and stopping people from using the relto stuff is the worst idea in this thread

Calm down. It would only block access to reward Ages (any Ages a user of the WNexus pedestal wants users to register their KI to use). After all, allowing anyone that knows how to locate file names to enter reward Ages without beating the Age is ridiculous. Besides, admins can still use /link to go to Ages.

Err, no, it isn't ridiculous, and its a feature that should be retained

But, then again, I have no intention on using UAM KI, so I guess it won't affect me.

EDIT: current changes to the nib:

[Carl Palmner]

I am confused about one thing--why are there a few people against this idea? I've seen a couple posts where people say or imply that a Writer's Nexus is a bad idea, but I haven't seen reasons (although maybe I either missed them or they were too early in one of the threads that got merged into this one). I remember logging onto a shard a while back and there were over 70 Ages listed under "Restoration Links" in the Nexus, no way to sort them, no way to know what was what, just a big jumble of Age name after Age name after Age name--which works fine when you only have a few, but when you've got over 70--and now around 100 I guess...

The Writer's Nexus sounds like a perfect solution to me. Well-organized Age lists, separation from the original Cyan stuff, an Imager so you can see a teaser of the Age without waiting for the Nexus wheel to spin--I don't get it, how is this a bad idea?

@kaelis--that's coming along very nicely! I could try to do some textures if you want--you can see some of my stuff in My Photobucket album. If you give me a general idea of what you're after I can put a few things together for you to review.

I also agree with nathan's comments regarding reward Ages not being available to easily put into Relto. I do think people will probably hack them in anyway if they really want to, but to me there's a difference between having to hack something and having it made easy for you by the creators. Think about K'veer and Myst Island in Gametap MO:UL (or PotS, for that matter). Finishing those puzzles in Ahnonay and Er'Cana would not have been nearly as cool if we could have clicked a mouse a few times and added K'veer and Myst to our Relto's anyway.

[kaelisebonrai]

well, this thing we were talking about - if its the same one as I remember - was something you had to edit a few text files to do, so, I see no reason to remove it just because someone could add a random Age via a text config file in their uru install - that choice should be the /user's/, not the software developer's.

After all, the only person's enjoyment they're spoiling is their own - let them do what they want.

[Egon]

@kaelisebonrai - I agree with Pavitra, needs more of a flat pen design, and the book holder mentioned by Egon

Whoa?! o_0 What are You talking about? I wasn't able to express my opinion on kaelis design for WNexus station (which BTW is ok, and I have nothing against it. Waiting for final product ).

Anyway, would we need to potentially edit older Fan Ages and put in this machine?

For me that is the main reason behind putting links to other Nexus in one another. It would be nice that Fan Ages would link to WNexus instead of Nexus but it wouldn't be that necessary. And not writers who made all those 100 ages are active up today.

we need to contact Dustin and have him make it so that players can't place books in their Relto using the UAM KI plugin unless they have unlocked them.

No we don't have to do it. I would say that it's even unnecessary. If player wishes to use some "cheats" do get to "reward age" and omit all the puzzles writer have prepared for him, that his/hers will and we should have nothing against it. Remember that we do ages _for others people_ enjoyment. Not ours (maybe a little ). I'm surprised (and event little angry) that Dustin blocked some KI commands for some Fan Ages (I think those commands where something like /link, /spawn, and /flymdoe). Although I think he did it on the request of age writers, I still find that stupid.

@Egon - Where did you get the mind reading technology? I was thinking the same thing about instances.

Long time on thinking on it.

But, it is very important we instance the WNexus to one person and one person only. We don't want lines to use the Nexus do we?

Nobody said it earlier, but yeah. I also assume that WNexus will be private instance only as the regular Nexus is.

Oh, and I didn't know the Gallery was your Age, it's one of my favorites! Was that Nexus book in it supposed to be the Nexus descriptive book? If it is, then we should leave it for canon reasons and add a WNexus pedestal elsewhere.

I'm glad You like it. As for links to Neuxs or/and WNexus in Age Maps Gallery and how I will approach it: it's just to soon for me commenting on it. Once the purpose and functionality of Nexus, and WNexus will get stable (as it seams to me that it still fluctuates) I will decide that to do with Age Maps Gallery.

I have issues with the D'ni Cavern being instanced at all, and that's just my pet peeve. Other than the E'rcana City Silo, there's no need to have areas of D'ni be instanced.

Well as I understand Cyan made lot's of city location hood instanced, because they expecting that URU would be so popular that city will be always full, which would mean that people would not be able to finish some puzzles (like GZ Markers, or Kadish Tolesa) because city would be unaccessible.

Which reminds me: can Great Zero work as public location? (and by work I mean: there is nothing in python code which would prevent it?)

And I wouldn't throw away city instancing completely. There are places which do work great instances, which are Bevin's, I mean hoods
In fact I have couple of ideas for D'ni location which would work properly only if it would be hood instanced.

If you make a public Er'cana, you can avoid instancing the Silo too... >_>

And that's the thing. You can not make public Er'cana. It just wasn't design as public instance age, and hence it would not work properly as public instance age. (And by not work I mean that puzzles wasn't designed as part of public instance age).
When Cyan started to make "MMO Adventure Game" they have decisions to make. And then it come to deciding on story delivering they go with simplest (and hence for me worst option): they designed ages/game/story which would work only as part of single player adventure game, so they added concept of "private incaces" so player would be able play story of URU (as oppose to just wonder around in "already finished" places).
For better or worse, this is that we have to work with.

[nathan2055]

Whoa?! o_0 That are You talking about? I wasn't able to express my opinion on kaelis design for WNexus station (which BTW is ok, and I have nothing against it. Waiting for final product ).

Huh, do you mean you weren't the one to first suggest that? Hmm....

For me that is the main reason behind putting links to other Nexus in one another. It would be nice that Fan Ages would link to WNexus instead of Nexus but it wouldn't be that necessary. And not writers who made all those 100 ages are active up today.

Exactly. There should be a link to the WNexus in the Nexus Personal Links, and a link to the Nexus in WNexus Nexi.

No we don't have to do it. I would say that it's even unnecessary. If player wishes to use some "cheats" do get to "reward age" and omit all the puzzles writer have prepared for him, that his/hers will and we should have nothing against it. Remember that we do ages _for others people_ enjoyment. Not ours (maybe a little ).

I also agree with nathan's comments regarding reward Ages not being available to easily put into Relto. I do think people will probably hack them in anyway if they really want to, but to me there's a difference between having to hack something and having it made easy for you by the creators. Think about K'veer and Myst Island in Gametap MO:UL (or PotS, for that matter). Finishing those puzzles in Ahnonay and Er'Cana would not have been nearly as cool if we could have clicked a mouse a few times and added K'veer and Myst to our Relto's anyway.

Now that I think about it, most shards don't support UAM KI yet. But, I think disabling that is a very good idea.

I'm glad You like it. As for links to Neuxs or/and WNexus in Age Maps Gallery and how I will approach it: it's just to soon for me commenting on it. Once the purpose and functionality of Nexus, and WNexus will get stable (as it seams to me that it still fluctuates) I will decide that to do with Age Maps Gallery.

Yes, support for this won't and shouldn't come out right away. Once it's written in stone what's going to happen here, then we can think about that.

Well as I understand Cyan made lot's of city location hood instanced, because they expecting that URU would be so popular that city will be always full, which would mean that people would not be able to finish some puzzles (like GZ Markers, or Kadish Tolesa) because city would be unaccessible.

Which reminds me: can Great Zero work as public location? (and by work I mean: there is nothing in python code which would prevent it?)

And I wouldn't throw away city instancing completely. There are places which do work great instances, which are Bevin's, I mean hoods
In fact I have couple of ideas for D'ni location which would work properly only if it would be hood instanced.

Exactly! Sometimes people also want to dodge other players (and the lag caused by them) and just finish puzzles their working on.

And that's the thing. You can not make public Er'cana. It just wasn't design as public instance age, and hence it would not work properly as public instance age. (And by not work I mean that puzzles wasn't designed as part of public instance age).
When Cyan started to make "MMO Adventure Game" they have decisions to make. And then it come to deciding on story delivering they go with simplest (and hence for me worst option): they designed ages/game/story which would work only as part of single player adventure game, so they added concept of "private incaces" so player would be able play story of URU (as oppose to just wonder around in "already finished" places).
For better or worse, this is that we have to work with.

Yes, unfortunately we have to remember, these are simply upgraded ports of Ages from a single-player game (TPOTS).

I am confused about one thing--why are there a few people against this idea? I've seen a couple posts where people say or imply that a Writer's Nexus is a bad idea, but I haven't seen reasons (although maybe I either missed them or they were too early in one of the threads that got merged into this one). I remember logging onto a shard a while back and there were over 70 Ages listed under "Restoration Links" in the Nexus, no way to sort them, no way to know what was what, just a big jumble of Age name after Age name after Age name--which works fine when you only have a few, but when you've got over 70--and now around 100 I guess...

The Writer's Nexus sounds like a perfect solution to me. Well-organized Age lists, separation from the original Cyan stuff, an Imager so you can see a teaser of the Age without waiting for the Nexus wheel to spin--I don't get it, how is this a bad idea?

I know. A library Age would just make people more confused than the current list (not to mention they are currently banned by Cyan [except for an extra feature for an Age that is not going to focus on books, like my Age (see signature)]). Though Tweek, Paradox, and Chloe have good points, you have to remember, we are making this so players can get around easier, not so we can show off descriptive books.

@kaelis--that's coming along very nicely! I could try to do some textures if you want--you can see some of my stuff in My Photobucket album. If you give me a general idea of what you're after I can put a few things together for you to review.

Yes, I really like it! When it comes time to texture it, we should try to use Chloe's book machine textures to make the pedestal look like the style of the WNexus. I can't wait to see it when the pen and book holder sections are finished!

Atrus was both behind and ahead of the D'ni in those regards I think. He was able to get sound and images from Ages not Linked to, D'ni could communicate sound and static images via the KI but from Ages they had access to.

I think his kind of technology probably wasn't something the D'ni worked with. That said, there is nothing saying that the imager has to show a "real time" image of the Age, it could be that when the Book is added to the GoW nexus, a KIimage is attached when the book is filed which is called up when people are using it.

You have to remember, the KI was only in use by the GoMa at the time of the fall, so you can't really decide that.
I think we should use KI pictures taken by the GoMa during final inspections for pictures.

[Tweek]

I think his kind of technology probably wasn't something the D'ni worked with. That said, there is nothing saying that the imager has to show a "real time" image of the Age, it could be that when the Book is added to the GoW nexus, a KIimage is attached when the book is filed which is called up when people are using it.

You have to remember, the KI was only in use by the GoMa at the time of the fall, so you can't really decide that.
I think we should use KI pictures taken by the GoMa during final inspections for pictures.

Almost it wasn't the KI had limited release, the GoMa were using it as were certain D'ni elite. Large scale public use had not been implemented (sometimes I wonder if it ever would, I could see the KI being expensive depending on how they were transferred to the public, but that's another thought entirely).

Anyway I wasn't deciding anything, note the use of the words "probably", we have no definite answer for these things, the best I can do is look at what has been established, combine it with how the D'ni thought and how they shaped their culture to see if that would be something they would likely do or not, reading the lore and understanding it aren't always the same thing

[Paradox]

You have to remember, the KI was only in use by the GoMa at the time of the fall, so you can't really decide that.
I think we should use KI pictures taken by the GoMa during final inspections for pictures.

I still think it's best to assume that this Writers Nexus was written by a modern day explorer, rather than used by the original guilds. So whether the KI was in use at the time of the fall is irrelevant, because everyone has a KI today.

If we need this as a gameplay mechanic (which we largely do), at least make it a modern one and don't pollute the D'ni history with it (*cough*KIs*cough*Nexus*cough*Great Zero*cough*)