URU Survey

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Re: URU Survey

Postby Christian Walther » Thu Nov 07, 2019 11:52 am

Chacal wrote:I suspect some respondents are no longer creating content.
When they were, they used Blender 2.49.

Yes. I’m one of those. Nowadays I would of course use Korman.

Korovev wrote:I’m not the one who voted “all of them, at some point” for the macOS wrapper question :lol:

That was me… because I didn’t remember which one I used last and was too lazy to do the archaeology. :) Recently I have mostly used Windows because the PC was standing around anyway and it has a higher-resolution screen – but macOS support is still more important to me than Windows support.
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Re: URU Survey

Postby Sirius » Thu Nov 07, 2019 12:57 pm

Korovev wrote:I meant to propose explore-an-age events for a while, but never did, mainly because I can’t think of a way of doing that without the pirate shard devotees trying to steal the show.

Even without the pirate shard problem, it would be hard to organize anyway given the low amount of people playing at the same time, versus the number of fan Ages available. IMHO you'd need some kind of website where you could vote for an Age and appropriate time for exploration if you want to have at least three players.

Aloys wrote:IC Roleplay would be great; but to a certain extent this is also tied to content. It's hard to be IC when there's nothing new to talk about..

Actually, I wasn't playing Uru when roleplay was still a thing, and Uru has always been a very static world to me. So I'm not really sure what people think about when they talk of roleplay... :?
My confusion might also be because Uru's setting makes it very easy to blur the line between "in cavern"/"in game", the DRC/Cyan, the IC and OOC Guild of Writers, etc... I dunno how to explain it, but it feels like there isn't much to roleplay about when everything happens both IRL and in-game.
Gameplay-related roleplay (as in having people assume different roles in order to solve puzzles) would be pretty neat though.

Aloys wrote:Which is why I find it so important that fan Ages stay very close to the Uru canon. Else why bother with Uru at all? We could create maps for any random game.

Funny, I think I ranked canonicity the lowest - I dislike when people reuse or repurpose the existing story too much... With that said, the D'ni lore and Linking Books are a great basis, so in a way I fully agree with what you say.

Deledrius wrote:Or even just a usable chat. The KI needs a complete overhaul. It was designed before a lot of UI was standardized.

Er, at least it sortof works. I feel like MMOs always have unreadable clusterfuck'ed interfaces anyway. But yeah, things like the lack of scrollbars and customization is a huge problem.
Anyway, having the WHOLE darn thing controlled by a single Python script exceeding 10,000 lines clearly explains the rigidity and overall buggyness of the thing.


Oh, and back to the topic of Korman... While PyPRP made me ragequit from Age building, Korman really makes me want to try again ! I have a bit more time for myself these days and need a break from programming, so I think I'll return to doing stuff in Blender and see how it turns out.
(I feel like I learned a lot about design in the past years from various sources. So maybe I'll manage actually finishing an Age this time :lol: IF I can finally get Blender to produce decent bounced light without it going completely overboard. That part of Blender's old renderer drives me nuts.)
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Re: URU Survey

Postby Deledrius » Thu Nov 07, 2019 6:11 pm

Christian Walther wrote:
Chacal wrote:I suspect some respondents are no longer creating content.
When they were, they used Blender 2.49.

Yes. I’m one of those. Nowadays I would of course use Korman.

Korovev wrote:I’m not the one who voted “all of them, at some point” for the macOS wrapper question :lol:

That was me… because I didn’t remember which one I used last and was too lazy to do the archaeology. :) Recently I have mostly used Windows because the PC was standing around anyway and it has a higher-resolution screen – but macOS support is still more important to me than Windows support.

I don't suppose you have the time or interest in helping us smoke out a problem preventing a macOS release for Korman, do you? I suspect it's a linkage incompatibility between what Blender is built against versus my system, because if I build a complete Blender from source it all works.

Sirius wrote:Oh, and back to the topic of Korman... While PyPRP made me ragequit from Age building, Korman really makes me want to try again ! I have a bit more time for myself these days and need a break from programming, so I think I'll return to doing stuff in Blender and see how it turns out.
(I feel like I learned a lot about design in the past years from various sources. So maybe I'll manage actually finishing an Age this time :lol: IF I can finally get Blender to produce decent bounced light without it going completely overboard. That part of Blender's old renderer drives me nuts.)

That's great! If you feel like helping out with the lighting aspects (or anything else, of course), we welcome the input.
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Re: URU Survey

Postby Christian Walther » Fri Nov 08, 2019 3:02 am

Deledrius wrote:I don't suppose you have the time or interest in helping us smoke out a problem preventing a macOS release for Korman, do you? I suspect it's a linkage incompatibility between what Blender is built against versus my system, because if I build a complete Blender from source it all works.

Time is more of an issue than interest – but I’m on vacation next week, so maybe? I’ll see what I can do. But no promises.
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Re: URU Survey

Postby Albanvs » Fri Nov 08, 2019 3:35 am

Its always puzzled me why Uru didn't become bigger. It has everything going for it in a lot of ways. A mysterious race of people able to write ages seemed to me at the time..and still does, an open book. IMO it was ahead of it's time but maybe limited by the technology of the time. Was it too intellectual for a larger player base?
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Re: URU Survey

Postby Sirius » Fri Nov 08, 2019 7:45 am

Deledrius wrote:That's great! If you feel like helping out with the lighting aspects (or anything else, of course), we welcome the input.

Will do ! :) I'll also see if I can write a few guides or provide a few samples of what I do (well, I keep saying this and end up doing nothing, but I hope I manage to change that... eventually :? )

Albanvs wrote:Its always puzzled me why Uru didn't become bigger. It has everything going for it in a lot of ways. A mysterious race of people able to write ages seemed to me at the time..and still does, an open book. IMO it was ahead of it's time but maybe limited by the technology of the time. Was it too intellectual for a larger player base?

Yes, but I think it's a combination of a lot of things... Really a lot. Like, Uru was a much-too-ambitious project, coming at a time when exploration games were on the decline, using realtime 3D which was not appreciated by lots of people; Cyan failed to handle correctly a few things (mostly communication with their community), the game lacked a "grind loop" to keep people entertained, multiplayer puzzles were not really good, events were live performances which most people missed, etc. You get the idea.
The world of Myst itself, its lore and the linking mechanisms are still incredible and full of potential though (on top of being really stylish IMHO).
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Re: URU Survey

Postby Deledrius » Fri Nov 08, 2019 11:37 am

Christian Walther wrote:
Deledrius wrote:I don't suppose you have the time or interest in helping us smoke out a problem preventing a macOS release for Korman, do you? I suspect it's a linkage incompatibility between what Blender is built against versus my system, because if I build a complete Blender from source it all works.

Time is more of an issue than interest – but I’m on vacation next week, so maybe? I’ll see what I can do. But no promises.

Understood. If you can, it will be deeply appreciated. :)

Albanvs wrote:Its always puzzled me why Uru didn't become bigger. It has everything going for it in a lot of ways. A mysterious race of people able to write ages seemed to me at the time..and still does, an open book. IMO it was ahead of it's time but maybe limited by the technology of the time. Was it too intellectual for a larger player base?

Getting dropped and canceled by the publisher in the month following the retail release of the game was probably the single biggest cause of Uru's failure. We'll never know what it could have been if Ubisoft hadn't decided to drop all of its MMO projects. All of the other considerations are hard to weigh when for most people it was already a dead game before they even saw it in stores.
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Re: URU Survey

Postby Aloys » Fri Nov 08, 2019 1:21 pm

Albanvs wrote:Its always puzzled me why Uru didn't become bigger.

At this point, I think somebody should open a whole new forum called Why Did Uru Fail, where we could centralize all the discussions about it. :lol: I could write a couple pages myself.
But basically yeah, lots of things.
(actually we should call the forum "Why The Fail, Uru?" or 'WTF Uru' for short)

Sirius wrote:I'm not really sure what people think about when they talk of roleplay... :?

Back in the early "Prologue" days (before Ubi killed the darn thing) there was a lot of story going on, new content released every couple weeks, and various live events every week or so with DRC characters which players would interact with. And all that was enough to RP the fact that D'ni was real (yes I just used RP as a verb), and we were not playing a game but we were real explorers called to the Cavern and interacting with the DRC, and the Bahro and whatnot. It happened again a couple years later when Uru was picked up by GameTap, but my memory is fuzzy here. After that, no more new content, no more ongoing story, it became harder.
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Re: URU Survey

Postby Albanvs » Tue Nov 12, 2019 1:08 am

There has been some really good discussion here and mirrors a lot of what I've felt all along. Over the weekend I was in the cavern where there was discussion about this subject. Again, very good discussion and a lot to chew on. I've often wondered about what if Uru had been developed much like Skyrim in terms of a larger world...less restrictive in the areas where you can take your character and the ability to interact with objects; personal inventory and a place to stay. And because Skyrim has a tool kit there's an ability to customize and keep the aesthetic. Some might say that Uru isn't that type of game, I will agree but add that it doesn't mean that it can't be set in a larger setting and more interactivity. I spend the majority of my time in the cavern and other ages looking at how things were meshed and textured and put together. Looking around I think, "this is brilliant and too cool to not be taken to the nth degree."
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Re: URU Survey

Postby Sirius » Tue Nov 12, 2019 4:59 am

Aloys wrote:...or 'WTF Uru' for short

:lol:

Albanvs wrote:Some might say that Uru isn't that type of game

Well, in my opinion, you can't make Uru a much better game or more viable MMO without drastic changes on the fundamental level anyway. That doesn't mean that a different Uru would be worse though - but it might not fit everyone.

I agree, I think Uru would benefit from a huge open-world hub on top of the puzzle-dedicated Ages. D'ni would be a good example, assuming you could visit varied districts and many caverns. That, and more collectibles like tools to interact with the environment, and items to customize your character.
Well, I'm sure Cyan would have gone this way, if it wasn't so technically challenging at the time...
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