Sirius wrote:Agreed. DiRT was made in the weird era where "tank" steering was the norm. Controllers eventually brought more natural third-person steering where the avatar runs in the direction you're pushing the joystick, which is much better.
Fixed camera angles kinda went out of fashion in more recent games though...
I suppose what could be considered a good arrangement is have the option to use the fixed camera angles that are effective in that they show the age as the developers intended for them to be seen, and an option to have 360 degree-controlled third person camera.
Off-topic from what we've usually talking about, but I watched a recent video with Rand or maybe Robyn in which they discussed the design process for Myst, and I think they had said they had designed the ages and puzzles by having DnD style sessions where they would take players through the areas and would refine the design from those experiences. I wonder whether Uru had a similar design process? I also wonder whether this is actually a good way of designing a multiplayer adventure game?
Uru is still a fantastic concept for a videogame mmo, the idea of persistently developing world, affected by player actions (where they simply involve themselves in the story and push its direction rather than through quest completing or leveling up) is very arresting. But it always seemed that having large-capacity servers always spoiled this, many players were spectators rather than participants in what would be for them, a very pretty chat room. Having a large amount of small-capacity servers would be a better way of involving players and could tie in with what we already know about Myst-lore, the idea that each age is just another branch of the Great Tree of Possibility and that there may be many D'ni's on which different responses are taken by players when confronted with a storyline development.