Uru improvements

Anything that isn't directly related to Age Creation but that might be interesting to Age developers.

Uru improvements

Postby Dni_seeker 5 » Tue May 10, 2022 5:13 pm

While playing MOULa, I have discovered that there are a few improvements to me made. For starters, even though the players are supposed to help with the restoration of D'ni, I noticed that the Bahro pillars' return (ABM) and the Er'cana pellets being dropped into the lake (POTS) are not actually doing anything. Neither does anything else we explorers do. And also, I went to the Descent and (whoopie!) there was no Direbo book on the pedestal, so putting something there would be welcome. And then, of course, there's the Cleft. I can't actually get through the fence to the mountain, which would be the start of the Great Shaft journey, which would be a good journey. But perhaps the best improvement of all would be Myst. In the original POTS, at least I could get to do something in the fireplace. But the problem is that in MOULa, we can't even do that. And that really stinks because other than that, there is literally nothing on Myst except a few trinkets that I don't really care about anyway. Plus, there's something else that bothers me, and that's the tree in the Watcher's Pub. In the original POTS, there was a path to get there. But not in MOULa. Seriously, are we downgrading POTS in this version of Uru? And another thing is the Kadish Age. There is a note in the Kadish Age that contains a clue to the Myst fireplace. Only we can't actually use the code when there's no fireplace! Anyway, if you could get a way into the mountain, preferably a hole in the fence (I think doing this in the Rainy Cleft and then using a Minkata Linking Stone would be good) and go on the journey with the Great Shaft and Direbo, let us explore more of Myst, and let us actually affect the restoration, that would be great. And, uh, I hope you writers know what to do with my advice!
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Re: Uru improvements

Postby Théodore » Wed May 11, 2022 8:17 pm

The problem is that MOULa is not the same as URU:CC. They are 2 different games. MOULa was not even originally intended. It came to life in January 2010 after a hiatus of almost 2 years after the closure of MOUL. The "a" stands for again. Cyan just put back the game server as it was in early 2008 without any improvement. In fact, most of the old folks from back in MOUL days said to us new comers in 2010 and the likes that MOULa was a big downgrade from MOUL. It took 2 full years to complete the fireworks because Minkata sparkly was not working for example.

The whole URU adventure has been one of those were the dreams and expectations of the original creators have never been fullfilled. URU:CC is a result of downgrading the original URU Online to an offline product. MOULa is a result of downgrading the newer MOUL to a static version. Nowadays, fans have took the control of MOULa new content but the game servers are under Cyan's control and the newer stuff is coming very slowly and has to comply with a certain standard. In the past year and a half, a lot of new development has been brought to MOULa with many new ages added.

As for jumping through the volcano in the cleft, it would be great but for now if you jump there, you will panic link to your relto as soon as you hit the panic link zone. Beyond the fences surrounding the volcano summit, there's nothing physical. You can always visit the Deep Island Shard which use as foundation URU:CC engine on which MOULa has been added as well as Myst 5 EOA. It has to be noted that you must own both URU:CC and Myst 5 EOA to be able to play on Deep Island (in fact just URU:CC) but for you to journey down the great shaft, you would require Myst 5 EOA. You can find all the pertinent information to set up a Deep Island account and how to import Myst 5 EOA here on this forum board/wiki.

You can go read the Guild of Messengers forum board where in the "News" section, there is a talk about fans trying to import Myst 5 EOA into MOULa. The main issue is that Myst 5 EOA is not free of copyright. Cyan doesn't own 100% of all the copyrights of that game.

As for the Great Tree Pub, they were not "there yet" in their storyline when MOUL closed in 2008. MOULa is just built on what was there. Possibly, they would have opened the way to the Great Tree in a uncertain future "episode" as they called their new content release and we would be able to go there today. The path to the Great Tree is there, the bridge is solid, but even if you manage to get to the Great Tree, there is nothing there, no spiral, no clue, no linking to the old K'veer.

You can visit all of what you stated (except the pellets) on Deep Island Shard or even offline if you follow the instructions how to set up a "drizzle" version of URU:CC with all the improvements and added features there is. All of which can be found on this forum board/wiki.
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Re: Uru improvements

Postby Dni_seeker 5 » Thu May 12, 2022 5:23 pm

Théodore wrote:The problem is that MOULa is not the same as URU:CC. They are 2 different games. MOULa was not even originally intended. It came to life in January 2010 after a hiatus of almost 2 years after the closure of MOUL. The "a" stands for again. Cyan just put back the game server as it was in early 2008 without any improvement. In fact, most of the old folks from back in MOUL days said to us new comers in 2010 and the likes that MOULa was a big downgrade from MOUL. It took 2 full years to complete the fireworks because Minkata sparkly was not working for example.

The whole URU adventure has been one of those were the dreams and expectations of the original creators have never been fulfilled. URU:CC is a result of downgrading the original URU Online to an offline product. MOULa is a result of downgrading the newer MOUL to a static version. Nowadays, fans have took the control of MOULa new content but the game servers are under Cyan's control and the newer stuff is coming very slowly and has to comply with a certain standard. In the past year and a half, a lot of new development has been brought to MOULa with many new ages added.

As for jumping through the volcano in the cleft, it would be great but for now if you jump there, you will panic link to your relto as soon as you hit the panic link zone. Beyond the fences surrounding the volcano summit, there's nothing physical. You can always visit the Deep Island Shard which use as foundation URU:CC engine on which MOULa has been added as well as Myst 5 EOA. It has to be noted that you must own both URU:CC and Myst 5 EOA to be able to play on Deep Island (in fact just URU:CC) but for you to journey down the great shaft, you would require Myst 5 EOA. You can find all the pertinent information to set up a Deep Island account and how to import Myst 5 EOA here on this forum board/wiki.

You can go read the Guild of Messengers forum board where in the "News" section, there is a talk about fans trying to import Myst 5 EOA into MOULa. The main issue is that Myst 5 EOA is not free of copyright. Cyan doesn't own 100% of all the copyrights of that game.

As for the Great Tree Pub, they were not "there yet" in their storyline when MOUL closed in 2008. MOULa is just built on what was there. Possibly, they would have opened the way to the Great Tree in a uncertain future "episode" as they called their new content release and we would be able to go there today. The path to the Great Tree is there, the bridge is solid, but even if you manage to get to the Great Tree, there is nothing there, no spiral, no clue, no linking to the old K'veer.

You can visit all of what you stated (except the pellets) on Deep Island Shard or even offline if you follow the instructions how to set up a "drizzle" version of URU:CC with all the improvements and added features there is. All of which can be found on this forum board/wiki.


I don't think that MOULa and URU:CC being different games has anything to do with my situation. I think all of these problems could be solved by extending the POTS and ABM journeys. But one thing I have to point out is that you're right about the Myst 5 Ages not being free of copyright. Ubisoft is not being nice to us if they are refusing to allow us to add the Myst 5 Ages, especially with the cleft being right there and it's just so darn tantalizingly close! And as for the Great Tree, I myself have never been there in MOULa thanks to a problem with Mir-o-Bot's magic. And I haven't jumped over the cleft fence, either. And also, I notice that what you said about copyright might also apply to the pillars, thanks to something my friend Tiki told me. He said that my suggestions were either being worked on right now or they are forbidden. And I also noticed that you didn't say anything about Myst Island. I mean, why would you if Myst is so small that one would probably just overlook it? And if the clue in the other Kadish Tolesa is nothing, then why does it even exist? Is it some kind of red herring or is it a clue to an upcoming puzzle that hasn't been made yet? Myst Island is the most disappointing Age in the game. And I will repeat: MOULa's POTS is a downgrade of offline POTS. If there was a way to get into a special Age from Myst or the Tree, I would definitely approve. But the Tree is locked and Myst Island is a disappointment. And I can't believe that the in-game actions of the players do nothing for the restoration. I don't want all our hard work to be for nothing.
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Re: Uru improvements

Postby CalumTraveler » Thu May 19, 2022 6:47 pm

Dni_seeker 5 wrote:While playing MOULa, I have discovered that there are a few improvements to me made. For starters, even though the players are supposed to help with the restoration of D'ni, I noticed that the Bahro pillars' return (ABM) and the Er'cana pellets being dropped into the lake (POTS) are not actually doing anything. Neither does anything else we explorers do. And also, I went to the Descent and (whoopie!) there was no Direbo book on the pedestal, so putting something there would be welcome. And then, of course, there's the Cleft. I can't actually get through the fence to the mountain, which would be the start of the Great Shaft journey, which would be a good journey. But perhaps the best improvement of all would be Myst. In the original POTS, at least I could get to do something in the fireplace. But the problem is that in MOULa, we can't even do that. And that really stinks because other than that, there is literally nothing on Myst except a few trinkets that I don't really care about anyway. Plus, there's something else that bothers me, and that's the tree in the Watcher's Pub. In the original POTS, there was a path to get there. But not in MOULa. Seriously, are we downgrading POTS in this version of Uru? And another thing is the Kadish Age. There is a note in the Kadish Age that contains a clue to the Myst fireplace. Only we can't actually use the code when there's no fireplace! Anyway, if you could get a way into the mountain, preferably a hole in the fence (I think doing this in the Rainy Cleft and then using a Minkata Linking Stone would be good) and go on the journey with the Great Shaft and Direbo, let us explore more of Myst, and let us actually affect the restoration, that would be great. And, uh, I hope you writers know what to do with my advice!


Hi, DS5. :)

To continue our discussion from tonight before you had to leave:

The Pole sequence does exactly what Cyan designed it to, and as per Cyans guidelines, we're not really allowed to do much more with it as it's a Bahro story point, and we're not allowed to touch Bahro story stuff.

Pellets affecting the lake lighting is a thing that we are working on- it's just a matter of coding the implementation and we have to code it from scratch. We're hoping to have that ready in the near future. Due to some setbacks late last year, we had to delay efforts on integrating the lake lighting, and it likely would have been put in already had those setbacks not occurred. (Yes, I'm a bit sad about it too.)

Descent: It's on our to-do list, but Descent is a very big project for what we have in mind, and it will take some time to finish it and get it integrated. It's not immediately on the radar for the future.

Direbo is something we're considering, but we have to sort through the potential legal ramifications. If things work out, you may be seeing Direbo in the future.

The Watchers Pub Tree is something many folks want to have restored- but the end solution is not something we're presently able to agree on as a group in the dev circles. That said, we are making strides towards getting it all working again, and you'll see some hints towards that effort in the near future. Opening up watchers is, at this point, a matter of getting our ducks in a row and getting everyone to agree on how to open the thing up story wise, and how to implement the puzzle mechanics again, as well as what rewards are given for completing the puzzle.

Myst Fireplace is a matter of the same thing: we can restore it, but we don't have anything right now to give as a reward for solving the puzzle, as it stands.

Some options are plain off the table (Bahro/Yeesha related) regarding Watchers and Myst- and we're hoping to get those included as soon as we have a good puzzle reward for solving them.

Dni_seeker 5 wrote:
And if the clue in the other Kadish Tolesa is nothing, then why does it even exist? Is it some kind of red herring or is it a clue to an upcoming puzzle that hasn't been made yet? Myst Island is the most disappointing Age in the game. And I will repeat: MOULa's POTS is a downgrade of offline POTS. If there was a way to get into a special Age from Myst or the Tree, I would definitely approve. But the Tree is locked and Myst Island is a disappointment. And I can't believe that the in-game actions of the players do nothing for the restoration. I don't want all our hard work to be for nothing.


The puzzle clue in Kadish has been there since early 2007, long before we even had access to Myst Island in that year. It's generally been assumed that it was laid in wait for a future season 2 story arc that never manifested due to the GT cancellation in 2008. Unfortunately, we just don't know what it was intended to lead to (Cyan hasn't told us) and our best guesses lie in territory we can't pursue at the moment.

The thing to keep in mind is that URU has essentially been in a state of creative stasis for the past few years up until very recently. We are working to address issues such as 'in-game actions do not affect the game' and we are addressing things as we push forwards. new ages, new story content, and new puzzles are being added to MOULa, and we will be continuing to work on them. :)

I appreciate your enthusiasm here, DS5, and we are working on many things. Give us time, and I think you'll see that we'll be doing things that make a difference in the long term.
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Re: Uru improvements

Postby Carl Palmner » Thu May 19, 2022 7:09 pm

Regarding the Bahro Pillars--this does still have a reward. You are given
Show Spoiler


You also get
Show Spoiler


Finally, you get
Show Spoiler


These were always the rewards for completing the Journey. From a story perspective, the idea was that each explorer also freed 1 Bahro by returning the Pillars. Then we got Myst 5, and it was later revealed that the events of that game actually occurred, and Dr. Watson had returned the Tablet to the Bahro, freeing them all. In GameTap MOUL (What I refer to as the Second Uru in-game), I believe we were told that the Bahro were under two types of imprisonment: a spiritual one and a physical one. The Tablet freed them physically (I think), but returning the Pillars still frees their souls.

So actually, completing the original Journey still does everything it has always done. As with the original Myst, this doesn't end the game; you continue to have access to everything and to be able to make new discoveries. And of course, there are now new Journeys--the Team Ages, Minkata, the Pods, the Path of the Shell, and the KI calibration. Each of these comes with its own rewards. None of them has a major story "cutscene" to end them, because in the online Uru, the story was always intended to be live. In Prologue and GameTap, it was live and was run by Cyan employees. Today story is being generated by players--in small ways by individuals, in bigger ways by at least one collaborative group, and through new content every 3-4 months or so.

Regarding the Path of the Shell: Yes, this is a small downgrade, but a necessary one to make the story work for a multiplayer setting. The rewards are the same. When the new Path of the Shell was out in its entirety, what was missing was
Show Spoiler


Of these, two are now available through the efforts of fans. The other two are fairly minor, and can still be seen on Internet videos or by purchasing Uru:CC for $10 on GoG.

In a way it's also an upgrade, because
Show Spoiler


EDIT: Things to be excited about for the future:
1) a new area of Chiso is in development.
2) a new Age, Eder Naybree, with the beginning of a whole new storyline involving more new content.
3) Living Story involving the fulfillment of the Saturday Prophecies (can I call them that? :D ) more drama with the cavern's new mysterious troublemakers, the mystery of the "Benavud" character mentioned today, more interactive story-changing opportunities, and a whole lot more!
4) More Ages and places in D'ni, either in the next update or future ones.
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Re: Uru improvements

Postby Dni_seeker 5 » Sat May 21, 2022 12:28 pm

Okay, thanks for the assurance that we are going to see the Myst ruin and the Great Shaft and that the pellets will be able to light the cavern. But there's also the pellet points thing, too, which is confusing. Why are those even a thing? What do the do for the neighborhoods? And yes, the pillars do something, but what do they do? We can't observe it the way we *should* be able to observe the cavern lighting. And speaking of the Bahro, I want to point out a little bug. Mir-o-Bot, AKA Mir, can perform magic tricks and has a bunch of Bahro flying around his Kerath Arch in the city. But when I linked to the real city, the Bahro were flying around the real Arch. And since we're not allowed to do anything with the Bahro, the only possible explanation is that my experience was the result of Mir's magic. But I wasn't in his Age! So maybe you should debug it so that we don't experience any false story points. And I have a few ideas for how we can do the Great Shaft: Myst Fireplace reward, a hole in the Rainy Cleft fence leading to a Minkata linking stone, the Bahro Stone at the end of Tokotah Alley, or the Tree Spiral. But I have one other complaint I didn't mention earlier and that is that the Bahro Well does nothing. I think that maybe it should fill up with water when you use the RC Relto page. And there's also something else. There are some places, like Phil's Relto, that place in Teledahn, and the Kadish pyramid that have no apparent purpose. What are those even for? Are they just to see? Because, really, they don't do anything. I also heard about secret passages in the Chiso library, only when I went looking for them, I found nothing. Maybe those could be improved somehow. But right now, you should focus on the Myst V journey (if you can but at least the shaft), the lake lighting, and Myst Island. And please debug Mir's magic so I don't get false hope of a Bahro/Yeesha-related story.
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Re: Uru improvements

Postby Théodore » Wed May 25, 2022 10:48 am

Dni_seeker 5 wrote:And please debug Mir's magic so I don't get false hope of a Bahro/Yeesha-related story.


Cyan has nothing to do with Mir's magic bot and nothing on the server side can reverse the effect. If you read one of Mir's bot's messages that he sent you automatically the first time you become friend with the bot, it will specifically mentioned that in order to return to a pre-magic state aka normal state, you must end your session and return back to MOULa.

For example, if you go to Mir's Ae'gura then the bahros flying over the Arch will be flying. If after that you go to Ae'gura be it the public instance or any private instance of the age, you will have those bahros there as well. Basically the "magic" at work here is simply something mapped onto your gameplay. You cannot get rid of it. The same thing with his "floor" which consists of the base ground of Minkata which stands at the coordinates 0,0 on the XZ plane. If you mapped that floor in one of his magic ages, you will keep it everywhere you go even in public ages. This is why sometimes you can see people doing crazy movement in a public age where they shouldn't behave that way because they mapped onto themselves that floor. For their perspective, they are walking on water towards the arch, for every other avatar's perspective, they are perpetually falling off the screen and reappearing and so forth and so on.

When it was first introduced in 2012, they told us to never bring magic in public instances and to get rid of all mapping by quitting and returning. I guess people just forgot with time going by. So, basically, it is not Mir's bot fault here, but yours. Quit and return!
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