Guild of Writers

I also agree that at least one guild managed server would be a great benefit. There can be other servers with no restrictions, but I think that if it's possible, a guild run server could preserve the spirit of the game better. You would get people that really care about the game and its history. Anything too public is bound to be ruined by a bored hacker.

-Horatio-

Actually, I agree with you completely: that is what should happen.
But if the GoW joins a huge Guilds server and has no other, then we're stuck in a group that some people are already wanting to organize rigidly. Already there are talks of a central auth server ran by Cyan, and even *shudder* bringing back the horrendous FCALs.

I'd rather have a GoW server as a showcase of new Ages that would draw people attracted to new content rather than, say, storyline or canon.

I'm not advocating anarchy on the GoW server (I'm used to running game servers with an iron fist ) but I'm against the idea of rules coming from anyone not running the server, be it Cyan or a consortium of Guilds.

andylegate wrote:Why not Chacal?

By open sourcing this, we've been handed a way to do it....what ever the way people want to do it.

There can be shards of complete anarchy.

Or your way.

Or another way completely.

That's the beauty of it. There are so many ways that it can (and will) be done. There's nothing to stop anyone from doing just about anything they want.

Like me: I'm going to let everyone else decide what they want to do and go back to making my Ages and Tutorials....

Then I'll come back and go: "Hey, here's an Age. Who wants to test and who wants it?"

Chacal wrote:Actually, I agree with you completely: that is what should happen.
But if the GoW joins a huge Guilds server and has no other, then we're stuck in a group that some people are already wanting to organize rigidly. Already there are talks of a central auth server ran by Cyan, and even *shudder* bringing back the horrendous FCALs.

I'd rather have a GoW server as a showcase of new Ages that would draw people attracted to new content rather than, say, storyline or canon.

I'm not advocating anarchy on the GoW server (I'm used to running game servers with an iron fist ) but I'm against the idea of rules coming from anyone not running the server, be it Cyan or a consortium of Guilds.

andylegate wrote:Why not Chacal?

By open sourcing this, we've been handed a way to do it....what ever the way people want to do it.

There can be shards of complete anarchy.

Or your way.

Or another way completely.

That's the beauty of it. There are so many ways that it can (and will) be done. There's nothing to stop anyone from doing just about anything they want.

Like me: I'm going to let everyone else decide what they want to do and go back to making my Ages and Tutorials....

Then I'll come back and go: "Hey, here's an Age. Who wants to test and who wants it?"

If there isn't a seperate GOW test server of some kind, I'm leaving. Good point Chacal.

Yes, a test server too.
But mainly I dread a return to MOUL if we participate in that Guilds project.

Unfortunately I don't think there will be an inter-guild server without the GOW.

But just because we are a part of that doesn't mean we can't run other servers independently.

Trust me, I speak for experience when I say that an IC semi official bank of servers is a really good idea. If for any reason besides the fact it will keep the purists off our backs.

Ah yes, THAT is a good reason!

Anyway, anything that draws people back to Uru isn't bad, I guess. Doesn't make sense to write Ages if no one is visiting them.

At the core of this, there has to be some sort of central organizing force. The surest route to failure is to allow anarchy to take root. You'll wind up with tons of different independent projects that don't cooperate, you'll have tons of different places you would have to go to find out when new ages are released, you'll never get sufficient monetary support in one place to keep large shards afloat, you'll never get enough people working on indirect contributions that benefit the community by helping other people contribute directly (age creation tools, age or shard documentation, tutorials, etc.), and generally, confusion would reign.

A major reason why open source software projects work is because there is a central authority managing the contributions, and everyone cooperates in contributing to that central authority. Yes, OSS projects do fork occasionally, more often for political reasons than for technical ones, but forks done for the wrong reasons (including "just for the hell of it" and "I want to be in charge of this myself") tend either to fizzle out after not gaining a critical mass of support, or else hurt both the fork and the original project by splintering the community so that neither part has the resources it needs.

If there are specific things that should be avoided going forward, now is the time to bring them up so that they can be included in the topics that the central authority (Guilds, Cyan, or whoever else ends up in this role) considers, but ultimately, there has to be a central authority, or we'll be burying this game again and for the final time.

Wow! I just read the news... I too echo the mixed feelings of joy and anxiety, mainly wondering what Uru is going to become now. It was freaky that my friend, (who hates Myst and considers it boring) was reading over my shoulder and said that now that now Uru was open sourced it'll probably get turned into a shoot 'em up.
Now THAT would suck so bad. I just hope this move doesn't cause Uru to lose the very things that make it so good and unique. That said though I'm willing to do what I can to support this (although I can't do much aside from making ages )

It IS already a shoot'em up. Ask Shroomie!

Chacal wrote:Already there are talks of a central auth server ran by Cyan, and even *shudder* bringing back the horrendous FCALs.

Whoever had that idea was an CENSORED.

My main concern was that there are too many CENSOREDs our there with stupid ideas like that. At least the guilds (well at least two of them) are used to doing things without Cyan looking over their shoulders.
I too don't want to have a too clear division of tasks either btw - where for example one has to choose between writing, maintaining, etc and can't do something of all. (I'm pretty sure there are some people our ther that would want that)
I do think that there needs to be some degree of control over the shard organization - but the people running the shard are the ones that should be responsible for that (either directly or indirectly). Someone has to decide which new interface of linking to user ages we will use for example.