Myst Online: URU Live Forums

Re: Chogon state of Cyan

LAHI — Wed Feb 02, 2011 4:49 am

Author: LAHI

Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2011 4:49 am

Thanks Chogon! We all appreciate your efforts on our behalf

Re: Chogon state of Cyan

nvr2old — Thu Jan 27, 2011 10:32 pm

Author: nvr2old

Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2011 10:32 pm

Chogon wrote:

nvr2old wrote:
Chogon is on line right now and by the looks of it, he is still freezing as his letters are still blue, offers a cup of coffee and a donut. I too hope something comes for the anniversary but always keeps up hope. Good to see at least your name on line Chogon

Heh, I've been online daily scrubbing the spammers from the forum. The Mods are doing a great job getting rid of the spam postings - we are in some kinda spammer epidemic of sorts. Only about one in ten new accounts is a real person.

As far as the state of Cyan, actually I no longer live in Spokane so I don't get regular updates or see what is going on first hand. So, I mostly only hear about what I am working on, which is iPhone apps and the three week server restart on MOULa. I am readying a new update for iMyst which is nearly done and following that I will be working on an iRiven update (which isn't completely defined yet). And the every three week server restart has been going great

--Chogon

Thank you Chogon for responding, that was a good deal bit of news and enlightened everyone reading this topic. I am very appreciative for your time.

Re: Chogon state of Cyan

OHB — Thu Jan 27, 2011 10:11 pm

Author: OHB

Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2011 10:11 pm

Main_Avvie wrote:

um... forgive me my ignorance but... "Chogon" is Mark Deforest, correct?

Yep

Re: Chogon state of Cyan

Main_Avvie — Thu Jan 27, 2011 9:10 pm

Author: Main_Avvie

Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2011 9:10 pm

um... forgive me my ignorance but... "Chogon" is Mark Deforest, correct? he's been with Cyan since the early days and no longer living in Spokane and working out of Cyan HQ. i wonder what life is like in those offices these days? is Ryan still using part of it as a church? and i wonder what Cyan's equipment/personel status is like? i'd imagine MagiQuest is an ongoing effort, but are there any other new projects in the works now that iRiven has been wraped? how is MagiQuest treating Cyan, i wonder as well... nice of Chogon to check in on us, and kudo's for keeping abreast of the spam issue here! it's great that he's working on Cyan projects even away from the office (ain't modern day tech grand?) i do hope great things are in store for Cyan this year!

and can any details be spared as to anything in the works for URU? of course, i'd imagine such questions are a bit forward in nature anyway...

(that won't stop me from asking the them though )

Re: Chogon state of Cyan

JWPlatt — Thu Jan 27, 2011 8:13 pm

Author: JWPlatt

Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2011 8:13 pm

Dachannien wrote:

One way to reduce this is to use a blacklist such as the one at stopforumspam.com.

Good idea. I believe Mac_Fife already set this up and they've been using it as part of their efforts.

Re: Chogon state of Cyan

Dachannien — Thu Jan 27, 2011 8:08 pm

Author: Dachannien

Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2011 8:08 pm

Chogon wrote:

Heh, I've been online daily scrubbing the spammers from the forum. The Mods are doing a great job getting rid of the spam postings - we are in some kinda spammer epidemic of sorts. Only about one in ten new accounts is a real person.

One way to reduce this is to use a blacklist such as the one at stopforumspam.com. The way I've found to be most effective is to check for e-mail addresses that have been reported by others as being spam e-mails, and prevent people from registering using those addresses. Since there's some amount of resource expenditure associated with creating new e-mail addresses (compared to, say, generating usernames), the spammers typically re-use those addresses to create accounts in lots of forums. Doing this won't catch the spammers who hit your site shortly after they start using the address to create spam accounts, but it will get a lot of them.

Re: Chogon state of Cyan

janaba1 — Thu Jan 27, 2011 6:49 pm

Author: janaba1

Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2011 6:49 pm

Finally, Chogon graced this thread passionately dedicated to him
and the state of things at Cyan...

Thank you, Chogon, for dropping a note and letting us in on your
life a bit as of your moving away from Spokane and thus Cyan HQ
and your diligent efforts on these forums and the servers as well
as your efforts and tasks around keeping things up to date and
running around Cyan Worlds projects...

It seems you're more around than we would've hoped or anticipated...

Re: Chogon state of Cyan

tanshin — Thu Jan 27, 2011 5:42 pm

Author: tanshin

Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2011 5:42 pm

Well it's great to hear that those restarts are going great! I'm sure they're so interesting and fun and regular.

Re: Chogon state of Cyan

Chogon — Thu Jan 27, 2011 4:44 pm

Author: Chogon

Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2011 4:44 pm

nvr2old wrote:

Chogon is on line right now and by the looks of it, he is still freezing as his letters are still blue, offers a cup of coffee and a donut. I too hope something comes for the anniversary but always keeps up hope. Good to see at least your name on line Chogon

Heh, I've been online daily scrubbing the spammers from the forum. The Mods are doing a great job getting rid of the spam postings - we are in some kinda spammer epidemic of sorts. Only about one in ten new accounts is a real person.

As far as the state of Cyan, actually I no longer live in Spokane so I don't get regular updates or see what is going on first hand. So, I mostly only hear about what I am working on, which is iPhone apps and the three week server restart on MOULa. I am readying a new update for iMyst which is nearly done and following that I will be working on an iRiven update (which isn't completely defined yet). And the every three week server restart has been going great

--Chogon

Re: Chogon state of Cyan

nvr2old — Wed Jan 26, 2011 3:25 pm

Author: nvr2old

Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2011 3:25 pm

Chogon is on line right now and by the looks of it, he is still freezing as his letters are still blue, offers a cup of coffee and a donut. I too hope something comes for the anniversary but always keeps up hope. Good to see at least your name on line Chogon

Re: Chogon state of Cyan

mszv — Sun Jan 23, 2011 3:47 pm

Author: mszv

Posted: Sun Jan 23, 2011 3:47 pm

I don't think anyone here said that the story was done, as in the developers didn't have any more story they could develop. What's done is that you can't discover anything new in terms of story by playing the game. That's done.

I just want open source Uru.

Re: Chogon state of Cyan

cedward1 — Fri Jan 21, 2011 9:47 pm

Author: cedward1

Posted: Fri Jan 21, 2011 9:47 pm

Mowog wrote:

Trouble is, once you've found all there is to find, and revealed the entire story, the element of surprise is gone.

The thing is though, the entire story has not yet been revealed. I mean, the Bahro are still at war, and we're still waiting for Yeesha to come back. There are still many unanswered questions, and even some unfinished puzzles (for example the strange pattern scribbled on a piece of paper in Kadish's vault, and the huge mechanism that I know is behind the door in the Watcher's pub). So in that respect, there is still an element of mystery, it's just a question of whether or not the answers will be discovered.

Re: Chogon state of Cyan

Mowog — Fri Jan 21, 2011 6:19 pm

Author: Mowog

Posted: Fri Jan 21, 2011 6:19 pm

One of the main things that has always drawn me to the Myst titles, and the thing that most attracted me to Uru and kept me coming back to the Cavern back in the day, was the element of surprise. There was always that insatiable desire to find out what lay around the next corner, and if there was something there, if it would be useful to me as I pried the story open.

The amazing thing about Uru is that it had that element plus the ability to experience the worlds in the company of others. For example, I've gone to some pretty interesting places on business and seen some cool stuff; but my main thought was always, "I wish my wife and son were here to see this too." Sequoia National Park was astonishing, but I was there by myself, and it would have been so much better with the family. So that quality of Uru is what put it on the map for many of us. We could explore to our hearts' content - just as in the earlier titles - but could share that experience too, and that combination was huge.

Trouble is, once you've found all there is to find, and revealed the entire story, the element of surprise is gone. When you link in, you know you're going to find things pretty much the way they were when you left, and for many of us "old-guard," we've explored Uru so exhaustively over the years that our curiosity was sated long ago. Once you've completed the Journeys a few dozen times, and maybe even beta-tested as well, it gets harder and harder to rekindle the fire that kept you coming in the past, and harder to remember what it was like the first time you saw the Cavern and the Ages.

And yeah, I'll admit that I'm relating my own experience here. I guess what I'm saying is that in all the chatter about "Content," the big thing that needs to return to Uru is the mystery, and with that, the "hook" that grabs our curiosity and won't let go. And wow, is that a challenge - Cyan's approach appeared to be based on the regular infusion of new Ages, which requires a full staff and a big budget. And ravenous fans that we are, we could devour new content much faster than Cyan could have ever created it.

I suggested a long time ago that new adventures and storylines could be developed by Cyan using the existing Ages instead of working with entirely new content exclusively... sort of like sub-plots, side stories, etc... while the big stuff was in work. And actually, I think that was part of the plan, when it came to Ae'gura. I think that a real restoration of the City was in their long-range plans, along with access to new areas, and so forth.

Ah well, it all still makes for an interesting discussion!

Cheers,

Mowog

Re: Chogon state of Cyan

Nye_Sigismund — Wed Jan 12, 2011 12:41 am

Author: Nye_Sigismund

Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 12:41 am

D'Lanor wrote:

Maybe they are just following the advice in this blog.

Three Reasons Creators Should Never Read Their Forums

Good blog post, that. Summarises the simple problem that the signal-to-noise ratio on the internet brings up.

Re: Chogon state of Cyan

pokemon71096 — Tue Jan 11, 2011 8:28 pm

Author: pokemon71096

Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2011 8:28 pm

sssh, D'Lanor! Cyantists are a shy species... you'll scare them away.