Hello history lovers! I'd like to use this thread to gauge any interest in a Guild of Archivists (or Historians) and as a platform for brainstorming. There's a lot to talk about: what you would want the Guild to be, do, even what the Guild should be called.

I'll introduce myself: I'm Sorceress. I've been a member of the community since early 2004. I wasn't in Prologue, but instead got my taste of what Uru Live was like with Until Uru. I received my Bachelors in Theater Arts, but I've always had a soft spot for history.

One of the reasons I fell so hard in love with the Myst/Uru series was the detail Cyan Worlds put into its histories. Nothing in any of the games is there just for show. Cyan treats D'ni and the Ages as full worlds, not just mere levels in a videogame. And D'ni history is satisfyingly intricate, not simple or painted in black-or-white terms. The villains can be sympathetic, heroes can do dark deeds.

I think many people dread learning about history, because they think it's dry. Of course it's dry if the teacher or book only focuses on marrying dates with events: "In 1564, some guy did this which lead to another guy doing this in 1565 blah blah blah..." The often-overlooked joy of history is right there in the word itself--they are STORIES that connect us to the past, see connections to the present, and give guidelines for the future. And I think everyone enjoys a good story.

So how could this Guild tell these histories best? Please share any and all ideas!

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DRC, give us more city areas, would you kindly?

Hiya Sorceress!

You might want to hook up with Alamnaht (I am sure I misspelled that, sorry!) who runs DPWR, and Andy Legate, who is part of the Guild of Inspectors and also very interested in doing Archivist work.

Good luck!

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Jishin's KI: 82165

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I speak only for myself, unless specifically noted otherwise.
Ich spreche nur für mich selbst - außer es folgt ausdrücklich ein entsprechender Hinweis.

Last edited by ireenquench on Sat Aug 18, 2007 8:29 am; edited 3 times in total

Archiving the chatlogs is a great idea.

But it would also be great if they were cross reference by explorer. In case i want to research everything Cate ever said in the cavern. Or Bran Fioca. Or myself.

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Montgomery - Maintainer Grand Master of Inspections (ret.)

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I speak only for myself, unless specifically noted otherwise.
Ich spreche nur für mich selbst - außer es folgt ausdrücklich ein entsprechender Hinweis.

Last edited by ireenquench on Sat Aug 18, 2007 9:02 am; edited 1 time in total

Hey, this is a great idea. Like Jishin said, we have some talk over with the Maintainers about having a sub-guild under our umbrella like the Guild of Archivists. Maybe when you get it goingl, we could talk.

I'm glad to see some interest in this.

I feel archival is important. I played Uru first as an offline game, and if it weren't for DPWR's recording of events such as Zardoz's talk with Phil, Watson's backstory of the rediscovery of D'ni and how the DRC formed, I would've felt very lost when Uru came back.

I agree with Ireen, don't feel like you have to wait for a Guild of Archivists to form from helping archive events, journals and chatlogs now. I've been posting stuff like the DRC KImails and the Jalak notebook at DPWR.

Notebooks and journals are easy to archive, but chatlogs are trickier. Honestly, no one can realistically be there every time a DRC member visits or an unexpected event happen. But I could see the Relayers helping out in great respect with that, along with any Explorer posting their own logs.

I'm not sure if another site for us would be a good or bad idea. On one hand, I think the DPWR and MystLore and The Archiver all do a great job in that regard already. That and I know jack squat about how to create a website. And on the other hand, offline stuff is good, but finding a way to share archives and history in-game would be wonderful for old-timers, confused new explorers, and the game itself. The more we can do in the game, the less Cyan and Gametap have to worry about people posting in forums instead of actually playing the game.

Barring unforeseen problems, I'll be attending the All-Guild Meeting tomorrow at 7pm Cavern Time. One of the topics will be forming structure for Guilds that aren't the Big 5. I'll be there to listen. I hope to see people there to listen with me.

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DRC, give us more city areas, would you kindly?

I love the idea of a group of Historians who would share resources, ideas, references, and to whom a person could go to ask questions. It would be great to know of a central location for information, too. For the multimedia D'ni History Project (slow but always in progress) I rely heavily on DPWR, the DRC site, the D'ni Desk Reference, The D'ni Explorers Guild, D'ni Jazz Club, and of course the novels, manuals, chat logs.... ack! But, as an historian on the surface, I've been trained to check every detail, every reference for accuracy. Traveling to various forums and sites is like traveling to various archives in different countries on the surface. Really slows things down. The surface work always has to take precedence, too, and let's not even start talking about learning yet another language, lol.

The ability to search for everything on "Kerath" or "Ghen" in one request would be such a great help. It would also be helpful to have one forum where historians hung out to ask for details on a specific subject, or to request participation for a recorded round table meeting. It's also much, much easier to change a statement before it's recorded in audio and added to video (then rendered and uploaded, all of which take time) than to have someone say "that's wrong" when it's all done.

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We are the shapers and the caretakers of this metaverse. How we honor ourselves and others largely determines what we bring into being.

A story: CavernScents Journey

Ghaelen: KI# 23059

Be sure to talk to / include DocOlana, Time, Serephina, and all of the others who have been making great strides with the Students of D'ni Knowledge to educate the community in the cavern with weekly study groups and discussions.

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Montgomery - Maintainer Grand Master of Inspections (ret.)

Quote:

or "Ghen" in one request would be such a great help

"Gehn" would be better.

lol@Rusty

And editors for the written historical articles.....

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We are the shapers and the caretakers of this metaverse. How we honor ourselves and others largely determines what we bring into being.

A story: CavernScents Journey

Ghaelen: KI# 23059

Just to add my support and say I'd be interested in a Guild of Historians/Archivists.

Cheers,

LJ.

Hey folks,

The Guild of Maintainers is currently expressing interest in trying to gather as many groups of Historians, Zoologists, Astronomists, Technologists, and so forth and so on, to create a joint project that would act as the Books of Commentary and/or restoration notes for the Ages and the Cavern.

We would LOVE to have you join this discussion. This would emphatically be a *joint* project, one that everyone would contribute to equally. Please, if you are interested, drop by this thread and contribute to the discussion.

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Jishin's KI: 82165

If I may drop OOC for a bit (and I HATE to do this,) the Guild of Writers is talking about age creation, the Guild of Maintainers about beta testing, the Guild of Cartographers and Messengers about fulfilling actual duties in Uru Live.

I approached the Guild Liaison about a Guild of Archivists, and when that didn't work I submitted a feature ticket directly to development. But my idea is this: Cyan has too much work on their hands. They can't create the ages, play the DRC folks, run and debug the game, AND randomly come up with translated D'ni works. So we would write it for them. Based on simple prompts from Rand and co. (i.e., and in no way saying it's true, 1.) D'ni had a coinage system called the Baht, which was further subdivided into Mini-Baht. 2.) D'ni had a mostly capitalist market, but with strict regulation on prices and quality set by the guilds. 3.) The Guild of Merchants handled inter-age commerce) we would then create a "translated" work for the cavern (i.e., a "rediscovered journal" of an exploratory merchant expedition scouting a new age for potential resources.)

So in other words, all those things we've been begging the DRC to give us? We write them, then send them to Cyan for quality review, a far less time consuming process than creative writing (trust me, I do this kind of thing for a living.)

That's MY vision. I'd also like to hear YOUR visions. However, Saturday the next episode starts, and it would be REALLY SUPER AWESOME if we could present some kind of united front to Cate (to be perfectly honest, I'm quite a bit miffed that historians were utterly spurned in their choce of five guilds.) We need to show her that we're organized, capable, and ready to help.

So . . . how about a meeting? Friday would seem best. I would say 10 PM EDT (7 PM Cavern Time) to give our west coast friends time to get off work (and I apologize to all the Europeans, I know that time is tough for you guys, but it's about the best we can do.)

Does that sound good to everyone? I'm not trying to shanghai this or anything, but this is something I feel very strongly about, and I want to be a part of it, and I'd like to at least have something by the next episode to show the DRC.

So, VERY TENTATIVELY:

Time: 10 PM EDT, Friday, September 7
Place: Students of D'ni Knowledge's Bevin? It's not used for anything else on Fridays.

Depending on how many people show up, we can either just have a discussion, or (and I would be SO thrilled if this happened,) if a ton of people show up, we might have to invoke a bit of order. But the big thing is getting all us "scholar" types, the historians, the linguists, the artists, etc., etc., together and discuss actually CREATING game content instead of just analyzing it.

And just a note - I am in no way snubbing the Guild of Maintainers. A book of commentary is awesome. And groups like the SoDK, the DLF, SR, and all our wonderful independent scholars will keep doing that, what they do best. I'm talking about people getting together, getting a gameplan, and petitioning "The DRC", and Cyan, for a sixth guild, creating the content that lots of us REALLY want to see. More information on the D'ni themselves.

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DocOlanA
KI# 02117319

The Students of D'ni Knowledge!

Next SoDK Meeting: Sunday, March 28, 20:00 (8 PM) MST (10 PM EST, 2 AM GMT)
Subject: D'ni Law and Punishment
Moderator: Ahlehn

Hi Doc!

I had considered an OOC application regarding coming up with our own historical content, but I wasn't honestly quite sure I would be up to the task of creating histories as high-quality as Cyan does. But I don't think it would hurt to try!

And no, I don't consider you to be hijacking the thread or possible Guild. I've been meaning to start contacting people, but my suddenly-changed work schedule has been knocking me out. I also wasn't sure if waiting until an episode was best, when I know most people would be around.

I can make the meeting tomorrow. Can't wait to get some ideas flowing.

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DRC, give us more city areas, would you kindly?