I hesitate to make suggestions for the OS Uru release, since I missed all the other iterations of it (though I have read about much of what went on in Uru, excepting puzzle solutions!). But this idea appealed to me last night and I wonder what some veteran players think.

Inspired by MagiQuest Online's chapters, I wondered if Cyan could do the same thing for Uru and monetize on it. I went to look on MYSTlore to see what content existed in Myst Online, and I noticed that it could probably be broken into three chapters. Here's how that would work:

- The base Uru: OS would be free and would include everything original to ABM, the City, any Ages not in the Journeys (Jalak, I believe, for example), and fan ages. It would also include the DRC and such storyline. More on that later. They call this Chapter One.

- After some rough interval (Six months? Whatever they need to make it good!), Cyan releases Journeys 2-4 as Chapter Two. That one is $9.99 or whatever. The time gap is so that they can update the code for the OS engines replacing the stuff they have to rip.

- After another rough interval, Cyan releases Journey 5 as Chapter Three. Same price as Chapter Two. And then they've rereleased all the Myst Online content.

- Though each chapter would have its own story arc, most of it would happen for free in the City. If, to make it work, Cyan needs to enlist some fans as actors, I'm sure they won't get much argument!

- Now, every rough time interval, Cyan can release a new chapter and charge the same price for it. New chapters get players more Cyan Ages to explore, but they can still explore the base Uru: OS for free as long as they like.

- However, the Ages in the chapters figure big in the DRC storyline for that rough time interval. The DRC characters are always talking about visiting this Age and that Age and how amazing they are.

- If an IC explanation of the chapters is needed, just say that the DRC's new source of funds is from selling tickets to new Ages. Or something along those lines.

So, in summary, the original ABM content, the City, DRC storyline, and fan ages would be free. Additional Cyan Ages would be paid and come in chapters. Fan ages can be released whenever fans like, for free. Storyline is probably acted by fan actors who are given scripts by Cyan.

And all your lucky folks who've actually experienced Uru can now proceed to rip my idea up. That's fine. I just needed to get it out.

Speaking very much as a fan who played MOUL here (just wanted to stress that).

Generally episodes were a really bad idea for MOUL and went heavily against the grain of how the world and story worked. For 2 weeks we'd have everyone on people playing story running then BAM, nothing, everything stopped, traffic dropped off, and any storyline trying to be continued by the fans kinda flailed around.

If an online Uru ever returned, I would hope the episodic format wouldn't come with it.

Now if you're talking about an offline Uru version, then that would kind of work as it's not a live environment and the concept would basically be the same as the To D'ni and Path of the Shell expansion packs.

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Beneath - Journey of an explorer in D'ni
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Ah, see, that's what I wondered. I had figured that because there would be storyline running between chapter releases, activity would continue. But, again, I wouldn't know.

Thanks for clarifying the "episodes are bad" thing!

I think the nature of the player base creates problems for chapters and episodes.

I think the majority of Uru fans are explorers and puzzle solvers. Once an area is explored and the puzzles solved they are off doing something else. This style of play created a huge demand for content. Building content is labor intense and that makes it expensive. Getting players to pay enough to support development for a trickle of high quality content never happened. The supply and demand numbers are too far apart.

Open source offers some opportunities to change the supply/demand ratios and dynamics. While we wait people are trying different things in Second Life and the Hypergrid to see what works to solve some of the game play issues. To date it appears the financial problems for Myst style play have not been figured out.

Devokan is a good example of what can be done to support and encourage the role players in the community and find ways to record story and make it available for new players.

OpenUru.org is a good example of fans discussing story problems, game play issues, and working out solutions.

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Nalates - GoC - 418 - MOULagain: Nal KI#00 083 543, Nalates 111451 - Second Life: Nalates Urriah
Guild of Cartographers

there is one rule to state with online games that start free, "NEVER make the updates pay to get"

Sales_Kital wrote:

there is one rule to state with online games that start free, "NEVER make the updates pay to get"

Indeed. That pretty much never ends well.

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MOULa KI #23298
MOUL KI #35129
D'mala KI #74265
Gehn KI #10113