Larry,

I really admire your work as I find it incredibly helpful and informative and I want to thank you for your amazing effort. Please keep it up!!! Continue because I/we need someone like you who's very dedicated and able to clarify so many things in a very informative manner with photos and valuable info.

As for Mor D'ni Lop's comment I find it obscure and quite confusing, obviosly trying to be "academicl" about it does not help if someone as Mor Dni Lop does not have the background and knowledge which you do have!!! Mor Dni Lop is the kind of want to be "intellectual" who works in a vacuum; in a few words useless and futile.

Therefore please please Larry carry on because you have what it takes and then some...pay no attention to the negative and destructive comments other people are saying! Are they paying your rent? I don't think so! So to all the spiteful people out there including of course Mr. Mor D'ni Lop you better take a dip because you're newjacks!

Larry you've got game and heart, you're slamming man!!!

Samarra

I don't know about everyone else, but I've chilled out. I suggest that all of us should.

_________________
Mac - MOULagain KI#00004826
In the interests of the environment, this post has been constructed entirely from recycled electrons.

As Mac_Fife instructed me, there's rules that doesn't applies in Creativity section if there's clear boundaries taken by the poster, in this case: Larryf58.

At anytime, did I try to cause Larryf58 harm of any sort. Misunderstanding really. I read the thread like everyone else here & I never commented on the "nature" of your theories. The only guys I would trust more is the guys who imagined the URU story itself. Beside that, everyone can come with theories and they are all welcomed IMO.

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I want to talk about a serious matter though. It's philosophical...

You see what I'm doing right now. I'm writing. Writing is a simple action that comes with a heavy burden. You, as a writer, me now, are the only one that can be taken responsible for what you wrote. A word can be soft...flower or harsh...idiot.

There's at least one explorer that will read this post that will think of that next time.

_________________
On MOULa shard:

Annabelle 03632553 & Sophie (aka STA1) 15112736 - main public avatars
Annabot 209XXXXX - the bot

Shorah Mac_Fife,

Thanks for the history and clarification about how this sub-forum works. Is this information stickied anywhere? If not, could it be? For myself, up until now I'd been unable to find anything much that explains the intended purpose of the Creativity subforum, guidelines for what and how to post here and when to use the DRC site forums. It sounds like the groundrules you and larryf58 worked out back in February might be helpful for the rest of us to know too.

Thanks for jumping in here!

_________________

After a bit of searching in the Information & Resource Center, I found a post by Whitch2 which addresses this issue: Apr 04, 2007 - IC/Roleplaying vc. OOC. It really should be stickied and/or included in the Creativity section.

Whitch2 wrote:

We feel that these forums are an excellent place for us to focus on a perspective that does not involve roleplay.

This is also to notify members that threads of a mostly IC or roleplaying nature currently active on the MO:UL forums will be closed and moved over to the Off Topic forum, where they will remain for reference purposes.

On a similar (but not the same) issue:
Fan fiction should please be tagged as FanFic in the title and posted in the Creativity section. Threads with fan fiction are welcome, but will be moved over there.

Emphasis (bolding) is mine.

_________________
OpenUru.org Minkata Test Shard is
OU-Minkata Shard Testers Guide (in laymen's terms)

Can we have the irrelevant bits of this fine piece of creativity moved to the “Off Topic” forum with the reminders where they will remain for reference purposes and get this fun thread back on track.

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semplers' shards

Dear Ainia:

It's taken far longer to reply to you (and Calum and Troi) than I had promised.
Initially I was in a very interesting slow-motion conversation with Mac Fife - the slow part was entirely at my end, not his! Then other DRA obligations took far longer to clear up than they should have.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
First, an attempt to clarify an issue Ainia asked about.
I have excerpted some quotes here, I hope this does not alter the intent of her words:

Quote:

In the end, I am simply puzzled about the nature of Emor D'ni Lap's...frame of reference.
... here and there throughout that post, (Emor) makes reference to something he labels as the Age Writer's intentions. Since he doesn't really define what this means, I am left to guess for myself.
...the idea of the Age Writer's intentions is simply quite fuzzy to me.
However, this idea of an Age Writer's original intent seems to be one of the defining aspects of Emor's own frame of reference. And he seems to feel quite clearly and strongly that anything other than this has no place in Age research or in this discussion thread. I can only suppose that whatever this is in the end to him, it defines his boundaries or extent of Age research and thus anything beyond it is out of place.
..............Emor seems to feel it is unfair to reveal images from (in this instance) outside the Pod walls, that this is an exploit of the Age's flaws. To my mind, this is at odds with what he says earlier, so I can only suppose that we have widely differing frames of reference about what it means to be "off the beaten path".
.....................
So Emor, it would help me greatly if you would be willing to help me understand what "off the beaten path" does and does not mean to you (it obviously differs from what it means to me).

I had hoped the interpretation of “the agewriters’ intention” would have been explained by these words in our first post here:

Quote:

Intuitively or implicitly, we all understand that no matter how skilled the master Age Writers may have been, they were not entirely godlike; no matter how large and detailed their creations may have been, they could not go on writing forever. It also seems that each Age was written with a purpose, and once that purpose was fulfilled the Book was considered complete.
Their Ages are not infinite universes and therefore must have limits. And every explorer has seen and felt those limits, placed intentionally - both for the safety of its inhabitants and to maintain the integrity of the writer's work.

This was basically as specific as I found I could be in phrasing this in an IC manner.

It seems at this point, to be any clearer, I'll have to write OOC:
We all know that the Ages are constructed and displayed using computer graphics: two-dimensional artwork that is wrapped onto three-dimensional geometric forms. The supreme trick is to create the geometry, textures, lighting, sound, physics in such an artful way to give the player a plausible, immersive experience.

We know these files are finite, the Ages have limits. Beyond those limits, things fall apart visually: there may be no backside to the mountain or building, something seen from one side may be totally invisible from the other, and so on. So that the illusion of reality can be properly maintained, the real-life writers of an Age (be they paid professionals or unpaid fans) must generally try to make sure that in normal gameplay one's viewpoints are limited to seeing only the places they have properly crafted. There are the standard unjumpable railings and other limitations. In URU's case, barricades and so on were supposedly placed by the DRA. But in many many cases, Age writers simply place invisible barriers to prevent the explorer from going in a certain direction. (In Teledahn, such invisible barriers prevent you from jumping off the dam lever walkway or the boulder between the two sloped walkways, as a couple examples). Purposely-placed Panic Link regions also prevent explorers from landing in a place the Age writers had not intended players to see.

These are "the Age writer's intentions" to which I'd referred.

Ainia, you continue to insist that I have objected to traveling beyond these limitations. But people have been doing this since the beginning of URU, and people like EthanEver and Annabelle have been very public about promoting their findings for a long, long time.

What's the difference here? EthanEver and Annabelle never made an issue of what they saw when they travelled behind the stage sets. To my knowledge, they never focused on any one graphic error or flaw in Cyan's Ages in order to subsequently create an IC rationale for it.

I repeatedly tried to be specific about this in stating and clarifying the DRA's requests (italics mine):

...we request that you not violate the intentions of those master writers by using generally unavailable points-of-view in order to invent (and then "solve") controversies by showing "flaws" that are never seen - and therefore effectively never present - in the Ages as they were written.

By using the Age in ways other than as written in order to suggest normally unseen "flaws"...
I suggested that it's not hard to show the unfinished ("flawed") side of a computer graphics environment:
We could travel beyond the intentions of the original Writers, to show "flaws" in their work. We could post these images and then create fanciful theories about their causes and origins.
Simply put, if you are writing an IC account of traveling in URU Ages as if they were real, it doesn't help your case to prove that the Age is just a bunch of computer graphics... and then “explain” the 2D phenomena by fabricating IC stories.
Just my opinion; of course it’s entirely your choice to do so if you wish.

And there is no question that, in your recent post about Teledahn's sun, you have very completely and successfully shown that that sun is indeed a two-dimensional image on a planar surface, rotating around the Age at a radius that's probably smaller than the agebuilder should have established for it. You have conclusively proven Teledahn's sun to be nothing more than the cheap computer graphics trick that it really is.

We can do this with each and every Age. Gahreesen, for example:
_________________________________________________________________

On close observation while standing at the end of the rotating buildings' axial walkways, we noticed some strange anomalies in the trees of the canyons that surround the buildings. We fired a cable anchor to the rock cliffs and swung over to examine these trees more closely.

Sure enough, clusters of trees that appeared solid from the buildings' vantage points were, again and again, seen to be nothing more than two-dimensional illusions of trees!

We sent up our radio-controlled camera plane to catch a shot, and it revealed that virtually ALL of the area's trees are like this - and most are exact copies of the same phony image!

It even looks like the waterfall is artificial, originating from a slit in the hillside!

Even weirder: we checked out a few sets of trees we thought we'd seen moving...and they DO move! They always rotate TOWARD you, no matter where you go! Here are two views, one looking away from the Gahreesen's admissions building and one looking back toward it.

You can see that each tree form has spun about its vertical center to face us, from either direction!
These tree shapes even seem to be “floating”, with no trunks or roots at all!

Clearly an illusion has been created here; but why?

We're guessing that Gahreesen may actually be positioned much closer to civilization than the D'ni keepers wanted the prisoners there to know about. These artifices are all signs that those who wrote the Age - or at least the D'ni who designed this facility - were trying to give the prisoners the impression they were in a much more remote, isolated location than they actually were!
_____________________________________________________________________
(end OOC spoiler)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To answer your objection to this

Ainia wrote:

Emor D'ni Lap wrote:

Worse are instances where you may be using altered linking books, or altering images in order to sensationalize your findings.

From the above quote, it does not surprise me that larryf58 took offense. It reads to me that he is being accused of being a cheat and sensationalist, a pretty strong accusation to aim at a research colleague. I am quite sure that larryf58 didn't PhotoShop any of his images. I'm not sure what Emor really means by "altered linking book"--perhaps that larryf58 himself has rewritten Teledahn? Again, I'm sure larryf58 did no such thing, as he makes no pretense at being an Age Writer. I would be heartsick too being accused similarly and it saddens me to know that someone else has such a poor opinion of larryf58. So it's only natural that sharing his Age research has soured for larryf58.

The quote to which you object is in a delineated section of that post. In that section we offered this photograph, originally posted by Mr. LeDeay, as an example. We asked:

Quote:

"If the circled structure is available through a page in the Ages associated with this forum, please tell us the location of that page. If the structure is not available in the Ages associated with this forum, then we urge you to post such images at the forums that are associated with these variations on works of the original Agewriters. Posting such images in connection with scholarly research suggests that such additions are in fact the work of the original Writer, which could in turn cause explorers to feel they had searched insufficiently, failing to locate a Page that was never present at all."

The DRA still regards this request as reasonable.

As far as we can see, the structure in that image could have been produced one of three ways:
1. A real structure in Relto. Since the Relto book as written by Yeesha does not have this structure present, this would require another writer altering a copy of the Relto linking book.
2. There may be a Yeesha Relto page that we are unaware of, available somewhere. We asked for its source.
3. The structure has been graphically inserted to the image (“Photoshopped”)
If you can think of other explanations, we’re listening. Otherwise, if this image is not the result of a Yeesha page unknown to explorers of this URU shard, then it is either from altered linking books or it is an altered image.

In order to maintain his offended stance, Mr. LeDeay has thoroughly ignored our repeated and sincere praise and encouragement:

Quote:

We've been enjoying your postings here, and have been following them with enthusiasm. Generally, DRA members have approved of the way you have assimilated D'ni history with your own observations, and the care with which your photography has respected the intents of the original Agewriters, as we understand them.

Quote:

We applaud your research and writing so far, and look forward to your future postings.
We think that your work is likely to be lasting, referred to by future generations of explorers seeking answers.

Quote:

(We said) how much we had been enjoying your posts, that they are likely to be valuable and enduring works, and that we are looking forward to their continuation. We stand by all of that.

Quote:

We are glad you've been enjoying yourself with your research and, as we've said, we sincerely hope it continues.

I would hope that Mr. LeDeay would believe these statements to be sincere, because I complimented him myself regarding this very topic, in-cavern the first time we met.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In reply to Troi’s question:

Quote:

As for Mor D'ni Lop I have to say that you're a bit enigmatic to me. You say that you speak for all of the DRA. Is that truly so? Are you the designated spokeman? You speak of yourself in the plural, we, in the singular, I, and the third person, Mor D'ni Lop. (I'm in a light hearted frame of mind, not a critcal one.) If it's all tenses, dare I ask, are you Legion?

Nope, only Will Smith is Legion!
I don't know of any organization that is all of one mind, Troi! (Dittoheads, maybe?)

But writing "on behalf of" a group only means that the writing represents the feelings of the group's majority. The collective "we" was used when I knew most of our organization had a consensus opinion on a matter, as with the findings from research done by the DRA. Replies to Larryf58 and Ainia were generally phrased from myself. The third person was used once, when I was playing with the IC/OOC borderline!
I’m sure you can find exceptions to this principle if you look, but that was the general idea.

However, I can tell you for a fact that the compliments and encouragement we voiced for Mr. LeDeay's work were shared by the great majority of DRA members.

Emor, that outhouse is associated to an on-going joke amongst Uru-ites that there are no restrooms in D'ni at all. There is no page that will give you one.

_________________
KI: 17967159

Shorah DLordofTime and Emor D'ni Lap,

Just a quick addendum to DLT's explanation of the outhouse. There does indeed exist a Relto page for this "feature" to one's Relto, but it was created by Karkadann of the Guild of Writers and so is available only offline or on Uru:CC-based shards where one can download it via the tool-that-shall-not-be-named. The Relto page itself is called "Ye Old Privy" and larryf58 has used an image of it once before to establish his sense of humor and lighter approach to age exploration (see From the Age Zoologist, second spoiler). My belief is that he used it here again to introduce a light-hearted tone and to provide the visual pun that DLT mentioned.

More to come (wherein I will respond to Emor's very lengthy and thoughtful post).

_________________

Shorah Emor,

Thank you indeed for your detailed response. Based on your spoilered section in particular, I think I'm beginning to understand the frame of reference we each are operating from and how they differ.

In a nutshell, I am gathering that you are operating from a Writer's frame of reference, particularly an OOC Writer's frame of reference. That is, you are acutely aware of the constraints of the tools and consequent results of writing an Age. On the other hand, I (and I believe larryf58) am operating from a Storyteller's frame of reference. As with your earlier post, the best way to discuss and describe this is from the OOC point of view, so I will spoiler the following for consistency's sake.

I can see that you are quicker than I to see the limits and flaws of an Age, which is understandable when thinking from the Writer's frame of reference. From there, one must think in terms of the tool limits, the venue limits and such. Although I am by no means an Age writer, I also am familiar enough with how Ages are constructed to know about sky domes, billboards, blockers, etc.

The Storyteller's perspective is somewhat different in that I view the Age writing as a means to tell a story, and so my interest is in perceiving the story as well as possible. Being a professional writer on the Surface, I tend to be more tuned in to this aspect of Age exploration (understandably). Cyan's work has always struck me as being focused on telling an immersive, participatory and complex story. In order to do such a thing successfully, as a writer one must have the bones and backstory firmly in place even though little to none of this part will be readily apparent to one's audience. And so one of my own interests in exploring off the beaten path has been to glean the bits of backstory and "bones" that are embedded in the Ages Cyan has written and released to us. The more I explore, the clearer it appears to me that Cyan has done a careful job of crafting this part of their work too. And so the topics I've written about and contributed to here in Creativity have been directly related to this interest of mine and the bits and clues I'm putting together and what I'm surmising from it all.

Although I realize that your specific Gahreesen examples are most likely exaggerations, I believe you are trying to make the point that anything one sees from outside the blockers is suspect; that one cannot be sure whether it is an inherent flaw or an intended feature. And that it is risky or even irresponsible to assume that one can know one way or the other.

Yes, it is true, only the true Age Writer can answer questions about intent. And we can be well assured that Cyan only rarely answers such questions from us explorers. So if we explore this territory at all, we can only guess at best.

I simply happen to disagree with you that I (and larryf58) have been exploiting inherent flaws in the Ages about which we've posted. Each time I ask a new question or post a new photo, it's from a Storyteller's curiosity about the unspoken bits of the bigger Story we are trying to piece together. And in the end, my experience has been that all of Cyan's Ages are challenging us to figure out the larger Story for ourselves. It's one of the reasons I love the Cavern and keep coming back again and again. It's what makes Uru so blessedly different from other adventure and online games. We have to connect the dots ourselves.

In particular, I do try my best to be mindful of hiding the inherent flaws of the game. With rare unavoidable exceptions, I take photos from the vantage points that hide the unbuilt areas or the billboard nature of normally-distant features. These are the bits that I think we are in universal agreement about, that are the unavoidable limits of the Age. There is a grey area in between where we differ.

My own philosophy has been to look for subtle clues from within the Cyan-written constraints of an Age: noticing from within the Pod that the Payiferen sunrise showed through the distant mountains but was blocked by the nearer sand dunes. So from a Storyteller's view, this is a part of the story we are given deliberately. It is at this point that I head off the beaten path to learn more, and from outside the blockers I do try to be mindful of the obvious limits of each Age and focus only on the phenomena I noticed from the well-trod path. So my Payiferen photos focused on the sunset phenomenon, seeing the sun again shining through the mountains, though blocked by the nearer sand dunes. The glowing rocks also are visible from the pod windows and again, I photographed them from outside the Pod walls. The presence of color in these rocks was something I discovered only upon closer inspection. Though this wasn't clearly visible (at least to me) from within the Pod walls, I still viewed it as part of the Story, that they were colored purposefully rather than as a fluke. Why would a sun shine through a mountain range? Why would rocks that seemed to be composed of the same sand as the dunes glow when the dunes themselves do not? These are all unanswered mysteries about Payiferen; and they were designed into the Age itself. So I think we are intended to notice these things, ask these questions, and continue discovering more unexplored territory. This is the power of backstory and bones at work.

My approach is similar with Teledahn. I ventured off the beaten path only after seeing for myself the solar disc phenomena that others had noted before from within the blockers. It struck me as particularly important that Cyan had planted the third-floor viewer where they did, that it had a clear view of this subtle disc-shine phenomenon (just as they had planted the middle-floor Payiferen window in direct view of the sunrise). I think we were meant to notice this, but that Cyan also was careful to make it subtle. So most of us don't notice it right away, but once we do a whole new chapter about this Age presents itself. In this case, I see it as providing us some hints about the spore harvesting operation and technology, and the nature of the planet itself. Particularly since you and the DRA have verified that the known parts of Teledahn are only a small portion of the map we have, it provides greater weight to the theory that the visible disc is truly artificial. The map shows the sun having a much wider and longer path than the one we can see when we visit the Age. I don't see any reason to believe Cyan deliberately gave us a flawed map. Although they design challenging puzzles, as far as I've seen they don't cheat (and from my perspective, I would see that as a cheat unless it was part of their storyline, e.g. a fake map published by slave traders to hide the nature of their operation for example. But I would also expect they would provide us clues about this, that there would be obscure Yeesha warnings in her Relto book or different versions of the map for us to sort out, for example).

Overall, from the Storyteller view I see the Ages and backstory as very carefully crafted. I view Cyan as having put an enormous effort into building the backstory and constructing the bones; and that this creates an underlying consistency in Story that we usually do not perceive and appreciate as explorers. However, I also view Cyan as having left us bits and breadcrumbs as clues about this bigger Story. And that it is completely up to us to explore this or not. We can crawl down this rabbit hole if we want.

This is not to imply that Cyan's backstory and bones are perfect. Undoubtedly, they are flawed. One of these flaws is mentioned here and there in my posts about the Cleft location. Of course, we can get complicated in explaining this one away with instances of Terra and variants of the Great Tree. For some folks, this makes perfect sense and is an acceptable workaround. I happen to find it unsatisfying and somewhat wanting.

Another bit of backstory that I still puzzle over. Cyan clearly put a great deal of work into building in the day/night cycle for Resiksehv. They eventually provided a map of the planet. And explorers eventually were able to piece together the evidence and build several Pod clocks, timing the daily cycles of the Resiksehv sun and the Bahro portals. This was all work pieced together by dedicated explorers and was never spoon-fed to us by Cyan. Although I missed out on this piece of Cavern history myself, I can imagine that it was a controversial, frustrating and rewarding process for those in the middle of it. Yet my current puzzle is about the planet as a whole, its spin and celestial orientation. We have evidence of the day/night cycles at three of the four pods and each is dramatically different from the rest. There are no seasonal or annual changes in the cycle at each pod. Certainly, this can be seen as a bit of programming simplicity as I can only imagine it would be a nightmare to design a complex seasonal/annual cycle (to say nothing of the nightmare it would have been for explorers to solve that part of the puzzle since the data would be changing constantly and they would need at least a Reziksehv year's worth of data before they could hope to sort it all out). Or one can look at this as part of the nature of this Age. The Writer and the Storyteller views.
As you can see, I enjoy the Storyteller approach more and will continue to stick with it. I expect that you likely will continue to see this as inventing story where there is none, however, nothing could be farther from the truth in my view. And I gather that you enjoy and value the Writer view best and will stick with it. I suppose that we each view Cyan differently and so identify with the D'ni accordingly. I see Cyan as Storytellers and I assume that you see them as Writers. To each our own! But I do hope I have provided a bit of clarity (rather than hopelessly confusing the issue) so that we can agree to disagree on the grey stuff.

This has been an interesting and enlightening conversation! I am hoping that I understand your view better (though I assume you will correct me if I'm mistaken).

_________________

Dear Ainia,

In your previous post, you made numerous references to your belief that I am...

Ainia wrote:

"operating from a Writer's frame of reference, particularly an OOC Writer's frame of reference."

...and you wrote extensively about your perceived differences between a "storyteller's" and a "writer's" relative perspectives.

I don't believe my point was nearly that complex.
The crux of my post was probably summed up in the sentence:

Emor wrote:

Simply put, if you are writing an IC account of traveling in URU Ages as if they were real, it doesn't help your case to prove that the Age is just a bunch of computer graphics... and then “explain” the 2D phenomena by fabricating IC stories.

I think this is true whether you are a Storyteller or a Writer, whether you're thinking/writing/playing from an IC or OOC position.

The example following that quote, using Gahreesen, was simply intended as a demonstration of the above.

I was not trying to say that

Ainia wrote:

"...anything one sees from outside the blockers is suspect; that one cannot be sure whether it is an inherent flaw or an intended feature. And that it is risky or even irresponsible to assume that one can know one way or the other."

The Gahreesen example was only to demonstrate that, for each and every Age, one can find oddities or flaws (even those observable from the writer's intended vantage points), then go to inspect and photograph those items at close range to demonstrate that they are, in fact, merely somewhat-awkwardly-crafted graphic illusions. One can then concoct some storyline about the whys and wherefores behind these illusions.

But - from any perspective - I don't believe that proving URU to be a mere construct of computer graphic illusions enhances the IC feeling that we're exploring real environments, or that you as storyteller explorers are describing real places with greater detail...which I thought was a stated intent of the "URU Photography" topic.

Emor,

There are major differences between the Teledahn 'sun' and the Gahreesen trees. The trees look like trees. Therefore, IC, they are trees and require no investigation. We know that it is a fudge on the part of the designers, most of us probably worked it out, but that doesn't matter. They are simply trees.
The sun, however, defies the laws of physics. Therefore, IC, it is not a sun, so it requires investigation. This investigation reveals that is too close and too small to be much more than some sort of construct. By 'too close', I mean that we could go behind it, fixing its distance as less that the bounds of the Age.

_________________
KI: 17967159

Last edited by DLordofTime on Sat Jun 23, 2012 6:46 pm; edited 1 time in total

Shorah all (and hi DLordofTime!!),

I'm afraid that the only way to add to DLT's point is from OOC, so here comes another spoiler:

I still happen to disagree with you Emor about whether or not the Teledahn "sun" is a programming artifact or not. And I do think that my point about our differing frames of reference is valid. Your response simply underscores the statement I made in my first spoilered paragraph in my last post: you are quicker than I (and larryf58) to call an observed phenomenon a Writer's mistake, or Cyan's mistake. At least to my eye, your response reads (in the end) as if you are saying "it's a programming mistake because it's a programming mistake". I fail to see why you believe this is so, for you haven't given me reason (beyond your own opinion) to agree with your assertion in this case.

I happen to believe that Cyan's use of this "device" in Teledahn was deliberate, intended to be an important part of the storyline (in this case, the backstory as Cyan was never able to develop much more to release to us, though I do think they intended to do so). I believe that they put the third-floor observation scope exactly where they did quite deliberately, to call our attention to this phenomenon. One can view this as either odd or foolish on Cyan's part, to call attention to one of their design/programming mistakes (which is what you appear to ascribe to); or one can view this as a deliberate part of the story and Age design (which is what I ascribe to). This is a very good example of the differing frames of reference I described earlier.

I do not see my perspective as self-serving or self-fulfilling; I'm not in this in order to invent story based on programming mistakes or to amuse myself at Cyan's expense. There are numerous clear reasons that I (and a good number of others) see this as a "genuine" in-game phenomenon that we are intended to notice and explore if we wish. DLT has already pointed out one of them just above. I have pointed out another several times now, that the viewer is placed with a purpose, not at random. My earlier comment about the Teledahn map sun cycle being grossly different from the observable behavior of the sun disc is a third reason. (And your colleague at the DRA has actually validated this as much as can be done at this point.) Some of us have chosen to explore this solar disc phenomenon but no one (including you) is required. If you do not wish to go along for this part of the ride, then you need not. That is, you are free to ignore any and all conversations about the Teledahn solar disc. My only suggestion is that you consider accepting that, at least from our own points of view, those of us exploring this issue have valid reasons for doing so. You may consider them invalid, but we do not, and so far, your parts of these conversations haven't given me reason to change my mind about that validity.

If we want to get into more Writer reasoning about the solar "disc", then I would point out that this is the only Age where Cyan has built a "sun" in this manner. Typically, the light source is part of the sky dome, or at least a layer at about the same distance as the sky dome. As I've said earlier, I'm not a Writer but I do have a very general understanding of that Art; I would expect it to be far easier to set the rotation cycle of a sky dome higher in a case like Teledahn in order to achieve the simple goal of a high solar rotation rate. Yet Cyan did nothing of the sort here. Instead, they went to a great deal of trouble to build a separate "entity" which cycles completely independently from the rest of the "sky" elements, setting it quite deliberately at a significant distance inward. From a game development POV, what is the point of this? Why go to such needless trouble?
At any rate, I believe I've done my best to explain my reasoning and POV. Emor, you have made it clear that either I've done poorly at this, or that you find it unhelpful or irrelevant. So I believe I've achieved my original goal, which was to better understand where we differ. 'Nuff said, and time for me to move on!

Happy exploring everyone!

_________________

This post is in reference to Ainia's post in a separate topic. It seemed better to not derail that thread, and more appropriate to reply here.

Dear Ainia -

A couple points about the Teledahn map:

I completely agree with your observation regarding the similarity between the Teledahn map and ancient mapmaking technique:

Ainia wrote:

Another common way to depict Terra, as two disconnected circles; this allows the distortion to be less dramatic, though it does not show how the two circles fit together. I suspect that our Teledahn map is something of a combination of these two techniques, showing two overlapping ovals.

The overlapping circle technique is called a Double Hemisphere projection, and it was at one time extremely common. (As you can see if you Google the name, the amount of overlap between the two circular projections is at the discretion of the cartographer).

I'm sure the Teledahn map's outer circles are a graphic reference to these once-common Double Hemisphere map borders.
The fact that these circular areas had to be fit onto rectangular sheets meant that a lot of extra paper was left over in the corners; at one time it was considered poor taste to leave such blank areas unadorned. So decorations filled these areas, as you can see in the examples in the link above. And that's what is done in the Teledahn map, as well. I'm pretty sure the suns placed on the hemispheres' borders are an entirely decorative effect: if these overlapping circles were meant to represent the sun's path itself, the planet would have to be rotating on an axis at 90 degrees to the normal north-south orientation of the map.

You have stated that the map shows "...two overlapping ovals. And this brings to mind the possibility that the Age planet is not entirely spherical, which would make interpretation of its map even more complex! And there is yet another layer of complexity since we do not know if this map displays the entire Age, so the overlapping ovals may only show a portion of the planet. I think this is a very strong possibility myself."

What I'm going to say will probably be seen as URU heresy, but I've always thought the Teledahn map is displayed incorrectly in-game. There are graphic elements all over the map that were meant to be circles, yet they are all displayed in-game as vertically-squashed ellipses (ovals), all with the same amount of squashing - including the normally-square D'ni numerals.

Some of this results from a technique Cyan used frequently: rectangular graphics are often squeezed into a square format for storage, then once again expanded for display in-game. And this was what was done in this case: the map graphics are stored as a 1024X1024-pixel file. Unfortunately, when they created the in-game map - both the map seen on the desk and the flat GUI display - Cyan did not unsqueeze the square storage format to the same ratio as the original map graphics.

If you want to see the map in its raw stored format, it's here. This is the texture that is displayed in-game, somewhat unsqueezed.

If you want the map at what I believe is its proper (likely its original) unsqueezed format, that can be seen here.
This unstretching looks correct to me: all the graphic elements of the map that were intended as circles - including the suns! - are circular, and the D'ni numerals have their proper square format. In fact, the only way the DRA's aerial-image-to-map comparison of Teledahn worked was with this FULLY unsqueezed version of the Teledahn map.
Again, you can claim that the in-game squashed version was somehow intentional, but I think this horizontal-to-vertical ratio is what the original map artist(s) created.

Last edited by Emor D'ni Lap on Sun Aug 05, 2012 7:06 am; edited 1 time in total