So I've now tried to get many people into Uru, Hoping to get more people passionate about myst and more donations incoming for you guys and such.

However, people always end up hating the game very quickly because of the same reasons, I don't know if anyone is still even working on the game, willing to work on the game or if there is someone able to do so but I honestly believe with a couple of changes it would make the game far more attractive to more people long enough for them to get into the game. I know Myst is meant to be hard but that shouldn't include technical difficulties and unnecessary tedious mechanics.

- Linking is tedious and time consuming (Hand collecting).
In order to get people to your age you have to gather in D'ni/Bevin then share the Relto book one at a time, Then inside the Relto you have to share the Age book one at a time and sometimes within the age you have to share linking books again, Then when someone 'Dies' they have to link back to the nexus and go through the process of the nexus machine to get back to your age, This process especially if playing with 3+ people is a real time waster. Same with the hand collecting, Everyone has to press the hands for them to count.

- Running/Walking/Jumping animations
So the second most complained about so far is the sluggish and glitchy running/jumping, The controls are stiff and the animations glitch out frequently.

- Bugs/Glitches/Crashes
Now this one isn't as bad as the first two, at least these don't happen too frequently and they are manageable though still quite irritating.

Solutions:

- Make it so that once you invite someone to your Relto, ALL your books automatically link to your books and all books in all your ages ONLY link to your books/ages. So that the only way for another person to leave is to use their own Relto book at the bottom. Even when they 'Die' they get send back to your Relto instead of their own. I'm surprised they didn't do it that way in the first place.

- The piece of the hand someone collects should count for everyone currently in that age rather than having to collect each individually that way it feels more like a team effort and no time is wasted with trying to remember who has pressed what already and everyone having to wait in line to press a tapestry.

- It would be great if they could smooth out the running and jumping animations making them more up-to-date and less stuttery/sluggish.

- Obviously it would be good if they went over the game and fixed some of the bugs, For example in Eder Kemo if you try to link through more than one person through the book at the end it stops being usable by yourself and unsharable, meaning you have to log out and go back each time to send someone through.

So my question is whether or not someone is still working on the game or anyone willing to at least fix the linking issue?

I really want to see more people come to D'ni but no matter how much I try to explain, people are put off by the technical difficulties. It makes me really sad, Being so passionate about Myst and being excited about the game, the story and the puzzles but non of my friends to share that experience with. Of course there are the people who already play but there's nothing as rewarding when playing Uru with someone whose looking and experiencing the game with a fresh outlook.

OpenUru

GoW

johnsojc wrote:

OpenUru

GoW

Okay so, I am not a game developer so I can't make such modifications, I'm not sure if they are working on a project on those websites like the one I described, It's a bit hard to navigate the websites. Does that mean they are working to fix the multiplayer linking?

If I where you I would make a suggestion in this subcategory:
http://forum.guildofwriters.org/viewforum.php?f=114&sid=f11ee150ed2de4b332d4ee16b21bc5d4
A developer will great you shortly and tell you weather that is something they want to do or not, you could also make a suggestion at OpenURU.Org but they not really developing very fast.

Faewn wrote:

Okay so, I am not a game developer so I can't make such modifications, I'm not sure if they are working on a project on those websites like the one I described, It's a bit hard to navigate the websites. Does that mean they are working to fix the multiplayer linking?

Your list of issues generally involves things we've already fixed, want to fix, or are in the process of fixing.

Some of them are simpler than others, of course.

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

How do you get the fixes? Also I'll check that link out thanks.

He's saying they have thought of those things before.

Faewn, here are some more specific links, so that you see that really much is
being worked on 'behind the scenes' as well as very openly and publicly, which
can be proposed and also being tested in case of an available fix, which means
you or anybody wanting to improve Uru/MOULa can actively participate in this
process by joining the OpenUru.org's official 'Minkata test shard' and another
great testing ground the GuildofWriter's official own 'Gehn Shard'...

So, here are a few links for you or anybody interested to know that this is all officially
sanctioned and supported by Cyan World themselves ... Please, have a look here for a
'list of the official MOULa based servers that are run by different fans and fan organizations'
as announced by Chogon ...

This link and announcement by Chogon shows and proves the implementation of the
above mentioned fixes provided and tested by the above mentioned sanctioned teams ...

This is a very new announcement by the GuildofMessengers as posted yesterday to inform
everyone what has to be expected very soon as a major update for MOULa in the very near
future ... Enjoy, and see you all on the testing shards ...

_________________
janaba MOULa KI #154268, Minkata KI #4525 , Gehn KI # 16392, TOC KI # 86963
MO:ULa is

I'll address each issue as it pertains to further development on Uru and Open Source.

Faewn wrote:

- Linking is tedious and time consuming (Hand collecting).
In order to get people to your age you have to gather in D'ni/Bevin then share the Relto book one at a time, Then inside the Relto you have to share the Age book one at a time and sometimes within the age you have to share linking books again, Then when someone 'Dies' they have to link back to the nexus and go through the process of the nexus machine to get back to your age, This process especially if playing with 3+ people is a real time waster. Same with the hand collecting, Everyone has to press the hands for them to count.

Yes, this can be rather annoying. To my knowledge it is not on the short list of things to get done, but it can be added and worked on as people get time to do it.

Faewn wrote:

- Running/Walking/Jumping animations
So the second most complained about so far is the sluggish and glitchy running/jumping, The controls are stiff and the animations glitch out frequently.

This is an issue related to the physics engine. You can read more about this here and to an extent here.

Basically the physics engine needs to be replaced with Bullet physics. In order to do this a content license needs to be served up; this is currently in the works as evident in the OpenUru link.

Fawen wrote:

- Bugs/Glitches/Crashes
Now this one isn't as bad as the first two, at least these don't happen too frequently and they are manageable though still quite irritating.

Mostly the same as the last one. Most graphics glitches and bugs are related to the physics engine. However, there are still a few known non-physics engine bugs that pop up every now and then. Those are on the short list of things to do, and may have already been accomplished. You can see the Guild of Writers' fork of Uru that contains many tweaks and fixes not yet available on MOULa here.

Faewn wrote:

So my question is whether or not someone is still working on the game or anyone willing to at least fix the linking issue?

I really want to see more people come to D'ni but no matter how much I try to explain, people are put off by the technical difficulties. It makes me really sad, Being so passionate about Myst and being excited about the game, the story and the puzzles but non of my friends to share that experience with. Of course there are the people who already play but there's nothing as rewarding when playing Uru with someone whose looking and experiencing the game with a fresh outlook.

People are always working on this stuff. Now whether or not it gets done quickly is a moot point. But keep in mind, these things take time as the team behind OS is very small. What they get done though is fantastic, and I hope you'll get to see more of that work real soon.

In the mean time, I urge you to visit the following links to more uru shards you might enjoy: Ghen Shard, Minkata, TOC Moula, and a non OS shard mostly used prior to OS here.

_________________

TOC#60089 DI#132103 MOULa is

Be advised that many of the enhancements made to Cyan's basic engine are being rolled out for testing on the Gehn and Minkata shards. This means that you may experience some of the technical glitches that annoy people if you play there.

Gehn (Guild of Writers) is the cutting edge of upgrading the engine to more modern software and is not as fully functional as Cyan's shard, MOULa. Using a newer version of Python has caused a few glitches here and there in the part of the game no one may touch due to license restrictions.

OpenUru is, I believe, as fully functional as MOULa. The OU code is much closer to Cyan's original code using much of the same build software but also has some of the upgrades people have been clamoring for.

Getting these changes into MOULa is a long process tempered by the fact that Cyan has little in the way of resources to spend time incorporating changes from the developer sites. It's a matter of doing it in their "spare" time. Do remember much of this code is 10 years old... that it's still working is amazing.

Yes, it's tedious, but some of it is simply the way the game was purposely set up. Your ages are your ages for you to take Yeesha's journey. And, the reason why someone can't return to your Relto when they "die" is because no one ever dies in Uru; they panic-link using their own Relto book to return safely to their Relto.

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

Actually, you don't need to book-share once in Relto. The books on your bookshelf automatically link to your personal Ages anyway.

_________________
KI: 17967159

Thank you all so much for your replies, I'm so happy to see people are thinking about these issues and looking into improving the game's technical issues.

I know people don't die in the game but it's easier to explain what I meant by putting it that way. Basically if you fall down certain places you get linked back to Relto (I completed the game on one of my travelers a while back).

I really hope they follow through with updating the Physics engine soon and perhaps make playing together more straightforward. Knowing people are still working towards this makes me very happy. I think it would make a big difference for a lot of newcomers because the more people that play, the more donations come in and perhaps if there is enough interest they might consider making another multiplayer Myst game (One can but dream)... and I might be able to convince my friends to try it again.

So how do these private servers 'shards' work? Do you just go there or do you have to download another client/game? I'm not sure what this 'shards' things is about. If there is anything I can do to help improve the game I'd be happy to help test things, I might not be a game developer but I have had experience creating environment (gtkradiant), models (3dsmax) and textures (photoshop & shaders) for some games I previously played and website design (photoshop, html) though when it comes to programming I'm pretty clueless and I'm hardly an expert on these things.

A shard is simply another server running some version of Uru. You must signup and download another version of the game for each shard.

Go here for instructions to join the OpenUru Minkata Shard. IIRC, you get instructions on how to download the game installer in your account confirmation email.

Go here to install the Guild of Writers Gehn Shard client. Register for the forum... this becomes your login information for the game as well as the forum.

o_o Honestly, in Uru Live on GameTap, I found that the multi-player experience wasn't good because the puzzles were created for smart, tedious people who would actually sit in a pod for 50+ hours and figure out that time thing.

Umm, seriously, I sat in those pods hoping for a chance to glimpse... well, anything, and I never even saw one of those animules.

Not that I have a problem with smart, tedious people, but it's just that what happened with that is that smart people figured out the puzzle, and dumb people like me couldn't (and gosh, I got through Riven without any cheating at all, so I ain't that dumb)... so the game became nothing but pretty much having a small cadre of geniuses figuring everything out the day it was released, and then the solutions just trickled down because they were too complex for anyone else to figure out...

...making the game a tiresome series of just going through the motions that someone else devised. It really was kind of dull for me.

Don't mean to make a big deal out of this, or to be a downy-clowny, but yeah.

Otherwise, the multiplayer bug stuff is just that... bugs that could be fixed, but there was a more fundamental flaw underneath technical glitches.

o_o Jus' sayin'... Uru is great, it's just that the concept of how this whole thing could be a grand multiplayer experience was rather ambitious...

o_o Truthfully, I just think Uru needed less emphasis on creating an experience for people who take up cryptography as a hobby. Not that there's anything wrong with being smart like that, it's just that you have to admit it's a small, small, small niche.


~Joey "Sir Dumbsalot" Deadhorsebeat

_________________
"What you still don't understand you have failed to hear or don't need to know..."~Yeesha