back during live the idea was to forego "non" player characters with canned dialog in favor of "actors" if you will sorta "puppeting" their avvies

which personally make me beleive URU is far more of a literal "roleplaying" experience than MMO "roleplaying" games like WOW or EQ have ever been...

but i disgress... my question is:
back during the influx of bahro appearances in the cavern, were they done the same way; with "actors" controlling the bahro just as we "players" (ic: explorers) do with our avvies, or

were the bahro programmed with movement routines similar to the quabs in ahnonay for instance?

i assume the bahro had no "speaking" roles? from what i understand they would just sorta show up during events and the way they presented themselves sorta spoke for them??

i also assume that the "actors" playing their ingame parts could be game players hired by cyan or cyan employees; that also makes me wonder if characters such as sharper or nick white or others may have actually had several actors playing them at differrent times, though i'd expect major characters like RAWA and Yeesha were more likley than not controlled by the actual Richard Watson... when it came to Yeesha however, her actor in the voiced sequences in URU or Myst V wouldn't exactly be necessary, from what i gather, yeesha's character used text chat in the chat logs i've seen of her appearances...?

are my speculations on the right track here?? cause this really does interest me!
despite the lack of goblins and elves and orcs and +1 dwarven hammers of undead smiting URU is for all intents and purposes real honest to maker roleplaying!!

and if you really think about it, it could be said that any and all explorers in the cavern are "actors" in this epic saga!!

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i assume the bahro had no "speaking" roles? from what i understand they would just sorta show up during events and the way they presented themselves sorta spoke for them??

I interacted with a Bahro during that series of events, and while it didn't speak, it was responsive to my body language and how far away I was. It's possible they were pre-programmed, but I think it would be easier to just have someone "driving" it rather than setting up all those variables. So I can't say for sure, but it seemed to be responding with more flexibility than most bots have.

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i also assume that the "actors" playing their ingame parts could be game players hired by cyan or cyan employees; that also makes me wonder if characters such as sharper or nick white or others may have actually had several actors playing them at differrent times...

Based on information released, it seems to have been a combination of Cyan employees and hires (at least during richer Ubisoft days, unsure of GameTap days.) They were also apparently different people at different times; for example, those who interacted with Sharper a lot could tell the difference when the person playing him was someone else.

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...though i'd expect major characters like RAWA and Yeesha were more likley than not controlled by the actual Richard Watson... when it came to Yeesha however, her actor in the voiced sequences in URU or Myst V wouldn't exactly be necessary, from what i gather, yeesha's character used text chat in the chat logs i've seen of her appearances...?

The voice acting where present was mainly done by Rengin Altay (she voiced Catherine in Riven, too) and David Ogden Stiers.

I assume the text for Yeesha was pre-written by Cyan's writing staff.

Conversations with characters who actually responded would need to have been at least partially typed in real time, since they could respond to questions and comments.

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"driving" is a good term...

and the fact that players could tell when someone else was "driving" a character is pretty good indication that control of such characters was often in the hands of different people...

and i knew that Altay continued on from her roll as Catherine to voice Yeesha in Myst V as well as the noninteractive imager sequences in the cleft and the voiced over endings of complete chronicles where "yeesha" simple went through a pre assembled sequence...

in live, however, whether interacting with explorers or simply popping in to deliver a canned message pre scripted by cyan before pulling another one of her trademark vanishing acts, provided she wasn't using voice chat where Altay's known voice of yeesha would need to be heard, i suspect anyone could have been controlling her, or perhaps an OHBotesque avvie sent in to deliver a canned message on its own without having to interact with anyone..

and the late David Ogden Stires of M*A*S*H fame is known to me to have done much voicework for cyan, including zandi, esher, and an audio clip of dr. watson in kirel that is only present in complete chronicles...

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in live, however, whether interacting with explorers or simply popping in to deliver a canned message pre scripted by cyan before pulling another one of her trademark vanishing acts, provided she wasn't using voice chat where Altay's known voice of yeesha would need to be heard, i suspect anyone could have been controlling her, or perhaps an OHBotesque avvie sent in to deliver a canned message on its own without having to interact with anyone..

Yeah, that's what I was getting at. I assume Yeesha's appearance was pre-programmed since she wasn't responsive. There wouldn't be a need for her to have been played by a human in real time.

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quite right... i consider reitteration, however redundant, to be an effective means of understanding!

There were both automated Bahro and human-controlled Bahro avatars during MOUL. There was one that was programmed to appear beside the Bahro stone in the book room when someone linked into the hood, raise its arms, screech, and link out. But, other than that, and the periodic screeches, I believe all the other encounters with Bahro were avatars.

As for Yeesha, I don't believe the fact that she was unresponsive to questions is proof that she was automated. I'm sure Cyan simply didn't want to open up that can of worms, so automated or not, she wouldn't have responded. Read Yeesha's speech in K'veer and decide for yourself (I saw one typo in there).

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If it was a planned event with no responses expected, I see no reason for someone to sit there typing it out in real time, though. It just seems like it has much more scope for something going wrong.

Typos have made it into the journals, too.

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right, i have read the transcript of that speach, and i too noticed that typo, but; the New York Times makes typo's too...

not to say i don't agree with you, an appearance by yeesha will and has caused quite an uproar i'd imagine, and her getting pummled with questions would sorta derail such an event... after all, she does know everything we don't...

but, unresponsive, it wouldn't really matter if she was being controlled or if she was a programmed bot set to pop in, dump some one liners, and pull a houdini, since flesh and blood actor or no, the event would not require her to interact with anyone intelligently... a good way to tell if she was a bot (for people who were there) is to try and determine if her lines of chat came at regular intervals or if the sly devils at cyan tried to set the chat to be posted at somewhat random intervals to try and disguise the fact that the avatar may have been a bot...

when interacting with OHBot, all his chat lines are posted nice and neatly according to a set of efficent algorithims... sometimes i envy him, since we have to juggle multiple pm's at a time and whatever is going on in public chat and have time to type each response individually without the help of a computerized mind... (however dull)

and your comment about the undisputable bahro bot in the bevins is really facinating!! man how i lament missing out on live, guess i have to restort myself to the obnoxious wailing we hear every time those mischevious imps do a slieght of hand with the ae'gurea bahro stones...

Main_Avvie wrote:

when interacting with OHBot, all his chat lines are posted nice and neatly according to a set of efficent algorithims... sometimes i envy him, since we have to juggle multiple pm's at a time and whatever is going on in public chat and have time to type each response individually without the help of a computerized mind... (however dull)

OHBot can make mistakes too

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Main_Avvie wrote:

and the late David Ogden Stires of M*A*S*H fame is known to me to have done much voicework for cyan, including zandi, esher, and an audio clip of dr. watson in kirel that is only present in complete chronicles...

David Ogden Stiers is alive and well… It seems Cyan likes his voice, too, so p'raps we might hear him in Something Else later on.

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Main_Avvie wrote:

and the late David Ogden Stires of M*A*S*H fame is known to me to have done much voicework for cyan, including zandi, esher, and an audio clip of dr. watson in kirel that is only present in complete chronicles...

to quote 'I'm not dead yet!.....I'm getting better!'

oopsie... had i heard wrong??

somehow i think i doubted myself when i wrote that...
i meant no disrespect... appologies...


and yes ohb... he has been known to do that on a couple of occasions at least...
and Malfhok, you capitalize the words "Something Else" as though you could be privy to something... hmmmm...?
...

Something Else is the traditional name for anything non-Myst that Cyan is working on. Though lately, they've tried to get away from that title, since many Something Else projects have not panned out and have become confusing when they call another project Something Else. Rand Miller, when asked about Something Else at Mysterium 2009, responded with, "Which one?"

I don't know anything about Cyan's plans beyond that Chogon recently said they were working on a "yet unannounced app that is a bit different than other Cyan games." http://mystonline.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=346535#346535

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Yeah, in the past "Something Else" has been Myst V, MagiQuest, Myst for iPhone, and several other unknown things that apparently didn't pan out. At this point, it would just be really confusing to use that to refer to any specific project.

Basically, Cyan is probably always working on the next Something Else.

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"Which one?" classic Rand sense of humor i suppose...

i read about an ip they registered a codename for (which presently elludes me) then droped for what must have been MagiQuest...

well, however interesting the dicussion that was an off kilter comment that might be better suited for another thread as this thread appears to be straying from it's original topic...

Mr. Stires and "Something Else" aside perhaps this should circle back to any additional input on the Bahro "Actors" if anyone has anything else to share about it...