I'm with www2 on this. Hogarth, I love the Lucas Arts games too (MY 2 is one of the best games ever, and so is Day of the Tentacle), but there's a difference between them and Uru. A difference in style, in mood, and in mechanics.

Though I'd like to see in Uru simple and logical things like picking up a torch and using it to light a dark path, I really wouldn't enjoy something more complicated like "use the chewing gum from Er'cana to repair this hammer from Teledahn in order to get that lever in Kemo working".

_________________
Morningstar - KI#1053460
Please avoid drinking the lake water.

Morningstar wrote:

I'm with www2 on this. Hogarth, I love the Lucas Arts games too (MY 2 is one of the best games ever, and so is Day of the Tentacle), but there's a difference between them and Uru. A difference in style, in mood, and in mechanics.

Though I'd like to see in Uru simple and logical things like picking up a torch and using it to light a dark path, I really wouldn't enjoy something more complicated like "use the chewing gum from Er'cana to repair this hammer from Teledahn in order to get that lever in Kemo working".

Of course the Myst games are different in style and mood from other games - that's what draws us to them. I would never claim or wish it to be otherwise.

As for the the "chewing gum" example, there is precisely that sort of puzzle throughout the Myst series, up to and including Uru - the difference is that we don't have an inventory of objects in most cases to effect the solutions. For example, you cannot get all of the Journey cloths in Gahreesen without getting past the prison cells in Teledahn - and to do so, you must kick certain items to certain places. (Why can't we pick them up?)

_________________

Proud former member of The Meeting Place

There are many things that could be "an inventory puzzle".

If you mean a game where the main form of pacing is "Go get X from person A, and bring it to person B. B then gives you a Y to give to C, but then C loses it, so you have to go get another one from D..." then yeah, I hate those too.

But you can design a game where you're primarily exploring the environment, while still allowing the player to carry things around -- things that themselves interact with, or are part of, the environment. There are plenty of first-person graphical adventures that have had inventories, and many of them felt very Myst-like. (Even Myst let you hold a match in your hand, notionally. And Riven had several inventory items.)

Uru(CC) had some clever dodges for being unable to carry things (the fireflies, the light capsules). But that seemed to already be straining the boundaries of what you can do without real inventory.

An inventory system for Uru would take some thought -- there are obvious problems to be solved. I like the "can't link while carrying anything" idea. But even within an Age, it gets tricky. If you can put an object down anywhere, you'll almost certainly lose it, or accidentally drop it somewhere inaccessible. And if you can only put an object down in specified places, you wind up stuck to it (in some situations) -- wanting to get rid of it, but unable to.

_________________
Andrew Plotkin (KI#00102725)
Uru Newcomer's Guide and Answer Sheet
-- http://eblong.com/zarf/uru/newfaq.html

Lets face it we already have a form of inventory in URU. We collected books that were saved in our individual Relto. We received clothing options found along the way. Different ages were added to our books as we traveled to them. These are all a form of inventory,

I wouldn’t want Cyan to over board with inventory as many other games do, but Cyan has always been very good about keeping things within reason. I would like to see a moderate number of carry along inventory items added to the game.

Waldo (baddata)

_________________

I think an iventory could only allow for my diversity in its game play. The lucas style seems to be about inding and using objects with hotspots. Myst and Riven was more sepcifially interacting with objects, (though I beleive a little of the details of this were lost in Uru) wereas others only require a click (of course it needs to be aknowledged that these games excell in there own areas).

I beleive a limited inventory will only make a more immersive game as it will emulate the way we interact with things in real life. It may make puzzels a little more complicated to think "do I have this?" or "have I seen this?" and "will this work with this", but not necessrrily more complicated puzzels but i wider diversity in what we can do in the game. It would certainly help make me feel more like an explorer if I can interact more with the age i'm in.

I've seen interviews with Rand (making of stuff) where he's saying that they're allways trying to make details that ellaborate on the story and i was thinking back to Myst with the snake in the box and bird. They weren't exactly nessacry to complete the game but I loved them. I think that the more they continue to improve the interaction in the game the better. Its the little things like that that really make the game for me.

Well, quite a lot of Myst was not necessary to beat the game.

i think a player built economy of any kind drives a game forewards . Having player owned items keeps people playing. And thats what cyan needs. I've always upheld this statement however more puritanical players might think this is misguided. Please comment

_________________
The ending will never be written as long as the called remain to continue on the path of those who came before

Player owned items like... linking books in Relto? Personal stories of triumph and defeat? KI photos? With Live we may have enough items to start a bit of a barter system! And really we don't know what form it's going to take.

Economy can mean more than just stuff and cash, it can be intangiable.

Good point baddata6.

Yup, I'd like more of an inventory. I'd also like to be able to collect stuff.

_________________
Retired forum mod, mszv, amarez in Uru (KI 89257), other online games
Blog - http://www.amarez.com, Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/amareze

mszv wrote:

I'd also like to be able to collect stuff.

Do you mean, like, taking artifacts out of Ages to store in your Relto, or more like the kind of collecting we do already, i.e. Relto pages and clothing?

Quote:

Do you mean, like, taking artifacts out of Ages to store in your Relto, or more like the kind of collecting we do already, i.e. Relto pages and clothing?

both basically. Anything that a player can use to put hisself/herself above the others.

The problem with URU is that after you have solved the most recent age (and some of us do that disgustingly quickly) and after you have seen the latest live story section, there is nothing to do ! And how it may be fun to talk to others, it doesn't warrent 12 hours of my playtime a day !

The way other games do it is by having time-consuming objectives to achieve. World of warcraft has its reputation grinding, hours of killing things mindlessly. Now how i think this would be terrible for URU and i find it quite boring anyway, i think that something this time consuming is NEEDED to keep people hooked into the game.

However something just being time consuming is not enough, your time you put into the goal must be backed up with a reward that is equally hard to get. Now knowing that the URU pipeline isn't especially big i dont know how hard this would be to implement:

Short of giving players 3P1X and P|-|47 13\/\/7 (epics and phat loot) I think the way URU could do this is by very very long story based quests.

E.g: I read a kings journal in ae'gura and notice him referring to a tunnel that once led to a secret escape book, the tunnel has a secret entrance that looks like a boulder (the location to this is very easily found and most players in the game will have seen this) on arriving you see on the side of the stone (concealed from immediate view) a hand slot with a gareeshan KI symbol above it (like on the side of the nexus books) however when putting your hand in the slot the symbol only half lights up, and you recieve a KI message saying "incorrect KI code detected please update". When refering to the back page of the kings journal he referrs to writing a code on the wall of a section of Kadish tolesa. I go to this section of kadish tolesa and enter this code into my KI, i then travel to the secret tunnel and insert the correct code at which point the tunnel is opened and i enter. (this is completed by a majority of players but not all). On entering i walk down a tunnel and get to a door marked with the king symbol; a whole in the wall and two sliders marked with d'ni numbers. On looking through I see a walkway to a pedestal in a huge room lined with books and a machine for choosing them. on selecting two numbers from the sliders and pressing a nearby button, the machine chooses a book and places it on the pedestal. The pedestal slides towards the hole in the wall and allows you to link to the book that was chosen. The wall of books would have 10 rows and 30 columns. Each row having a different environment e.g volcano, space, underwater. and each column have a different physical layout of the age. on linking to each age your KI is updated after finishing a simple but complex puzzle from a style depending on what row you chose your book from. after finishing an age you will be linked back to the book chooser and it starts again. After finishing all of these ages, the kings symbol will light up and the wall will open letting you walk along the walkway, a ladder on the right hand side will let you climb down to an antechamber containing a relto page (something cool like an extra hut or something); a piece of clothing and a book linking to one of the major ages in the game containing a storyline based on the king (public).

With the sheer amount of work needed to complete this long quest chain people who do spend the time on it will be set above the rest and will be noticed to have done it (the clothing and relto items) also they will have access to this kings age which others do not have access to (added to relto but not shareable [it is public like ae'gura and linkable to anyone who have done the quest chain]). In the midst of all this clothing and relto pages could be added to any of the 300 puzzle mini ages on the way giving a feeling of achievement.


I'm sorry this is kind of off topic but i needed to get it out [/list]

_________________
The ending will never be written as long as the called remain to continue on the path of those who came before

Oh Uru doesn't need to keep people playing for hour and hours and hours! If we can survive on Until Uru for TWO YEARS, I'm sure we can do without a new Age for a month, you know what I mean?

Especially if, say, we find out there's been a new Relto page found, and everyone is scrambling to go find it, trying to find people who have it and are willing to share it.

Or maybe an item of clothing.

The thing about selfish people in Uru is that as of yet there's no mechanic that allows them to prevent others from attaining the same amount of stuff as them. There may be something in the future, but Uru's player base tends to be on the mature side (for the most part) and will be happy to share anything they find, even though they have the ability to prevent people from doing so.

i have to respectfully disagree.

All online games need the player base to want to play all the time. If this is not so then why would people be willing to pay an amount of money a month if i could complete the whole content avaliable that month in one day ?

again to World of warcraft (I use it as an example as it owns over 50% of the MMO market share) i pay my $12.95 i think it is each month and i expect to be able to get out of that, at least 2 hours of play time each day for that month, if i am not getting that, i dont pay ! This was the problem with URU: Prologue. When people didn't see much was happening they got bored and left. With individual activities that take a long time, developers are able to give the illusion of more content than there actually is. Whilst i'm grinding that reputation, the developers can develop some new content for me to enjoy just in time for me finishing my current activity. If i can grind that rep in a day the other 29 days of that month i have nothing to do and am therefore bored !

_________________
The ending will never be written as long as the called remain to continue on the path of those who came before

Quote:

"both basically. Anything that a player can use to put hisself/herself above the others.

I'm not bothed about displaying my own personel progress in the game. I'd just like to develop a style for my own taste and preference to emulate my own sense of identity.

Of course the more one progresses through the game the more thats an option.

Its also Just occured to me that people might link to an age for more than just exploritiry and game solving reasons. For example When I first link to an age i'll want my cahracter to be wearing things like Jeans, fleace, boots, Jacket and hopefully a rucksack, thermos and woolly hat. But sometimes i'd just like to visit my favorate ages to chat, play marker games, maybe Score and have a coffee. Where I frankly don't want to look like a backpacker.