All 'dni language learning' speculations aside it is a fact that whatever final form the tools end up being, only a minority will use actually use them.

Many people will try them, build a small island with a house, some may even go as far as creating several buildings and add in a book; but few will have the dedication to actually spend time creating a full featured Age with a backstory, puzzles, polished visuals and music.

Creating Ages, or more generally speaking, creating 3d assets isn't easy, it takes knowledge, equipment and time; that's true. There is nothing elitist in there, it's just a fact. Else we would all be 3d artists.
And there's no reason to be sad about that either. When I was young I wanted to work at the Nasa and fly into space, guess what, I'm still on earth. And I'm not mad at the Nasa.

But even if few people actually use said-tools it isn't important. If other games with such tools are any indication a small portion of the players spend time creating 'maps' and a good portion of the other players enjoy them, because it's always new free content, new adventures, and sometimes of very good quality; which in turn betters the game and makes it sell more.

It's a win/win situation.

Now, most people would enjoy new Ages if said Ages are well advertised online and not too complicated to find, download and install. But all this should be handled by the community and not by Cyan, they already have their hands way to busy on other matters. Same goes for the tools, we don't need easy-to-use tools or tons of documentation; all this would be figured out and new documentation would be written.

All they have to do is release the SDK..

(Did my subliminal message went through?)

Try playing the SimsII. Then tell me it can't be done.

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Lee Edward McIlmoyle
Adventure Game Devotee at large

I'm not saying it can't be done, I'm saying that's not what Cyan is doing. The sims is solely focused on player created content & stories, that's not what Uru Live is about. I agree it would be great, but right now the team at Cyan is focusing all its efforts on other things.

It's in Rand's sights. He's said as much in chatroom discussion. And I don't think it's a waste of their time to put some time and energy into its implementation. I mean, I want to see new content as much as anyone. But I have very realistic ideas of what is possible to create content wise in a relatively short period of time.

Meanwhile, the Cavern will have gone silent with lack of new content. Not a big deal for an Adventure Game, but DEATH for MMO's. Spend a bit of time creating other forms of relatively engaging gameplay that fit your paradigm, and you've saved your own bacon and given your MMO a new lease on life. Age building tools, exploring fan-created content, and facilitating housing contruction and furnishing features will be the saving grace of Uru Live, mark my words.

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Lee Edward McIlmoyle
Adventure Game Devotee at large

I think the ideal Age creation tool would have to be something graphical, probably like Bioware's Aura Toolset that accopanies Neverwinter Nights.

Although such a system doesn't allow you to put anything into your Age except for the objects and landscapes that Cyan approves of, it would still very likely retain a sufficent degree of customization.

It also fits in story-wise with how a surface dweller would probably begin to learn the Art, the same way Gehn did, by copying parts of other books, and combining them together.

If Cyan were able to get such a system working, it could be added to, through updates, adding more basic world types, geographic structures and objects for players to utilize.

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Alec Winters KI 06399622

"History is irredeemable."
- Kain, Scion of Balance

Can I clear up any misunderstandings:

The tools will not be part of the game itself. They would be released as plugins to 3D Modelling software which could export levels for ingame use.

I don't know where the whole "you have to know D'ni" comes in.

If they wanted to be serious about player age creation they could build their own interface for 3D modelling like that of Spore.

http://www.spore.com/screenshots.php?movieID=sporeE32006&play=hi

lightshadow wrote:

If they wanted to be serious about player age creation they could build their own interface for 3D modelling like that of Spore.

http://www.spore.com/screenshots.php?movieID=sporeE32006&play=hi

That's exactly what I'm saying. From what it looks like, with a program similar to that, but for creating landscapes instead, any player could create Ages.

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Alec Winters KI 06399622

"History is irredeemable."
- Kain, Scion of Balance

Reiuco: Precisely.

lightshadow: Now you're cooking with gas. Spore and it's ilk are the future, folks. Deal.

Paradox: No offense intended, because I know there are a lot of hardcore 3D modellers in this community who do not care for the relatively inexperienced dabbling in building if they don't learn to use the real tools, but we're NOT talking about being realtime 3D modellers here. We're talking about a gameplay feature built into Uru Live that enables the average player to use predesigned elements to 'build' structures and Ages for development and exploration within the context of Uru Live.

This is not about being professional content developers. This isn't the Hobbyist track. This is about persistent, accessible gameplay for everyone who wants to play Uru Live but have no new content to explore, and for those who really just want to build something with Uru shapes and textures. There are other games that are specifically designed for such things, but they don't include Myst/Uru design features, which are beautiful and unique, and anyone with an ounce of creativity is itching to build them.

It's not rocket science we're talking about. It's a game. Does that clear things up for you? No confusion. Just a different agenda.

Paradox wrote:

Can I clear up any misunderstandings:

The tools will not be part of the game itself. They would be released as plugins to 3D Modelling software which could export levels for ingame use.

I don't know where the whole "you have to know D'ni" comes in.

Actually, I think you're probably right. That would be the easiest thing to do.

I was poring over my Myst: Complete Chronicles hint guide last night -- it's the one with the big batch of articles in the back that talks about how all the games (up until 4, it was written pre-5) were made. Uru was made by exporting files from 3DS Max in a file format that works with the Plasma engine. And bang, there you go, you launch the Plasma engine and you can walk around the world, just like that. Presumably there is coding needed to link the various files together and produce the animated effects that the avatar needs to touch, but in terms of just the initial setup and walking around? Sounds fairly easy to me.

It will really depend on what Cyan wants to do, of course, and how much creative control they want to maintain. I think I disagree with Lee about the whole "ease of use" hobbyist engine. Cyan knows that many of its fans are very hardcore and will do a lot of work to create gorgeous, stunning Ages.

I'm reminded of the Creatures series (Creatures, Creatures 2, Creatures 3/Docking Station/Exodus). The Creatures folks actually released their CAOS tools and their creature-designing tools, plus some tutorials, for everyone to use. It cost a little extra, but you had access to the same exact tools as the developers. You had to learn how to code and how to attach the graphics files and everything, but in the end, you had brand-new user-defined agents, creatures, and even gorgeous full areas that were fan-made. (For the record, I only made very simple stuff, but the Grendel and Ettin egg patches for Muco and the Egg Layer are mine.) And a LOT of people developed things for Creatures. Most people just made agents or maybe a custom genetic strain for one of the Creature types, but there were folks out there who took the whole package and ran with it.

I'd have no objection if Cyan went that route. (OK, it doesn't hurt that I own a copy of 3DS Max that I'd be very happy to have the excuse to do more work in -- but trial versions of 3DSM are available for 30 days for free, so anyone can give it a try and see if that kind of work is enjoyable for them.) I do hope they'd make some of their texture libraries available for download, either free or for a fee.

Quote:

Paradox: but we're NOT talking about being realtime 3D modellers here. We're talking about a gameplay feature built into Uru Live that enables the average player to use predesigned elements to 'build' structures and Ages for development and exploration within the context of Uru Live.

Umm, just to clear things up, again, we ARE also talking about realtime 3D modellers here. That's what the entire thread has been about, right from the start.

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Member of the AgeBuilders team

Last edited by Besharen on Mon May 22, 2006 10:46 pm; edited 2 times in total

I wouldn't have thought they'd put their texture library up for download. lol.
Recomended texture sites:
http://www.mayang.com/textures/
http://www.imageafter.com/
http://www.animax.it/animax/Textures.htm

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Hmm. Hardly anyone will be able to use the tools if they're a plugin for 3ds Max. I for one don't want to spend thousands of dollars on something I won't use professionally.

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.reprad kenen nahr
.redoyhah pradteegahl kenen shin b'hahrten gah b'foles

KI# 45434

gmax plugin's, not that I can use Gmax but its apparently 3ds max's poorer twin.

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I should mention that it will be nearly impossible to model stuff from an in-game module.

First, Plasma isn't set up to handle stuff like that. Second, It would be a waste of Cyan's time to add that functionality when they can just put out a set of plugins.

So this is not about in-game modelling, this is about plugins for external programs.