Guidelines for Official Story/Age Creation

Ancient Player · **Posted:** Tue Jul 29, 2008 12:43 am

There has been speculation for a while now that there were D'ni that went to the surface in the early years who then became humans so to speak so making that part of your story could lead to some problems, though it would really come down to execution.

SCGreyWolf · **Posted:** Tue Jul 29, 2008 1:11 am

Ancient Player wrote:

There has been speculation for a while now that there were D'ni that went to the surface in the early years who then became humans so to speak so making that part of your story could lead to some problems, though it would really come down to execution.

If you're replying to mine, these D'ni didn't go to the surface. They went elsewhere.

DaVinci · **Posted:** Tue Jul 29, 2008 6:32 am

Just a suggestion,here. Why don't we start off with a list of know D'ni writing rules according to cannon and maybe that could help guide the new guildsmen/women??

Such as YOU cannot create a age/world, only Yahvo, The Great Maker, or God can do that. You can only write a descrpitive book and link book to a age/world. All ages/worlds are already created in the Great Tree by Yahvo. YOU/we are not Yahvo or the Great Maker.

That being said. Out of cannon, the Great Tree would then,being a tree , have has many possiblities as there are branches and leaves.
Make any sense??

Bogardan Mage · **Joined:** Tue Sep 19, 2006 8:48 am **Posts:** 232

DaVinci wrote:

Just a suggestion,here. Why don't we start off with a list of know D'ni writing rules according to cannon and maybe that could help guide the new guildsmen/women??

Such as YOU cannot create a age/world, only Yahvo, The Great Maker, or God can do that. You can only write a descrpitive book and link book to a age/world. All ages/worlds are already created in the Great Tree by Yahvo. YOU/we are not Yahvo or the Great Maker.

That being said. Out of cannon, the Great Tree would then,being a tree , have has many possiblities as there are branches and leaves.
Make any sense??

That's pretty much irrelevant to the writing process, though. Indeed, there was some debate (albeit not much) as to whether this was even true. Uh, I don't know, some rules:

- Don't write an age with laws of physics different to this one.
- Don't write artificial objects into ages.
- Don't write an excessively hostile environment -- i.e. a world made entirely of lava.

All I can think of off the top of my head. Remember these are rules created by the D'ni, not laws of the art. They can be broken, it's just an incredibly bad idea to do so.

zander_nyrond · **Posted:** Tue Jul 29, 2008 8:16 am

DaVinci, the history of the world is made up of people learning to do things they used to think only God could do.

It's certainly true that that was the dogma that the D'ni pretended to believe in, though their actions at various times in their history show it was more a matter of paying lip service than anything else. Its truth or falsity is indeterminable by any means at our disposal, and there are some indications in canon that the contrary might be the case, but mostly I think it's a matter of individual conscience and what you choose to believe.

But for actual rules (though I rather think of them as guidelines), I think the Mage nailed it as far as our present knowledge is concerned. I can't think of any others. Oh...don't visit a new Age without a linking book back, maybe.

DaVinci · **Posted:** Tue Jul 29, 2008 9:18 am

zander_nyrond wrote:

DaVinci, the history of the world is made up of people learning to do things they used to think only God could do.

It's certainly true that that was the dogma that the D'ni pretended to believe in, though their actions at various times in their history show it was more a matter of paying lip service than anything else. Its truth or falsity is indeterminable by any means at our disposal, and there are some indications in canon that the contrary might be the case, but mostly I think it's a matter of individual conscience and what you choose to believe.

But for actual rules (though I rather think of them as guidelines), I think the Mage nailed it as far as our present knowledge is concerned. I can't think of any others. Oh...don't visit a new Age without a linking book back, maybe.

Well, what I am driving towards is connecting their (age writers) ages with back story that goes with what cannon we know .
Such as not being able to write artifical objects or people in to their ages kinda what Mage stated. These must already exist in their age, or for artifical objects (mechanicals) must be built after the link is set.
What my thought was, that if a writer understands the D'ni writing rules it might clear up some things for his/her back story to the age.

Now if you think I am way out in left field :?:

,PLEASE, let me know and I will remove what I have posted, thank you

zander_nyrond · **Posted:** Tue Jul 29, 2008 10:47 am

Absolutely not. You're fine.

It's certainly true that the limitations imposed by the rules can be a great story generator. As several other people have said besides me, we just need to distinguish between the legal (in the sense of allowed by the rules) and the possible (in the sense of what can be achieved). Artificial objects can be and have been Written into Ages, with varying degrees of success, and probably far more than we think...but it is true that there is, or seems to be, a rule against it. Perhaps there was a prominent and unpleasant Guildmaster, and someone waited till he was sitting on his favourite bench in one of his garden Ages and Wrote a piano in fifty feet above...

Ian Atrus · **Posted:** Tue Jul 29, 2008 12:24 pm

Though Zander's story is interesting

, I think what actually happened is that time, tradition and whatnot transformed what was originally a simple warning/advice into a strict rule whose original reason had been forgotten or misremembered.

SCGreyWolf · **Posted:** Tue Jul 29, 2008 3:37 pm

zander_nyrond wrote:

Absolutely not. You're fine.

It's certainly true that the limitations imposed by the rules can be a great story generator. As several other people have said besides me, we just need to distinguish between the legal (in the sense of allowed by the rules) and the possible (in the sense of what can be achieved). Artificial objects can be and have been Written into Ages, with varying degrees of success, and probably far more than we think...but it is true that there is, or seems to be, a rule against it. Perhaps there was a prominent and unpleasant Guildmaster, and someone waited till he was sitting on his favourite bench in one of his garden Ages and Wrote a piano in fifty feet above...

Agreed. I think the physics and object rules were a D'ni guild rule, not an impossibility.

VoiZod · **Joined:** Thu May 11, 2006 1:47 pm **Posts:** 519

Quote:

- Writer wants to "restore" a new area in the D'ni city, but it is self-contained and only available via the Nexus.

Well How about the Hood City link??? THEN WE COULD RESTORE any part of the city we wanted!
it would be our hood's own instance of the city :lol:

Then after a long while Cyan could go into these city instances and choose the best changes
to put into the 'Main real city' Not to mention our hoods are instances too!

CrisGer · **Posted:** Tue Jul 29, 2008 5:23 pm

i would love to see more of the city opened or restored in deed that would be wonderful ...by any means ....

DaVinci · **Posted:** Tue Jul 29, 2008 6:10 pm

VoiZod, I believe that would go against Cyan's rule number 3 on the RAWA post. Although,like you and others I would love to restore parts of the D'ni city for exploration

VoiZod · **Joined:** Thu May 11, 2006 1:47 pm **Posts:** 519

Im not sure how to get out what I'm thinking but here goes,

We are all talking about programming and ACTUALY coding our own ages, BUT
What about the other way of building in 3D? such as other 3d online chat world games,
Second life, There, active worlds, are the main 3.

To make things ALOT easer for all of us, couldn't GOW possibly come up with a faster easer way to write ages a way that would not take as long to create, what I mean is there is ALOT of people out there
who want to make their own age but lack the knowlage of 3d modeling programs etc. etc.

Yeesha gave and also taught us some of what she learned, we should be able to take off from what she has already givin us and add it to our ages (ie; linking clothes) The bahro who have choosen to stay behind can not be forgotten either. IMO and what I get from all the canon is that the bahro are the guardians, caretakers of the great tree, they most likely are what make the art possible, for they
where used to build most all of the man made structures you see in alot of the ages, But this was unknown to most D'ni writers and general public, example; a writer would write a say a hut, or a stone wall or anything man made into their age, the BAhro would read it and build it before they would link back
The bahro also made the 'links possible' from the discriptive books that were written to verious ages
on the great tree, (they would connect the book to the most likely age on the tree).

Back on topic; would be nice to code in a age generator and some WYSIWYG type 3D building
system into MOUL MORE. Idea 1. make a shard for each guild which would house 1 blank type
(sandbox if you will) age for every member of the guild ( with possibility of adding more later if desired).
HAve a object uploading system etc. all objects would have to approved first of corse.
OR have the age written first and THEN put it in the ( sandbox ) for ferther creation! hey yea!
idea 2. have cyan work with the GOW to create a bunch of objects for use in future ages!!!
Then have those objects connected to a line of D'ni writing or bahro (symbol) and then all the writer
would have to do is copy the symbol or line of text into his/her discriptive book. (gehn style)
3. Our Relto's are a gift from Yeesha! so does that mean we can not do anything to them???
But on the contrary, Relto is Cyan's idea of a 3rd way to make ages (yeesha's way she was teaching us!) via the symbols actualy idea 2 and this one are differant though they seem the same.

[ MUST make a way for the general explorer to advance in stats! AND YOU CAN NOT KEEP IT
ALL 'G' RATED like it has, ALL myst games have had violence, danger, uncertainty, and random
events etc. in them asp. Myst even had some remains of a person achnar killed in the chest on stoneship age. for an example. All URU has is falling danger. maybe someone can make a age where you have to battle and/or kill something? I'm thinking charactor stats and how can they be implemented into the whole game, and the ages are the places you will have to ge to encrease some of your stats.
( thinking exile training ages, and revelation for Hevan (spelling) hunting them condile animals)

Some how we MUST make some kind of ecomony (spelling) because the idea of a (star trek type)
setting (no money) just does not sit right with me for a MMORPG got to have a way of advancing
your avy/charactor in the game in general. MOUL doesn't have anything but a race to see who can finish all the puzzles first.

enuff said , gets off soap box.

belford · **Joined:** Thu Jun 08, 2006 7:01 pm **Posts:** 1890

Quote:

To make things ALOT easer for all of us, couldn't GOW possibly come up with a faster easer way to write ages a way

Possibly, yes. But it will take a *long* time to design something like that.

Anna Catherine · **Posted:** Tue Jul 29, 2008 7:22 pm

This topic has gotten a little long, so I don't know if anyone from Cyan is still reading, but if so, I wanted to ask something that I think is pretty likely to come up at some point-- not necessarily for me personally, but in general. Heck, it's already come up in this thread in different terms, so I just want to ask it straight out.

Do games that are part of the Myst Series but were created by third-party developers fall under the same rules as Cyan content, or do they fall under the umbrella of "others"?

I get that there might be legal issues beyond what relates to the Cyan games if we're adding other developers to the mix, but it also seems a little bizarre to pretend that certain parts of the series never existed, if that would indeed need to be the case.

Additionally, Myst V makes reference to both Exile and Revelation in a way that would be hard to interpret as not pertaining to those games. Besides the fact it implies these third party games are as canonical as any other non-Uru series game, it sort of complicates where Myst V stands if third party stuff is an issue. If Exile and Revelation are out, is Myst V out too, or only parts of it?

Basically, should things in the rules that refer to "Cyan" be taken to mean "Cyan/Ubi/Presto" or "official Myst series development teams" if it applies, or are we responsible for trying to figure out which legal entity holds the rights to which elements of the series? And if it's the latter, will we at some point get some guidelines to help us sort that out?

Thanks!

Guidelines for Official Story/Age Creation

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