No matter what you do, we aren't in the cavern. I can't feel the wind on my face. It doesn't take me years to explore an area. I can't get hurt. I can't use my arms. I can't pick up things. I can't see a person far away, run up and touch them. I can't have someone help me over a cliff. I can hear and speak with my vocal chords (some people can't), so when I want to communicate with someone "in person" I usually use my voice and talk to them, and they talk back. I don't generally type on a keyboard,
All games, all virtual worlds have these issues, not just Cyan games. Sorry, Zander, you don't get a free pass. Immersion is important for everyone. The people who design games want you to feel like you are there. Design is all about compromise and making it work for the player because, as hard as you may wish, you aren't there.
Cyan apparently wanted the game to be visually arresting, with a limited user interface. I'm guessing that they thought the masses (remember, this game was designed to be played by many people, not a niche market) would soldier on because the game was so darn beautiful, and so what if it was hard to communicate, or hook up with people. Perhaps they thought the interface was not as hard as it really is (my opinion). I don't think they were evil or malicious, not in the slighest. As Regnad said, Cyan had no experience designing a multiplayer game (though perhaps they hired people with said experience, don't know). I do think that they made less than optimal design choices. It happens. The game interface, in my opinion, didn't work well.
You also don't have "reinvent the wheel", every single time. Other games/virtual worlds are beautiful, though one could argue not as beautiful as Uru. You press a key, the interface is there. You press it again, the interface goes away. You get to enjoy the beauty of the world on the screen, like a movie come to life. Then, when you want to do something, you press a key and your interface comes back. This works well. I still hold to the belief that the puzzles and the history of D'ni, that's the puzzle, that's what's deep and mysterious, not, for heaven's sake, how to invite someone into your age! The more time you spend getting frustrated figuring out how to communite in Uru, the less time you have to marvel at the beauty of the ages, solve the puzzles, or uncover the story and history of the world.
The pity is that, for the forseeable future, Cyan won't get to fix it. Think how wonderful it would be if they could do another MMO. I can imagine the Cyan designers (who may not be there anymore, remember Cyan had a huge staff) -- saying to themselves, "what were we thinking, this time we can make is so, so wonderful!"
Getting back to live events -- I think that Cyan thought we'd be happy with live events we didn't see, because other people could tell us about them, so second hand was ok, because that's how the world worked. Maybe this would have worked if, each and every time you logged on, you got to experience your own live story driven event, no matter what time zone you were in, and wherever you were, in a public age. Sadly, it didn't work like that. From my experience, people don't generally get into a virtual worlds for a second hand experience.
Events like festivals seem to work well in other games because they go on for some time (often a week) and they happen in all time zones. Festivals happen for a limited amount of time, but if you logon that week, and get to a public area, you get to experience the fun. This is because they are supported programatically, with NPCs, and gameplay built into the game. A human doesn't have to run around and do things.
The desire for a world changing things that players get to experience, things that make the world different -- people designing other games want that too. I don't think, though I could be wrong, that in 2002 the technology was great for that sort of thing. I'm now seeing two upcoming MMOs (possibly three, don't know for sure about Star Wars the Old Republic) where you get a personal story (akin to solving the puzzles in Uru) and world changing events you can participate in -- Guild Wars 2, and Rift: Planes of Telera. In both GW2 and Rift you have a personal story and public events/quests you can participate in, which change the world. GW2 seems a bit stronger on the personal story than Rift. For Star Wars the Old Republic, I know you have a personal story, but I don't know if they have world changing events. The trick to these events, as far as I can see, is that they are done programmatically (procedurally? some game developer here tell me the right word) -- built into the game, not based on humans running around and doing things. Because if you are running story things in Uru, story things that change the world (areas open up, things happen, all that) -- I just don't think you can do it. Image how wonderful if would have been if Cyan could have done that sort of thing!
Enough of that -- I can live without events that change the world, in Uru. Just please, give me a better KI. And make the instancing a little clearer, OK? I've played this game for so many years that I simply can't remember, in this version of Uru, where those instances in the neighborhoods take you.
_________________ mszv, amarez in Uru, other online games, never use mszv anymore, would like to change it Blog - http://www.amarez.com, Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/amareze
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