Let's talk about ways to improve Uru as an MMO

dragossh · **Joined:** Mon Jan 18, 2010 6:39 pm **Posts:** 517

kaelisebonrai wrote:

That still leaves us with all the horrible problems of "what do i do if i need help, and i don't have a KI, so I can't get to any of the populated areas at all?"
Because your "solution" doesn't solve anything at all. =P

Bevin. A link to public Ae'gura in Bevin.

jadawin12 wrote:

It stinks when I have ideas but no time to mention them fully. However the truth of the matter is Uru does need to be a bit more player friendly. The intro needs a bit of work, fixing the blasted Instance system would solve alot of problems (So that way I could just take the new person to Gahreesen without having to try and teach them how to share a book). Finally having the Public instances Multiplayer and the Private instances Single Player would solve alot of the Multiplayer VS Single Player nonsense.

The intro needs to be reversed to the original one, so you have an idea of what's going on with Yeesha, the Bahro and the Journey.

We need to have 5 instances of each Age, with states being player-side and not server-side, like it is now in MagiQuest.

kaelisebonrai wrote:

Uru failed twice, so, clearly, something, somewhere was wrong, this is fact. A game does not fail /twice/ with no flaws. Once, maybe.. Twice? No.

Uru failed because of Ubisoft. We had 30000 accounts in Prologue, and they cancelled it. Put it as a single-player game, which is good, but not great. The community aspect is the biggest feature Uru has, apart from the game being Myst online.

Quote:

I logged in, and the first thing I noticed, was how depressing the atmosphere was. There's no life in the cavern like I remember.

And why is that? Because we have NO money! Cyan doesn't hurry up the inclusion of fan Ages and they can't whip up a new Age right now. Remember how the servers crashed in the first few days?

People don't log in because there's nothing to do.

Bellerophon · **Joined:** Wed Apr 14, 2010 2:46 am **Posts:** 34

Simone wrote:

I still don't understand what is the proposed solution... is it to have a KI dispenser in the 'hoods?

Well, I proposed two solutions in the first post: both contingent on the idea of initially having a Nexus Book but no Neighbourhood book in Relto (at least until you go get a hood book) - either have the Nexus send you straight to Ki-Dispenser-Only gahreesen if you try to use it without a Ki, or just have the Nexus capable of dispensing Kis. It makes sense in-continuity and is darn straightforward.

dragossh wrote:

Bevin. A link to public Ae'gura in Bevin.

It should be noted this would require either a huge rewrite of the backend server to allow for unlimited numbers of people in an instance rather than 50, or a rewrite of both the client and server so that books can stop working if the link destination is overpopulated and if global's full then they're screwed.

jadawin12 wrote:

(So that way I could just take the new person to Gahreesen without having to try and teach them how to share a book).

For something like that you should just be getting a Nexus Invite. Of course, the Ki being unusable and half the population not knowing you can let other people into your age through their nexus is an issue there.

Rudolfson · **Posted:** Wed Jun 09, 2010 10:54 pm

To be fair. kaelisebonrai answered with 'some' irony to my irony. Is that not so?

But I did not use the word 'hate' or anything like it.
you are so impatient. There is a reason for everything, the 'game' of URU is not live just because the server is up. It is the 1st stage of making the game live. Surely you can see that URU is at the moment just a matter for die hard fans. One of my characters were given a hood of very active players. I saw them on my neighbour list and chatted with a few. Most of them from germany, and most coming from the iphone MYST. They never visited our hood after the getting the KI, either at ghareseen proper or hood instance. They played the game as if it was a sequel to MYST. What else was there to do. Those I talked to were excited about the future 'living' fan created game but had no interest in hanging in the cavern making friends and exploring glitches. Not while no new development is immediate. That is where my opinion that fixing the game and server to accomodate fan-stuff and getting fan storylines in to it is more important than tinkering with the KI or have the cleft full of people is based.

Also I like the KI. But you knew that

Serilusly though. I trust that suggestions such as those in this thread and others eventually will find a way into play, I just find the it strange with all of the decrying of parts of URU that I found pleasing to learn and did not think about as problems. This does not mean I hate everybody that wants to change them

Nye_Sigismund · **Posted:** Wed Jun 09, 2010 11:13 pm

Okay, defusing the situation a little (seriously folks, the endless bickering is not going to be very helpful when we have the OS server code etc, and it's less helpful now) -

For the intro stuff, there is a very easy way of solving all this KI nonsense and would take 10 minutes to do. Add a piece of paper) to the shelves in Relto (or have the instruction appear on the screen when you first link to Relto), saying:

"You're going to need a communication device if you want to explore properly. To get one, follow these instuctions:"

Another piece of paper reads:

"Here is how to use your new Ki:"

How's that for a quick fix?

(Personally I'm more for work on optimising the Ki code in the first place... the thing is so slow!)

Alternatively, just have a big flashing sign on the screen at all times saying "GOOGLE IT".

aloys · **Posted:** Thu Jun 10, 2010 12:32 am

dragossh wrote:

Uru failed because of Ubisoft. We had 30000 accounts in Prologue, and they cancelled it. Put it as a single-player game, which is good, but not great.

Ho dear.. Can we please stop with th the finger pointing?
If we go by that train of thought it's Ubi's fault that Uru had generated only 30.000 accounts? That number was way bellow the required number of subscriptions needed to sustain the service. As much as we may all hate it that decision made sense from Ubi's perspective: they were losing heaps of money on it with no better future in sight. Did they canned it too early? Maybe, maybe not, we'll never know. But with Gametap things lasted much longer, word of mouth was as great as it could be, and somehow the eventual conclusion was the same. To me that's an indication (among others) that the problem is not only with the publishing/marketing.
So let's leave all this finger pointing behind us, today Uru is here again, it is free, and it has no publisher to blame for its sucess or failures. Let's hope for the former.

kaelisebonrai · **Joined:** Sun Jan 20, 2008 2:14 pm **Posts:** 902

dragossh wrote:

kaelisebonrai wrote:

That still leaves us with all the horrible problems of "what do i do if i need help, and i don't have a KI, so I can't get to any of the populated areas at all?"
Because your "solution" doesn't solve anything at all. =P

Bevin. A link to public Ae'gura in Bevin.

OBJECTION!

dragossh wrote:

jadawin12 wrote:

It stinks when I have ideas but no time to mention them fully. However the truth of the matter is Uru does need to be a bit more player friendly. The intro needs a bit of work, fixing the blasted Instance system would solve alot of problems (So that way I could just take the new person to Gahreesen without having to try and teach them how to share a book). Finally having the Public instances Multiplayer and the Private instances Single Player would solve alot of the Multiplayer VS Single Player nonsense.

The intro needs to be reversed to the original one, so you have an idea of what's going on with Yeesha, the Bahro and the Journey.

We need to have 5 instances of each Age, with states being player-side and not server-side, like it is now in MagiQuest.

kaelisebonrai wrote:

Uru failed twice, so, clearly, something, somewhere was wrong, this is fact. A game does not fail /twice/ with no flaws. Once, maybe.. Twice? No.

Uru failed because of Ubisoft. We had 30000 accounts in Prologue, and they cancelled it. Put it as a single-player game, which is good, but not great. The community aspect is the biggest feature Uru has, apart from the game being Myst online.

Uh... lets all blame the big bad ubi! How about no?

dragossh wrote:

Quote:

I logged in, and the first thing I noticed, was how depressing the atmosphere was. There's no life in the cavern like I remember.

And why is that? Because we have NO money! Cyan doesn't hurry up the inclusion of fan Ages and they can't whip up a new Age right now. Remember how the servers crashed in the first few days?

People don't log in because there's nothing to do.

I'm not going to even bother to answer that one.

Simone · **Joined:** Tue Feb 23, 2010 10:43 am **Posts:** 282

Like others, I don't believe that Uru failed *twice* only because of its intrinsic faults. But this belief cannot hide the fact that it is possible and necessary to improve Uru.

The Cavern seems dead lately, and it's because there are no new puzzles and no story at the moment - I honestly do not see any other explanation...

About getting the KI: if big signs telling people to follow the arrows to get the KI don't work, a piece of paper in Relto won't do much better: new explorers are just not going to read it, and then we will argue that a piece of paper is hard to spot and not user-friendly. I still stand by having more and better signs directing to Gahreesen; such signs would only appear in the default 'hoods, so that they do not clutter the other ones. On the other hand, having KI dispensers in the Nexus or 'hoods does not make sense story-wise... but that's a minor concern for me in this case.

Let me note also that "getting the KI" would not be the huge problem we're making out of it, if the default 'hoods were much more populated than they are now.

jhgtinker · **Joined:** Thu Aug 02, 2007 6:01 am **Posts:** 21

Simone wrote:

The Cavern seems dead lately, and it's because there are no new puzzles and no story at the moment - I honestly do not see any other explanation...

I agree.

dragossh · **Joined:** Mon Jan 18, 2010 6:39 pm **Posts:** 517

aloys wrote:

If we go by that train of thought it's Ubi's fault that Uru had generated only 30.000 accounts? That number was way bellow the required number of subscriptions needed to sustain the service. As much as we may all hate it that decision made sense from Ubi's perspective: they were losing heaps of money on it with no better future in sight.

Yes, but we don't know what would have happened if Ubisoft continued pushing the online version. It might have flopped or it might have been the greatest Myst game ever with a huge fanbase. All we know is they cancelled it and pushed multi-player content into a single-player game, then in 2006-2007 GameTap picked it up and they even considered a 2nd season when they decided to pull the plug because it was too expensive. Note, however, that Ubisoft might have had more money than GameTap, and could have kept Uru afloat for a while.

kaelisebonrai wrote:

dragossh wrote:

Quote:

I logged in, and the first thing I noticed, was how depressing the atmosphere was. There's no life in the cavern like I remember.

And why is that? Because we have NO money! Cyan doesn't hurry up the inclusion of fan Ages and they can't whip up a new Age right now. Remember how the servers crashed in the first few days?

People don't log in because there's nothing to do.

I'm not going to even bother to answer that one.

Good. Because I've seen people say that they're not logging into the Cavern because there's nothing else to do after you've finished all the Ages. If there's some secret reason people are not coming back to Uru, do tell.

kaelisebonrai · **Joined:** Sun Jan 20, 2008 2:14 pm **Posts:** 902

Simone wrote:

<snip>
Let me note also that "getting the KI" would not be the huge problem we're making out of it, if the default 'hoods were much more populated than they are now.

They won't be, ever. So the problem will always stand. =)

Also, you can all be in your little utopian dreamworld, where uru doesn't have any flaws.. if you so choose, but don't expect others to agree. Uru, like /everything/ has flaws. And Uru has failed, not once, but twice. These are facts. One can fairly sensibly extrapolate the data we're aware of: "uru has flaws" and "uru has failed twice, taking Cyan with it, once, and almost taking them with it the second time"

This extrapolation leads us to a fairly sensible conclusion, uru has flaws that have been contributors to its downfall.

People aren't logging into the cavern, because there is nothing to do. Good to hear. My original statement was not necessarily answering you, but rather someone else. I'm proud of you! You completely proved... well, nothing. *applauds*

Zander_the_Heretic · **Joined:** Sun Mar 14, 2010 2:37 am **Posts:** 278

Uru certainly has flaws. And Uru did fail in the commercial marketplace, not once, but twice.

What I'm saying (and I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, Kaelis) is that that's a specific kind of failure. My kettle downstairs would fail at pulling the two-fifteen from London to Glasgow. Doesn't mean it can't help me make a nice cup of tea, or that I should throw it out and thereby leave myself tealess because it failed at being a train. Should I take it apart and make it into a steam engine that could not thereafter give me tea, or keep it as a kettle and let others worry about long-distance mass transportation?

Going back a bit to the talk about the Cleft...I once surmised that if the Cleft were really realistic, by now there would be a sort of shanty town grown up around the caldera, of people who felt the Call but didn't go all the way, people who just like the surroundings, people who have come to find out what happened to their loved ones last seen in this area, and of course people selling them things. "Can't complete the Journey? Getcha genuine Relto books here, only ten dollars! Sorry, mate, no refunds."

And then I thought it would look just like the common areas in GW or LOTRO, lots of weird-looking people milling around and somewhere in the middle of it the person you need to talk to. Hmm. Good thing or not?

Simone · **Joined:** Tue Feb 23, 2010 10:43 am **Posts:** 282

kaelisebonrai wrote:

Simone wrote:

<snip>
Let me note also that "getting the KI" would not be the huge problem we're making out of it, if the default 'hoods were much more populated than they are now.

They won't be, ever. So the problem will always stand. =)

Unless we find a way to improve the 'hood system -- which is actually one of the topics debated around here.

kaelisebonrai wrote:

Also, you can all be in your little utopian dreamworld, where uru doesn't have any flaws.. if you so choose, but don't expect others to agree. *etcetera etcetera*

What are you talking about? Everyone here agrees that Uru has flaws. We might debate their role in its commercial failures, but no one is saying that we should leave Uru as it is.

kaelisebonrai wrote:

People aren't logging into the cavern, because there is nothing to do. Good to hear. My original statement was not necessarily answering you, but rather someone else. I'm proud of you! You completely proved... well, nothing. *applauds*

You wrote what you wrote just below a quote by dragossh, and it really looked like you were addressing his statement about the empty cavern. If that was not the case, gratuitous sarcasm is not going to make your point clearer... you sound nervous, is something in the discussion here bothering you?
=)

Zander_the_Heretic wrote:

Going back a bit to the talk about the Cleft...I once surmised that if the Cleft were really realistic, by now there would be a sort of shanty town grown up around the caldera *snip* And then I thought it would look just like the common areas in GW or LOTRO, lots of weird-looking people milling around and somewhere in the middle of it the person you need to talk to. Hmm. Good thing or not?

Hmmm I wouldn't know, honestly. It's true that there is a nice feel to starting the journey alone in the desert, but I do not see why having some explorers sitting there instead of Zandi would ruin the Cleft for newcomers. Adding a "village", 'hood-sized area would be a lot of fun in my opinion! But it would be best if it was somehow detached from the Cleft - I don't know, maye with some sort of "bus ride transition" between the two areas? I know this was being discussed somewhere, either here or over at openuru.org ...

kaelisebonrai · **Joined:** Sun Jan 20, 2008 2:14 pm **Posts:** 902

Zander_the_Heretic wrote:

Uru certainly has flaws. And Uru did fail in the commercial marketplace, not once, but twice.

What I'm saying (and I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, Kaelis) is that that's a specific kind of failure. My kettle downstairs would fail at pulling the two-fifteen from London to Glasgow. Doesn't mean it can't help me make a nice cup of tea, or that I should throw it out and thereby leave myself tealess because it failed at being a train. Should I take it apart and make it into a steam engine that could not thereafter give me tea, or keep it as a kettle and let others worry about long-distance mass transportation?
<snip>

Now this analogy I agree with. I'm not saying we should make it something it (Uru) isn't, hence the reference to an NWN-style multiplayer, which, in my opinion, would suit Uru's playerbase, and gameplay style... to a T. Big changes, though...

At the moment, we're in the unhappy land where Uru is being treated like its something it.. well... really isn't. I'd personally call Uru something closer to what the NWN stuff has... or to GW, but on a much /much/ smaller scale. But.. from experience, people are treating it more like something massive and huge, and lots of content, etc, etc... or as if it really could be something with new content and story every month. I don't see that happening, nor do I think its feasible... I'd rather see it taken down to a much more small scale, more /personal/ experience. And I honestly think that'd make Uru thrive, in theory.

Is it possible, right now? Not really. But, then, this is all under the banner of "when open source happens" so... if that does, it might be much, much more possible.

Am I the only one that thinks this? Quite possibly. I still say it'd be a big improvement over the kinda-but-really-not mmo type thing we have going now.

EDIT:

Simone wrote:

kaelisebonrai wrote:

People aren't logging into the cavern, because there is nothing to do. Good to hear. My original statement was not necessarily answering you, but rather someone else. I'm proud of you! You completely proved... well, nothing. *applauds*

You wrote what you wrote just below a quote by dragossh, and it really looked like you were addressing his statement about the empty cavern. If that was not the case, gratuitous sarcasm is not going to make your point clearer... you sound nervous, is something in the discussion here bothering you?
=)

No... I didn't, actually. I wrote it below a post by jadawin, which was below a post by Rudolfson, who I was responding to. =)

Shiny, isn't it, when we're hilariously wrong? =)

Oh, lovely, now we're trying to do analysis... Not so much nervous, just annoyed in general. =)

Nye_Sigismund · **Posted:** Thu Jun 10, 2010 11:11 am

You know, it just occured to me that the simplest way to add new plot content to MOUL would simply be for someone to write it down and post it online as a short story. Like how EVE Online does it.

Say the DRC has a meeting that's interrupted by two angry explorers furious that the age they spent weeks repairing has been sidelined. A talented author (fiery abyss, maybe make it the GoMe's job, they're the real "writers"...) is given the synopsis by a Cyan employee, and he goes away and writes it under an NDA, returns it to Cyan who release it...

Anyway, sidetracking.

Aside from the intro, what else? I'd like to see a change in the coding so that you get assigned to a "public neighbourhood" out of a pool of about 10 of them. 10 neighbourhoods, each getting their own design as age designers begin hardcore development.
Fix every age so that they work fully with a number of people inside each one (one of my lasting memories of MOULa was being unable to complete a Kadish Tolesa puzzle as the person who was helping me inadvertantly broke the thing...).
More apperance options.

That's in general, of course. Whichever fanserver does all that first will probably win the title of main rival to MOULa...

Simone · **Joined:** Tue Feb 23, 2010 10:43 am **Posts:** 282

kaelisebonrai wrote:

Simone wrote:

kaelisebonrai wrote:

People aren't logging into the cavern, because there is nothing to do. Good to hear. My original statement was not necessarily answering you, but rather someone else. I'm proud of you! You completely proved... well, nothing. *applauds*

You wrote what you wrote just below a quote by dragossh, and it really looked like you were addressing his statement about the empty cavern. If that was not the case, gratuitous sarcasm is not going to make your point clearer... you sound nervous, is something in the discussion here bothering you?
=)

No... I didn't, actually. I wrote it below a post by jadawin, which was below a post by Rudolfson, who I was responding to. =)

What I see above in the thread is still that you were addressing dragossh. Anyway, this does not advance the discussion and I think no one really cares so... ok, whatever, I'm hallucinating.

Quote:

Oh, lovely, now we're trying to do analysis... Not so much nervous, just annoyed in general. =)

I was certainly not trying to make fun of you or do cheap psychoanalisis. Sorry, I didn't mean to cross a line.

Let's talk about ways to improve Uru as an MMO

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