What do YOU want to see?

Envie · **Posted:** Thu Apr 28, 2011 8:59 pm

Very old original URU Live fan here (I beta tested) - returning after a long long time away. I read about URU going to Open Source and came back to take a look and to show my husband, who has some interest in coding with a team for new player made content.

As the 'player' side of the equation - like others, I would like to see an overhaul done to the interface. KI, chat, video, journals, etc. etc. and also avatar overhaul... better facial sliders, more hair and face varieties, and I don't know if this is possible within the realm of the current game engine's mechanics but will we ever be able to have working hands / arms!?

As for ages - I am sure there will be some great new player made ages created. I hope they will stay within the storyline of the Myst series -- but I'd even be willing to entertain 'modern' ages created by new writers (assuming non-D'ni have the ability to write them!).

Last, but certainly not least - I absolutely want to see more areas of the cavern... much much more areas! The city of D'ni has always been fascinating to me, which kept drawing me back to the game over the years, even when it was gone and then returned. The ages are great... the puzzles range from inspiring to maddening - and they various themes of the ages are gorgeous... but I want to see the city restored and active again as the DRC promised years and years ago! The feel and atmosphere of the cavern is one of the best ever.

I do hope this Open Source move will get some real buzz started again for URU. It was always a fabulous idea, it just didn't get enough of the right audience drawn in. Some better media, new trailers (player made?) and exposure to gamers who may not even know about its return to life would be a top priority too. Whatever the players need to do to get it back into action and revived in popularity... I definitely think use of Facebook and Youtube would be ideal methods to drum up some support and return of adventurers to D'ni! (that's how I found out).

Yay for this great development and all of the great developments to come!

"Perhaps the Ending has not yet been written..."

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

Quote:

And of course Cyan's TOS comes into play. Running custom content is likely a violation of them, but of course many of those terms are suspended in The Fun House.

Just wondering if we couldn't make a update to the Hoods so they would be more
( self contained ) so they could be used more as a sandbox/test area very much
like what the 'Fun House' is and more!

I really would like Cyan to explain Why MUST EVERYTHING we make ( user made content )
be TOTALY OUR OWN for? examples: Textures, Scripts,& Models.

This is where I'm commig from,
COS 'Cyan Open Source' It is to keep the 'LOOK' and theme more 'intact', It also
whould be a lot less of a learning curve than the current way is at present. ( I'm NOT saying
to ditch the current way at all, But to have BOTH. )
The Way I'm thinking about is IMO: Each hood could become a high bread cookie cutter
type way etc. SandBox/testbed Where We COULD take things and move them around, add things
using 3D max etc. OR already existing meshes for floors, walls etc. and then use the games own
textures to (re)texture them with, ( For one point using the games textures takes alot of owrk out of
looking for countless hours on the net to make sure the new textures being used are indeed copy write free. )
Actualy this would be an addition to the total 'made from scratch' Way because The WHOLE point
'At least to me' Is We 'The called' enhareted this Vast cavern city. The New Human D'ni Explorers.
So why are we all still lerking about and living in a run down half crumbled city of Ar'gura for?
I would be working at restoring our new home! ( each Hood has its OWN City instance ).

Anyone starting to see what I'm trying very hard to convay? We need content and things to really DO 'InGame'
Cyan IMO would be less burdened because it would all be pretty much contained in a structure and things that
are already there. If we wanted something more or something that is not already in the game then hoods
could contact the GOW or GOM to set up a order for the object or script they need etc etc.

So Why Cyan?

.

Nalates · **Posted:** Sat May 14, 2011 4:10 pm

@Envie, welcome back.

I think you will see the fan ages added to the Cyan MOULa server conform to Myst-Uru style and story. What happens on the fan run MOSS servers is up to fans. So, they may or may not conform, but then you don’t have to play on the ones you don’t like.

Over at GoW and OpenUru.org are plans and ideas for making changes to the user interface. Also, ideas and plans for change the game start, repairing instancing and many other parts of the game that have annoyed players.

Getting to see more areas of the cavern… I’m not hopeful. The existing game areas are reserved by Cyan for their possible future use. So, for now it appears fans can’t modify those areas. But, there are parts of those ages I would like to see opened too.

There are a number of us that Tweet, there are Facebook pages and fan groups, there are new iPhoen/Smart Phone versions of some Myst games, and a number of us are building Myst-Uru style things in other virtual worlds and pointing people to MOULa. So, some buzz is around. Also, there is the movie that seems to be slowly moving forward. So, there are possibilities.
[/@]

@VoiZod, I’m not sure what you are thinking of as a sandbox. Cyan has a test server and is planning to make one available to fans. If you are thinking of a sandbox like those in Second Life, where one can make an object from a set of primitive shapes then color and texture it all while in-world in real time, I doubt that will ever happen. Remember. Uru is all pre-made content that is downloaded at game start. To have any new objects added in real time would require a major change in the game infrastructure. I expect the MOSS servers will soon be our private sandboxes.

Also, when you say Cyan requires everything be our own… they have a fan license that allows us to use Cyan stuff for use in fan ages. Otherwise, we must have the rights to anything we bring in game. There are public domain models we can use because the rights use to them are unrestricted. There are other models and textures that their creators allow to be used with minor restrictions (think Creative Commons). Cyan’s requirements are that we have clear ownership or use rights to anything that might end up on their servers. That keeps them from being sued.
[/@]

I want something to do that is fun every day. While I hate grinds, something like that is needed in Uru. I suspect the lake lighting was intended to be in that trend. But, work done to visible result is out of balance and it doesn’t work. Endlessly dropping pellets for years to see such small change doesn’t work.

May be if the fans dropped 10k, 100k, or a million or some doable number of pellet points in a day produce visible results that faded over time people would be more interested.

Having something happening in-world that people can talk about generates more activity and reason to login.

Envie · **Posted:** Thu May 19, 2011 5:05 am

Nalates wrote:

@Envie, welcome back.

I think you will see the fan ages added to the Cyan MOULa server conform to Myst-Uru style and story. What happens on the fan run MOSS servers is up to fans. So, they may or may not conform, but then you don’t have to play on the ones you don’t like.

Over at GoW and OpenUru.org are plans and ideas for making changes to the user interface. Also, ideas and plans for change the game start, repairing instancing and many other parts of the game that have annoyed players.

Getting to see more areas of the cavern… I’m not hopeful. The existing game areas are reserved by Cyan for their possible future use. So, for now it appears fans can’t modify those areas. But, there are parts of those ages I would like to see opened too.

There are a number of us that Tweet, there are Facebook pages and fan groups, there are new iPhoen/Smart Phone versions of some Myst games, and a number of us are building Myst-Uru style things in other virtual worlds and pointing people to MOULa. So, some buzz is around. Also, there is the movie that seems to be slowly moving forward. So, there are possibilities.

Thanks for the welcome back. I check in from time to time, once a week at least while cramming in a lot of other interesting but so far uninspiring games lately

I am glad to hear most of those willing to put in the immense work and creativity required to create player made ages will likely stick to the original Cyan / Myst theme and storyline. Makes sense and makes for a better fan following of those ages in my book. Can't wait to see what's cooking and even help out if possible (I'm a pretty good beta-testing lab rat who manages to find just about any single pixel to get stuck on :roll:

).

If opening more areas of the Cavern will be up to Cyan - has there been any hint at all they are continuing to work on them or have future plans to do so? It would be a shame if the entire thing goes to open source and ages start cropping up and a new revival in interest and fanbase grows...only to have the cavern remain a limited and quiet place like it is now. I do hope they will keep it on the back burner and code new areas for release!

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

Quote:

If opening more areas of the Cavern will be up to Cyan - has there been any hint at all they are continuing to work on them or have future plans to do so? It would be a shame if the entire thing goes to open source and ages start cropping up and a new revival in interest and fanbase grows...only to have the cavern remain a limited and quiet place like it is now. I do hope they will keep it on the back burner and code new areas for release!

Here here!!!

YES finaly someone agrees with me

I really think that is what Cyan had for the Hood city instances was to make a city
in which WE COULD edit and Restore and Add Too, What other reason is there?

I have SEEN through UU and now in the fun house the abilitiy to MOVE, ReSIZE,
throw different meshes together, change the color of the sky and much much more
from the Fun House So IMO a SL type of realtime editing CAN be done already in URU...
not sure why the lake light mechanic was so hard to add to the game, just add a counter
on the silo pellet meter and set a global scale of pellet numbers and at each stange
the Lake slowly starts to come back to life, with its day and night cycles!

Then post a update to dled a new PAK file and your good to go.
OR make URU reconise 'plugin' MOD PAK files which to install just place the pak file in the
same folder as URU's PAK file. hay yea!

Then adding new content would just be;... Easy Peezy Lemon Squeezy!!! lol

.

aloys · **Posted:** Sat May 21, 2011 7:36 pm

VoiZod wrote:

I have SEEN through UU and now in the fun house the abilitiy to MOVE, ReSIZE,
throw different meshes together, change the color of the sky and much much more
from the Fun House So IMO a SL type of realtime editing CAN be done already in URU...

This is a little more complex than that. With this kind of tools you cannot achieve much, you'd need more complex tools to get close to something decent like SL.

VoiZod wrote:

not sure why the lake light mechanic was so hard to add to the game, just add a counter
on the silo pellet meter and set a global scale of pellet numbers and at each stange
the Lake slowly starts to come back to life, with its day and night cycles!

Again this is a little more complex. There are two issues with that. First is that Cyan would actually need to do some decent changes and additions to hoods and Aegura to include a new dynamic lighting coming from the lake and make it look good. And this was propably not deemed a high enough priority to do it at the time.
The second reason IMO is the most important and has nothing to do with tecnical/schedule worries. To light up the Lake they would also need to update the background textures that shows the cavern wall with the City Proper in the distance (seen from the hood balcony or the City). This might be a problem because I'm pretty sure this texture is a placeholder of sorts. It is very dark; a tad blurry, and doesn't actually show much. I might be wrong here, but I'm pretty sure the City proper design hasn't been settled yet. And by lighting up this background texture they are at risk of showing stuff that might not correspond to the final design of that area if they ever have the occasion to complete it..
I agree that's a lot of 'might' and 'possibly' but this wouldn't be the first time they avoid doing something to keep themselves more options available in the future.

mszv · **Joined:** Wed May 10, 2006 5:28 am **Posts:** 2266

Aside from wonderful new ages (hooray!), I was wondering if anyone was working on the camera (not the KI) -- how we see what we see in the cavern.

I think I know why Cyan did it -- how we can't control the camera, how it pans at certain points for dramatic effect (not under your control) -- but it seems so, what's the right word here -- old, outdated, perhaps because it is old.

I'm now used to games where, with some mouse moves, you can pan that camera anywhere you want, You can look at your avatar from the front, you can raise and lower your general view (might be able to do this in Uru, it's been awhile).

Every time I come back into Uru -- it bugs me.

I understand if no one is working on this -- open source and all, people are doing what makes sense for them to do. I'm just asking.

Charura · **Joined:** Wed Oct 14, 2009 4:14 pm **Posts:** 1773

What mszv said..ditto..stop the mad camera!

Main_Avvie · **Posted:** Sun Jun 05, 2011 6:45 am

yeah, i agree some improvements in the virtual camera can be made...

perhaps moving the mouse pointer to the edge of the screen or using the wasd key configuration could pan the camera in the appropriate direction? or a method of dragging the camera with the mouse more fluidly and to a greater degree than we currently can?

perhaps there could be a toggle to "unlock" the camera from "chase mode" behind the avvies back so the camera can be panned and zoomed freely and an option to disable automatic camera controls would be nice to prevent the camera from automatically shifting.

although at some points intrusive, a lot of the automatic camera shifts are hardly noticeable but serve well to highlight the finer aspects of the environment more dramatically. perhaps just disabling some of the more annoying context sensitive camera perspective shifts would suffice?

Rudolfson · **Posted:** Sun Jun 05, 2011 8:22 am

I agree that the camera is oldish bur it does put a focus on the you are you game design and I do think it is intentional.
It would be nice indeed to have a more open approach on the view angles. But it is also a lot of playtesting behind the current model. (besides the technical limitations) I do not think it is so much for drama as for playability of the puzzles that we encounter some of these forced view changes. It is easy to forget once you have run around avery spot a hundred times, how vital a certain view shift was to focus on the right clues or content. Still the puzzles and riddles are so difficult that many players resort to cheating

.

What I'm saying is that a change needs to be handled with care for the current content as a game regarded.

Stucuk · **Joined:** Sun Jun 27, 2010 1:41 am **Posts:** 216

I have always avoided the 3rd person camera like the plague because its so horrible to control. The classic MMO camera movement imo is one of the best 3rd person camera types(The one which most MMO's use).

Main_Avvie · **Posted:** Sun Jun 05, 2011 5:03 pm

Stucuk wrote:

The classic MMO camera movement imo is one of the best 3rd person camera types(The one which most MMO's use).

and how does that function, exactly?

AdamJohnso · **Posted:** Sun Jun 05, 2011 5:57 pm

Fixed point behind the avatar's head, you move the mouse to control the camera. It's what pretty much every game with a 3rd person mode does now.

Main_Avvie · **Posted:** Sun Jun 05, 2011 6:07 pm

is it click and drag to pan or by moving the cursor to the edges of the screen? or otherwise?

AdamJohnso · **Posted:** Sun Jun 05, 2011 6:10 pm

The camera moves with your mouse--no panning no edge moving. Just circle around the avatar with mouse movements.

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