New Standalone Portal Calculator for all 4 pods

Overdrive · **Posted:** Sat Apr 21, 2007 4:54 pm

IngisKahn wrote:

You're 2-3 minutes early for each of your times.

I noticed that as well, but it doesn't really matter. The intervals seem to be consistent enough. Few formatting issues though with longer width dates. Nice little program though.

trylon · **Joined:** Mon Aug 28, 2006 10:35 pm **Posts:** 72

Thanks for all the nice response!

I didn't know that it was a few minutes early - I calibrated the starting time against one of the online portal calculators.
Luckily the err is on the side of caution.
If someone can determine the exact amount it's off, I'll change it, but for now, I think I'll risk being early, rather than being late.

Perhaps I'll fix up the formatting errors and the other suggestions in the next few days. I threw the program together last evening, and it was in internal beta for about 5 minutes I believe

As to whether or not to ask permission - with all due respect, that is my decision (or perhaps mistake) to make. I believe that permission is needed for releasing anything that reads from or messes with internal game files, but not for a simple calculation tool like this.

Tiran · **Posted:** Sat Apr 21, 2007 5:50 pm

trylon wrote:

As to whether or not to ask permission - with all due respect, that is my decision (or perhaps mistake) to make. I believe that permission is needed for releasing anything that reads from or messes with internal game files, but not for a simple calculation tool like this.

Strictly speaking you have to get permission if you want to use Cyan's intellectual property which includes names like Myst Online, Uru Live, the pod age names, screenshots and so on. Cyan's legal page contains information about their terms of usage. http://www.cyan.com/legal_guidelines.php

In the past Cyan was very forthcoming and open to fan work. I want to keep the status quo. Personally I consider it polite to ask for permission before I use to work from somebody else.

IngisKahn · **Posted:** Sat Apr 21, 2007 6:10 pm

Here's the exact times for the next portals which occur every [spoiler]15 hours 43 minutes and 5 seconds[/spoiler].

[spoiler]Negilahn
Saturday, April 21, 2007 - 9:24:59 PM GMT
Dereno
Saturday, April 21, 2007 - 10:39:24 PM GMT
Payiferen
Saturday, April 21, 2007 - 11:13:04 PM GMT
Tetsonot
Sunday, April 22, 2007 - 1:58:28 AM GMT[/spoiler]

BAD · **Joined:** Tue May 09, 2006 2:10 am **Posts:** 372

Tiran is correct.

Cyan may not have the time to contact you legally Trylon.

Since you have already released it, you might as well keep it up till Cyan contacts you.

I know that many want to err on the side of caution when it comes to IP situations, but an honest mistake is an honest mistake. :wink:

Tiran · **Posted:** Sat Apr 21, 2007 6:17 pm

BAD wrote:

Cyan may not have the time to contact you legally Trylon.

If Cyan is forced to take time to contact you about a legal thing it won't be nice for you ...

Mari' · **Posted:** Sat Apr 21, 2007 6:34 pm

When I run this thing I get an error.

Application has generated an exception that oculd not be handled.
Process id=0x59c (1436), Thread id=0xd90 (3472).

Any ideas how I can get this to work?

fchall · **Joined:** Fri Jan 05, 2007 11:27 pm **Posts:** 350

Tiran wrote:

trylon wrote:

As to whether or not to ask permission - with all due respect, that is my decision (or perhaps mistake) to make. I believe that permission is needed for releasing anything that reads from or messes with internal game files, but not for a simple calculation tool like this.

Strictly speaking you have to get permission if you want to use Cyan's intellectual property which includes names like Myst Online, Uru Live, the pod age names, screenshots and so on. Cyan's legal page contains information about their terms of usage. http://www.cyan.com/legal_guidelines.php

In the past Cyan was very forthcoming and open to fan work. I want to keep the status quo. Personally I consider it polite to ask for permission before I use to work from somebody else.

Dam; trylon better change the names to "Those Things 1, 2, 3, 4 " before the men in Cyan Trench Coats come take him away.

I'll be sure not to mention anything about that game( is this OK ) to my friends.

trylon · **Joined:** Mon Aug 28, 2006 10:35 pm **Posts:** 72

Tiran wrote:

In the past Cyan was very forthcoming and open to fan work. I want to keep the status quo. Personally I consider it polite to ask for permission before I use to work from somebody else.

You may be right, but I figured it was so small, I wouldn't bother them with it. Especially since there are already a couple of portal calculators out there.

But to be on the safe side - I'll drop them an email....

fchall · **Joined:** Fri Jan 05, 2007 11:27 pm **Posts:** 350

trylon wrote:

Tiran wrote:

In the past Cyan was very forthcoming and open to fan work. I want to keep the status quo. Personally I consider it polite to ask for permission before I use to work from somebody else.

You may be right, but I figured it was so small, I wouldn't bother them with it. Especially since there are already a couple of portal calculators out there.

But to be on the safe side - I'll drop them an email....

Your going to cave? Bow down to the man.

dinkygirl · **Joined:** Sun Jan 28, 2007 7:10 am **Posts:** 66

Lemme first say THANK YOU so very much for gifting the rest of us with this handy device!!

My only thought is that maybe instead of having it show the portal times in local and UTC time, how about just using Ki time?

Anyone playing already knows what the difference between their time zone and Ki time is, so I think this might just simplify everything if we all consider the cavern as the universal time for everything Uru related.

BAD · **Joined:** Tue May 09, 2006 2:10 am **Posts:** 372

Honestly if Cyan contacted you about this, they would just simply ask that you remove it from the public.

I really don't see them getting upset about it at all.

Tiran,

As you are in contact with Cyan, things are a bit different for you. You are trying to work with Cyan with various projects. This means you will have more scrutiny on you.

I know of a few people around who have made calculators for the portals, who have also asked Cyan for permission to release them. All of them were denied. They may have to deny all requests ATM because of their contract with GameTap. Hopefully I am either wrong, or things will change. :wink:

I think yours and those others, used a bit more IP than the ones released already. That may be the reason they were denied.

fchall · **Joined:** Fri Jan 05, 2007 11:27 pm **Posts:** 350

dinkygirl wrote:

Lemme first say THANK YOU so very much for gifting the rest of us with this handy device!!

My only thought is that maybe instead of having it show the portal times in local and UTC time, how about just using Ki time?

Anyone playing already knows what the difference between their time zone and Ki time is, so I think this might just simplify everything if we all consider the cavern as the universal time for everything Uru related.

There is a thread for that.

http://www.mystonline.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=9197

Tiran · **Posted:** Sun Apr 22, 2007 12:27 am

BAD wrote:

I know of a few people around who have made calculators for the portals, who have also asked Cyan for permission to release them. All of them were denied. They may have to deny all requests ATM because of their contract with GameTap. Hopefully I am either wrong, or things will change. :wink:

I had a discussion with a Cyan employee. Cyan doesn't like the portal calculators because a calculator isn't the 'right' solution. The new calculators might be right because they use the knowledge from the map and Payiferen but the old ones were just brute force solutions. And they don't like the fact that people are spoiled by the calculators.

Texana · **Posted:** Sun Apr 22, 2007 12:57 am

While I can certainly appreciate the concern of Cyan with people using spoilers to solve their puzzles, I can also understand the people who want a simple to use portal calculator. It is not fun, nor is it practical, to sit in a pod until the portal appears and then move along the progression path to get all four of the portals.

At the best, it would take a little over 13 hours of sitting around doing nothing and it could take much longer if you just missed your first portal. That really is too much to ask of the average player.

I usually don't post controversial items in my Goodies List, but this time I decided the help this calculator would provide outweighed the potential problesm. If Cyan asks that the calculator be removed I will promptly remove the link from my listing. Until then....

Thank you Trylon

BTW, I still don't have the goodies from Payiferen or Tetsonot. I keep just missing the portal times :oops:

PS - Count me in for using KI time

New Standalone Portal Calculator for all 4 pods

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