Every where I go, I see URU

Todoni · **Joined:** Tue Aug 22, 2006 4:36 am **Posts:** 763

Ok- I been playing GW for two weeks now. Have made no friends, have found no community, but it is more interesting than playing solitaire, and it does have some very pretty landscapes.Seems to be variations on four themes: Desert, Rocks & Snow, Jungle, or Mixed farm land.

And I do really enjoy the landscapes in Guild Wars. Even if I am not very motivated to be gil rich or have the best armor, and whatever, I do like the exploring aspect, and I might ignore the chore of finishing a mission or quest, just to see if I can make it to the next town. Just to see what the next area looks like.

At first I was in the lush-pasture land themed area, with a touch of fall coloring, and I was reminded of Delin. Then I went to a desert area, and I was reminded of Eder Gira. So then I was in rocky snowy area, and had few if any reminders. Then I moved to the more open pasture typoe areas....and some jungle....and a lot of the plants looked just like what was all over Uru, especially the pods. So I am thinking...maybe a lot of online games use the same themes?

And then I reached a town called "The Henge of Denravi". All I can think is they musta visited URU or Exile or something, cause this is looking awfully familiar. And then there is this cute little beach town called Fishermans Haven. Not too many beaches in URU, (which was always one of the things on any wish list I ever had), but somehow the feeling seems very URU.

They can try to imitate the art style of URU, but it is still not as good. You can paint a copy of the Mona Lisa, and you will recognize the copy as a Mona Lisa, but nothing will make it an original by D'Vinci. And the music. Lets just say within a few hours of playtime I was turning off the speakers. Music was ok, but not good enough to listen to over and over. I dont imagine Spielberg will use the GW music for anything he does anytime soon. Im not a musician, but I imagine doing quality music as Cyan games have would be harder to imitate.

But I will play, for at least ahwile more. It is more fun than solitaire, which is my other choice right now.

So...have any of you who have played GW, or any other online game, had a similar deja vu? (Like I did for the first lands I was in.) Or do they make you feel like the probably were at least influenced by URU's style? Or are you seeing URU every where you go?
Sorry for the long rant....feeling a little lost.

zack · **Posted:** Fri Apr 25, 2008 7:15 am

I agree - even in WOW, Zangermarsh has many aspects of URU and there's many more... I've thought that for some time, plus even some music seems to have taken a page (music page

) as well.
But, of course, it's never quite the same or has the same originality. MYST and URU really stand alone as each being uniquely creative, at least in my estimation.

Janai · **Joined:** Thu Feb 08, 2007 10:55 pm **Posts:** 197

My biggest moment of deja vu came in real life. A few months ago, I was on the bus on the way to work when I passed a construction zone; it was an ordinary street in suburban Bellevue, nothing too fancy about the surroundings or what the guys were doing on the road. But of course everything was marked off with traffic cones. Lots of traffic cones. And one of them very, very clearly had DRC written on it. I have no clue why or what it was supposed to stand for, but....

I'd say "you have no idea how much I wanted to jump out of that bus and see if they really were digging to D'ni," but in this crowd, I think you WOULD have some idea.

bpgisme · **Joined:** Sat Dec 02, 2006 2:53 am **Posts:** 474

Janai wrote:

My biggest moment of deja vu came in real life. A few months ago, I was on the bus on the way to work when I passed a construction zone; it was an ordinary street in suburban Bellevue, nothing too fancy about the surroundings or what the guys were doing on the road. But of course everything was marked off with traffic cones. Lots of traffic cones. And one of them very, very clearly had DRC written on it. I have no clue why or what it was supposed to stand for, but....

I'd say "you have no idea how much I wanted to jump out of that bus and see if they really were digging to D'ni," but in this crowd, I think you WOULD have some idea.

Funny you should mention cones because I was thinking of Uru the other day when I took this photo close to my house. They're building a major bridge just three streets away from us and a smaller bridge close to the beach and putting in sewer so there are just miles and miles of cones everywhere you look!

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

No one should play unless they want to, but for Guild Wars - there's a very active Uru community. I'll post the links later.

I'm not sure if Guild Wars was influenced by Uru. If I was guessing, I'd guess Guild Wars was influenced by Oblivion (sequel to Morrowind), maybe Everquest or some of the other RPG games. What would be interesting is to see the influences on Uru. The art director who left (can't remember his name) - he worked on a variety of other projects before Uru. People bring their experiences and expertise to anything they create. My guess would be that the other game influences went towards Uru and not the other way, though, all development groups bring their own sensibilities. I like it that Uru looks different from Myst - you have to do something that resonates with people playing today, something that looks contemporary, even if it is supposed to be of an old ruined city.

I do think that a lot of online games use the same themes - it makes the world recognizable, and helps people to understand what they are looking at - there also seems to be some styles floating around that a lot of games make use of, including Uru. That takes nothing away from Uru - it's what you make of it. Uru looks fantastic!

dtierce · **Posted:** Fri Apr 25, 2008 5:54 pm

I watched a fan-subbed Anime movie last night ("Hack/G.U. Trilogy") set in a fictional MMO game called "The World" which is probably similar to WoW or GW or some other fantasy MMORPG. In it was a guy who was obsessed with leveling up. A girl was asking him "what for?". She thought the game should be about meeting and interacting with people and enjoying the world of the game.

My immediate thought was that she should have been playing MOUL.

David Tierce

Junee · **Posted:** Fri Apr 25, 2008 6:53 pm

Todoni wrote:

And then I reached a town called "The Henge of Denravi". All I can think is they musta visited URU or Exile or something, cause this is looking awfully familiar.

The "darker" parts of the jungle reminds me a lot of Edanna with all the shining flowers and stuff.

Ian Atrus · **Posted:** Sat Apr 26, 2008 7:56 am

Is this where I get to point out that the Mona Lisa in the Louvre is a fake?

But seriously, I think MMO graphics are only limited by the fact that they cannot afford one tenth of the lag that Uru has when there are 50 avvies (or 500) in one area; two seconds of lag can mean your avvie's life or death in combat, so texture quality and polygon numbers are sacrificed in favour of those who don't have a $6000 top-notch computer. If they could do whatever they want with graphics, the current technology would make most of the ABM Ages look pretty old in comparison.

That doesn't mean that Cyan can't stay up with them: Myst V and some of the recent MOUL Ages show they are in par with the current technology. They just need to fix that little basic design thing about the Plasma client being synchronous, which is kind of a killer for a massive online game...

bpgisme · **Joined:** Sat Dec 02, 2006 2:53 am **Posts:** 474

Ian Atrus wrote:

Is this where I get to point out that the Mona Lisa in the Louvre is a fake?

(Yay! My favorite episode! And not just because of (my hero) Douglas Adams.) :lol:

Every where I go, I see URU

Who is online