Cyan's Wish List for Uru

Tai'lahr · **Posted:** Mon Jun 29, 2009 7:16 pm

This section is a 23 page Explorer Wish List; that's well over a thousand topics full of suggestions for things Cyan can do to make Uru better for us. And, when MORE and then Open Source were announced, the wish lists began spreading all over the place. [spoiler=There is even a discussion about completely reworking the starting point to allow explorers to take the Great Shaft from the surface to the city.]Well, we did that in Second Life, so if it's really that important to you, go see it there.

[/spoiler]
But, there's only ONE wish list I'd like to see and that's Cyan's. Surely there are several items they were unable to accomplish to complete their true vision of Uru. And, we know that there are some small glitches that they're hoping the fans will fix once the codes are released. So, right here, what I'd like to see is a post from Chogon that goes something like this:

"Our vision for Uru included 'such and such,' but because of 'such and such' we were unable to accomplish this. We believe that given enough time, with the latest technology, our awesome fans can make the necessary changes/fixes to allow this item to finally be included in Uru as it was intended. So, if you'd like to take a stab at it, here's where to find all the information you'll need/we have at this time."

Nalates · **Posted:** Mon Jun 29, 2009 9:24 pm

I wonder if they would tell us? I guess we will find out.

The issue of where to start the Uru game has come up in many places. The Eder D'Uru in SL shows what some of those ideas could play like and how well they might work.

As elsewhere posted, the problem is whether we will be allowed to change the Cleft age in a MOOS scenario.

matthornb · **Posted:** Fri Jul 10, 2009 7:24 pm

A very good point. Given that things seem to be going well with the Myst movie, and that the iPhone Myst game was a hit, I think there are some very promising signs that Uru will come back and that there'll be a lot of new fans wanting to play it.

I think if open source Uru is a hit and a lot of people become interested in it, there's no reason why Cyan wouldn't open up its own official shard as planned with MO:RE, and gather fans to support it and develop the Uru experience Cyan wants under Cyan's direction.

Mind you, I'm not suggesting a return to the Prologue/MO:UL business model in which 30+ Cyan employees are making content for Uru and it costs millions of dollars per year to run - and inevitably doesn't turn a profit.

What I have in mind is more of a system where 3 or 4 Cyan staff members spend a portion of their work time developing and managing fan production - that is, a Cyan concept artist, a Cyan game/puzzle designer, and one or two key storytellers develop age designs and a team of volunteer fans would work to flesh out these official designs and turn them into actual ages, with the 1 or 2 Cyan storytellers managing a small list of in-cavern characters like in MO:UL, who help advance the story.

Cyan can choose the fans who will be a part of this project - fans with strong skills in 3d art, programming, or sound design capable of creating ages of high quality or technical innovation, like Ahra Pahts, Breldur, Eh'ko, etc - basically anyone in the fanbase who Cyan believes can successfully create work that lives up to Cyan's standards of quality.

The team would also work on implementing existing Cyan content more effectively. One of the things we saw in MO:UL was the conversion of POTS content to a multiplayer form, and similar tasks can be given to the team to convert RealMyst/Myst V content into Uru, and to fix things that aren't working right but were clearly intended by Cyan, like the Gahreseen Wall and Ayoheek, or the unfinished age Kahlo, which was designed and partially modelled and textured by Cyan but wouldn't work technically without a lot of code improvements and new gameplay/physics features being implemented. Maybe the team could find a way to make it work, given enough time and effort.

The high-quality content produced by this team would be generally confined to the official Cyan shard of Open Source Uru, thus providing an incentive for people to pay to be members of that particular version of Uru.

In other words, Cyan could lead fan production. There'll always be some fans wanting to do their own thing, of course, but Cyan could develop an officially sanctioned Uru distinct from all the lower-quality shards out there. It wouldn't cost too much to do, I think, and could turn a profit - but only if the fan community grows substantially and Open Source Uru becomes popular after its release.

It makes no financial sense for Cyan to spend time developing Uru further after it's open source or to bother with managing fan production and creating yet another official Cyan-designed Uru version, unless it's in a context like this (On Cyan's servers with payment to Cyan for membership, and most of the development work done for free or almost free by fans rather than at high cost by full-paid employees)

I'd certainly volunteer to work on this type of project part-time for free (or full-time at minimum wage - I need to earn some money somehow so I couldn't spend all my time working on a project like this unless Cyan paid me to. But I'm graduating soon from college and I'd love to work at Cyan if there were any way at all to make that happen.) The problem is, of course, that I may not be a good enough artist for Cyan to want to hire me even at minimum wage, or even if I worked for free. I hope to somehow prove that I am or can be. The other problem, of course, is that I'm emotionally unstable and mentally ill. That's a huge barrier for me getting hired anywhere, especially with the economy in bad condition and so much competition for jobs. So yeah, it isn't going to happen, it's just a fun fantasy of mine

But the bottom line is - Cyan, if you give me some concept art and layout sketches/designs and tell me to model and texture an age out of it for Uru, I'll do that, for free, even if it takes a long time and a lot of work to get it right. I think there are a lot of other fans who'd eagerly do the same.

ThedStranger · **Posted:** Sat Jul 11, 2009 4:08 pm

You gotta love matthornb's posts :wink:

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I doubt Cyan Worlds can give us such a list- they barely talk anymore. But hey, I they would, I will be happy

.

And I also made a request list, or more of a revision of Uru. It's not updated, but it delivers most ideas correctly: http://mystonline.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=17545 .

MustardJeep · **Posted:** Sat Jul 11, 2009 7:37 pm

Sounds like matthornb want's MORE.

Well so do I but I would rather see Cyan out of Uru except in a mentor role for a while. When things go it's going to be nuts fan side for months probably between setup and stuff. A couple Cyan run contests where they give out their concept work for things they had on their wish list would be a good motivator and keep Cyan involved without having to do much.

Example : The Aquarium Contest

What Cyan releases
Cyan's Concept Art (oooooh shiney)
It's location in the cavern

What Fans do
Ala the RAD Contests one or more groups get together building parts of it or build the entire thing.

The Prize
Any or all parts of the submissions are cherry picked to build the "Official" Aquarium.

There are lots of ridiculously tiny things that Cyan can do in a hands off kind of way that will help Uru, I just hope they choose to do a few when the time comes. :lol:

Cyan's Wish List for Uru

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