Guild of Writers

There has been a bit of public drama recently over the Myst movie project. The purpose of this post is not to delve into the drama, to drag it out into the daylight, or to step into the middle of the he-said/she-said. The purpose is to look at how this fits in to Cyan’s handling of the community and especially how it fits in to our efforts to see Uru completely open-sourced.

If there is one thing I have learned during my time as an Uru developer, it is that Cyan’s plans are unknown to everyone, including Cyan themselves. They are more than willing to change their direction and priorities – something which in most cases would be commendable. Certainly if Cyan had not been flexible over the past decade Uru would have ceased to exist in any form long ago. Unfortunately, they are so poor at communicating these changes that they seem at best mercurial and at worst vindictive.

This lack of communication has shown itself time and again in our dealings with them. I unfortunately cannot list all of the details here – I am not willing to reveal communications which were assumed to be in private – but suffice it to say that there are threads which Cyan simply ceased to participate in with no warning or explanation. Threads which at the time were, or so those participating were led to believe, central to Cyan’s plans around the future of Uru. To this day I do not know why Cyan ceased to participate in that (semi-)public discussion; I doubt I ever will.

But poor communication is not the only takeaway from recent news. The other, and I feel the more dire, is Cyan’s priorities – they have, inadvertently, finally communicated something to the fans: making money off of Myst is more important than artistic integrity. This is perhaps an inevitable result of their 19-year reliance on the Myst franchise to sustain their existence. But that inevitability does not make the result any less disappointing. And it does not bode well for our hopes of seeing fan stewardship of Uru.

I have said for quite some time that the best thing that could happen to Uru would be for Cyan to cease being involved. This is not because I have felt they have any malice, but simply because I did not believe they had the resources to give it the love and nurturing it deserves. In light of this recent news, my belief is strengthened. Cyan has shown not just a lack of resources, but a willingness to compromise D’ni. This cannot be allowed to become the future of our Uru.

I would ask you to tell Cyan what you think of their priorities, but unfortunately Cyan has shown little willingness to listen to their fans when making important decisions. Instead I ask you to let Cyan go from your lives. Choose to explore on a fan shard instead. Give your donation dollars to the developers, artists, and admins who are passionate about helping D’ni grow once more. Are you willing to see our great City stagnate and rot? Or will you be part of the new restoration and help to bring Uru and D’ni into a shining new future?

Ah, now where to begin. This is an idea that came about because of the many discussions about making the KI and the Nexus easier to use. Let’s start with the Nexus:

When you fire up the Nexus for the first time, there are several tabs:

• City Locations
• Public Neighborhoods
• Your Instances
• Invited Instances
• Public Instances

Let me run through these for you. City Locations would, as usual, list locations in the public city you can link to. Unlike currently, you would start with different locations:

• Tokotah Courtyard
• Ferry Terminal
• Bevin
• Kirel
• Seret

Okay, why Tokotah? Well, that’s where people typically like to hang out. It would make things easier than either having to link to the nearby alley or linking to Ferry Terminal and having to walk all the way up four flights of stairs. Now, why Bevin, Kirel, and Seret? These would be public instances of the three hoods. I know what you’re saying. A public Bevin? Are you nuts?!? And Seret, that’s not even a real location!!!!! The public hoods would close a canonical gap in providing access to the real, actual, instance of the three hoods. Seret would be as described previously, no telescope, redish atmosphere, and the beetle lights. It also wouldn’t have any of the special books (i.e. the Eders, the GZ anti-chamber, etc.) Now for Public Neighborhoods. This is where I explain the new features of the interface. First of all, there are scroll bars instead of those wacko up-down buttons from the current interface. Even cooler, underneath the main list you get an empty box. In there, you can type in the name of a hood and it would thin the list down for you. Cool! Your Instances is self-explanatory, it lists all of your Ages. However, there won’t be any “Nathan2055’s” junk in front of the names. Invited Instances shows your invited Ages and your saved neighborhoods (more on this in a minute). Public Instances works like its hood variant, it allows people to make their personal instances public. This would be done by ticking a “Public?” box next to each Age in the Your Instances section.

Now for neighborhoods. This will be confusing, so bear with me. Next to your Bevin link, you have two icons, a gear and a book.  The book would open up some info on the Bevin such as when it was created, as well as all the members and visitors, along with their ranks. As well, there would be an option to leave the Bevin. If you aren’t currently a member of a Bevin, a pen icon would appear allowing them to make a new Bevin. This would mean that new users couldn’t accidentally delete their Bevin’s and essentially lock them out of the city, as the delete tab would be removed from the Relto Bevin book. And on to config! The configuration gear has three tabs; decorations, members, and name. You can edit things like the stained glass for the linking rooms, the type of lights, whether the clock is there, firemarbles, etc. The members page allows you to see a list of members, invite new members, and change their rank. The system of ranks would allow you to choose who can edit the name, which can change decorations, who can invite new users, etc. You are the mayor automatically, and you can choose a new mayor through this system if you want. Yes, and also this means the clumsy method of inviting users is gone, and it is done completely through the Nexus. Finally, the name tab allows you to change the Bevin’s name without having to deal with trolling like before. As well, Bevin’s are now referred to completely as neighborhoods to make things less confusing.

That is pretty much it. I will post soon on how the KI and other features would work in this concept. Thanks to Tweek for his concepts, which provided the base for this project. See you soon!

http://mirziamov.ru

I have an idea for a Journey add-on for Myst Uru: The Complete Chronicles. This journey does not have Journey Cloths, but it does have Tringira plates. If the player kicks something onto each of these, they will activate the Bahro door in each age.

Story:

In the library in Ae’gura, there is a new book laying open on the floor. You pick it up, and touch the linking panel. You are lucky to have a Relto book, because you find yourself in a ruined prison age called Tringira. If you explore enough, you will find a nearly empty library. At the end, there is a door with a ten digit code to be entered. The only books remaining in the library are a book describing the age and its uses, and a linking book to an age called Eder Grafla.

Ages:

Tringira

Eder Grafla

Tserdougel

Heralding

Windring

Er’Jerah

Raflahn

Aspermere

Rewards:

At the end of the journey, the player will have collected 2 Bahro Wedges, each split into fourths. Other rewards are the books to each age, three Relto pages, and a linking book to Edward Tyndale’s Relto. His Relto allows access to his Bevin and Nexus, which has a different color scheme and is nonfunctional.

Updates:

Yes, I know that Aspermere was destroyed. The real Aspermere descriptive book was never destroyed. Edward hoped to protect it from whoever was destroying the books, so he copied it before returning the original to the Myst library. He did the same with a few other ages as well.

So a little more free time has opened up lately which has allowed me to continue working on my various Age projects.

So I figured I’d post an update of sorts about what is going on with the 3 projects I am currently focusing on.

Fahets

Fahets has been completely overhauled at this point, there are surviving elements (Norapods, Rusteart plants) but a lot of new stuff too.

• Age Size – The Age is probably 4 times bigger than it used to be at this point. It is now more open instead of an enclosed basin location.
• Textures – Most textures have been updated or switched out for better versions, most obvious of these is the rock textures which now have more depth to them.
• Wildlife – More wildlife has been added to give the Age more depth.
• Sound/Music – No music but ambient sounds have been added to again add more depth. Main complaint about Fahets (after the “it’s too small” was about lack of sound).
• Interaction – Still working on this. Interaction is small in this Age because it simply doesn’t require a lot. It isn’t a puzzle location. But there are a few things to interact with aside from Journals and Linking Books. Unfortunately having interactive things added is difficult as animation triggers seem to be bugged in my version of PYPRP and no one can figure out why.

Kehrahn

For those who aren’t aware of the concept of Kehrahn. The Age started as a birthday present for my wife. Each year on her birthday I add something to the Age or expand the Age. She has given me permission to release it publicly but there there are some things I need to sort out before doing so.

• Models – Looking to update some of the models like the trees so they are better suited for the expansion of the area.
• Textures – Some texture updates have been made to various items in a bid to improve the look. These are mostly minimal though as the focus is on improving the models.
• Animation – The animation of the fishes is very basic with a lot of room to improve.
• Expansion – The Age has already been expanded but the expanded area is not working for me. As a result it will be completely overhauled to encompass the new concepts drawn up for beyond the lake area.

Fehnir’s House

An interim update for Fehnir’s place a 1.5 if you will. With the next main update (2.0 lets say) including the Linking Books for Ahryahn and Lehns.

• Textures – Some updates to textures mainly the walls of the room.
• Models – Made changes to the models that make up the room structure to allow for better lighting and shows (using vertex painting more than secondary meshes with lightmaps) as well as incorporating the changes to the stairs for better collision.
• Collision – The stairs were a mess with the collision being the wrong angle. This has now been rectified but has resulted in a slight change in geometry for the room (expansion and shortening of certain walls).
• Camera Regions – The camera region bug for the Book podium area for the Ahryahn Book has now been fixed and update which should help with removing the clipping of the ceiling in that area.
• Story Changes – Slight update to the story in that area and the inclusion of Sophie’s journal giving more story for the Third Path’s history has been added.

I have no idea when these updates will actually see the light of day. Fahets will most likely be first because work is almost finished there. Fehnir will likely be out before Kehrahn as Kehrahn has a lot of work to do on it.

I felt my Relto was always missing something.  Oh right! A place to sleep and an office to work in!

I even put this idea into a Story Quest Journal I wrote.  Jahmen’s Journal Quests Series.

I throw the wall switch by the book case between it and my armoire.  My armoire slides back into the wall and reveals the stairs under neath leading down into the belly of my island mountain.  As I descend the stairs into the tunnel hallway that leads off to a lift.  The lift takes me down my office, kitchen and bed room, where I have great window views of the landscape far below the mist that surrounds my Relto Island in the sky.

Or how about this one;  I untie my sky vehicle from the wooden dock that hovers there for me.  I jump down into the seat and click onto the controls for a spin around my Relto before I fly on over to my nearby friends Relto.  I open my ki up to program in the invite permission to come over to her place. As I approach my Relto’s boundary I enter briefly into the void that links me across to her Relto. On my arriving she waves to me as I dock.

Or I come from my closet with my maintainers suit and link to Gira.  I jump down into the lava below and swim through the hidden opening just be low the. . . to the . .

Nexus Book: Nexus book placed in each Guild Pub.

Seating: Aside from the few seats surrounding the Guild Pubs, Kahlo Tavern style tables and chairs should be added to give more people places to sit and allow for a cozier more conversational setting to the location:

As you can see I have introduced a few concepts.
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So big changes to the Login GUI, basically the entire thing has been made darker, sleeker and minimal, without overloading with new extra features. This will basically allow for old players to get to their characters quickly and for new players to get through the GUI with relative ease.
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Nexus Book: Needs to be added somewhere, perhaps in an alcove of sorts on one of the viewers stands.

Arena: The arena needs to have walkways leading from the playing field to the viewer stands, to literally make life easier for viewers instead of having to line up blocks to jump over to them.
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Instancing is reduced to two forms, public and private.

The Cleft (including descent), D’ni Ae’gura (Roof tops, Baron’s office, Kadish Gallery, Watchers Sanctuary, Guild Pubs and The Great Zero) and D’ni City Proper (Ashem’en, Kirel, Neighbourhoods) locations would all be public instances.
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