unforum

[catherwood]

MO:UL Episode 9

[Scott]

I was looking fFor a list like this a while ago, and couldn't easily fFind it. People tend to speak obliquely about the subject, which is fFranky just a little tiring. So here is the list of fFeathers in uru.

[krystyn]

Uru is dead.

Long live Uru.

http://www.mystonline.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=14595

[catherwood]

[krystyn]

Oh sure, the servers are up for the next 60 days, thus my link to the official post. But the story episodes are definitely dead, Jim.

I never did get all of the calendar sparks. Part of me doesn't even want to go back, because why? Meh.

Oh well. I saw some people jokingly blame Minkata, but I thought that was a beautiful Age, and probably one of the most Myst-like they'd come up with.

[BladeLakem]

I'm fairly disappointed with how the ARG-style aspects of the game were handled (or not handled, as the case may be). I'd caught on to those aspects early on, but they never seemed to be followed up on.

I was happy to finally see the emergence of fan-run characters that seemed to catch people's interest, like J.D. Barnes and Echo McKenzie. But it seemed to be just too late.

I'd be interested to hear the opinions of those experience ARG players on how it might have been run differently, however. I know from my perspective as a experience StoryTeller in LARPs....

[Scott]

Quasi-nice news. If you didn't collect all the sparklies, it would appear you now can. All sparklies are now available. Or, so it would appear. I haven't looked fFor all 12 of them explicitly, but the ones I did need were there, so I assume they all are.

---

Blade, since you ask:
I thought the game was exceptionally well run, fFor the most part. I would have liked to see more new content -- not just another repeat of the stuff we've seen. I mean, I basically paid a year of Gametap, roughly $100, and here's what my money got me:

• Minkata - Loved it
  
• The new and improved Er'cana and Ahnonay - Loved it
  
• The Pod Ages - Liked them, but always seemed like they lacked fFollowthrough
  
• Jalak - Ehn. cute toybox. fFun, and pretty.
  
• Eder Delin and Eder Tsogal - Ooooooh, pretty Possibly my fFavorite of all ages.
  
• All the cool things on Relto - I am a sucker fFor relto pages.

Anything else, I could have bought at a much lower price fFor a box in a store of the complete URU chronicles. And, I mean, I have a bunch of books on my bookshelf. But it just fFelt like I was paying fFor stuff I already owned.

What would have made Uru Live really fFreakin cool? Well, you know, it's been said so many times by so many people all over the world, apparently someone needs to scream it or something so Cyan will hear it:
User Generated Content!!
and while I'm at it...
Redesign The KI!!

Ah, but you didn't ask about the game content, you asked about the game experience. And the fFact is, I don't mind paying fFor content I already own, if I am getting a great game experience out of it. This is the difference between buying some Magic cards, and buying into a Magic sealed deck tournament. I am buying cards either way, but one of those gives me the opportunity to play in something novel and synthetically irreproducible. That's what Uru Live gave. synthetic irreproducibility. The world was just a sort of very pretty backdrop. I don't think they were ever really going to open up any more of the city or anything. You know, that's okay. But don't lie to me and tell me you are working on new content when you are clearly not.

I constantly fFelt as though the information in the world was much too scattered, and much too dependent on third party sources. You could make an argument that, by outsourcing information dispersal, Cyan was able to fFocus more on information creation, while encouraging a fFeeling of community among those who would, by necessity, would need to communicate often to echo new information. It sounds like a win-win: Cyan gets more time to work on new content without having to worry about how people will hear about it, and players get to belong to a burgeoning juggernaut of a community by contributing.

We have only one problem: The exact opposite of this is true. Players wind up fFeeling alienated and distrustful of information fFrom non-authoritative sources, and Cyan had no plans to create more content.

These statements refer back to my original hypothesis: Uru Live needed to allow user generated content in the game. In lieu of this, people started creating some quite impressive content NOT in the game, much of which wound up going somewhat to waste (Which also required people to invent some unusually thin stories in-character as to how exactly they came about their "discoveries"). Discredited and overlooked on the web, lies easily a hundred websites fFull of user generated content, in no organized fFashion whatsoever. Really to bad, too. People have put a LOT of effort into reconstructing D'ni music, writing, language, tools, art, poetry ...

Thus, I return to my second hypothesis: Redesign the fFreakin KI already! It was cute when it was only being used fFor single player action. But it is now the primary interface fFor all fForms of communication in the world, and it does nothing particularly intuitively. We can liken it to Microsoft Outlook in scope and purpose, but with the insight and flexibility of a wrist watch, after which it gets it's design. A redesigned KI -- assuming tabula rasa -- could be built to distribute information in discussion groups or in personal messages. Instead of requiring users to go outside the world to get more information about the world, players could simply refer to their fFriendly KI and get news and updates about what was going on. Embracing the Gmail method, chat logs could be kept and calendar events outlined in a smart and fFriendly way.

And of course, all that stuff should be viewable on the web. Link some webservers to the KI database, so I can read, post, reply, to posts people have made, and view images I and other people have taken with their KI. So I don't *have* to be in cavern if I want to contribute, but it helps, see. Because that's how the internet works, and being in cavern is supposed to be just like the real world, but a little bit cooler.

So, when my good fFriend makes some new observation about the ancient D'ni culture, he can post in-cavern and I can go see a model of what he's made in his neighborhood, then I can fForward that on to someone in a guild, with a snapshot attached of what it is and maybe some audio of him describing it, and they might take notice and give him credit fFor something novel and cool.

Instead of waiting fFor new content that we will never see.

[catherwood]

Myst Online: Restoration Experiment

[sohel1]

Great PC discuss

[catherwood]

Re: Myst Online: Restoration Experiment

[Scott]

another version of myst? really? I mean, yeah, myst was brilliant when it was new, but now..? really? I mean, wouldn't it be a little better to utilize the concept in new ways? Like different puzzles, new designs, using the novelties of the iphone interface...?

Sorry, this probably isn't the place to complain about such things, is it. I'm sure the good people know what they are doing, since they know their business much better than I do.

[catherwood]

MORE news

[catherwood]

No, nothing new on the MOULOS/OSMOUL front yet. But a post over on the MystOnline forum relates to a thread here on unfiction that you might have overlooked.

I started the Blueful thread over in News&Rumors to report something I found that other people might be interested in, but I wasn't going to walk thru all of the nodes of the game/story myself. Then today I saw this post by the author of the game over at http://mystonline.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=16963

[krystyn]

Thanks, catherwood! I am now more inclined to check it out, myself.

[krystyn]

The DRC has been showing some very interesting activity over the last few days. The most recent posts, by Laxman, Sutherland, et al., are deliberate enough to incite me to post here to let you all know that something is afoot:

http://uruobsession.com/forum/index.php/topic/35623-new-drc-posts/

Speculation ranges from Open Source Uru to a proper funded re-launch of the experience. Let's hope their Cavern explorations are fruitful and expansive!