Silence in the Cavern

zeke3651 · **Joined:** Sat Dec 31, 2011 1:46 am **Posts:** 411

I have been noticing something in the Cavern lately. There has been silence when going to the city like everyone is pm each other or afk. It not like this been happening over one day but people are fading fairly quickly and we all know RL (Real life) takes a lot of effort to. So it seems to me either were in a transaction for something greater or the community is getting to tried.
A lot of you say fan content my fix the problem but I do not think that the issue here. Fan content will help but is it what the community needs? I think what needs to change is how we look at our home? What can you do to make it more lively making people come back for more?
This the whole goal of the Cavern Events hood as well is to build a community on which we can stand on. It not that that this issues has been a problem before but it's becoming more and more of one less people talking and more and more of afk or just there without being there or private pming people. I know all have there reasons for it but lets not let this community die as quickly it was built up again.(Vault wipe). I'm willing to help where needed.

I had to get this off my chest and something I noticed lately.

Nicoleleigh · **Posted:** Sun Nov 30, 2014 7:37 pm

I have noticed the same thing, even when the cavern
has a lot of avatars. They do seem to be talking privately.
A lot of times, I see someone say hello and a few will say
hello back, but that is all.
I think it is a trend at the moment. Silence.
Some say it is the safest thing to do.

Charura · **Joined:** Wed Oct 14, 2009 4:14 pm **Posts:** 1765

I, too, have noticed a lack of 'community' when I do visit. I think most of the 'afk' avvies are there to make it seem like the cavern is active but when you /autoshout and say 'Shorah' no one answers so I leave. Of course, this only happens when there are only 3 or 4 in the City. :-(

Carl U Palmner · **Joined:** Sun Jul 20, 2014 2:55 am **Posts:** 85

It's because these creatures have started coming to D'ni:

Some of you get it

Nicho · **Posted:** Tue Dec 02, 2014 12:12 am

When you consider the original concept of Uru, the community would be built around two aspects: 1) regular new content in the form of new Ages, City locations, or new puzzles to solve and 2) interactive continual real-time storytelling from IC employees that would keep people invested and fill in the gaps between content releases.

In Uru's current situation, neither of those original pillars of community-building can be accomplished. The fact that Uru still has as many dedicated fans as it does is a miracle, and a true testament to the artistic value of this game. Thus, the best hope Uru has for ending the silence in the Cavern is to get noticed by a publisher that sees the artistic value in the game, sees the fans willing to support it with their money, and sees the fantastic pre-existing framework.

Fan replications of those aspects of community-building have been considered for years. The fact that new content is coming to Uru brings with it the likelihood of aspect 1 drawing people in. That's half the battle. Ways to resurrect aspect 2 have been debated in many threads, such as this one: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=27336

I believe what Uru needs right now from the community are brainstorming, positive people. People who can think of ways to overcome the barriers brought to Uru by its current situation, people with the talent to implement those ideas, and people vocal enough to get Uru the attention it deserves. It also needs cooperation and coordination between Cyan and the fans. Cyan has already demonstrated a willingness to support the community of this game by including fan-made Ages. That support needs to continue to expand to other fan-led initiatives.

Carl U Palmner · **Joined:** Sun Jul 20, 2014 2:55 am **Posts:** 85

^ Yeah, that.

Hopefully when the new content DOES roll in, it will do so with some decent fan-created storylines. I'm hoping, in fact, that there is already some planning going on in that direction. RAWA has given us specific guidelines regarding what we can and can't do, storywise, so I'm hoping that some really well-done live stories will happen alongside the release of new fan content.

Deck 15 · **Posted:** Tue Dec 02, 2014 4:23 am

Silence will fall when the Question is asked.

Nev'yn · **Posted:** Tue Dec 02, 2014 6:13 am

Nicho wrote:

When you consider the original concept of Uru, the community would be built around two aspects:

1) regular new content in the form of new Ages, City locations, or new puzzles to solve
and
2) interactive continual real-time storytelling from IC employees that would keep people invested and fill in the gaps between content releases.

In Uru's current situation, neither of those original pillars of community-building can be accomplished. The fact that Uru still has as many dedicated fans as it does is a miracle, and a true testament to the artistic value of this game. Thus, the best hope Uru has for ending the silence in the Cavern is to get noticed by a publisher that sees the artistic value in the game, sees the fans willing to support it with their money, and sees the fantastic pre-existing framework.

Fan replications of those aspects of community-building have been considered for years. The fact that new content is coming to Uru brings with it the likelihood of aspect 1 drawing people in. That's half the battle. Ways to resurrect aspect 2 have been debated in many threads, such as this one: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=27336

I believe what Uru needs right now from the community are brainstorming, positive people. People who can think of ways to overcome the barriers brought to Uru by its current situation, people with the talent to implement those ideas, and people vocal enough to get Uru the attention it deserves. It also needs cooperation and coordination between Cyan and the fans. Cyan has already demonstrated a willingness to support the community of this game by including fan-made Ages. That support needs to continue to expand to other fan-led initiatives.

"The truth speaks for itself, I am just the messenger." -Lyta Alexander

In this case, you might want to make that a capital "M". Now, I'm just hoping a certain someone is in the office and feeling better...

TOOO · **Posted:** Tue Dec 02, 2014 10:51 am

There's the problem: people need something to talk about.

People will come into the City, wander about, and no-one knows what the heck to say to all these total strangers.

We've had community events, but they always seem to be scheduled at late (KI) times (when people like myself are unable to attend). No, I wouldn't know how to organize earlier events, but I think we're more likely to keep the community active if there's more going on during the day, instead of just certain times.

J'ffrey · **Joined:** Fri Sep 15, 2006 1:40 am **Posts:** 559

There was supposed to be another shard DIRT that had be talked about sometime after Mysterium that would have new fan content and story, but the blog for that has not been updated since I think September. I was looking forward to that.

Horatio · **Posted:** Wed Dec 03, 2014 10:38 pm

I can only speak from my own experience. I have been involved with URU since it was released in late 2003. I've been involved with the MOUL community since GameTap in late 2006. That's 11 years of my life involved with all things URU. That's an insane amount of time to still be supporting and utilizing a game that's had little content added since its inception.

I think the fact that I'm still here at all is pretty amazing.

I love the world of MYST, and I love MOULa, but let's face it: I've done everything there is to do in the game about a billion times. There's only so much excitement and energy that I can bring to the table at this point - and it's not a lot, frankly.

My wife and I still go into the cavern periodically to spend a little time here and there with friends, learn about anything "new" (Magic Bot, anyone?), attend the occasional event, assist others with their journeys, or re-do ages and marker runs. To be honest, "the call" just isn't there as loudly as it used to be.

As far as talking with others in the cavern, my wife and I respond to anyone who talks to us, and we often say hello to others if we're not in the middle of something (like gathering infernal markers), but TOOO hit the nail on the head in his post - there's just not a lot to discuss at present game-wise in-game.

I'm excited about the future additions to MOUL - but I've been excited about additions for over 7 years now. The main reason I'm still here is to finally see what ends up happening with future developments and the community. I've spent too much time waiting to give up now!

So I just want to say that if my avvie - or my wife's - doesn't seem to be going out of its way to converse in detail with yours when it's in the cavern, please don't take it personally. Trust me - they can both be very chatty, and you may wish you never got them started, so keep that in mind.

I love MOUL and always will, but please remember a lot of us in the cavern today have been here almost since the Fall of D'ni, so try to cut us a little slack.

Zaphod22 · **Posted:** Thu Dec 04, 2014 3:46 pm

There is a lot to agree with in Horatio's post.

One could even add a lot more time to the URU timeline if you consider that a LOT of us started with the original MYST for Mac computers waaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in late 1993! So that actually makes it around 21 years for a some of us. :shock:

For me, after playing the game for the first time around Thanksgiving 1993, MYST was the only reason to get my 1st Macintosh computer for Christmas 1993.

Main_Avvie · **Posted:** Wed Dec 10, 2014 1:19 pm

Carl U Palmner wrote:

It's because these creatures have started coming to D'ni:

Some of you get it

Came here for this. Was not disappointed.

zeke3651 · **Joined:** Sat Dec 31, 2011 1:46 am **Posts:** 411

thanks all responding to my concern, but I understand if you have been here since the 03 days then your energy is pretty much worn out maybe the gametap days as well.
I just try to do what I do best create something interesting for explorers to come back to while we wait on fan contact and anyone who is willing can help me.

From my perspective I look at is fan content will not solve Uru current condition. I think of it this way Build the Community up first and create events for the community then fan content as secondary not first.

Silence in the Cavern

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