Personal Journals in OSMO

Ah'lex · **Posted:** Sun Apr 18, 2010 9:35 am

I was kind of thinking that since we're slowly headed open source, it might almost be time for us to start chronicling our own adventures in the Cavern. I know there's probably a ton of people already who have blogs online regarding their adventures, myself included, but I thought it'd be kind of neat if somewhere along the line in OSMO, we could maybe get a personal journal to write entries in. They would be almost a continuation of the Sharper Journals, except explorers would be writing in their own entries about happenings in real-life and in the game (Like how Sharper's entry on the Patriots at the Superbowl in MO:UL kind of fused the present "real-world" with the "URU world").

I was thinking these Journals could be located in the shelf to the right of the entrance to the Relto Hut, next to where Yeesha's book is. The owner of the Relto could write an entry whenever they wanted to, and when other explorers come to visit, they can read their friends entries, or the journal could be private and kept "locked".

This would of course, be seperate from KI entries, because you'd be able to write a lot more than in a KI entry, and it would be a lot easier to read than if it were on an imager, especially one with lots of other images/entries, where you only have a few seconds to read whatever is on there.

It doesn't matter to me whether Cyan would do this or someone from the Open Source development community would, I'd just really like to see it implemented sometime in the future.

Any thoughts on it?

Zander_the_Heretic · **Joined:** Sun Mar 14, 2010 2:37 am **Posts:** 278

The PotS expansion to the offline game had such a journal, carried with you like the Relto book. I'd love to see that implemented in MOULa.

Whilyam · **Joined:** Tue May 09, 2006 1:04 am **Posts:** 4134

I would like to see In-game journals that I could leave on the Relto shelf for people to find (like Sharper's).

Zander_the_Heretic · **Joined:** Sun Mar 14, 2010 2:37 am **Posts:** 278

I suggested that a long time ago and got howled down by various people who thought the Cavern would be flooded with books full of rubbish. Still, I suppose if it's just on your own Relto shelf they couldn't object to that too much...

Nalates · **Posted:** Sun Apr 18, 2010 8:25 pm

I'm not sure how useful journals in the Relto would be for improving game play. The current thread on who one invites to Relto could be taken to suggest people will be more hesitant to invite people there.

In game journal use was explored by Thend in SL and later Dot and others in their SL Devokan. We are now looking at using them again in OpenSim Devokan. In some cases in-game journal posts are copied to blogs and forums. The idea being to get story where people can see it and join in if they choose.

Zander points out that many fear clutter of the ages if people are leaving books around. With 5,000 players leaving 5,000 journals laying around... we might have piles of books. As yet no one has come up with a good fix or game plan for use of player journals. Also, the dynamic nature of journals is likely to present some programming and data updating challenges.

One of the new ideas in SL is from the new viewer features that allow media on a prim... one can display web pages and Flash on surfaces in game. I have the interactive Ahnonay map on one in Minkarta (SL). This feature allows one to make a web site with perhaps a bookshelf. The shelf could be interactive and touching a book could open individual journals. A surface could be placed in game to look like a bookcase. Of course then there is the issue of how to control what appears on the web site and eventually in the game. But we are going to have that problem no matter what.

I'm not at all sure how well a bookcase would be used. The fun of finding books was part of the fun, or so I think.

Players seem to have an aversion to using web sites and blogs for keeping up with in-game events. Consider the number of signups in game and the number of people posting across the forums. It seems, to me, most of those people also have blogs. But, that is a small percentage of the fans.

I think we need something in game. I'm not sure what will work well. I and others continue to experiment in SL and OS. But, journals can be fun.

D'Lanor · **Posted:** Sun Apr 18, 2010 8:46 pm

It should be easy to make a Sharper type of journal. The player journal from TPOTS could be modified so that it does not save its content in a local file but as a text node in the vault. For example in the AgeData folder of our Relto ages.

Whilyam · **Joined:** Tue May 09, 2006 1:04 am **Posts:** 4134

And a player journal wouldn't add much/anything to server load anymore than Sharper's journal does.

Ah'lex · **Posted:** Sun Apr 18, 2010 9:17 pm

Nalates wrote:

I'm not sure how useful journals in the Relto would be for improving game play. The current thread on who one invites to Relto could be taken to suggest people will be more hesitant to invite people there.

I don't think they would really "Improve" gameplay, it'd just be a neat little feature to use if you wanted to.

Also, like I said before, maybe the Journals could have a "lock" on them so you can keep others from reading it, or maybe some sort of key distribution, where only certain players, perhaps those you trust most, could read your journal.

Zander_the_Heretic wrote:

I suggested that a long time ago and got howled down by various people who thought the Cavern would be flooded with books full of rubbish. Still, I suppose if it's just on your own Relto shelf they couldn't object to that too much...

Exactly. The second bookshelf isn't used for many other books anyway, so just one extra book you can write in seems okay.

Collecting other Journals doesn't really seem that interesting in my opinion, unless they were just main character journals like maybe Ti'ana's or Airtrus' journals from before the fall.

BTW, I never knew PotS had journals. Bringing those over would be kind of neat too. Like a way for you to write entries as you're in ages and then you can leave the Journal in your Relto for others to read as well. It'd be great for taking notes on anything that comes to mind to players as they explore ages.

Eat_My_Shortz · **Joined:** Mon Jan 15, 2007 6:03 pm **Posts:** 96

Really? We're calling it OSMO now? I think it would be less confusing if we were clearer and called it Cyan Open Source Myst Including Community: Open Source Myst Online (COSMIC OSMO).

Anyway, yeah I think a POTS-like player journal would be cool, and it would be cool to leave it on your Relto shelf for other people to read, like Phil did. There's no problem with cluttering up the city with 5000 books... just have it in each explorer's Relto.

Though I was planning to suggest we reclaim the right (nearly useless) shelf for custom fan Ages, when we get up to it.

Bogus · **Posted:** Sun Apr 18, 2010 11:46 pm

I love the idea of being able to add journals for people to write. I think that it definitely should be strictly kept in people's relto via the other bookshelf, BUT there should be a system of sharing journals. You could share them with your friend and it could be added to their shelf in their relto, meaning visitors could come and view not only the journals of one person, but with the journals of others that they have accumulated.

Just a thought.

Eat_My_Shortz · **Joined:** Mon Jan 15, 2007 6:03 pm **Posts:** 96

Perhaps that was the whole point of the right bookshelf. It never made sense to me why they put an entire bookshelf for one book (and in the later expansions, a few more, but those have been removed in MOUL).

kaelisebonrai · **Joined:** Sun Jan 20, 2008 2:14 pm **Posts:** 902

Eat_My_Shortz wrote:

Really? We're calling it OSMO now? I think it would be less confusing if we were clearer and called it Cyan Open Source Myst Including Community: Open Source Myst Online (COSMIC OSMO).

Anyway, yeah I think a POTS-like player journal would be cool, and it would be cool to leave it on your Relto shelf for other people to read, like Phil did. There's no problem with cluttering up the city with 5000 books... just have it in each explorer's Relto.

Though I was planning to suggest we reclaim the right (nearly useless) shelf for custom fan Ages, when we get up to it.

Actually, we've been calling it OSMO/OSMOUL for the better part of the last two years. =P

Nalates · **Posted:** Mon Apr 19, 2010 8:29 pm

Was it Chogon that commented on OSMO being confusing...? which Shortz points out.

Someone compiled a list of names we've used. MOOSE and MOOS are ones l still like. For other reasons I use Open Uru most of the time now. MOULOS sounds latino... OS is used to mean too many things.

Ri'Huai · **Joined:** Tue May 09, 2006 6:27 pm **Posts:** 4

Pitching a CRAZY idea...

Writing is extremely important to the D'ni. What if the D'ni had writing rooms or even better, whole writing ages where people would go to write their ages.

Inserting the KI into a device would bring you to you own personnal writing room in a 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' style elevator. There, you could have a desk with multiple journals and even a music player like a Cannen and maybe even a holographic projector that surounds you with a number of environments: rainforst, space, mecanical room, blooming garden, etc... Just to help you concentrate on what you are writing... A bit like Omniwriter

Just thinking out loud...

Rudolfson · **Posted:** Mon Apr 19, 2010 10:45 pm

A journeybook in the relto shelf and a way to make a relto public in the nexus similar to how the hoods work in the nexus. Could be interesting. Good writers would be very popular, and could write their stuff ingame. Grand.

Personal Journals in OSMO

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