Planning Uru

Regnad Kcin01 · **Joined:** Mon Apr 26, 2010 5:37 pm **Posts:** 58

Whilyam wrote:

My personal view on the currency idea is that currency would get me to put down Uru for good if it were forced on the community as a whole…..I make Ages to grow this world and enrich fellow player's experiences, not to enrich or even "fairly pay" myself.

Maybe you can help me understand something, Whilyam, because I’ve seen this perpective implied in several responses. People suggest they would not play if currency were introduced and it causes me to ask: How would the introduction of a currency-based economy force anyone to use it or patronize anyone who does, and in what way would it take away the incentives you and others currently rely on to produce your art?

aloys · **Posted:** Mon May 23, 2011 1:46 am

Regnad Kcin01 wrote:

People suggest they would not play if currency were introduced and it causes me to ask: How would the introduction of a currency-based economy force anyone to use it or patronize anyone who does, and in what way would it take away the incentives you and others currently rely on to produce your art?

Because currency fundamentaly changes the population that play a game, and/or introduce new players that will not fit the existing player base.
Do I want people to run around the City courtyard screaming on the chat "$10 DRC shirts!!1 Buy them!! Buy them!!". or "Come and visit my sexy Bahro strip poker Age on server #WtfUru." ?
No I do not want that.

Yes this is a caricature, but introduce currency in the game, and it will eventually happen. Just like in the real world.
Uru is a fantasy this is why I enjoy it. This is why I do not want it to become like the real world. (At least not in that regard.)

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

How is easy: Human nature. People perform actions that provide them with rewards either tangible or intangible.

As Aloys mentioned, adding currency changes the group of people who play the game. While I understand that this change also may mean an increase in people and retention, it also would remove some unique characteristics of this community by attracting the lowest common denominator. While Aloys' examples are somewhat outlandish, they're not far off. If people could make money by making Ages, you would eventually see "MyAgeName for $6! OtherAge for $4! PM me AgeGuy" showing up a lot in-game. EVE Online's "Plex" game time cards are a good example of this. Spend a few minutes listening in a default in-game corporation and you will hear some variant of "PLEX 4 FREE" etc.

Furthermore, because how pervasive this becomes, people like me will inevitably either join the masses or leave. In my case, it would be leave.

Nalates · **Posted:** Mon May 23, 2011 9:25 am

@ Lyrositor, …what I meant… Thanks, I took it the another way.

@TOOO, I suspect Rand has learned of the last decade. So, whether he would build the game differently if starting now, we’ll never know. I suppose if one thinks Myst and Riven are the height of game design then there is no reason to change Uru. I don’t so I think it needs to change.

@Stucuk,

... I agree with '…should be done in a way which is believable to the URU Universe.' The problem is we all have different ideas of believable.

@aloys, currency in a game changes the player base… anyone have any objective studies on that? Or is that just opinion?

Even in SL where we have currency and marketing is a big deal we don’t see people yelling to hawk their goods. So, I think that unlikely.

That you don’t want currency in game is understood. You are certainly not alone. I doubt anyone will change the game enough in the next couple of years that in-game currancy can be a possibility.

@Whilyam, do you have any evidence that the lowest common denominator of game players is attracted by currency in-game?
[/@]

So, let’s spin any farther currency discussion off to another thread.

What else is there to attract players into Uru?

B'ni Rabbit. · **Posted:** Mon May 23, 2011 10:49 am

Nalates wrote:

What else is there to attract players into Uru?

Good continual content, explorer activities, explorer projects, obtainable (individual/group/Cavern) achievements, program stability and bugfixes, policing to deal with the idiots, resources and tutorials for the budding Writer. To name a few.

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

B'ni Rabbit. wrote:

Nalates wrote:

What else is there to attract players into Uru?

Good continual content, explorer activities, explorer projects, obtainable (individual/group/Cavern) achievements, program stability and bugfixes, policing to deal with the idiots, resources and tutorials for the budding Writer. To name a few.

<3

This is what we need.

We might need additional things after that - but until we have /these/... all else is irrelevant.

ChloeRhodes · **Joined:** Wed Apr 11, 2007 3:29 am **Posts:** 520

Nalates wrote:

With fans, I doubt we are going to have a new age per month. We have a load of ages in some stage of completion and they vary in quality. Will they be enough to get someone to log in each day? May be. But, that road has been tried and it hasn’t worked yet. I fear we are repeating a mistake.

dragossh wrote:

The problem of fan ages are texturing and lack of backstory (for the most part). Even MOULa's Ages had some backstory and purpose. As for one age per month, I don't think we can pull it off.

You would both, be completely and entirely wrong.

While most of you were "talking" about what you were all going to do when Uru was reopened, I was actually DOING something. Filling a personal pipeline with content. And for those that have seen it is indeed on par with what came from Cyan during the two "Live" eras of Prologue and MOUL.

My goal was to build a pipeline for a fan shard that would allow the shard to have enough content to keep people busy for a year, while I developed new content during that year to be released for the next, repeat ad nauseum. The problem was PyPRP wasn't developed enough to release anything offline. So during this time I had to develop not only a branch of the plugin that could do this, but the content as well. Then the Max Plugin was released and I was able to port the stuff over to max and use Cyan's plugin to export it all. Which is where the process is currently in, converting this stuff to Max and wiring it there. Since most of the scripting that was required in blender, is built into Cyan's plugin, the process is fairly quick. There's just ALOT of content to convert.

To give you a basic Idea:

There's

1 New finished Neighborhood (About the size of bevin)
1 New City District (twice the size of bevin)
2 Offices in D'ni (Small areas)
1 Garden Age (Delin Size)
1 Museum Pod
4 ages (Basically on size with each of the prime ages)
1 new clothing pack with t-shirts, jackets, hats, etc
1 new Custom Avatar to go with the story

and yes, there's a story that involves the majority of these areas. With a detailed plotline that can stretch out over time.

Plus little things like areas being opened over time like in prologue.

Since most of this will be exported with max 7, I can send the files to Cyan so they can put it in their build system for MOULa. If I decide I even want any of it released on MOULa. The point of all of it was to supply a shard with enough story and content to keep their members entertained for a good chunk of time, by releasing it all over the course of a year. Something that I doubt Cyan would be willing to do with it. So I'm aiming instead for a release on the GoW's shard, if the devs decide to stick around and open one up.

Stucuk · **Joined:** Sun Jun 27, 2010 1:41 am **Posts:** 216

B'ni Rabbit. wrote:

obtainable (individual/group/Cavern) achievements

Do you mean something like Steams Achievements or something else?

B'ni Rabbit. · **Posted:** Mon May 23, 2011 11:53 am

Stucuk wrote:

B'ni Rabbit. wrote:

obtainable (individual/group/Cavern) achievements

Do you mean something like Steams Achievements or something else?

Not neccesarily. The idea is to give something for people to do which will benefit themselves, their hood or the Cavern as a whole which is an alternative to just exploring Ages. We are currently trying to drop pellets to light the lake - that's one example. Something along the lines of a task an explorer to do which would ultimatly result in a reward or something which everyone can benefit by (revealing a lost Age, artifacts, opening part of the city buried under debris) There are all sorts of possibilities, it just needs to be planned, implimented and properly managed. Of course, you can always introduce 'fun' elements to add diversity.

Whatever, it is things like this will draw people in...and keep them in, if the project is interesting enough, worthwhile and obtainable.

dragossh · **Joined:** Mon Jan 18, 2010 6:39 pm **Posts:** 517

@Chloe: I was basing my post on my own experince with the Drizzle fan ages. Your Ages sound quite good indeed, and I'd love to see some screenshots of them. I'd also think that you should at least try pushing those over to Cyan. They might just do it

@Stucuk: The achievements could be something like the lake getting brighter.

ChloeRhodes · **Joined:** Wed Apr 11, 2007 3:29 am **Posts:** 520

dragossh wrote:

@Chloe: I was basing my post on my own experince with the Drizzle fan ages. Your Ages sound quite good indeed, and I'd love to see some screenshots of them.

The neighborhood is the first thing in the pipeline, so It's safe to show screenshots of it. The link can be found here:

Dorehn

EDIT: I should note, these screenshots are from the early PyPRP version. When Cyan released their plugin I converted Dorehn to max and began to export it there, adding in some additional stuff not shown in these early screenshots that the plugin was capable of but PyPRP was not.

Quote:

I'd also think that you should at least try pushing those over to Cyan. They might just do it

In order for it to be released with Cyan some communication in regards to how it's released (In stages) would be needed. Again, with the lack of access to max for many age creators, content will be slow coming. So a release in stages of my stuff is the only way to aide in player rentention. Plus the story requires live events that coincide with the release of content. The entire planning of it was based of Cyan's original concept of their content pipeline being released to coincide with live events etc. The story for alot of it simply doesn't work without the events/releasing of ages similiar to the DRC stuff. It was not made to fit an offline story, but a changing, interactive environment.

Stucuk · **Joined:** Sun Jun 27, 2010 1:41 am **Posts:** 216

ChloeRhodes wrote:

The neighborhood is the first thing in the pipeline, so It's safe to show screenshots of it. The link can be found here:

Dorehn

Your age looks very good.

ChloeRhodes wrote:

Plus the story requires live events that coincide with the release of content. The entire planning of it was based of Cyan's original concept of their content pipeline being released to coincide with live events etc. The story for alot of it simply doesn't work without the events/releasing of ages similiar to the DRC stuff. It was not made to fit an offline story, but a changing, interactive environment.

Can the live events be acted out by fans or do they actually need something from Cyan for it to work on there server(Other than adding your ages to the server)?

ChloeRhodes · **Joined:** Wed Apr 11, 2007 3:29 am **Posts:** 520

Stucuk wrote:

Can the live events be acted out by fans or do they actually need something from Cyan for it to work on there server(Other than adding your ages to the server)?

The live events etc don't need Cyan participation. Just consent to allow things like SDL changes like's done in the fun house to be done in these ages. And the use of the custom avatar. All of the ages themselves can be linked to via the neighborhood, so there won't be a need for the Relto shelf. Once you link into an age it's saved in your Nexus. The problem is getting the intial link to the hood, which will need to be provided some way by cyan (probably through a link in the Nexus like the Watcher's and Guild Pubs) The hood is meant to be a public hood. From there some of the ages are private, some are public like Delin. It's just a matter of consent from Cyan and initial access to the hood that's really needed.

Squirtdude · **Posted:** Mon May 23, 2011 1:17 pm

Here are some GREAT textures that might help in some ages (totaly random, I know). This site has over 2000 textures! Altough they may cost something, not sure, there are free ones though! Any ways heres the site

http://www.cgtextures.com/

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