Nalates wrote:
Team based play is a part of the motivation in Facebook games. I know when I drop a game I have a concern about the other players I’ve been supporting. So, that could probably be a significant factor in Uru player retention.
This is a good idea, and I think that taking a leaf from Firefly Studio's Stronghold Kingdoms is a good idea here. In that game, your villages are all connected to parish capitals that have buildings inside that everyone in the parish contributes to. It forces communication and relationships with others. Really clever gameplay mechanic.
So, in Uru - this is kind of a big idea so don't put me down as someone who's offering to do it - you could do something like this. A neighbourhood age, or possibly areas of the neighbourhood itself, that require contributions from the members of the neighbourhood to renovate or keep going. Suppose that there's a broken imager. You do a repeatable activity that involves you getting parts to fix D'ni machines, and those parts are automatically contributed to the neighbourhood's pool of that resource. Once there's enough, the imager gets fixed. Not all that different from "Run marker missions to recalibrate the Great Zero", when you get down to it, but it would require a lot of work.
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Real time age editing… I can only see this in an offline version of the game. As I understand it, all the objects in an age are identified objects and contained the game files, which are downloaded before an age renders. Uru has no process for adding to an age after it has initially rendered, which is why any group building in real time is highly unlikely.
Yes, pretty much. There's never been a working incarnation of the Plasma engine that can import assets on the fly.
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Better content could help player retention (nice pumps). A shopping mall ala SL Market place might work. Setting up a shop in Ae’gura might get one lynched.
Content is just "more game". We quite clearly need more content.
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Visuals are an odd item when one looks from the retention viewpoint. Great visuals will attract people. Like a photo album. But, they don’t do much for player retention long term. We don’t look through our photo-albums every day, week, or month. Minecraft is doing well with what I consider poor visuals.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/ ... Aesthetics (Extra Credits is an excellent show on game design)
Definitely, the one thing that Uru does absolutely right is the aesthetic. That's the important thing, not graphics fidelity.
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Money, whether Cyan has totally moved on… I speculate they haven’t. But, until they tap a good revenue source they may as well have. JWP makes a good point about what CWE could turn into and how it may relate to Cyan. Possibilities.
The Myst movie has made major headway, and there are other projects. Cyan seem to be... buzzing... way more than they were this time last year.
Sorry. Had to make that joke.
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I agree new story could help player retention. While you have a thing with Cyan story, others are into the Devokan Trust style stories. The challenge is getting in-cavern and out-of-cavern information presented to new players.
Story is vital. Uru was designed as a narrative MMORPG. You have to have it, and the fact is, you're wandering around the Myst universe. That IP is strong enough that even a reasonably simple story would be enticing.
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I’m not convinced Uru as Uru is doomed. I do think it has to change. But, changing it away from the nebulous core Myst-Uru to another game doesn’t work for most of us. I think we have several items that could be added and improve the game without making massive changes to the feel of Uru, but only time will tell if we can adapt features from other games to an Uru style.
fiery abyss no it isn't, and it won't be doomed so long as people get their backsides in gear and start making content.
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@ darkgriffin, I’m not sure Cyan’s plug-in is dead. They are using and presumably advancing it for their use in current projects, MQO and others hinted at but unnamed.
Cyan's plugin is not dead by any stretch of the imagination. Trust me on that.
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My experience from SL RP is that props are a big help. [...] Building and showing off stuff creates player interactions and helps player retention. How to do that in Uru is unclear. We seem to have a very hard line between builders and players.
Yup. That can be solved, though. With the right infrastructure, somebody should be able to make a model and texture, then hand it over to a team who can put the model in the game.
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I’m seeing some interesting collaboration between builders like Andy and players like Dot. (OMG… Dot’s a player… I’ll hear about that). Andy is not the only one adapting ages to story from other players.
Collaboration. 100% vital.
So.
I'm launching a team. Teams are cool now. As the A Team shows, things are infinitely more badass in a team.
The team's name is OSCAR. It stands for Open Source Creation and Restoration. We need an open team for content, I've been meaning to do this for months, and this seems like a good time as any.