Whilyam: Negotiator for Hire

I've spent the last few days talking to people on both "sides" of the pseudo "Slackers vs. Other People" battle and took a break as things were falling apart as I felt I wasn't helping. So I'm coming back now to say I'm leaving the "negotiator" post for good now; and for two reasons. One being that more got resolved on the two days I had no hand in things than the week in which I did. And the second which takes longer to talk about.

First some backstory. I had a number of (relatively) minor issues with Slacker members which were brought up anew by the honest yet flame-inducing post by Alahmnat. Without going into too much detail, some of the more vocal members of the Slackers made me feel uncomfortable (to whittle the issues down to a concept a three year-old can understand). I decided, after still more vocal members talked about being willing to talk things over after the arguments on Alahmnat's blog comments section escalated. So I registered and, after initial hostilities, started working on my problems. I provided my view and the people involved provided theirs. I saw how I had assumed things and others had as well and my issues were solved. I also had fun there as I have in any of the mini-communities.

I then moved on to trying to resolve at least the issues that had come up through the argument on Alahmnat's blog and, while only one person solved their issues (and not even when I was doing anything), I'm hopeful that more will take the initiative without someone like me actively trying to be a middleman.

I'm no longer going to be doing that for the reason that there's nothing special that I'm bringing to it and that it can easily be handled by itself. The one type of person I met most often on both sides was the person who stated their opinion and followed it with "and the sooner you realize that, the better". Because the sooner that you realize that carrying on a "war" for three years isn't helping the community, that not talking to each other is going to fix things about as fast as it will take Cyan to get a 200 person staff, that belittling each other and making assumptions on each other's characters only alienates more people and helps grow a new crop of people who will fight against you, that both sides have different views on what happened and had different triggers, that screaming at each other doesn't help, that neither side is nor believes they are 100% correct, that neither side thinks they're God, that neither side wants to destroy Uru, that neither side "winning" would bring about Armageddon, and that neither side is really all that different; the better.

Because, ultimately, what we all should be doing now is making the Uru community stronger in the month we have. This community is different from any other, it shows in our competence and our reasoning and our enjoyment of the game. Others may claim that they are better, but I say to them "not from where I sit." All around me in other communities I see idiots bickering for power, pride ruling the day. In Uru, I see disagreements and people who feel too reserved to resolve, but feel they must say something and so say something in anger.

Only Pictures

So the EVE trial ended with me having generated 2,417,420.10 ISK with 2 million graciously donated by Kal. I got as much as I could moved around so, should I decide not to come back based on Uru's future and where my friends head off to should there be no future.

So I was sitting in the dock on Todaki VI Moon 12 School of Applied Knowledge space station listening to "Surplus of Rare Artifacts" and felt not quite sad but strange. Similar to how you feel when you're pulling away from your house to go on a trip. "Did I pack everything?" or "Did I leave the stove on?" and the knowledge that it'll all be over soon. It'll likely be the same way many people feel when Gametap pulls off Uru.

It's a feeling of fear that you will lose something. In EVE it is the materials, money, items, etc. In Uru it is the memories and people and places. You don't want to lose any of this but we can only do so much. We can only take pictures or movies of the ages we will lose on April 4th or nearby then. We can only copy sounds or music from the Uru directory to try to preserve the environment. We can only save pictures of our friends and keep in contact with them through other places or email. But none of those are quite what we have now, and that hurts. In a very real way it is as if a world we enjoy will die, taking all our friends with it, very soon. We can save pictures, but in the end they are only pictures.

EVE Online

I've been trying out (by accident) the MMO EVE Online. As Uru was my only experience in MMO gaming, I must admit this is an odd feeling. It's almost like looking for a new car before you've paid off the old one. Or, in this case, a starship.

First, the basics. EVE Online is a space community simulator. Similar to Uru, the game spans many fields and even my definition hardly encompasses them all. It has many features common to all MMOs and hides them in various ways. Typical MMO leveling is thinly disguised in the "skills" area of the game. Gold is replaced with "Kredits", a name which makes me shudder. Combat is combat, and you can mine for resources as in other games. Not much new, you think.

True, the game sticks very much to traditional cliches. However, there are some unique portions of the game that got me interested in this game, though not to the point that it replaces what I have in Uru, but I'll get to that later. First the interesting parts. The game is in one persistent instance. Everyone is there. Okay, it is somewhat of a stretch. The world is really divided into "solar systems" which one must jump to via portal-like "stargates". So, while everyone is on the same server and in the same instance, it's not quite what they claim it to be.

"Unlike most MMOGs that split a large player base up among small clones of the same game world (called "shards") containing no more than 3,000 people, EVE is unique in that all of its players inhabit the same game world."

Second, the game has a large market where items are bought, sold, etc. Unlike any other game I've heard of, the market has pretty much everything, for a price. Lastly, there is no one set "quest" as in Uru or the other games I've looked into. There are quests (Agent Missions, they're called) but you can profit and enjoy yourself in-game without doing any of them.

So, my experience so far with about 7 days remaining on my 14 day trial. I set my race, bloodline, backstory, education, and specialty (you essentially build your life, which effects what bonuses you get, etc., which is another interesting feature of the game. All players begin with a basic rookie ship named the Ibis. After a lengthy tutorial explaining the rather complex game controls (this is NOT Uru where most controls are intuitive) I moved on to the part of the game I had the most interest in, mining. It's the same kind of mining any other game has. You use a tool (which is always slow) to extract the resources from the rock (which never really shows any signs that you DID anything, when the asteroid is depleted, it just vanishes). It's the typical boring busy work needed to maintain subscriptions. You can either sell the ore or refine it into essential minerals and sell those (or you can keep the minerals and build ships or weapons with them, which I still haven't figured out how a crystal gets turned into metal for a ship).

Combat's not my thing, so my ship is purely for mining. Space for the ore, good mining lasers, and bookmarks for the best ore areas. So when my ship was destroyed a few days ago, naturally I had a non-combative response. Warping away from the debris in my "pod" (the little craft that jettisons from your ship if it's destroyed so you don't die initially [though you can still get killed in that]), I calmly collected a few things and warped back to one of the stations I had items stored in and picked a new mining ship out of the group I had just constructed. The loss, literally, cost me nothing as I then sold the rest of the batch of ships at a price to make up for the cost of producing the one I took.

I bring this up because it shows you don't have to be combative or violent to still enjoy this game. You just have to be smart. Were I forced to play this game, I would likely do more long term things, but as my time here is coming to a close (for now) I'm focusing on short term things. You can have an interesting time there no matter what your style and, in that way, it is very much like Uru.

Why this isn't my choice over Uru. For all the (somewhat) unique thing EVE does, it doesn't do as many nor nearly as good as Cyan. While some areas are beautiful, they are difficult to get to (whether by way of distance or combative players). While the game's community is helpful (and even has a volunteer help system like the Greeters) it is also horrible in more ways than Uru's can be. You want to talk about pride and corruption in Uru, there are gangs in EVE that think they control certain sectors and seem to enjoy exercising their will. You also can spend an hour in-game and see more swearing than I've seen in the history of Uru. The economic focus is riddled with poorly-hidden or blatant MMO cliches. The modeling, while at Uru levels in terms of texturing, is too blocky. In short, the game is far too "typical" to surpass a game like Uru as long as there's still hope. It is close, though, and a serious contender. While it is only the first other MMO I've tried out, it seems as close as I've seen an MMO get to breaking new ground, which leads to the last point.

What Uru could learn from EVE. EVE has a number of things that could, conceivably, be put into Uru. Some more practical than others.

1. Multiple chat channels with easy creation and destruction of said channels. This is something sorely needed.
2. Easy-to-use chat display. Going hand-in-hand with #1, I was shocked at how seemless the chat was, how easily it notified me, how people didn't randomly poof from the list, and how I never lost chat in a "link".
3. Simple info cards. Each person or place or item has an info card you can pull up at any time to read about it. This kind of thing could make contact in Uru so much easier.
4. Info-filled site. I knew this would be an area where any other game would have an advantage not because of Tweek and amonre's work, but because of the time constraints on Cyan and their general air of "here's a hint, but we'll let you figure it out" which I think should stay. If you look at the EVE site, particularly the FAQ, you notice it's filled with info even new gamers are going to know, it's simply written, and puts out all the info to be simply accessed. Information about what the game is, what you can do, pricing, computer requirements, etc. While most if not all of that is on the MOUL site, it is sometimes difficult to find and a crucial thing is missing, a guide to the KI. The EVE FAQ also talks about some of the failings of the game, or at least its constraints.

There are likely more Cyan could learn from. Having your avatar remain in the age you leave it in (perhaps sleeping when you're offline) except for public places. A full-fledged tutorial at the game's start. Mining busywork with a Cyan touch (clearing a tunnel to a new area), etc. It all depends on what Cyan does. I still have some hope we'll get a UU2, and hope that Cyan can, one day, put in place these changes.

Or is it?

As could be expected of a project like this, there are possibilities for re-birth. If being hosted on Cyan's own server meant my $10 went directly to them, I'm all for it. However it seems there's some legal issues. I'm anxious to know how all this went down and if the new AOL/Time Warner CEO had an effect.

More news soon, I hope.

The End of Uru Live

As has been said many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many times... Uru Live is dead.

Obviously, as most fans are, I'm sad. However, I am still hopeful. I won't go into sappy lines about how "it wasn't about the game, it was about us" not only because it's a cliche, but because everyone knows that. However, I'm still hopeful (perhaps more than before) that Cyan's vision can be achieved somewhat). I, like others, do not particularly want to see a UU to rebuild Uru. At the core, I want something to keep in touch in a fun game with my Uru friends. However, there is far more potential than me simply bringing myself and friends to EVE or to LotRo. I will try, in this post, to deal with all the potential scenarios and the ways we can benefit Uru from them.

No UU: Say that Cyan decides the game is dead. They will not allow shards to do anything. Illegal shards get taken down as soon as they come up. Uru is dead and Cyan doesn't want to return to it for whatever reason (varying examples here. Gametap refuses to let Cyan release the code, etc.). All hope is lost, right? As this is the only MMO most of us play, we'll never "see" each other again. Thankfully, no. Should this be the case (and while there's a possibility, I think all parties involved do not want this) there is still a way to enjoy other places. Make them more like Uru. Bring that spirit of creativity to other MMOs, bring the style of play, the type of RP, etc. Mold the games to your liking and, potentially, we could influence the industry not through dollars (which has failed so far) but through ideas.

Return to UU: Now say that pretty much the opposite happens. Cyan allows the shards to continue as they did in hopes of attracting someone to pick the game up again. The new UU has all of last year's content on it, etc. Not something I'd like (purely because I'd like the third option) but it would give us something of what we enjoy: our friends and the new world we enjoy and still have yet to see all of.

Return to Uru: Now say something even better happened. Cyan not only allows the shards along with the new content, but goes one step further. What if they let us, told us, to build? Imagine the shards, same as ever (some for varying groups where they have fun however they like without imposing on others) but with another shard, owned by the Writers or the Maintainers or perhaps by all the varying guilds. No Cyan content, but it would be a way for the universe to continue after the DRC left with fan storylines like SR or JDBarnes and others, and with fan ages as the content. Constantly growing not as fast as Cyan's content made it, but still growing. Attracting new people to the idea of a high-quality, refined fan-content game. This is what I think the future of Uru should be. Not another incarnation of UU waiting for a new incarnation of MOUL, but a place that, while familiar, was also new and would lead to something newer and better than what we had.

The Community: Part Two

I initially conceived this post shortly after "The Community: Part One" however, with the closing of MOUL, it was somewhat out-dated.

The community as it is now is badly fractured. From what I've seen this stems from old battles stemming in UU and before. Opposite personalities and the same issues of elitism we're dealing with now. Neither side was brave enough to come together and discuss it with respect. And so we're left now with a poorer community.

"Fractured" isn't really the correct term, though. "Isolated" or "branching" or "frayed" would work better. We aren't a large slab of rock with lines running through it. We're more of a large group of groups, isolated largely from the other groups, connections frayed between some, branching from the one thing that holds us all together. Uru. We come for different reasons; some for the beautiful landscapes, others for friends, others for story, others for games, others for trophies, but we're all here for something in this game.

What this community fails at is doing something for the common good on a massive scale. Banding together to do something really big. Like a large-scale documentary/recap of previous events. Marten's doing this with a small team, but so is the Bridgette Reed group, and there are any number of smaller film-makers and people who could be film makers. Why aren't these people grouping? Why aren't they pooling their resources and getting these projects out faster?

Another issue is that this community is bad at recognizing potential. Potential for large-scale Jalak tournaments, potential of parties and fan storylines. It's not just a lack of people to lead these projects but also a lack of interested people. In a way that feeds the apathy. No one's interested so no one starts something so no one gets interested so no one-- etc. It will take someone starting something to break that cycle. Someone who can dedicate time and energy to keep a project open and waiting for people. Slowly people would filter in and it would be that person's job to instill in them the same loyalty and dedication. And from there it would grow from a few people's favorite thing to do on a night to something that would be copied and imitated and enjoyed by the branching groups.

Old vs. New

Ask anyone who was in Prologue and they’ll tell you that things are quite different from back then. Cyan had more money, bigger ages were put out, the story seemed more engaging (though that is likely only the perception of an audience that has, also, changed), and (most importantly) Cyan had fewer staff and less money.

The other day, however, I noticed something else that had changed since Prologue. Something that, as I have said many times before, people have not taken advantage of. The possibility of activities beyond the Cyan content using that content adding to it or making your own. Compare the ages and areas in Prologue with repeatable content vs. the ages and areas in the new Myst Online.

In Prologue: Great Zero missions/user-made missions

In Myst Online: Er’cana pellets, Jalak games, Minkata soccer games, Great Zero missions/user-made missions

Certainly, I’m counting the Great Zero twice (as there is no reason to disqualify it for new people). Certainly Er’cana and the Wall were planned, but neither was put in place (the Wall still hasn’t). Certainly I’m not counting the possibilities for social gatherings in the ages. But simply look at the old journey ages for repeatable play. Only Gahreesen really has anything (though it isn’t working). Compare that to the Ages we got just this year where pretty much EVERY age we got has something fun to do in it.

So why is no one doing anything with these grand opportunities? The answer I hear is that all these people “don’t pay $10 a month to” fill in the blank. They don’t pay it to play in a Jalak sandbox, to “waste time” with pellets, to “wander around a desert”, to “listen to drama”, to “have a 3d chatroom”, to do all these things. So the simple question is: why do all these people have no interest in this game? Why are they subscribing if they don’t want to take advantage of the possibilities in the game? Why all this angst and cynicism about in-game activities?

I think this is the attitude that needs to be dealt with. People who don’t want to do things in the game and then complain about the lack of content. Cyan can only do so much (really, what could they do?) besides producing more content and more potential. The community is going to have to do something. Some will have to organize these groups and others will have to follow those organizers and others will have to spread these events and popularize them. And the community should marginalize those who scoff and belittle these events and those who enjoy them. This is not to say that we should marginalize those who dislike these events as people have different tastes. However, we should not be kind or feel sympathy to those who enjoy being destructive with other’s hard work. Let that distinction be clear. Simply not liking it is fine, but don't be rude.

This is another distinction between the old and the new. The old community (see Old Guard/Middle Guard) enjoyed and engaged themselves. They did not require Cyan to engage them. They did not shy away from extra-storyline events. They did not share this bias against non-DRC, non-Cyan, fan work. In the new community, unlike any other part of Web 2.0, there are a number who feel (and express their feelings loudly and often) that fan work is equal to bad work, unprofessional work, shoddy work. They regard fan ages as things to be shut away somewhere they don’t have to see them. A private library somewhere they don’t have to be. I have heard these opinions quite often and it’s quite startling and revolting. They have decreased recently, whether because popular opinion is beginning to sway or because those who demonize it have left the game, I don’t know. But it does seem that the negativity seems to have lessened, which makes me hopeful.

I’m hopeful because now, with the hiatus in full swing, I’m still seeing a great number of people online. In UO, I may not see the hood list scroll offscreen, but it gets close. Not only the numbers, but the enjoyment and “busy-time” is there perhaps even more than before the finale. I was just at an Ahnonay party the other night where I had lots of fun enjoying the world inside the game. I was kept busy by Dr.Watson/RAWA’s post on the DLF opening up the D’ni language. By the Lara documents which are still derided as possibly a fan thing (because fan is now a dirty word here). The first thing asked of Barnes is not "Cool idea, where do I get more info?" but instead "Is he official?" or "Is he a fan?"

And I see more and higher quality pushes for community activity. J.D.Barnes' ideas, the many parties, Subterranean Restorations, and the D'ni Age Tour Club. The last two being ideas started by myself. We can no longer afford to be elitist and snobbish about where we get our content or we will forever be disappointed. The fans producing content now are more mature and talented than those in Second Life or elsewhere yet they are lumped together with them. You insult and deride them when you compare the great work they have and are doing as "just" fan work. Because from what I've seen recently, their stuff is just as good... if not better.

Give What You Want.