Hexisle->Uru Screenshots

[Tweek]

You do realize that what you do to your offline game has no impact on canon, right?

Then what does that make of all of our fan-created ages then, and all the story put into them? worthless?

Not worthless, but not canon.

I disagree with you on this, some Ages are, some aren't.

Whilst I'm not fond of importing Hex and CT into Uru, I understand that there are some who are. Much like those in UU who liked turning D'ni blue and making the Arch upside down.

There are 2 kind of Uru players here, Uru players (who want to keep to canon, lore, continuity [what little is left after MOUL]), and Plasma players ( who like to play with Plasma, anything goes kind of deal).

If you're an Uru player and don't like "plasma" stuff, then just ignore it, you can tailor your offline game to how you want it.

[Jamey]

True, but that is for the sake of helping with age creation; the purpose of this guild. The offline KI and flymode help us inspect our ages, and link to them quickly, enabling us to make better ages.

Even being able to convert MOUL and Myst V ages at least makes sense, but What does being able to convert Hex Isle ages do? What's the point? You can't use the storyline, it'd be much more enjoyable in the game itself. I'm beginning to think they're doing stuff like this just because they can. Even the D'ni GoW had regulations, boundaries they weren't willing to cross.

Where's the "yeah, that" emote from UO when you need it?

[Jojon]

Nobody is trying to force anybody to accept Osmo and his universe into Uru lore.
If anybody has such a hard time differentiating between things, that the sight of a catfish valley book in the nexus immediately breaks immersion for them (however, then, they could possibly have gotten themselves immersed in the first place), then don't do the conversion and you'll never have to see it.
Are we going to shackle ddb and guys to a desk in the dampest guildhall dungeon workrooms and never allow them to test their wits, or do anything else of their own choice, for that matter?

As for "our" ages and canonicity. I raise you the even more fundamentalist argument, that only Cyan ages are canon; who are we to claim our lot of brown_box_age_TM's are core, or even side story? There, how does it feel to be on that side of the fence, you lily-livered liberal you? ;)

[Jamey]

As for "our" ages and canonicity. I raise you the even more fundamentalist argument, that only Cyan ages are canon; who are we to claim our lot of brown_box_age_TM's are core, or even side story? There, how does it feel to be on that side of the fence, you lily-livered liberal you?

I know ages I personally make are official canon, because I jump through many hoops to make sure they follow RAWA's Guidelines for Official Story/Age Creation. Do you guys remember these?

Looking in the big picture at this whole situation, or any situation for that matter, I always ask myself a couple of questions'
"What would Cyan do?" and "Would Cyan be OK with what I am doing?". Doesn't anyone else here ask themselves that?

[Paradox]

Here is what everyone seems to be failing to understand:

We aren't trying to make Hex Isle canon, or part of the storyline, or in any way "connected" with the rest of the Uru universe.
We are using a game engine to run content from different versions of that game engine.
We are learning about the changes that have been made to the engine, and what new features will be available for us to use if Plasma is ever released.
We are fiddling with things, the same way we have been fiddling with things since 2004.

We aren't asking anyone to play Hex Isle Ages in Uru, but it is worth the effort to investigate how to convert them so that we can learn more about the engine and possibly use that knowledge to add new features to PyPRP for existing Ages.

Jamey: You need to explain how writing Ages in general is canon? Where did we learn the Art, if even the DRC doesn't know it?

[Jojon]

I know ages I personally make are official canon, because I jump through many hoops to make sure they follow RAWA's Guidelines for Official Story/Age Creation. Do you guys remember these?

I do heed those, possibly to a degree past 25, in that I stay as clear of anything D'ni as I can and that only makes my efforts even more non URU canon, as far as I am concerned. I'd be very very wary about claiming an object/place/person I've cooked up was D'ni.


EDIT: Let me, in turn, "Yeah that!" the clearly stated points Paradox made.

[Tweek]

Jamey: You need to explain how writing Ages in general is canon? Where did we learn the Art, if even the DRC doesn't know it?

Given the nature of the game it is impossible for Cyan to dictate everything that is canon, a lot of player actions are set in stone, when it comes to D'ni they have the final say yes, but there is a lot of grey area where they don't.

Who's to say that when the DRC left we didn't learn it ourselves, that we didn't find research tools or study Books to figure it out? You can say "Well I didn't learn age writing like that" but you can't say that "Tweek didn't learn age writing like that" because it's not up to you to dictate canon for other players (not that I'm saying you are mind you).

Not to mention the comments by Dr. Watson that indicate that it was possible for us to do.

Cyan/DRC are not going to fill in all the blanks, it's up to us to do some of it, that's the whole point of us being in the game, is to discover, explore and be part of the world, not be part as in to watch but to actually shape the events that unfold.

We don't really know how much the DRC knew about Age writing, however they expressed the opinion that they weren't interested in it. But just because they didn't do something doesn't mean we can. They were focused on restoration, we were focused on exploring, on Yeesha and other things.

[D'nial]

EDIT: I don't think the previous version of this post was very clear.

What I meant to say with this post is that some Ages, such as Hayal, are pretty far from RAWA's rules of canon. Such Ages are, in all honesty, probably not going to make it into "official" future incarnations of an online Uru. However, those Ages are still available on UAM. After all, why shouldn't they be? Hayal is a great Age that I like very much, and I would never dream of restricting the distribution of that Age.

Assuming that all material that would be put into Uru is secured legitimately, there shouldn't be a problem with giving people the option to include the data in privately owned copies. If people with files from Hex Isle and the like would enjoy running Hex Isle from within Uru, let them. The issues that those opposed to the use of Hex Isle have raised are only relevant to online Uru.

"There's no point" is not a reason to prohibit these hacks, nor is "it's not canon". There are numerous examples of violations to these rules that (nearly) all of us can agree are morally defensible. Quite a few well-liked Ages are not canon, and to be quite frank, nearly everything the Guild of Writers is part of a shared hobby, not a job, and therefore pointless. I myself am working on a handful of Ages that I have strained to fit into the rules of canon AND that I have tried my best to make authentic. All of those Ages are quite pointless indeed.

So, to stop all experiments into integrating Hex Isle, Crowthistle, etc, one would, to reiterate, have to find some aspect of the conversion itself that makes it harmful. And this is where I bow out of the conversation, because I imagine that the next stage of this thread will be a debate over what Cyan permits, what Cyan does or doesn't control, etc. That debate generally gets quite ugly.

At least the community has livened up a bit.

[Dakro]

From my previous recollections I remember Cyan having a big problem when screenshots of people together in private shards popped up in a few forum posts here and there. I think they said something about it making them look bad in front of the people they're trying to sell their ideas to.

Now what people do with their own offline Uru is their own business, because I know there's nothing anyone here can do to stop anyone from doing anything in offline Uru and I understand the thrill of overcoming a great challenge, I'm studying physics and I feel great whenever I solve that doozy of a problem. But I think it would be best to keep your unbelievable accomplishments private. Who are we to decide what we can with Cyan's work?

Lets look at this, lets say that every place that Cyan has ever made, inside and outside of Uru is an age, I think we've all looked at like that in some point or another. Here's another scenario, and try to keep an open mind about it before you come to any conclusions. Now it would be reasonable to say that they created every single one of those ages. Now, lets say, you make an age and you make it, its pretty good, but not great, so you decide that you don't want to put on Uru. Now lets say, you sent somebody the files because you wanted them to check it out, and get a second opinion. Now what if they took the age, and put it on the server, without your permission. Lets take this one step farther, lets say this "friend" of yours not only took your age and posted it, but also modified it and put their own things into it. For now lets just let that sink in for a bit, and you'll see what I'm getting to.

Here's another scenario, and you'll see how these two kind of come together. Lets say that you take a videogame you kind of like, and you think it would be pretty cool to explore in Uru. And it turns to look just as good as it did in the original, if not better. So you post some pictures, and it looks really cool, and maybe a youtube video to showcase the whole thing, because its only on your offline Uru. Then you decide that the only way to truly appreciate the results would be to send the files to a couple friends of yours, whoever wants to see it, maybe post it on the forum or whatever. I guarantee that their legal team would jump on top you, in a heartbeat.

What I'm trying to do with these two scenarios is I'm trying to make you understand, how its effecting Cyan personally and legally. I know no matter what, you're offline Uru will become whatever you want it to be. But what it all comes down to is when are we going to draw the line?

[Tsar Hoikas]

We draw the line at something that will actually damage Cyan. IE blatant piracy.

Hacking does NO damage to Cyan. Hacking is what has kept Uru alive for the past five years.

And to refute your example, you ask the person to stop. If they do not, then you get angry. Cyan has sent no Cease & Desist messages In fact, they choose to ignore what we do to the game. While I don't take that for Cyan approval of our "hacks," it certainly isn't disapproval, which would have gotten a C&D.