Fan Content On Minkata

[Karkadann]

Hello

I was inspired to start this thread over at the MOULa forum http://mystonline.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=25935

New content always seem to attract a lot of people back to Myst Online and im hoping it will again. Ideally new content on a regular bases would be great but thats a bit much to ask for at the present time.
So to inspire new interest I have a few ages I made in Max/plazma four of them are board games, bit ruf but I do believe they are functional they transcend the language barrier and its a puzzle that changes every time you play of the other two one is to explore and the last one has a puzzle inspired by Real Myst. I also have a soccer field for Minkata thats a .prp file
Now granted none of them are professionally done, and I would welcome any feed back on exactly what you think they need, and some help on what has me baffled.

a few ideas
JWPlatt mentioned a Nexes/Stonehenge im no expert in python but the idea sounds fascinating
of the board games I still need to figure out the sound for the simples, maybe some lights and remove a few redundancies.
the Walking Maze I was thinking about adding old style gas wall lamps to the two rooms and adding a few more features from the age that inspired it.
what I could really use is more feedback concerning the functionality of the board games, I never learned how to play backgammon
Also if you want I may be able to produce an age with a bit of everything for testing purposes

Im still working on Max 7.1 so getting them to work should not be to much of an issue

not to forget the 100 plus fan made ages available with varying levels of complexity I would love to see an age like R'Oshanhinin Korvahkhn,Takla Ma'kan or my favorite Jonae Hood. A good example of what can be achieved by a collaboration of artist all specializing in a different aspect of age creation.

I also understand that adding complex fan made ages at this point in the game may slow the process of eliminating the remaining bugs. So at this point Im hoping to help with the fan content and have something ready so when the time come to start adding fan content you'll have something completed and ready to load

[janaba]

A great start and follow up from the MOUL forums thread, Karkadann ...

Your mention of all the available fan ages, 118 ages, 7 Relto pages and an age reward for Relto to be precise lol,
led me to again offer resp. provide the download links to my PDF files I've prepared a month ago, in case anybody
here hasn't seen those yet on the Gow forums or on the MOUL forums back then and would be interested to have
all those ages listed in alphabetical order in two simple PDF files (A-N and O-Z) to easily and comfortably glance
through with all information from the UAM Wiki plus one to three new pictures per age as those on the UAM Wiki
are mostly very old or outdated ...

Please follow this link to a folder which contains the PDF files for the ages A-N and O-Z (around 8MB each) along
with the original Word doc files (around 9MB each) of which I've created those PDFs in case someone liked to edit
or adjust the compilation ... Please, be aware that the provided information for each age is actually its walkthrough,
so, if you don't like to know everything beforehand don't read it and just enjoy the picture gallery ...

[JWPlatt]

Thanks for getting this started. I'm hoping this thread will evolve from where we find and preview the content into how to get such content onto Minkata for testing and eventually onto MOULa. I hope you don't mind that I took the liberty of editing the title to reflect that.

[JWPlatt]

Duplicate post from the MOULa discussion:

I've discussed fan content some with Cyan and the OpenUru.org team before making this public post to inspire more discussion and interest. I brought up a Fan Nexus in a follow-up to my OP. I thought the idea of Stonehenge, for example, would be a fascinating example of fan content fulfilling a need for a hub to provide entry into more fan content. Marten had the good suggestion to ask Cyan first so that we would not waste time on a proposal for Cyan to shoot down. So I did that. With RAWA's permission, here's what he wrote:

Yes, I think a second, separate Nexus for the fan Ages is the best way to go. It keeps all the fan-created Ages easily accessible from one place, and acts as a gateway that lets players know "You are now leaving Cyan-designed Uru" kind of thing. If the player chooses to visit one of the fan-created Ages (IC - "Explorer-restored Ages"), and something inappropriate is on the other side... we didn't do it.

It would be good if there were, for example, one of the easels from the neighborhood right next to the Book carousel in the Explorer Nexus that gives a brief IC disclaimer: "--NOTICE-- The Ages from this Nexus were restored by fellow Explorers. They have not been vetted or restored by the DRC. Enter at your own risk, and keep your Yeesha Book close at hand. - Victor Laxman".

As for the new Book on the Relto shelf to link to the Explorers Nexus - I'm torn. In some ways, for the long term, it would be nice if it were just another page in the normal Nexus book. Maybe have the lighting in the Explorer's Nexus changed to a different color, so one could tell at a glance which linking image was which. On the other hand, in the short term, having a new Book show up on the shelf would be nice, too. I'd be leaning toward the first option (new page in the Nexus Book), but would go along with the other without much of a fight.

RAWA

Rand was in on the discussion and agreed, liking a separate Nexus. He noted about the Nexus link that "a page is cleaner, but the book is more satisfying" and wondered which is easier. Finally, Chogon says it would work well to put an additional page in the existing Nexus book on the Relto bookshelf as a link to the Fan Nexus. So it appears that is Cyan's preference. Note that these comments all assume we would modify a copy of the exising Nexus - an interesting implication.

[CalumTraveler]

Shorah Everyone!

I'm DimensionTravelerCalum, in cavern, and I've been working lately on creating icons for Tshirts! Alien (the explorer) told me that shirts have been added to the TOC shard, so I know it's possible to do it in some manner, but here's the idea I had:

Basically and simply: We get reward shirts along with the stone ring pieces for completing an age.

I know it's possible to get a shirt into the closet when you complete an age (The Cleft and the Yeesha Tshirt being the prime example that half ignited this idea), so I thought that adding a shirt to the closet when you get each stone wedge piece would be a good way to start getting fan content into the game. I think it would be simple enough to add a flag check to the AvatarCustomization age that would count the given number and pieces of the Stone Wedge pieces in Relto. A 1 for 1 check, basically, something like...

Code: Select all

If Teledahn Wedge = Active, then Shirt = available

I don't know how coding works, but something simple like that shouldn't be too hard to do, I'd think. Now, I knew people wouldn't want to go to the trouble of implementing things one set at a time, so I made each and every shirt icon for each and every stone wedge, and waited until I had them all completed (And Vectored by my friend Hafo) before I made this post. Also, since some items in AvatarCustomization have descriptions added to them, I thought I should do the same, and gave each icon a set of words to match.

So here they are, each and every icon set!

Spoiler

GAHREESEN: A Garden of Stone. Home of those who surveyed their Ages with secrecy and technology.

KADISH TOLESA: A Garden of Trees. A Man hoarded his precious things among the branches.

EDER GIRA and EDER KEMO: Twin Gardens of Life. Fire and Water- Brother and Sister- Paradox Siblings.

TELEDAHN: A Garden of Mushrooms. Sorrow hid behind seals of officialdom and deceptions.


MINKATA: Desert of wonders. The Stars shine down upon you through the heat of blazing suns.


EDER DELIN: A Garden of Falling Winter. The Leaves are orange, a sign that old man winter soon comes.

EDER TSOGAL: A Garden of Grass. The Sun beats down, impossibly large, yet cooling water waits for all those below.

ER'CANA: A Garden of Metal. Caterers once commanded this land, now no more. Yet still many remain hungry, will they be fed?

AHNONAY: A Garden of Wonder. A clever man thought himself tall, and so designed a Monument even larger.


NEGILAHN: A Jungle of Life. The Animals hide in fear of creatures who strike without warning.

DERENO: A Range of Ice. The Frozen world above hides those below from the predators that hunt for sport.

PAYIFEREN: A Crater of Crystals. Life adapted to hiding within the Breeze of this Land of Sand and Crystals.

TETSONOT: A Sunken Boat. Broken beyond repair, this metallic husk rusts and strains under the pressure.

Now, I'd have used the vector'd images here, but the preview of the post didn't play nice with them. If you want to see them all in one place, head to http://www.mystcommunity.com/board/inde ... -icon-set/ <== this kindly given thread on Myst Community.

Finally, to wrap all this shirt business up, I also had an idea about copying some props from Kirel into the Main city and activating the Kirel Ticker in the plaza to explain the CavCon meter in Cavern. To that end, I came up with a CavCon Meter logo!

Spoiler

All of the necessary props are already in the game, and would just need to be copied over and/or activated, with some minor tweaking. (IE: the Guild Description message card text being re-written to describe the CavCon meter.) The CavConMeter shirt would be the more time sensitive item to be added, I'd think, but it would also probably be the hardest to integrate fully. If the table and Kirel ticker trick couldn't be managed, then the next easiest thing to do would be to simply throw the shirt into the wardrobe along with the rest of the shirts.

Now, I have a further idea for the Journey completion symbols, separate from the reward shirts to a degree, spawned entirely from Hafo's Vector work. Adding stone banners to random points in the ages with these symbols on them after completing each age, as the Tshirts are going to be so small in normal game play that people will miss out on some of the greater details on the icons. Now, I figure the easiest thing to do would be to copy the unused models from the City Library and replace their normal symbols with the re-done, vector'd images. But, if the stone models won't work, then adding in cloth tapestries like the journey cloths would work just as easily, and probably would be easier to model as well, although the vector'd icons would need to be tweaked somewhat, I think, to fit that scale.

So yeah, that's it. My idea to start getting fan content into the game! :) In my experience, people have loved new clothing just as much as they have new ages. So adding in some more clothing items would give new explorers more incentive to solve the ages beyond a "floating rock" that doesn't do anything, and would give older explorers a reason to return, to see the new items in-game. Make of it what you will! 0u0

_CalumTraveler

[Malfhok]

I love the CAVCON table idea! The reward shirts idea is cool too, but I would think the CAVCON table would take priority.

[Karkadann]

as far as new clothing is concerned I still have a cool top hat if you guys are interested. I don't know what file would be best so I have it in a 3ds, max, and obj with 4 jpg's and a png. its about 2.67 mg because one of the jpgs is a bit large

http://www.mediafire.com/?vqkna5he4chrw10

if it needs be be edited let me know or feel free to make any changes necessary

[JWPlatt]

It depends on what rarified is ready to handle. I'd like to see both the max and prp file options exercised because those are the build options for Cyan. The prp option needs Chogon to look at the build scripts to see how tough it would be to take prps not built by their system, but he has said it might be possible. So we might as well try it first.

[CalumTraveler]

Short and simple post here.

Looking at the debate between "Fan Nexus Vs. NO FAN NEXUS!", I think what needs to be done is a simple compromise:

Fan Ages should *ALL* be accessible through a Fan Age Nexus (as most of the current ages through the current Nexus are right now), *however,* fan Ages should also have their respective places in the Game itself. (For example, A garden Age should have a toggle ability in hoods created after their introduction to the game. On Gehn Shard, they're doing just that with the most recently introduced age, adding a toggle book and also running a stained glass project. )

This way, everybody wins. Fan Nexus people get their fan Nexus, and NFN people get their ages in the game. The only question is: "Is Cyan willing to do this?"

EDIT: And could someone Xros Post this on the Myst Online thread? I'm still having registration issues over there :( (You don't even have to quote me directly on it or even mention my name if you don't want to. Just bring up the idea, please?)

[Lyrositor]

Well the problem that poses is that it creates even more work. Personally, I'm not in favour of a Fan Nexus, since I can play Ages I want on other shards anyway. I like the way the Gehn Shard does this, although this might pose more problems in the long run, with more and more Ages being added. Personally, my tendency would be to rewrite the Nexus code with a new section for Fan Ages - but I don't know how difficult that would be.