The fan Age you're mentioning is not optimized.
We know of several techniques for optimizing a huge Age:
- vis regions and relevance regions
- just-in-time page loading
- using separate, simple colliders for collision detection
Community Project: The Great Shaft
Moderator: OpenUru.org Moderators
Re: Community Project: The Great Shaft
Thank you Chacal! Now that does explain a lot - I didn't know about any of those methods. It will be utterly fascinating to see what the various tools for age creation will have built into them once they get under way. I'll be looking forward to that down the road.
Much obliged.
Much obliged.
Re: Community Project: The Great Shaft
My intention was to have the Descent be several different sections, and we'd probably have to do a fair amount of fiddling to see what sort of divisions would give us optimal performance without loading a new section every few feet. If MOUL's version of the Plasma engine has better support for only paging in what you need at any given moment (i.e. only loading the Training Center's prison level when linking there, rather than *all* of Gahreesen), we may not even need that many different segments in the first place.
To transition between these various segments, I don't think we need anything quite so complicated as link-in/link-out points. My thinking is that we can use nodes a lot like Half-Life 2 uses hallways. Various nodes will have closed-off doors, which will open when the player clicks on it, triggering a scripted animation of them walking through the door, then closing the door and routing them to a loading screen. On the other side of the loading screen, you're in the node you just entered, and at the "top" of the new segment of the Descent. If you want to backtrack, you'd click on the door you just came from, triggering another loading screen to get back to the segment you just came from, dumping you out on the other side of the Node door at the "bottom" of that segment.
I hope that made sense...
To transition between these various segments, I don't think we need anything quite so complicated as link-in/link-out points. My thinking is that we can use nodes a lot like Half-Life 2 uses hallways. Various nodes will have closed-off doors, which will open when the player clicks on it, triggering a scripted animation of them walking through the door, then closing the door and routing them to a loading screen. On the other side of the loading screen, you're in the node you just entered, and at the "top" of the new segment of the Descent. If you want to backtrack, you'd click on the door you just came from, triggering another loading screen to get back to the segment you just came from, dumping you out on the other side of the Node door at the "bottom" of that segment.
I hope that made sense...
Re: Community Project: The Great Shaft
Actually, that makes perfect sense - this is how the interior/exterior transitions in Gahreesen were done. (I remember bug testing those doors exhaustively - once they got the instancing synchronization worked out, it worked very smoothly.)
Thank you.
Thank you.
Re: Community Project: The Great Shaft
At GoW, Robert the Rebuilder successfully demonstrated this technique for the Ahra Pahts Age. Sectors of the city are loaded when passing through a gateway. There is no sign of it other than a brief freeze.
Re: Community Project: The Great Shaft
Just wanted to say how awesome all this sounds... reading this, I want but one thing: to explore! "To D'ni!" 
I really hope this can become a reality.
I really hope this can become a reality.
Re: Community Project: The Great Shaft
There may be a solution to a player always having to collect a KI before they head off into their respective journeys.
Break the ladder down into the cleft (the cleft is already fenced off around the top) then move the surface journey cloths into the cleft.
Next add a bit of a wind into the cleft age so when the player releases the brake on the power mill, it has a reason for starting without having to head up to the surface to give it a push.
I always found it odd anyway that it kept spinning without any wind anyway?!
This then prevents the player from starting Yeesha’s journey without a KI.
Then as has already been suggested, add the linking stone into Watsons cave in decent as a link to the cleft.
This then creates a pre-defined path and all players have to go to though into decent to pick up the requirements to start the game (the KI).
At this point they have everything they need to play the game and then they can make the choice of what to do
Head straight down into D'ni, via the shaft, or they take on Yeesha's quest and link into the cleft.
Break the ladder down into the cleft (the cleft is already fenced off around the top) then move the surface journey cloths into the cleft.
Next add a bit of a wind into the cleft age so when the player releases the brake on the power mill, it has a reason for starting without having to head up to the surface to give it a push.
I always found it odd anyway that it kept spinning without any wind anyway?!
This then prevents the player from starting Yeesha’s journey without a KI.
Then as has already been suggested, add the linking stone into Watsons cave in decent as a link to the cleft.
This then creates a pre-defined path and all players have to go to though into decent to pick up the requirements to start the game (the KI).
At this point they have everything they need to play the game and then they can make the choice of what to do
Head straight down into D'ni, via the shaft, or they take on Yeesha's quest and link into the cleft.
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zib_redlektab
- Member
- Posts: 15
- Joined: Sat Dec 13, 2008 2:02 pm
Re: Community Project: The Great Shaft
DarK wrote:Next add a bit of a wind into the cleft age so when the player releases the brake on the power mill, it has a reason for starting without having to head up to the surface to give it a push.
I always found it odd anyway that it kept spinning without any wind anyway?!
The reason it doesn't start spinning is not due to lack of wind, but (according to Zandi - go talk to him before starting the windmill) that it "gets stuck sometimes". I agree though, this is really lame
I don't like tutorial levels in any game, and the Cleft has always felt like just another tutorial level to me. I think that the choice of skipping the Cleft entirely & opting to head straight for D'ni would be a very nice addition to the game...I think a lot of experienced Uru-ers will agree that not having to crawl through the Cleft every time they start a new account would be very nice, so I think that the earliest point in descent that we can stick a Nexus book would be the best...
Re: Community Project: The Great Shaft
While I like Alahmnat's solution quite a bit, I share Blade's feelings that Yeesha's journey should remain available from the start. I understand this creates a problem withgetting the KI into players' hands as early as possible. I have some thoughts on alternatives to resolve that... mostly (there's a small but acceptable exception). Here are those thoughts - please pardon that they ramble a little.
My goal here is to reconstruct the initial approach that the player will likely take, with an environment that feels believable , and without introducing overly obvious constraints to enforce the path we want the user to take.
Starting with the KI problem, I'd like to upgrade the functionality of the level0 KI (that is, what you have before you actually have a KI) from the very start. Side note: Most players didn't know that in MOUL, you could use slash commands like /neighbors before picking up the KI - and talk to your future neighbors (your 'hood assignment took place at avatar creation).
A level zero KI should provide an AGE PLAYERS list and a way to scroll through chat. It doesn't need to be as functional as the full KI. I think, in fact, it should still be kept relatively featureless... but the current level0 isn't enough.
I'll approach how we get the full version of the KI into the player on Yeesha's path in a bit. Let me first set up how the two paths (which I'll call "Laxman's" and "Yeesha's") diverge.
I believe that players should NOT initially be distracted with journey cloths visible all over. The choice of which path to take would begin at the imager... best with Zandi telling the player right at the beginning that there are two ways to D'ni and to pick one. Then, begin carefully appling Uru's ability to do phasing. If the player has used the imager to play Victor's message, the player is told where they can safely climb over the fence, and a hotspot appears there. Alternative option - the hotspot could always be there from the start, but have an animation of the player going "ouch!" on the barbed wire and dropping back on the outside of the fence if they'd not seen Victor's message. Either way, players wouldn't be able to climb over this spot until running Victor's message.
If the player has viewed Yeesha's message, the first journey cloth becomes visible to the player that ran the imager; if the player touches it, the remaining 6 journeys become visible to that player. Anyone else in the room with the imager when Yeesha's message plays can see Yeesha going through the motions, but wouldn't see the first cloth appear. The door under the tree in the cleft re-closes after climbing through it to prevent other players from going that way, accomplishing the same purpose as the hotspot to climb over in Victor's path.
If the player wants to do both paths, he or she could.
There are some unsolved problems with my approach though - we shouldn't want puzzles such as imager codes and the windmill to be left in solved states all of the time because the experience would be ruined for all players after the very first. This is the hardest part of multiplayer cleft; players should generally see the same thing as each other, but we have to either let go of certain states remaining permanent from the last player's action, or we need to encourage players to change states to create obstacles for future players.
For the imager, I think the answer is that after playing a message successfully, the symbols reset. That is easy enough.
Something more complicated needs to be done about the power in the cleft. It would annoy players who are currently working the puzzle if the windmill simply stopped turning (say by the wind dying down) in the middle of solving the puzzle, so that isn't a solution - although the cleft could reset to that state if empty. I think there needs to be something that each player cannot do while the windmill is spinning, such as picking up an object needed to proceed (for both Victor's and Yeesha's paths) so that players will want the windmill stopped at some point. With multiple players in the cleft, this creates an opportunity for a little conflict - griefing could happen too - but if we want the cleft to be a believable and real place that doesn't feel instanced, it's an approach I think worth taking.
Now that I've talked through that, back to picking up the KI on Yeesha's path. In the cleft, the user picks up a Relto book, not a relto page (back to Prologue style start). There are no books in Relto's bookshelf at the start, not even a neighborhood. Four pillars. One is already open, with Gahreesen visible in it. The other pillars are closed, and will still respond to touch if pressed, but we want Gahreesen to be open from start to encourage users to go there. If the player figures out how to open and visit the other Ages (Kadish, Gira/Kemo, Teledahn) and goes to one of those first, then that's fine... we've given them a hint where it would be best to go first, and they don't need the KI in those other Ages.
In Gahreesen, the user can get the level1 KI. The player's first encounter with the Nexus book is placed beyond a door that must be opened with the KI. Yeesha's path is now sufficiently streamlined to get a real KI into the player's hands before they go hopping into neighborhoods. The Bahro stone could stay where it is... the balcony could still be accessible on a level0 KI, but not the rest of the 'hood.
As for returning to the cleft to enter additional codes... these codes could either work or fail in the public cleft, depending on what seems more reasonable. They would definitely work in the instanced cleft, which would be provided by the Cleft book placed into Relto by Yeesha. The way back to the public cleft would be through Nexus.
PS: Private instances need to be eradicated from Nexus, as Nexus should not be affected by Yeesha magic, but the implications of that are fodder for another topic - probably in Cleaning Up Instancing.
My goal here is to reconstruct the initial approach that the player will likely take, with an environment that feels believable , and without introducing overly obvious constraints to enforce the path we want the user to take.
Starting with the KI problem, I'd like to upgrade the functionality of the level0 KI (that is, what you have before you actually have a KI) from the very start. Side note: Most players didn't know that in MOUL, you could use slash commands like /neighbors before picking up the KI - and talk to your future neighbors (your 'hood assignment took place at avatar creation).
A level zero KI should provide an AGE PLAYERS list and a way to scroll through chat. It doesn't need to be as functional as the full KI. I think, in fact, it should still be kept relatively featureless... but the current level0 isn't enough.
I'll approach how we get the full version of the KI into the player on Yeesha's path in a bit. Let me first set up how the two paths (which I'll call "Laxman's" and "Yeesha's") diverge.
I believe that players should NOT initially be distracted with journey cloths visible all over. The choice of which path to take would begin at the imager... best with Zandi telling the player right at the beginning that there are two ways to D'ni and to pick one. Then, begin carefully appling Uru's ability to do phasing. If the player has used the imager to play Victor's message, the player is told where they can safely climb over the fence, and a hotspot appears there. Alternative option - the hotspot could always be there from the start, but have an animation of the player going "ouch!" on the barbed wire and dropping back on the outside of the fence if they'd not seen Victor's message. Either way, players wouldn't be able to climb over this spot until running Victor's message.
If the player has viewed Yeesha's message, the first journey cloth becomes visible to the player that ran the imager; if the player touches it, the remaining 6 journeys become visible to that player. Anyone else in the room with the imager when Yeesha's message plays can see Yeesha going through the motions, but wouldn't see the first cloth appear. The door under the tree in the cleft re-closes after climbing through it to prevent other players from going that way, accomplishing the same purpose as the hotspot to climb over in Victor's path.
If the player wants to do both paths, he or she could.
There are some unsolved problems with my approach though - we shouldn't want puzzles such as imager codes and the windmill to be left in solved states all of the time because the experience would be ruined for all players after the very first. This is the hardest part of multiplayer cleft; players should generally see the same thing as each other, but we have to either let go of certain states remaining permanent from the last player's action, or we need to encourage players to change states to create obstacles for future players.
For the imager, I think the answer is that after playing a message successfully, the symbols reset. That is easy enough.
Something more complicated needs to be done about the power in the cleft. It would annoy players who are currently working the puzzle if the windmill simply stopped turning (say by the wind dying down) in the middle of solving the puzzle, so that isn't a solution - although the cleft could reset to that state if empty. I think there needs to be something that each player cannot do while the windmill is spinning, such as picking up an object needed to proceed (for both Victor's and Yeesha's paths) so that players will want the windmill stopped at some point. With multiple players in the cleft, this creates an opportunity for a little conflict - griefing could happen too - but if we want the cleft to be a believable and real place that doesn't feel instanced, it's an approach I think worth taking.
Now that I've talked through that, back to picking up the KI on Yeesha's path. In the cleft, the user picks up a Relto book, not a relto page (back to Prologue style start). There are no books in Relto's bookshelf at the start, not even a neighborhood. Four pillars. One is already open, with Gahreesen visible in it. The other pillars are closed, and will still respond to touch if pressed, but we want Gahreesen to be open from start to encourage users to go there. If the player figures out how to open and visit the other Ages (Kadish, Gira/Kemo, Teledahn) and goes to one of those first, then that's fine... we've given them a hint where it would be best to go first, and they don't need the KI in those other Ages.
In Gahreesen, the user can get the level1 KI. The player's first encounter with the Nexus book is placed beyond a door that must be opened with the KI. Yeesha's path is now sufficiently streamlined to get a real KI into the player's hands before they go hopping into neighborhoods. The Bahro stone could stay where it is... the balcony could still be accessible on a level0 KI, but not the rest of the 'hood.
As for returning to the cleft to enter additional codes... these codes could either work or fail in the public cleft, depending on what seems more reasonable. They would definitely work in the instanced cleft, which would be provided by the Cleft book placed into Relto by Yeesha. The way back to the public cleft would be through Nexus.
PS: Private instances need to be eradicated from Nexus, as Nexus should not be affected by Yeesha magic, but the implications of that are fodder for another topic - probably in Cleaning Up Instancing.
The music is reversible, but time is not.
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The stranger
- Member
- Posts: 75
- Joined: Tue Dec 23, 2008 9:54 am
Re: Community Project: The Great Shaft
Here's my idea:
The cleft is still personal. All along.
But you don't start in the cleft. You start the game in a desert area. You can see the volcano from afar. There's also a "old west" cart, half burried in the sand. This is a public area. Here, you can talk to others and ask for help.
Anyway, after you run a bit towards the volcano, you will disappear (to cost all the running).
And reappear in front of the volcano, in the regular area. This is still personal place. So technically-speaking, these public desert and personal volcano desert are 2 different "ages". You can return to the public desert through the gate, which is now open. Once again the game will load and there you are. All your progress in personal desert is saved.
Here, your choice is made.
You can follow Zandi, do the puzzle, take a Relto book, and you are a yeesha follower (yeesha followers can't do the descent. They already have a link to the 'hood in their relto. However, if an auth explorer shares his descent with yeesha follower, the yeesha follower can go to the descent). However, you can also choose to be an autherized explorer, and go all the way to D'ni trough the tunnels.
Somewhere near the riven wrecks, there's a torn in the fence around the volcano. Next to it- a hologram imager, like the one in the cleft.
No code is needed. Once you press the blue buttom, victor laxmen's hologram appears. He tells you that he is from the DRC, tells about Zandi, who he is, what is this journey. He tells you that the DRC will not try to fight your decision, but for your own safety, they recommend you will go to d'ni trough the tunnels, and be an autherized explorer.
PS: all along the game, even after you explored 30 ages and saw everything, you can return to the cleft and take a relto book to be a yeesha follower. You can also put the book down and return to be an autherized explorer, if so you wish.
Back to the point, after you walk through the torn in the fence, the game loads again. You can probably guess why. The 2 areas are very big. We don't want huge loading times. So again, the caldera and the desert below it are 2 different "ages", technically.
So, the caldera looks the same. Almost. Tere are no glyphs on the rocks. Also, there are rock steps, carved into the inner caldera walls. Once you walk up a bit (A BIT. Remember, there is no real desert below. So we don't want you to see that), you are "linked" (just loading, not linking) back to the desert, next to the torn in the fence.
The caldera and caves looks the same as Myst V. I don't want to talk about the caves design, because this is Cyan Worlds' biggest (probably) creation, I bet they got tons of desings from DIRT we don't even know about, so I'll think I'll let them give us some more info, if they may.
All the tunnels and caldera are personal. No one else is here.
Few differences:
The resting house in the middle of the great shaft, between the elevator is CLOSED. There is a big rock door blocking the entrence, no way to get in. Why? this is a story for another time, children.
No yeesha messages in the imagers. And no yeesha journals.
Resting houses- there are MANY around. In every one of those, the KI machine works (there are some with no KI machine, but many of the rooms got them). It gives you a KI.
Also, in every resting house, there's a nexus book in the machine. You DON'T NEED to upload the terminals of the resting houses- they are already built in the KI (yeesha followers, who can't go to the descent after they take a relto book, take a KI from gahreesen. The descent links can't be found at their KIs. Also, any auth explorer who did all the descent without a KI, if he takes a gahreesen KI, the descent links won't be at his KI too. He need to take a KI from descent, from any of the resting houses. Basicly, gahreesen KI- no descent links, descent KI- yes descent links. Also, if a yeesha follower go to a shared auth explorer descent, and if he takes a KI from there, his links stay the same- no descent links in nexus). This way, one can link to any resting house along the way, if he gets tired of the way, and reach other people more quickly.
In nexus, there's a book to the first resting house (we see this one in Myst V). If someone forget to take a KI, he can return to the 1st resting house, take a KI, and link back to the place he was (nearest resting house to that place) through the nexus.
Yes, we get to see the whole descent. No skipping. However, this place should be HUGE. So, to cost space, I guess we should devide the descent to, like, 3 different "ages". It sould be done in a good way with no skipping. For example, we could stop the caves at some point, and give a prerendered pic of what comes next. Getting near the pic, loading starts. You arrive at the pic, just that it's real now. Behind you- another pic of the place you just came from. Getting near it... I guess you already get the point.
There should also be many "fan rooms" (nodes, you call them?) in the path. Like the 2 we saw in Myst V.
Few challenges/puzzles- the great shaft floor puzzle, getting through the lava cavern (it should be clever), the tunnels maze. Some others, I guess.
I also got this nice idea- along the way, you get to several interesting points. The great shaft, the tunnels, the lava cavern, the southren gate and some more. So, once you get there, you get to see a small "scene" (like the one when you solve the kadish tolesa pillers puzzle), with this... music playing. "This music" is this big orchestral part of the "What is Uru Live?" video in ABM, near the beginning (it's only like 5 seconds). I always liked it. Than, when you reach d'ni, another music plays. It's close to the other music, but it's the one from E3 ABM trailer. It's much "bigger", if anyone noticed. I think it's also like 5 seconds, and it's after the guitar part in the trailer. After it plays, the "scene" stops, and you hear some parts of the trailer music. If you chose "stay at first person", you won't see the "scene", but only hear the music.
After you reach d'ni, there is some staircase or something, going through it load you again, to a new "age"- the 'hood.
"SHARE" option. New option in the inventory, let you share the caldera and tunnels with buddies. It is only available in the public desert, the one you begin the game in. Notice- after you use this option, your friends will arrive at the caldera. Going up the caldera stairs, they arrive back at the public desert, not your cleft. Yes, I insist the cleft should be personal.
The cleft is still personal. All along.
But you don't start in the cleft. You start the game in a desert area. You can see the volcano from afar. There's also a "old west" cart, half burried in the sand. This is a public area. Here, you can talk to others and ask for help.
Anyway, after you run a bit towards the volcano, you will disappear (to cost all the running).
And reappear in front of the volcano, in the regular area. This is still personal place. So technically-speaking, these public desert and personal volcano desert are 2 different "ages". You can return to the public desert through the gate, which is now open. Once again the game will load and there you are. All your progress in personal desert is saved.
Here, your choice is made.
You can follow Zandi, do the puzzle, take a Relto book, and you are a yeesha follower (yeesha followers can't do the descent. They already have a link to the 'hood in their relto. However, if an auth explorer shares his descent with yeesha follower, the yeesha follower can go to the descent). However, you can also choose to be an autherized explorer, and go all the way to D'ni trough the tunnels.
Somewhere near the riven wrecks, there's a torn in the fence around the volcano. Next to it- a hologram imager, like the one in the cleft.
No code is needed. Once you press the blue buttom, victor laxmen's hologram appears. He tells you that he is from the DRC, tells about Zandi, who he is, what is this journey. He tells you that the DRC will not try to fight your decision, but for your own safety, they recommend you will go to d'ni trough the tunnels, and be an autherized explorer.
PS: all along the game, even after you explored 30 ages and saw everything, you can return to the cleft and take a relto book to be a yeesha follower. You can also put the book down and return to be an autherized explorer, if so you wish.
Back to the point, after you walk through the torn in the fence, the game loads again. You can probably guess why. The 2 areas are very big. We don't want huge loading times. So again, the caldera and the desert below it are 2 different "ages", technically.
So, the caldera looks the same. Almost. Tere are no glyphs on the rocks. Also, there are rock steps, carved into the inner caldera walls. Once you walk up a bit (A BIT. Remember, there is no real desert below. So we don't want you to see that), you are "linked" (just loading, not linking) back to the desert, next to the torn in the fence.
The caldera and caves looks the same as Myst V. I don't want to talk about the caves design, because this is Cyan Worlds' biggest (probably) creation, I bet they got tons of desings from DIRT we don't even know about, so I'll think I'll let them give us some more info, if they may.
All the tunnels and caldera are personal. No one else is here.
Few differences:
The resting house in the middle of the great shaft, between the elevator is CLOSED. There is a big rock door blocking the entrence, no way to get in. Why? this is a story for another time, children.
No yeesha messages in the imagers. And no yeesha journals.
Resting houses- there are MANY around. In every one of those, the KI machine works (there are some with no KI machine, but many of the rooms got them). It gives you a KI.
Also, in every resting house, there's a nexus book in the machine. You DON'T NEED to upload the terminals of the resting houses- they are already built in the KI (yeesha followers, who can't go to the descent after they take a relto book, take a KI from gahreesen. The descent links can't be found at their KIs. Also, any auth explorer who did all the descent without a KI, if he takes a gahreesen KI, the descent links won't be at his KI too. He need to take a KI from descent, from any of the resting houses. Basicly, gahreesen KI- no descent links, descent KI- yes descent links. Also, if a yeesha follower go to a shared auth explorer descent, and if he takes a KI from there, his links stay the same- no descent links in nexus). This way, one can link to any resting house along the way, if he gets tired of the way, and reach other people more quickly.
In nexus, there's a book to the first resting house (we see this one in Myst V). If someone forget to take a KI, he can return to the 1st resting house, take a KI, and link back to the place he was (nearest resting house to that place) through the nexus.
Yes, we get to see the whole descent. No skipping. However, this place should be HUGE. So, to cost space, I guess we should devide the descent to, like, 3 different "ages". It sould be done in a good way with no skipping. For example, we could stop the caves at some point, and give a prerendered pic of what comes next. Getting near the pic, loading starts. You arrive at the pic, just that it's real now. Behind you- another pic of the place you just came from. Getting near it... I guess you already get the point.
There should also be many "fan rooms" (nodes, you call them?) in the path. Like the 2 we saw in Myst V.
Few challenges/puzzles- the great shaft floor puzzle, getting through the lava cavern (it should be clever), the tunnels maze. Some others, I guess.
I also got this nice idea- along the way, you get to several interesting points. The great shaft, the tunnels, the lava cavern, the southren gate and some more. So, once you get there, you get to see a small "scene" (like the one when you solve the kadish tolesa pillers puzzle), with this... music playing. "This music" is this big orchestral part of the "What is Uru Live?" video in ABM, near the beginning (it's only like 5 seconds). I always liked it. Than, when you reach d'ni, another music plays. It's close to the other music, but it's the one from E3 ABM trailer. It's much "bigger", if anyone noticed. I think it's also like 5 seconds, and it's after the guitar part in the trailer. After it plays, the "scene" stops, and you hear some parts of the trailer music. If you chose "stay at first person", you won't see the "scene", but only hear the music.
After you reach d'ni, there is some staircase or something, going through it load you again, to a new "age"- the 'hood.
"SHARE" option. New option in the inventory, let you share the caldera and tunnels with buddies. It is only available in the public desert, the one you begin the game in. Notice- after you use this option, your friends will arrive at the caldera. Going up the caldera stairs, they arrive back at the public desert, not your cleft. Yes, I insist the cleft should be personal.