Set of Family Photos we had done at Wal-mart.
When it comes to how the Nexus is set out there is not much I don’t like about it, for the most part it is pretty easy to navigate around in. However there is room for improvements in regards to navigation, not only that but hood management and some “issues” that bug many people.
Issues like Keith’s Bevin (Bevin is a single hood, not a name of all hoods, I really wish Cyan would change it back). Or Ages being listed in my Personal Links tab as Keith’s Eder Gira, but I expect that is to stop people being confused. The other issue is when you have numbers after a location name, like D’ni Jazz Club 089’s hood. I understand that, that is to do with ID’s of locations stored in the database, but it’s something that personally should be hidden, not seen.
Anyway, I was talking about the GUI of the Nexus.
As you can see I have introduced a few concepts.
In the old UI the Nexus was given simple up and down arrows, on which one was forced to repeatedly click in order to scroll through the masses of locations available. The introduction of the scroll bar would allow the user to scroll through at speed as one does on an internet browser. 1 click, held down, allows you through all the entries on that page, as opposed to countless clicking.
One of the things I liked about the Neighbourhoods tab in the Nexus is the option to browse by population or by Name (A to Z or Z to A). However this is something that can be expanded on a little bit with the introduction of alphabetical organization. Looking for that Hood which starts with a P? Then clicking the “P” would list just the hoods beginning with a “P” thus cutting out a bunch of other hoods to scroll through.
Again this is more directed at the Neighbourhoods tab. Hood names soon build up and there is often a lot of hood’s beginning with a specific letter. The pages tabs would allow for users to specify pages thus cutting down further on the amount of scrolling needing to be done within the UI.
Not only that, but the Alphabetical and Pages tabs would mean that all hoods can be displayed (unless set to private by the members), the Hood’s had a nasty habit of vanishing off of the nexus when they hadn’t been visited in a while which was a complete pain in the ass when trying to arrange parties or if you had something in your hood that people wanted to see. If the hood is public, I shouldn’t need to log in to make it so people can visit it.
I have left this one until the end for the reason that this section has a larger write up and further concepts to go with it.
The Cog Icon opens up the Hood Management screen. Inside this screen users can control aspects of their Neighbourhoods.
Hood Name: Does exactly what it says on the tin, this area would allow you to change the hoods name, a feature removed to stop trolling issues which certainly needs to be bought back.
Hood Customization: To be honest I am not really sure if this belongs here, however here it is. This option would allow hood owners to activate and deactivate aspects of the hoods (firemarbles, lamps etc) much like they would with Relto Pages in the Relto Book. Customizations would “flag” with the DRC and changes would be made by the DRC (IC explination of lamps appearing/disappearing).
Hood Ranks: This works akin to guilds in other games such as World of Warcraft. The person who set the hood up would be the Hood Mayor, he would have full access to the hood’s settings in the Nexus. In the hood ranks section he can set up ranks for members of the hood controlling what they can access in the Hood Management screen. He can also assign Hood Mayor to another hood member if he chooses to move to another hood (there would be a limit of only 1 hood mayor in a hood at a time).
This would allow the Hood name changing feature to return but would set it so the trolling issue of the past would not occur.
Thus concludes my concept for the Nexus GUI. Now I turn it over to you the readers and ask if there are any views you have or maybe I overlooked something that you’d like to highlight?
Under my radar it slipped until Nick mentioned it recently, the item of conversation of course being Portishead’s “third” (I personally count the live in NYC album which would make Third the fourth album but that is just me) album titled, well, Third.
It has been about a decade since their last release, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, especially seeming the reviews talk about how it doesn’t carry the scratchy, smoky jazz vibe which I enjoyed greatly of Portishead. There was a conflicting notion upon first listening to the album, part of me longed for the old Portishead sound that I loved, another part of me wanted to see them progress, to evolve much like Daft Punk did between Homework and Discovery and like Lamb did with pretty much all of their albums.
My initial listening of the album I must admit yielded a little disappointment, I found myself uncomfortable with the direction the album had taken, but this was solely down to the fact that upon my first listen I was a: expecting not to like it and b: was glossing over it. I was listening to it but I wasn’t actually listening to it. Having played it a few times over I started to hear fragments of the bands past albums weaving in with a sound that was moving away from the past. It’s like a boomerang, thrown out at the beginning with Dummy, the second album was close to the boomerang leaving the hand and the wild arch it takes before returning is akin to the first half of Third, the second half is closer to the old sound of Portishead which signals the boomerang returning to hand.
Time will tell whether this one will stack up with the other 2 albums, I personally feel it is a worth chapter to be placed with Dummy and Portishead. Whether it was worth the 10+ year wait or not remains to be seen however, hopefully we will not have to wait so long for the next album, it’ll be interesting to see where they take things from here.
Yesterday episode one of Penny Arcade Adventures game, On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, came out along with a demo of which I promptly downloaded. As a big fan of Penny Arcade I was curious as to what kind of mad cap world they had crafted.
Game starts off with the character creation screen, there are limited customization options (which become apparent why when I actually got into the game play).
Having attired myself in a gentlemanly fashion it was time to step into the world they had created.
It wasn’t long before my humble abode had been devastated by a huge robot with an unholy fetish for oranges.
I really liked the comic like feel of the screens layout, little comic book speech bubbles and text boxes for communication between the characters and navigation. The cut scenes are a mix between Gabe’s artwork and the rendered game (which explains why the character choices are limited otherwise Gabe would still be drawing the artwork for it).
Fights are turn based with rather strange attacks against the “Fruit Fuckers”, and strange attacks against you.
Characters gain experience and level up which grants new attacks and what not.
And of course you eventually meet up with the heroes Tycho and Gabe.
The game is punctuated with the typical humor that the Penny Arcade comic is famous (infamous?) for. Citizens run around with their hands flailing in the air screaming about the giant robot, lazy cats and of course the “Fruit Fuckers” who will get all Barry White on an orange if you throw one at them.
So yes, the demo was fun and I am seriously considering purchasing the full game when there is a little more coin in my wallet.
I’m hoping this post appears on MystBlogs, if it doesn’t then I messed something up.
I had been pondering whether to merge my portfolio site and my blog together into one WordPress installation (and thus one database) for a while now. I decided to go ahead and do it, hopefully everything works as it should, the old URL for my blog should continue to work as it used to.
Now I just need to fix some of the layout issues and decide on how to handle the header tags for the blog entries.
It is with mixed emotions that today we are announcing the EA-Land experiment will soon draw to a close. Since 2002, EA-Land / TSO has attracted a very special group of players (of which you are one) and we certainly appreciate your participation in the EA-Land community. continue reading…
I’m not really a fan of the Sims I must admit, I have the first game which came bundled with my PC, which I played with for a few weeks before forgetting about it.
However, upon reading the blog entry and browsing some of the comments, one can’t help but feel a sense of deja vu.
Having finished my portfolio at the root of Grey Skies finally. I decided to turn my attention to my blog, and clean up some of the past entries (make them more presentable and purge some of them) and implement a new theme that is closer to the layout of the grey-skies site.
Not to mention upgrade the WordPress installation that I was using to the newer version. I think I could stand to clean the categories up too.
So Jen got me an iPod Touch for my birthday. It’s pretty sweet, definitely liking the web access, blogging from it is novel to say the least. Keyboard takes a little getting used to though but I can type pretty quickly, shame you can’t touch and drag to highlight text.
When Uru Ages Beyond Myst and its online counterpart Uru Live was launched, players starting out found themselves at The Cleft, the “gateway” to D’ni. To those who follow the D’ni Lore this was a place of significant historical value and a place much desired to be visited.
It was the location that Ti’ana started a new life after the fall of D’ni, it was the birthplace and childhood home of Atrus, it was where one of the 2 openings to the tunnels leading to the D’ni cavern was situated.
It made sense for the players to start there, feeling “the call” to the middle of the desert to begin on a mysterious journey, picking up their Relto book and meeting Jeff Zandi. It all aided the beginnings set up by the DRC site and by Zandi’s ARG games, it all aided to the mystery that Uru ABM/Live was.
After Uru Lives closure in 2004 and the reopening in 2006 with Myst Online: Uru Live, new players to the game found a big change to how things started out. Cyan had done away with starting out in The Cleft and players started out in Relto, the reason behind this was to enable players to connect with the community quicker. Instead of starting the game in The Cleft, going to Relto then from there going to the Neighbourhood (ala Uru ABM/Live). The player only had to go from Relto to the Neighbourhood in MOUL they could then return to The Cleft later to pick up a page that allowed the start of “The Journey”.
The merits of this speaks for itself, it allowed people to dive in and meet up with friends or with new friends. However the change left a lot to be desired along with a few issues in story element.
How did the players end up with the Relto Books for example? With older players returning the In Character excuse of “it’s my old book” works here, but what with the new players?
I feel they lost something starting out in a mysterious place, not speaking with Zandi before they started (who’s cryptic remarks foreshadows the mystery of the journey ahead).
So how could this be fixed? Well it is something I have been thinking about for a while, trying to cover all the angles that I can see and the following is my suggestion. But not only is it my suggestion my proposal also addresses another problem I have found since first playing the Uru games back in 2003.
Choice, is to a degree, an illusion in this game which is unfortunate. When I first found out about Uru back in the DIRT and MUDPIE days. The first glimpses were of The Great Shaft and the concept of being able to walk down into D’ni was something on my mind, something that I yearn to see even now.
When players start at The Cleft in Uru they are forced to take Yeesha’s route to D’ni by going via Relto. As some players may not like Yeesha they wouldn’t want to take her route, indeed some may be DRC supporters and want to take their route into the Cavern (although Yeesha and DRC are all the same these days which is something I may address in the future), they may just be D’ni History nuts like myself and want to take the tunnels for the sake of it, but the underlying point is that choice should exist.
And so my proposal for the start of Uru also involves the concept of heading down to D’ni via the tunnels.
The concept of starting at The Cleft is back and as it should be, but what about getting to the community faster you ask? Well that’s not a problem because The Cleft you start out in is a Public Area.
I am aware the shadows are wrong in this picture
It stands to reason that if you were trekking into the desert to take this journey that others would be doing the same and as such you would bump into them.
Problem: Puzzles already being solved.
Potential Solution: The only really big puzzle in The Cleft is getting the power working, and watching the message. The answer to the imager combination is readily available in the room the imager is in anyway so that isn’t much of an issue. As for the power I’m sure it is possible to have the wind mill stop after a while of being activated.
Problem: Relto Book being picked up
Potential Solution: I have 2 suggestions for this, one being a box full of books (like the T shirts in Kirel) that the player picks up and Links out using. Or have the books on the pedestal but once the player has picked it up there is a Bahro scream (like there is already when you link out after picking the page up there in MOUL) and a new book appearing for the next player.
An optimization: A bit of a side step here, a lot of comments I have seen is in regards to picking up and documentation on the KI, the communication device within the game. I mention this here because it ties in with the following section about taking the trip to D’ni the tunnels.
The idea I had was to use the imager in The Cleft, upon the wall where Yeesha’s imager combination is could be a note by the DRC with a separate combination, upon entering the combination Victor Laxman appears and proceeds to explain the KI that the KI can be picked up in Gahreesen or in Descent (for those taking the non-Yeesha route), maybe touch on who the DRC are to introduce new players. Given that Laxman is the DRC’s technology guru it is also in keeping with the storyline.
Those who play Uru are aware that the volcano has a fence around it, in this proposal the fence will have a section that you can walk through. This will lead you to the edge of the caldera where you can descend down the rope ladder into the caldera and from there into the tunnels.
Of Eder Tomahn and Nexus points
Each Eder Tomahn (Rest House) has in it a Nexus point, I’m not sure if each one had a KI machine in too but I know at least 1 does. In MOUL the Eder Tomahn half way down the Great Shaft has a KI machine that offers a lighting option to the players KI. This machine could be utilized to first offer the KI and then offer the light if the player already has the KI. If not then then player could get the KI from one of the Eder Tomahn they stumble upon before they start venturing down the Great Shaft.
The Nexus points could serve as “save points” along the way given that the journey through the tunnels are long and allows the player to revisit specific points of the journey.
Problems: Long time to travel.
Potential Solution: Nexus save points as mentioned above.
Problems: Big, big district.
Potential Solution: We know that segments of the tunnels have collapsed, in order to get around it perhaps Linking is needed, upon linking to the next stage you separate from the public Cleft district and into a private/public/hood Descent district.
Upon arriving in the Caverns shores the means to get to Ae’gura will be needed. I see a couple of possibilities here.
There is of course an inherent problem if you do not take the Yeesha route, one is Panic Linking and the other is you do not have a personal area that you get with Relto.
Players could be issued a house in a district of D’ni if they didn’t take the Relto route. The house offers a room and maybe a courtyard in which the player can wander around, within the room would be a bed, the 2 shelves for books and the wardrobe for clothing. A Link to this house could be found in the Nexus.
Problem: No Relto book, means Panic Linking problems.
Potential Solution: The Bahro, they look out for the players after all, if a person falls then a scream would trigger and the player would be Linked back to their D’ni house.
Problem: Relto Page like Rewards.
Potential Solution: Different rewards structures similar rewards with a D’ni lean to them instead of Yeesha. Maybe D’ni artifacts instead of things like Er’cana plants. Course this may cause complaints about “unfairness” of some people not being able to be equal in the rewards they get.
Problem: Inviting friends.
Potential Solution: I see this as similar to inviting friends to an Age, you would send a nexus invite and they would turn up (they would Link to the courtyard thus allowing you to have the door to your house open or closed like Relto).
Now we need to take into consideration the possibility of being able to return to the Cleft for the Relto book if you took the Tunnel route. After all it is possible that Joe Explorer might decide that having followed the DRC he wants to give Yeesha a chance. This means if Joe Explorer gets his Relto book then he now has a house in D’ni and a house in Relto. At least this addresses the concerns of those who will no doubt complain about the unfairness of the rewards structure between the 2 house versions.
In order for a “Tunnel Walker” to become a Relto user, they would need to walk back up through the tunnel back to the public Cleft and grab the book to Relto. At that point the game mechanism in dealing with The Cleft would be the same as the past versions, the Cleft is out of bounds until they have completed the Journey. Once the Journey has been completed then they would get the Rainy Cleft, the Regular Private Cleft and the Public Version.
Problem: Access to the public Cleft could be still found in the Tunnels.
Potential Solution: I am thinking that the means to go from the Public Cleft tunnels to the private/public/hood tunnels could be a Bahro Stone, in which case the stone leading back from the private/public/hood tunnels to The Cleft tunnels would also be a Bahro stone, this stone could vanish until the Journey is completed.
Thus concludes my concept for the games beginning. Now I turn it over to you the readers and ask if there are any views you have or maybe I overlooked something that you’d like to highlight?
