Keith Lord - Online Portfolio

A few months back I was chatting with some fellow friends and the conversation turned from Myst to the book 1984, and I was inspired to do some Big Brother inspired Guild of Maintainer posters.

Yesterday I decided to remake them using the Guild of Maintainers colour of burgundy.
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I’ve been wanting to do a piece on Veovis for a while now, I finally got around to it recently. Veovis is one of those characters of the Myst universe that I like a great deal, not because he ended up killing most of his race, but because of the mechanism that lead to the act. Not to mention that after he had lead to millions dying, he refused to step over that final line and break one of the greatest D’ni laws.
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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.
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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.
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You know I had this big old post set up in my mind, my views on the closure of the game (again) along with other things.

But Alah beat me to it and pretty much summed up things perfectly for me.
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I have been digging through some old Uru stuff on my computer recently, and it got me thinking about the comparisons between Uru “Prologue” Live and Uru Live. I’m not going to address the fact that Prologue never made it out of beta because that doesn’t seem fair.
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So a few weeks back Ryan (GreyDragon) popped up on MSN and asked me and Denis (amon-re) if we would be interested in interning at Cyan, so we said yes.
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I am going to take a moment to show off my geek colours.

I was browsing MYSTCommunity today and I discovered a thread by “MYSTRIVEN” in which a replica of the Bahro Tablet from Myst V End of Ages had been created.

I was very impressed with the work, I’ve worked on a few replica projects myself for Myst, none of which ever saw the light of day, but seeing this does make me want to go back and finish them.

You know of Godwins law right? The whole thing about if an argument goes on long enough at some point Hitler and the whole Nazi thing will be brought up and the person who envokes this “automatically looses the argument”.

I tend to think of the whole “its a game” thing as a variation on Godwins Law. It has come up alot lately in the last 2 months on the Uru Live forums and DRC forums. An argument will be going on, there will be hurt feelings and someone will throw out the line “its a game”. Now in my opinion the person or persons who through that line out automatically loose any standing they had in the discussion or argument. Why? Because it indicates to me that they just don’t get it, they don’t understand that no…to some people its not just a game.

I think I am going to have a problem with Uru Live, I am one of those people who complain about the lack of things to do, much to the annoyance of others.

Content
I have been playing Uru for 4 years now of the same content (not including the expansion packs). So after all that time, the old content, is really not very interesting infact there are some places I actually dispise going to. So the “Preview” launches with the same old stuff, the city is closed up yet again. Over the days they city is being opened up again and some of the missing items being replaced in to the hoods etc. I think what annoys me about this is passing the old content off as new, I mean I can understand wanting to draw in and keep new visitors but what of the old ones to whom all this is old hat and dull?
Ah yes they released a couple of new things, new Relto Pages, Shirt and Circle Stones and Eder Delin.
Now don’t get me wrong the new stuff is nice, but short lived, you pick up the pages they’re done, you pick up the shirt and it’s done, you complete an age that you have played several thousand times and get the stone ring segements and you’re done, you go back to a place you don’t like to get the sparklie and you get the Calendar Rose and thats done (for now I expect). I haven’t timed myself but I think I can complete the original Uru content in about an hour. Now some would say well pace yourself take you’re time going through and getting the stones and poles. To which I say see above about my views on the older content, I am not gonna slowly wander through stuff I no longer enjoy, I’m going to do it quick and get it done (like Matthew does when we’re eating something he doesn’t like).
So Delin right, well you’re in there an hour or 2 working with others to get the door open and when it’s done the Age is done. I still go there to walk around but I couldn’t spend 3 hours doing that.

See here is the thing, when I play World of Warcraft I spend hours on there playing, some times its a couple some times it’s an entire day. I can do this happily as there is plenty for me to do, I have quests I can do, I have new area’s I can explore, there are new items I can get hold of. I can spend my weekend playing this game and it feels like it’s worth it, it keeps me entertained.
At the moment Uru just isn’t doing this, ok so technically we are not paying for Uru at the moment, but I don’t expect this to magically change on the 15th. There just isn’t enough to keep me interested or keep me in playing for long, there are other factors to Uru of course;

Socializing/Community
It’s an MMO so there are other people there, and in the past I have been quite happy to get in there, meet new people and do some hood surfing and what not.
These days I really am not one for talking to people in the cavern, after the liaison fiasco and other incidents I’ve felt really quite appalled with the actions of some, esspecially the ones who should know better, this isn’t to say I’m an angel myself because I’m not. But the whole thing has left me feeling like I don’t really trust anyone and inturn it makes me not want to approach them. There are a few people who I would happily talk to however, I guess thats one thing about the community, it can fool you into thinking you have alot of friends, but when it comes down to it, how many will be loyal? How many genuinely care and how many hang around for the “popularity” thing and what not?

Story
So the DRC are back, thats good right? Sharpers coming back thats good right (for some people)?
I guess so, I am finding it very difficult to be interested in the story and I wish I knew why. Is it the three years of lack of story? Is it the bad fan stories that have blown up (I know these have put me off fan stories myself)? Perhaps that’s it, Uru is about us being in the story and what not…but if I don’t like fan stories then is that why I am not liking the official story?
Everyone is getting their knickers in a twist that Sharpers back, and I am sitting here feeling like “so what”, thats not right.

They want this game to work for old players and new players, casual players and non casual players. To do this you need a balance between these aspects and as it is, I don’t see the balance, things need to pick up and start happening.

It’s kinda sad I feel this way about it all really, perhaps I should leave it for a couple of months to a year come back when things have had a chance to build up some.

[edit] just a note, the traitor is in reference to myself.

As some of you know I mentioned about being interviewed the other day and well here is what its for (stolen from DJC):

Daniel Terdiman recently interviewed Ron Meiners, Josh “Vortmax” Draper, Eleri Hamilton and DJC’s own Keith “Tweek” Lord about Uru Lives return, Beta Testing and GameTap.

The Article;

• CNET News - Fans celebrate rebirth of ‘dead’ online game