Comments on: What is so attractive in Myst Online: Uru?

By: Moiety Jean

Moiety Jean — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 20:47:35 +0000

I’d like to add that the pendulum can also swing too far in the opposite direction. Without interesting and rich stories, additional environments can feel shallow, as Jalak, Minkata, and the pod ages did for many players, and the experience of exploring them is over comparatively quickly.

By contrast, the city of D’ni retains interest because its rich story element contains many mysteries that continue to provoke thought even while the environment itself remains static. The feeling is that many more experiences are possible, so people continue to visit.

It will be interesting to see whether fans will be able to achieve a golden balance of experiences based on exploring an area with those based on thinking about a story. Being able to add each kind in just enough quantity that a little more of the other is wanted is, I think, the formula to keep players coming back for more.

By: Moiety Jean

Moiety Jean — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 20:28:13 +0000

In response to Eleri, the reason I suspect fan story was rejected was that it had no way (until a few people cleverly asked for special images to be imported into MOUL for them) of altering the environment for other players, so no way of making an impressive impact on anyone. New things to talk about don’t hold attention for long when they don’t come with new things to _do_ as well. Uru is about having experiences, and players have a tendency to think that the only source of new _experiences_ is Cyan. Without fan-created content to support and enhance fan story, they’re often right. When players realized a story was not coming from Cyan, they became scornful of it because they couldn’t envision it leading to an experience that would be meaningful or fun for them.
Once Cyan redirects the attention of those players toward fan story and fan-created content, the players will reset their expectations of where they will be able to find a fun experience, and they’ll be more accepting and supportive of what other fans have to offer them. I feel that, with careful guidance to keep fan created content true to the Myst universe, fans will be able to greatly enrich and add to the experience already provided by Cyan’s content. It will take effort and teamwork to focus the fragmented talent bases in the community, but this is already happening in places like the Guild of Writers, where people band together on group creations as well as their own personal projects.

By: Eleri

Eleri — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:44:06 +0000

I’m wondering… with UU, there was no story because it wasn’t sustainable in a static enviroment, so story became a casualty. And in MOUL, people who wanted story, were focused on Cyan doing story, and in some cases, actively not wanting fan story.

So where will story and immersion come in in MORE?