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Durin Mephit
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 15, 2008 1:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I, too, am baffled.

I guess what I'd really like to know is, for some people at Cyan, exactly what were they doing all day in their jobs, that took all day and didn't give them the time to step into the game more often and drive story.
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Erik
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 15, 2008 2:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yes... it seems to me that Cyan missed a lot of opportunities to give the game a boost. But in some areas it seemed Cyan neglected things. Like I said before, before the episodes, there weren't even appropriate KI mails.

A lot of people made a feature request after Familiar Voices that there should be a Bahro somewhere every now and then. How much time would it take Cyan to get a Bahro to run for a few minutes through Ae'gura? How much would it take to "scare" an Explorer on his Relto with a Bahro visit?
It would have taken just a few minutes, but the community would have had something to discuss for days.

Cyan neglected those possibilities. The same with Douglas' journal actually. It was good that Sharper stopped writing in it, because I think that's typical of Sharper. But they should have made a new hidden journal or something where Douglas continued.

I was especially baffled when they didn't turn on the fireworks. Customer support told someone that there was no developer at Cyan to turn them on that day. Couldn't they have turned them on the week before then?

And it would have taken just a few minutes to update the Restoration Project page at the DRC website. I really liked those updates from the DRC, it made the restoration more real, but that was also neglected.

I realise all those few minutes together make hours, but surely they could have done some of these things.
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janaba1
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 15, 2008 2:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Same here, Marten and all... I will never ever understand this,
why they never payed heed to those story/game elements,
fervently desired by almost everybody and hinted in all forums
since I first joined them and Uru years ago and nicely summarized
here in this thread...

I mean, they actually do read the forums... They just need to listen,
and to involve those elements wouldn't even need too much money,
I believe... But while writing this it seems pointless to go on doing so...
Everything has been said and told already and more... So what?...
Cyan it's your turn... you all know what there is to do or could be done... Very Happy
(if at all...)

Edit: Was posting while you've put out your statement, Erik...
I absolutely agree with you too... Razz
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BladeLakem
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 15, 2008 2:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

My guess is Cyan felt they had bigger fish to fry. They had Ages to design, meetings to be in with GameTap, etc. Then they had other projects to work on as well. They were designing Hex Isle, other projects they were trying to get funding for, etc. (According to one of the Spokesman articles, they have been runnign a QA service on the side as well - that takes time to do and manage.)

And I will point out that even these low-effort activities take up a surprising amount of time. Big decisions have to be vetted by the design team, passed by RAWA for historical accuracy, etc. But I think that they would have been relatively high in terms of return on investment.

But it seems Cyan felt that it wasn't. Maybe they balked at the idea that such interactions only reached a few people directly, while Ages would be available for everyone no matter what time they logged in.

Of course, I am an armchair quarterback in all of this, making calls with the minimal amount of data. But I have definite opinions on design philosophy, it seems.
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Professor Askew
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 15, 2008 3:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Armchair quarterbacking is fine, Blade. We're venting, analyzing, whatever. IF what you say is true...then I just don't get the thought process. MMOGs are, by nature, huge. You can't settle for less. They aren't generally built for a few hundred people...or even a few thousand. Realistic or not, you want hundreds of thousands of people playing your game worldwide. You have to be prepared to keep all of those people busy and entertained. You just have to. If Cyan treated Uru as a side job, well, that would explain a lot. I say none of this with malice, by the way. This is all pure speculation in search of answers....my insatiable need to understand.
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BladeLakem
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 15, 2008 4:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'd suggest not a side job, but that they (wisely) took the chance to diversify.

I think they may have banked a little too much on the obsessive support of their fan-base, however. The fans have always stepped up to make things work. Maybe they thought that would give them time to get their stuff together. I have always gotten the impression that Cyan was slightly confused that the fans didn't do as much to fill in gaps in MOUL.

I suspect GameTap made the same assumption and thus didn't do much to market it - they assumed the fans would do it by word of mouth.

But I think that the fan base is more reclusive than either company realized. It takes a bit more to make a buzz because of that. And I think the fan desire to spread the word declined quickly, because of the issues inherent in the game and the downward trend in story (especially after Scars). For a lot of fans, MOUL was almost a guilty pleasure that they felt they had to defend their interest rather than being able to share their enthusiasm.

My guess is no one expected MOUL to have the same numbers other MMOs had. I'd guess the issue wasn't overall numbers, but the lack of growth.
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Professor Askew
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 15, 2008 5:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Everything you say makes perfect sense, Blade.....but it just don't make no sense, if you follow me. Such a huge gamble you're describing. And I agree about the confusion on Cyan's part regarding the fans' participation. I remember unsuccessfully trying to pry some direction out of Grey Dragon in the early stages and he just gave us the usual cryptic responses and, like any Freudian psychiatrist, led us to motivate ourselves. And here's the thing, all they had to do was take Brian or Daedalus aside and light a fuse and the whole of The Great Tree would have jumped on board. A false sense of favoritism was the only reason I could come up with for "snubbing" TGT...and I use the term snub very loosely with no offense intended. We got nothing from Cyan...nothing from the DRC...and yet we were expected to drive the game forward and bring others on board? How was that supposed to happen? This mystery just deepens and deepens.
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BladeLakem
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 15, 2008 6:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think that Cyan was afraid of favoritism, yes. Also, I also think they were very dedicated to the idea of Uru being as naturalistic as possible, and holding the line between IC and OOC. I think that too rarely, they stepped across the line.

I think the whole thing was a huge gamble. Just one that didn't work. Except in that it brought Cyan back from being a defunct company and gave them time to get back on their feet. So even in failing, it did in fact accomplish something.
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Durin Mephit
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 15, 2008 8:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm curious how many people at Cyan had to wear many different "hats"... that is, worked at dissimilar jobs.

I'm going to give a specific example, though I don't mean to direct criticism at any specific person. Consider the position of "Community Manager." A lot of what we're talking about - driving story in the game - in my mind fits neatly into the box of managing the community. And managing the moderation team at MOUL is not a full time job. Yet we feel that the community was neglected. I have a really burning desire to know what was eating up all of Greydragon's time... because what we've been told of his duties is a very incomplete picture, and maybe just understanding one person will help us to better understand how busy everyone else has been at Cyan, too.
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Erik
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 16, 2008 4:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The truth about GameTap?
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Professor Askew
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 16, 2008 9:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

This is not very surprising, is it? Somehow GameTap wanted to double its subscriber base (my words) by adding Uru to its roster. Hmmm...how realistic is that? So, I'm going to pull back a bit on my indictment (overstatement) of Cyan 'cause I get the feeling GT may have been even stingier with the resources than I first imagined. I wonder if Rand feels burned after all his dealings with these publishers/distributors.
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Eleri
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 16, 2008 10:45 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Blade and I had a very interesting discussion last night, I'm gonna go blog about it
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Durin Mephit
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 16, 2008 8:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Eleri's blog post is interesting reading.

http://elerispot.blogspot.com/2008/02/was-uru-sacrifice.html
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janaba1
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 16, 2008 9:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Those are very nice and comforting thoughts, Eleri, Blade and Marten and all... Very Happy

I am also glad, that they're engaged in other businesses to be able
to sustain their lifes and besides probably being able to keep their
Uru visions in mind or even continue to develop new ideas for any
kind of resurrection in the future... And yeah, there are only so many
hours in the day... Razz
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dcos
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 17, 2008 1:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Interesting Blog Eleri. Cyan's attitude over the last year would make a lot more sense if it is looked at that way. Very Happy
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