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RAWA
Joined: 24 Feb 2006
Location: Spokane, WA
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 Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 1:48 pm Post subject: Setting Expectations |
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This topic is jumping off from Anna Catherine’s post in another thread.
| Anna Catherine wrote: | The thing is, though, that low-key Uru is very different from what the game marketing led us to expect. "Destruction is coming. Find a way. Make a home." That sounds like something pretty epic and dramatic is coming.
[snip]
People are waiting because they were told to wait. They were told something is "coming." If that's true, great. If not... I suggest Cyan try to find a way to convey that to the players who are expecting it. People need to have realistic expectations... whatever that entails. |
I don’t think many people are really surprised to discover a disparity between "marketing" and "reality" in any setting (not just Uru), so setting one’s expectations based solely (or even mainly) on marketing is very likely to be setting oneself up for disappointment. I have been trying to help people to set more realistic expectations since these forums reopened in 2005. The DRC have tried to do the same in more IC ways.
But I do understand that the subtle reminders of "reality" are easily drowned out by the bullhorn of "marketing", so let me try to be clearer.
Short answer:
The marketing line "Destruction is coming. Find a way. Make a home." is accurate, but those words by themselves give no sense of scale. That phrase is not something that is going to be fulfilled overnight. Or in a week. Or in a month. Maybe not even a year. It’s a glimpse at a “bigger picture”, small pieces of which are already showing up in Uru.
Long answer:
“What do you see, Atrus?”
Throughout Atrus’ childhood, his grandmother Anna repeatedly reminded him to consider “The Whole”, the “big picture”.
Well, imagine the big picture of The D’ni Story. The story told in Myst is a single pixel in that picture. Riven is another. Uru is another. Zoom in on one of those pixels, and you find that it’s not just a single pixel. It’s a full picture on its own, and if you zoom in on that, you find that it is also made up of smaller pictures. (Similar to this recursive photo mosaic, only with an end at some point. Or, perhaps this movie demonstrating the powers of ten is a more applicable example.) When we’re fully zoomed in, the pixels of that picture are the actions of individuals. What you do can have an effect, even if it may not be immediately apparent when you zoom back out a few levels. Over time, the accumulation of even those small effects will become more and more noticeable from greater distances.
Let’s bring this analogy back to Uru. Uru’s “'Whole' picture” is made up of pictures from Uru: Ages beyond Myst, Prologue, the expansion packs, and now, Myst Online, among other things. Each of those are made up of smaller pictures for, say, each of the Ages. And so on.
The majority of your time spent in Uru is at the most zoomed-in level. Your individual actions, reactions and interactions matter and have the most visible effect at this level. Examples of things at this level are things like the interactions with the DRC members, or even the recent vigil for Yeesha. Since you’re zoomed in to the highest level of detail, even a single person’s actions can noticeably affect the picture, gradually changing the color of one pixel at a time, to extend the picture/pixel analog a bit. Events on this level of detail might only last a few minutes or days. Taken individually they may not seem like much, but some may have consequences that last long into the future. Collectively they eventually do have an impact on the bigger picture.
In the middle scales are things like the Ages. They are less flexible and require more effort to have a noticeable effect. At this level, there may be opportunities for the interactions of groups of players to gradually change the colors of the pixels of the picture over longer periods of time. We didn’t really get to see many of these Uru in 2004, but the hypothetical example that has been used several times before is the lighting of the lake: a gradual process that would take weeks or months to accomplish that has a fairly noticeable effect on an Age.
Zoomed out to one of the larger scales are pictures that are revealed over longer periods of time. Things at this scale are the most resistant to change. Player interaction may be able to slightly change the shade of a few of the pixels a bit, but for the most part, the picture when viewed from this scale may not change much at all. An example I’ve used before of one of the bigger pictures planned for 2004 was going to be the gradual revelation of the Bahro. Imagine everything that you learned about the Bahro in Myst V being gradually discovered over the course of at least a year rather than over the very short period of time covered in Myst V. A little glimpse at some point that they are able to link at will. Weeks later something in another Age demonstrating that they can affect the weather of the Age. Sometime later in another Age a clue about their fear of the snakes of Noloben. And on and on, so that the picture of the Bahro is slowly filled in as time passes.
“Destruction is coming. Find a way. Make a home.” is a “big picture” kind of thing. Right now, that picture is mostly obscured for you. But that picture, too, is gradually being filled in over time, and if you view that picture as a jigsaw puzzle, you’ve already been given a few pieces.
So... all that explanation to get to a point where we can better set realistic expectations.
You can expect new opportunities to make an impact on the most zoomed-in scale to become available all of the time. Most of them will be simple interactions that you have with other players. Some will be interactions with the DRC, new Ages as they are opened, etc.
At the next level out are things like calibrating the Great Zero or lighting the lake. You can expect new opportunities for you to have a direct effect at this level come less frequently, though as explained earlier, you have an indirect effect at this level all the time through the accumulation of the effects you’re having at lower levels.
Further out, with things like “Destruction is coming. Find a way. Make a home.”, you can expect new opportunities to have major impact at this level to be very rare, but you can expect your understanding of these “bigger pictures” to be gradually filled in over time.
To go back to part of the quote I started this with:
| Quote: | | People are waiting because they were told to wait. They were told something is "coming." |
Big things are coming, but that doesn’t mean you have nothing to do but wait in the meantime. Medium things are coming more often, and smaller things are coming all of the time. Some of them will be things that interest you. Some will not. Find the things that you like and do something with them while you’re waiting for bigger things.
Hope that helps.
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Rils
Joined: 23 Dec 2005
Location: Free Ballard!
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| Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 2:26 pm Post subject: |
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I think my mind just got blown.
Thank you RAWA.
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Gondar
Joined: 16 Mar 2006
Location: Lurking in the cavern...
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| Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 2:36 pm Post subject: |
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Oooo... that sums it up for us. Thanks RAWA!
But the concern I had is that as you said, we can only change the colour of a few little things, which has no real bearing on the overall scope, except in major things. Now, I suppose half of that depends on just what Cyan has up their sleeves for us (which we all are expectantly waiting to see)... after all, finding out you can't change anything is one thing, but finding out that we already are fitting in with a master plan that goes as we already want it.. that's another.
I guess I'm getting muddled. But I keep thinking about grander schemes and some sort of outline of the upcoming grand picture tacked up on a wall ready to go. With detail filled in between the major points, and specific key goals in that.. bigger things like 'Get Age X released' or 'Reintroduce Sharper' or 'Laxman's breakdown'. Which would mean that all our sit-ins and such actually have a difference, but only in the point of shifting the arrangement of these little points, and it still fits into the greater scheme. For instance, Sharper is back, but he's not actively in the cavern, implying the story isn't ready for him to be active.. but his muted return was bumped ahead a bit of schedule, with a few things like everyone saying he's about and journal entries, but no sign until everything's set.
Or maybe it's just me. The whole level of detail thing struck me as obvious.. but it also makes me wonder. If you shift enough pixels, change enough.. can you alter the hue of the big picture, and maybe change the details? After all, a big picture still has a lot of little ones along with it.. all visible from the top scale. I guess I'm just hoping us fans and explorers can go and shift enough of the picture to make it ours too, not just Cyan's.. as opposed to changing the little parts and the big story is all given.
but I'm rambling. Thanks for the heads-up RAWA!
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-Gondar "Muffincakes"
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Dan'nee
Joined: 12 Oct 2006
Location: D'ni
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| Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 2:44 pm Post subject: |
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That was insightful and much appreciated.
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Zardoz
Joined: 22 Dec 2005
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| Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 3:03 pm Post subject: |
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I have only one question: If you get kidnapped by aliens, who will then become the PixelMaster? Maybe we should get Lloyd's of London to issue some Pixel Insurance . . .
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Fruitcake is coming . . . Find a slice . . . Bake at home . . . |
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RAWA
Joined: 24 Feb 2006
Location: Spokane, WA
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| Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 3:07 pm Post subject: |
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| Gondar wrote: | | Which would mean that all our sit-ins and such actually have a difference, but only in the point of shifting the arrangement of these little points, and it still fits into the greater scheme. |
To some extent, yes. But we are also allowing for examples like the Yeesha vigil that were not planned by us at all, but are now woven into the story and have in some ways affected where parts of the story go from here.
| Quote: | | I guess I'm just hoping us fans and explorers can go and shift enough of the picture to make it ours too, not just Cyan's.. as opposed to changing the little parts and the big story is all given. |
I tried to be careful to be clear that the bigger the picture is, the more effort it takes to change it (the cumulative effect of the changes at lower levels), but not that it can't be affected by the explorers at all.
I admit that the analogy is not 100% accurate for every scenario that can be thrown at it, and I toyed with several other analogies to varying degrees of success as I've worked on this post off and on for the last two weeks or so. Of all the directions I went, this one ended up seeming to work the best, so this is what I settled on. Please forgive the places where the analogy breaks down.
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semplerfi
Joined: 02 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 3:11 pm Post subject: |
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TY RAWA
i an't got the blues no more ah'cid ...  |
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Kedri
Joined: 04 Jan 2006
Location: 'round Carlsbad.
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| Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 3:12 pm Post subject: |
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So you admit we'll be lighting the lake! 
Thanks for clearing that up, RAWA.
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"Conjecture is not fact, and opinion is not fact, and no matter how many times you say it, it doesn't make it true." - Shaun Lyon |
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RAWA
Joined: 24 Feb 2006
Location: Spokane, WA
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| Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 3:24 pm Post subject: |
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| Kedri wrote: | | So you admit we'll be lighting the lake! :shock: 8) |
Don't get too excited.
| I wrote: | | but the hypothetical example that has been used several times before is the lighting of the lake: |
I admit that it is hypothetically possible that the players might conceivably eventually be given an opportunity to have a chance to gradually cause an effect on the level of the light of the lake.
Maybe.
:p
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BladeLakem
Joined: 28 Jul 2006
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Maratanos
Joined: 23 Apr 2006
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| Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 3:31 pm Post subject: |
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Okay, now for speculation:
What are these "pieces" of the larger picture we've been given already?
I can think of two things off-hand:
1. December 18. 2006. A day that will live in history. The lattice goes overboard. Parts of the cavern collapse. Others temporarily disappear. And everyone with a Relto book AROUND THE WORLD gets panic-linked by the Bahro.
2. The recent decline in the animal populations in Negilahn. That seems to be something that strikes me more as a big-picture kind of thing. Most of the rest of the stuff seems to be more short-term.
This is only taking story into consideration. More gameplay-oriented things like the sparks and the toruses clearly will have an effect, but who knows when or how?
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For cowards die a thousand deaths, while heros die but one.
Well, unless they're playing video games, in which case heros die a lot too. |
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Zardoz
Joined: 22 Dec 2005
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| Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 3:40 pm Post subject: |
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Okay, a more serious response. Your analogy of pixels is a good one, but more important (to me) is that additional layer of viewing the collection of all those pixels as a gigantic jigsaw puzzle. What Uru will be over the next several centuries -- okay, mere decades -- will be the slow but sure piecing together of that puzzle.
In doing so, I think what many of us are trying to say is that the size of the pieces matter. (Do go on, Zardoz . . . )
If all we get for the next few years is pixel-sized puzzle pieces, we're going to starve to death. Human impatience being what it is, we'll probably spend lots of time trying to change things on a pixel-by-pixel basis, and so a tug of war might erupt as explorers focus only on the next pixel, paying little attention to the picture that is emerging.
If the puzzle pieces vary in size, then there is a much greater chance that peace in the cavern will prevail and a coherent story can emerge, as explorers will occasionally get bigger chunks that have stronger dramatic impact in a short period of time. Yet the opportunity to have Fun with Pixels (tm) will still be there to tide us over between those major story events.
This is basically what you said in your last graf, but too often the Big-Medium-Small distinction has focused on Ages (Big), events such as more parts of the city opening up (Medium), and the DRC showing up or another King book appearing (Small). If instead we think of that variation in terms of the drama itself, we start to see how the Uru story will unfold - sometimes in ways that have modest impact and interest and offer diversion; sometimes in ways that reveal dramatic twists and provide stunning revelations. 
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Fruitcake is coming . . . Find a slice . . . Bake at home . . . |
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RAWA
Joined: 24 Feb 2006
Location: Spokane, WA
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| Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 4:03 pm Post subject: |
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| Zardoz wrote: | | I have only one question: If you get kidnapped by aliens, who will then become the PixelMaster? Maybe we should get Lloyd's of London to issue some Pixel Insurance . . . |
I am flattered by the implication that I, one PixelMaster of many, would warrant such insurance.
If I am in some accident or were to have a sudden and/or mysterious disappearance, the executor of my estate will be given instructions to set the CO meter to black.
Beyond that, the other PixelMasters will carry on without me, promoting one of the PixelCaptains to PixelMaster to take my place. Some of my pixels would be lost, for each PixelMaster has a unique perspective of the "Big Picture", and no other PixelMaster will have precisely the same pixels as I have, which might be sad for some. On the bright side, it is entirely plausible that the next PixelMaster might bring pixels to the picture that some people would like more than mine.
Such is the way of things.
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Maratanos
Joined: 23 Apr 2006
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| Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 4:06 pm Post subject: |
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| RAWA wrote: | | Zardoz wrote: | | I have only one question: If you get kidnapped by aliens, who will then become the PixelMaster? Maybe we should get Lloyd's of London to issue some Pixel Insurance . . . |
I am flattered by the implication that I, one PixelMaster of many, would warrant such insurance.
If I am in some accident or were to have a sudden and/or mysterious disappearance, the executor of my estate will be given instructions to set the CO meter to black.
Beyond that, the other PixelMasters will carry on without me, promoting one of the PixelCaptains to PixelMaster to take my place. Some of my pixels would be lost, for each PixelMaster has a unique perspective of the "Big Picture", and no other PixelMaster will have precisely the same pixels as I have, which might be sad for some. On the bright side, it is entirely plausible that the next PixelMaster might bring pixels to the picture that some people would like more than mine.
Such is the way of things. |
| Quote: | not to crack the wind of the poor phrase,
Running it thus |
Kudos to those who recognize my quote.
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For cowards die a thousand deaths, while heros die but one.
Well, unless they're playing video games, in which case heros die a lot too. |
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Owehn
Joined: 28 Dec 2005
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| Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 4:15 pm Post subject: |
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Hamlet?  |
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