Manufactured Divisions

[JWPlatt]

This whole Zandi versus the DRC thing has been a mystery to me from the start. I planned to post this topic before I saw the huge forum turnout about the Explorer Representatives to the DRC with unclear purpose and significance, but now it seems even more appropriate if you think about it.

When I first heard about and played Uru: ABM, it was clear the game was already set up to make you choose between forces in the game. This was actually much better done in End of Ages, but there was Zandi to greet me at his RV and lots of narrative about it in the journals left around the various ages. But in the end of the offline game, unlike EOA, there was no choice to make; no confrontation. So I assumed that it was more for Uru Live which I was not a part of before its demise.

What I saw in journals were vague references to disagreements and schisms, even loss of life over issues. But for the life of me, there was not, and still to this day in the Cavern, is not, a single reference to any specific point of IC policy, philosophy, or personal event, action, or agenda to cause the divisions of the fictional characters into their groups.

It's not enough to say people don't like each other. It's not enough to say Sharper didn't like the boss dropping in on him, or they had an argument. You have to say why, or what it was about. Even then, personal chemistry is not enough of a reason for such fictional schisms. You have to give specific events that are epic enough to cause them.

For example, I'm just guessing, but it seems "Zandi" didn't believe the restoration should be done because it wouldn't really be resurrecting D'ni. It would just be a cheap, impure immitation of what once was, empty of a legitimate D'ni population. The "DRC" went ahead with their efforts anyway. Is this the divide - to build or not to build? For Cyan to develop or not develop more ages or places within an age? Do I have to point out the obvious that for any of us who visit Uru to enjoy the game, the choice is clear? Are we going to side with Zandi and say "No" to access and more Uru development? Where's the conflict?

It seems to me Cyan has manufactured a division for some purpose, but has given no obvious backstory to it beyond saying there is one. Did Cyan create the DRC simply to contrive or manufacture a division of forces among its real-life subscribers?

[Ian Atrus]

Conflict, existing or perceived, is the main drive between every one and single story. As I said in another thread, conflict would be (and in fact has been) in the Cavern with or without the DRC.

The DRC is the in-story reason why things actually do work in the Cavern. Yeesha could give access to unrestored places, but I doubt she'd care to make things work again unless it was for her own agenda.

A phisical restoration and a spiritual restoration were two different sides of the issue, which some saw as opposite and separated, and some others saw as complementary.

Also remember, what you saw of life was just a hint of the storyline. It's like watching the first episode of Babylon 5 and not understand what the story was all about... of course it's impossible, because the story developed over 100 episodes. We only got part of the pilot for Uru, so we understand even less of what the issues would have been.

Anyway, one thing is pretty easy to understand. The DRC doesn't need to manufacture collisions among the explorers, at most they're just working on those that already exist.
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[CAGrayWolf]

Now I'm beginning to see that I prefer to explore the Ages alone, as well as why I prefer solo games. If I wanted all this animosity I would go to work or the local bar. I don't play games for all this, I play games to relax and have some fun ... and get away from the real life BS. Far too many variables to process here.

Have fun with your game.
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[numinous]

!!!!!!!!!!! Myst 5 spoilers ahead !!!!!!!!!!!


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I don't think the true conflict had yet been realised. I don't even for a second believe that the "sides" that Yeesha spoke of was between her and the DRC. I believe, especially since the release of Myst 5, that the sides to be chosen were between Yeesha and Esher. There was little more than vague reference to Esher before Uru Live's demise so we can't be sure but I think the Myst 5 evidence is compelling.

Cyan didn't have anywhere near enough time to fully develop story and ages for Myst 5. It is my belief, based on assumption, that both the ages and the core story elements of Myst 5 were based on "left-overs" from Uru. If that is true then it seems clear that Esher was going to be "at odds" with Yeesha. Anyone who's played Myst 5 will have seen his treatment of the Bahro in his lab on Noloben. I'm sure that that wasn't changed between what was going to be in Uru and what was put into Myst 5. Perhaps Esher was made into more of an "evil" character in Myst 5 in order to create a villain than he would have been in Uru.

Perhaps the four ages of Myst 5 were in fact going to be some kind of "Esher's Journey" type thing displaying the glory and power of D'ni, rather than Yeesha's slightly opposite view. I can see how a conflict could have arisen between Yeesha and Esher simply based on the fact that Esher would have seen himself as pure D'ni and therefore not respected this young, "half-blood", interloper, niece of "the Destroyer" Ti'ana and therefore put himself in opposition to her beliefs.

Anyway, that's my take on what the "conflict" was actually going to be once Live got started, not this petty "DRC bashing" that arose in prologue.

[Ian Atrus]

I agree about the sides: the DRC vs Yeesha was, I think, only a *perceived* conflict. If it went beyond control, it's because someone amplified the perception that this conflict was real.

And CA: on the contrary I think that we need is more explorers to tell the others to calm down and remember we're not voting for a life and death matter.
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Ahnotahm - a Cavern blog
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[Zardoz]

I don't think anyone disputes that conflict is vital to a successful dramatic narrative, but why in heavens name did Cyan choose conflict among players as the (apparent) dramatic core for Uru Live? Such conflict does not arise out of choices we make as we enter the game. That is, I don't choose to be a Mage for the Blatzo Alliance, which is in a struggle to the death with the Mortzoid Confederation. This type of conflict is pure play acting, but it's given weight by the gaming structure, which invests players with the resources and abilities to act out the conflict. In Uru, we are supposed to be ourselves, swearing allegiance to some distant, abstract, obscure faction. We have no ability to affect any outcome unless we are hand-picked by Cyan to be a super-player (a player who is granted special status by Cyan to have such an ability). This means the conflict in Uru is given weight only because we, as OOC people playing an online game, are the ones who experience the emotions and consequences. Making things worse, IMHO, is that the in-game source of the conflict -- the DRC v. Yeesha, or whatever the heck it was supposed to be -- is, to be blunt, a lightweight soap opera.

Having said that, it was expressed during the Prologue that the strong reaction to the storyline took Cyan by surprise. I don't think the DRC was created to manufacture conflict, but instead to give an in-character way of opening a stream of new Ages over time. The whole shtick of Douglas Sharper and Phil Henderson and the other cardboard characters was, I think, intended to be a distraction, but gained a life of its own. (And if it wasn't intended to be a distraction, and was intended to be the main story, then things really are in bad shape.)

Where all this DRC stuff is headed, I have no idea. But I'll be following CA if it doesn't recede into the background pretty darn quick.
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[Ian Atrus]

My opinion is that there is no conflict that which we put among ourselves. In all that the DRC or Yeesha have done there is nothing that says "split up, go one against the other, make divisions". On the contrary their apparent message is that of beinging people together.

It's all about perception. We, apparently, want to bicker to no end.
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Ahnotahm - a Cavern blog
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[JWPlatt]

I am essentially new to Uru Online, but I played Uru almost as soon as it was out. How the game was marketed and how the narrative is presented in journals, gave me a strong "perception" going into it that I had to choose a side of some sort. You can call it a first impression - the same first impression which is likely to occur with the general population required to make Uru a success. Or you can call it simply understanding a clear marketing message.

With no real interactions but with other living players, and an IC website for what is presented in the narrative as a clearly antagonistic DRC, the obvious understanding is that we join a faction and role play against others. But my initial post was about how none of us are going to join with Zandi/Yeesha because we want all this to exist so we can play in it. Being against the fictional DRC is being against real life Cyan development of Uru and is in conflict with our real life interests, and Cyan's own plans, for new monthly content. All fiction against exploration and development is fated to lose, and it becomes absurd.

I love the entire Myst collection. I play to view the amazing and beautiful virtual realities and solve the fantastic puzzles. I will not leave Myst and Uru. I enjoy the supposedly peaceful nature of its original premise. I am not threatening to leave it because I know myself better than that. But I will not join any manufactured conflict, if it exists, while playing the game. I doubt I will even choose or accept a hood membership other than the default. I'm not especically fond of forced local loyalties, either. But Hoods really do make sense if players are given the capability to develop or extensively customize their own. That would be fun.

Part of the reason I wrote my initial post was to see if anyone could clue us in on specific backstory events which made some sense toward actually disproving my claim of a manufactured conflict. Or even specify how we join a faction, how we implement that choice, and how it manifests. Is it benevolent? Or is it just manufactured conflict? I'd love to know. With real specifics and not just saying it is because it is.

[The World]

Hmm. I miss exploring stuff in Uru.

I think I agree with CA and Zardoz. This isn't very fun... it's very real, at the moment.

What happened to when the DRC was this mysterious background force that we never interacted directly with? I think something went wrong around the Prologue.

Of course, we don't know the reason this new storyline exists in the first place, and it may just be to jump-start Cyan's funding or the story, or whatever it may be. Perhaps we're not exploring right now because it's not a game.

I wouldn't dare to guess whatever is going on. All I know is that... this isn't very much fun. And it could be because we're not making it very fun.

I want to see where this all leads to.

-TW

[Zardoz]

[Deg]

[Geert]

Don't think URU was set up for conflict but for different ways of exploration. You could choose your path.
Either you would choose the safe path (DRC approved), Yeesha's path or Zandi's path. The path of the shell looked it was zandi who would open the more dangerous path. (remember the last KI message in live). Somehow it was combined with a piece of Yeesha's path (the ahnonay age). Remember the end of D'ni where DrWatson did make the choice to follow Yeesha's path. The story of Phil Henderson somehow gave us info about bahrostones not controlled by the DRC. It was not meant in my opinion to get conflict but to make a choice for the path you wanted to take.
Myst V showed us again Yeesha's path and a piece of Esher's path (the living D'ni allready mentioned by Marie in URU)

Some explorers did choose for conflict in my opinion. The major part of the explorers never reached the point of conflict because it ended to soon. The mourning of that was bitter and mainly based on the loss of friendship in a good environment, not for loosing a game.

Let us just hope the atmosphere of URU-live can be restored and explorers will find eachother again. I wish D'Mala will be a step in the right direction and people will have fun again iso politics.

I wish Cyan and the explorers a lot of wisdom.

[JWPlatt]

[Butch]

I did not get to participate in Live, but the recent conversations seem to have had a strong theme: dreading In Character play. The only root of this I've been able to fathom has been the way some people felt about something that happened in Live that one wouldn't get from Prime, any of the Myst games or even the shards.
I know that with the solo games, I have floated around on the surface of Role Playing. And it sounds like a lot of people have done the same thnig.
I have a theory where the shards conditioned us for this mixed IC for the history and the place, but OOC for just about everything else. We even introduced 'enhancements' to the setting and started to use them to push the OOC and not IC.
Of course, there wasn't any new IC content, so why not talk about our REAL LIVES?
And we seem to have equated DRC and Cyan.
I did not come to Myst and URU wanting and RPG. But right now, I think that is where this is going, and I might like to try it.
Half a life ago, I took a class where we analyzed a play. And the director who was guiding the discussion explained that every interaction, every conversation between two people on stage, ever beat, was a conflict and a resolution or a conflict without a resolution right now, but later.
Conflict is going to be part of being in the cavern IC or OOC.
Explorer v DRC. Yeesha or Zandi or Sharper or whatever v the DRC. Our idyllic dreams of D'ni v the actual D'ni history. IC v OOC. Old explorer v new. Game v Alternative Reality. DRC v Cyan. Explorer v Explorer and the 100's of other things that can come into conflict and all the ways that the conflict could happen.
The cavern, this cavern, D'mala, appers to be more an exploration of community (good, bad and downright ugly) as much as the exploration of the ages of the D'ni.
I say embrace it. Cyan put it here for a reason. They have something in mind beyond just seeing how many people the can jam in D'mala. (Please have something more in mind) I am sure they could have just sold us another product a different Live thing. No, this they are doing pretty much for free after you paid for the original game. They want to explore something.
We want to get back in touch with old friends we made in the cavern. We want to explore parts of D'ni we haven't been to hundreds of times on the shards. We want to lots of things.
Do we want to take a moment and embrace the STORY Cyan is trying to tell with the DRC.
I'm torn here. I want to play the game, but I also want to stay me. I do and I don't want to play IC. And I'm going to give this a chance, in cavern.

[The World]