Second Life and Virtual Worlds
Alex McLarty posted his interview with Rand Miller on The Mac Gamer. The article Interview with Rand Miller, co-creator of the Myst series will answer some questions and raise some new questions. It is a great read for Myst Online fans interested in the coming open source release.
Myst Online: Guild of Maintainers has a thread. Check it out and post your thoughts.
There is one last complication in this series. If you are a fan and you want to share in controlling the future direction of the game, what do you need to do to take some control? If all the fans try to take control, will that be a good thing or a bad thing or just complete chaos?
There is no intuitive answer. Philosophers and statesmen as well as kings have considered these issues. We have 5,000 years of written history to show us what worked and Niccolò Machiavelli explained how to assure ones place of power. People generally realize that Machiavelli’s path is about controlling the masses. He does make sense and to a point his tactics work, especially on the poorly educated. While many are trying alternatives, only personal freedom to pursue your dreams ensured by a neutral third party that answers to the people in mass and cannot control them has ever worked well. It is a matter of how do we protect our self from the individual, have enforcers and we our self remain free?
Part III is about fans being in control of the Myst-Uru open source version of Myst Online. It will be difficult for anyone person or group to control it. But, is that a good thing? I’m for freedom and many choices and lots of competition. Having lots of Uru worlds to choose from sounds good to me. But it may be disaster for Myst Uru and cause its ultimate demise. How can that be?
If there were but one Uru run by a neutral third party which all fans could enjoy, we would likely have enough financial support for it run indefinitely. It would also assure players in game to keep the place from looking deserted.
But Myst Uru is not just about players in game. It is about fan created content, some fan programming server and client changes and someone designing and building content. Strong central control kills creativity and Myst Uru has failed twice from lack of content. While a central control would appear to solve many problems it creates others.
Seems like there is always someone talking/writing about the guilds controlling the game and fans. Whether or not one believes game fans and Myst Uru fans in particular can be controlled there comes the question of how might they be controlled and who would do the controlling?
The ‘who’ seems pretty simple and obvious to many Myst fans, the guilds. Normally it would be Cyan worlds, Inc. the game owner, but they are giving the game to fans and stepping back. Part I and II of this series list the different groups of guilds. So which one will rule them all? Oh, and who runs the guilds?
The Myst Uru MMO world is one of a small group of games that have been taken over and run by the fans. Most MMO’s have the games creator in control of the game. Fans often unite again the management. But what happens when the management is the fans? Who then really controls the game? Which fan is it?
Many in the Myst Uru world think the guilds are about controlling the fan community. I have never believed that. I’ve never thought it was possible. But, many do. I think the fans are more in control and vote with their participation. Whatever they support and participate in is what appears to be running the show, keyword being appears.
So, where are the fans? What are they doing and who is in charge? A comment was made to me the other day, “I hear you are in charge of the ECR&D* now?” My answer was, about as in charge as anyone can be of anything Uru related. I know the participants of ECR&D can move on at any time. There is no real control.
What is the story on the Myst-Uru guilds? Are they power hungry? Are they a force for good or evil? Will they be Myst-Uru’s salvation or destroy it? I personally think they will help and are the salvation. But I am also biased. What are others thinking and doing about Myst-Uru guilds?
This is a look at what I find and how I see it. This post will be a series of five posts.
In the Myst-Uru community there are more groups than just guilds. But, there are more guilds than just the guilds. I the groupings I see are; the community movers and shakers, guild leaders, various fans, various fan organizations, freelancers, bloggers, twitters and of course the guilds. The fans are the only real group. There are the Big Five guilds, which has nothing to do with membership numbers. Big has to do with recognition within the IC storyline. Then there are all the reformed guilds, new guilds, joke guilds and on and on.