(So I actually started writing this post in Opera, but it once again screwed up the WordPress visual posting page, so I've decided to use Firefox in it's most basic form for posting alone. No add-ons, no bookmarks... Just blog.)

So... Guess what I've been doing! After making a 180 on things that don't matter, one of the things I decided to at least check out with an open mind... Was Age Building. ALCUGS, H'uru, PRPExplorer, PlasmaShop, Blender, Python scripting... The works. I'd been asking Paradox lots of questions, lately, and I found it all rather interesting after all.

So then there was this Guild of Writers... "discussion". While I think it was pulled off in a less than savory nature, I was surprised at the amount of open-minded discussion that was going on, at least amongst those of us who were actually answering the questions. I wasn't really comfortable with some of the questions that were asked of us, but I think the answers gave me a little comfort about what the general idea of the guild would be like. (Barring, of course, that someone doesn't assume all power and control and turn it into a tyrannical monarchy.)

So after that, I decided that the underlying politics of this particular Guild are extremely interesting and fun, so I think I've officially decided to "support" the Guild of Writers instead of the Guild of Maintainers, even though the Maintainers are still very awesome. As such, I gave myself a crash course in the current array of popular Age Building tools:

Here is the result of about 6 hours of work in Blender! Yes... this is GermanShepherd making Ages now. 6 hours, and I had given myself a very intense course of importing terrains, making sure the face of the terrain was pointing in the correct direction, mathematical scaling, mathematical positioning, object organization, subdividing (which I destroyed Blender with... use subdivide SPARINGLY), decimating, programming collision maps, friction and light interaction. I don't think I've had that much fun with 3D design in quite a while.

But during all this, I couldn't help but think that it could still be somewhat meaningless. I mean, the reason I actually started figuring out how to make an Age was because I found the Writer's Guild interesting and I felt I needed to at least know how things are done. But I still feel that the Writer's Guild Cyan is trying to incorporate could be absolutely nothing like what we're expecting. Sure, they've said they'd like to allow user-content, but it's difficult. One use for a Writer's Guild that comes to mind is that it might help Cyan simply come up with ideas for Ages, and not actually learn to make them. Of course, that approach has several flaws, but it's just an example of what we might expect... The thing is, we don't know anything yet.

However, I was talking with TW lastnight. I think that user content could immensely help Cyan with keeping Uru online. It would be the first game of its kind to allow user content on this scale (to my knowledge) and we all know Cyan used to be known for going out on a limb and adopting early what everyone was afraid to do. (Sadly, that mentality contributed to Uru's current state of affairs, but it is still by no means a bad mentality to live by.)

It would take a lot of effort to filter and give approval to user Ages. We must remember at all times that Cyan is a little low on man-power right now. They simply can't do some of the things that larger companies like Blizzard could pull off in a flash. However, that's what the Maintainer's Guild would help with... bug testing, and possibly putting Ages to a test of Cyan-ordained qualifications that they need to pass before even being considered to go in Uru. Make sure it's legal, make sure it's family-friendly, basic things like that.

For actually making Ages, though, I think one of only two things could happen. First is that Cyan directly releases their tools for creating Ages. I believe they use 3D Studio Max, or they did last time I asked, so all their tools are going to be plug-ins for that. That could severely limit the amount of people who can contribute to Ages, and it would most definitely make a lot of people learn an entirely new application. As it is right now, Age making is restricted to reverse-engineered Blender plug-ins, because Blender is very Python-oriented as it is.

The other approach is to simply release the documentation for the format of the Ages and let the community take that and finally make a complete plug-in for Blender or any other program needed. For Cyan, this could be the better approach. There wouldn't be much preparation, and it might give them more time to figure other things out while everyone else is going nuts over having the opportunity to make a complete plug-in for not only Path of the Shell, but Myst Online.

I don't know... Those are just some thoughts I had that I'm sure a lot of other people have had, too, but OH WELL. But above all, I think we need to keep reassuring ourselves that the Guilds that Cyan is wanting to create could have the potential to be something entirely DIFFERENT than what ANYONE ever expected, but, equally, it could be exactly what everyone's always wanted. I just don't want to see anyone disappointed because they were caught up in what they were sure the Guild of Writers was going to be, and then it turned out NOT to be.