Planet Cyrene: Guess the launch date for Cyrene - Contest!

WARNING: long-ass post, but there is a means to an end

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My Dear Ace ... ... you've known me for many years, and we've shared a very nice friendship, so it's rather disheartening that you would be so serious about pointing a finger at me in any frame of mind whatsoever with regard to me being racist. I am anything but, and only fed off of Peter's genuinely joking comment because I am indeed half Swede.

It was all MA-related, and you know as well as anyone else knows that the community has a love/hate relationship with MA, and at times it can draw some rather humorous comments and responses, but ... never in my 8+ years have I ever read or heard anything whatsoever that would indicate that someone was truly racist against the Swedes in any way.

Every culture has its quirks, and none are immune to pot shots now and then, but for the most part, I would say that these are expressions of frustration rather than anything remotely related to racism against an entire culture, race or country.

It completely surprised me that you took what Peter and I wrote out of its humorous context and made a racist issue out of it. That's what annoyed me more than anything else, because as well as you know me, it was also hurtful. I was raised to care about human beings beyond their color of skin, culture, race, sexual orientation, or anything else that some use to be disrespectful toward others.

I'm an advocate of unconditional caring, but also an advocate of addressing behavior that has a negative effect on me, regardless of all the labels that some use. We are both educators, and you know quite well what my RL profession has been, so my mission will always be to increase the level of awareness and critical thinking in people, and present a perspective that may inspire a different way of looking at self and life.

With regard to your speculation, perhaps I should just accept it as entertaining, because it truly is, and we both know that generally, you are way off base - you've even admitted that, and we've even joked about it - it's been fun banter. However, sometimes some of the things that you write in your speculation can also be directing community thinking in a way that could do more harm to MA or a PP than warranted.

As I mentioned, speculation is not always a bad thing, and if it comes with substance, then it can give the community something to really think about. I'll give one of the most recent articles done at this forum about the possible next movie theme on ROCKtropia as an example. Solid investigative work was done in this piece and clear possibilities presented with substance, even though for the most part it's speculative without any confirmation whether it's all true or not. The article really gives us something to think about, and this is the type of speculation in journalism that works more beneficially.

I still consider you a long-time special friend, and I would not want you to leave this forum or stop contributing your thoughts and opinions, because they add to the overall discussion about our universe. We are all affected by each other's behaviors, but when we take something out of context and make serious accusations toward someone, it's cause for a different kind of discussion.

REGARDING WHAT I KNOW AND DON'T KNOW

I'm going to be adding opinion pieces to my writing about our universe, but they will be based on what I know that can be shared that won't get me into trouble. I want to give the community (as well as MA and the PPs) something to think about that would be beneficial for all, but ... I would never betray any trust that has been bestowed upon me in the course of gaining information for my media work.

It's sacred to me, and allows me to understand both developers, as well as players, and also allows me to give more depth to my writing without opening up the virtual vault door. My mission has always been to bring the developers and players closer together, especially through communication, but I can also do that through my writing, and support both sides of the fence in a constructive and respectful way.

Dave Dobson said to me recently, that opinion pieces are beneficial if they're done with substance and constructive feedback, because it helps to make things better for both the developers, as well as the players.

I feel blessed and privileged that I've been able to work with some amazing people in this universe through the course of building my media presence - from Neverdie in 2005-2007 who actually got the media ball rolling (thank you again), to 711/Neomaven who created the first Newsroom at the original Entropia Forum, to David Post from Next Island, to David Dobson of Arkadia who has been my greatest supporter over the years (and still is), to Ed (CEO) Cyrene who was absolutely brilliant to work with and was also an immense supporter of my work, along with Kris, to Sven Sandburg (CEO) from Calypso (good communicator), to now the Monria Team during their development of the Moon Estate who gave me an opportunity to do an exclusive on their progress.

Let me not forget MindArk either, because I've interacted with key individuals over the years from their personnel staff, as well as associates that provide them a service. While certain things didn't work out that they or I wanted to entertain, and despite my love/not so love relationship with them, I will never minimize the value of what they added to my growing media presence.

JUST TO MAKE SOMETHING PERFECTLY CLEAR

I know that someone will come along and point a finger (like in the past) that it's not fair that I have advantages, but ... if you look at my history in this universe, which is clearly out there in public all over the place, my engagement and involvement in our universe has been purely media. I don't invest in anything, I barely have anything in my inventory except a set of Ghost armor, my original Bravo and OM2875, and my vehicles. I don't "play" the game, except for the rare and short mob hunt, or the Aakas instance that Obie and I did the other night - otherwise, 99% of what I do in our universe is write.

I hunted, mined, and crafted in the beginning when I joined PE/EU, but I was more drawn to the globally-diverse human interaction that transferred into our universe, and the psychological aspects of game play. Writing is my greatest passion (you can tell by this wall of text ), and I wanted to write about our universe, which I've done since the Summer of 2005.

WHERE DO I GO FROM HERE?

There's currently something on the table to be discussed with some very key people, and ideas that I like a lot, but we'll have to see how it all plays out. However, if it comes to be, then ...

Now let's see what kind of speculation can be made out of THAT.

 

Oh noes nom nom nom !

 

Little known fact, Tom Baker as the Doctor is responsible for my life long addiction to Jelly Babies....

 

oops double post....

 

Interesting discussion. Still would be good to know what goes on. I guess always my main concern with Cyrene is that they have a very large team (I remember a photo that reminded me of my school leavers one!) and now an equally long development cycle.

The team/game was funded out of a company that normally does architecture and media and so forth but not games/mmo's (as I understood it). I sometimes wonder how it looks to them, i.e. a lot of money sunk into a project over a long time that has yet to "launch" and seems to be being "held up" for some reason. Comments like "I've got a thousand glaciers poised and ready to roll over africa".... wait no, that was Slartibartfast. I'll start again. Comments like, "we have a lot of content still to be released" seem on the surface very confusing to the community.

I'm sure there is a very plausible explanation to all of this. There is just some key and rather important information we are missing.

Wistrel

 

At the time I did the in-depth personal interview with Ed for the December Entropia Times Magazine, the picture you saw included the CKI team as well, and this is what Ed had to say about the team that works on Cyrene ...

There is a full-time staff of 36 (including Ed), but staff could increase or decrease depending on needs. “At any given time,” says Ed, “we can have anywhere from 30 to 60 people working on the project.” Ed states that it all depends on needs, which change from month to month, but also shares, “The great thing about working with CKI is, that we can pull talent from the different departments that include 2D art, 3D art, Graphics Layout, Website, Music and Sound FX, our iPhone game team, Sandbox, CG, Architecture design, Writers, Level Designers, Marketing, Animation, Administration, Information, etc.”​

As I have mentioned several times, there are many variables that come into play when it comes to development, and we as the community don't get to know what they all are. So therefore, we can only continue to guess or speculate on what's holding up what, or why something isn't done, or done right.

There are certain things that would not and should not be shared with the community, and I think we all know that PP agreements are restrictive in a way that also prevents that from happening, no matter how much some would really like to be more open about the process.

Cyrene goes about their development in less of a fanfare way, and at their own pace, which I feel is admirable, but Kris is also quite involved at the Cyrene forum answering questions and participating in topic discussions.

We should definitely not count Cyrene out.

 

Its been a long time already.
What about the promises of joining different races ? Still a work in progress ?

And the promises of "the communitys way of playing will form Cyrene" ?
For now I only read that spawns of some bees(?) started to grow, because nobody is hunting them anymore. They might even become a plague. (?) Hmmm...

I was very confident about Cyrene. The previews and announcements were just perfect.

The desert and those borderland guys, the (empty) city of Janus and non "useable" Giant-Bug-NPCs presented the opposite of the previews to me. :/

In all, the whole diversity between Cyrene, Next Island, Rocktropia, Calypso and Arkadia is quiete non existant to me and meanwhile I miss the idea of a Total Recall Planet and a Michael Jackson Planet. Which could have been quiete the diversity, hehe.

Too bad SEE didnt get any change to show off... ,-)

 

Yes, this is the biggest problem, not much diversity and difference between the planets. When they launched they talking about their "concept" and how they are different from the other planets, but in the end much of it are just talk.

Rocktropia should be a "music planet" where artist and players could promote music... Not much development in that area since the start. Arkadia, "The treasure hunting planet", eh well, i don't know if a third way to mine should be could "treasure hunting".

"Theryon Wars", that should have a space based theme if i remember correctly, is probably already dead before it even launched. Planet Toulan with it's Arabian concept could be a nice change of environment, but they are also running late with their launch and not much news, maybe they are dead soon also......

But I understand the problem, with all software stuff being develop and controlled by MA, it's hard to be different. MA must come up with more solutions and options for the planet partners that will allowed them to customize and make their planets different.

 

ms9 thanks for the clarification I do remember reading that and had forgotten so ta! Consider memory jogged :D

So yeh in short we should really consider Cyrene a single project of a larger company where there are many projects and people will be moved around as and when they are needed. From that point of view Cyrene can be scaled back with no threat to its future to just a mere handful of people for long periods of time for example while they wait or work with or whatever for/with MA. So if MA are dragging their heals over something, the Cyrene staff can be redeployed to other projects without loosing their jobs and then come back when ready. Essentially the overheads can be scaled to fit the income of the asset. So right now maybe Cyrene is a small project with a small income that has a small team on it. Later when MA for example allow them to have Mechs or something then they can pull a bunch of people back in and ramp up for a big PR launch?

Am I getting the right idea here or am I "lost in crystal palace space station walls?" ;)

Wistrel

 

Exactly my thought. The mechs. If they are powerfull and available for a price below 100 $, mabye not (L)...loOooOOoooOoOooool... then Cyrene will get flooded [flooded, whatever that means, with an approx. amount of max. 6k, so called "active" players, where many of them dont even read the forum (anymore) just following the adjusted-one-armed-bandit-concept.]

I wanted to SEE real diversity. Which would have started with having no Lysterium on other planets, but needing Arkadia Ores, to craft precious/rare items on Calypso.

That would include a well used space system (ore transportation) which can already be bypassed using motherships.

Ore convoys in space, guarded by small combat shuttles...blablablabla...this will never work out. It is/was all happening in our mind. Nowhere else. And it felt good in 2004. It feels different, if not wrong, in todays universe....and so on...sometimes I wonder why I cant leave this sh!t behind...maybe it is really just the casino concept, hoping for the jackpot all the time...the forum discussions...and the funny people in the chat...BAH! :,(

 

I'm still here...

 

PS...

 

,-)

 

Yes I wanted to see more diverse and newer concepts on each planet. It should also have its own solar system as well. ;)

And I agree with the common ore thing as well. I think the planets economy would greatly increase if it had its own exclusive ore/matters. This would drive trade up along with MU that would increase the economy again.

Ok I have read what I wrote three times... Did I make any sense because I can't tell!! :(

 

More stuff in space seems like a no brainer as would the ability to circle the bloody planets. More things to do in space = more oil consumed = more cash for MA = more economy.... I kinda wish there was maybe the space equivalent of exarosaurs....

 

I also think an expansion and development of the space is a key to make EU more interesting, and it looks like MA have the same thoughts. A lot of things is a bit slow in the development. Why have we not seen more different types of space ships? It can't be that much work to create some additional types of small space ships in the size of Quads and a little bigger. Maybe something for Cyrene, make a space ship BP with Cyrene resources, would make some people interested.