Uru Interviews, Entrevistas al Dr. Watson y Josh Staub Outline · [ Standard ] · Linear+

[cosmodelia]

Interview with Cyantist Josh Staub
Art Director at Cyan Worlds

1. Josh, thank you so much for granting us this interview. It's an exciting time for Cyan and I know how busy you are making everything ready for the upcoming launch! You must be excited?

Yes. I think all of us here are very excited. We've been working on this project for a long time and it's nice to finally get it on the shelves and hear what people think. We're very proud of URU and sincerely hope that people enjoy it!

2. For those who don't know much about Uru yet, how would you describe it, especially compared to other games out there?

URU will certainly be different things to different people, but for me, URU is about the exploration of fantastic and beautiful worlds wrapped up in a captivating story full of intrigue and mystery. I think ultimately, Cyan's passion is and always will be creating worlds that are enchanting and immersive, and URU is no different. If anything, because of the dynamic nature of the game (real-time 3D visuals and sound) it's more immersive than anything we've ever created.

3. What is your role at Cyan? How long have you been there?

I've been the Art Director at Cyan Worlds for about 6 years now, and before that I was the CG Production Director. I've been working at Cyan in some capacity as an artist/designer for almost 10 years. Hard to believe it's been that long!
I spend most of my time working with the CG Artists in the Production Dept. discussing how to create the visuals. Aside from the difficulties of conveying story and implementing game-play, there are a lot of technical challenges to creating a believable 3D world in real-time and each area we create has its own issues that need to be resolved. We're striving to create worlds that are as beautiful, immersive, and mysterious as any we've ever created - all in real-time 3D. Thankfully, we have a lot of very skilled artists and programmers who are up to the task. I spend a good part of my average day addressing Game Design and Story issues with the design team and figuring out how to best implement them in the game. Last but not least, I still enjoy doing "hands on" artwork for URU. Occasionally I'll start working on an area from scratch, but most often I end up working on "final pass" scenes (scenes that have completed their initial modeling/texture/lighting pass) to put in the finishing touches, lighting tweaks, texturing, cameras, etc. I also spend a fair amount of time designing and creating core elements, graphical interfaces, tools that are globally used by the player throughout URU.

4. What is your favourite part of Uru? What are you most excited about?

Teledahn is certainly the age most dear to my heart for a number of reasons. Initially Teledahn was much smaller than it is today, and was created at a time when technically we were even more limited in the number of polygons, texture sizes, lighting techniques, etc. Over time we've expanded Teledahn's game-play and enhanced the visuals to make sure that it is at least on par visually with the rest of the worlds...but for the most part, the core elements have stayed essentially the same. It's very gratifying to know that Teledahn holds up as well as it does considering we started working on it over 4 years ago when our team of artists and programmers was much smaller than it is today. We've been shooting pretty high since the beginning and I like to think that it shows in the quality of the work.

Ultimately, I'm most excited to find out what people think of the visuals. Considering the constraints of real-time technology are much greater than for our pre-rendered titles (Myst and Riven), it has been an incredible challenge to make URU look as realistic as it does. We have gone to great lengths to push these limits and hopefully have achieved a level of quality that people will appreciate as they did with our other products. That seems crazy considering Riven was entirely "pre-rendered" (which meant we could use the fastest, most powerful computers available to produce the images, even if every image took hours to render), while URU "images" are rendered in real-time on home computers at 30+ frames rendered every second!

5. Tell us how the art in Uru is different from other games. Why are Myst games so much prettier?

Wow. Well, first of all we've got a very talented team of artists here at Cyan who embrace the fact that we set the bar for visual quality extremely high. The immersive experience of URU depends on how believable the world is, so every texture detail is fine-tuned and carefully considered. In addition, considering that at Cyan we tend to focus more on visual quality, story, and a simpler interface (less on reflex-action associated with most other real-time games), efforts to enhance the look-and-feel of the worlds aren't looked at as "icing on the cake"- they're considered integral to the success of the product. It's a philosophy really. Attention to detail is a luxury we have here at Cyan that perhaps other game companies can't often afford. I certainly wouldn't be professionally satisfied if it was any other way, and I'm sure the same goes for the rest of the artists here.

6. How do you see technological advances changing the face of upcoming Uru ages?

We certainly want to continue to improve visually quality, performance, and add features and abilities to the player. We're already incorporating new player abilities/animations, creature interactions, etc. into the ages we're working on right now. As far as performance goes, one of the great things about URU being on online product is that the game can evolve and improve over time as technology advances, on the other hand, we want to ensure that players don't have to buy the absolute newest graphics cards and highest-end machines to play URU. It's a difficult balance, but we've designed and created the game in such a way that players with lower-end computers (those that barely meet URU's system requirements) will still be able to fully enjoy URU.

7. How has the fact that Uru will be online and continually updated affected how you schedule your teams work?

The success of URU as an online product depends on the continuous release of fresh content in the form of new ages and an intriguing and unfolding story. No matter how you look at it, we have to be able to produce content at a very high-rate without sacrificing quality. Design and Production has to stay way ahead of the curve. We have to be creating worlds months in advance of their release to the public because they need to be "wired" (game-play implemented) and rigorously tested before they get released. Luckily, we've had the last 4 years to work the kinks out of the pipeline so we're pretty adept at creating things quickly and efficiently at this point (fingers crossed).

8. What has been one of your favourite moments working on Uru?

There have definitely been a lot of great moments, but I'm not sure anything beats the "over-the-shoulder-testing" nights we've had here in the last couple of months. Basically, we bring in a couple of people who've never played URU, fill them with pizza, sit them down in front of URU and say "Play". It's incredibly gratifying to have people explore the worlds we've created and?listen to?them talk to each other. Every "WOW!" and "Look at THAT!" is worth its weight in gold. We had a similar experience this past summer at E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) in Los Angeles. We'd been testing URU online for quite a while, but that was really the first time we'd shown URU to a whole bunch of people face-to-face. The E3 exhibition floor is sheer pandemonium, a chaotic mix of sound and light where everyone is trying to out-do each other with pyrotechnics and flash...the perfect opportunity for us to show people that URU is different than everything else out there. The overwhelming response at E3 was incredibly encouraging.

9. Which part of Uru was the most challenging to create, graphically speaking? Why?

The cleft desert. You might assume that creating a desert would be easy - just a big flat plane with a dirt texture on it, right? Wrong. In fact, as we began to create the desert we realized quickly that a desert isn't really "deserted" at all, in fact, it's a forest of stuff that goes on forever and ever! Shrubs, rocks, weeds, plants, all of these things are necessary in order to create a believable desert and without them you get an incredibly boring area - not to mention that it's the very first place you see upon beginning URU so we absolutely needed it to be visually inspiring. A lot of brute artistic force and fantastic work by the technology team enabled us to fill the desert with the required "stuff" to make it visually interesting.

10. Will players get to meet you and chat with you in Uru someday?

Absolutely! I plan on frequenting the worlds of URU as often as possible. I'll most likely be in the game as "JStaub", and look, well, something like me. See you in URU!

http://urulive.ubi.com/US/About/general_interviewone.htm

The Echo Interview with Dr. Watson
Chairman, D'ni Restoration Council
By the staff of The Echo

How did you join the DRC?
Actually, I was part of the restoration effort for several years before the DRC itself was formed. Back when it was just a small group of people interested in learning more about the incredible discovery we had made.

What is your role with the DRC?
I set up the DRC in 1997, and have been the chair of the Council since its inception.

Where do you spend the most amount of time? In D'ni or other ages? Or on the surface?
The majority of my time is spent on Ae'gura in the D'ni cavern.
What do you think about the increasing number of explorers?
It's definitely a concern of ours. One of our goals for the restoration is to make things safe enough for the public, but turning D'ni into a tourist attraction is not exactly what we are interested in. We're more interested in making the Cavern safe and accessible to those who truly feel "the Call". But... the concern we have is that too many people are coming too soon, and that this is potentially hazardous for those coming down before D'ni has been made ready for them.

How does the rapidly increasing number of explorers affect the restoration?
The effects are both positive and negative. The most positive effect is that we have constant "encouragement", if you will, to keep our restoration efforts moving as quickly as possible. The flip-side of that is also the most negative effect - that by trying to restore areas quickly to keep the explorers happy, we run the risk of being pressured into opening new areas for exploration before they are truly ready. Hopefully, we will find a balance where areas are opened in a timely fashion, but not so soon that someone ends up getting hurt. That's our greatest fear. It would be bad enough if someone were to get lost, but if someone were injured or worse, the whole project could potentially be jeopardized.

What is currently being restored?
We have several teams working on several areas, dividing our efforts between areas of Ae'gura and some of the Ages that have been discovered. For instance, one team is working on getting part of the Training Center in Gahreesen working. One team is working on Er'cana - one of the harvest Ages. Other teams are working on what we're calling "Museum Ages" such as Negilahn and Todelmer.

What is the current relationship between the DRC and Zandi?
I think the best word is "strained". Jeff Zandi is a really nice guy. I was good friends with his father, so I know him fairly well. Unfortunately, he seems to disregard how dangerous the cavern and the Ages can be in their present state. Encouraging people to come to the cavern and the Ages before they are ready is a very bad idea in our opinion.

You've been in D'ni for a long time now - can you tell us about something mysterious you've experienced, or an unexplained happening that to this day makes you wonder what it was?
We continually see things that we weren't prepared for, didn't expect, or flat out don't understand, so there's a fairly long list. The most mysterious thing to us at the moment, though, would have to be the Books that the Uru explorers are coming down with. They seem to defy many things that we've learned from our research.

What's with Dr. Kodama? Is he difficult to work with?
Not at all. Dr. Kodama is great to work with. He's just very focused, and would rather spend his time working on the restoration of D'ni than trying to placate the unauthorized explorers that started showing up a year and a half or so ago. He simply doesn't have much patience for the "public relations" kind of things that we've found taking up more and more of our time since they began arriving. I can't honestly say that part of me doesn't wish we could focus entirely on the restoration again as well. I just try to hide it more than he does.


Tijara. (Echo Staff Photo / Dan'ni)
Beacon in a Strange Land
Interview with Tijara, Grand Master, Guild of Greeters
By Dan'ni

Not everyone knows what the Guild of Greeters is. The new explorers, especially, might not be familiar with the group that you are the leader of. Could you explain to us what the Guild of Greeters is, and what its goals are?
Certainly. The Guild of Greeters was formed to help the DRC by having volunteers who could meet and assist new explorers arriving in D'ni. It is our mission to help orient and inform new explorers, to make them feel welcomed into the existing community, and to support them in their discoveries. We will work by their side, assisting them with all aspects of exploration, from KI operation to navigation, through the City or ages. We will offer any and all help a new explorer could need.

So basically if an explorer has a problem with an obstacle or object in an Age, he or she could ask a Greeter for a hint or a nudge?
Whilst that is not our primary focus, we will assist with logistics and navigation when requested. We will also be available to assist explorers in teaming up to tackle tough or confusing places or situations.

Tijara and Dan'ni. (Echo Staff Photo / Dan'ni)

Okay. So let's say a person has a problem of some kind and would like to get some assistance from the G.G. - how can this person contact someone from the Guild?
We are aiming to eventually have greeters on duty in the Guild of Greeters Neighborhood at peak times for all of the major time zones. Obviously, this is a major feat of coordination with the volunteers, and we are still fine-tuning the plan. So, anyone needing assistance should go to that neighborhood. We will also we be present in the City, but in a less structured way. We will be identifiable by our uniform.

And what uniform is that?
All Greeters should be wearing a T-shirt displaying the Guild logo on both the front and back. In addition, the word GREETER also appears on the back for easy identification.

So how does one become a Greeter? Is there any way to join the Guild?
We are currently on a recruitment drive, and anyone who would like to join the Guild and help new explorers is very welcome. Simply contact me, or one of the Guild Masters- Ayli_Uru, DaveIIIrd, dugchugger, JennyH, LaReh, Shyone2051, _Terra_, or twoaz1, through the explorer forums.

Thank you for the interview!
Thank you for including us in your fantastic newspaper.

http://echo.urulive.ubi.com/issue001/interviews.php

[CoolWind]

We continually see things that we weren't prepared for, didn't expect, or flat out don't understand, so there's a fairly long list. The most mysterious thing to us at the moment, though, would have to be the Books that the Uru explorers are coming down with. They seem to defy many things that we've learned from our research.

Este párrafo le gustará a Leo'Ri de seguro.

¿ Es hipocresía o realmente ha cambiado de opinión ?

[cosmodelia]

We continually see things that we weren't prepared for, didn't expect, or flat out don't understand, so there's a fairly long list. The most mysterious thing to us at the moment, though, would have to be the Books that the Uru explorers are coming down with. They seem to defy many things that we've learned from our research.

Este párrafo le gustará a Leo'Ri de seguro.

¿ Es hipocresía o realmente ha cambiado de opinión ?

También pensamos en Leo'Ri al leerlo... ¿cómo no?

Metimos la entrevista para todos los esD'nianos, pero con expectación ante la interpretación Leo'riana

¿Quizás la campaña de Leo'Ri tuvo su éxito?