Reference:RAWA/2005 Lyst posts

Meaning of "Untìl Uru"

Date: Tuesday, January 25, 2005

DING - time's up...

As has been pointed out:

In ancient Sumerian,

un = the people, the community
tìl = to live, to keep alive
Uru = the deep city

You can get many applicable meanings out of various combinations, but the one we had in mind is:

"The people keep alive Uru".

:)

RAWA

Re: Cyan closing down after Myst V

Date: Thursday, January 27, 2005

Gotta love rumors...

For the record, we have no plans of closing down after Myst V.

Things are tight, and they likely will be for awhile, but we have
several projects in the wings that we are excited about doing.

Of course, there's always the chance that we won't get funding for any
of those projects, but we don't plan to close down.

Yet another occasion when our motto "You never know..." applies. Or,
quote an old, wise green dude: "Difficult to see. Always in motion is
the future."

)

RAWA

Re: A couple of questions to our dear Historian ;-)

Date: Friday, February 25, 2005

On Jan 22, 2005, at 11:20 PM, Ivan Xuereb wrote:

Hi RAWA, I have a couple of questions for you, if you don't mind.

What language did Atrus speak before going down to D'ni with Ghen, his father?

English.

In the book of Atrus, he mis-pronounces Katran's name (calls her Cathrine) is this due to Atrus' different accent or is this Something Else ™ ;-) ?

Neither Atrus' nor Catherine's journals give specific details on why Atrus insisted on calling her Catherine.

I assume that Atrus' sons learnt the surface language from Anna,

Seems a safe bet.

but did Atrus/Cathrine teach Yeesha?

Seems a safe bet, too.  :)

-Ivan ;-)

RAWA

Myst V's E3 trailer

Date: May 13, 2005

<Sigh.>

I think we've been down this road several times before.

And I'm reasonably sure that I've typed this precise phrase before:

I've given up trying to understand the people in marketing.

What they seem to like and what I like don't even seem to be in the same universe.

Disclaimers:

• We (Cyan) did not make the trailer.
• If we had made it, it would have been different.
• Some of our input was disregarded.
• Our technology was not used to make the trailer.
• The footage in the trailer was not captured from the game itself.

On May 12, 2005, at 8:59 PM, Joseph Davies wrote:

About the only complaint I have about what I see in that trailer is the 10-years-old CG human.

Yeah, I didn't even recognize that guy. He was loosely based on a character in the game, but I believe that our real-time 3D characters look better than their pre-rendered guy.

If you've kept up on the articles that have been written, you'll already have read the comments about our characters. One article explained: "the facial animations were filmed and superimposed on the polygonal models. Consequently, the effect seems expressive and lifelike, even at this early stage."

Obviously, they didn't use our technology for the CG guy in the trailer.

It reminds me of the attempts of the late Sierra or Ultima 9 at CG humans. I mean, surely we've been spoiled by some awesome stuff in recent years, but still I think this only reinforces your assertion. If you can't make it look terrific in pre-rendered CG, then why not go live-action?

Unlike the trailer, nothing in the game is pre-rendered. The game is completely done in real-time 3D. Live-action simply would not work well.

Oh well, I'm sure it won't detract terribly from my enjoyment of the game, but I'm concerned that the dated CG will hinder sales.

It is very unfortunate that this trailer will give people the wrong impression of what the characters in the game will be like. When you see the actual character in the game itself, I think you'll agree that he bears very little resemblance to what was shown in the trailer.

But never fear: I've been assured that 95% of people who see the trailer are going to love it the way it is.

So there are only a few of us who don't like it, and we're just entirely too picky, I guess.

To each his/her own.

RAWA

PS - _Everyone_ knows that the Bahro have _blue_ eyes… ;)