How many shards? Features of the various shards?

[triggerfish]

I'm new, so I'm a bit confused about the various shards. How many shards are currently running? What are the advantages, disadvantages, and features of the various shards, especailly as they relate to the Cyan (official? shard). What can I do in Shard A, that I cannot do in Shard B, etc. I bet there are other newbies who may be confused as well.

Thanks!

[diafero]

The wiki article at http://www.guildofwriters.org/wiki/Playing_Together should at least answer some of your questions.
To understand the differences, you need to learn a bit about the various versions of Uru:
http://www.guildofwriters.org/wiki/Uru: ... Chronicles (DI, UAM, TOC Shard)
http://www.guildofwriters.org/wiki/Myst ... :_Uru_Live (Gehn, Minkata, TLCA Shard)

For the details, I can only speak about the "old-style" Shards for Uru:CC (often referred to as TPOTS, too): DI, UAM and TOC are very similar in that they use the Offline KI and provide almost all of the fan-ages. I have no idea how up-to-date TOC is, and while UAM is unmaintained since November 2011 (so you will not find the very latest age updates there), the Deep Island Shard provides up-to-date versions of all ages, as far as I can tell (please email me if there is an update I missed!). TOC and UAM require dedicated registration, DI uses the GOW account database.
However, I did not visit any of these Shards (besides DI), so this is taken from announcements and reports I read.

[triggerfish]

Thanks diafero, I'll read up on those links!

[triggerfish]

Thanks for the links!

OK, so as I understand it, both Deep Island, and Gehn, are sort of independently similar to MOULa, but allow one to explore/play fan created ages? Deep Island runs on ALCUGS, and Gehn runs an updated version of the Plasma Engine, and the Dirtsand server (and I'm assuming fan ages)?

But, are there fundamental differences in the game play? Why would a newbie, just starting out, choose one over the other? Again, this is from a COMPLETE newbie, so I do not want to offend anyone... Am I correct in assuming that Gehn Shard represents current development (custom version of Plasma, newer server software, etc.)?

[Deledrius]

Am I correct in assuming that Gehn Shard represents current development (custom version of Plasma, newer server software, etc.)?

That is correct. The Client on Gehn is the newest development being done on that code, and Gehn also includes testing of an independently developed server (dirtsand).

[diafero]

Deep Island and Gehn are very different. The former uses old software (Uru:CC and Alcugs), which was for a long time the only combination we had available to create our own Shards, and to create fan-ages for. Gehn on the other hand is the bleeding edge, and currently most changes are done under the hood - changes and fixes many won't directly notice, but which improve overall gameplay, and which would never have been possible in the "old" Uru:CC, since we do not have its source code.
However, this also means all the fan-ages created during the course of the years do not (yet) work on Gehn.

[Christopher]

At this point I also want to say something about the TOC-shard. We are not only running a tPots shard. We are also running a MOULa shard with the newest client (similiar to the Gehn shard, but with some special additions from us). We have many additions, for example:

• a completely redesigned Characterselection
• a Petsystem (you can find a new Reltopage, which enables a cat which is following you
• the "City of Dimensions" (a copy of the city with a lot of additions an new terretories to explore)

These are only some of our additions and there will be more. We will also enable the Wall in the new future.

Christopher

[Corvus]

a Petsystem (you can find a new Reltopage, which enables a cat which is following you

You can also have a raven

[catherwood]

I must be confused with some terminology. If Deep Island uses the Offline KI, then it is an offline (not mult-player) game, right? I don't think of that as a 'shard' in the sense of a live server where players can meet in the same space. If, on the other hand, 'shard' simply means any server, then DI is like a repository from which I can download Ages, is this right?

I've used Drizzle to fetch Ages to play offline. Am I correct that it only connects to Deep Island? Can I use those identifiers interchangeably now?

Sorry for the dense questions. I'm late to jump on board, but excited for new content. It's been hard to keep all the directories on my computer organized!

[Karkadann]

Im wondering if their is a way to set up a Nexes with all the MOUL shards Listed so you can link from one to the next