Installing Gehn Shard on OSX

[Deledrius]

I've done some trials in getting this to work with both the Transgaming/GameTap wrapper and WineBottler and ran into various issues, finally finding WineSkin to be quite simple in comparison. Hopefully this will help others to play on the Gehn Shard from their Macs. If you have any improvements or suggestions, please feel free to reply. I'll probably put this up as a wiki page and polish it a bit, as this is being written in a bit of a hurry.

Note: These steps unfortunately require you to have an existing, working, and up-to-date copy of Myst Online via whichever method you choose, as we will need the current data files. Hopefully we'll be able to avoid this step in the future, once (someday) Cyan grants a license to distribute them.

• Download WineSkin, install it (wherever you prefer, I placed it in my Applications folder) and run it.
• Under the Wrapper Version control, click update and follow through with that until you return to the main menu
• Under the engines list, click the [+] to add a new engine. The newest one should already be selected (I tested with 1.14).
• Download and install the selected engine, and continue until you return to the main menu.
• Click the button to Create a New Blank Wrapper.
• Give your new wrapper a name, such as "Gehn Shard".
• Continue, agreeing to prompts to install needed software, until you return to the main menu.
• Quit WineSkin.

You should now have a blank wrapper all set, and a Finder window open to its location (by default, it can be found in ~/Applications/Wineskin). Launch the wrapper, and this first time it will show the Wineskin menu. Next:

• Download the Gehn Installer if you have not already done so.
• Choose Install Windows Program from the menu, and select the gehn_shard.exe in the prompt.
• Run the installer as usual, accepting the default for the installation location, and browse to your existing MOULa installation for the second location prompt (if using the TG/GT wrapper, it will be similar to Myst Online.app/Contents/Resources/Myst Online.app/Contents/Resources/transgaming/c_drive/Program Files/Uru Live).
• When the installer is complete, WineSkin will ask you which executable to run in order to start the game. Select UruLauncher.exe from the list.
• Close Wineskin's menu. Relaunch your Gehn wrapper to launch Gehn Shard!

If you'd like to customize any options or the program icon, you can do so from the advanced button on the wrapper's Wineskin menu. To get to the menu after you've set up Gehn Shard's launcher, you simply need to launch the Wineskin app inside your wrapper (use Show Package Contents to peek inside).

(Optional) To change the Application icon from the default WineSkin icon:

• Copy the UruIcon.icns file from inside the Myst Online app bundle (or any other icon file you wish to use) into your Gehn Shard's app bundle.
• If you've already closed the WineSkin configuration menu, navigate inside your Gehn Shard application once again and launch the WineSkin app. Click the Advanced button.
• On the lower right is a section labeled icon. Click the browse button.
• Navigate to and select the icon file you copied in the first step.
• Click done! Quit the WineSkin config menu and your Gehn Shard bundle should have a much nicer icon!

That's it! You should be all set. Hopefully I didn't miss anything important or non-obvious. Enjoy!

[Ainia]

Shorah Deledrius,

Thanks for the great Mac instructions. It looks like I've successfully installed the shard via Wineskin on my MacBook Pro. However, when I actually log in to MOUL Gehn using my GoW account information, it starts the login process and continues for several minutes, then errors out saying there was no response from the server. I can't tell if there's a problem on my end or if I just happened to pick a time when Gehn is being contrary. My GoW username is Ainia and I've double- and triple-checked the password, have logged in and out from the forums here several times, all to no avail.

I'm *sooooo* close to getting there!! Please help!

[Deledrius]

Sorry, had a busy day today and wasn't able to check in.

Is the launcher displaying the Server Status message before you click to log in?

I've tested it myself, and another new user also used the directions to successfully get in, so perhaps this was just a momentary problem in your connection. Let me know if you're still unable to get in.

[Ainia]

Shorah again,

I was able to log in today without trouble, so all is well. I guess Gehn was having a bad moment or few yesterday...

[Ainia]

Whoops, spoke too soon. In trying to log in to attend today's celebration, I'm encountering the same symptoms. I am able to get through the update process just fine but things seem to get stuck with the actual login. Don't know if this means Gehn has trouble with high traffic or not since I have no idea how busy it was when I had this trouble earlier in the week. I can say that when I was able to log in yesterday, there were only about 5 other folks there at most.

Anyway, I'm including a screenshot of the "stuckness", which has been enduring for about 15 minutes now. I'm assuming that eventually it will error out just as before...

Show Spoiler

And while I'm waiting to see what happens with my login, I'll go ahead and post an image of a stack dump I got yesterday when I logged out from Gehn. Since it was only at the very end as I was quitting, I decided it wasn't terribly important, but now I'm wondering if it will be helpful to other Mac users.

Show Spoiler

Hmmm, this just keeps getting more and more interesting! I just retried the login and was able to get in. When I went to the Nexus (which listed the City population at zero?) and linked to Tokotah Alley, everything went black and seemed stuck there. After waiting for a minute or so, I wound up having to do a force quit and now when I log back in, as soon as I click the Accept login button, it goes right to the black screen. Almost as if something in my installation got hosed.

Bummer... I'll have to try to reinstall later...

[Branan]

the black city link was a result of a server lockup. We're back for now. And definitely having some issues with high traffic.

[gabriml]

I was able to get it installed on an iMac 2010 w/OSX Lion. Had to restart after running the URULauncher update to get it to work. Have to restart every time I quit Gehn other wise it just shows a blank screen after I go through the login process (when the little Cyan animation is supposed to occur).

Should I try another engine version? I'm using 1.4 release candidate. Released version 1.3.37 is available.

One thing to note is that I'm not doing the Relto Kamikaze Fly-in that is happening on my PC.

[gabriml]

I was able to solve the blank screen issue by turning off 'Decorate Windows' under 'Set Screen Options'. Now I can exit and re-enter Gehn without having to restart. It works almost as well as a native PC install--being just a bit slower.

You may wish to mention in you Wiki the key combo 'Cmd-Opt-A' as the means to get to your desktop during a Gehn session.

I also used my new found knowledge of Wine to install MOULa. But for some reason the sound in MOULa cracks and pops using the same settings and engine as Gehn. The sound in Gehn has no problems. Did you modify the sound in Gehn from MOULa? Just want to see if I can get MOULa running as well as Gehn in Wine.

[Ainia]

Shorah gabriml,

You are my hero for the day! Changing the Decorate Windows option in my Gehn Shard Wineskin did the trick. I am very happy I don't have to reinstall.

Regarding the sounds, oddly enough, the sounds in my Gehn install have that crack/pop you describe, usually when I am turning around in place and just after I link in to a location. My MOULa install doesn't have that problem (I'm using the GameTap Cider version updated to work with the current MOULa server). So I wonder if this is a quirk of Wine.

Thanks again for the handy tip regarding the black screen!

[Deledrius]

My MOULa install doesn't have that problem (I'm using the GameTap Cider version updated to work with the current MOULa server). So I wonder if this is a quirk of Wine.

Not specifically. I don't have any noticeable sound issues using this wrapper on Lion. Someone more expert in these matters will have to work on solving that.

At least until that glorious day in which we can use a native client...