An E-mail from Ryan confirms my suspicions

[Jishin]

I think the rights to the game are the biggest hangup everyone is facing. Not just us, not just Cyan. GameTap's involved, UbiSoft may still be involved ... it's a whole lot of mess to sort out.

Now, admittedly, I wasn't around the first time Uru shut down -- I was never able to play the original Uru because my system didn't support it. But ... I don't know, I just don't feel apprehensive about the upcoming shutdown. Rand has said that they're looking at hosting the servers themselves. They haven't come out and announced anything beyond that, but that alone gives me hope for *something*.

I know it is hard to continue to advocate patience, and harder still to remain patient, but I think in this situation it is justified. I think BAD has the right idea. Cyan is currently not able to tell us stuff -- the MOUL forums clearly indicate that. We need to give them time to sort things out to the point where they *can* say yes or no to fan content, fan servers, even to a fan-created game if that's the way we need to take it. Right now, I'm not sure they can even say that.

[belford]

I've said before that April 4th (now 10th) is a decision point. But not because I expect Cyan to make a big announcement on that date. Rather, it's the *last* date at which I think they *might* make some big announcement.

[Nek'rahm]

three days ago I actually asked Ryan if Cyan would approve of a project similar to UU.

Even now I haven't gotten a response... so I think they're just not worrying about Uru now >>

@Bad, you're probably right. I'm just saying that it kinda looks like Cyan is kinda working for other companies instead of itself right now...

[Zander]

There is every possibility that they are still not legally in a position to answer. They could say "We're in discussions, we'll talk when we're ready"...but they've said that already.

[Jishin]

I've had times where it's taken GD a *month* to reply to my PMs. And that was before the going-down announcement. Just be patient ... we'll hear something eventually.

[BAD]

My big fear is that after Live's closure we won't have anymore online Uru fun in any form. I may be wrong, but I'm under the impression that they want to let Uru go for good. (I've said it before,I think it's the right thing to do for them). And with that in mind, so far there is no indication that Cyan will start any UU endeavour, and although we could run our own servers we would first need to get legal clearance from them and again, I don't think that'll be easy.
But what I fear the most is that if there is no more official involvement from Cyan (UU or similar) then the community will die. It might take a while but it will happen; slowly it will dissolve with time. There's just no way around that: no more game, no more community. We can throw all kinds of arguments at it, that's just the way it is. And what is the point of getting to work on a big project if whenever it is completed no one is here to play it?... Well, there are still valid reasons to do it, but you need a much bigger motivation. Call me a pessimitic, but I've seen that happen all too often..

Bottom line: the best thing that can happen is that Cyan let Uru and D'ni go, but not its community. Hope that they release UU again (or something along that line), or that they give us total legal clearance to do anything to develop a fan game, including using their IP and using old UU material (binaries/source etc) to our leisure.
Of course I say all this not having a clue about what is the exact legal mumbo jumbo with GT and the 'rights'.

I wish I could say your fears are unjustified. I wish I could with confidence say that one way or another Uru will live on. I can't say that, but I won't give up till I am told, by Cyan, that I cannot do something, anything to keep Uru alive. I think many share my view in this community, and that is what keeps me going.

Even if it is shrunk to only a handful of people, we still have a community.