What are the differences here?

[Clatch]

I will apologize before hand. I hope I don't offend anyone with my question. Yesterday was my first day playing URU, and it has been many years since I visited Myst.

Honestly, I was blown away. URU is refreshing change from the standard zombie grinding, gamblification, time-sucking mmo's of the industry. I was really surprised to see "no-one" on the original server - and I was there for hours yesterday. Which brings me here...

I noticed that the their donation level is at Cavcon 2.0. I'm almost afraid to get started - wondering how long the server will be up. I suppose what really spooked me was that their forums have locked out any new users from participating. It's like Cyan Worlds has thrown a copper band around the trunk of URU, waiting for it to die off before pruning it.

So now I'm journeying through the real world to discover what happened to the land of Myst and where the new chapters lie. I noticed the Guilds' websites formed from the original game are mostly unmaintained - except for the Writer's Guild here.

I'm really curious about Glen Shard. Honestly, I'm completely unfamiliar with URU and form first glance Glen Shard appears to be the same game. I've read the intro on the website where it mentioned that this is a showcase of new work. What are the main differences here? Are there more locations and content?

[Tsar Hoikas]

Hi Clatch,

The answer to your main question is that there are two "new" areas on the Gehn Shard called Tre'bivdil and Vothol Gallery. Both are very nice ages but not as expansive or as interactive as most of Cyan's ages that were part of the original Uru. There are also fixes for many issues that plague Cyan's MO:ULagain Shard and various technical improvements as well. We plan on adding more ages and technical improvements in the future, of course.

The MOUL forum has a "secret" to joining it -- you need to sign up for the "Explorers" user group. It's something of a misguided attempt to curtail spam. I'm not certain how much longer MOULa will be available either. Their servers have been exploding on a regular basis lately, and each time someone has to press the reboot button, some money comes out of their magical donation pile. However, it's important to keep in mind that they do a silly "running total" for each month, and I see that CAVCON 2.0 is for the month of February -- last updated on February 1st . The January number is respectable, so I wouldn't worry about Cyan's walled garden going away just yet.

[janaba]

Hey there, Clatch ... Welcome to the Guild of Writers and these forums ... It is nice that you didn't
give up after your little odyssey through the wilderness of the Uru-lands and finally arrived here ...

Haha, very nice introduction, Adam ... I almost couldn't have said it better lol ... Make of it what
you will, dear Clatch ... Roam these forums a bit and you'll see that they're doing a lot here to
improve Uru and thus our experiences etc. ... Yeah, the performance is much better on Gehn
in many respects, as of sounds, graphics (unlimited fps etc.), PhysX etc. etc. and Adam already
mentioned the first implemented fanmade ages and this is just the beginning ... Gehn has actually
a different basic server software if I understand that correctly, called Dirtsand, which is already
different to MOULa (please read about it if you like, I'm not the technician here lol) ... There's
some stuff they're still working on, but they want to do it good and do it right and I know they will ...

Clatch, I don't know if you've seen that already, but the Gehn Shard will be celebrating its birthday
and first anniversary tomorrow ... Please, have a look here ... Of course, we all hope to meet you there ...

[dtierce]

Since you seem to be new to Uru, I'll point out some other issues. If you are concerned about the lack of other players, you need to be aware of "instancing". All of the puzzle areas are private copies for several reasons. These areas can be explicitly shared with other players for joint exploration and assistance. Other areas can be either public or semi-private ("Hood instanced"). Those dual-mode areas depend on how you access them for the mode of sharing. For example, you can only get to the "public" shared city via the Nexus. That is typically how you would run into other explorers.

Another way to find others is by registering them as "buddies" in your Ki device. That is typically done using an explorer's Ki Identifier. Many of us list our Ki Ids in our forum signatures. If a registered "buddy" is in the game at the same time as yourself, their name will show up in the Ki display (under "buddies" obviously).

These forums (for Gehn and DeepIsland) and the MystOnline forums (for Moula) are very much active. Either one can be used to coordinate a meet-up in the game. Times for meeting are typically arranged based on Ki time as found in your Ki display. That time corresponds to Mountain time in the USA. As mentioned previously, you will have to register as an explorer in the MystOnline forums to be able to post or reply to a topic to bypass their spam countermeasures.

I personally believe that the fans will not let Moula (Myst Online: Uru Live ... again) die out. The other incarnations are also here to stay (Gehn, Deep Island, Minkata, and TOC).

David Tierce - humble explorer

[Clatch]

Amazing! Thanks everyone for the great introductions. I learned a lot. I'm definitely going to pass this on to others I know. It's been a great experience already.

[mcbeam]

hello clatch!

i just a regular Joe but many friends here you don't need to be a programmer (but it helps..alas i am not)!
just want to put in my welcome!

[janaba]

Hey, Clatch, I'm glad that we could inspire you ... I'd like to correct my
mention of Gehn's anniversary party ... Yesterday, I always had the feeling
of Friday lol, so, I hope you've been visiting my above posted party link and
know already that we're celebrating and partying on Saturday at 13:00 pm KI
resp. MST time ... Have a great day and see you there ...

[Lyrositor]

Hello Clatch, and welcome to the Guild of Writers and the world of Uru.

I noticed that the their donation level is at Cavcon 2.0. I'm almost afraid to get started - wondering how long the server will be up. I suppose what really spooked me was that their forums have locked out any new users from participating. It's like Cyan Worlds has thrown a copper band around the trunk of URU, waiting for it to die off before pruning it.

Uru is actually a game that was first launched in 2003 with a beta online component, which was then cancelled, then re-started in 2006 in a collaboration with Gametap, then cancelled again, then revived in the form of MO:UL(again) in 2010: it is a donation-based shard run by Cyan Worlds. They do not possess enough capital to continue work on it, though; the biggest thing they've done since is to open-source the game client, which is why Gehn can offer a noticeably better game experience than MO:UL(again).

I noticed the Guilds' websites formed from the original game are mostly unmaintained - except for the Writer's Guild here.

While this is true for many guilds (especially the Cartographers' Guild and the Maintainers' Guild), the Guild of Greeters/Guild of New Greeters are still somewhat active, and the Guild of Messengers is still dutifully working on delivering the news, even though we are currently at reduced capacity.

[Charura]

This seems to be the topic to post this...if not, please re-locate it..

First off, welcome Clatch

I wondered why in this glorious shard does a marker appear in Descent? It isn't in any other shard {Moul(a)..TOC..Minkata} Have not checked Deep Island yet.

No problems..just a question...

[S'ni Day]

Hello Charura,
I noticed that you have a marker game running on your KI in the picture. This is why that marker is there, I'm sure. Hope this was helpful.