The Uam Shard!

[ddb174]

Welcome aboard the Uam Shard!

The goal of this shard is to provide a place where everyone can visit the fan Ages online. It is not a replacement for the smaller, friendlier feel of a small private shard, but I still hope you will enjoy it! In the process, I've automated a lot of tasks through Drizzle, and I intend to automate yet more. (A side goal is to make it much easier for people to set up their own shards, something that has not happened as much as I would have liked to see.)

Besides being able to visit the freely available Ages, you can also visit the Crowthistle, Myst5, Hexisle, and Magiquest Ages if you have purchased them and convert them with Drizzle. (Drizzle is not required for the shard otherwise.)

The page is here: http://dusty.homeunix.net/shard

This is an Alcugs shard, which means that in addition to the regular Drizzle/UAM team, thanks also go to Almlys and Diafero, and of course, to all those who have written Ages!

There are no official forums (and this is on purpose), so please feel free to ask questions or discuss on any of the following forums which I read: huru.info, uruobsession.com, mystcommunity.com, guildofwriters.com, guildofmaintainers.org, or forum.almlys.org.

Enjoy!

[BAD]

Thanks Dustin!

Your pioneering spirit has me and many others interested in Uru.

[Wamduskasapa]

Dustin ~ I also thank you !!

This is the type of development that has maintained my interest in URU for over 7 years now...

again ~ Thank You

EDIT: Since we now have in excess of 160 ages (not counting Reltos and Neighborhoods) if there were a possibility of creating some means of maintaining a running total of how many there are in each age. This way one could look at a bulletin board in their Relto or Neighborhood and then go to an active Age. We could possibly use, as a display, the Message board that we obtained from the Great Zero..

[Whilyam]

I know others had plans for a GoW shard and that this was announced so soon after those people said they were setting up that shard makes me suspicious that this is a ploy to steal their thunder. Thus I will not be signing up. I just wanted to let everyone know that they should probably *not* sign up for this shard due to there being a better one coming very soon.

[Nadnerb]

I'm getting some really unneccessary bad vibes here. I would like to suggest that dustin show up in #writers@irc.guildofwriters.net so everyone involved can talk on the same line without "conspiracies" and get this sorted before it becomes massive drama.

[ddb174]

No, you're quite wrong. It was the other way around. I wasn't going to drag this up in public, but here goes: (this is an edited version of the mail I sent to the person they tried to trick into making a shard for them)

After talking with ______PersonA today, I see that you've probably been deceived by some people.

For several months, I've been working on Drizzle to make it easier for running a shard. I had a testing shard that I had made carefully, with the intention of *possibly* making it a public shard afterwards. I don't like the idea of running a shard, but I've wanted people to have a public shard for a long time, so I was thinking I would finally just do it myself. I wasn't going to drag this up in public, but here goes:

After some of the comments about people insisting on having a public shard, I pretty much planned to go ahead, but waited to ask some people first. I sent a PM early on Aug 13th to two people who seemed interested to see what they thought before I proceeded. Unfortunately, one of them was _____PersonB, and I thought it was strange that he did not respond. By your email, I see that some people talked to you about it the next day. ______PersonA indicated that people talk about these things behind our backs, trying to say that the regulars were talking it up in CC/IRC. And then the day after that, I see that _____PersonB joined __YourPrivateShard.

I don't know what their plan was. You know how shard things are: some people love to struggle for power :P I'm quite sure that they thought it would take me quite some time to actually open the shard, and hoped to be first. But as I said, I've been working on it for months, and it was all ready to go. (And you've probably noticed how I hate wasting time, including releasing Drizzle without testing it first ;) So on the 16th I opened it. Now on the 17th, ______PersonA was upset with me, and after talking with him for a while, I got some details out of him.

Again, I don't think you were involved with this deception. I imagine that they hid the existence of the Uam shard from you. But I want to try to make sure you know what has happened. I don't know if ______PersonA is part of it or not, by the way.

Regards, Dustin.

[ddb174]

Wait, I've just received a PM from the person in question, and apparently they've made a mistake, and this has led to many of them being wrong about the situation with shards, I gather. Perhaps there was no malice in their actions then.

[diafero]

(this is an edited version of the mail I sent to the person they tried to trick into making a shard for them)

That person he refers to is me. But honestly, I would prefer to clear this in private. The post Dustin just added confirms that. So I will not (yet) reply. Dustin, I support what Nad said above.

[diafero]

We agreed on IRC that both us accusing Dustin of him wanting to pre-empt us as well as him accusing PersonA and PersonB of using me to pre-empt him were wrong accusations, caused mainly by bad timing.

So, put the popcorn away

[Chacal]

I'm getting some really unneccessary bad vibes here. I would like to suggest that dustin show up in #writers@irc.guildofwriters.net so everyone involved can talk on the same line without "conspiracies" and get this sorted before it becomes massive drama.

Nad, thanks for this initiative. It seems to have born fruit.

I have to wonder, though, why it is that, by default, we always end up in massive drama and suspicion.
Have we lost the ability to greet an idea with open minds?

I'm currently reading Ken Follett's "The pillars of the earth". It seems to me we have too many Arshbishop Walerans, and not enough Prior Philips.