Guild of Writers

For the second expedition of the Fan Ages Touring Club, we travelled back in time to the beginning of Uru modding, back to 2005:

• First Age of Dustin,
• Eder Rilteh Inaltahv,
• Galamay,
• Niveerah,
• Atlantis Outpost,
• Vaiskor area 1 & 2,
• Second Age of Dustin,
• Kato’s Lab, and
• Setal Gahmarin.

These early fan Ages were simple, with no puzzles, ‘primitive’; but they represent the beginning of this ongoing Journey, and each of them was in its way a milestone that deserves a visit.

In January 2006, Cyan asked everyone to stop building fan Ages and distributing editing tools. But you can’t stop the Writers , and soon other Ages came out. We’ll visit them soon!

Personally, my favourites were Niveerah and Vaiskor area 2; the first has a nice, crepuscular light, and if remade with modern tools, could look really good; the second was fun (bring a parachute, or a pair of Long Fall Boots ).

(Next tour: Ahra Pahts)
(Previous tour: Cathedral)

Right. All things have a little beginning, but after that the job can become a splendid adventure. I hope to have time for to come me too in the tour. Good Job Korovev, Have fun.

We had a lot of fun! And, I found I had missed things about these areas. Thank you, Korovev!

It was a nice adventure, we have had a lot of fun.
Thank you Korovev for your expnlanations to all the ages.

Dulcamara

I've been pondering for a while what was with this date "December 3, 2008" that we see attached to more or less 60 ages in UAM tab (Drizzle). I visited some ages in the past, early ages, like you mentioned, and went through the journals. The journal entries can go as far as 2005-2006 in some instance. Your post confirms that those ages were uploaded all at once on December 3, 2008 but were already circulating before that date.

I came in the community when things began to "resurface" around 2010-2011ish. I saw all the drama going on in all URU related forums including this one (yes I recall some heated discussions here). I decided to step away and do my own thing without being involved. One thing I wasn't aware was the long history of URU. That game has been around for 19-20 years already! When someone published the DIRT Descent on this forum board, it came to me as a ton of bricks.

Then, recently, the forum ran by Cyan for the longest time (where the drama queens & kings abounded) went from active to passive. They ressurected old sections that were hidden from views. Like I said I've been around since 2010-2011ish and all what I got were glimpses, rumours about what was URU back in the "good old days" (tm) but without any reference at all. All old explorers for me sounded like old gramps telling their grandchildren "you know son/daughter, back in the ooolllddd ddddaaayyys, things were so much better!" Now with all the sections open for reading on Myst Online forum board, I can really get a good idea for myself what went on back before 2010-2011 up to today. I will never really understand fully the rich history. I wasn't there so I cannot relate much.

Anyway, I think I will try to join next expeditions because they sound like fun time!

Théodore wrote:They ressurected old sections that were hidden from views.

Oh wow, I hadn’t noticed that they opened up the formerly private beta and rehearsal forums! Thanks for mentioning that. That’s great, because it means they will be archived and I won’t have to do that myself.

Back on topic – I’ll have to join some of these expeditions myself. We used to do that occasionally with the Meeting Place hood and it was always fun, but somehow we’ve gotten lazy lately.

Théodore wrote: I will never really understand fully the rich history. I wasn't there so I cannot relate much.

Maybe paying closer attention to the old timers instead of just hearing "back in the ooolllddd ddddaaayyys, things were so much better!" would help illuminate things.

Hopefully these tours will help show you what we saw.

Thing is with people saying back in the good old days is we can feel their relation to whatever they relate to but for us, there's no background.

If a newcomer comes to me and says: I like this and that about URU in 2020. Ok fine!

But from my own experience, they missed "my good old time", the time when we could do so much in MOULa. People were jumping everywhere, there were marker quests to go about everywhere with combo jumping, I don't remember the term used but it was some sort of glitching. Then came the "hackers era" with the Fun House around 2011-12 and endless evenings of mixology mayhem and weird stuff. I remember Plasmaclient with the strange looking polygons and vertices of different colours.

Those are things of the past. I enjoyed them while they were there but now it is history. I hardly log in MOULa anymore. I find it quite dull after what I went through. And mind you, when I first put my feet in the Cavern, that it is what I've been served by older folks that were there before MOULa. I was hearing: "Yes it is great MOULa is around but you missed so much of the rich history and the development done during Gametap, the D'mala shard, the Until Uru shards, the parties that went there!, etc." I remember being in hoods with nearly full capacity (Guild of Greeters' Bevin). Then the city was full every evenings with older and newer folks. It was great time, I learned a lot. But then older folks (not all of them, I know many are still around) started losing interest. The server was and still in a halt storywise. They moved to other things. I don't blame them, their "URU" is not mine and not yours either.

I find it funny in a way because it is true; I'll never experienced what they went through. With that being said, I'm trying not to become like them. Ok fine I had real great moments but the game is not over; there are great development still. Fan-base wise, we are served with top notch ages nowadays, Denost & Dulcamara set the bar high, they both created worlds rather than ages. I'm on MOULa Staging Server since earlier today, not as Theodore, already taken??? maybe someone else goes by that name, anyway. There are still developments. People are still involved.

I'm looking forward exactly for that: new ages, new developments. I've been silent mostly up until DIRT Descent became available for the general public. But I was there in the shadows, doing my stuff, being there!

I think you misinterpreted my saying "Goood Ooolllddd Dddaaayyss" I've always been very direct and trying to be funny. I'm not insulting anyone here! In fact, I kept a silent stance all those years because of the vitriolic posts going back and forth between many members of this community, now with the big picture, URU being there for almost 19-20 years I can see why there were resentment back in 2010 when everything went back online, it was not the thing they expected.

With that said, I'll try to be part of the next expeditions in upcoming Mondays and sorry to hijack this thread but I felt it needed to be addressed.

It's a bit sad so much of Uru's history is behind it. Also, lots of good people left. Some because of old age, some because of lack of new content, others because of arguments with other people (looking back, Uru's community can be very whiney and short-tempered at times ). Things have slowed down compared to the heydays.

On the other hand, Uru is far from dead - people are still playing it from time to time, our tools just keep getting better, and people are still building outstanding new Ages and software. The progression is really clear when you visit those Ages from around 2005 - sure, there were more Ages being released at that time, but quality-wise, we've really come a long way since then

Our expectations have risen up greatly as well so I think it's always nice to take the time and congratulate people who work on creating new content, organizing events etc. Sure, it requires some patience, but every new release is something to look forward to these days !

Oh, I remember The First Dustin Age was the very first fan age I ever went to, at the time it was amazing just to have linked to somewhere besides the standard Cyan Uru areas!