Well, this is it. The final day of Myst Online: Uru Live. Tonight, at midnight (mountain time), Cyan Worlds and Gametap will pull the plugs on the game servers, shutting down the game for the foreseeable future. I plan to be online up until the very last moment, should anyone care to join me. Also planning on video recording the last 5 minutes or so, for the memories. You can expect that to be up sometime tomorrow.
A Series of Tubes
An archive of old posts.
Tag Archives: Uru
Attempting to Make a Vista FrankenMachine
I’ve been called back into The Guild of Writers to do some work for the Kehlbet project, so I once again find myself in need of a Windows PC. I have plenty of old computers lying around in my house, so finding a victim base to upgrade to modern standards was not too difficult. The computer I chose is an old Dell 8200, my old “gaming” computer. Ha. I got it for $50 from my dad’s work, and being the first computer with a dedicated video processor (a GeForce 4 MX 4000), I used it for my graphics-heavy work (Uru).
Of course, this computer is not nearly good enough for Vista. After installing a DVD drive in it to even install the os, I was awarded a solid 1/5 in the Windows Experience Index benchmark thing. My lowest spec was, of course, that graphics card, being 4 generations old (and the base model of that generation). Of course, half a gig of memory wasn’t helping much, either, but the main thing was that GeForce 4.
So anyway, I paid a visit to Microcenter today and picked up the cheapest card my motherboard supports (the mobo doesn’t have any PCI-Express slots, and the AGP is only 4x I think, so I’m limited to PCI cards only), a GeForce FX 5200 with 128mb of memory. Certainly better than the card it was replacing, right? And it even says ‘Vista’ on the box, though it isn’t Vista Certified, it just says Vista on it. “Oh well,” I thought to myself. I bought the card for $47, and brought it home only to find that nVidia doesn’t support any cards earlier than the GeForce 6’s for Vista. I searched in vain, but nothing made Vista utilize the card. It certainly recognized it, but there was a driver issue and it disabled it, defaulting back to the GeForce 4.
I’m returning the FX 5200 tomorrow and picking up instead a GeForce 6200, which I’ve read is supported by Vista, and is indeed capable of decent performance under the hog of an OS. If I had a PCI-E slot, this would be so much simpler, because the newer PCI-E cards are actually cheaper than these old PCI ones, and they’re much more powerful, not to mention actually supported by nVidia still.
Attempting to Make a Vista FrankenMachine
I’ve been called back into The Guild of Writers to do some work for the Kehlbet project, so I once again find myself in need of a Windows PC. I have plenty of old computers lying around in my house, so finding a victim base to upgrade to modern standards was not too difficult. The computer I chose is an old Dell 8200, my old “gaming” computer. Ha. I got it for $50 from my dad’s work, and being the first computer with a dedicated video processor (a GeForce 4 MX 4000), I used it for my graphics-heavy work (Uru).
Of course, this computer is not nearly good enough for Vista. After installing a DVD drive in it to even install the os, I was awarded a solid 1/5 in the Windows Experience Index benchmark thing. My lowest spec was, of course, that graphics card, being 4 generations old (and the base model of that generation). Of course, half a gig of memory wasn’t helping much, either, but the main thing was that GeForce 4.
So anyway, I paid a visit to Microcenter today and picked up the cheapest card my motherboard supports (the mobo doesn’t have any PCI-Express slots, and the AGP is only 4x I think, so I’m limited to PCI cards only), a GeForce FX 5200 with 128mb of memory. Certainly better than the card it was replacing, right? And it even says ‘Vista’ on the box, though it isn’t Vista Certified, it just says Vista on it. “Oh well,” I thought to myself. I bought the card for $47, and brought it home only to find that nVidia doesn’t support any cards earlier than the GeForce 6’s for Vista. I searched in vain, but nothing made Vista utilize the card. It certainly recognized it, but there was a driver issue and it disabled it, defaulting back to the GeForce 4.
I’m returning the FX 5200 tomorrow and picking up instead a GeForce 6200, which I’ve read is supported by Vista, and is indeed capable of decent performance under the hog of an OS. If I had a PCI-E slot, this would be so much simpler, because the newer PCI-E cards are actually cheaper than these old PCI ones, and they’re much more powerful, not to mention actually supported by nVidia still.
Uru Live to Discontinue in 60 Days
Cyan Worlds and Gametap have just announced that they are not going to be producing a second season, and that Uru Live will be removed from the Gametap servers in 60 days. I’m going to cancel my subscription in 60 days in protest.
Hi Everybody,
I have some news that some of you have probably not been looking forward to. GameTap has decided to discontinue the operation of Myst Online: Uru Live.
The decision was a very difficult one and was made for business reasons rather than due to any issues regarding the design and vision of the amazing world that Cyan Worlds and Rand Miller have brought to us. Despite the great Myst Online experience coming to a close, Cyan is still a very valued partner of GameTap, we are on excellent terms, and we look forward to continuing our relationship in the future.
Many of you have made good friends while playing Myst Online, so here is the bittersweet part. Although Myst Online: Uru Live will be completely shut down in the near future, the game servers will remain live for the next 60 days. During that time, both newcomers and existing players can continue to experience the amazing world of Myst Online, explore the game’s many Ages, and interact with other players in the game and on the MystOnline.com website and forums. After 60 days, the title will be removed from the GameTap service, though MystOnline.com will remain live and active for fans to continue to share their passion for this important game franchise.
I know this is not the news fans of Myst Online wanted to hear. I want to thank all of you who have been extremely supportive of the game and made this grand experiment in an alternative MMO format so much fun. All of us at GameTap also want to thank you again for your tireless enthusiasm for the title.
There has been a clamor for information about the status of season 2 for some time, and the reason we haven’t announced anything sooner is because we have literally been examining a wide variety of possibilities for maintaining the game, but in the end, we had to bring the exploration of the great cave to a close.
So thanks again for supporting us as we launched this truly unique game. GameTap is still committed to exploring new genres of gameplay and encouraging bold visions. If you haven’t already tried Season 2 of Sam & Max, give it a try, it is as anarchic as one could hope. And I can tell you from first hand experience that the upcoming Grimm is novel and exciting experiment as well.
Ricardo Sanchez
VP of Content and Creative Director for GameTap
Gametap Expired!
My Gametap subscription just expired, after a year of having it. I hadn’t even been thinking of it as a subscription-based service, because I bought a whole year’s worth. Now I have to fork over $60 to keep playing…Bummer…
Uru Live Season Finale: Exodus
“Exodus” (beginning in mid-October)
“Destruction is coming. Find a way. Make a home.”
The words have been repeated many times. Even while the restoration effort begun again and with the release of new Ages, the words were always said. With the resurrection of the D’ni city, the Guilds, the DRC, and new life filling the cavern again, the words continued to hang in the air above the orange waters.
What do they mean?
While many questions have been answered, there are more that remain. What effect will Cate have on the restoration now that the members of the original restoration team have returned? Where will the Bahro war take us? Is the one who originally spoke the words finished with her part in this grand story?
With the release of the new Age of Ahnonay as well as K’veer Island and Myst Island, there will be changes.
Woah. That right there is a description of Episode 9 of Uru Live, the season finale entitled “Exodus”. Check out that last line again. Ahnonay, K’veer, and Myst. Jeebus. That’s a lot of stuff. Plus these foretold changes, and the not-so-subtle hinting at Yeesha’s return, this is going to be one helluva finale.
Uru Episode 2: A New Light
So the second episode of Uru Live is to begin today. It’s entitled “A New Light”. The description of the episode (from Cyan and Gametap) is as follows:
The next episode, “A New Light, begins in June. In it, Power is shifting and new leaders begin to emerge while those from the past begin to fade. Amidst all the chaos, the Age of Er’Cana is released and Explorers are asked to help feed the darkening lake. Meanwhile, new information is revealed and more begin to fear the coming war. Er’Cana features a vast landscape with hours of unique gameplay that can be played single player or with friends.
Those who played offline Uru way back when should recognize Er’Cana from the Path of the Shell expansion pack. However, it must be different from the offline version we played because its sister age, Ahnonay, is not being released in this episode (or at least, we don’t think so, since it’s not in the released screenshots nor the description). The episode will run for 6-7 days and is supposed to start today.
Great Minkata Map
Found this great Minkata Map while browsing around, and great instructions for how to use it. It really helped find the 4th cave, since it shows the shortcut there. 😀
Uru Episode 1: Scars
This post is way, way, way late, but I’m going to post it nonetheless. So Uru is now an episodic game, with all the storyline advancements and content releases occurring in one week every month. This month’s episode (the first episode ever) was called “Scars”, and ran from the 19th to the 24th or 25th. There’s some disagreement about when exactly the episode ended, because there were new things discovered on the 25th and 26th, but they might have been released on the 24th.
Anyway the episode was very dramatic. It started off with a collapse in the cavern, which trapped two teenage girls, one being the daughter of Michael Engberg, a member of the DRC. The other girl was immediately killed. After some time, it was discovered that a Bahro was in the collapse with Wheely Engberg. The excavation continued.
On the 22nd, Wheely Engberg was killed by the Bahro. It was reported to have screamed “Noloben” (an age from Myst V on which the Bahro were tortured and experimented on), and then brutally murdered her.
On the same day, Douglas Sharper (another member of the DRC, who had been on a hunting expedition in Negilahn to try and find the predator killing all the animals) returned, and told a wild tale of a Bahro civil war he had witnessed. There were many Bahro who tried to kill him, and many who protected him, but the battle was brutal.
On the 23rd, Michael Engberg was seen at the memorial site, then linked to the Great Shaft and disappeared. He is still MIA.
On the 24th, the DRC decided that despite all the tragedy that week, they would go ahead with the planned release of Minkata, a new age. This cheered up the whole community a lot, as can be seen by this poll. The age is a huge desert age with a bunch of tiny caves in the ground. The goal of the age is to find all 5 caves and touch the stones in them. Touching a stone puts the entire desert into night, and touching it again brings it back to day. The age has a lot of new music, which is very awesome.
And that’s basically all that happened during Episode 1 of Uru. If they continue to be like this, Uru will definitely become much more popular in no time. This episode brought it back up to #1 on Gametap again, where it still is today.
Uru Pod Series Ends, Other Stuff Too!
Last night the fourth and final pod in the Uru Pod Series was opened to the public. It’s called Tetsonot and seems to be broken. It’s way under the ocean, and it seems to be flooding. The bottom floor is up to my knees in water, and the power is emergency lights only. The whole place is very creepy, and very much like Stoneship. The other pods were Negilahn (a forest), Dereno (an arctic environment), and Payiferen (a desert). As much fun as they all are, there only seems to be one thing to do in them, which is to wait for a portal to appear and jump through it. So while it’s great to have the new content, many people have become restless and want larger ages.
There was another subtle update for uru on mac, which is that the mac client now supports widescreen resolutions! That means I can run it at my computer’s native resolution, and it looks awesome. Still no windowed mode support, but Uru is looking better than ever.