encoded notions

UruLive, the online component of CyanWorld’s latest installment of the Myst series of games has been put to bed.

My words go out to members of the community

Every journey is simply a series of steps, but the first step is not always simple.
D’ni Proverb

The D’ni were patient. We are the new D’ni, we too should be patient. What the future holds anymore, only the Maker knows now. The market is apparently not ready for an experience such as this. UruLive needed people, but The Call is subtle. It takes time to follow The Call, but alas, the time ran out for both Cyan and Ubisoft. With the continuation of UruPrime, Cyan is letting the Call spread farther.

Why did they keep the shards online, and continue to open up new areas in these last few weeks if they were fairly certain that it was all going to be over by now? I think I may have an answer to that.

They wanted to give everyone a fuller taste of what Live was meant to be. They wanted that feeling to sink into everyone of what a great experience Cyan had planned for us. It planted a hunger in the mind. People who shared in a part of Cyan’s dream will leave the City with the hunger, always knowing what was just out of reach. Others will come, and ask questions. New explorers will visit the forums and flock to TheLysts. Those who roam the cavern and the neighborhoods today can tell their stories to these newcomers, of the time when Uru felt alive, of what it was like in the days of the Prologue and the Beta: buddy chat…cone games…heek…meeting Phil and Douglas…the DRC…calibrating the Great Zero…the full functionality of the KIs…the shared imagers…and the Guild of Greeters with their shirts denoting friendship and assistance. They’ll say that “once, Ae’gura was filled with people, so many that sometimes you had to wait to visit it. The City breathed with life.”

The stories will spread over time, as new explorers join the game with the expansion packs. The hunger for a connection will spread. When the time is right, the populace may be ready for UruLive once more; the code and the creativity exists, all that Cyan needs is reassurance that it will work.

I must admit that I was saddened by the news of the cancellation. This was the only online game that I’d ever consider subscribing to. I’ve been waiting for this ever since I’d seen GRID for the first time. Seeing the shots from Spyder, my mind filling in the gaps. DIRT and MUDPIE. Before that, there were the books: reading them, I saw D’ni through Aitrus, Ti’ana, Katran, and of course, Atrus. I felt the greatness of the story and of the civilization—and the pain of The Fall. This feels like a second Falling of sorts—the new D’ni being evicted from their cavern.

The world is never kind to dreamers. It was a good dream, Cyan: an unending supply of ages, and an unending supply of explorers working together. Maybe one day it will be realized, but for now we grieve for what is lost to us, and turn our eyes towards a brigher future in the cavern, however we can experience it. The community will always survive, as there is nothing you can do to kill the heart and soul of what is Uru.

I will miss the people that I never had a chance to meet in the cavern: people I never got the chance to help. The kinds of people that populated the City were the types that you could trust first, and then ask questions later: truly good people. I will miss hearing footsteps in the cavern behind me, with my mind replacing the text chatter with the sounds of voices in the deep. I will miss the drama I never got to experience of the unfolding storyline.

Yeesha…show us the way. Take us on another Journey. Bring us home again.