Uru: Ages Beyond Myst

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Uru: Ages Beyond Myst
Uru: Ages Beyond Myst box cover
Developer(s) Cyan Worlds
Publisher(s) Ubisoft
Engine Plasma engine
Release date(s) Flag of United States November 11, 2003
Flag of Germany November 13, 2003
Flag of United Kingdom November 14, 2003
Flag of Poland March 1, 2004
Genre(s) First-person adventure, Puzzle
Mode(s) Single player, Multiplayer online
Rating(s) ESRB: Everyone (E)
PEGI: 3+
Platform(s) Microsoft Windows
Media CD-ROM
System requirements 800 MHz CPU, 256 MB RAM, DirectX 8.1 videocard, Windows 98SE/2000/Me/XP
Input Mouse and keyboard

Uru: Ages Beyond Myst is a computer game developed by Cyan Worlds and published by Ubisoft. Available on a single CD-ROM, the game features several diverse D'ni Ages designed in the style of the Myst game series. Although Uru and the Myst series share the theme of the D'ni civilization and culture, Uru takes place in the present day. Unlike previous games, where the player is a stranger who lived two hundred years ago[citation needed], Uru allows avatar customization so that 'you can be you'. The gameplay is more sophisticated than in previous Myst games, and the graphics are now in real-time 3D (cf. realMyst) rather than being pre-rendered stills. In addition to the single-player game, the multiplayer version, Myst Online: Uru Live, was released on February 15, 2007 by GameTap and is available at their website.

Contents

[edit] History

According to the creators, Uru was inspired by Snow Crash, a book by Neal Stephenson that featured a virtual reality-based successor to the Internet[citation needed]. This does not refer to the story or content of the game (which is deeply rooted in the D'ni/Myst universe), but rather the format of the multiplayer environment, Uru Live.

The game was originally codenamed "DIRT" ("D'ni in real time"), then "MUDPIE" (meaning "Multi-User DIRT, Persistent / Personal Interactive Entertainment / Experience / Exploration / Environment"). It was known by this name for most of its development time, before becoming known as "Parable", then "Myst Online", before finally settling on "Uru", the Sumerian word for 'deep city'.

Uru takes its players to "The Cleft" in New Mexico, the childhood home of the main character of all the Myst games, Atrus. The player is invited to "take the journey" to D'ni and help the D'ni Restoration Council (DRC) rediscover the ancient civilization and its remains. As planned, Uru would not only feature a complete offline game ("Uru Prime"), but also an online component ("Uru Live") that would be constantly expanded. Uru Live was cancelled shortly before it would have been launched. A community-run incarnation of Uru Live, called Untìl Uru, was made available, before the return of Uru Live proper was announced in May 2006.

Uru uses version 2 of the engine used in realMyst, known as Plasma. Cyan purchased Plasma 1 as part of the acquisition of Headspin, but the version in Uru is much more advanced than the one in realMyst. Plasma renders almost all objects on the screen, including most of the terrains and the avatars (which made it essential for Uru Live). In addition, Uru makes use of the Havok physics engine. Its use is especially noticeable when moving around objects on the floor, such as stones or pieces of wood. The use of the Havok engine apparently made it impossible to port Uru to the Macintosh platform, as Havok is currently not available for that system. Due to licensing and technical issues, Havok has been replaced with AGEIAs PhysX in the reincarnation of Uru Live.

[edit] Gameplay

Puzzles remain a main theme in Uru. Uru Prime's puzzles are solvable by a single person, but Uru Live subscribers were able to solve the Uru Prime puzzles with others. Also, a few Uru Live-only puzzles required multiple persons to solve.

[edit] Uru Prime

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The story line to be played "out-of-the-box" is usually referred to as "Prime", and is usually played in single-player mode. In it, the player arrives near the Cleft, a fissure next to a volcano in New Mexico. In front of the Cleft, a man who introduces himself as Zandi sits in front of his trailer, encouraging you to discover the environment and to "join the exploration". Later, you stumble upon a hologram of Yeesha, Atrus' daughter, whose speech remains unclear throughout most of the Prime story, until she re-appears once you have traveled through various Ages, solving their puzzles and uncoving their dark pasts. At the end, however, some players are left uncertain whether they should have trusted Yeesha at all, or if she has actually abused their work for her own goals.

[edit] Ages

Main article: Ages of Uru

As in all Myst-based games, there are a number of different locations (called Ages) for the player to explore. The following are the only Ages accessible in Uru Prime:

  • Earth (the desert in and around the Cleft and parts of the D'ni city)
  • Relto - the player's personal Age
  • Teledahn - a former slave Age, permeated by mushrooms
  • Eder Gira - a volcanic Age of steam vents and waterfalls
  • Eder Kemo - a garden Age
  • Kadish Tolesa - a ruined forest Age
  • Gahreesen - a training center for the D'ni Guild of Maintainers.

[edit] Uru Live Prologue

Uru Live was taken offline due to a lack of subscribers in early 2004. Cyan Worlds founder Rand Miller made the announcement to the Myst community on behalf of Ubisoft and Cyan Worlds on February 4, 2004.

From the features it was meant to end up having, several — such as voice chat with fellow explorers or jointly-solved puzzles in new Ages — never saw the light of day in the public version, as the failure had already became apparent in the last of the several more or less public test runs, which took off much slower than planned in late November 2003.

The Uru Live idea had created a significant following, probably due to the preceding Ubisoft-run beta test from January to October 2003. Many web sites were launched, most of which have been trying in various ways to preserve the Uru Live concept. Uru Live has been revived on Gametap and is open to everyone who subscribes at the Uru live website.

[edit] Uru Expansion packs

When Uru Live was cancelled, two expansion packs for the Prime game were made: Uru: To D'ni, which mostly introduces the (formerly) online content to those who never had a chance to join Uru Live, thus focusing mostly on the City of D'ni, and Uru: The Path of the Shell, which extends the story of Prime and consists of multiple Ages that had not been seen before.

[edit] Uru: To D'ni

To D'ni tried to fill the gap created by the Uru Live's end by giving players — especially those who didn't manage to finish Live's content — access to the Ae'gura, Bevin, and Kirel neighborhoods, and the Great Zero which was used in much the same fashion as a GPS receiver when in the D'ni cavern. The story of To D'ni was very limited, although it featured some fan treats, like the many report notebooks about the kings of D'ni, and also journals by Douglas Sharper and Dr. Watson, in an attempt to finish off the idea of the D'ni Restoration Council.

[edit] Uru: The Path of the Shell

Unlike the first expansion pack, Uru: The Path of the Shell was not free, but instead sold in two ways: as a boxed version in stores (either separately, or bundled with the Uru as The Complete Chronicles) as well as via paid internet download. All versions included To D'ni.

Shell was much more comprehensive in terms of new content than To D'ni. Also, instead of continuing directly where To D'ni ended, it picked up Yeesha's story, and featured several new Ages, such as Er'cana and Ahnonay, which were previously slated for a later introduction in Uru Live.

[edit] Untìl Uru

[edit] ALCUGS

Around the time of release of Uru: The Path of the Shell, a group of dedicated fans was working on its own server to host a multi-player Uru game. This server project became known as Alcugs and was run by Almlys, and developed by members of the H'uru community at the Clockwork Orange BBS forums.

Although Alcugs promised Uru with multi-player support for Ages from Uru: The Path of the Shell, it was unfortunate in that it was released at almost the same time as the Untìl Uru servers. The one thing that set Alcugs apart from Untìl Uru was that the entire project was open-sourced C++ code hosted on Sourceforge, and that it supported Uru: The Path of the Shell content. To this date, Alcugs is not complete, although its author Almlys has said that he does not plan to actively develop it in the near future.

[edit] Untìl Uru

As of February 5, 2007, Untìl Uru and the D'mala shard has been shut down.

In August 2004, Cyan in cooperation with fan-based communities opened up Untìl Uru, called UU for short, where privately-owned, fan-run servers could be used to meet as if they were in Uru Live. Cyan stressed, however, that this was not Uru Live: there was to be no new content, bug fixes, or updates of any kind. In fact, Cyan has revealed that "untìl" was actually intended to be two separate Sumerian words: "un", meaning people or community, and "tìl"(with an accented i), meaning to live or keep alive. Thus, "Untìl Uru" means roughly "the community keeps Uru alive."

Untìl Uru provides the same content and errors as the public beta test (known as the Prologue), with two exceptions. First, server administrators have additional access (for example, cones and barriers in the style the DRC had put up can be positioned inside the caverns). Second, voice chat, which was unavailable in the Prologue for technical reasons, was re-activated. Other than that, the same content is available — Prime, the Ahyoheek and Gahreesen Wall mini-games, and the ability to access large parts of the city together.

In order to actually use Untìl Uru, players had to purchase a "Kagi key" for a small one-time fee to fund Cyan's servers. Unfortunately for future prospective players, Cyan took down the purchasing page for unknown reasons in October 2005. Players who purchased keys in the past can still use them to create their account. Very few Cyan employees have commented, giving no more information than this:

The only official comment is still that the Until URU keys have been temporarily suspended.
I can add this, however: we plan on having more information within a month.
Thanks (and I'm sorry for the confusion - I really am)

– Ryan Miller, October 31, 2005 [1]

No information was released by Cyan in November. As of January, 2006, some Untìl Uru players were contacted by gamerZunion, an online game service Cyan has invested in, to participate in an UU beta test on their servers; however, nothing ever came of the offer. Kagi Keys were no longer available; thus, many of the shards running Untìl Uru could not be accessed by newcomers. However, in early 2006, Cyan Worlds opened a free general shard, and those without Kagi keys could congregate there instead of on the various private shards.

[edit] D'mala shard

In February 2006, Cyan announced that they would be running an official Untìl Uru shard called "D'mala" (D'ni for "Return"). The announcement said that D'mala was being funded by an unnamed third party. Several pieces of information, including server IP addresses and sighted player names, pointed to GameTap as the likely source of these funds, an assumption proved correct in early May. The announcement advised cautious optimism regarding the possible future return of Uru Live. There was a further announcement to call for a grass roots movement to draw people to the D'mala shard.

The shard grew to around 3,000 members, with numbers growing daily. Cyan Worlds enlisted the support of their fans to fix some notorious bugs in the game and a fan-developed was applied to the Untìl Uru shards, opening up one area, adding several small items, and fixing some of the loading bugs. There are also unexpected visits from Cyanists and the IC (In Character) DRC members.

However, D'mala shard did not have any major new content, as it was a way for Cyan to show the community and potential investors what Uru Live could have been. The Uru fan community started a petition to support the D'mala shard in this effort. Their efforts contributed to a new beginning of funded, multiplayer Uru, called Uru Live.

The D'mala shard was considered Uru canon until December 19, 2006; where, during a DRC meeting, a loud screech was heard and all of the online players were linked back to Relto with a message on their KIs. The story will continue in Myst Online: Uru Live.

The D'mala shard was shut down February 5, 2007 along with all of Untìl Uru so that Cyan Worlds can focus on Myst Online: Uru Live.

[edit] Myst Online: Uru Live

Main article: Myst Online: Uru Live

In early 2006, Cyan and GameTap announced that Uru Live would be returning. On February 15, 2007, GameTap and Cyan Worlds removed Myst Online: URU Live from beta, and it is now officially "live". While large portions of the game are recycled from Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, it is now a separate game which cannot be accessed through the original Uru: Ages Beyond Myst software.

[edit] Quotes

The word "Uru" means "city" in Sumerian and also has a side meaning of "deep", and, of course, anyone who knows our storyline knows it has to do with that deep city. One of the nice sidelines of that name is just how it's spelled, U-R-U ["you are you"]. It represents what we've always done with our worlds, which is not make you play a roleplaying game where we force you into being someone you're not, you really are you in this place, so that also is a nice little sideline of the name itself.

– Rand Miller

[edit] External links

[edit] Official websites

[edit] Game Archive and Review sites

[edit] Fan forums

[edit] Fan sites


v • d • e
MYST

Myst • Riven • Myst III • Myst IV • Uru / Uru Live • Myst V
Book of Atrus • Book of Ti'ana • Book of D'ni • Book of Marrim • Passages • The Book of Black Ships
D'ni • D'ni Ages • The Art • Items • Kings • Language • Numerals • DRC • Timeline • Wildlife
Characters
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