Is URU dead?

abelc · **Joined:** Fri Nov 07, 2008 9:40 pm **Posts:** 142

Not to be...not...postive, but
Does anyone else feel like URU is pretty much dead? I mean, I'm not trying to be a downer, but seriously?

MedicOfOld · **Posted:** Wed Oct 07, 2009 3:25 pm

Even if Cyan completely abandons every project related to URU, and ceases each and every effort being made to make this newest incarnation a reality, URU will still not be dead. There are still people making fan Ages for offline use. There are still communities here and there that are dedicated to both introducing new people to the Myst mythos, and continuing to expand the universe with fan-made Ages and games. There are, in fact, new people still discovering Myst, like the people who have played it on the iPhone. I even still see URU:CC boxes on store shelves sometimes.

So no, I do not think URU is dead, not yet.

Ghame · **Posted:** Wed Oct 07, 2009 3:27 pm

I am becoming quite convinced that its pretty much finished with and with each passing month my certainty rises. Having waited over 540 days since closure and all this promises we will get source code, plugins and whatever, I don't think we are any closer to getting anything. I have noticed that the time between new postings is getting longer and longer, people are now just logging in now and again to see if anything's going on (which as always, it isn't) and then disappearing. I have noticed a lot of board activity on several guild forums has gone down and a lot of fanmade Myst stuff in There.com has vanished. (Can't speak for SL, but I would be interested)

I guess people are getting tired of waiting and are losing interest. I'm beginning to think that any future the Cavern had, died with the announcement that MORE was not going to happen. Pity.

ShardofTruth · **Joined:** Tue Sep 05, 2006 9:37 pm **Posts:** 165

From my point of view Uru is somewhat undead. It was revived more often than Dracula and still just can't die.

vidroth · **Joined:** Tue Oct 03, 2006 3:25 am **Posts:** 869

Uru is not dead. It is pining for the fjords.

Tai'lahr · **Posted:** Wed Oct 07, 2009 4:05 pm

Warning: Pollyanna Alert! :wink:

How long was it between Prologue and MOUL?
How long was it between the Tolkien books and the LOTRO movies?
How long was it between the cancellation of the first Star Trek series and the first Star Trek movie?

As long as CyanWorlds exist, there is hope that Uru will return. They're just focusing on getting the company healthy right now. But, I believe they want to bring back Uru as much as we want them to.

Ghame wrote:

a lot of fanmade Myst stuff in There.com has vanished. (Can't speak for SL, but I would be interested)

The Uru Community in SL is as strong as ever and people continue to build recreations, everything from clothing to complete ages. As a matter of fact, it's very hard to think of something from Uru that hasn't been recreated in SL. And, it's all serving to bring in new fans who are now looking forward to seeing the cavern when it reopens.

Lord Chaos · **Joined:** Fri Sep 08, 2006 1:57 am **Posts:** 1337

What is Uru? Can't be dead if we don't know what it is; there has always been something going on under the surface. Who knows what's happening now? Seeds stay underground for years, decades, and then sprout when the conditions are right. Will anything grow from the Uru seed? I don't know. If something does grow, will I in particular like the plant? I don't know. It costs me nothing to wait... or contribute to the mayhem elsewhere.

Rudolfson · **Posted:** Wed Oct 07, 2009 7:37 pm

Is it DEAD Yet?

:oops:

I just couldn't help myself :oops:

Tai'lahr · **Posted:** Wed Oct 07, 2009 8:12 pm

If vid ever stops his thread, we'll have to start that one.

Wafna · **Posted:** Wed Oct 07, 2009 8:31 pm

We're still here. We still care.

Cyan is still here. Cyan still cares.

It ain't dead yet.

AdamJohnso · **Posted:** Wed Oct 07, 2009 9:21 pm

Cyan's Uru is dead. There is no sense in waiting longer on Cyan, IMO. I would suggest Alcugs Part Deux (a la B-Tads Part Deux) if you really want MOUL to live again.

JWPlatt · **Posted:** Wed Oct 07, 2009 9:38 pm

You can do that, but it'll be a waste of effort when the MOUL source is released. The fact that your suggestion would happen should Cyan drop Uru completely is so common sensical that I think it practically guarantees open source will happen if only to maintain control and Uru's potential which - obviously, in my opinion - lies with the fans under Cyan's IP and commit rights.

mszv · **Joined:** Wed May 10, 2006 5:28 am **Posts:** 2266

We can say that Uru is a number of different things - Lord Chaos spoke about that very well. But - what I believe abelc is taking about is MMO Uru - the online multiplayer game, the game that hasn't been available, legally, for quite some time.

My opinion - success depends on open source Uru. Cyan appears to have no incentive to work on it, and it's unclear to me whether Cyan wants to do it anymore. My guess, we won't see a legal/online Uru for another year, if at all. That's a complete guess, as I can't get into the heads of the people who work at Cyan. If you look at the external evidence (have they even updated the site, given any indication of progress?) - it doesn't look promising. It's not as if they are trying to build interest. Hey - I hope JWPlatt is right and I am wrong!

If you want to equate Uru with something other than the online multiplayer game - then you can build the case that Uru is alive. There are the Uru themed things in Second Life, the fan made ages for solo player Uru, community gatherings, all that. I don't think that's what abelc was referring to, but people use examples of Uru themed things to show that Uru is not dead. If you look at it like that, then yes, Uru continues. I think that's saying something continues by changing the definition of what we are talking about. If the question is - is MMO online Uru dead - you might get a different answer.

-----------
On comparisons to other things - Tai'lahr's posts is moving and interesting, and kind. I do think that the parallels are not quite appropriate. The Lord of the Rings, the trilogy, was a complete book, done, no waiting. The movie, while wonderful, is a whole different thing, an adaption of the book. It's not as if the Lord of the Rings was serialized, and we had to wait for it piece by piece, and it stopped in the middle!

On the Star Trek shows - not exactly comparable, though interesting. After the demise of the 1st series, there was a long period before the second series, but the original shows were seen in syndication, the first Star Trek movie came out, and there was all those novels - officially released stuff. Paramount may have killed the first series, but then they didn't exactly let it die either. Something that's more important is the fan base - if you look at the fan base for Star Trek, as far as I can tell, it grew. The second series was more successful than the first, and the last movie was something of a blockbuster! Uru isn't really like that. We have less and less people, not more and more.

I'm not saying Uru can't come back, but I don't think you can really compare it to either Lord of the Rings or Star Trek.

JWPlatt · **Posted:** Wed Oct 07, 2009 10:21 pm

Point of fact: NBC cancelled Star Trek. Not Paramount. And Star Trek was owned by Desilu at the time, which was acquired by Gulf+Western which merged with Paramount. Viacom and now CBS also got into the picture along the way. You probably know some of that, but some may not. The difference is MOUL has not been put into syndication (via binaries or open source) to gain popularity and the Uru properties have not seen anything even close to the support Paramount has given Star Trek to maintain the franchise. And I won't even go into discussing the power of a mythos which portrays highly achieved humans cooperating with other races in a diverse galaxy and an optimistic future over the lonely, dark and bleak fates awaiting anyone in the Myst Omniverse. I think that's a problem, but I digress...

That said, my one known caveat at this time is the Myst Movie. If green-lighted, it could receive significant promotional dollars to resurrect the franchise and the Cavern as a movie tie-in without the need for open source.

But finally, high-qualitiy and popular fan productions of Star Trek are permitted by Paramount, even with involvement of Star Trek stars and talent, if no one profits from it. Open source code, however, can be included in a for-profit "enterprise" as long as the code is posted. As with Star Trek, the franchise rests with the fans, so open source is still wise.

mszv · **Joined:** Wed May 10, 2006 5:28 am **Posts:** 2266

No, I didn't know all of that JWPlatt. Wow - thanks! What excellent info, and excellent analysis!

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