On Monday 15 at 13:00 KIT, Nosila will host a music event; the location will be the Ae’gura plaza, and the stream will be at nosilaradio.caster.fm.
CT Hostess Susa’n was on stage to announce the sixth Cavern Tour of 2020, on Saturday 13 at 11:00 KIT, starting from the Cavern Tour’s Hood. The Nexus is currently malfunctioning, and the neighborhood is not showing up; if the problem persists, you should ask Susa’n for an invite.
The host, Larry LeDeay, will use his Twitch channel for the presentation, so you will need to keep a browser or the app open in the background. Videos will be available for two weeks after the tour.
The tours occasionally visit hard to reach places. Mir-o-Bot (KI# 32319) is employed for special effects and long-distance travel (and to avoid stairs). If you arrive late, you can PM Susa’n (KI# 9122427) to join the in-progress tour – but do try to arrive in time!
A recent update to the MOULa client reportedly included a physics update, stirring the longstanding question of the future of ‘skydiving’ (a.k.a. glitching), the practice of jumping on invisible colliders to reach normally out-of-reach places, stemming from an older practice of jumping off high places. Innumerable marker games have been created to map skydiving paths along the Ages, and more recently a robot-assisted training course.
Skydiving, however, depends on broken physics engine (PhysX) implementation, causing an uneven game experience depending on computer and network characteristics, fixing which has been part of the open source roadmap since the beginning in 2011. Perhaps even more importantly, upgrading the physics engine (to at least version 4) will lift a major obstacle to a truly native macOS and Linux clients.
Hoikas and Doobes therefore agreed to illustrate the developer side of the issue, and clarify a few questions and misconceptions regarding the client update roadmap:
As for future options, a ‘skydiving client’ was released years ago by Lyrositor – who in the meantime retired from the community – but an update to the KI functioning made it unusable. The source code, and some guidelines on how it could be brought up to date, are publicly available to any coder willing to take up the challenge. However, the long-term solution to preserve skydiving would be a dedicated skydiving shard.
As an addendum, it was noted that another planned update is the transition from the exceedingly obsolete Python 2.3 to 3.8; for robot makers, this will require checking their code for no longer compatible syntax (e.g. from print "string" to print("string") ).
Doobes’ latest releases – Chiso Preniv, Veelay Tsahvahn and the New GoMe Pub – have been ported to the Minkata shards, where the heavy testing will begin. From then, if all goes well, they will be ported to Cyan’ staging server for the last quick checks, and eventually on MOULa, hopefully very soon.
But the big news was the announcement of another, yet unnamed Age in the works! It will be a competitive puzzle Age, based on the Gahreesehn Wall idea, but as a circular maze with configurable (or randomizable) walls. The player or team that will manage to reach the center of the maze, will win.
There will also be a one-in-four chance to remove the walls to gain an advantage, using a control panel beside each wall; but it may also be a disadvantage, so you will need to make a strategic decision! To make things even more challenging, a timer will also be available. During the Q&A, Theo suggested implementing a command to save and load wall configurations.
As for his other Ages in the work, the next release will likely be Kotsahvosahn, a.k.a. the Waystation, the beginning of the journey of D’ni citizen and Messenger Lothias, so it will be more story-heavy than Doobes’ previous Ages.
After that, Doobes has started a new project with AgeExplorer, which promises to be both story and puzzle-heavy.
To keep updated on Doobes’ work, check his blog and his Facebook page.
Korov’ev then gave a quick update on the Fan Ages Expeditions he is hosting on the Deep Island shard, every Sunday at 11:00 KIT.
In June, the Touring Club will visit Enobmort and Noidrocca by J’Kla, Paah’kweh and Sonavio by Boblishman, and Pre-Swaltu by Tolip Ydop. A gallery of fan Ages with some details is available on the Writers’ wiki.
After the expeditions, the participants will be able to share their observations in dedicated threads in the Guild of Writers’ forums (look for threads that start with “Fan Age expedition”). The expeditions are streamed (without comments), and the videos will be available for two weeks after.
One of the main objectives of the Touring Club, besides getting more explorers to know and appreciate the many Ages created in the last 15 years, is also to give some feedback to the authors, who are very welcome to attend the tours and talk about their works.
Setting up a Deep Island client can be a bit tricky in some situations; a quick guide is available in our Troubleshooting section.
Korov’ev mentioned that Mystitech Productions released Episode 10 of its The Lost Art machinima, on Saturday 30.
See also the News Roundup #4 and #5.
The convention will be held virtually, with a combination of Twitch and Zoom for presentations, and Discord for live chatting. The convention dates will be the same as planned, August 7–9, with a possible extended weekend. Refunds will be available, but roll-overs to next year’s in-person convention will too.
The deadline for event submissions has been extended to June 30, with the option to submit pre-recorded presentations. The deadline for the Digital Activity Book is also extended to June 30.
The existing T-shirt design will be used for Mysterium 2021, with altered dates. A store page will be opened soon. The 2020 pin designs will also be rolled over into 2021.
Shokhootahn Rehn gave two announcements, one for the D’ni Language Classes and one for the Story Nights.
He is still putting things away after his recent move. As a result there will not be any daytime classes until further notice. They should be able to return sometime in autumn. Night time classes, however, are unaffected.
There are currently two students working on lesson 6. Meanwhile, Aqua completed her final exam and passed the D’ni 101 class! Votahret ah’shem khe-bahrtahtahvteeom!
Story Nights and Story Nights – Europe are now at the same stage. They are continuing with the story arc of the D’ni kings, and will continue for the next four weeks.
Rehn hinted at a possible special Story Night on the Gehn shard, in a “certain memorial Age”.
And that was it for this month.
Please consider donating to keep the Cavern open!
The next All Guilds Meeting is planned for Saturday, July 4, 2020 (Leesahn 2, 9676 DE) at 13:00 KIT.
Until then!
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Minasunda was first, to announce three events for late April:
The stage for the Nulp Dance Show will be the water pool in front of the waterfall: please stay on land so as to not disrupt the show.
The Nulp Dance Show will also commemorate the victims of the COVID-19 crisis. Minasunda is collecting KI numbers of explorers who would like to participate: you can send the KI number of the avatar you want to participate with in a KImail (#5667000) or a PM on Facebook or Discord.
To get to the locations, you will need to PM “link” to Mir-o-Bot (KI# 32319). To keep up to date with these events, check the Facebook group and the Discord server (or our calendar).
CT Hostess Susa’n was on stage to announce the fourth Cavern Tour of 2020, on Saturday 11 at 11:00 KIT, starting from the Cavern Tour’s Hood. The Nexus is currently malfunctioning, and the neighborhood is not showing up; if the problem persists, you should ask Susa’n for an invite.
The host, Larry LeDeay, will use his Twitch channel for the presentation, so you will need to keep a browser or the app open in the background.
The tours occasionally visit hard to reach places. Mir-o-Bot (KI# 32319) is employed for special effects and long-distance travel (and to avoid stairs). If you arrive late, you can PM Susa’n (KI# 9122427) to join the in-progress tour – but do try to arrive in time!
Korov’ev next announced the launch of Radio Free D’ni’s second show, RFD Remastered: on alternate Sundays starting on April 5, they will broadcast reruns of older episodes with new commentary. The new series will run experimentally two hours later than the regular show, at 14:30 KIT.
On Monday 6 at 13:00 KIT, Nosila will play some happy music; the location will be the Ae’gura plaza, and the stream will be at nosilaradio.caster.fm.
Rarified gave a quick update about the Minkata testing shard.
January and February had good progress on Minkata-alpha, until he bumped into an Age loading issue with the client. Then March happened, and most of it was diverted to non-Uru stuff.
It will take him a few days to get back up to speed with the deep debugging he needs to do to diagnose the age issue, but that is now at the top of the todo list. So there should soon be some more testing to do in Minkata-alpha.
Rarified also mentioned that he pulled a fix for the Windows 10 mouse bug from the GoW/H’uru source code, to be included in the Minkata pipeline; but he wants to concentrate on the fan Age issue first.
To keep up-to-date, check the OpenUru Discord channel.
Korov’ev then gave a quick update on the Fan Age Tours he is hosting on the Deep Island shard, every Sunday at 11:00 KIT.
After the expeditions, the participants will be able to share their observations in dedicated threads in the Guild of Writers’ forums (look for threads that start with “Fan Age expedition”).
One of the main objectives of the Touring Club, besides getting more explorers to know and appreciate the many Ages created in the last 15 years, is also to give some feedback to the authors, who are very welcome to attend the tours and talk about their works.
Setting up a Deep Island client can be a bit tricky in some situations; a quick guide is available in our Troubleshooting section.
In what has become a grim tradition, Korov’ev had to report the passing of yet another explorer: Daniel Dea “Watashi” Grindle, founder of the URU Skydivers group – in its original meaning of jumping from high spots – and host of the Watashi’s Gira webradio.
Shokhootahn Rehn gave two announcements, one for the D’ni Language Classes and one for the Story Nights.
He is still putting things away after his recent move. As a result there will not be any daytime classes until further notice. They should be able to return sometime in the spring. Night time classes, however, are unaffected.
There are currently three students taking the classes: one is set to take lesson 4, one for lesson 6, and one working on their final exam.
Story Nights and Story Nights – Europe are now at roughly the same stage. They are continuing with the story arc of the D’ni kings, and will continue for the next weeks.
And that was it for this month.
March ended with a CavFunding of 175%, a population of 33,640 explorers, and 1754 unique visits.
Please consider donating to keep the Cavern open!
The next All Guilds Meeting is planned for Saturday, May 2, 2020 (Leefo 10, 9676) at 13:00 KIT.
Until then!
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Minasunda was first, with a reminder to register to the three events of the celebrations that require it: the Door Run Quest, the Fashion Show Quest and the Magic Dance.
She also had another important note about the Door Run Quest: occasionally the gate seems broken, some players cannot see the symbols, while others can. After extensive experimenting, the conclusion was that this happens when using an internal client. It is therefore recommended to play with the standard client.
Also, some events are likely to be disrupted by using the bot. Please avoid using an internal client and avoid using magic commands, in order to prevent malfunctions, lag or crashes.
An outline of the celebration events is available on the MOULa forum thread, or in our dedicated post.
Among the celebration events there is the second Cavern Tour of 2020, on Saturday 8, 11:00–12:45 KIT, starting in the Cavern Tour’s Hood for a brief orientation. CT Hostess Susa’n was on stage to announce the date and answer some questions.
The first tour gathered 43 participants. The tours occasionally visit hard to reach places (but not places like e.g. Kerath’s Arch). Mir-o-Bot (KI# 32319) is employed for special effects and long-distance travel (and to avoid stairs). If you arrive late, you can PM Susa’n (KI# 9122427) to join the in-progress tour (but do try to arrive in time).
Shokhootahn Rehn is still putting things away and finding homes for everything after his recent move. So there will be no daytime classes until sometime in Spring. Nighttime classes are unaffected.
Story Nights and Story Nights – Europe are now at the same stage. They are continuing with the story arc of the D’ni kings, and will continue for the next 26 weeks.
Next week’s Story Night – Europe is part of the celebrations for the 10th anniversary of MOULa, with a special story of the Restoration. The event will be held in Mir-o-Bot’s Baron’s Office and will start at (or after) 14:30 KIT.
On late January, Cyan announced their decision to retire a bunch of social media pages: Myst, Obduction and Firmament on Facebook; Myst, Obduction and Firmament on Twitter; Myst and Firmament on Instagram.
All the news will from now on come only from their main social media pages on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
The given rationale is that Cyan has a small team, and an even smaller subset of the team is responsible for PR. Time spent managing social media is time spent not working on game development. So, to avoid stretching their resources, they decided to limit the number of channels they use and monitor.
Fan-managed websites, pages, groups and forums are of course not affected, as Cyan is not directly involved in their management. In this regard, we are aware that Rel.to is not accessible, we are working on it 
No news has yet came out about the state of the cavcon, and whether other channels will be set up if and when it will be restored.
More controversially, Cyan also announced the retirement of the MOULa and Cyan forums. On Tuesday, February 4 the forums will become read only. Registering an account for the forums will also be turned off, which is effective immediately. On Tuesday, June 16, publicly-accessible threads will be archived, and the forum sites will no longer be hosted.
The last point has been poorly worded in the announcement: the content of the forums will still be available in some form, so the history of the community will be preserved, except for hidden threads, or personal messages. Also, the MOULa website itself will still be accessible.
Because of this, users are encouraged to archive any PMs or specific threads they wish to keep personally before the change takes effect. PMs can be exported en masse as table files (by clicking on “Export this view” at the bottom of the PM list), and for single posts it would be a good idea to save the BB code, to keep the formatting for an eventual export to another forum.
Even more controversially, Cyan announced that the replacement of the forums will be the Official Cyan Chat Discord server. Many fans have expressed their objections that Discord is not a suitable replacement for a forum.
OpenUru.org, the Guild of Writers, the Guild of Archivists, the Guild of Messengers, and other fan groups with their own forums will welcome anyone who prefer this time-tested format of discussion.
Events will still be regularly announced on the usual channels, like Facebook groups, Discord, and through the GoMe calendar (which, if you have a Google account, you can add by clicking on “+Google Calendar” at the bottom right of this page).
Bug reports should be reported on the recently-reopened Support page, or by sending an email to support[at]cyan[dot]com. MOULa downtime reports will be most quickly received via Discord.
Submissions for art designs are now open. There will be four categories: T-shirt, pins, activity books, writing and artwork table. Deadlines will be staggered through early-to-mid 2020.
Also, barring any unforeseen issues, registrations should open on March 1. Stay tuned for more info about this year’s hotel and how to book your room, as well as transportation and parking details!
As you probably know by now, the Starry Expanse team is now working with Cyan to complete the Riven remake. In a recent post, the team has outlined how they are dealing with objects that are small and blurry in the original game, but that you will we able to look at up close in VR – specifically, the blue light pole globes in the Mag-Lev dock.
Ars Technica posted an interview with Rand Miller, about the development of Myst and Riven, and how they pushed the limits of the then-new CD technology.
Some time ago, the MYSTAges wiki was put offline. The data has been salvaged, however, and posted on Archive.org by Deledrius. The Guild of Archivists is looking into merging some of the lore info from there into their own wiki.
And that was it for this month. Please consider donating to keep the Cavern open!
The next All Guilds Meeting is planned for Saturday, March 7, 2020 (Leevotahr 24) at 13:00 KIT.
Until then!
]]>To celebrate its tenth anniversary, a host of events have been planned. Here is the program, more details for each event will be posted in their calendar entries:
13:00–14:00 KIT: Opening Ceremony, hosted by Ghaelen, in the Watcher’s Pub (accessible via the Nexus, under City Locations).
14:00–15:00 KIT: Country Evening, hosted by Eternal Seeker, in Mir-o-Bot’s Cleft (send “to cleft” in a PM to Mir-o-Bot, KI# 32319). The songs of this event will be sung by: Eternal Seeker, Zen-den-Lupe, Katran, Donahoo, and Maggie.
15:00–16:00 KIT: Gahreesen Dance Party, hosted by Podhopper, in Mir-o-Bot’s Gahreesen (send “link” in a PM to Mir-o-Bot, and send him “sp 34” to get to the dance floor).
13:00–15:00 KIT: Door Run Quest, hosted by Eternal Seeker (who will start the stream with Kneb’s “Door Run Song”), starting in the NDG Loung Hood (accessible via the Nexus). The competition will then move to a randomly chosen Tsogal. The rules are outlined in the calendar event.
15:00–16:00 KIT: Girastock, hosted by Fil, in Mir-o-Bot’s Eder Gira (send “to Gira” in a PM to Mir-o-Bot).
11:00–12:30 KIT: Cavern Tour, hosted by Larry LeDeay, starting in Cavern Tour Hood (accessible via the Nexus). The event will use voice chat. Details in the MO:ULa forum thread.
13:00–14:30 KIT: Nulp Dance Show, hosted by Minasunda, stream by Seeker, in Mir-o-Bot’s Great Zero (send “to GZ” in a PM to Mir-o-Bot). More info in the calendar event.
14:30–15:30 KIT: Story Night Special, hosted by r’Tayrtahn, in Mir-o-Bot’s Sharper’s office (send “to office” in a PM to Mir-o-Bot). R’Tayrtahn will tell us about Sharper’s experience with the Restoration. The event will use voice chat.
16:00–18:30 KIT: Karaoke, hosted by DonahooDJ, in Karaoke Hood (accessible via the Nexus). The songs are prerecorded by explorers.
9:00–11:00 KIT: Fashion Show Quest, hosted by Minasunda, stream by Seeker, in Mir-o-Bot’s Eder Delin (send “to Delin” in a PM to Mir-o-Bot, and “sendme 6438103” for the accompanying marker game). The rules are outlined in the calendar event.
11:00–12:00 KIT: Memorial, hosted by Ghaelen, in Mir-o-Bot’s Ae’gura, in the Kahlo Pub (send “to aegura” in a PM to Mir-o-Bot). We will commemorate our explorers and friends who passed away. You can use the commands “kion” or “auraon” for an atmospheric light.
13:00 KIT: Magic Closing Event, hosted by Magic Yoda, stream by Seeker, in Mir-o-Bot’s Kadish Tolesa, inside and around the pyramid (send “link” in a PM to Mir-o-Bot). More info in the calendar event.
To take part in three events – the Door Run Quest, the Fashion Show Quest and the Magic Dance – registration is mandatory. Please register as soon as possible and no later than 3 days before the event. You can register (with name and KI number):
ChrisKB, on behalf of Attaboy, announced the rebirth of the Cavern Events neighborhood.
Having attended Mysterium, Attaboy would like to contribute more to the Community. With Magic Bot available only on request, he figured that the Cavern Events hood would be a nice way to get announcements to other explorers in the Cavern by using the imager.
Furthermore, he has a team this time which currently consists of Narotiza and ChrisKB myself, both of which met at Mysterium. They will try to host more parties as well, starting with the Reopening Party on 12th October starting at 14:00 KIT. If anybody wishes to stream music at that time, you are more than welcome to.
For any inquiries regarding the hood, or events you’d like added, send a KI mail to Attaboyrish, KI# 7903211, or ChrisKB, KI# 8921257.
As a long term plan, with permission from the former organizers, he would also like to get the Cavern Tours back up again.
Rarified was back with an announcement from the OpenUru.org shard Minkata. Specifically, he addressed concerns, expressed on OpenUru forum postings, about things getting done on the shard, concerns he agrees with. Much of the problem with getting things through the testing process is time and ability to work on sometimes many things at once.
Rarified is planning to host an in-game gathering titled “What can you offer for Minkata?”, to find out who has and is willing to spend time on the operation, process, and even management of the shard. He will also echo the request in the MO:ULa forum, the OpenUru hood and on the Discord server.
He will try to cover as many time zones as possible, and will publish the chatlog on the OpenUru forum to continue the discussion, or perhaps another real time meeting.
Korov’ev relayed the Committee’s wrap up for the biggest Mysterium ever held, with (at least) 230 attendees.
They would like you to take a survey, so they can figure out how to make the convention even grander next time. You should take the survey even if you could not go, as there’s a whole section about future Mysteria, including in which parts of the U.S. it should be held.
Second, the coloring books were such a hit, they are now available through a print-on-demand service for $10! It is the same service used to print the originals, so you’ll get the same high quality.
Third, if you wrote lyrics for the Open Mic Night and would like to share with the community, you can send them to committee[at]mysterium.net. The plan is to host them in a public Google Drive folder.
Fourth, a central place for photos and videos is hard to find, because many of the older photo-sharing sites have shut down or require payment. Currently there are three options:
As for the panel video footage from Twitch, it will be edited and uploaded to Youtube over the next weeks.
Fifth, the location for Mysterium 2020 is still undecided; there is a shortlist, and the Committee expects to have it nailed down by mid-to-late September. The dates for next year’s convention will be held sometime in late July/early August, but not necessarily the usual first weekend.
The reason is that for each of the past few years the locations were unexpectedly filled by some other event; this drastically reduces the options for hotels and makes it much harder to find a hotel in a convenient location for a reasonable price. “If you could do the weekend before/after, we would have space/could give you a better rate”, they say. So for next year, the Committee opted to be a little more flexible with the dates.
Korov’ev mentioned a couple of events that took place during the week preceding the Meeting.
On Tuesday, there was the Day of Dancing celebration hosted by Ghaelen d’Lareh, with special effects from Yoda and Mirphak (video).
Thursday was the inauguration of the latest adventure from Mister Magic, the Skydiving High School (video), which you can start by PMing “registration” to Magic Skydiver (KI# 8848659). For more info, you can visit the Facebook group.
And that was it for this month. Don’t forget to donate to keep the Cavern open!
The next All Guilds Meeting is planned for Saturday, October 5 at 13:00 KIT.
Until then!
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La Riunione è cominciata con un riassunto di tutto quello che è successo alla convention della comunità Myst/Uru Mysterium. Molti dei panel sono stati trasmessi su Twitch e sono al momento disponibili qui. Appena potrà, il Comitato copierà quei video nel canale YouTube.
Tornando alla Caverna, due feste dalla Fenditura si sono tenute subito dopo la Riunione, con reahrotahn e thoekenem. Le feste dalla Fenditura sono eventi in cui la gente si raduna nel Relto di qualcuno per festeggiare la conclusione del Primo Viaggio (spoiler!).
A seguire, l’ultimo progetto di Mister Magic: un robot per lo skydiving! Con Magic Skydiver le aerobazie non avranno più segreti per gli esploratori, che otterranno certificati di volo partecipando a missioni assistite da un instruttore, partendo dal primo livello, ‘Iniziato’.
Lushun sta traducendo il gioco in inglese. Non saranno richiesti client speciali. L’evento inagurale della Magica Alta Scuola di Skydiving si terrà verso la fine del mese. Potete trovare maggiori info e consigli sul gruppo Facebook Uru Magic Worlds.
Rarified è tornato con qualche notizia dallo shard di OpenUru.org Minkata. La Vita Reale
è stata dura sin da maggio, perciò scarsi progressi sono stati possibili. Alcuni dei contenuti di Minkata sono fuori sincronia con i server MO:ULa di Cyan. Questo si manifesta durante una nuova installazione: la gente lanciava il client Minkata, ed esso si lamentava di non riuscire a trovare dei file.
Rarified si prenderà il weekend per portare le cose su Minkata di nuovo in sincronia. Quando il server sarà aggiornato, le installazioni funzionanti esistenti di Minkata smetteranno di funzionare, dovrete di nuovo copiare i file del gioco da MO:ULa. Istruzioni saranno postate nella sezione dello shard del forum OpenUru.org.
Poi, le correzioni che erano sottoposte a test su Minkata sono rimaste ad aspettare per un po’; Cyan ha sviluppato un meccanismo automatico per acquisire gli aggiornamenti dallo shard, ma a Minkata mancava la sua parte della pipeline. Rarified spera di inviare tutte le patch (inclusa la correzione per il mouse sotto Windows 10) a Cyan perché siano rilasciate sul server MO:ULa tra qualche giorno.
Dopodiché, tornerà a lavorare al server Minkata-Alpha, dove i primi contenuti dei fan dovrebbero apparire per il testing.
Korov’ev ha dovuto concludere la sessione degli oratori annunciando la dipartita dell’esploratore Zander the Heretic, alias Zanda. Era uno dei primi esploratori della Caverna, a partire almeno dal 2006
E questo è tutto per questo mese. Non scordatevi di donare per tenere aperta la Caverna!
La prossima Riunione Generale delle Gilde è prevista per sabato 7 settembre alle 21:00 CEST.
Alla prossima!
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Il 9 febbraio Myst Online: Uru Live (again) sarà stato online per 9 anni, più delle ere Ubisoft (2003–04) e Gametap (2007–08) insieme! Molti esploratori sono venuti e se ne sono andati, ci sono stati drammi, ma pur perdendo più volte la Caverna siamo ancora qua!
Per festeggiare l’occasione, il fine settimana sarà pieno di eventi (in alcuni casi saranno usati dei bot per trasportare gli esploratori: il n. KI di Mir-o-Bot è 32319, quello di Magic Bot è 27527):
Per maggiori info, aggiornamenti, foto degli eventi e commenti, vedete il calendario e visitate il thread del forum (o quello italiano – grazie Davide!) di MO:ULa o il gruppo Facebook.
Ci si vede lì!
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