Mother Earth Day & the D’ni new Year

Minasunda was first, to announce three events for late April:

• Saturday 18, 13:00 KIT, Mir-o-Bot’s Eder Gira – Nulp Dance Show “Mother Earth” (stream);
• Tuesday 21, 13:00 KIT, Magic Greet Tree Pub – D’ni New Year 9676 light show by Yoda (stream);
• Wednesday 22, 13:00 KIT, Mir-o-Bot’s Eder Gira – Mother Earth Day Dance Party (stream).

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).

Cavern Tours

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!

Radio Free D’ni Remastered

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.

Music To Make You Smile

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.

State of Minkata

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.

Fan Age Touring Club

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.

• On March 29 the club visited Takla Ma’kan: it was a mighty run through the puzzles and they still did not manage to see all of it.
• On April 5 they will be visiting Jo’nae, by Jonnee, and possibly go back to see that last part of Takla they missed.
• April 12 will continue with Jo’nae Hood; the week after that, it will be the turn of a few Ages by Nadnerb.

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.

Cyan news

• March ended with an excellent CavFunding of 175%. There was a very large donation, but also a 30% increase in the server costs because of the greater data transfer cost (from lots of new explorers!) and SMS text message costs (also from lots of new explorers!).
• Greydragon recently traveled to Boston with Numinous Games to show AREA MAN LIVES at PAX East. A post-show interview with the team about the game and their experience at PAX East was posted on the Cyan website.
• In these times of COVID-19, the Cyantists decided to show off some of their home workspaces.
• Obduction is coming to the Xbox: it will be available on April 10, but you can get a 20% discount if you pre-order it prior to launch.
• They also added a bunch of new Obduction items to the Cyan store: everything is currently 20% off.
• Firmament is still making progress! Cyan wished to give more behind-the-scenes looks at the making of the game, which has been kind of difficult this last month. They have some ideas, and they will share them in the coming weeks.

Explorers memorial

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.

Addendum: D’ni Language Classes

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.

r’Tayrtahn’s Story Nights

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!

International Women’s Day

Nosila was first, to announce the music events for the International Women’s Day – just on the day most of the U.S. switches to daylight time, unfortunately!

• 14:00 KIT, Ae’gura Plaza – Root Beer, from Radio Free D’ni, will play tracks played, sung or composed by female musicians (stream1, stream2);
• 15:30 KIT, Ae’gura Plaza – Ghaelen will give a brief talk about two influential women in history;
• 15:35 KIT, Kings’ Lookout – Nosila will play a mix of music by female artists (stream1, stream2).

Cavern Tours

CT Hostess Susa’n was on stage to announce the third Cavern Tour of 2020, on Saturday 14 at 11:00 KIT, starting from the Cavern Tour’s Hood.

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 upcoming tour will also feature special effects from Mir-o-Bot you may not have seen or heard before.

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!

St. Patrick’s Day

Minasunda was back to announce the parades for St. Patrick’s Day on Tuesday 17:

• 12:00 KIT – Ghaelen will set the mood with her Relaxing & Balancing Hour;
• 13:00 KIT – first parade, led by Eternal Seeker;
• 17:00 KIT – second parade, no leader has been picked yet; volunteers are welcome.

In between, it will be Irish music dance party time! Last year the public instance of Ae’gura was pushed to the limit of its capacity, some players could not take part in the parade. For this reason, this year the venue will be Mir-o-Bot’s Ae’gura (KI# 32319).

Minasunda regularly posts reminders about Uru events on her Facebook group.

Inauguration of Veelay Tsahvahn

Doobes took the stage to announce the release of version 27 of the Gehn Shard, which came with a year and a half worth of fixes and additions, including an upgraded voice chat that sounds much clearer. A remarkable amount of work behind the scenes goes into these fixes.

Most notably, this release unveiled Doobes’ own Chiso Preniv, the Library Age, available from the Nexus, and a revamped New Guild of Messengers’ Pub; both are the first to be natively exported using the Korman plugin for Blender. The Pub no longer replaces Cyan’s version, but is now reached from Chiso Preniv, which also has books for Tre’bivdil, Vothol Gallery, Fehnir’s House, and any future release from fans.

But yet another Age was unveiled right after the meeting: Veelay Tsahvahn, the Memorial Age, designed as an extension of the Memorial in the Kahlo Pub, by providing more background to the names displayed there. Veelay also features a poignant theme written by Mystler.

For more on Doobes’ Ages, visit his site and Facebook page.

Explorers memorial

In what has become a grim tradition, Korov’ev had to report the passing of yet another explorer: Gary Andrew “Andy” Legate, prolific and respected Age builder, author or contributor of Camp Bravo, Zephyr Cove, Andy’s Nexus, Ahra Pahts shell 315, Serene, Eder Bahvahnin, Neolbah, Eder Tomahn, Eocene. He also wrote many tutorials for 3ds Max and Blender, which taught the basics of modelling to many Age builders.

Fan Age Touring Club

Korov’ev then announced the Fan Age Tours he is hosting on the Deep Island shard, every Sunday at 11:00 KIT (except in March, when they will be at 12:00 KIT), to explore fan-made Ages, share impressions, try to find secrets, and get started with the puzzles if any.

The Ages will be explored in roughly chronological order of release, but occasionally will be based on a theme or an author. After the expeditions, the participants will be able to share their observations in dedicated threads in the Guild of Writers’ forums.

To remember Andy Legate the next tour, Sunday 8 at 12:00 KIT, will visit some of his works: Camp Bravo (day and night), Eder Bahvahnin, Eder Tomahn, Serene.

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. Ultimately the hope is also that, by seeing these Ages, more people will be inspired to create their own.

Setting up a Deep Island client can be a bit tricky in some situations; a quick guide is available in our Troubleshooting section.

Somahoglahn

Originally, the destination for the Sunday 8 Fan Age Tour was the fourth episode in the Secret of the Rainbow series by Jhon J. Jaguar, Somahoglahn, which was released on March 1. The Age will be visited on the next tour, on Sunday 15.

Cyan news

The MOULa Launcher got a small update, finally fixing the login screen, with a funding indicator: not the CavCon, but a simple percentage of costs covered.

Early in February, Chogon released some worrying statistics about the Cavcon: donations had not been covering the server costs at least since June 2019. However, by the end of February, donations were again above costs!

Marker games are still disabled, until an issue that is causing the server to crash is fixed. All we can do is be patient until a solution is found.

The Facebook account API, that was used to verify a cell/mobile phone with a text message, was replaced with Amazon’s AWS equivalent.

Meanwhile, a new Cyan Venture has been announced: Area Man Lives, from Numinous Games. An Alternate Reality Game connected to it is ongoing, started with the address to KQV Radio that appears in the teaser. The mystery is being investigated on the #areamanlives channel of the Cyan Chat Discord server.

Mysterium

Registration and hotel reservations for Mysterium 2020 are now open. The hotel will be the Westin Alexandria Old Town in Alexandria, VA, with a rate of $100/night for both single and double rooms.

From now until May 31, weekend registrations cost $25, while premium registrations (weekend + shirt) cost $40. Starting June 1, the price will increase and the T-shirts will not be available for pre-order.

This year the T-shirts feature designs from Katherine “Squee” White and Claire “Shoom’lah” Hummel.

Submissions for events, enamel pins, activity book pages, as well as writing and artwork, are still open but will end soon. This year, submission are handled with a new rights policy.

D’ni Language Classes

Shokhootahn Rehn gave two announcements, one for the D’ni Language Classes and one for the Story Nights.

r’Tayrtahn’s Story Nights

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.

Due to traveling, there will be no Story Night – Europe on March 28. Original Story Night is unaffected.

And that was it for this month. Please consider donating to keep the Cavern open!

The next All Guilds Meeting is planned for Saturday, April 4, 2020 (Leenovoo 17) at 13:00 KIT.

Until then!

In the opening ceremony, Ghaelen D’Lareh retold the last minutes of the closure of Prologue, back on February 9, 2004, and the first days of MOULa’s reopening on February 8, 2010.

In the Door Run competition, team A was the winner (2′45″), followed by team B (3′06″) and team C (3′38″). Team A included ghoul (caller), Ro”Jethhe, Malim Praedari, Boywhith, Jet Blast, allie page, Rhys, maree. Team B included Kneb (caller), etelka, Sleeper Jan, Mak Raves, Adrian Green, ondine, Boris, aqua. Team C included Susa’n (caller), thoekenem, Maleficent, EthanEver, PodHopper, Mevvah, angelmyst, Umo.

Each team suffered from setbacks: team A suffered from a lag spike at the very last symbol; team B suffered interference from a mean person/people; team C had little practice, the most substitutes, and a position swap.

On Saturday, for the Cavern Tour, for the first time Larry LeDeay streamed the event through his Twitch channel. Despite technical difficulties for a few attendees, the new format was on the whole a success. The stream is not meant to replace actually being there, but will allow showing extra materials that would otherwise not be possible.

The NULP Dance Show (featuring Aeonihya, Calisia, Claidi Song, Lu*, Mabe, Roland, Eternal Seeker, Willy, tsuno) was, as always, excellent and perfectly color-coordinated. The music was provided by Piboc, who was present at the show.

For the Story Night Special, in the Baron’s office, r’Tayrtahn recounted Douglas Sharper’s experience with the restoration, and the rising tension that led to the bahro incident.

On Sunday, in the Fashion Show competition, five contestants won the votes of the public: Ondine was 1st, with 32 %; Kamikatze, Claidi Song and Mabe were 2nd ex aequo, with 16 %; Aristocat was 3rd, with 8 %.

For the Explorer Memorial, Ghaelen read the names of the explorers we lost along the way; 2019 was a particularly hard year, with the loss of Tai’lahr. Korov’ev took the occasion to remind everyone that he took charge of keeping the OpenUru page updated, so if you know of names that are missing, please contact him.

Closing the weekend, of course, Yoda performed a Magic Show on the cliff in Kadish Tolesa, followed by a dance party in the Pyramid.

A big thank you to the organisers: Minasunda, Eternal Seeker, PodHopper, Larry, Fil, Donahoo, the participants at the contests, and to all the explorers, in the Cavern or on the Surface, who keep making Uru the unique place it is.

In other news

• On the aftermath of the announcement of the official forums closure, Yali announced the revival of RivenGuild. The initiative was greeted with mixed reactions, some rejoicing at seeing the return of one of the most beloved fan hubs, others worrying it will never be the same. Cautious optimism!
• A couple days later than expected, the MOULa and Cyan forums are now read-only. Chogon announced that the previously hidden MOUL beta sections of the forum, including the GameTap Live Rehearsals, have been made visible to everyone.
• On the first day of the anniversary celebrations, Korov’ev suggested the idea of an Ahyoheek tournament, to be held sometime Soon. Not much has yet been planned, but stay tuned if you are interested!
• A new Cyan Venture has been announced: Area Man Lives, from Numinous Games!
• Rel.to is back! At the time of this post, most of the links point to websites that do not exist anymore. In the following days and weeks, each link will be checked, and new ones will be added.

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:

Thursday 6

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).

Friday 7

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).

Saturday 8

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.

Sunday 9

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.

Windows 10 mouse bug patcher

Korov’ev started the meeting by mentioning Sirius’ improved fix for the Windows 10 bug that breaks moving the avatar with the mouse.

The UruHook is no longer required: you drop a DLL in a folder inside MO:ULa’s one and just forget about it.

Keep in mind that when the client will be patched, you will need to remove it or you will get the problem back. It will also likely conflict with other hooks like ReShade.

Download and source links are in the MO:ULa forum thread.

Sunday Music Sessions

Max was back to announce three new Sunday Music Sessions, each one with a different theme. The planned dates are:

• November 3: Chasing Ghosts – a Post-Halloween party
  to chase out all the undead, evil spirits and ghosts out of the Cavern;
• November 17: MO:UL (Prologue) Anniversary
  a bit of a birthday party or just an excuse to have fun and play some good music;
• December 1: Winter Is Coming – Christmas special
  a time to play some seasonally suited tunes, some of which you might not have heard before.

For more info and comments, visit the MO:ULa forum thread.

Guild of Writers

Two announcements came from the GoW. The first one was a survey, with which the Guild hopes to get a better picture of the Community and the game. It takes little time to fill, is completely anonymous (so do not cheat and answer more than once!), and above all it will be of great help to better focus priorities. The results will of course be public.

The second announcement was the release of Korman 0.09, with 35 commits, about 1000 lines changed and a slew of fixes and updates, including:

• added the ability to create and link new Logic Nodes from each node socket;
• added the “GatherBuild” asset control file to exported MOUL age packages;
• changed Logic Node trees to be safe to reuse in multiple Advanced Logic modifiers without specifying specific nodes;
• and many more.

This release is not yet compatible with Blender 2.80, it requires 2.79b. For more info, check the GoW thread.

MO:ULa assets open for modification

Doobes was back to talk about the announcement from Cyan that MO:ULa assets are now open for updating and modification.

This is big news for those in the Age building community, as they have been wanting this for years. The only downside is that Cyan has chosen not to provide the original 3ds Max files, which is of course their prerogative.

That leaves it up to Age builders to reverse-engineer the assets. So in that spirit, Doobes have begun the process of converting some of the Ages to Korman-ready files for Blender! He has two so far: K’veer and the original Guild of Messengers’ Pub.

This was made possible by the work of Sirius, who developed the next generation of PRP importer: the ZLZ URU Importer. This handy little tool imports everything almost perfectly into Blender 2.79 for wiring with Korman. Doobes has also successfully tested this on Myst V Ages as well, even discovering an Urwin hiding in Direbo!

The goal is to get these Ages one to one with their 3ds Max counterparts using Korman, or as close as possible. Then – assuming Cyan needs to look at them first – Doobes will release them to the public so anyone can take a crack at improving upon them. The first Ages will be the original Guild Pubs, as they are the ‘easiest’, relatively speaking.

Anyone who would also like to pitch in, is very much encouraged to do so! If you find any Korman bugs in the process, you can pass them along to the GoW as well. There are still a few things needed to get the Ages exactly one to one with their originals, so it might take time for the more complicated Ages like Ae’gura.

The Writers will be working closely with Cyan to make sure they are on the same page.

Ages of Doobes

Doobes has been working hard on one of his many planned Ages, called Veelay Tsahvahn aka the Memorial Age. It will be an extension of the Memorial you can see in the Kahlo Pub in Ae’gura; a place where the explorers can gather to remember and mourn those explorers who have passed away.

Recently we have lost a few more good people, including Tai’lahr, who was active in a great many things, including creating a wiki page that greatly expanded upon the names on the aforementioned Kahlo Pub memorial. So it is only fitting that Veelay Tsahvahn will be one of the first Ages Doobes plans to submit to Cyan for MO:ULa.

Doobes has redoubled his efforts to finish the Age, and plans to submit it to a few choice people to go over and scrutinize, before sending it off to Cyan to test on the staging shard. From there, it will be just a matter of figuring out how to allow access to the Age, i.e. where the book will go.

To keep updated on Doobes’ work, check his blog and his Facebook page.

Explorers memorial

Besides Tai’lahr, in October we also lost explorer June “JuneTMP” Shaputis.

Korov’ev have been semi-officially put in charge of the Explorers Memorial and In Memoriam wiki pages on OpenUru.org. Having joined the community rather late, he would like you to contact him if you have details to contribute, especially links.

State of Minkata

On Sunday 10 there will be a meeting at 12:00 KIT, in Kirel, for anyone interested in providing time, skill, and energy into getting the fan content pipeline in shape. The plan is to make this meeting a monthly event.

Mysterium

The Mysterium 2020 date has been finally decided: August 7 to 9! As for the venue, the Committee is in the final negotiations, and will announce it soon.

The theme will be, for the first time, about Revelation: ‘Haven and Spire’. Red and blue, Sirrus and Achenar, crystals and mangrees… a bit of everything brotherly.

As for this year’s edition, thanks to Taniith who sifted through hundreds of GBs of footage, all the panels are now available on Youtube, while the lyrics and poems from the Open Mic Night are available on Google Drive.

D’ni Language Classes

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 winter; nighttime classes are unaffected.

• Those who would like to attend the lessons should contact Rehn via PM or KImail (KI# 58324); be sure to include your KI number in the message!
• Shokhootahn Rehn tries to be in the Hood most days at 10:00 KIT and 20:00 KIT to answer questions regarding the current lesson;
• the Guild of Instructors’ Hood will be open and public unless a class is in session, currently on Thursday and Friday nights, starting at 20:00 or 21:00 KIT, depending on the student’s schedule;
• the left-hand imager and Magic Bot are employed to announce last-minute changes to class times: to get notified, add him as a buddy (KI# 27527), then send him a PM with the word “advert”. If Magic Bot is not online, you can send a PM to Mimi Bot (KI# 71459).

r’Tayrtahn’s Story Nights

Story Nights – Europe will continue with the events from the Restoration. Original Story Nights will continue with part 4 of the fan fiction “Jae’s Journey”.

November 9 will also be the start of the bi-annual Bahro Glyph Tour! The tour will last for two weeks, finishing on November 16.

• Story Nights are held in Tsahno’s Hood every Saturday night, gathering at the fountain at around 23:00 KIT, with the story starting at about 23:30 KIT;
• for Story Nights – Europe, the gatherings are on Saturday starting at 13:30 KIT, with the story starting at about 14:00 KIT. On All Guilds Meeting days, the event will begin at 14:30 KIT or 30 minutes after the end of the meeting;
• the stories are told using voice chat, so you will need to have your speakers, headphones or KI devices on. If you would like a reminder, please send r’Tayrtahn (KI# 58324) a KI mail with your KI number included in the text, so that he can add you to his buddies list;
• Magic Bot is employed to announce last-minute changes to Story Night times: to get notified, add him as a buddy (KI# 27527), then send him a PM with the word “advert”. If Magic Bot is not online, you can send a PM to Mimi Bot (KI# 71459).

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, December 7 (Leevobro 9) at 13:00 KIT.

Until then!

*****

On this night, I find myself having to craft a very sad announcement. And yet because of whom it is for, it is one I suspect that she would have wanted worded as a celebration of life and transcendence. For those that are unaware, on last Wednesday, the 16th of October of this year, our esteemed companion Tai’lahr passed beyond the veil of this mortal coil to begin her explorations in whatever lies beyond.

I don’t know if my poor words can do justice to the mixed feelings so many of my fellow explorers are likely experiencing throughout the various incarnations of Myst and Uru within the multiverse. That being the case, I will do my utmost to capture and reflect on her various contributions to those of us here at the Guild of Messengers as an example highlighting her dedicated years of service to others and the community at large.

Many of you may be unaware, but Tai’lahr was there at the very beginning of the modern incarnation of GoMe. She worked with Marten and the other early members to craft our mission statement as it exists today. Shortly thereafter, she was appointed as our liaison to the Guild of Greeters, a role which suited her nicely, as she was always helpful and kind to any other explorers she would come across in her travels. She was always willing to patiently listen to their troubles whether it was surface plight or cavern puzzle.

Without such valuable connections from her assistance and support, the various memorable events such as the Anniversary and Cavcon parties might not have been the brilliant successes they were. She also was there to relay messages and ki-mails to other explorers during various instances when the Criers were active within the Cavern. She tirelessly worked with Leonardo and a handful of other Messengers to keep Rel.to up to date and running smoothly to help keep the various community members connected. Lastly, but most definitely not of minor importance to me, was Tai’s assisting of my research into the Guild’s membership throughout its various periods of activity over the years. All of that being said, I must turn to Tai’lahr and her words of reflection during her time with us as a fellow Messenger:

“I’ve never been a truly active Messenger in the way that I think of Messengers (writing of articles & delivering the news). I’ve always felt more like a guild supporter, doing odd jobs here and there as needed, participating in discussions and offering unsolicited advice. [wink]

But, now I have the keys to rel.to and have been working on updating that, so I guess that should count for something. [angel]

And, if the guild should ever want to take on the role of community history custodians (community history, not D’ni history), then I would definitely be of value there. Documenting our shared history is what occupies the majority of my time right now.

But, if there’s something you need, Nev’yn, please don’t hesitate to ask.“

That last sentence hits me particularity hard, for it highlights the heart and soul we all loved but all too often forgot to cherish in Tai’lahr: her selfless giving of her time, caring, and support in any project she was involved in. I will not lie, she and I were not as close these last few years. My surface life has kept me busy and often away from the cavern, combined with the fact so many of our friends there have moved on to more interesting places.

Still, like a traveler in foreign land, every so often, one likes to return to the place where fond memories of the heart still reside, our cavern home of the deep city. It saddens me in the extreme to know that one of our most devoted allies and beloved comrades will not be there to welcome any of us back the next time we travel there for a visit to Ae’gura.

Upon reflection of her words above, I must ask myself if she devoted so much of her time to that final project because of her own ill-health. She never spoke of it to me, or any of the other Messengers to my knowledge. If so, she did not slacken in her continual support of the community of Myst and Uru fans wherever they might have resided. For that, I will always be thankful for the time I had with her, and the value she brought to various guilds, community projects she participated in, and individual explorers she met.

To our friend and fellow Messenger, Terri “Tai’lahr” Richardson, on behalf of the Guild I wish for you and your family to know you have our grateful thanks for all the support you provided and friendship you shared with each one us. Know that we miss your presence terribly, and that wherever you may be, we are wishing you many safe journeys.

Shorah b’shemtee.

Halloween Party

Minasunda started the meeting with the announcement of the Halloween event, October 31 at 13:00 KIT (an hour earlier, in most of Europe) in Mir-o-Bot’s Ae’gura; to join the event, PM “meet” to Mir-o-Bot (KI# 32319).

It will be a scary hike through the city; to ensure a smooth process, please do not use magic commands during the event. Eternal Seeker will lead this hike. At the end of the horror hike Mir-o-Bot will link us everyone to Descent, where there will be a dance party with Yoda’s wonderful effects. Eternal Seeker will provide the music.

Uru Live 10th Anniversary

Minasunda then reminded the crowd of a major anniversary, coming in February next year: MO:ULa will be in its tenth year online!

The festive weekend is planned to start on Friday, February 7 to Sunday 9; if that (hopefully) won’t be enough, the celebrations will start earlier. Let your ideas run wild and let her know so she can get an overview and set up a preliminary timetable. Do not wait too long, time flies fast!

You can contact her by KI mail, in the forum, on Facebook or by e-mail (lusabi[at]aol.com).

The Nulp Dance Group is preparing a show, this time in the Great Zero. The choreography and the stage techniques are finished, the dancers are arranged and rehearsals are already running.

State of Minkata

Rarified was next, to summarize the in-game gathering “What can you offer for Minkata?”. While no new volunteers showed up, many of the contributors were there, so the discussion moved to some of the current bottlenecks in getting things done. Rarified is ‘cautiously optimistic’ they opened some new thinking on the processes of moving things from contributors to Minkata, and eventually on MO:ULa.

An update is in the works from the Guild of Writers that will try some of the new tactics discussed. An annoucement will be made on the OpenUru.org forum, when that is ready for testing.

Fan Ages

Korov’ev announced that Writer Melvin just released four new Ages: Palamary bay, Peridia, MYST Refuge, and The Ruins of Azmar. Collectively, they are part of the Path of the Lost Ages. They can be downloaded from this link, and are probably only suitable for the offline version.

Cyan’s Lore Project

With the help of the people of Inkworks Productions (Blade, Eleri, Alahmnat and others), Cyan is working to centralize all of the lore about the Myst universe.

In order to do this though they need your help. Documents, forums, chatlogs, emails can provide knowledge into the people and events going on at any given time. If these logs are not saved, if forums go down and or community websites stop to exist we lose all of that information to the aether.

So: do you have an old RAWA email talking about lore? Do you have information on a lore related item from the LYST? Did you have a conversation with Rand or RAWA that include answers to lore questions? Cyan want all of these things. Chatlogs from Uru Live, images of DRC members, live events. All of it.

They are not looking for speculation, or suggestions; rather, the aim is to gather all of the canon that may have fallen through the cracks. If there is a resource online, just send Cyan the URL instead of the document. Double-check on some of the community resources to see if your information has already been recorded, and consider helping fill out the wikis.

If it is an email thread, try to include the full thread, but remove personal email addresses, etc. Metadata (where it comes from, the date it happened, how you acquired it, etc.) would be excellent.

At this time Cyan will not be answering questions about lore. However, in the future the Lore Project’s efforts will be available to the public, so save those questions!

You can submit lore items to lore[at]cyan.com. You may receive follow up emails with questions, but if you don’t get any, assume that the item was taken and is being curated.

The book props

In a recent Reddit post, Grey Dragon showed photos and titles of all the linking book props used in the Myst series. They are:

• Myst book: Harper’s New Monthly Magazine. Vol. LIV (Dec 1876 to May 1877), 1877.
• Riven descriptive book: Webster’s Unified Dictionary and Encyclopedia, 1953–1954.
• Trap book: Harold Lamb. Omar Khayyam: A Life. Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., 1936.
• Linking book Atrus brings at the end of Riven: Mary Nourse. Ferment in the Far East. The Robbs-Merrill Company, Inc.
• The book Nelah hands you in Tay: Douglas Clyde Macintosh. The Pilgrimage of Faith in the World of Modern Thought. University of Calcutta, 1931.
• Burned books: Mike McAlary. Buddy Boys / Robert S. Eliot & Dennis L. Breo. Is It Worth Dying For?

Grey Dragon clarified that the books were chosen solely for their appearance, titles or content have no relation to the lore.

Mysterium

Korov’ev reminded the crowd about sending photos, videos, album links, and any lyrics you may have written for the Open Mic Night. The Committee have heard only from a handful of people, and would love to share all of those with the whole community.

Video editing is taking longer than expected – they have over 300 GB of footage – but is proceeding. The videos will be uploaded on the Mysterium YouTube channel.

The location for the next edition will be Washington, DC – for the first time ever. Next year’s edition will also be returning to the traditional schedule, ending midday on Sunday (around 1:00 PM).

The Committee will also rotate, with no less than three chairs: Capella and Drew will be joined by a relative newcomer, Dan. Nicknamed the Mysterium Triumvirate, they hope to combine their enthusiasm and Myst and community knowledge to make one of the best Mysterium conventions yet. Taniith will take a well deserved rest after his hard work this year.

There were several other VIPs who wanted to come to this year’s edition, but couldn’t make it for one reason or another. One of those people is Geneviève Lord, the Producer on Myst IV: Revelation. She got in touch with several of the concept artists who worked on Revelation and asked them if they had any concept art.

Sure enough, she was able to get artwork from Andrzej Tutaj, Meinert Hansen and Stéphane Turgeon, and with Ubisoft’s blessing, she was able to share that artwork with the Community!

r’Tayrtahn’s Story Nights

Korov’ev, on behalf of r’Tayrtahn, announced that Story Night – Europe was canceled for October 5 due to unexpected traveling. Original Story Night was unaffected.

This week, there will be a special Story Night presentation during Original Story Night.

The bi-annual Bahro Glyph Tour will be held sometime during the month of November. There will be more details given during the November AGM.

Explorer memorial

Korov’ev had to close the speaker session by announcing that explorer Jason ‘Ja’run’ Bobyarchick passed away on August 29 at the age of 34, a victim of gun violence. He was one of the early explorers and beta testers of the Cavern.

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, November 2 at 13:00 KIT.

Until then!

Mysterium

The Meeting opened with a recap of all the things that happened at the Myst/Uru community convention Mysterium. Many of the panels were streamed on Twitch and are currently available here. As soon as they can, the Committee will copy those videos to the YouTube channel.

Fissure parties

Back to the Cavern, two Fissure parties were held right after the Meeting, with reahrotahn and thoekenem. Fissure parties are events where people gather in someone’s Relto, to celebrate the conclusion of the First Journey (spoilers!).

Magic Skydiving

Next was Mister Magic’s latest project: a skydiving-oriented robot! With Magic Skydiver, aerobatics will have no more secrets for the explorers, who will be given flying certificates by participating in missions assisted by an instructor, starting from the first level of ‘Initiate’.

Lushun is translating the game into English. No special client will be required. The opening evening of the Magic High School of Skydiving will be around the end of the month. You can find more info and tips on the Uru Magic Worlds Facebook group.

State of Minkata

Rarified was back with some news from the OpenUru.org shard Minkata. Real Life has been hard since May, so little progress was possible. Some of the content on Minkata has been out of sync with the Cyan MO:ULa servers. This manifested during a new installation: people started the Minkata client, and it complained about being unable to load files.

Rarified will take the weekend to bring things on Minkata back into sync. Once the server will be updated, an existing working installation of Minkata will no longer work, you will need to copy the game files again from MO:ULa. Instructions will be posted on the shard section of the OpenUru.org forum.

Next, the fixes that have been under test in Minkata have languished for a while; Cyan developed an automated mechanism to process updates from the shard, but Minkata missed its part of the pipeline. Rarified hopes to submit all the patches (including the Windows 10 mouse fix) to Cyan to be released on the MO:ULa servers in a few days.

After that, he will be back to work on the Minkata-Alpha server, where the first fan content is scheduled to appear for testing.

Explorer memorial

Korov’ev had to close the speaker session announcing the passing of explorer Zander the Heretic, a.k.a. Zanda. He was one of the early explorers of the Cavern, back from at least 2006.

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, September 7 at 13:00 KIT.

Until then!

Saint Patrick’s Day

Minasunda began the speaker session with the parades planned for Paddy Day, on Sunday, March 17:

• 13:00 KIT – the first parade will starts from Ae’gura Plaza, led by Eternal Seeker (stream);
• 14:00 KIT – special Radio Free D’ni show, an hour later than usual (stream);
• 17:00 KIT – Dance Party in the Greeters’ Pub, you will need to get the green shirt from Kirel, as Mir-o-Bot will be on holiday (stream); and
• 19:00 KIT – the second parade will starts from Ae’gura Plaza, led by Fil (stream).

Keep in mind that Daylight Saving Time starts on March 10 in most of the U.S., but on March 31 in most of Europe, so the events will start an hour earlier than usual in Europe.

For further updates, check the MO:ULa forum post by Minasunda.

International Women’s Day

Max outlined the music events for the International Women’s Day on Friday, March 8; they will start at 12:00 KIT and will run until at least 17:00 KIT, and will be hosted, among others, by Minasunda, Ghaelen, Mystitech, AlanDJ and Fil. The definitive schedule will be finalized in the MO:ULa forum post by Max.

The call is for female D’niJs, or tracklists with female artists, or suggestions for tracks composed, played or sung by female artists.

State of Minkata

rarified announced that the Age state retention bug in the OpenUru.org testing shard Minkata has been finally fixed, and the shard is open again!

First, a couple of fixes will soon be sent to Cyan, to be added to MO:ULa. Second, rarified found the mechanism to sync Minkata-alpha (the second shard planned for testing fan content) with regular Minkata: the alpha shard will mirror your progress in the regular shard, but not viceversa. The login will be the same for both shards.

The first goal of Minkata-alpha will be to make the client and fan content compatible with the current MO:ULa client. As the fan Nexus is not yet ready for testing, the initial Minkata-alpha client will be an internal client, that uses a console command to link to fan Ages.

Minkata-alpha is planned to be released in a few weeks. To sign up to the regular shard, visit the OpenUru.org Foundry page.

Ages of Doobes

Doobes was back with a quick update on the Ages he is working on, specifically Veelay Tsahvahn, which is nearly complete and will feature original music composed by Mystler! The track, appropriately titled “House of Reminiscence”, captures the tone Doobes wanted for the Age.

On Mystler’s website you can find the albums he has released so far: The Great Traverse and Seraphim: The Ufumuk Invasion, the latter being the soundtrack to an original sci-fi universe of his creation.

On a sadder note, Doobes mentioned the passing of Jeff Zandi, friend of the Miller brothers and inspiration for the character that greets the explorers by the Airstream in the Cleft. You can read more about him here.

An entry for Zandi has been added to the MO:ULa memorial and in the Veelay Tsahvahn’s journals. Explorers will be able to submit short memories to agesofdoobes[at] gmail[dot]com about any of the explorers and have it added to the journals for all to read.

If a name happens to be missing, the best action is to update the memorial page at OpenUru.org, as updates will regularly be picked up from there.

To keep updated on Doobes’ work, check his blog and his Facebook page.

Ages of Tweek

Tweek gave a quick reminder that the deadline (March 9) for the submissions for Eder Fahsee, his Age dedicated to Myst’s 25th anniversary, is nearing. He is asking explorers for chronicles about their first interactions with Myst and the impact it had on their lives.

Eder Fahsee is planned to be released for offline Uru and any shards willing to host it. To keep updated on Tweek’s work, check his blog and his Facebook page.

The Lost Art

Korov’ev was joined by Nora of the MystyTech team for an update on their machinima, The Lost Art. In the last year they managed to enlist the help of Mirphak and recently Yoda for advanced lighting and special effects, Dulcamara and Doobes for special sets (two of which will appear in future episodes), and Larry LeDeay and Tweek for graphics.

Episodes 7, 8 and 9 are completely filmed and edited, apart from a few pickups; the two things that are holding up their release are the music and the titles sequence. Filming and editing of episodes 10 and 11 are also well along.

If you have a question, or you want to help with the making, you can send an email to enquiries[at] mystitech[dot]de.

Myst25 Kickstarter & Mysterium

Korov’ev then gave a quick update about the Myst25 Kickstarter. Quite a few backers cannot find the inkwell pen: it is in the hidden compartment close to the ‘spine’, on the bottom; there is a flap you can pull. You can see where all the compartments are in this video, and the controls of the linking panel in this diagram.

As for Mysterium, event submissions are now open! The deadline is May 20th. The events include ‘Microtalks’, short (max 10 minutes) presentations covering almost any interesting topics.

The special guest for this year will be Russell Brower, three-time Emmy Award winner, Composer, Musical Director and Conductor. Myst fans will know him best from the Myst 25th Anniversary Kickstarter, for which he composed several Myst-inspired musical pieces available to backers. He is also known for World of Warcraft’s soundtrack.

Mass Mysteria is also close, on Saturday, May 4th in various locations in the U.S. and around the world! Opt-in channels have been added on the Discord server for each location, so that you can communicate with other attendees and decide on plans.

And that was it for this month. Don’t forget to donate to keep the Cavern open! The CavCon status has not been updated yet; internal sources assure that the situation is good, but that can only continue with your help.

The next All Guilds Meeting is planned for Saturday, April 6, 2019 at 13:00 KIT.

Until then!