Call for stories from the Uru Community

I fear I'm not a good story-teller, I wish I was.  It's a gift really, and one that embodies and communicates the values of a community... story-telling is an important part of what holds a community together.  We affirm, celebrate, castigate, discuss, debate, and just enjoy our contact together when we tell stories.  We'd like to call on the Uru community to share some of their stories here, as a celebration of the many wonderful (and less-so) events that brought us together.

I've thought about about my favorite story... and there are so many that are so important to me, and possibly one or two others.  I feel I owe so much to the Uru community, and to so many who helped build and guide it... and, of course, the many who are now pals (Khatie and Deg and Maztec and mszv and Tweek and Alahmnat and Srikandi and Dus and Soosi and June and Tae and Stung and Shaeri and so many more...).  But for me, the story I want to tell is of the contests, and the Photoplay contest in particular that we did when we were at the old Mystworlds site.  And it's not much of a story really, remember I'm not good at story-telling?  But what happened was a contest where people submitted screenshots or images with captions that were generally pretty funny.  Seemed like a good idea at the time, get people involved and create some fun new content for people to enjoy and all... But the reaction blew me away, and still makes me proud.  Such a tremendous outpouring of creativity, so many clever and funny and wonderful contributions, so many members of the community who added something unique and good for everyone to enjoy.  It was delightful, and still is a very warm memory for me, and one that illustrates how much potential a healthy community has, and how rarely people get the chance to express it.

Well, like I said, there are certainly better story tellers around!  Want to add yours to the comments below?

Comments

[Eleri]

You should check out this:
http://echomck.wordpress.com/

[Tweek]

The photoplay contest was neat, I'm always amazed at how creative the community can be when they put their minds to it.

I used to enjoy the games of hide and seek the chatters of Cyan Chat would put together, more specifically the game in Teledahn where the buckets broke whilst Zadok was hiding inside them trapping him inside sending him around and around. I still read the log of that every now and then and can't help but laugh.

[Deg]

Some of my favorite Uru memories are from the year leading up to Uru's original release. D'ni Guild would release the mosaic puzzle screenshots. The DRC Site would talk about a new way of linking and leak out a few photos. The excitement and magic of "D'ni is real and we're finally going to get to go there" was amazing.

I still remember the first time I saw another person in the Cavern. And the Bahro Glyph tours. And the time I watched Sharper and a group of friends tear into the Pub. And trying to figure out the puzzle that took a half-dozen people to solve. And arguing with Sharper about reading his journal. And listening to Phil. And exploring Ages with my brother. And hearing from friends about the latest Relto page to find. So many friends and memories in Uru.

[Maztec]

I remember a few things distinctly.

First, the D'LA. Put together with Ron and Katie's help. The events and activities were wonderful. The politics sucked. Particularly the politics involving the Guild of Greeters. I never did figure out why the D'LA was such a threat to them. Bu this is not the place to dig that up.

One person from the GoG was awesome. Pepsi. She really bridged the gap between the two organizations. She did a lot of amazing work and really motivated people to help out and participate. Pepsi encouraged the development of the D'lA Olympics. As they were coming together she passed away.

The other stories are a bit more mundane. There was the H'uru group of hackers who attempted to keep the game going after it died. Some bitter sweet tales there. They really did a lot of work to keep things going. Unfortunately they never received official approval from Cyan. They developed the first user server, to be replaced by Cyan's servers as soon as they realized it would happen anyway. They generated user created content. All they ever wanted was to help Cyan out and make new things possible. All they ever got was the cold shoulder, ignored, and vague threats.

Finally, the number of people out there - meeting them, making games out of a world that didn't really have any. The imagination was great.
Sadly, I believe it is time and appropriate for Uru to die and things to move on. I think others are working on similar ideas that are better, stronger, and will ultimately go further.

For the future.

[BladeLakem]

My favorite story is watching the community solve Negilahn. I was always fascinated by the process of collaborative discovery. Watching people realize that this wasn't somethign you could jsut solve on your own by plugging away at the puzzle for an hour or two. Rather, there was something that required real scientific observation and drawing conclusions from available data. And the communtiy figured out the details before the puzzle pieces that made them clear was available.

In a very real way, this was real archaeology, scientific method in action. No one else liked the Pod ages, but to me Negilahn will always be a symbol of the real power of the players and the Collective Detective.

[Sorceress]

One of my favorite stories of MOUL was the story of Wheely Engberg's final days (as morbid as that sounds). From her disappearance to her death, I was glued to this game and community like I'd never been before. The explorers seemed most engaged, people rushing to offer her help, telling visitors what the latest development was, sharing memories of what she was like, even taking turns being in the public city instance so that everyone could get the chance to pay their final respects.

[BladeLakem]

Sorceress, I agree. Scars was really MOUL at its finest. I tip my hat to the writers for that episode.

[Eleri]

My first thing, was the moment I came over that rise, and realized I was looking at OMGTHECLEFT!!! I just about cried. One of the hallmarks of any created world, is the ability for its writers and creators to build a desire in the readers to BE THERE. I can't tell you home many times I'd thought about being able to walk D'ni, not just as The Stranger, but the visialise myself in that world. Uru brought that into a reality.

[Yali]

For me, the best of times was the Mudpie era, leading up to Uru's original release. This was back when Cyan had much of the control over the product, and thus I remember how insanely awesome their early promtional campaign was. There were a handful of real quality screenshots (think Riven). The D'ni Guild site was releasing stills, the Cyan website kicked serious butt in many ways, UO was just in its infancy and begining to thrive as a community.

The images we were getting weren't even of places that would soon appear in ABM, rather much of them were pics of long dreamed of places, that would sadly never make it into Uru, such as the Great Shaft, K'veer, the Tunnels, Noloben, the swamp sea on Teledahn, the Great Red Tree. We were seeing stunning concept art of plazas, the City Proper, massive D'ni structures, strange and bizarre Ages upon Ages more.

I distinctly remember when the community first saw Gahreesen or Teledahn, or when the first screenshot of Gira had been released (that of a plant close up) and we all speculated what the Age might be based on the image. I specifically remember when we all first saw Relto and everyone was going nuts over the possibility of it being Myst Island. I specifically recall going over to the UO gallery daily, and there were these two thumbnails of the Cleft and the Library courtyard with no full image having been released yet, and everyday I'd go back to check if those thumbs were clickable. I remember trying to imagine what those places looked like based on the thumbnails. I didn't come close. :D

Feels literally like yesterday.

[Stungthumbz]

So many wonderful memories! Times sitting in the Neighborhood with friends who are gone. The night we all stayed until Uru closed the first time. Being a refugee in There (and refugees are still welcome There). The Greeter's chat room in the dark, barren time between and then, the City, open again!

I live on a farm, and we have a flock of Guinea Hens, which drive away snakes, and are excellent watch creatures. They have a very stange and very loud alarm cry, which sounds almost exactly like a marker beacon. They roost outside my computer room window. Late one night, when I was running red marker beacons, the entire flock alarmed at the top of their beaks. Sounded like all the marker beacons in the cavern had gone off outside my window. Every hair on my body stood to attention.

Shorah all.

[Taelos Katran]

As a community we have been through a progression of Uru incarnations. The original Uru release, then member created Uru inspired substitutes, followed by Until Uru, then the D'Mala shard and finally the Myst Online: Uru Live product which is being retired. In between there also has been substantial Uru community colonization in other online worlds such as THERE.com and Second Life.

Reflecting on this history for me the most striking moment was the night when the original Uru release was shut down back in February 2004.

It was an evening of joy and fulfillment, surprises and sorrow.

I was able to login to the Atrus shard mid-evening and went straight to the "The Meeting Place" hood. We splashed in our neighborhood fountain, jumped and danced. Astar was sweet enough to invite me to her Gira age. Woops of joy as Lahrehkee, San-san, Astar and I jumped of the falls singly and in groups. We splashed each other and swam around, then dried off by the cave lamps. We linked on to Kemo to climb trees and play hide and seek.

Later I was invited to June's Kemo age to wait out the final hours. We were visited by many and were glad they stopped in. Some left their avatars to die with us because due to time zone constraints they had to leave before the axe fell.

As the hours grew short we all busied ourselves with hide and seek, eating tasty fish, laughing at jokes, smiling, hugging, and crying. The group I was with all held our heads high and went out with dignity. We were together with each of our Uru family who where not there, in sprit and love.

I feel blessed and honored to have spent that final evening with such outstanding people. The TMP hood explorers I had met in my short time with the original Uru release are the best of the best. They changed me and broadened my views on the definition of family, neighborhood, community and friendship. I will cherish those memories forever.

Now four years later I realize that moment in time was not an ending. It was only a beginning. Because of that collective experience, the Uru Community was galvanized and set on a course which has caused it to become today a force bigger than all the Uru software Cyan has been able to bring to bear. We have become Uru. The future is no longer in Cyan’s hands. The Uru product perhaps is over but the Uru Community lives on.

Long live our Uru Community.

Taelos