Let it go
This may be the wrong thing to be saying right now, and I’m betting at least a couple of lynch mobs are forming even as I write this, but here’s what I think should be done about Uru Live’s cancellation:
Let it go.
This is a game that has struggled to manifest itself since day 1, and has been in development for almost 10 years now. It’s been beset by setback after setback, and has now been canceled twice. Whether it was given a fair shake or not is irrelevant; the horse has long since ceased breathing under its own power, and it’s time to stop hitting it with that aluminum bat.
That is not to say, however, that we should give up on the idea of Uru. Uru’s premise and promise are filled with potential untapped by Cyan throughout their numerous efforts to bring Uru to the masses. I believe in the concept of Uru – even if its execution thus far has been flawed to varying degrees – and I believe that it can succeed. Yet in order for it to do that, it must rise from the ashes of its failures as a phoenix, not a zombie.
Uru is too entangled in its own problems, I think, to successfully engage a sufficient number of players and provide a dynamic world capable of satisfying the demands of modern gamers. Its cancelations and single-player releases have been re-incorporated into the game as story elements. The story arc revealing the Bahro for what they were was crammed into a separate game and then further grafted back into Uru as history that most players knew nothing about. Its story and its mechanics have become convoluted over the years, beaten down by the demands placed upon it to keep it alive at all. Worlds have sat unmodified for years now: doors still locked; machines still broken; homes still empty. Systems like the Great Zero calibration project and the lake lighting effort have been hampered by a lack of sufficient automation and feedback from the game. Uru cannot continue like this. It needs to stop.
In its place, new worlds can appear, with new stories, new histories, and new players to experience them. Whatever Uru becomes, it must be more accessible to people who have never picked up a Myst game in their lives, while drinking deep from the reservoirs or material that long-time fans will rightly expect from a game set in the Cavern. It needs to break free of the restrictions placed upon it by the content it is currently saddled with. Take us to the City Proper; let us explore the Lake; give us new, expansive worlds with reactive and dynamic environments. Make D’ni a home, not a place.
All of this can happen, but only if we let Uru as we know it go in peace. If we continue to beat on our horse with an aluminum bat, we will only get more of the same, and while that may be good enough for some folks, its not what Uru is to me. It’s much more than that. Before Uru was Uru, it was MUDPIE, and DIRT before that. I saw it as a way to explore all of those places that I had been to before in the Myst novels; a chance to “live” in the fictional worlds in which I had grown up. And not just explore them by myself, but with the friends I had made in the community; all the while being entertained by Cyan and their masterful storytelling. While in some ways it has outgrown those early expectations in ways I can’t even begin to comprehend thanks to the dedicated community of explorers, it still falls far short on the most important counts for me: exploration and storytelling. Without these things, I don’t think that Uru can ever be successful enough to support itself.
I am deeply sad to see Uru Live shut down for a second time, and I truly hope that the talented folks at Cyan can come up with another project to keep them going, but I think it’s necessary that we let Uru go, so that something even better can take its place. Call me crazy, call me an optimist, call me a traitor to the cause, I really don’t care… I’ve been through this enough times already, and I’m ready for something new.
February 5th, 2008 at 3:15 am
Well said Alah.
I’m just sad to say I really saw very little of the new URU.
I was plagued by technical issues that caused me to give up the dream of being a part of the community that played and interacted with the game.
I’m curious though… without URU what is Cyan’s next project to be?
~L~
February 5th, 2008 at 6:43 am
Honestly Alah, I totally agree with you. Better to let one good thing die, and let a great thing be born in its place. Let’s hope any lessons that can be learned from Uru’s demise will only make the new, if there is a new one, game be better.
I’ll have to admit at the end I was rarely signing in, if at all. Why? I missed the people that weren’t there, as opposed to being open to meeting the new that were there. Is that wrong of me? Perhaps. But hopefully the friendships forged will continue, despite the loss of Uru. I’d really hope that Mysterium, and Mystralia and the European Myst community continue to thrive, and evolve.
February 5th, 2008 at 7:51 am
Perfectly put, Alah. Let’s not mourn the death of what is not, but celebrate the life of what was, and what we share… let’s look ahead together at what can be.
February 5th, 2008 at 9:32 am
“at what point does this stop becoming resuscitation and become necrophilia?” - Joss Whedon
February 5th, 2008 at 9:33 am
Amen.
February 5th, 2008 at 10:24 am
Gonna say just one word (or 12 if you count these words too)
Bravo
February 5th, 2008 at 11:56 am
Agree - great post.
February 5th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
I agree in principle. I would still like a UU not to try and keep Uru alive but so I can still have fun with my friends and enjoy the ages. Also the AdminKI potential here is mind-blowing.
February 5th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
I think that if I have to point out the flaw in MOUL is that the overal concept never sufficiently adapted - to the realities of the market, the technology and, most of all, the fan base.
It is time to let Myst Online go. I don’t see it as time to let Uru go. It just needs to be approached differently.
February 5th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
As sad as it is I agree.
Beside, I’ll be very surprised if any publisher picks up this project after it’s already been canned twice.
February 6th, 2008 at 12:47 am
. chev shem b’fahsee for that, Alafox.
February 6th, 2008 at 11:30 am
There is so much potential within the concept of Uru, but I have not seen it in this incarnation of Uru Live. I kept waiting for story, the kind of story that led me around every corner in Uru CC and Riven, but it never showed up. Snippets, disconnected fragments, a paragraph here, a sentence somewhere else, but no story. Not even any means of linking the paragraphs. I was very frustrated.
February 7th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Amen, Alahmnat. Perhaps it\’s time Cyan moved on to something fresh, and that we content ourselves with a Cyan- and/or fan-run Untìl Uru system–whether there\’s any fresh Cyan content at all, or whether the only new content will be fan-made Ages. Or perhaps there is still a chance for a non-static version of Uru to be hosted by Cyan. I don\’t know. But if Uru is to survive, Uru as it is now has to be left behind. I hope plenty of people in this community will be able to approach Uru’s future as rationally as you, Alah.
February 17th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
Tell it, brother.
February 18th, 2008 at 6:23 am
Agreed. As I posted earlier tonight, shelve it and move on for awhile. Someone else can try to bring the cause back, bot only after figuring out how to make it work better.
–TSK
February 28th, 2008 at 10:41 am
Sorry Ala, I must just respectfully disagree with everything you share, i know you care and others posting in agreement do too about URU and MOUL however i feel that it is a game in evolution and has much promise and much more to do, and if Cyan can continue it, and all depends on that frankly and not what we feel, then I will be in support of it 1000 percent. I know it is hard to see changes, and go through uncertainty but if the community does not support it wholeheartedly it s like driving a stake thru the heart of URU, it takes our faith and support as well as that of Cyan for this concept to evolve. The problems with the game in terms of population limits were being worked on actively it talkes time and data to raise those limits in a game with the quality of game world and content that URU has, and the story was evolving all the time. Just my two cents, and worth barely that much but felt strongly. We must support URU in all forms for it to survive, and it will indeed contiue as long as any of us do. URU LIVES>