Category: Cavern Events

  • October 2022 All Guilds Meeting Summary

    October 2022 All Guilds Meeting Summary

    Here is the summary for the 150th All Guilds Meeting, along with the raw and cleansed chatlogs! This was also the first meeting not held in Kirel, but in Fahets Highgarden.

    Contents

    1. Events in the Cavern
    2. Mysterium
    3. Town Hall
    4. Fan Ages updates
    5. Hacktoberfest
    6. NaNoWriMo
    7. D’ni Language Classes
    8. R’Tayrtahn’s Story Nights
    9. Miscellanea

    Events in the Cavern

    Skyisblu presented her cooking sessions, held each month in the Guild of Caterers’ Hood and streamed on her Twitch channel in both English and French; a chance to get together, learn a new recipe and talk food. Recordings of the streams and the accompanying recipes are available on her weblog.

    IwonK will draw and talk on her Twitch channel on Friday 14 at 15:00 KIT. In Cavern, the gathering will be in the Guild of Cookies’ Hood, around the Ahyoheek table.

    Superabbit announced the creation of the Musicians Guild’s Hood, to promote connection between musicians in the Cavern and to promote fan-created music for fan-created Ages. Links to streams and bandcamp pages will be welcome on the left imager.

    A Cavern Tour will be held on Saturday 29 at 11:00 KIT, starting in the Cavern Tour’s Hood.

    Mysterium

    Events that were streamed via Twitch have been uploaded to YouTube. For a summary of the panels, check our dedicated post.

    Participants were invited to give feedback via a survey. The results say that the Meow Wolf event was appreciated, so they will look into similar locations in the future. Cavern Feud was also very well received, so if they can get more questions they might do it again next year. Finally, a number of people have asked for ASL translation, or captions; an ASL translator may be beyond the budget, but they will look into captioning.

    Mysterium 2023 will be held in Spokane, WA; a precise date was not been decided yet, but could be in late June or early July. The Committee will be formed by Elliot “Taniith” Borenstein and Kelly “Rayne” Coston. Vaccination policy will likely be the same as this year, following CDC guidelines.

    The Mysterium prompt for October is “Spooky”; the deadline is October 31. Winners of the “Sleep, Rest” prompt for September were Redwoodrroad, Calum Traveler, Talashar and Laughingpineapple.

    Town Hall

    The ‘Storytellers’ group held their monthly Town Hall event for players who are interested in keeping tabs on the ongoing IC story.

    Calum Traveler has started to organise the “negotiations with the people of Rei’schu” via Discord, to manage scheduling conflicts between their ‘ambassadors’. The server is set up so that only ‘diplomats’ can post in the active story channels, but there are a few side channels for other people to talk and discuss.

    These logs will be transcribed into a series of journals that will be brought into MOULa.

    Fan Ages updates

    The garden Age of Eder Naybree, the ‘Prologue’ to the ‘Rei’schu arc’, was released in early September.

    Shortly before the All Guilds Meeting another garden Age was released: Fahets Highgarden, by Tweek, who answered a few questions. The statues in the location were a gift from a D’ni artisan called Tommen, who was found stranded upon an Age many years ago after he fled the Fall. The statues were a thank-you gift for freeing him.

    Fahets’ prime Marker, unlike most available Ages, is active but will have to be recalibrated, so coordinates will for now be unreliable.

    The next Age to be released will be another garden Age, Eder Bahvahnter. As now the circle of bookstands in Chiso Preniv is full, older books will be moved to the shelves while new ones will be featured promenently on the stands.

    Due to travel and work obligations, the Dev Team will combine the Q3 and Q4 updates into a single one for the end of 2022, sometime in early December, with some updates being pushed into 2023.

    The Minkata Delta shard, announced at Mysterium, may still launch sometime this year, but no progress yet has been made on setting it up. There have been fires in the US, some close to Rarified’s location, so he may be unable to monitor the server for some time; background measures have been taken to ensure that the Minkata server can remain running in case of emergency.

    A pre-built virtual machine snapshot of the Minkata server, that anyone could set up and easily run, has been set up on Docker; we will provide more info on that in a followup post.

    Hacktoberfest

    Darryl Pogue announced the H’uru team’s involvement in the annual Hacktoberfest event, a month-long event that encourages people to contribute to open-source software projects; with four contributions participants can earn a free T-shirt (a real-world physical shirt … but a virtual shirt in Uru could be an idea for a contribution!).

    Last year, the H’uru repositories on GitHub saw 41 contributions to Uru-related projects, including the game client and content itself, but also the Korman Blender plugin for Age building, the DirtSand server, and other tools.

    If you are not a coder, you can still contribute in the form of bug reports and feature requests, or things to improve the usability and quality of life when playing Uru.

    You can find help and support, including suggestions for first-time contributors, in the #code-dev channel on the OpenUru Discord.

    NaNoWriMo

    Diranda announced that the Guild of Authors and Artists is hosting the National Novel Writing Month in the Cavern this year. The first NaNoWriMo-related meeting will be held on October 7 at 13:00 KIT in the Ae’gura Messengers Pub, so if you are interested, feel free to visit.

    D’ni Language Classes

    R’Tayrtahn gave two updates, one for the D’ni Language Classes and one for the Story Nights. Currently, there are two students taking the classes at various stages of completion.

    More about the D’ni Language Classes (click to expand)
    • Those who would like to attend the lessons should contact Rehn via PM or KImail (KI# 58324).
    • The Guild of Instructors’ Hood will be open and public unless a class is in session. Daytime openings are currently on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at 12:00, 13:00 or 14:00 KIT;
    • evening openings are on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday at 20:00, 21:00 or 22:00 KIT, depending on the student’s schedule.
    • Daytime availability is subject to change with little or no notice. Last-minute changes to class times are posted on the left-hand imager in the hood.
    • Shokhootahn Rehn (aka r’Tayrtahn) can be found on Discord as r'Tayrtahn#1317.

    R’Tayrtahn’s Story Nights

    Story Night Europe and Original Story Night are telling the stories of the years between the kings and the story of the Fall. The story of the Fall will be told through the book Myst: The Book of Ti’ana.

    R’Tayrtahn is in the process of uploading the backlog of videos from previous sessions to his YouTube channel. Be careful if you PM r’Tay during the events, as messages will be visible in the videos 😉

    More about the Story Nights (click to expand)
    • Story Nights are held in Tsahno’s Hood every Saturday, 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 14:00 KIT or 15 minutes after the AGM, whichever is later.
    • 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 KImail with your KI number included in the text, so that he can add you to his buddies list.
    • Last-minute changes to Story Night times are posted on the left-hand imager in the hood.

    Miscellanea

    • The Cavern Communications Network has released the fourth episode of its podcast The Water Cooler Show, an interview to Keith Lord aka Tweek.
    • In October, the Fan Ages Expeditions will look for Gary’s whereabouts in Somewhere by Denost, part of a larger Age that also includes Iceworld and Elsewhere, inhabited by the Jhibis and the Guardian. They will then live the pirate life in Gavster by Calena, explore two experimental Ages by Sirius, Denkasen and Canyon, and begin the exploration of Iceworld.

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

    September ended with the CavFunding at 96% (CavCon 3) and the reserve at 518%, with no extra expenses. Population was at 45,756 (⇑262), with 1274 unique visits.

    The next All Guilds Meeting is planned for Saturday, November 5 (Leevofo 13) at 13:00 KIT.

    Until then!

  • A New Era in D’ni: Fahets Highgarden

    A New Era in D’ni: Fahets Highgarden

    On Saturday, October 1st, 2022 (9678 Leevot 14), the linking book to Fahets Highgarden, by Tweek, was unveiled in Chiso Preniv.

    Highgarden is an area in the Age of Fahets, one of the first known human-written Ages. Fahets is a large island with a series of smaller islands scattered off its coast; the area of the main island varies from jungle forests and swamp land to barren rocky area.

    Highgarden served as a council getaway for the Third Path, a group that was formed during the first DRC restoration, as an alternative to the DRC and the Great Tree factions.

    With the Third Path now disbanded, Tweek felt it was time to release this age to the public, starting with this area.

    Minasunda made a video of the opening event; Calum Traveler wrote a post in his blog.

  • NaNoWriMo in Cavern

    November is National Novel Writing Month and this year, the Guild of Authors and Artists are hosting our own NaNoWriMo event in-Cavern!

    If you don’t know about NaNoWriMo, visit their website to find out more about this annual event that has been running since the early 2000s!

    National Novel Writing Month is a writing challenge for anyone who would like to try: to write 50,000 words in 30 days! There’s no fee and anyone in the world (or Ages!) can join!
    You don’t have to write a novel, you can write anything you’d like! Some folks write non-fiction, some write a series of short stories, some write fanfiction… the possibilities are endless!

    In addition to the fun writing challenges, we’re hosting a co-event for our Artists, 4 Covers in 4 Weeks! Based on the original NaNoWriMo “30 Covers in 30 Days” event that was held alongside the writing challenge, our version invites artists to design 4 covers for a variety of fellow Authors NaNo projects. In addition to covers for NaNo writers, our challenge invites Artists to create covers for in-Cavern journals and books as well, if they’d like! All the Artists need to do is chat with one of the Authors doing our challenge, or other Creators who’d like to have a cover designed for their work and collect the information about the cover. Each week an Artist will be asked to complete a Cover design and submit it to the Collection on our Guild Discord (Authors and Artist Guild). The Goal is 4 Covers in a Month, but Artists can certainly do more if they’d like to!

    The Authors and Artist Guild will be hosting Nano-Prep events in October as well as Write-ins/Art-ins in Cavern in November!
    In addition to our In-Cavern Events, we will be hosting Writing Sprints and impromptu events on our Discord, so please feel free to join our Discord (pinned in the Cyan Chat’s D’niverse/fanfiction channel) and let either Erishkigal or Diranda know if you’re an Artist or Author or Both!

    Our first meeting is October 7, 2022, 1300 KI, in the New GoMePub!

  • A New Era in D’ni: Eder Naybree

    A New Era in D’ni: Eder Naybree

    On Friday, September 9, 2022 (9678 Leetar 26), the linking book to Eder Naybree, by Calum Traveler, was unveiled in Chiso Preniv. No ceremony was held, it was a surprise reveal. Minasunda made a video of the event.

    Calum Traveler wrote in his blog:

    Restored by Calum Traveler and Kelsei Taylor, the Age was originally gifted as a retirement gift to a prominent Guild Master, being written during the time of the “Garden Binge.” Afterwards, it passed around many private collections before settling in a public library some time before the Fall.

  • September 2022 All Guilds Meeting Summary

    September 2022 All Guilds Meeting Summary

    Here is the summary for the 149th All Guilds Meeting, along with the raw and cleansed chatlogs!

    Contents

      1. Events in the Cavern
      2. Cavern Tours
      3. Mysterium
      4. MOULa updates
      5. Town Hall
      6. Fan Ages updates
      7. Miscellanea

    Events in the Cavern

    Skyisblu presented her cooking sessions, held each month in the Guild of Caterers’ Hood and streamed on her Twitch channel in both English and French; a chance to get together, learn a new recipe and talk food. Recordings of the streams and the accompanying recipes are available on her weblog.

    IwonK will draw and talk about the topic of educational video games on her Twitch channel on Friday 16 at 15:00 KIT. In Cavern, the gathering will be in the Guild of Cookies’ Hood, around the Ahyoheek table.

    Cavern Tours

    The next Cavern Tour will be held on Saturday 24 at 11:00 KIT, starting from the Cavern Tour’s Hood, with Larry LeDeay and r’Tayrtahn as the guides, and Susa’n and Zeke as the hosts. This time they will will continue the tour of Descent and Great Shaft by showing the DIRT Descent demo and some Myst V content.

    The Tours use Twitch 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 stream will be simulcasted on Facebook and Youtube.

    The tours occasionally visit hard to reach places. Mir-o-Bot (KI# 32319) is often 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!

    Mysterium

    Participants, whether online or in-person, to the Myst convention are invited to give feedback via a survey available on the website.

    Events that were streamed via Twitch have been uploaded to YouTube. For a summary of the panels, check our dedicated post.

    The Mysterium prompt for September is “Sleep, Rest”; the deadline is September 30. Winners of the “Travel” prompt for August were Redwoodrroad, IwonK, Sasha Strange, Talashar and Laughingpineapple.

    MOULa updates

    A big update was released on August 3. The fan developers are looking into other potential chat customization features down the line, e.g. giving event organizers a special, toggleable chat color header for events such as the AGM or a Door Run contest.

    A stopgap solution to the issue of overcrowded hood was implemented: the membership lists of the most overcrowded have been truncated. Everyone in those hoods are still members, but will not show up in the KI list. However, when those members visit their neighborhood, they will get re-added back into the list.

    Lists will periodically be checked and if necessary truncated, but the permanent solution is that these members join a new neighborhood.

    Town Hall

    The ‘Storytellers’ group held their monthly Town Hall event for players who are interested in keeping tabs on the ongoing IC story.

    They are gathering volunteers to “hold negotiations with the people of Rei’schu”, either via Discord or in Cavern, essentially like an Unwritten session. The second option is to handle this event more or less off screen and crafting a sort of after-action report based on those events.

    On Cyan Chat, there is now a dedicated channel for story related talks: #moula-story-chat.

    Fan Ages updates

    On Friday 9 the garden Age of Eder Naybree, the ‘Prologue’ to the ‘Rei’schu arc’, will be released in Chiso Preniv. There will be no ceremony and no time has been announced, so be sure to check Chiso often that day!

    Early in September, a new Relto page was enabled in Tiam. Take a good look around to find it 😉

    Miscellanea

    • In September, the Fan Ages Expeditions will explore the features of the City of Dimensions, originally released on The Open Cave shards but ported to Deep Island in 2020.
      They will then take the journey in R’Oshanhnin Korvahkhn, by Calena, Wamduskasapa and Tachzusamm, one of the few fan Ages of old to grant a Relto page.
      Then they will start the search for Gary in Somewhere by Denost, part of a larger Age (which also includes Iceworld and Elsewhere) inhabited by the Jhibis and the Guardian.
      At the end of the month, or more likely in October, they will then visit three educational Ages by Corvus and Ametist: Hallway, Matte and ReGahlpo.

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

    August ended with the CavFunding at 96% (CavCon 3) and the reserve at 523%, with 15% extra expenses. Population was at 45,494 (⇑297), with 1348 unique visits.

    The next All Guilds Meeting is planned for Saturday, October 1st (Leevot 14) at 13:00 KIT.

    The role of Moderator is currently vacant, with Calum Traveler filling in for the time being; if anyone would like to take the role, it is your chance to step up 😉

    Until then!

  • Mysterium 2022

    Mysterium 2022

    The XXIII Mysterium was held in Denver, CO on August 12–14, with the panels and presentations streamed to both Twitch and YouTube.

    Minasunda and Civer Gaming made summary videos; Belford wrote a two-part summary ([1], [2]) in his blog, commenting on Cyan’s announcements.

    Friday started at 10:00 KIT with the Opening Announcements and Cyan’s “State of the Union”, with Eric A. Anderson (Creative Director) and Hannah Gamiel (Development Director). They are super busy developing Firmament (they also showed a preview video), so they will combine Myst’s and Riven’s anniversaries next year. They will share something new every month, including challenge coins, Cyan logo shirts, re-releasing the ebook versions of the Myst novels, and digging through Riven’s archives. They are working with members of the community on “special, secret projects”. There are no plans for an official remake of Uru.

    At 11:30 the Walkabout Mini Golf: Myst panel with Don Carson, Henning Koczy, Lucas Martell, Edward McAndrew of Mighty Coconut studio discussed their approach to design for immersive gameplay with realistic physics, in combining their VR mini golf game with Myst’s iconic island.

    At 14:00 the The Last Clockwinder panel with John Austin and Anita Tung of Pontoco studio talked about their game, developed with Cyan Ventures (which has shifted role from publishing arm to development-support group).

    At 15:00 Kefrith’s Cryptic Contraption presentation revealed his surprise Myst-inspired creation, discussing the setbacks he got into in the creative process.

    At 16:00 the full recording of the concert held by the NULP Dance Group in Elonin was released as a YouTube Premiere.

    At 18:00 it was time for the trip to the Meow Wolf: Convergence Station interactive art series.

    Saturday started at 10:00 KIT with the Cyan Q&A, with Eric Anderson, Rand Miller, Ryan “greydragon” Warzecha discussing what is happening at Cyan, their artistic and technical approach to game design, and the rationale behind some decisions on Myst and Uru lore.

    At 11:15 the MOULa Fan Creations: Tech Development panel with Colin “Maccodemonkey” Cornaby, Adam “Hoikas” Johnson, Darryl “Paradox” Pogue, Paul “rarified” Richards presented the latest development news about MOULa, with an update on the process to make the client cross-platform. To get involved, you can contact the OpenUru team (testing) on Discord, or the H’uru team (developing) on GitHub and IRC.

    At 11:45 the MOULa Fan Creations: Ages panel with Ametist, Patrick “Doobes” Dulebohn, Harley “Calum Traveler”, Keith “Tweek” Lord discussed the challenges of creating and modifying environments for MOULa. The current tool for creating ages is Korman for Blender. You can find tutorials in the GoW wiki; Calum Traveler also made a series of videos.

    At 13:45 the Area Man Lives panel with Amy Green, Ryan Green, Mike Perrotto of Numinous Games, and Ryan “greydragon” Warzecha of Cyan, discussed their VR game produced with Cyan Ventures.

    At 14:45 the highlights of the concert held by the NULP Dance Group in Elonin was released as a YouTube Premiere.

    At 16:00 Erik Oberg’s Libraries of Myst presentation analyzed how libraries fit into Myst, both in the explicit sense of literal, in-game libraries and the broader presence of librarian principles and practices in the Myst universe, as well as how Myst fits into real-world libraries.

    At 19:45 the Achenar: Redemption in One Part panel with Guy Sprung, who played Achenar in Myst IV: Revelation, discussed the process behind playing a character who experiences both sides of being the villain and the savior.

    At 20:45 it was time for Cavern Feud, hosted by Dan Binder, in which teams competed against each other to see who best knows how the Myst community responds to various survey questions, like “what would Yeesha name her cat?” or  “which Myst animal would make the best pet?”

    Sunday started at 10:00 KIT with the Myst Documentary Sneak Peek and Q&A, with Elana Bogdan, Katie “Kha’tie” Postma, Joshua Reinstein, Philip Shane, giving insights into the creation of The Myst Documentary, which will cover Myst, Riven and Uru, the near-collapse of Cyan in 2005 and its climb back in the following years, and the new era that started with Obduction. Attendees had an exclusive sneak peak of the documentary, then they showcased the new online Community Vault of Myst Stories.

    At 12:00 the Closing Ceremonies were held, wrapping up this year’s convention, running the prize drawing, and announcing next year’s location: Spokane!

    Thanks and kudos to the Mysterium Committee, who did a great job at organising and managing the event.

    Looking forward to next year!

  • August 2022 All Guilds Meeting Summary

    August 2022 All Guilds Meeting Summary

    Here is the summary for the 148th All Guilds Meeting, along with the raw and cleansed chatlogs!

    Contents

      1. Mysterium
      2. MOULa updates
      3. Town Hall
      4. Summer Festival
      5. Chiso Preniv updates
      6. Cavern Tours
      7. D’ni Language Classes
      8. R’Tayrtahn’s Story Nights
      9. Miscellanea

    Mysterium

    The Cyan Q&A session will not be taking live questions; you can submit your questions until August 7 (today) via the online form.

    If you are attending in person and forgot to submit an artwork or writing submission, you will have to bring it with you, as submissions are now closed.

    The schedule has been finalized, and includes a few Cavern related panels. On Friday night the video for the Mysterium Concert held on Friday 6 will be released on YouTube.

    There will be two MOUL Developer panels, for coding and Age building, half hour each. Among the guests there will be MacCodeMonkey, DPogue, Rarified, Hoikas, Tweek, Doobes, Ametist, and Calum Traveler.

    Most events will be streamed via Twitch, and uploaded to YouTube later; exceptions are noted on the schedule. The Meow Wolf excursion will not be streamed.

    The last round of special guests have been announced:

    • Eric Anderson has been with Cyan for several years, contributing to Uru, Myst V and Obduction;
    • Rand Miller co-founded Cyan and brought Myst, Obduction and all the other Cyan titles that are the very reason for the convention’s existence;
    • Joshua Reinstein is an editor and researcher for The Myst Documentary;
    • Guy Sprung is an accomplished thespian, but Myst fans will know him as Achenar from Myst IV: Revelation.

    The Mysterium prompt for August is “Travel”; the deadline is August 31. Winners of the “Voltaic Age” prompt for July were Talashar, Calum Traveler and Redwoodrroad.

    MOULa updates

    A big update was released on Wednesday 3. Included in this update were a few long requested KI changes: the command /textcolor [color] or /textcolor [colorvaluedata], well known to those familiar with shards like Deep Island, allows to change the chat text color; the change is local to the user.

    When using a custom text color, messages from PM, Buddies, or Neighbors will have prefixes to identify them: instead of  an ambiguous “From [person] in [Age]” it will now have [BUDDIES], [PRIVATE] or [NEIGHBORS] as a prefix. This feature carries into chatlogs regardless of custom color formatting.

    Another important change is related to the way Marker Games can be edited. This is primarily to prevent two related issues: MG’s titles cannot be edited if you are not the owner or not in editing mode; this is to prevent a bug where occasionally an edited title of a MG could cause it to duplicate within KI folders.

    Secondly, if you have a MG and wish to delete it, it will only delete the access node on your KI (as it was intended to be); this allows to delete the MG even if it is stuck in the “Loading Now” state. Hopefully this will also prevent new MGs to get stuck in that state.

    A door to the basement of Chiso Preniv is now available, but you will need to find the hidden button (although the door will likely be already open 🙂 ). A Nexus Terminal has been installed somewhere in Elonin.

    On Wednesday the Watcher’s Pub puzzle room door was open. This was a bug: ways to officially re-open that area [if ever 😛 – Ed.] are still being discussed, and the door will remain sealed until then.

    As for the new Ages, Eder Naybree is scheduled for September 9, while Fahets Highgarden will be released sometime after that depending on Tweek’s personal schedule. Announcements will be made closer to the release date.

    A solo mode has been added to the Gahreesen Wall, so that those who want to train by themselves will no longer have to run from side to side to set up a game.

    Some server issues have cropped up since the update and are being looked into. Some of the major clogs may be tied to the issue of overcrowded neighborhoods. A temporary solution that should help alleviate some of the strain is in the works, but it is strongly advised to move your avatar to a less crowded hood as soon as you can.

    Town Hall

    The “Storytellers” group held their second Town Hall event, designed for players who are interested in keeping tabs on the ongoing RP story to be able to catch up on missed events, as well as be able to provide some input on the future.

    They plan to hold the next ones on either either the last Wednesday of the month (after Fil Live) or during the last weekend of the month.

    Rulesets for the storytellers and a code of conduct for the town halls have been posted on Calum Traveler’s blog, until a more formal website is set up.

    Summer Festival

    Minasunda summarized the MOULa Summer Festival held on the week just prior the AGM. Up to 53 people attended the show, and it went very well, with no unforeseen obstacles.

    Thanks go to Mirphak for providing the link to Elonin, and to the special guests who took part in the concert: Piboc, aka Olivier Maurey; Lyllus, aka Lillo Moon Minniti; Fil, aka Phil Rounds.

    The full-length concert will be released as a YouTube Premiere on August 12 at 16:00 KIT. Excerpts from the concert will also be released as a YouTube Premiere on Saturday 13 at 14:45 KIT, with a bonus intro introducing the Nulp Dance Group.

    During the premieres you will be able to chat with the Nulps, and if you will be in the Cavern the gathering will be in the New Messengers Pub, festively decorated for Myterium.

    Chiso Preniv updates

    Doobes gave an outline of his contributions for the latest MOULa update. The work area on the lower floor of Chiso Preniv is now officially opened to the public, giving a peek into the daily life of those working to restore various parts of the Cavern and the Ages they have found so far, and some newly-Written Ages.

    This includes various projects from familiar faces in the Cavern like Dulcamara, Rebus, Kelsei, Tweek, and more. They want this restoration to be as transparent as they can. With luck, you may even find them down there working on or discussing things!

    They will also soon be archiving the older Kirel audios in that location as well. You will be able to replay them from the test pedestal in there.

    On another topic, for those who cannot attend Mysterium, the Cavern gathering location will be the New Messengers Pub. There will be swag to grab, including lots of shirts, and they will remain available for most of the rest of August. Thanks go to Hazado and KellyC for helping organize the event.

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

    How to be a tester (click to expand)

    To be a tester, you will need to open an account on the Minkata prime shard; it is highly recommended to read the Tester’s Guide to understand what is expected. To test the cutting edge additions, you can sign up for the Minkata alpha shard.
    To report bugs, you can post on the OpenUru Discord server (channels #hood or #dev); on Discord you can ask to be added to the Testers role to be notified of testing requests, which sometimes need quick response in terms of hours, not days.

    Cavern Tours

    The Cavern Tour will be held on Saturday 27 at 11:00 KIT, starting from the Cavern Tour’s Hood, with Larry LeDeay and r’Tayrtahn as the guides, and Susa’n and Zeke as the hosts.

    The Tours will use a 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 stream will be simulcasted on Facebook and Youtube.

    The tours occasionally visit hard to reach places. Mir-o-Bot (KI# 32319) is often 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!

    D’ni Language Classes

    R’Tayrtahn gave two updates, one for the D’ni Language Classes and one for the Story Nights. Currently, there are two students taking the classes and are at various stages of completion.

    More about the D’ni Language Classes (click to expand)
    • Those who would like to attend the lessons should contact Rehn via PM or KImail (KI# 58324).
    • The Guild of Instructors’ Hood will be open and public unless a class is in session. Daytime openings are currently on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at 12:00, 13:00 or 14:00 KIT; evening openings
    • on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday at 20:00, 21:00 or 22:00 KIT, depending on the student’s schedule.
    • Daytime availability is subject to change with little or no notice. Last-minute changes to class times are posted on the left-hand imager in the hood.
    • Shokhootahn Rehn (aka r’Tayrtahn) can be found on Discord as r'Tayrtahn#1317.

    R’Tayrtahn’s Story Nights

    Story Night Europe and Original Story Night are in synch, and are telling the stories of the kings of D’ni, which will go on for the next 7 weeks.

    R’Tayrtahn is in the process of uploading the backlog of videos from previous sessions to his YouTube channel. Be careful if you PM r’Tay during the evennts, as messages will be visible in the videos 😉

    More about the Story Nights (click to expand)
    • Story Nights are held in Tsahno’s Hood every Saturday, 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 14:00 KIT or 15 minutes after the AGM, whichever is later.
    • 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 KImail with your KI number included in the text, so that he can add you to his buddies list.
    • Last-minute changes to Story Night times are posted on the left-hand imager in the hood.

    Miscellanea

    • The Cavern Today Podcast is back, available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other streaming services. Their first episode for this year features an interview to Patrick Dulebohn.
    • In August, the Fan Ages Expeditions will continue the esploration of Adrael, trying to find out whatever happened to D’ni Research Association member Irena Stromberg, who has gone missing after a vision of a ‘ghost’ with glowing eyes.
      They will then visit some the Uru locations of the Devokan Trust, one of the most elaborate fan-written storylines, spanning various platforms in the Metaverse (the real Metaverse).
      Then they will play some music in Turtle Isle by DenDwaler, and finish the month with two puzzles: Lohdehvis by Takku Petreya and Rahsoo B’ahrotan by Calena.

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

    July ended with the CavFunding at 80% (CavCon 2.9) and the reserve at 527%, with 20% extra expenses. Population was at 45,197 (⇑230), with 1069 unique visits.

    The next All Guilds Meeting is planned for Saturday, September 3 (Leetar 21) at 13:00 KIT.

    The role of Moderator is currently vacant, with Calum Traveler filling in for the time being; if anyone would like to take the role, it is your chance to step up 😉

    Until then!

  • MOULa update OpenUru#207

    On August 3 MOULa got another big update, with lots of interesting additions! Here are a few highlights; a the full changelog is available at the bottom of this post.

    New Ages

    As revealed at the last few AGMs, a couple of new fan Ages are included in the update, but they will be unveiled in the near future. In the meantime, a few improvements have been added to Chiso Preniv (a new floor is now open, look for number 18), New Messengers Pub, K’veer, Elonin (a global instance has been added), Tiam, Watcher’s Pub. The Gahreesen Wall had a few improvements too.

    Mysterium

    In preparation for Mysterium, the New Messengers Pub has been decked out with decorations and swag to pick up. Be sure to pass by starting on Saturday 13!

    Interface

    Two new commands have been added: /textcolor, to customize the chat text display, and /cough, a new emote. New audio messages and subtitles have been added to the podium in Kirel. New fonts have been added for future use in journals. The name of the sender is now visible in KI messages in the Incoming folder.

    Fixes

    A few, long-standing bugshave been fixed: non-loading marker games can now be deleted, and improper editing is now prevented. The disappearing Dusty ball in Minkata should now be visible. Various fixes for animations and sounds have been added.

    A note on bugs

    When an update, especially one as large as this one, hits MOULa it is almost inevitable that unexpected bugs will show up. For all the testing that can be done, Minkata never sees as many concurrent players as the official server, and not all issues can be catched.

    When the servers have just been restarted, most of the early linking slowness and problems are from the database buffers refilling – and by an overload of concurrent logins 😉

    No additions from Cyan are to be expected for the foreseeable future, apart from server updates, so all improvements and additions will come from fan developers, who dedicate their limited free time to at least try to let MOULa be the best it could potentially be.

    So the best way to deal with bugs is to have patience and report them, mentioning where you were and what you were doing, be it on Cyan’s Discord, OpenUru’s Discord or OpenUru forums.

    If you fancy contributing your work and/or helping with bug fixing, those places are also excellent starting points to be part of the Fourth Restoration 🙂

    OpenUru Build #207 Build Update (click to expand)

    Content changes:
    – [n] New ages, revealed in near future. Even a secret door!{9}
    – [n] Add /cough emote{13}
    – [n] Add /textcolor command to customize text display{13}
    – [n] Add Mysterium and Guild of Instructors clothing{10}
    – [n] Bending a few rules, a “Global” instance of Elonin for group activities. You need to find the link!{5}
    – [n] New audio messages and subtitles for Kirel{14}
    – [n] New fonts to be used in the future for journals{13}
    – [n] The New Messengers Pub has been decked out for Mysterium{8}
    – [u] New “clue” function to imagers{12}
    – [u] Add senders of Incoming KI mail to KI Recents folder{13}
    – [f] Fix a behavior regression in Relto Start path regarding Pellet Cave Code{10}
    – [f] Fix clothing ordering in closet{10}
    – [f] Fix K’veer to prevent it from registering as a City link{10}
    – [f] Fix pod portals so they don’t stick around{10}
    – [f] Fix relto door animations{10}
    – [f] Fix relto page sound{10}
    – [f] Fix relto rain on roof sound{11}
    – [u] Prevent improper Marker Game editing, permit deleting non-loading Marker Games{13}
    – [u] Improvements to Chiso Preniv, New Messengers Pub, K’veer Ages{6}
    – [u] Improvements to Elonin, Tiam Ages{4}
    – [u] Improvements to Gahreesen wall game{10}
    – [u] Improvements to Great Tree (Watcher’s) Pub, new Nexus book{6}
    – [u] Remove “Visitor” from game selection screen{10}
    – [u] Subtitle corrections{13}
    – [u] Updates to Phil’s Relto Bookshelf{7}

    Client changes:
    – [u] Under the hood improvements for KI{13}
    – [f] Fix disappearing Dusty in Minkata{1}
    – [f] Fix infrequently encountered startup error when age files updated{3}

    Key:
    [n] new
    [f] fixed
    [u] updated
    Attributions:
    1: Adam{Hoikas}, Hazado
    2: Adam{Hoikas}, Hazado, Zaroth
    3: Adam{Hoikas}, Zaroth
    4: ametist
    5: ametist, Doobes
    6: Doobes
    7: Doobes, Ehren
    8: Doobes, Harley, Hazado
    9: Doobes, Tweek, Harley
    10: Hazado
    11: Hazado, Doobes, Maurus
    12: Hazado, Zaroth
    13: Zaroth
    14: Zaroth, DapperAndy, Tyion, skyisblu, Taliana
    (source)

  • News Roundup #21

    Cyan news

    ☛ An update to MOULa was released on July 12, bringing the avatar dance animations from Uru: CC. You can now pick the awkward dance style of your choice 😀 The new animation is activated using /retrodance .

    ☛ The music for Firmament will be composed by Maclaine Diemer, who previously worked on ArenaNet’s Guild Wars 2, Harmonix’s Rock Band franchises, Riot Games’ League of Legends, Amazon Game Studios’ first major original title Crucible, and most recently Salt and Sacrifice from Devour Studios.

    Mysterium news

    ☛ As announced during the AGM, a Mysterium Concert will be held live on August 5 at 13:00 KIT, in NDG Elonin, during the Summer Festival 2022. The concert, conceived by Minasunda, will be a tour across the Myst games and the Cavern and its community.

    For in-person Mysterium attendees, a special highlights video of the concert will be premiered on August 13 and shared on Facebook and Discord. For online attendees, a link to the full concert will be provided on August 14, for those unable to attend the concert live.

    The concert will feature three special guests who will play live: Olivier Maurey aka Piboc, Lillo Moon Minniti aka Lyllus, and Phil Rounds aka Fil. You can find more info about the artists on Calum Traveler’s blog.

    ☛ A new round of special guests has been announced:

    • John Austin, co-founder of Pontoco and project lead on The Last Clockwinder (a Cyan Venture);
    • Don Carson, Senior Art Director at Mighty Coconut and former Disney Imagineer;
    • Henning Koczy, Level Designer for Walkabout Mini Golf (a VR game planning to release a new course based on Myst island) at Mighty Coconut;
    • Lucas Martell, Head of Mighty Coconut and creator of Walkabout Mini Golf;
    • Anita Tung, Art Director for The Last Clockwinder.

    ☛ There will also be a Cyan Q&A Panel; if you wish to ask any questions, please submit them via this form by August 7. It will be a general Q&A, so feel free to ask about Firmament, Venture projects, Starry Expanse, etc.

    ☛ The Myst Documentary crew will share an update and sneak peeks of the film progress, as well as show off the Myst Story Community Vault. There will also be a Q&A session.

    ☛ Proof of vaccination will be asked at the time badges will be issued, you will not need to show proof again for the rest of the weekend. The up-to-date COVID policies are available here, the Committee will avoid changing them unless necessary.

    Other news

    ☛ The third episode of the WaterCooler Show, by the Cavern Communications Network, will be an interview to Aaron Gwynaire, developer of the upcoming Myst-style point-and-click adventure game Neyyah.

  • Moula Summer Festival 2022

    Moula Summer Festival 2022

    August 1–5 2022

    The first week of August will be full of activity in the cavern. During the Moula Summer Festival, a variety of events are scheduled: contests, music events, a video event and a marker game. It is also the first year we can offer a Gahreesen Wall game as a contest. Cone Race is another new contest and last but not least, a Door Run contest.

    A recording of the Nulp Dance Group Concert will also be released as a YouTube Premiere on August 12 at 16:00 KIT, and a second video with excerpts from it will be released on August 13 at 14:45 KIT.

    Guest artists will be Piboc, aka Olivier Maurey; Lyllus, aka Lillo Moon Minniti; Fil, aka Phil Rounds.

    Festival scheduleMysterium 2022 concert flyer

    A pdf version of the Summer Festival flyer is available, containing the schedule and detailed information about all the events (which are also listed in the calendar).

    For more information about the festival, feel free to contact PodHopper at:

    • PodHopper, #7116825 (Moula)
    • PodHopper#8133 (Discord)