Tag: Fan Ages

  • MOULa update OpenUru#212

    On November 8 MOULa got another update, with various fixes, improvements and a new Age! A full changelog is available at the bottom of this post. As usual, an audio summary of the updates was added to the Kirel auditorium podium.

    A new area within D’ni, by TGMChrist & Tweek, will soon be unveiled. The doors of the Library and the Museum in Ae’gura now work properly, opening and closing as people get through them. Various updates were made to Chiso Preniv, Eder Bahvahnter, Eder Naybree, Elonin, Kalamee, and Tiam.

    A note on bugs (click to expand)

    When an update 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 #212b – Q3, 2023
    • [new] Ae’gura Library and Museum doors now work {8}
    • [new] New D’ni area by TGMChrist & Tweek {14}
    • [new] New audio track for introductory video {11}
    • [new] New Kirel audio recording for Q3 {13}
    • [update] Consistency Pass of Book Textures {9}
    • [update] Improvements to pellet imager {8}
    • [update] Improvements to Relto internals {8}
    • [update] Improvements to sliding door mechanics {8}
    • [update] Texture Optimization in (old) Messenger’s Pub & Phil’s Relto {10}
    • [update] Updates to Chiso Preniv {5}
    • [update] Updates to Eder Bahvahnter {6}
    • [update] Updates to Eder Naybree {7}
    • [update] Updates to Elonin {3}
    • [update] Updates to Kalamee {12}
    • [update] Updates to Tiam {3}
    • [fix] Don’t trust local machine time for synchronized gameplay {1}
    • [fix] Fix “crash on exit” caused by player hearing link sound {4}
    • [fix] Fix Descent Bahro Stone link-in animation {8}
    • [fix] Fix Gahreesen Wall Nexus camera operation {8}
    • [fix] Fix getting stuck in Heek during player exit {2}
    • [fix] Fix Hood/Kirel skybox streaking {9}
    • [fix] Fix issues with Relto Page clickables {8}

    Attributions:

    1: Adam {Hoikas}
    2: Adam {Hoikas}, Hazado
    3: ametist
    4: dgelessus, Adam {Hoikas}
    5: Doobes
    6: Dulcamara, ametist
    7: Harley
    8: Hazado
    9: Maurus
    10: Maurus, Adam {Hoikas}
    11: Rand, Maurus, Hazado
    12: Semjay
    13: skyisblu, Zaroth, Hazado
    14: TGMChrist, Tweek

  • News Roundup #29

    ☛ MOULa will be offline Wednesday 8 (today!) at 9:00 KIT for the Q2/Q3 update! The downtime should last about two hours. We will post a changelog with the fixes and goodies soon after that.

    ☛ To honor Riven’s 26th anniversary, RIUM+ spent roughly 350 hours upgrading his restored Riven Journals, a (spoiler-less) collection of books and puzzles that give more insight into the game’s world. It is recommended to start with the middle journal, then the right one and leave the left one to last. You can read more on RIUM+ blog post.

    ☛ Rand Miller was a guest at Lucca Comics & Games, an annual comic book and gaming convention in Italy, the second biggest in the world after Comiket. He was invited at four panels, two about Myst specifically, one about his career experience, and a round table discussion about contemporary gaming, where he was joined by Yū Suzuki (designer, producer, programmer, and engineer for Sega for 18 years) and Arnar Hrafn Gylfason (Director of Production for Valorant).

    ☛ In their Kickstarter update for October 25, Cyan confirmed that all remaining physical rewards for Firmament are expected to ship in early 2024.

  • November 2023 All Guilds Meeting Summary

    November 2023 All Guilds Meeting Summary

    Here is the summary for the 163rd All Guilds Meeting, moderated by Claidi Song, along with the raw and cleansed chatlogs!

    Contents

    1. Mysterium
    2. Events in the Cavern
    3. OpenUru
    4. D’ni Language Classes
    5. R’Tayrtahn’s Story Nights
    6. Miscellanea

    Mysterium

    ☛ In Addition to co-chairing this year, Annacat is once again managing the Writing & Artwork Table submissions. The Committee has decided to add a limit of five pages for any printouts to save trees and wallets. If your piece is longer you may wish to direct people to a website or other location where they can read the full text.

    ☛ The creativity prompt for November is “Found Family”; the deadline is November 30. Entries for the “Noir” prompt for October were from Angelmyst, Redwoodrroad, Calum Traveler, Talashar, Diranda, Tomatoes.

    Events in the Cavern

    ☛ For November’s Cooking Sessions with Sky, on Monday 6 at 12:00 KIT in the Guild of Caterers’ Hood, Skyisblu will try her hand at homemade pierogi, Polish dumplings filled with a mix of mashed potatoes and cheese, boiled and fried, sometimes topped with sour cream.

    Every month is something new and different, a lot of times inspired by what is coming from Skyisblu’s garden, or what is in season in her corner of the world. She also tries to answer any questions regarding the recipe she is cooking, other dishes or cuisines, and takes suggestions for future sessions.

    You can find past recipes and recordings at Skyisblu’s blog and YouTube channel.

    ☛ IwonK will host a Wonky Talk (on her Twitch channel) on Friday 17 at 15:00 KIT in the Guild of Cookies’ Hood by the heek table. This month’s topic will be horror games. Feel free to suggest interesting games she could talk (and draw) about. As always, there will be cookies!

    IwonK also made some games of her own as a year-long gamedev challenge; you can find them at her itch.io page.

    ☛ Babbel will host her classical music program in the Hall of Kings in Ae’gura on Monday 20 at 12:00 KIT.

    OpenUru

    ☛ Rarified gave a brief comment about the update schedule for MOULa. The Q2/Q3 2023 update has passed testing! On Monday 6 an announcement should be posted in the Cyan Discord server (probably #moula-announcements), with more info about the date of the update. Many items are included in this update: most fan Ages have received some tweaks, and many technical glitches, including very old ones, have been fixed. One new area will eventually be open for exploration (more info below).

    Rarified has now started to tackle a task that has been put off for years: the merger of the existing MOULa client with the modern H’uru client that the Guild of Writers team has been working on for a decade. They will start with an entirely new Minkata shard, which probably will not go live before 3–4 weeks from now.

    The new shard will likely only have a duplicate of the H’uru client, where contributors can begin to explore how their materials interact with the new client. Behind the scenes, Rarified has a list of changes he thinks are needed for more casual users to access MOULa with the same ease.

    They will also start working on a single Uru installation that can be used to access most (MOUL-based) shards, without a separate installation for each. That will of course depend on shard operators agreeing that the client can and will be used, but the capability will be there to select a shard at the time you launch Uru. At start it will likely be MOULa and the Minkata shards. Deep Island is very unlikely to be included, being based on the offline game, and neither will be The Open Cave, which is currently unmaintained and requires a specific set of older game files to work.

    Editor’s note: there have been a few attempts at a “multishard” client in the past, most notably Untìl Uru had a unified launcher for the various independent shards. More recently but less successfully, the Atlantis shard made an attempt at unifying the MOUL-based shard login.

    ☛ Christopher Therburg announced that the Fall of D’ni Memorial Island (Bahn’tefoonet in D’ni) is finally ready. There will be an opening ceremony in Chiso Preniv, soon after the release of the update. He, and possibly Tweek, will give a tour of the island; after that, a minute of silence will be observed to commemorate the D’ni who died at the hand of A’gaeris.

    Christopher has further plans to make some small changes to the island and the memorial itself so that it will be preserved and being in a good shape for a long time. He will soon add telescopes near the docks at a later date, for closer views of certain D’ni islands and Ae’gura itself.

    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.

    D’ni Language Classes

    R’Tayrtahn gave two updates, one for the D’ni Language Classes and one for the Story Nights. The Guild of Instructors has lost one of their own: Guild Master shokhootahn shen, aka shenendoah or Kathleen, passed away late last month.

    Visitors are asked to not post pellet points into the hood imager: one of his former students and a close friend, Yutiel Yoshi, who passed away in 2018, is listed there. He has refrained from posting pellets to maintain her name at the top, as a form of memorial.

    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# 80428), or on Discord (r’Tayrtahn#1317).
    • The Guild of Instructors’ Hood will be open and public unless a class is in session.
    • There are daytime openings Monday to Friday, at 12:00, 13:00 or 14:00 KIT, though availability is subject to change with little or no notice;
    • evening openings are on Monday to 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 will be announced via Magic Bot (KI #27527) or Mimi Bot (KI #71459); to be notified, add both as buddies, then PM them “advert”.

    R’Tayrtahn’s Story Nights

    Story Night Europe and Original Story Night are telling the story from Myst III: Exile. After that, they will begin the story from Myst IV: Revelation. Eventually they will cover all of the books and games, as well as the three human attempts at the restoration of D’ni.

    R’Tayrtahn records videos of the sessions (via an avatar named “I’m a bot, do not message”), that he will eventually upload to his YouTube channel. Be careful if you PM r’Tay or the bot 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 30 minutes after the meeting, 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.

    Miscellanea

    ☛ In November, the Fan Ages Expeditions in Deep Island will conclude the exploration of Takla Ma’kan by the German group H’Uru. Next, they will explore Paah’kweh and Sonavio by BobLishman, and visit the entries from the first Rapid Age Development contest. To round up the month, they will explore a few Ages made in 2008: Aerie, TINA Testing Area, Kahntinoy, Fena Barel.

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

    October ended with the CavFunding at 177% (CavCon 4.8) and the reserve at 652%, with 5% extra expenses. Population was at 49,489 (⇑259), with 1047 unique visits.

    The next All Guilds Meeting is planned for Saturday, December 2 (Leevobro 5) at 13:00 KIT.

    Until then!

  • Guild of Writers Releases Korman 0.15

    Guild of Writers Releases Korman 0.15

    The Guild of Writers released a new version of the age exporting tool Korman. This update represents 59 commits with approximately 4,100 lines of code changed since Korman 0.14.

    If you never used Korman, or need a refresher, there are tutorials available on the Guild of Writers wiki. If you need more help, or have comments, the discussion thread is here.

    Changelog:

    • [1] Added experimental support for GUIs.
    • Added the Change Subworld Message node.
    • Added the concept of “External Pages.”
    • Added the “Late” render pass to the Render Dependencies modifier. (Thanks to Hazado for authoring this patch.)
    • Added the Telescope Modifier. (Thanks to Doobes for co-authoring this patch.)
    • Did lots of gnarly plumbing under the hood.
    • Fixed a bug in which Group Masters wouldn’t be exposed to Python scripts correctly.
    • [2] Fixed a bug in which Facing Target Nodes did not function as expected when used in a Region Sensor Node instead of a Clickable Node.
    • Fixed a crash in the exporter when a cube environment map has no image assigned. (Thanks to Doobes for authoring this patch.)
    • Fixed an issue in which blank BuiltIn and Textures PRPs may be created when you ask for Korman to *not* create them at all.
    • Fixed an issue in which the “Auto Load” and “Local Only” Page options did nothing. (Thanks to Deledrius for authoring this patch.)
    • Fixed a potential crash in the exporter when a dependency file is missing.
    • Fixed a potential crash in the exporter when a Sound Message node is sent to a Random Sound.
    • Improved the handling of ptAttribNamedResponder such that Responders linked to these attributes will be exported with the same name as the Responder Node that exports them.
    • Improved the handling of modifiers such that only certain modifiers may be added to objects, based on the object type (no more empty objects with collision modifiers).
    • Improved the (mis-)handling of 3D Stereo sounds.
    • [3] Improved the rendering of text in the Localized Text Modifier when the text is rendered to an alpha layer.
    1. All Game GUI functionality is currently experimental. You are invited to use this functionality in your Ages; however, please be aware that the current functionality represents only the barest of bare bones. Further work on may cause your GUIs to break or require adjustments in future versions of Korman. Further, the functionality may contain bugs. Please report any and all bugs to the GitHub issue tracker.
    2. BREAKING CHANGE: The Facing Target Node can now only link to one target node.
    3. Requires a corresponding client update to the Python file xDynTextLoc.py
  • October 2023 All Guilds Meeting Summary

    October 2023 All Guilds Meeting Summary

    Here is the summary for the 162nd All Guilds Meeting, moderated by Claidi Song, along with the raw and cleansed chatlogs!

    Contents

    1. Mysterium
    2. Events in the Cavern
    3. Magic Ages
    4. OpenUru
    5. D’ni Language Classes
    6. R’Tayrtahn’s Story Nights
    7. Miscellanea

    Mysterium

    ☛ Submissions for pins are now open, until March 31, Pins are not required to follow the Mysterium 2024 theme of Serenia, and/or the host city of Montreal. Shirt submissions are also open, until February 25.

    ☛ A new COVID vaccine has been made available for the latest variants of the virus. The Committee recommends everyone to get it as soon as possible. Also, there have been reports of pharmacies no longer updating or providing vaccine cards; if you are looking for an updated proof of vaccine, it is advisable to specifically request a card, or look into electronic vaccine records if available.

    ☛ The creativity prompt for October is “Noir”; the deadline is October 31. Entries for the “Back to School” prompt for September were from Calum Traveler, Talashar,  Redwoodrroad, Salvo Ludus.

    Events in the Cavern

    ☛ October 31 is the 26th anniversary of the release of Riven: the Sequel to Myst! Cyan is still at work on the VR remake, some glimpses of which were shown and discussed at this year’s Mysterium.

    ☛ Skyisblu hosts “Cooking Sessions with Sky” (on her Twitch channel) every month on the first Monday at 12:00 KIT in the Guild of Caterers’ Hood; recently she made okonomiyaki. The recipes are explained in both English and French.

    Every month is something new and different, a lot of times inspired by what is coming from Skyisblu’s garden, or what is in season in her corner of the world. She also tries to answer any questions regarding the recipe she is cooking, other dishes or cuisines, and takes suggestions for future sessions.

    You can find past recipes and recordings at Skyisblu’s blog and YouTube channel.

    ☛ IwonK will host a Wonky Talk (on her Twitch channel) on Friday 13 at 15:00 KIT in the Guild of Cookies’ Hood by the heek table. This month’s topic will be robots in video games. Feel free to suggest interesting games she could talk (and draw) about. As always, there will be cookies!

    ☛ Karel will host a Music Session in the Ae’gura Messengers Pub on Friday, October 13 at 13:00 KIT; the theme will be “Game Music over the Years“.

    ☛ Diranda, on behalf of the Guild of Authors and Artists, invited everyone to National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) 2023. They will hold workshops, write-ins, writing sprints and other NaNo-related gatherings in the Cavern as well as on their Discord server.

    Event dates will be posted soon; they will try to accomodate schedules as best as possible, so if you are interested, you should get in contact to help plan the events. They plan to have a concurrent event for artists as well as other creative types, including Age writers, to join in the fun. Suggestions for concurrent activities are definitely welcome.

    If you would like an invite to the Guild’s Discord, or for more info and questions about NaNoWriMo events, you should contact Diranda. For more about National Novel Writing Month, you can visit the official website.

    Magic Ages

    Mister Magic is back in the Cavern! He has now restored all of his Magic Ages, including the fireworks, and the numerous Magic Games are playable again. Mister Magic is currently working on making the Fabulous Magic Treasure (FMT) available to players again.

    To get help with the magic commands in the game, send “help” in PM to one of the bots with and they will send you a KI-mail with all the commands:

    • Magic Bot #27527,
    • Mimi Bot #71459,
    • Magic Treasure #26224,
    • Magic-Treasure #24891,
    • Mimi Treasure #21190.

    You can ask questions regarding the Magic Ages and everything that goes with them on the dedicated channel on the MOULa Events Discord, or on the dedicated thread on the Mystpedia forums.

    To celebrate the return of the Magic Bots (and as a thank you to Mir-o-Bot for remaining loyal despite all the difficulties), there will be a party, on Saturday, October 14 at 11:30 KIT, in Mir-o-Bot’s Kalamee (to get there, PM “to kalamee” to Mir-o-Bot, #32319).

    Eternal Seeker will provide the music, and the Nulp Dance Group will open the evening with a short but cool performance. In order to see all the effects, it is important not to use an internal client. Please come to the party with the vanilla MOULa client. After the performance, the dance floor will be open.

    Dances

    There will be no ‘guided dance’, but you can dance with a partner of your choice, with the help of Magic-Bot. There are different dances for this:

    • dancewith [name] [x]
      • abbreviated: dcw [name] [x]
    • slowdancewith [name] [x]
      • abbreviated: sldw [name] [x]

    where [name] is the avatar name of your desired dance partner, and [x] is the number of repetitions (max 3). All the seven dances that were available with the ‘guided dances’ are also available:

    • minadance [x] [name]

    Odd numbers are slightly faster dances, even numbers are slightly slower. Be polite and ask your desired dance partner to dance beforehand 😉

    Note that after calling the command, you will automatically be teleported to your dance partner and take a step backwards to assume the correct position. Make sure that your dance partner is not looking into an abyss, otherwise you would fall!

    If you need a KI note with a recap of the commands, you can ask Minasunda to send you one when you are in the Cavern.

    OpenUru

    ☛ Calum Traveler mentioned an upcoming fix to a long standing issue: in 2007 the DRC locked open the doors to the Library and Museum in Ae’gura, due to technical issues with the automatic sensors that were causing the doors to close in peoples faces, or stay shut when they should have opened.

    After almost 17 years, thanks to the hard work of Hazado, the functioning of these doors will be restored to proper functionality, opening and closing for a person coming close to their sensor regions, but staying open if multiple people are close by and not closing again until all people have transited. If someone links out while inside the sensor region, the doors will not close again until another person has gone through.

    ☛ Rarified gave a brief comment about the update schedule for MOULa. If all goes well, they should be able to send Cyan the new material later this month, with a possible release date for mid-November.

    ☛ TikiBear announced the restoration of the Age of Mirtahm, by Ametist and himself. There is no set date yet for when the Age will be made available.

    Mirtahm was found by Rebus and his friends, and is apparently deserted, after a cataclysmic flood that leaves much under water. There are structures remaining above the water that they have been restoring.

    From what they have found, the D’ni rescued and evacuated the original inhabitants. They then stayed for some time, with a small crew, to excavate a mineral. Now, after some cleanup, the Age is peaceful, if moody. There will be plenty of swimming and diving, though there will be fauna to contend with.

    ☛ Semjay is still working on refurbishing the Explorers’ Emporium (currently available on Deep Island); she is hoping to have it ready for testing by Christmas.

    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.

    D’ni Language Classes

    R’Tayrtahn gave two updates, one for the D’ni Language Classes and one for the Story Nights. Another student has finished the 101 lessons and is working on their final exam!

    Visitors are asked to not post pellet points into the hood imager: one of his former students and a close friend, Yutiel Yoshi, who passed away in 2018, is listed there. He has refrained from posting pellets to maintain her name at the top, as a form of memorial.

    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# 80428), or on Discord (r’Tayrtahn#1317).
    • The Guild of Instructors’ Hood will be open and public unless a class is in session.
    • There are daytime openings Monday to Friday, at 12:00, 13:00 or 14:00 KIT, though availability is subject to change with little or no notice;
    • evening openings are on Tuesday to 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 will be announced via Magic Bot (KI #27527) or Mimi Bot (KI #71459); to be notified, add both as buddies, then PM them “advert”.

    R’Tayrtahn’s Story Nights

    Story Night Europe and Original Story Night are telling the story of Myst: The Book of D’ni, as told in the novel. After that, they will begin the story from Myst III: Exile. Eventually they will cover all of the books and games, as well as the three human attempts at the restoration of D’ni.

    R’Tayrtahn records videos of the sessions (via an avatar named “I’m a bot, do not message”), that he will eventually upload to his YouTube channel. Be careful if you PM r’Tay or the bot 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 30 minutes after the meeting, 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.

    Miscellanea

    ☛ In October, the Fan Ages Expeditions in Deep Island will explore Jo’nae and Jo’nae Hood by Jonnee (from the book room in Janga, if possible), Takla Ma’kan by the German group H’Uru (not to be confused with the Writers’ developers group), and Paah’kweh by BobLishman.

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

    The next All Guilds Meeting is planned for Saturday, November 4 (Leevofo 12) at 13:00 KIT (20:00 CET).

    Until then!

  • September 2023 All Guilds Meeting Summary

    September 2023 All Guilds Meeting Summary

    Here is the summary for the 161st All Guilds Meeting, moderated by Claidi Song, along with the raw and cleansed chatlogs!

    Contents

    1. Mysterium
    2. Events in the Cavern
    3. OpenUru
    4. Fall of D’ni Memorial Island
    5. D’ni Language Classes
    6. R’Tayrtahn’s Story Nights
    7. Miscellanea

    Mysterium

    ☛ Next year’s Mysterium will be held in Canada, in Montreal, QC, so you may want to look up any immigration requirements. There are some pointers at the Location page on the convention’s website.

    If you do not have a passport it would be a good idea to look into it soon, since it can take a few months for the application to be processed.

    Most importantly, rely on official sources for immigration information. The convention offers those links for convenience, but do not rely on advice from Discord or any other unofficial source.

    ☛ The theme for 2024 will be Serenia, since it will be the 20th anniversary of Myst IV: Revelation.

    Submissions for T-shirt designs are open, and will be accepted until February 25. Details are available on the design page; in general, the committee will look favorably upon designs that incorporate both the year’s theme and the host city.

    ☛ The creativity prompt for September is “Back to School”; the deadline is September 30. Entries for the “Blazing” prompt for June were from Calum Traveler, KellyC, Triss, Talashar, IwonK, Salvo Ludus, Laughingpineapple, and Floydman.

    Events in the Cavern

    ☛ September is a month of many anniversaries:

    • Sunday 10 is the 19th anniversary of the release of Myst IV: Revelation, and the 16th of the Gametap episode “Deception”;
    • Monday 18 is the 9th of the Great Crash, when everyone had to reset their KI;
    • Tuesday 19 is the 18th anniversary of Myst V: End of Ages, and is also Talk Like a Pirate day;
    • Sunday 24 is the day the historical Guild of Writers was founded, and more importantly the 30th anniversary of (the original) Myst; and
    • Thursday 28 marks the historical Arrival of the Great King.

    ☛ IwonK will host a Wonky Talk (on her Twitch channel) on Friday 15 at 15:00 KIT in the Guild of Cookies’ Hood by the heek table. This month’s topic will be non-human characters in games. Feel free to suggest interesting games she could talk (and draw) about. As always, there will be cookies!

    OpenUru

    Rarified gave a brief comment about schedules and the pipeline into MOULa. They have started to choose what will go into the next update. That means that serious development will stop for a month, and a testing schedule will be announced for the Minkata shards, on the OpenUru Discord server (channel #test).

    If all goes well, they should be able to send Cyan the new material for the end of September, with a possible release date for mid-October. There are updates to several ages, and at least one new Age.

    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.

    Fall of D’ni Memorial Island

    Christopher Therburg said a few words about his Fall of D’ni Memorial Island project, or Bahn’tefoonet (lit. “island-memorial”) in D’ni. The restoration and conversion is finally complete, and the island should be ready to open with the next update.

    Christopher also gave a few bits about the history of the island, which is thought to have been a small D’ni park before the Fall. The memorial is connected to water pipes for filling up the basin; these pipes used to serve a fountain that was found so badly damaged that it was impossible to restore. The island itself was covered in debris when first surveyed. The restoration progress will be detailed in a journal available for reading.

    There will be an opening ceremony in Chiso Preniv, and a minute of silence once on the island.

    Christopher also briefly talked about the new Age he found a few months ago, somewhere in a house in the Cavern. The name of the Age is Ahnogahlpo (“water-cave”), and it seems to be a garden Age set in an ocean or huge lake, with some islands with holes and caves. The sands of the islands beaches glow strangely at night.

    The age is still in the earliest stages of restoration and not yet fully mapped, so it is still a llong way from being safe for public access.

    D’ni Language Classes

    R’Tayrtahn gave two updates, one for the D’ni Language Classes and one for the Story Nights.

    Visitors are asked to not post pellet points into the hood imager: one of his former students and a close friend, Yutiel Yoshi, who passed away in 2018, is listed there. He has refrained from posting pellets to maintain her name at the top, as a form of memorial.

    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# 80428), or on Discord (r’Tayrtahn#1317).
    • The Guild of Instructors’ Hood will be open and public unless a class is in session. There are daytime openings Monday to Friday, at 12:00, 13:00 or 14:00 KIT, though availability is subject to change with little or no notice;
    • evening openings are on Tuesday to 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 will be announced via Magic Bot (KI #27527) or Mimi Bot (KI #71459); to be notified, add both as buddies, then PM them “advert”.

    R’Tayrtahn’s Story Nights

    Story Night Europe and Original Story Night are telling the story of Myst: The Book of D’ni, as told in the novel. After that they will begin the story from Myst III: Exile. Eventually they will cover all of the books and games, as well as the three human attempts at the restoration of D’ni.

    R’Tayrtahn records videos of the sessions (via an avatar named “I’m a bot, do not message”), that he will eventually upload to his YouTube channel. Be careful if you PM r’Tay or the bot 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 30 minutes after the meeting, 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

    ☛ In September, the Fan Ages Expeditions in Deep Island will begin their third cycle! They will start again from the very beginning of fan age building, with creations from 2005.

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

    August ended with the CavFunding at 83% (CavCon 2.8) and the reserve at 587%, with no extra expenses.

    The next All Guilds Meeting is planned for Saturday, October 7 (Leevot 19) at 13:00 KIT.

    Until then!

  • August 2023 All Guilds Meeting Summary

    August 2023 All Guilds Meeting Summary

    Here is the summary for the 160th All Guilds Meeting, along with the raw and cleansed chatlogs!

    Contents

    1. Mysterium
    2. Events in the Cavern
    3. Chiso Preniv
    4. OpenUru
    5. D’ni Language Classes
    6. R’Tayrtahn’s Story Nights
    7. Miscellanea

    Mysterium

    ☛ Planning for next year’s Mysterium – which will be held in Canada – has already started. The Committee for 2024 will be Dan Binder (Fused Shadow) and Hannah Catherine Mills-Woolsey (Annacat).

    ☛ All of the videos are now available on the convention’s Youtube channel. The 3D model files for the maze boxes and cryptexes, puzzle packets, and other downloadable files are now available on the website, and more items will be added soon.

    ☛ A survey was taken right after the convention concluded. Here are the highlights:

    • pre-orders for swag were a huge hit: the Committee adopted a new registration system that allowed to print badge numbers, labels for the swag bags, and pack them in a very efficient manner, and will definitely be used again;
    • quite a few people asked for Paypal support. Unfortunately they are not accomodating to organizations like Mysterium, so they will have to stick with Square and Stripe for processing;
    • the noise in the con room was frustrating for everyone, and they are looking into better options;
    • there were some great suggestions on how to improve accessibillity even more;
    • it is too early to anticipate 2024’s Covid policy, but they hope they will find more inclusive solutions.
    • the newsletter got a surprising amount of support, and they will look into doing that this year.

    ☛ The creative prompt for August is “Blazing”; the deadline is August 31. Entries for the “Sun” prompt for June were from Calum Traveler, Triss, Salvo Ludus, Redwoodrroad (2), Floydman, Talashar, and IwonK.

    Events in the Cavern

    ☛ PodHopper announced the Moula Summer Festival 2023, planned for August 7–11. Preparations were difficult for various reasons, but it will be a week full of activities. Unfortunately the “Mayak” Jalak game was cancelled, but will likely be played later this year.

    Other events includes a Wall game (please register beforehand! the deadline is Wednesday 9), a Cone Race contest – Iwonk made a video about how to play it –, a Relaxing Session in Kalamee and a new marker game, “A brief history of Kalamee”.

    A schedule is available in our dedicated post. For last minute changes and for questions, check the Discord server MOULa Events, #summer-festival channel.

    ☛ IwonK will host a Wonky Talk (on her Twitch channel) on Friday 18 at 15:00 KIT in the Guild of Cookies’ Hood by the heek table. This month’s topic is sport games. Feel free to suggest interesting games she could talk (and draw) about. As always, there will be cookies!

    Chiso Preniv

    Patrick Dulebohn mentioned that work is still ongoing with the Great Shaft and the path from surface to D’ni. The hope is still to have the first section of that open to everyone later this year.

    Then he talked about the expedition to the outside of the Chiso Preniv library, where they learned of the nearby Caltauc people and their conflict with the D’ni.

    The original way to the outside is severely damaged: the D’ni, in their planned yet hasty exit from the library, imploded the tunnel to the surface to keep potential outsiders from getting in once they were gone. The tunnel is now almost completely blocked by debris.

    To open a way outside, Patrick enlisted the talents of AgeExplorer, who will use an invention of his own design that combines D’ni and human tech to properly sound the rock within the tunnel and determine which is structurally viable, and eventually dig a safe passage.

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

    OpenUru

    Rarified gave a brief comment about schedules and the pipeline into MOULa. Summer has been a busy period; a lot of updates are in the works, but none is ready for release. They hope to start preparing content for release in September. A schedule will be posted soon on the OpenUru Discord server (channel #test).

    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.

    D’ni Language Classes

    R’Tayrtahn gave two updates, one for the D’ni Language Classes and one for the Story Nights. A new student has begun the 101 class.

    Visitors are asked to not post pellet points into the hood imager: one of his former students and a close friend, Yutiel Yoshi, who passed away in 2018, is listed there. He has refrained from posting pellets to maintain her name at the top, as a form of memorial.

    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), or on Discord (r’Tayrtahn#1317).
    • The Guild of Instructors’ Hood will be open and public unless a class is in session. There are daytime openings Monday to Friday, at 12:00, 13:00 or 14:00 KIT, though availability is subject to change with little or no notice;
    • evening openings are on Tuesday to 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.

    R’Tayrtahn’s Story Nights

    Story Night Europe and Original Story Night are telling the story of Myst: The Book of D’ni as told in the novel. After that they will begin the story from Myst III: Exile. Eventually they will cover all of the books and games. as well as the three human attempts at the restoration of D’ni.

    R’Tayrtahn records videos of the sessions (via an avatar named “I’m a bot, do not message”), that he will eventually upload to his YouTube channel. Be careful if you PM r’Tay or the bot 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 30 minutes after the meeting, 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

    ☛ In August, the Fan Ages Expeditions in Deep Island will solve the mysteries of the last two chapters in the Secret of the Rainbow series by Jhon J. Jaguar, Somahoglahn and Edereden. After that, they will explore Kodalan and Tyldalan, by Itep Edor, Corvus, Wodan, Falke, Fruti, Dulcamara.

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

    The next All Guilds Meeting is planned for Saturday, September 2 (Leetahr 20) at 13:00 KIT.

    Until then!

  • July 2023 All Guilds Meeting Summary

    July 2023 All Guilds Meeting Summary

    Here is the summary for the 159th All Guilds Meeting, along with the raw and cleansed chatlogs!

    Contents

    1. Mysterium
    2. Events in the Cavern
    3. MacOS MOULa client
    4. D’ni Language Classes
    5. R’Tayrtahn’s Story Nights
    6. Miscellanea

    Mysterium

    Calum opened the meeting with a recap of the annual Myst convention, this year held on June 30–July 2 in Spokane (WA). Over 300 badges were issued this year. A more detailed coverage can be read in our dedicated post.

    ☛ The Cavern Today podcast recorded a live episode at Mysterium, plus a bonus episode detailing their visit to Cyan the day after.

    ☛ Doobes held an Age building demonstration using Korman. As a finale, he showed a trailer for the first area of Descent he has been working on.

    ☛ The creative prompt for July is “Sun”; the deadline is July 31. Entries for the “Scream” prompt for June were from Calum Traveler, Talashar, and Redwoodrroad.

    Events in the Cavern

    ☛ PodHopper announced the Moula Summer Festival 2023, planned for August 7–13. Preparations are still ongoing; so far the schedule includes a Wall game, a Jalak game named Mayak, and a few music or video events. PodHopper will host a Cone Race contest, a Relaxing Session in Kalamee and a new marker game, “A brief history of Kalamee”. A schedule should be finalized in the coming weeks.

    Information about the Mayak game can be found on the Discord server MOULa Events, #summer-festival channel.

    MacOS MOULa client

    Darryl Pogue shared that several members of the H’uru team were at Mysterium, meeting in person for the first time. A few people saw an informal demo of the macOS client for Uru being developed by maccodemonkey, including Chogon from Cyan.

    They hope to be able to share it with more people in the near future, but there is a bit more work to do before beta testing, hopefully before the end of the year. Work also continues on the Linux client, but it is definitely not ready for testing.

    The work on the macOS client is leading to improvements to the Windows H’uru client too: they recently merged support for high-DPI displays.

    If you are interested in getting involved, visit the OpenUru Discord server, #code-dev channel.

    D’ni Language Classes

    R’Tayrtahn gave two updates, one for the D’ni Language Classes and one for the Story Nights.

    Visitors are asked to not post pellet points into the hood imager: one of his former students and a close friend, Yutiel Yoshi, who passed away in 2018, is listed there. He has refrained from posting pellets to maintain her name at the top, as a form of memorial.

    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), or on Discord (r’Tayrtahn#1317).
    • The Guild of Instructors’ Hood will be open and public unless a class is in session. There are daytime openings Monday to Friday, at 12:00, 13:00 or 14:00 KIT, though availability is subject to change with little or no notice;
    • evening openings are on Monday to 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.

    R’Tayrtahn’s Story Nights

    Story Night Europe and Original Story Night are telling the story of Riven as told in the game. After that they will begin the story from The Book of D’ni. Eventually they will cover all of the books and games. as well as the three human attempts at the restoration of D’ni.

    R’Tayrtahn records videos of the sessions (via an avatar named “I’m a bot, do not message”), that he will eventually upload to his YouTube channel. Be careful if you PM r’Tay or the bot 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 meeting, 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

    ☛ In July, the Fan Ages Expeditions in Deep Island will begin the Path of the Lost Ages, consisting of Palamary bay, Peridia, Myst Refuge, and concluding in Ruins of Azmar, by Melvin. This will take most of the month; after that, they will visit some Ages by Doobes.

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

    June ended with the CavFunding at 97% (CavCon 3.0) and the reserve at 592%, with no extra expenses. Population was at 48,397 (⇑225), with 1060 unique visits.

    The next All Guilds Meeting is planned for Saturday, August 5 (Leesahn 27) at 13:00 KIT.

    Until then!

  • Mysterium 2023

    Mysterium 2023

    The XXIV Mysterium was held in Spokane, WA on June 30–July 2, with the panels and presentations streamed to both Twitch and YouTube.

    Belford wrote a summary in his blog, commenting on Cyan’s announcements.

    Friday started at 11:00 KIT with the Opening Announcements with a few words and reminders from the convention chairs.

    At the 12:00 panel D’ni Linguistic Fellowship, Christopher “Kh’reestrefah” Gilson discussed word formation in the D’ni language, first showing how words in D’ni can be used to form other words, then looking at known D’ni words to discover patterns that point to historical rules that have not been explained before.

    At the 15:00 panel Uru World-building, Patrick “Doobes” Dulebohn gave a demonstration of Blender for Korman, the free plugin currently used to create Ages for MOULa and CC. He also briefly showed the use of ZLZ Age Importer, to get Cyan Ages converted to blends.

    At the 16:00 panel Art of Shoomlah, Claire “Shoom’lah” Hummel showed a retrospective of her Myst art over the years, and how the games have impacted her career as an art director and concept artist in the games industry (including hiding a Riven easter egg in Half-Life: Alyx). She runs a “real places that look like Myst” blog.

    At the 17:00 panel The Cavern Today Podcast, Dalken Starbyne, Esto Centura, Maurus and Sh’aeri held a live episode right at Mysterium, discussing the convention, D’ni, Cyan, and did a brief audience Q&A. The Cavern Today podcast has been bringing listeners news from the Myst fan community since 2005.

    At the 18:00 event Moving the Slider (not streamed), Rayne and m13 challenged the attendees at a group game, working together to solve puzzles, find clues, and trying to figure out what in the world the Thing is for.

    At the 19:00 panel Unwritten Character Creation Workshop, Faroguy, Eleri Hamilton, Vee Hamilton and Thomas “Curator” Steele announced the Modern D’ni expansion for Unwritten, and gave tips on how to plan a good character for the game.

    Later, Curator and Eleri hosted two parallel Unwritten sessions.

    Saturday started at 9:30 KIT with a few words from the convention staff, then the attendees headed over to Cyan HQ. At 11:00 Jeff Lanctot gave a brief welcome talk and order of events.

    At the 11:15 Cyan State of the Union, Hannah Gamiel and Eric Anderson discussed the recently released Myst (VR) and Firmament, and gave some updates about the Riven remake; notably, there will be some changes giving more lore details.

    Currently all resources are focused on Riven; future projects will likely be smaller, a bit more experimental, and possibly more related to the Myst universe. The presentation ended with a preview of the Riven remake, specifically the Boiler Island area!

    Starting at 12:15 the attendees were divided in three groups, alternating between lunch at the Squee Conservatory, a guided tour of the campus at DRC Headquarters, and an opportunity to meet some Cyan employees and guests at Gehn’s Temple.

    At 14:30 Mike “RIUM+” Ando showed off another one of his amazing creations: the Andotrope, a recreation of Gehn’s holographic imager from Riven. As RIUM+ put it, he “accidentally invented new technology while trying to make a videogame prop more screen-accurate”.

    At 15:10, at the Special Mystery Presentation, Phil Salvador from the the Video Game History Foundation announced they got permission to digitize a huge stack (about 100 hours of footage) of videotapes from Cyan’s vault, recorded in the Nineties, found by Philip Shane while he was collecting material for the Myst Documentary. They hope to finish digitizing the tapes and make them available by the end of this year.

    At 16:00 Rand Miller held a Keynote Q&A, discussing a few design choices for the Riven remake, and taking questions from the audience. Cyan is now focused on the remake. Richard Vander Wende has returned as creative leads, along with Rand Miller. The game logic is in place, but a lot is still needed for the visuals. They confirmed they will not use live-action video for the characters. No release date or platforms were announced, but they want to release it by the 30th anniversary (2027).

    The remake will expand a bit the lore, under the premise that they uncovered more archaelogical material from the New Mexico desert, and they will incorporate those discoveries into the new game. For the occasion, Rand showcased a metal plate with a relief of D’ni letters (possibly a gahrohev), originally used to cover the Fissure around the telescope.

    After Riven, they want to focus on smaller games, with more replay value, going back to the Myst universe.

    Wrapping up at 17:30, the crowd headed back to the hotel for the rest of the events.

    At 21:00 four parallel events started:

    Harley hosted the Gemedet Tournament, a game in which two players take turns placing pieces of their color in a three dimensional grid nine wide, nine long, and nine layers high. The objective is to complete an unbroken straight line of six pieces of the players color. Any direction the line of six can fit will count, including diagonals.

    Dan Binder hosted Name That Tune, a competition in which the attendees identified songs and tracks from the Myst games.

    Eleri and Curator hosted two more Unwritten sessions.

    After some announcements from the convention staff, Sunday started at 11:00 KIT with Cyan Games Completed Rapidly Live, a marathon of Myst games hosted by the Guild of Speedrunners, to show the differences and the development of its various iterations, in celebration of 30 years of Myst.

    At the 12:00 panel Uru Demake, Phil R showcased his ‘de-make’ of Uru, a recreation of some of the Ages in a very simple 2D pixel art engine called Bitsy; he discussed the process of translating puzzles from Uru into a minimalist style and redesigning some of the puzzles based on player feedback.

    After lunch, at the 15:00 panel Myst Documentary, filmmaker Philip Shane and team members Randy Woods, Joshua Reinstein, Katie Postma and Elana Bogdan gave an update about The Myst Documentary, highlighting how it will be structured and showing a few clips about the Miller family. Attendees were given an exclusive sneak peek.

    At 17:00 the Closing Ceremonies were held, wrapping up this year’s convention, running the prize drawing, showing the “Crafting With Watermelon” video, and announcing next year’s location: Montreal, Canada!

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

    Looking forward to next year!

  • June 2023 All Guilds Meeting Summary

    June 2023 All Guilds Meeting Summary

    Here is the summary for the 158th All Guilds Meeting, along with the raw and cleansed chatlogs!

    Contents

    1. Firmament
    2. Events in the Cavern
    3. Mysterium
    4. OpenUru
    5. D’ni Language Classes
    6. R’Tayrtahn’s Story Nights
    7. Miscellanea

    Firmament

    Firmament has been released on May 18 on Steam and GOG. Discussion forums can be found on Facebook, Discord, Reddit, Steam, and there is also a wiki. Let us know if you find other venues 🙂 Reviews have been posted on (possible spoilers) The Spokesman-Review, GeekWire, Shacknews, Inverse.

    Interestingly, the game includes “AI assisted content” for journals, logs, songs, letters, backer portraits, wallpapers, banners, voiced announces and other speeches.

    Unfortunately, the release was marred by various bugs, mostly related to missing voiceover lines or getting stuck in places. So far three patches have been released, fixing most of the issues; Cyan is hard at work at fixing the remaining ones. Most bugs related to getting stuck can be fixed by pausing the game, select “Settings”, then from the “Controls” menu (the default), move the cursor all the way to the bottom and select “Teleport to safe spot”. This will reset both your position and that of the objects and devices you have interacted with.

    In a post on Facebook, they asked anyone still experiencing issues, to submit an email to support(at)cyan(dot)com with the subject line “Firmament Bugs” and the following information:

    • on Windows PC: attach the dxdiag report, and attach the complete contents of your %LocalAppData%\Firmament\Saved directory, zipped up, to your email;
    • on MacOS: attach screenshots of the “About this Mac” page, and the Hardware and Graphics/Display, and attach the complete contents of your Application Support/Epic/Firmament/Saved folder inside your Home folder to your email;
    • include details of the bug, with any repro steps if possible.

    The system requirements are a minimum of an AMD Ryzen 7 2700X eight-core processor (16 CPUs), ~3.7 GHz or Intel i5 7000 series; 16 GB RAM of memory; AMD Radeon RX 5700XT or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 8 GB graphic card; DirectX 11; 20 GB disk space.

    The game will release for PS4, PS5 and PS VR 2 at a later date. PC VR includes free roam and teleport modes and supports Valve Index, HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Rift S, and Quest 2 via Oculus Link.

    Events in the Cavern

    ☛ June is Pride Month; banners are on display in the Guild of Messengers pub.

    ☛ Since Mysterium begins on June 30 (see below for more), the July All Guilds Meeting willl be postponed to July 8.

    ☛ IwonK will host a Wonky Talk (on her Twitch channel) on Friday 16 at 15:00 KIT in the Guild of Cookies’ Hood by the heek table. This month’s topic is child protagonists in video games. Feel free to suggest interesting games she could talk (and draw) about. As always, there will be cookies!

    Mysterium

    The annual Myst convention is less than a month away, on June 30 in Spokane (WA). The schedule is packed, with a visit to Cyan’s headquarters on Saturday, where Rand will answer questions; on top of that, a New Thing from Rium+, a mystery panel, Unwritten sessions and more.

    Standard registration is hovering around the capacity cap of 250 people. The Committee has opened up an overflow registration queue for attendees who do not wish to go to Cyan, or would like to go if someone cannot attend. There are a total of 275 purchasable tickets for Mysterium this year, which  means there are only 25 overflow spots (likely less, at the time of this writing). The overflow tickets are also discounted.

    If you are planning on attending Cyan on Saturday, a registration ticket has opened on the registration page for a bus ride; there is a limited number of these, and a buy in is required, as bus rental rates are very high right now. There is also a signup spreadsheet on the Mysterium Discord “Looking for People” subforum in the “Cyan Ride Share” thread for anyone who is bringing or renting a car, and would like to offer seats for other attendees.

    ☛ During the “Uru World-Building” panel on Friday 30 at 14:00 KIT, Doobes will hold a 50 min demonstration of Age building, using Blender for Korman. He also plans to show Age import via Sirius’ ZLZ Age Importer, to show how Cyan’s Ages are converted to Blend files for fixing, updating, etc., and what goes into that. There is also a chance that other programmers, Age builders, etc. will be able to join for a roundtable discussion during the demo.

    ☛ The creative prompt for June is “Scream”; the deadline is June 30. Entries for the “Spring” prompt for April were from Redwoodrroad, Laughingpineapple, Calum Traveler, IwonK, Talashar, and Tweek.

    ☛ For the latest info and more details, check the official website of the Mysterium Convention.

    OpenUru

    ☛ Christopher Therburg gave an update on his Fall of D’ni Memorial Island project. The island is almost ready to open, possiblly in July or later in the summer. Christopher wrote and left a journal on the island, which describes the work on the memorial and the island and also tells the motivation for building it in the first place. The official name of the island is Bahntefoonet, D’ni for “Memorial Island”; the original name of the island is unknown.

    Christopher also mentioned the other Age he found: he explored this Age a little more closely and at first glance it might be a watery Garden Age. Restoration for this Age is now at phase 1, and is tentatively planned to be released in 2024 or 2025.

    D’ni Language Classes

    R’Tayrtahn gave two updates, one for the D’ni Language Classes and one for the Story Nights. Another student has completed the 101 class and is working on their final exam!

    Visitors are asked to not post pellet points into the hood imager: one of his former students and a close friend, Yutiel Yoshi, who passed away in 2018, is listed there. He has refrained from posting pellets to maintain her name at the top, as a form of memorial.

    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), or on Discord (r’Tayrtahn#1317).
    • The Guild of Instructors’ Hood will be open and public unless a class is in session. There are daytime openings Monday to Friday, at 12:00, 13:00 or 14:00 KIT, though availability is subject to change with little or no notice;
    • evening openings are on Monday to 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.

    R’Tayrtahn’s Story Nights

    Story Night Europe and Original Story Night are telling the story of Atrus as told in the book Myst: The Book of Atrus. After that they will begin the story from the game of Myst. Eventually they will cover all of the books and games. as well as the three human attempts at the restoration of D’ni.

    R’Tayrtahn records videos of the sessions (via an avatar named “I’m a bot, do not message”), that he will eventually upload to his YouTube channel. Be careful if you PM r’Tay or the bot 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 meeting, 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

    ☛ In June, the Fan Ages Expeditions will continue the exploration of Tentsahveet by Jhon J. Jaguar, the third chapter in the The Secret of the Rainbow series about a group of defectors from the Black Ships’ flagship and its cruel captain Krakon. This Age will take one or two more sessions to complete. After that, they will begin the exploration of Semjay’s Ages: Terahgrahm, Zahlto, Tovaht Bay, Ahreesen Melin.

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

    The next All Guilds Meeting is planned for Saturday, July 8 (Leesahn 5) at 13:00 KIT.

    Until then!