Tag: Korman

  • 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!

  • February 2023 All Guilds Meeting Summary

    February 2023 All Guilds Meeting Summary

    Here is the summary for the 154th All Guilds Meeting, along with the raw and cleansed chatlogs!

    Contents

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

    Mysterium

    The Committee, always striving to make the convention as welcoming and accessible to as many people as possible, has released an accessibility survey to solicit feedback and ideas. The survey is short and all questions are optional.

    The big news was of course that registrations are now open! The Committee is using a new registration software for this year, and possibly into the future: you will need to open an account, and through that you will be able to access the shop section to purchase tickets and swag.

    Speaking of swag, there will be plenty this year, such as lanyard charms (Riven dagger, Gehn crest, quab, watermelon), Myst series timeline coffee mugs, and a poster print with awesome artwork! More will be added at future dates as things like pins get settled and finalised.

    As for the Covid-19 policy, it will be mostly the same as last year: full vaccination is required (including a bivalent booster) by June 23, and masks (N95 or equivalent) will be required and enforced.
    At Cyan’s headquarters the policy will be different and a bit more lax: special guests and Cyan staff will be allowed to remove their masks while presenting or taking part in a panel, and may not be guaranteed to be fully vaccinated.

    Hotel registration is also open; pricing is a bit higher than usual, because many unrelated events will be hosted at Spokane at around the same time, and the convention is just before US Independence Day.

    A few submission deadlines are still open:

    • pin designs are open until February 12;
    • events are open until April 29 (if you require special seating arrangements or equipment, you will need to inform the Committee in the submission).

    The prompt for February is “Heart”; the deadline is February 28. Entries for the “Beginnings” prompt for January were Calum Traveler, Redwoodrroad, Kefrith, and Talashar.

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

    Events in the Cavern

    ☛ Minasunda presented the schedule for the XIII MOULa Anniversary Celebration Week (see our dedicated post). This year is also the 30th anniversary of the original Myst game, and the 20th anniversary of Uru: Ages Beyond Myst!

    If Mir-o-Bot is present for an event, please use it solely for traveling, respect the events and do not use bot commands. Minasunda will release videos of the events some time (13 events will take a while to process!) after the anniversary week, in her YouTube channel.

    ☛ Dah’mpa presented the Wall competitions. Both will take place at Wally’mpa’s Gahreesen; the meeting point will be the Watcher’s Pub. If Wally’mpa (Dah’mpa’s doppelgänger) is unresponsive, please wait until he gets back to you: entry will be put on hold during matches to minimize chances of bugs.

    Player can participate in either or both sessions. The goal is to give players (and spectators) more opportunities to participate. There will be only individual competitions (1 vs 1). This is because in team competitions bugs show up pretty quickly. Devs and testers are working hard to get rid of these issues, but for now it is safer to stick with the simpler mode.

    Participants can register until February 4 at midnight, 24:00 KIT, in order to better plan the format of each competition. Only players that really know how to play the game can sign up. That is because explaining how the Wall works during the competition would take too long and is very hard to do without drawings.

    ☛ 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 is cooking games. Feel free to suggest more interesting games she could talk (and draw) about. As always, there will be cookies!

    OpenUru

    The first quarter update testing is underway on Minkata Alpha. Testers are asked to to be discrete about a certain project they can find there until it will be ready to be released, and only report issues on the OpenUru Discord. This quarter has a wide gamut of contributions, from fixing old cold bugs in existing Ages, to (maybe) a couple of new Ages.

    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.

    Doobes

    Doobes gave a few updates. First, he will be attending Mysterium to do a presentation: he will demonstrate Blender for Korman, to show in real time how to build a basic Age, and the ZLZ Age Importer, to show the process of converting Cyan Ages into usable Blender files. If you will not be able to attend, the event will be streamed live and archived to Mysterium’s YouTube channel sometime after.

    Next, he is back to work on Descent. The main focus has been relighting the section already available, just beyond the bottom of the Shaft. The current lighting is a bit unrealistic and too bright. The plan is to give this area a more natural and atmospheric lighting. After that, he will tackle the mechanics of the Great Shaft and all the wiring they will require.

    If all goes well, a new version of Descent should be uploaded to Minkata before the end of Q1, with a tentative release after the Q2 update, possibly in time for Mysterium. All this hinges on who difficult the wiring will turn out to be, so as always temper expectations!

    A change that should be coming this quarter will be the ability to delete fan Age books via Chiso Preniv. This will be possible due to coding from Hazado and graphical assets provided by Tweek.

    Doobes also mentioned Hazado has also been working on squashing more bugs with the Gahreesen Wall, so as many testers as possible are needed at the Minkata shard to give things a proper stress test.

    Finally he mentioned the release of Blender for Korman 0.14 (see our dedicated post).

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

    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 on weekdays 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, Wednesday, Thursday, 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.

    R’Tayrtahn’s Story Nights

    Story Night Europe and Original Story Night are telling the story of the Fall as told in the book Myst: The Book of Ti’ana. After that they will begin the story from Myst: The Book of Atrus, followed by 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.

    On February 11 there will be no Story Night, as it would clash with the anniversary celebrations.

    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 February, the Fan Ages Expeditions will visit Lonirvan, the second chapter in the ‘Secret of the Rainbow’ journey by John J. Jaguar.
    They will then complete the exploration of the Maintainers Gateway by Melvin.
    Next will be the Cathedral by DenDwaler; the month will conclude with the first few steps (and swims) in Elsewhere by Denost.

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

    January ended with the CavFunding at 240% (CavCon 4.14) and the reserve at 715%, with no extra expenses. Population was at 47,027 (⇑324), with 1220 unique visits.

    The next All Guilds Meeting is planned for Saturday, March 4 (Leevotahr 21) at 13:00 KIT.

    Until then!

  • Guild of Writers Releases Korman 0.14

    Guild of Writers Releases Korman 0.14

    The Guild of Writers released a new version of the age exporting tool Korman. This update represents 26 commits with approximately 200 lines of code changed since Korman 0.13a.

    Changelog:

    • Added heuristics for stripping illegal smart characters from journals.
    • Added heuristics to prevent the export of flat convex hulls, which are known to crash Plasma.
    • Added the ability for the Sitting Modifier to trigger a sitting camera.
    • Fixed an issue in which .loc files could be exported in different order on subsequent exports, making diffs difficult to parse.
    • Fixed an issue in which too many blend flags could be exported on a layer, causing debug clients to assert.
    • Fixed an issue in which the water modifier’s wind object might not be movable from Python scripts.
    • Fixed Blend Textures failing to export after the first export in a Blender session.
    • Fixed the Grass Shader modifier not being able to copy and paste correctly.
    • Removed the ability to export triangle mesh regions to Myst Online: Uru Live. These regions are known to not work reliably.

    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.

  • December 2022 All Guilds Meeting Summary

    December 2022 All Guilds Meeting Summary

    Here is the summary for the 152nd All Guilds Meeting, along with the raw and cleansed chatlogs!

    Contents

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

    Lexember

    For the third time, after 2019 and 2021, Cyan is taking part in Lexember, posting a word definition every day on their official Twitter account. This time, along with D’ni, they will be posting definitions for Rivenese words!

    As with past years, a list with all the relevant links is being compiled on the Guild of Archivist’s wiki.

    OpenUru

    The team of artists, programmers, and janitors were quite weary after the summer update, so they took things easy this time and combined the time of the third and fourth quarters. There are new Ages, improvements to existing ones, and fixes.

    There have been talks about porting over the Open Cave pet Relto page, but there are a few issues to be cleared before that can be done, if at all.

    Doobes has fixed an issue with the Ahnonay Cathedral doors, which will stay open until the last person links out. He is also trying to fix a similar issue with the doors in Chiso Preniv, which depend on a couple of scripts that affect many other doors, so there may be a potential benefit to these cases (possibly even re-enabling the doors in the Museum and the Library).

    The update is presently on the Staging Server, undergoing final testing, and is expected to be released sometime in the next two weeks.

    Other items on Doobes’ to-do list are getting Relto and Kirel almost fully converted to Korman, so that adding books and pages and updating things would be much easier. The full Descent is still being worked on. He is also playing around with the five Guild Pubs, trying to make them a bit more unique, by e.g. opening up the side rooms and showing various work going on with each. Direbo is on hold, pending Cyan’s decision on Myst V content.

    Doobes is also planning to hold a live demonstration at Mysterium 2023 of how to build and export an Age with Korman, and how to import Ages using Sirius’ ZLZ Age Importer. Along with that, he is working on an asset library of various D’ni objects to use and essentially ‘paste in’ an Age; this to encourage others to take a crack at Age building by easing some of the modeling and texturing burden a bit.

    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.

    Events in the Cavern

    ☛ Minasunda announced the upcoming release of the machinima movie Okohahzah (“black-white” in D’ni, in the sense of light and shadow) on YouTube, Saturday 10 at 12:00 KIT. You will be able to chat with the creators (including Mina) on the YouTube Premiere chat or in the Cavern, in Mir-O-Bot’s Elonin (o get there PM “link” or “meet” to the bot – note that the command is not “to Elonin”).

    On 30 December Minasunda will also release a video with a review of 2022 and all that happened in the Cavern this year. She will post the link on Facebook and Discord.

    ☛ The 13th anniversary of MOULa is coming soon. Minasunda is planning the festival week on 6–11 February: if you’d like want to contribute with an event, let her know so that she can plan the dates.

    Podhopper already announced the Eddie Competition, while Nosila and Dahmpa will host a music event together; Eternal Seeker and Mina are planning another music event with a ‘guided dance’, and the Nulp Dance Group is working on a dance show in Fahets Highgarden.

    ☛ Minasunda closed with a plea to be considerate when helping new players. There have been reports of ‘veteran’ explorers who have solved puzzles in newcomers’ instances despite their protest. This is inappropriate behavior that takes the fun out of playing; the respectful act is to back off when new players decline the help.

    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 on weekdays at 12:00, 13:00 or 14:00 KIT, though availability is subject to change with little or no notice;
    • evening openings are on weekdays 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 the Fall as told in the book Myst: The Book of Ti’ana. After that they will begin the story from Myst: The Book of Atrus, followed by 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, that he eventually uploads 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 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.

    Storytellers

    The Storytellers have been running sporadic story events, and a few scheduled events, such as the Town Halls on the last Wednesday of the month. Due to holidays, the December one may be skipped.

    In place of that, in Eder Naybree on Sunday 4 at 11:00 KIT, they closed the ‘troublemakers’ story arc, to move on to others such as the Rei’schu negotiations or Benahvud’s amnesia. Transcripts were posted on the story forums, along with the discussion threads.

    Mysterium

    The Mysterium prompt for December is “Endings”; the deadline is December 31. Winners of the “Fall” prompt for November were Delcolux, Redwoodrroad, Calum Traveler, Talashar and Laughingpineapple.

    Miscellanea

    In December, the Fan Ages Expeditions will continue the exploration of the underworld of Elodea (Unterwelt, Tunnelgang, Schatzkammern) by 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, January 7, 2023 (Leevosahn 5) at 13:00 KIT.

    Until then!

  • 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!

  • 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!

  • June 2022 All Guilds Meeting Summary

    June 2022 All Guilds Meeting Summary

    Here is the summary for the 146th All Guilds Meeting, along with the raw and cleansed chatlogs!

    Contents

    1. Cavern Tours
    2. D’ni Language Classes
    3. R’Tayrtahn’s Story Nights
    4. Fan Ages Touring Club
    5. Korman
    6. Development news
    7. Miscellanea

    Cavern Tours

    The Cavern Tour are back, on the fourth Saturday of the month, starting on Saturday 25 at 11:00 KIT in the Cavern Tour’s Hood.

    Larry LeDeay will reprise his role as the tour guide, r’Tayrtahn will appear as guest guide. Zeke, the original creator of the Cavern Tours, will also be back as host along Susa’n.

    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); be sure to include your KI number in the message!
    • The Guild of Instructors’ Hood will be open and public unless a class is in session. Daytime openings are currently on Monday–Friday at 12:00, 13:00 or 14:00 KIT; evening openings on Tuesday, Wednesday or Friday at 20:00, 21:00 or 22:00 KIT, depending on the student’s schedule.
    • 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 14 weeks.

    R’Tayrtahn has restarted upload recordings of the Nights to his YouTube channel and is in the process of uploading the backlog of videos from previous sessions. Be careful if you PM r’Tay, 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.

    Fan Ages Touring Club

    Korov’ev gave a quick update on the Fan Ages Expeditions he is hosting on the Deep Island shard, every Sunday at 11:00 KIT.

    In May, they started with a quest to recover Quilla’s piano through Elonin, the Beach house, the Cafe and Tsameti. They then visited a few Ahra Pahts shells they missed last time, including the one with the black fortress. They then visited the prison Age of Pakin, the playground of Hayal, the beaches of T’vel, the lake of Ahreeuhtahv, the castle of Chamassa and the memorial of Aquh.

    In June, they will start with the puzzles of Ahrkane, by Ekimmai. Then they will compete in a few Ages with giant board games, mostly by Karkadann; they will get lost in cubic mazes by J’Kla, and close the month with a few Ages by Justintime.

    More about the Expeditions (click to expand)
    • The expeditions are streamed (without comments), and the videos will be available for two weeks after. Be careful if you PM Korov’ev, as messages will be visible in the videos 😉
    • A gallery of fan ages with some details is available on the Writers’ wiki. Setting up a Deep Island client can be a bit tricky in some situations; a quick guide is available in our Troubleshooting section.

    Korman

    Darryl Pogue announced the release of the Guild of Writers’ Age building tool Korman 0.13a, fixing a couple of crashes.

    In other H’uru news, they are continuing their work on engine improvements, including many quality-of-life fixes by Zaroth and content fixes by Hazado. Work on Linux and macOS ports also continues.

    To learn more about development news, you can join the OpenUru Discord server (channels #hood or #dev).

    Development news

    Argo gave a quick update on the MOULa update plans for the coming months. Work on the lake lighting is going on: the final coding is being worked on, while animations are ready but need a model for automatically switching between states.

    They are also nearing the finalization dates for this next quarters release. The goal is to get the update in-game before August for the Mysterium decorations for the Ae’gura Guild of Messengers Pub.

    A few activities for Mysterium are planned for the Cavern, including possibly a marker game, assuming a fix to prevent them breaking will be implemented by then. No major in-Cavern events to go alongside the missions are planned, however.

    Miscellanea

    • Two VR games published by Cyan Ventures were released in May: Area Man Lives and The Last Clockwinder.
    • Mysterium’s COVID-19 policy has been updated, requiring full vaccination and N95 (or equivalent) masks.
    • Along with the convention registration, you can book an optional excursion to the Meow Wolf: Convergence Station art exhibit for a discounted price until June 30.
    • Mysterium Writing & Artwork submissions are still open until July 31.
    • The Mysterium prompt for June is “Resilience”; the deadline is June 30 at 21:00 KIT.
    • The Lost Art episode 14 is coming out on June 18 at 13:00 KIT, on MystiTech YouTube’s channel.

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

    May ended with the CavFunding at 148% (CavCon 4.5) and the reserve at 541%, with 4% extra expenses. Population was at 44,747 (⇑250), with 1228 unique visits.

    The next All Guilds Meeting is planned for Saturday, July 2 (Leebro 29) 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!

  • News Roundup #20

    • Firmament is on track for a late 2022 release of the game. The Kickstarter physical rewards will be delivered by Fangamer in 2023.
    • The Mysterium Committee has posted a follow-up on the COVID policy for the 2022 convention: all attendees will be required to provide proof of being up-to-date with vaccination, and will be required to wear an N95 or equivalent mask. The full policy can be found on the COVID page.
    • Korman 0.13a was released by the Guild of Writers, fixing a couple of crashes.
    • Calum Traveler posted a summary of the recent in-Cavern events. Carl Palmner also frequently reports on such events. More IC weblogs are listed under “Explorers’ Journals” here on the top bar.