Tag: Unexplored Branches

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!

14 August 2022
August 2022 All Guilds Meeting Summary
Here is the summary for the 148th All Guilds Meeting, along with the raw and cleansed chatlogs!

Contents
Mysterium

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

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

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

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

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

The last round of special guests have been announced:
- Eric Anderson has been with Cyan for several years, contributing to Uru, Myst V and Obduction;
- Rand Miller co-founded Cyan and brought Myst, Obduction and all the other Cyan titles that are the very reason for the convention’s existence;
- Joshua Reinstein is an editor and researcher for The Myst Documentary;
- Guy Sprung is an accomplished thespian, but Myst fans will know him as Achenar from Myst IV: Revelation.
The Mysterium prompt for August is “Travel”; the deadline is August 31. Winners of the “Voltaic Age” prompt for July were Talashar, Calum Traveler and Redwoodrroad.

MOULa updates

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Town Hall

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

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

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

Summer Festival

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

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

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

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

Chiso Preniv updates

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

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

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

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

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

How to be a tester (click to expand)

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

Cavern Tours

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

The Tours will use a Twitch channel for the presentation, so you will need to keep a browser or the app open in the background. Videos will be available for two weeks after the tour. The stream will be simulcasted on Facebook and Youtube.

The tours occasionally visit hard to reach places. Mir-o-Bot (KI# 32319) is often employed for special effects and long-distance travel (and to avoid stairs). If you arrive late, you can PM Susa’n (KI# 9122427) to join the in-progress tour – but do try to arrive in time!

D’ni Language Classes

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

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

R’Tayrtahn is in the process of uploading the backlog of videos from previous sessions to his YouTube channel. Be careful if you PM r’Tay during the evennts, as messages will be visible in the videos 😉
More about the Story Nights (click to expand)
- Story Nights are held in Tsahno’s Hood every Saturday, gathering at the fountain at around 23:00 KIT, with the story starting at about 23:30 KIT.
- For Story Nights – Europe, the gatherings are on Saturday starting at 13:30 KIT, with the story starting at about 14:00 KIT. On All Guilds Meeting days, the event will begin at 14:00 KIT or 15 minutes after the AGM, whichever is later.
- The stories are told using voice chat, so you will need to have your speakers, headphones or KI devices on. If you would like a reminder, please send r’Tayrtahn (KI# 58324) a KImail with your KI number included in the text, so that he can add you to his buddies list.
- Last-minute changes to Story Night times are posted on the left-hand imager in the hood.
Miscellanea
- The Cavern Today Podcast is back, available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other streaming services. Their first episode for this year features an interview to Patrick Dulebohn.
- In August, the Fan Ages Expeditions will continue the esploration of Adrael, trying to find out whatever happened to D’ni Research Association member Irena Stromberg, who has gone missing after a vision of a ‘ghost’ with glowing eyes.
  They will then visit some the Uru locations of the Devokan Trust, one of the most elaborate fan-written storylines, spanning various platforms in the Metaverse (the real Metaverse).
  Then they will play some music in Turtle Isle by DenDwaler, and finish the month with two puzzles: Lohdehvis by Takku Petreya and Rahsoo B’ahrotan by Calena.
And that was it for this month. Please consider donating to keep the Cavern open!

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

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

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

Until then!
7 August 2022
January 2022 All Guilds Meeting Summary
Here is the summary for the 141st All Guilds Meeting, along with the raw and cleansed chatlogs!

Contents
Mysterium news

Calum Traveler reported some quick news about the convention:
- early bird registration is available until May 15 at two different rates: Standard ($25) will provide admission to the event and any swag, such as pins; Premium ($40) includes everything from Standard as well as a Mysterium 2022 T-shirt;
- the T-shirt design has not been chosen yet; if you are planning to submit a design (submissions are open until February 20), the Committee recommend holding off on registering, since your shirt will be free if your design is selected;
- if you submitted an entry for the Writing & Artwork table for 2020 or 2021, you will need to re-submit it for this year;
- attendees will likely be required to be up to date with COVID-19 vaccinations (the CDC’s definition of fully vaccinated); staff will provide more details on how to provide proof at a later time.
Events in the Cavern

Minasunda announced the start of MOULa’s XII anniversary week, on February 6, starting with Ghaelen’s opening ceremony. Special events are already planned, in addition to the regular ones, including a fantastic Nulp Dance Show in Gahreesen.

More details will be announced at the February AGM. A preliminary schedule was posted in the #anniversary-planning channel of the MOULa Event Discord server.

If you need help with organising an event (not only for the festivities), or just want to spread the word about it, you can join a Discord server, a Facebook group, or you can contact Minasunda via KImail (#5667000).

A new era in D’ni

Doobes announced he started working on the Myst V Ages: Tahgira, Todelmer, Noloben, Laki’ahn, and Direbo, which were originally meant for MOUL. He came up with a hopefully viable path to bypass the bahro magic and use traditional linking methods, to see all the sights and allow completion of the puzzles. The events of Myst V may be alluded to, but only lightly, so any spoiler should be minor.

All this of course will hinge on Cyan’s approval; they will have an opportunity to see the converted content and give their thoughts. Descent will take a back seat for the time being, until the Myst V Ages are complete.

Doobes also mentioned that the entries for Grandbad and Battlebotsboy, who sadly passed away at the end of 2021, will soon be added to the Veelay Tsahvahn journals, after some testing on the Minkata shard.

Finally, he noted that, with the next MOULa update, Tiam hopefully will be given a linking panel in the Nexus, which will allow linking to Tiam via the Nexus and also allow for KI invites to work. For now, explorers will need to use the Share feature in the linking book in Chiso Preniv.

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

The Fall of D’ni Memorial

Christopher Therburg announced his Fall of D’ni Memorial project has been moved from its original planned location in the Kings Lookout to a separate small island in the Cavern, the reason being that some believes that Ae’gura is not the right place for it.

The island is a small stalagmite that naturally fractured sometime after the Fall of D’ni; the remains of the upper part, partly underwater, can still be seen. It will be accessed via a boat ride, and there will also be a Nexus terminal.

The Memorial is currently scheduled to be unveiled on the date of the Fall, Leesahn 8, or July 12. Updates will posted on the Beneath IC forums.

D’ni Language Classes

R’Tayrtahn gave two announcements, one for the D’ni Language Classes and one for the Story Nights.
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, currently on Monday–Friday starting at 12:00, 13:00 or 14:00 KIT, and on Wednesday–Friday starting 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.
R’Tayrtahn’s Story Nights

Story Night Europe is starting from the beginning: the D’ni creation myth.

Original Story Night is continuing the bi-annual Bahro Glyph Tour.

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 end of 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.
- Recording of the Stories are available on r’Tayrtahn’s YouTube channel; however some hardware issues are preventing r’Tayrtahn from uploading the latest episodes.
Cavern Tours

The Cavern Tour was held on Saturday 8 at 11:00 KIT (just before the Meeting), starting from the Cavern Tour’s Hood. The host, Larry LeDeay, uses his 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 is 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!

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 December they visited some fairly complex ages like Jo’nae, Jo’nae Hood, Takla Ma’kan, and investigated the mysteries of Sonavio.

In January, the plan is to visit the entries of the first Rapid Age Development contest: Abysos, a couple of Ahra Pahts shells and Zephyr Cove; then a few assorted ages like Aerie, TINA, Kahntinoy, Fena Barel (a summary of fan-run ‘episodes’ held in 2008); and conclude the month with a few works by Nadnerb and by Andy Legate.
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 😉
- After the tour, those who still have the energy are welcome to Korov’ev’s Gahreesehn for some Wall training (feel free to send a message to #194197 for an invite).
- 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.
Miscellanea
- Minasunda filmed and edited a lovely year end wrap up video for 2021; Calum Traveler also made a video, with more focus on places.
- A new Age was released in December: Tiam, by Ametist (more info in the dedicated post). New clothing items have also been added: some are immediately available in the Relto wardrobe, others can be found in thematically appropriate locations. There are some unexpected render issues that are being worked on. Note that the second backpack was released by mistake, and may have removed Zandi’s shirt and the field vest; these can be re-collected in their original locations.
- A story book by Jules Lavisham was also released in Chiso Preniv: “The Painter”. The “Heritage Documents” and “Activity in the Cavern” books have been moved to a different shelf, grouped together, and given numbers on the spines for easier picking up of the correct volume.
- Serene now has the snow storms from the original version, and a ‘special guest’ during the festivities 🙂
- The Kirel podium has been enabled: the plan is to get new audio recordings out once every quarter to serve as a recap of recent events. For now there are two tracks: one covering the last few months of activity, recorded by Tyion, and a historical recording from Dr. Watson.
- Initial testing for reactivating the Gahreesen Wall have begun; more info will be revealed Soon™.
And that was it for this month. Please consider donating to keep the Cavern open!

December ended with the CavFunding at 205% (CavCon 4.10) and the reserve at 546%, with 25% extra expenses. Population was at 42,976 (⇑426), with 1588 unique visits. Unbelievable month for donations and updates: two donations accounted for more than 50% of the total amount; the number of new accounts added per month also nearly doubled.

The next All Guilds Meeting is planned for Saturday, February 5 (Leevosahn 28) at 13:00 KIT.

The role of Moderator is currently vacant; if anyone would like to take the role, it is your chance to step up 😉

Until then!
11 January 2022
The December 2021 update

On December 15, 2021 MOULa got a big update, with lots of interesting additions; a full list is available at the bottom of this post. Let’s go over some highlights and answer some questions that may have arised:

A new Age

The most anticipated addition is probably the Age of Tiam, designed by Ametist. As announced by a post on Cyan’s own Twitter channel, an opening ceremony will be held at the Chiso Preniv library on Monday December 20, 2021 at 13:00 KIT: there will be a short presentation and the new linking book will be made available.

Tiam is an Age that was created for a family to relax and enjoy the fresh air and sunshine; there, you will be able to unlock and discover how this family spent their time there. To get there, the direction is going to the Nexus, then the Watcher’ Pub, then to Chiso Preniv using the book in an alcove.

It will be a good idea to have the client fully updated before the ceremony; to do so, one way is to open the game’s folder and delete TOS.txt; this will enforce a re-check of all the game files.

New clothing

Next, if you visit your wardrobe you will find some new items have been added, including some that have been available in the offline game for years. Some of the additions are rewards for completing the Journeys, while others require visiting logically related places 😉

A special note about the second backpack: it was enabled by accident, as it has a visual bug that was still being worked on; if you have it and lost the old one, you can re-acquire it where you first got it.

Serene

The snowfall is back, and an indigenous ‘person’ has appeared for the holiday season 🙂 Both are original to Andy Legate’s design: the snowfall (a type of particle system) could not be handled by the Guild of Writers’ Age building tool Korman until recently, and the ‘indigenous’ was hidden in the Age files.

A bit of code makes the latter appear automatically in the PotS version, but on MOULa the code interferes with multiplay and can have the opposite effect of hiding it, so the code was disabled.

A journal that actually gives some background about the Age has replaced the previous one, hidden somewhere close to the gazebo.

Graphics and sound improvements

The Kirel podium has been given a new recording. More may come in the future! A story book (not a Linking Book) has been added to Chiso Preniv, while the Heritage Document and Activity in the Cavern have been moved to another shelf, close together. Various improvements to textures were made in Baron City Office, Teledahn, K’veer, Chiso Preniv and more.

A note on bugs

When an update, especially one as large as this one, hits MOULa it is almost inevitable that unexpected bugs will show up; for all the testing that can be done, Minkata never sees as many concurrent players as the official server, and not all issues can be catched. No addition from Cyan is 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 Restoration Team 🙂

OpenUru Build #200a Build Update (click to expand)

Known Issues (that will be fixed in a hotfix):
– There is a crash when linking to Myst full screen without alt-tabbing while linking.
– If you wear Catherine’s robes, and then change while another player is in the Age, they will see through your body.
– Serene Xmas decorations are intermittent
Client changes:
– [Fixed]: A lot of under the hood fixes for stability {11}
– [Fixed]: Fix client audio caching {10}
– [Fixed]: Fix stack trace popup on error to provide meaningful information {10}
– [Fixed]: Graphics cleanup for modern graphics cards {11}
Content changes:
– [New]: A new age! {1} (Stay tuned for the opening ceremonies!)
– [New]: Add audio player back to Kirel Auditorium Podium, new recordings {9}
– [New]: Clothing additions (and updates from CC) {7}
– [Updated]: Improvements and additions to Chiso Preniv, Guild of Messengers Pub and Veelay Tsahvan {2}
– [Updated]: Serene journal enhancements {3}
– [Updated]: SpyRoom updates {5}
– [Updated]: Upscaled fabric textures in Baron City Office and Teledahn {8}
– [Fixed]: Ayoheek messages reference Garrison rather than Gahreesen {6}
– [Fixed]: Er’cana Graphical Fixes {6}
– [Fixed]: Fix view through telescopes on ultra-wide displays {6}
– [Fixed]: Graphical updates to K’veer {2}
– [Fixed]: Improve bad text resolution in Baron City Office Marie note {12}
– [Fixed]: Prevent Kirel Egg Room Bahro Stones from being active {6}
– [Fixed]: Repair formatting in many journals and book text {12}
– [Fixed]: Repair getting stuck in Great Zero Mission GUI {6}
– [Fixed]: Serene Snowfall Effects {4}
– [Fixed]: Use correct cover for Negilahn journal {6}
Attributions:
{1} Ametist
{2} Doobes
{3} Doobes, Dot, CTraveler, Adam{Hoikas}
{4} Doobes, EhrenCG
{5} Doobes, Hazado
{6} Hazado
{7} Hazado, Adam{Hoikas}, CTraveler, Larry LeDeay
{8} Hazado, CTraveler, Tweek, Yali
{9} Hazado, DapperAndy, Tyion, Skyisblu, Neurovac, CP-Dimensions
{10} Adam {Hoikas}
{11} Adam {Hoikas}, rarified
{12} dgelessus

18 December 2021
Mysterium 2021

Like last year, the XXII Mysterium was held entirely online, on July 16–18, with the panels and presentations streamed to both Twitch and YouTube.

Friday started at 18:00 KIT with Rand Miller playing through Myst and giving some insights in the design process. One highlight was the medallion on the planetarium door.

At 19:00, it was time for the discussion rooms, this year held on the Mysterium Discord server, and for the marker missions in MOULa. You can still get them by PMing Mir-o-Bot (#32319) or MinBot (#9292763) the command “sendme 10800192” for the Red markers or “sendme 10801032” for the Blue ones. While you’re there, make sure to grab the Mysterium shirt in your Relto wardrobe, it won’t be available afterward!

Saturday started at 8:30 KIT with a message from the Committee, giving some info on the organisation of this year’s convention.

The first panel was at 9:00, with some members of the Myst IV: Revelation team: Meinert Hansen (Art Director/Sr. Concept Artist), Brian Wrench (Actor – Sirrus) and Geneviève Lord (Producer), discussing how Myst IV evolved in its looks, styles and immersive design.

At 11:00 it was time for the Myst State of the Union panel, with Eric A. Anderson (Creative Director) and Hannah Gamiel (Development Director) presenting Cyan’s newly re-imagined version of Myst before its release for PC/VR and Mac.

At 12:30 the Cyan Dev Team Q&A panel, with Abner Coimbre, Brandon Collins, Hannah Gamiel, Karl Johnson and Josh Van Veldhuizen discussing what it means to be a developer at Cyan and how they adapted to working from home.

At 13:30 the Cyan Art Team Q&A panel, with Eric Anderson, Blake Bjerke, Jeremiah Castro, Autumn Palfenier and Derrick Robinson talking about how the look of a game is established and what inspiration they draw from in designing worlds.

At 15:00 Vincent Weaver presented his Apple II Myst Demake, talking about the challenges involved with getting a fully playable version of Myst working on an 8-bit system from the 1970s, fitting on a reasonable number of floppy disks. To learn more (or try it yourself!), see Vince’s website.

At 16:00 Chuck Carter (original Myst Artist) presented his reworking of the Selenitic Age for Unreal Engine 5, which will add some new twists (e.g. the maze ship is now destroyed). The redesign will have original music by Conductor/Composer Lucas Richman. You can follow Chuck on his website, Twitter and Instagram.

At 17:00 it was time for the discussion rooms, with two focused chats beside open discussions: “Unwritten Character Workshop”, about creating a character for the Myst RPG, and “Dancing with Annacat”, to get some exercise after sitting and watching streams all day.

Sunday started at 8:30 KIT with a message from the Committee, giving some info and announcing the location of Mysterium 2022, one that will give attendees the true Myst experience 😉

The first panel was at 9:00, with Maxx Hirsch’s honors thesis “Finding Tomahna”, analyzing Myst as a product of American 1990s cultural movements and ideas, considering attitudes towards war, violence, new technology, reading, community, and diversity. You can read the full text here.

At 1o:00 documentary filmmaker Phillip Shane gave an update and a sneak peek of the Myst Documentary, along with his collaborators Elana Bogdan, Will Cavendish, Rachel Kittner, Anais Michel, Katie Postma, Joshua Reinstein and Randy Woods. You can follow and support the development of the documentary on the official website.

At 11:30 the Uru Worldbuilders Panel, with Eric Anderson, Mike Hines, Doug McBride, Steve Ogden and Bill Slease discussed about the original development of Uru, from DIRT and Mudpie up to the GameTap era.

At 12:30 the MOULa Fan Development Panel, with Mark “Chogon” DeForest, Patrick “Doobes” Dulebohn, John “Marten” Johns, Adam “Hoikas” Johnson, Keith “Tweek” Lord, Darryl “dpogue/Paradox” Pogue and Paul “rarified” Richards discussed how fan developers and creators are keeping Uru alive and well, with client bugfixes, QoL improvements and new fan-made ages. To get involved, you can contact the OpenUru team (testing) on Discord, or the H’uru team (developing) on GitHub and IRC.

At 14:00 the Unwritten Update panel with Veronica Hamilton gave some updates on the RPG and its role in Cyan Ventures, discussing the design and how it focuses on non-violent solutions. To learn more, visit the official website.

At 15:00 it was time for Cyan Games Completed Rapidly, a round of speedrunning, with some unusual categories like Myst on the Apple II, and a few races.

At 17:30 it was time for the discussion rooms, with no preset topics, and the Speedrun After Party, in which the speedrunners chatted with the attendees about the runs and racesfrom the panel.

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

Looking forward to next year!

20 July 2021
June 2021 All Guilds Meeting Summary
Here is the summary for June’s Meeting, along with the raw and cleansed chatlogs!

Contents
Events in the Cavern

Right before the Meeting, Mystitech released The Lost Art episode 12 “States of Possession” as a Premiere on YouTube.

Nosila will host a music program, “The Times They Are a-Changin”, about equality, protest and hope. The stream will be on Monday 14 at 13:00 KIT; the main location will be the Ae’gura plaza.

If you have an idea for an event and need help organising it, there is a Discord server, a Facebook group, or you can contact Minasunda via KImail (#5667000).

Cavern Tours

The Cavern Tour will be held on Saturday 12 at 11:00 KIT, starting from the Cavern Tour’s Hood. The host, Larry LeDeay, will use his 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 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!

A new era in D’ni

Doobes started by announcing the release of Tre’bivdil, by Lontahv, which happened stealthily the day before the Meeting, and relayed a presentation by the author:

Tre’bivdil is best classified as a modern garden Age. The geometric shapes and primary elements that form its core are described by simple phrases that are shared with a set of phrases from ancient training manuscripts discovered by the modern day Guild of Writers.

The name, which can be translated roughly to ‘amongst everything’, reflects the combination of these very basic elements together.

While the weather is generally clement, care must be taken after a rainstorm as the rocks can become slippery.

Vothol Gallery’s release is not too far away either, and it will also be an unannounced surprise. So keep checking, you could be the first to find out!

He then discussed the big news that happened just the day before the Meeting: the public release of the Intangible assets by Cyan, under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 license. The files include concept art, documents, audio and textures as well as 3ds Max files in varying states of completion. For developers, this means free access to complete any of the content; for everyone else, it means places like Descent are very likely be greatly expanded, and ages like Kahlo, Rebek, Katha Island and others could see the light of day, someday!

It should be noted that the content is very unfinished, so it would take quite a long while to see most of it completed. As always, patience and Cautious Optimism™ are needed, but these locations have just become a little more concrete. Doobes himself has been working for a while on expanding Descent and opening up the rest of the Great Shaft and the path from D’ni to the surface.

The Guild of Archivists is also taking a more direct role, in relation to compatibility with Uru lore, in the approval process for new fan content on MOULa. Doobes also mentioned that more client improvements and more fan ages will soon be up for testing on Minkata alpha, including works from Ametist and Dulcamara (not Elodea yet, but newer ages).

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

OpenUru

Rarified mentioned that the Intangible assets have been archived on both the OpenUru and the Guild of Writers repositories.

There is some new fan content in the pipeline which should be made available on Minkata prime for testing soon. Meanwhile, Marten continues to port the many user experience improvements, that have been in the H’uru fork for a long time, to the Minkata/MOULa client.

The next major update will probably be timed in late July or early August, though there might be an intermediate update before then, for an upcoming special event. Things to look out and test will be: fixes for subworlds (e.g. the Ahnonay gondola chair, the Teledahn bucket, the Gahreesen lift), frame rate unlock, general performance and QoL improvements.

How to be a tester (click to expand)

To be a tester, you will need to open an account on the Minkata 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 forum or the 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.

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. Recently, they visited Lonirvan by Jhon J. Jaguar, Eh’ko by D’eux, The Cathedral by DenDwaler, Ahreesen Melin by Semjay, Kahntinoy by Rich, Fena Barel by Wodan & Hans.

For June, the plan is to visit Alabaster by Dulcamara, which will take at least 3 sessions. After that, it will be time for Laki’anay and related ages, by the New Age Project.
More about the Expeditions (click to expand)
- After the expeditions, the participants will be able to share their observations in dedicated threads in the Guild of Writers’ forums (listed in the index). The expeditions are streamed (without comments), and the videos will be available for two weeks after.
- After the tour, those who still have the energy are welcome to Korov’ev’s Gahreesehn for some Wall training (send a message to #194197 for an invite).
- 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.
D’ni Language Classes

Shokhootahn Rehn (a.k.a. r’Tayrtahn) gave two announcements, one for the D’ni Language Classes and one for the Story Nights.

There are daytime openings on Monday through Friday; those interested should contact Rehn (see KI# below). Evening classes are not currently available.

Seven students are taking the classes at various stages of completion; two of them are new.
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, currently on Monday–Friday starting at 12:00, 13:00 or 14:00 KIT, depending on the student’s schedule.
- Last-minute changes to class times are posted on the left-hand imager in the hood.
R’Tayrtahn’s Story Nights

Story Night – Europe is in synch with original Story Night. They have finished the story from The Book of D’ni; next week they will start with the game Exile.

R’Tayrtahn has been uploading the Stories on his YouTube channel. The videos are usually uploaded a few days after the live event.
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 end of 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.
Mysterium news

Korov’ev reported some quick news about the convention:
- Meinert Hansen, Robyn Miller, Brian Wrench are the first 3 special guests announced;
- event submissions are still open until June 20, if time allows;
- the Westin Alexandria will not cancel bookings automatically, you will have to do it yourself via the Marriott website or by phone;
- the location for Mysterium 2022 is not set, the Committee will go through the normal bid review process.
And that was it for this month. Please consider donating to keep the Cavern open!

May ended with the CavFunding at 94% (CavCon 2.9) and the reserve at 253%. There were no extra expenses. Population was at 40,360 (⇑304), with 1303 unique visits. Donations almost matched expenses.

The next All Guilds Meeting is planned for Saturday, July 3 (Leesahn 1) at 13:00 KIT.

Until then!
6 June 2021
Intangibles Assets & Unexplored Branches

In an surprise move, Cyan has released the Intangibles assets under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 license. The assets include design documents, textures, audio, and 3D models for ages and Cavern areas – including Kahlo, Rebek and Katha Island – that were in the planned for addition to Uru Live. Some date from 2000 or even earlier!

The assets are in various stages of development, but most are very unfinished, and never appeared in game for good reasons (some concepts may not ever work with the game engine). So tempering expectations is advisable 😉 For a short time, the assets were previously only available to a select group of fan developers who signed a NDA, and are now open for anyone to dissect or even fully develop.

The Guild of Writers’ H’uru Team is currently working on bringing the majority of these assets into their version control system to facilitate collaboration. The files are available at the OpenUru Foundry, and at the Guild of Writers (direct link) as initially provided by Cyan.

It was also announced that Unexplored Branches – the expanded universe of the Myst/Uru franchise, authorized by Cyan while still not fully canon – now includes the announced Intangibles and also any fan-created ages or locations added to MOULa, along with the TRPG Unwritten.

5 June 2021