I woke up this afternoon to one of my ‘forward looking’ dream-images (some of which, over the years, have come true to varying degrees). This time, it was a series of weblog posts about various things in the Myst community, but nothing at all related to Uru itself.
This makes me wonder if I really am at a new state in my life, regarding Uru. I’ve said to several people now two possibly conflicting statements:
1) Uru *can* work, but it needs some dire work to get there. This is the essence of my old ‘Response to Rand’s Letter‘ post on the Ubi forums, and even five and a half years later I stick by that.
2) With MO:UL’s closure, I’m not going to participate (other than Guard appearances for stuff like the ‘Pats Parade) on any successor. My #1 gripe at the Ubi Shutdown was that we never got any real chance to see Uru stand on its feet in a ‘paid’ format, and that’s all I ever wanted. I’m not going to get into what happened with MO:UL that made it not survive – plenty of discussion there already! – as that is not the point to me. I got to finally see it as a paid service, and as the cliche goes ‘my work is done.’
Now, I want to stress that this does not mean I don’t like Uru, and don’t want it to survive. Go back and re-read my first statement, including the Ubi post, as well as various forum posts over the years. I care, end of story. If you think otherwise – again, spend a couple days and read through my posts on UO and GOG forums, as well as here on the weblog. Then come to me with a good (and non-flaming!) argument, and I’ll listen.
But, as of last year, my focus has shifted (possibly because of the first Interregnum via UU). To me, the community itself matters more than what venue(s) we seek together. Its what drives me today as a whole – even outside that community. I still talk about Uru, and evangelize about it (though to a MUCH lesser extent than I used to). My main talking point now is its extensive and friendly community; Though not without its detractors (who constantly remind me of Prokofy) I think we do better than most groups.
And that’s something I can really rally around, until the end of time if needed.
–TSK