Author: Sungak

I will be spending some time this weekend in the Cavern, both for grabbing personal video and seeing what I had missed this past year. This is an informal invitation to follow along, help out, and generally have a good time. :) My KI number is 131567 for those wanting to track.

For this weekend, I will be starting sometime around 8 PM Fri Cavern Time (MST, or GMT-7 I believe) with a walk through the *original* 2005 Parade route (the one in the City); This started at the stairs near the Kadish Museum doors (the stairwell over by the hollowed ‘tree’). From there I will get the remaining markers needed to gain access to marker quests. This will only be a couple hours or so, since I’ll need to get some sleep before the Sat meeting.

This should probably resume around 10 AM Sat (Cavern), with a visit to GZ and other public City locations prior to the meeting. After the Guard meeting I may continue to wander around, probably to complete the Prime ages (yeah, leave me alone, I know ;) – My other avatar, Alan, did that so I *do* have a full-grown tree in a Relto). No set time when I’ll stop, but most likely after the main meeting in TeamSpeak.

If I can get There to work, I’ll be spending the evening with them. Afterward I will spend the overnight continuing my MO wanderings, finishing Prime and attending a Pod Tour if one exists.

The rest of my ‘Final Hurrah’ will continue after the Parade, *very* early the morning of the 15th, Cavern time. That will concentrate on the ‘true’ 2007 content, other than the Garden Age puzzles (I’ve done one, it was OK but tedious) and the remaining Sparks. Hopefully I’ll finally get my Watcher’s Jacket before this is over. :)

MystBlogs readers are welcome and encouraged to post a link to this entry on forums (I don’t have the time, and in fact my home PC’s been off the past two days!); Again, this is a very informal thing I’m doing and is for my own ‘farewell’ to the fun that was MO. If an actual video comes out of this, all’s the better…

/salute
–TSK

About 14 hours ago, I finally heard about what will probably be termed the ‘Second Shutdown’ for Uru Live. I had planned to spend time here venting about that, but I’m too drained emotionally to consider it. Probably for the best; There’s enough of that going around already.

Even right now, at what’s probably the lowest ebb for the community, I still feel that this could work. However, it’s now probably best done from a ‘ground-up’ re-write to fix the scalability/network factor, and that’s probably something that Cyan should best shelve for now if they want to continue to be solvent.

Perhaps the Writers and Maintainers can work it out instead; If so I plan to keep an eye on that, finally get Blender fired up again, and do something with those Ahra shells (I may consider a change of venue though, closer to the link-in point if possible – I finally want a permanent home for my old Memorial Gardens from Second Life).

Again, my hat’s off to you Rand; Despite everything that’s occurred, you’ve persevered and tried – Thank You. My original answer to your 2004 post back at the Ubi forums is still valid: This concept is a very unique one, and should be kept alive in some form – even if that means letting the community give it a try now.

As to my own future with Uru, I already had more permanent plans to step back from all this before the announcement; Not because of anything the community has done, but because of unrelated personal matters that I need to pursue. Most of these are things I never would have considered doing if it was not for y’all, so don’t think I’m leaving because of disappointment – nope, it’s because you’ve all helped me grow as a human, and you should be proud of that.

I will remain to be more of an ambassador from the Cavern, its ideals, and what it can do for people. Otherwise, my last act (for now!) will be a semi-quiet affair: One last march, one last gathering, and quietly walk away.

From that point on, I will probably be more involved with Second Life, as that was always my personal ‘Plan B,’ and already have a group of friends there. I may also take a peek now and then into There, but it’s less likely. No other MMOs, however – sorry.

But while we await the end, let’s enjoy the final trip, and argue later. Have Fun all…

/salute
–TSK

[And, in theory, I’m currently captain of it – well, what’s left of it anyway.]

I see that the (at times) heated discussion regarding what Uru / Myst Online was, is, and will be has spilled over to MystBlogs.

As to what my opinions are about the whole thing – I don’t have any (that I intend to directly disclose anyway). I took the ‘Honor’ in the old Honor Guard rather seriously, and always felt it was a community construct, connecting the players to common causes despite their expected differences (and regardless of the cause – as long as it was non-IC or relatively so).

I still feel that way, so it’s not in my best interest to discuss my feelings about the current discussion – other than to be a bit miffed about placing folks in this ‘old guard/new guard’ pigeonhole (gives my old role here a bad name ;) ).

I’m going to be very frank though – I really started getting deeply involved with Uru when Pepsi died (damn, it still chokes me up when I think about that). I realized then that I could care a lot about someone I almost never knew, despite seeing the occasional post on a forum here and there. In that respect I ‘got’ the community bug big time, and dedicated myself to promote this rather odd, supposedly dead game that just won’t die.

My ‘Alan Kiesler’ avatar/account in SL is a prime example of that dedication – a lot of what I did back then was geared toward showing folks there the uniqueness of the Myst/Uru experience in general, and getting another network of friends in the process (back then I was hedging my bets in case the UU experiment failed to take off). And my dedication and duty as an Honor Guard – and later Color Guard Captain – was another.

Right now (with enough of a ‘heads up’ via PM/email), if any community/guild/Cyantist pointed me in a direction you wanted me to appear in the Cavern, for any community-minded reason, I’ll be there (barring work obligations of course). And if you REALLY give me enough time, I may be able to drum up an actual group under the ‘Guard’ banner for better coverage. However, regular Cavern visits are just not possible anymore for me and my rather weird and wild schedule; My time is best served nowadays ‘offline,’ here in weblogs, forums, and (hopefully again) Age Building tools.

I care about the people in Uru – ALL OF THEM – and will stand watch no matter what happens over time.

/salute
–TSK