So what is going on? Some of you may ask. Well after 3 years of no updates I have gone ahead and updated the site in the hopes that I can get it to a point where I don’t have to update it anymore.

- Keith “Tweek” Lord (01/08/10)

Guild of Messengers - Delivering Uru News to the Community

To support a corps of volunteer journalists disseminating information within the Myst/Uru community.

A high resolution version of this image has been added to our Minkata gallery: High Res Screenshot

Chapter 1:

Once again, the creeping silence made its way around the room, hovering above the dust-covered floor. It slid like a dark spirit over the broken tile, searching for any noise that might violate its dominion. Silence had reigned in the room for countless years, defying even the smallest sound to challenge it. And so the silence patrolled the thick darkness, listening.

Gliding above the cold floor, the silence stared deeply into a pair of eyes: eyes which spoke of endless, aching loneliness. The eyes belonged to the ornate mosaic that had, in times long-forgotten, served as revered memorial: a royal ancestor crafted in tile in the floor. But now those eyes were transformed by the cracking of age, the dullness of neglect, and the paralyzing tyranny of the silence.

Satisfied that no intruder lurked there, the silence began its crawl up the loose stones that formed the north wall of the room. Giant stones that had once been polished and beautiful were now worn and rough. Cool air seeped through hairline cracks, filling the room with a mute chill.

Nothing threatened the silence as it continued up the wall. A blanket of dust obscured the elaborate runes that had been etched into the gray stone molding. The silence almost laughed as it passed undeterred over the carvings and onto the next wall, and the next wall and the next, until it came to the eighth and final wall. This wall alone had the power to overthrow the silence; this wall had a door.

The door was massive, with its thick oaken planks and rusty metal hinges. But it was not the door itself which the silence feared, but what lay beyond it: the anarchy of untamed sound.

Faintly, far away, a noise could be heard in the hall. Very soft at first, it was becoming louder: a growing echo cascading down the countless hallways. The silence shrank away. Still the noise advanced.

Three boots drummed the flagstones of the hallway. Clouds of dust rose from the floor as each boot struck. One pair of boots belonged to a strong, tall man. A black cloak hung to his bootstraps and stirred up more dust as it whirled behind him. The man walked with a measured gait, every muscle in his body tensed. His breath, like wisps of steam, seeped from his lips, clouding an unshaven face. Dark brows hovered above his dull, blue eyes. Strands of his hair hung flat against his forehead, almost reaching the thin scar that ran along the left side of his face. Around his neck hung a brilliant blue light, which flooded the area through which he walked. The stone walls rushed past, flying out of the darkness ahead. In his rough fist, he tightly clenched the shoulder of a boy.

The boy was approaching manhood and appeared strong. Upon his right foot he wore a heavy boot, similar to those the man wore. His left foot was unbooted, and he favored that foot as he walked. He wore a brown woolen jacket and thickly woven pants. Like the man dragging him down the hall, he had dark hair and blue eyes. Unlike the expressionless eyes of the man, however, the boy’s eyes were bright and alert, though his entire face was veiled in confusion and fear.

The two turned a corner, and continued down the black hallway. The boy stared ahead anxiously. The man reached a hand deep into his cloak and drew out an ancient filigreed key. A moment later, moving out of the darkness toward them, appeared a huge, wooden door. Terror gripped the boy, and his expression tightened.

The silence shrieked in agony as the heavy bolt that had long locked the door invaded the room with a groaning sound; it slid open. The door suddenly creaked, admitting a flood of light into the room. In a dark corner, a remnant of the silence huddled; then it was gone. Two figures stood in the doorway, their huge shapes almost filling the opening. The last bit of light in boy’s eyes faded at the sight of the forsaken room. The man strengthened his grip on the boy’s shoulder and spoke in a booming voice.

“Perhaps you’ve changed your mind?” The words resounded through the room and hallway and echoed in the boy’s ears as he considered his plight.

The man’s grip tightened even more and the boy’s arm protested in pain. “I ask for your decision! Answer me, boy!” Anger choked his voice and his face reddened with rage.

Though fear gripped the boy, his courage was stronger. Staring directly into the man’s cold eyes he answered calmly and quietly, “I would sooner die.”

The man’s muscles tensed with fury, digging his massive fingers into the boy’s shoulder. Pain flooded the boy’s arm and he tried to wrench himself free. But he was no match for the man. A rough hand whipped through the air and hit the boy hard in the face, causing his entire head to jerk. The man took a deep breath and exhaled. The anger faded from his face and he glanced indifferently at the boy. “Then my son, you WILL die” he said simply.

Terror prodded the boy to action. Directing all his energy into escape, he writhed and kicked. In the struggle, he struck the man with his fist, causing blood to flow from his nose. But the blow only elicited a sarcastic chuckle. “Foolish Atrus,” he muttered. Showing no emotion and with little effort, the man slammed the boy into the wall beside the door.

Darkness swamped the boy’s mind as he tumbled into unconsciousness. Without a second look, the man flung his son into the room, slamming the great wooden door and bolting it securely. Footsteps, only one set this time, echoed in the hallway. They grew fainter and fainter until they could no longer be heard at all.

From a dark corner, the silence grinned nervously as it peered at the new addition to its lair. Legions of darkness gathered to hold vigil around the bleeding boy, hoping for death to come and claim him.

I arrived a bit past 1 at the County Hall Gallery in London, even though the press lunch thing was supposed to be at one which was what I was invited to I think. Chap took me in and I met a UK Ubisoft representative who greeted me told me where the food was and to take a look around, which of course I did.

The Exhibit was in 2 rooms. The first room had 3 macs and 2 windows laptops running Myst 4. There were a few artifacts on the walls like Yeesha’s clothes and shell amulet and Sirrus’ clothes as well as a primate Journey Cloth looking thing from Serenia. The room also had a vast amount of concept art box designs for the Myst games and Uru as well as the food of course.

I had a go on the laptop version starting from the beginning watching the nifty intro and smiling at the little references to the past games, all the while standing next to Myst fan Gelf56 (of course I didn’t realize it was him until I was reading the UO forums when I got home and saw a girl in one of his photos that was there when I was! silly me). Iain was also there at the same time as me and I didn’t realize it either.. 3 Myst fans in the same room and neither one realizing who the others were).

Any whom, I won’t go into spoilers. One puzzle I managed to do fairly quickly after I was told some chap had spent about 2 hours doing it earlier. The game itself is really good the graphics are nice and the story arch seems to be a lot more intelligent than I first thought with references to the past myst game ages etc.

Characters seem to fit in with the surroundings a lot better than they did with Exile. Only gripe was Atrus’ voice got a tad annoying after a while during one puzzle (sorry Rand) I don’t think it would have been so bad had I been using a mouse not a touch pad, the puzzle could have been completed faster.

After a long while of playing it and sores on my knuckles from the touch pad I decided to go take some photos and headed to the second room.

The second room housed clothing of Atrus and Achenar and clothing which appeared to be from Serenia as well as some jewel eggs that were in a dish-like object. Clay sculptures were on podiums in the center of the room from various ages and areas along with Yeesha’s pipe and Achenar’s weapons and a letter from Atrus.

Some of the soundtrack music from the game was playing, a lot of it was stuff we have heard already except one track I had not heard before. On the far wall in front of the leather sofas was a huge projection of a screenshot of Serenia. Along the walls yet more fantastic concept work including the story board for the game intro. There were also two copies of From Myst to Riven for reading (I can see why it was dubbed the coffee table book).

It was a pity there was nothing for sale that would have been cool. But overall it was a cool exhibit if not a little smaller than I was expecting. It was cool to see the costumes from the game and to play the actual game itself.

Well I hopped on a train with my trusty press pass to attend ECTS, and more importantly see the Uru booth.

When I got to the booth the man from UbiSoft had the screen on the Avatar Customization option. So I snapped a quick picture and watched as the Ubisoft staff member edited an avatar of a young lady.

The amount that you can customize your avatar is vast, the avatar is split up into sections: head, body, hands, legs and feet. You can customize what they are wearing the colour of what they are wearing (The young lady avatar was sporting a leather jacket with a V- neck shirt just showing underneath you can edit the colour of both the jacket and the top underneath) add logos (such as DRC logo or the T shirt Designs Dr Marie Sutherland has been selling at cafepress), Age and Weight comes in a slider bar adding wrinkles or getting rid of them and you can even choose how wide your mouth is, eye colour and toenail colour (the bright green toed avatar was rather amusing).

Players appear in the Desert some distance away from the cleft, a few minutes running brings you to Zandi’s trailer.

I was shown the first puzzle you came to here but I shall not spoil you on that, walked up to the cleft which is a lot bigger than first thought (the volcano was fenced off unfortunately). He then proceeded to show me Relto and a Puzzle solution on Teledahn before taking his leave and allowing me to play for myself.

Course first thing I did when I got to Relto (the personal age) was to take a running jump off of the edge to see what happens, hooray for the Panic Link feature I say. This version of Relto had 4 small pillars on the “lawn” each one adorned with the infamous Spiral Hand symbol that when pressed opens a panel and a linking book slides out (I found ones for Teledahn, Gahreesen and Kadish Tolesa). The books then appear in the shelf in your personal age hut. Inside the hut there are two shelves one to the left which houses your linking books and one on the right. The one on the right only had one book on which I assumed to be that of Yeesha’s which was filled with quotes relevant to the ages (Note Eder Kemo and Eder Gira were listed on the same page where every other age had a page to itself). Also in the hut was a cupboard which house the option to change some of your clothing and a leaver to open and close the blinds in the hut window.

The demo I played did not contain all ages featured in the offline version of the game, it did contain however – The Cleft, Kadish Tolesa, Gahreesen, Relto, The Nexus, The Gallery in D’ni and Teledahn.

Kadish Tolesa was the second age I visited this is an age that boasts colossal trees that are towers in themselves and cathedral like ruins. The Nexus seemed to be a small round room of cogs like being inside a machine, There was a circular symbol in which players place their KI’s into the slot below it this activated a screen that allows you to choose a linking book to any the locations you have access to. Having chosen a spinning cog stops and kinda drops the book out like a drinks dispenser.

Unfortunately the Gahreesen age was incomplete on the demo allowing me to only be able to walk along a few corridors however it was one of the ages that had the most atmosphere for me (aside to Kadish Tolesa). The dim lighting on the linking point with only the shadow the the tree’s above against the walls of room added to the size of the great stone doors and the fact the age was empty and quiet seemed to give me a feeling of unease. I did however notice the Symbol for the Guild of Maintainers and a few artifacts of gold and green that I think where part of a helmet for a protective suit.

I also visited the gallery that is a lot bigger than the image posted at the DRC site fist shows (the said image shows a small section of what I term the “North End” ( I say this because I was facing this section after I had linked to the Gallery from Kadish). The “South End” is a larger area with a small structure that houses a linking book back to Kadish. The gallery contains a load of strange geometric artwork and sculpture that are in a range of bright colours that echoed some shapes I had found on Kadish.

The Avatar controls are quite straight forward that range from mouse (that you use to click on linking book and view things) and keyboard (Avatar controls and text chat in the KI feature).What I did like was the slight fading that the avatar takes when the mouse cursor is placed over it, for instance when choosing a book from the shelf in Relto. The shelf was in front of my avatar I placed the mouse over the avatar and it faded slightly allowing me to look through to the linking books.

Personally I found the avatar controls awkward at first trying to move from the linking hut in Teledahn to the main section of the age took me a few minutes but after playing a while longer (I was playing the Demo for a good hour or so) I found them easier and could run along the Teledahn walkways and steps without bumping into things.

The game is fantastic with ages ranging from small to huge and the KI functions are great, allowing images to be taken of area which can then be sent on to your friends that are on your buddy list (The KI works like an Instant messenger might it even has an ignore feature in case of people being troll like in Uru – course thats nothing when we have RAWA and his big stick). I think the online version will be great fun, I enjoyed plodding around the ages on my own but to be able to walk around Kadish or Eder Kemo with friends will be nice. I also noticed how the DRC site colour scheme echoes things in Uru like the Avatar Customization screen.

As some may know the game comes with 1st and 3rd person views which are easy to switch between as pressing a simple key. A lot of Myst fans like the first person mode favoring it above 3rd person I too would have been one of them but after playing I prefer the 3rd person view it gives you a glimpse into how vast places like D’ni and Kadish are. Uru is set for release in Europe on the 6th of November 2003 (No word on the US release date but it will be close to the European one according to Ubisoft staff).

Author: Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins

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Author: Lovern Kindzierski, Chris Ulm & Doug Wheatley

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Synopsis