Editing Guild of Writers (restored) (section)

== History ==
===COBBS===
The beginning of the restored Guild of Writers can be traced to the February of [[2004 CE|2004]],<ref>[https://mystonline.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=423350#p423350 zeke3651], "All Guilds Appreciation Party". ''Myst Online forums''. July 18, 2016.</ref> when [[Uru Live]] was shut down by Ubisoft. Immediately, a dedicated group of fans assembled on the Clockwork Orange BBS (COBBS). The goal of this group was twofold: to figure out how to continue playing Uru online, and how to add new content to the game. Unfortunately, in [[2005 CE|July 2005]] the COBBS database crashed, so most of this early part of the Guild's history is lost.

===Untìl Uru===
In [[August 2004 CE|August 2004]] there were two simultaneous developments: first, [[Cyan]] announced [[Untìl Uru]], allowing players to play Uru Live on fan-run servers. Second, Almlys announced "A Live Compatible Uru Server" (ALCUGS), still actively used to this day by the [[Shard|Deep Island shard]].

Various tools such as '''PRPExplorer''' appeared, allowing the modders to understand how the game stored Age data, leading to the very first Uru modifications: one of the very first hacks was to delete random [[PRP]] files from the game, and watch as different Ages were combined (a practice that is still popular through the help of [[Robot|bots]]). Later, things like texture replacements started to appear, where people would re-skin Ages with their own textures, including the infamous graffiti on [[Kerath's Arch]] stating ''"H'uru was here"''.

The earliest confirmable fan addition (by D'Lanor) was released on September 9, [[2005 CE|2005]].<ref>[https://mystonline.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=421229#p421229 AdamJohnso], "OOC Chronology". ''Myst Online forums''. February 6, 2016.</ref>

===PyPRP===
In [[2006 CE|2006]], Almlys returned with another huge announcement: the release of the PRP Blender Plugin (PyPRP). This was the first tool for creating and exporting Ages to the game. The first version was very rudimentary (it couldn't even export textures), but more and more functions were quickly added.

Naturally that led to a resurgence of interest in Age creation. However, the COBBS was seen as a "dark underbelly" of the Uru community. At the time, hacking the game had very serious negative connotations and Cyan was hostile towards it. So there was a push to establish new groups, such as '''Age Builders''' and the '''New Tree''', whose primary focus was Age creation, not understanding how the game worked.

===The Guild of Writers===
When the [[DRC]] revived the guilds, a number of people from these disparate groups came together to form the modern Guild of Writers, a melting pot of interests from Age creation tool making to Age creation itself. From the beginning, it was very clear that the Guild was ''not'' to be an exclusive club.

Since [[2008 CE|2008]], "Tsar" Hoikas gradually picked up more and more responsibilities, from administering the forum, to run the website, to upgrade the wiki.

On August 23, [[2010 CE|2010]] the Guild released its Alcugs-based shard, "Deep Island", which currently hosts the majority (more than 190) of the fan-made Ages.<ref>"[https://guildofwriters.org/wiki/Gallery_of_Fan_Created_Ages Gallery of Fan Created Ages]", Guild of Writers wiki, accessed on November 19, 2019.</ref>

===Uru goes open source===
On April 6, [[2011 CE|2011]], Cyan released the source code of the Uru Live client (Cyan World Engine, CWE) and the 3ds Max 7 plugin. Five days later, the Guild's H-uru fork of CWE was announced. Soon, fan-run shards started to appear:<ref>[https://mystonline.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=28215 korovev], "OOC Chronology". ''Myst Online forums''. February 3, 2016.</ref> "The Open Cave" on August 1, [[2011 CE|2011]]; the OpenUru.org '''Minkata''' shard on December 11;  the Guild of Writers' own "Gehn" shard on February 4, [[2012 CE|2012]]; the "Destiny" shard on February 1, [[2013 CE|2013]]. Other shards, like "Atlantis", have since been closed.

On February 3, [[2015 CE|2015]], the first fan-made item of clothing, by ChloeRhodes, was added to Uru Live.

On July 11, [[2015 CE|2015]], the first version of Korman, the Guild's Age-creation plugin for Blender, was released, with the intent of replacing PyPRP with a more flexible and easy to use tool.

===Opening of the assets===
On October 28, [[2019 CE|2019]], Cyan announced<ref>[https://mystonline.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=29200 Chogon], "Modifying MOULa Assets". ''Myst Online forums''. October 28, 2019.</ref> that the MOUL assets were open for fan updating and modification. This was big news for the Age building community, as they have been wanting this for years. It was not possible for Cyan to provide the original 3ds Max files, but they gave their blessing to reverse-engineer the files.

Right away, Doobes began the process of converting some of the Ages to Korman-ready files for Blender. This was made possible by the work of Sirius, who developed the next generation of PRP importer, the ZLZ URU Importer.<ref>"[https://www.guildofwriters.org/wiki/ZLZ_Age_Importer ZLZ Age Importer]", Guild of Writer wiki, accessed on November 19, 2019.</ref>