Editing Myst Online: Uru Live (section)

===Uru Live===
'''Myst Online: Uru Live''' launched on February 15, 2007.<ref>{{cite forum post|url=http://www.urulive.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=98719#98719|author=greydragon|title=Launch Date Announced|forum=Myst Online forums|date=January 25, 2007}}</ref>

While the GameTap service itself was limited to the US and Canada, Uru Live was available in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States.

Uru Live featured many of the same aspects as the previous Ubisoft-published project of the same name.

====Intro====
Compared to the [[Reference:Atrus, opening voiceover (Uru: Ages Beyond Myst)|original Uru intro]], this one has a [[Reference:Yeesha, introduction (Myst Online: Uru Live)|voiceover]] by present-day [[Yeesha]], rather than [[Atrus]]. Arguably sounding bitter, she briefly and figuratively recaps events around 2003–2005 (i.e., from [[Uru: Ages Beyond Myst|Uru Prime]], [[Uru: To D'ni|To D'ni]], [[Uru: The Path of the Shell|The Path of the Shell]] and [[Myst V: End of Ages|End of Ages]]), but warns that trouble isn't over, though she remains vague over its nature.

She introduces the two beginning options: "alone", replaying a slightly altered ''Uru Prime'', or "together", joining other explorers ("friends, and enemies"), and mentions that "finding a way" and "making a home" are crucial in dealing with the unavoidable fact that "destruction is coming".

Finally, she mentions a group ("they"; perhaps the "friends", the "enemies", the [[bahro]], or simply the [[DRC]]), a male person ("he"; perhaps [[Esher]] or [[Dr. Watson]]) and herself coming to join in the quest.

At about one minute into the intro, an unknown building (possibly the [[Guild Hall]]) in the D'ni cavern can be seen with Ae'gura in the background. However, another image of the building was released earlier, during the time of DIRT and Mudpie.

====Plans====
Non-free plans required a credit card, or a GameTap gift card.
* A perpetual ''[[visitor]]'' account could be obtained for free. All beta accounts that hadn't previously been converted into a subscription or merged into another (subscription) account were turned into visitor accounts. While visitors had limited access, the additional process wasn't lost, but merely unavailable, and could at any time be retrieved back by buying a subscription plan.
* A limited-time offer was to subscribe for 99 cents for the first month. Afterwards, this would automatically become a regular subscription.
* In North America, the "normal" path was to subscribe for $9.99 per month, ''not'' including taxes, but discounts could be had by pre-purchasing multiple months; at one time, an entire year could be bought at 50% off.
* In EU countries, the "normal" path is to subscribe for $12.95 per month, including taxes, so the actual subscription was roughly the same as in North America. There were, however, ''no'' multi-month discount options.

====Technical differences====
The physics engine has been changed from ''Havok'' to Ageia's ''PhysX'', which also features an optional hardware extension card for additional acceleration, though it is unknown if, and to what extent, Uru Live will benefit from such hardware. Havok's then-lack of Mac compatibility (later added<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.macworld.com/news/2006/09/14/havok/index.php|title=Havok physics engine comes to Mac, thanks to Blizzard|website=MacWorld website|access-date=November 29, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071031064548/http://www.macworld.com/news/2006/09/14/havok/index.php|archive-date=October 31, 2007}}</ref>) was one of the main reasons for the move. By contrast, [[Myst V: End of Ages|End of Ages]] uses the ''ODE'' open-source physics engine, which was apparently too limited for the complexity Uru Live required.

Changes to the [[Plasma]] graphics and networking engine are apparently major enough to prompt a new version, "205" (right between Uru's original "20" and End of Ages's "21"), and to make old data incompatible.

On March 22nd, 2007, Cyan informed existing Uru Live testers and customers of the Mac client's availability. TransGaming Inc. had been working to develop a Mac OS X on Intel version of Uru Live. This port was based on the ''Cider'' wrapper, a specialized, self-contained version of [[w:Wine (software)|Wine]].

Even without the Mac version, users of Intel Macs can also participate by dual-booting into Windows through Apple's [[w:Boot Camp (software)|Boot Camp]]. The main benefit of the Mac version, in addition to not requiring a Windows license, is therefore in not having to reboot back and forth.

====New Ages====
While originally Myst Online only provided contents from ''Uru Prime'' and ''To D'ni'' (and later ''Path of the Shell''), over the first season, several never-before-seen ages were released:
* [[Eder Delin]]
* [[Eder Tsogal]]
* [[Negilahn]], [[Dereno]], [[Payiferen]], and [[Tetsonot]] (different locations on the same age)
* [[Minkata]]
* [[Jalak]]
* [[Guild Pub]]s