Editing Myst Online: Uru Live (section)

== Ubisoft ==
{{Main|Second Restoration of D'ni}}
===Choru===
In [[2002 CE|2002]], '''Choru'''<ref>{{cite forum post|url=http://uruobsession.com/forum/index.php/topic/7129-on-uru-and-choru/|author=lonelyto25|title=On Uru and Choru|forum=Uru Obsession forums|date=February 17, 2004|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111205154723/http://uruobsession.com/forum/index.php/topic/7129-on-uru-and-choru/|archive-date=December 5, 2011}}</ref> (the ''Closed Beta'') was the first test involving participants that weren't employees of Cyan. It began in March with the five explorers ([[Rico]], [[Blastercalm]], [[Dr. Greer]], [[IMForeman]], and [[Rivenchan]]) who are listed as [[Premier Explorers]] in the Uru credits. It was a small group, but distributed across multiple continents. Throughout 2002 and 2003, additional testers were added. However, Choru remained relatively small. In the context of Uru's storyline, the Choru testers were referred to as ''Authorized Explorers''; at the time of Uru's launch, there were only eighty-three participants on the ''Authorized Explorer'' forums.

The term ''Choru'', alongside ''Ubiru'', was coined by ''75th Trombone'' in response to the then-impending Ubiru launch. Between March and May, Choru's former website stated "Choru we'll miss you".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www2.cyanworlds.com:80/|title=Cyan Worlds News|website=Cyan Worlds website|access-date=November 29, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040523164322/http://www2.cyanworlds.com:80/|archive-date=May 23, 2004. Before and after the site showed news about ''Uru: Ages Beyond Myst''}}</ref>

===Ubiru===
From January [[2003 CE|2003]] to late August, '''Ubiru''' built upon Choru, expanded testing from dozens to eventually a few thousands and moved testing from Cyan-hosted machines to servers of Ubisoft's instead. Curiously, its focus was on single-player game testing most of the time. A page on Cyan's old website listed all the participants.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.cyanworlds.com:80/beta.php|title=Uru Beta Testers|website=Cyan Worlds website|access-date=November 29, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070407212943/http://www.cyanworlds.com:80/beta.php|archive-date=April 7, 2007}}</ref>

===Prologue===
'''Prologue''', launched on November 17, 2003, was an aborted attempt by Ubisoft and Cyan at bringing ''Uru: Ages Beyond Myst'' to the masses for the first time.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.magma.ca/~daylmer/Urulive/index.html|title=Toria's Uru Explorers|website=|access-date=November 29, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110107023623/http://www.magma.ca/~daylmer/Urulive/index.html|archive-date=June 18, 2018}}</ref> It was public and NDA-less, though it did require an invitation. People who bought the game at retail were invited to apply for entry into the online portion of the game. Upon acceptance, in the form of an email from [[Jeff Zandi]], they would then be allowed to sign on to one or multiple of the [[shard]]s.

Prologue was unique in that it already had a story arc, surrounding a conflict between the DRC on the one side, and [[Douglas Sharper]] and followers of his on the other.

====Rehearsal====
For a while, Prologue grew at a continuous route, with two public shards by the names of [[Atrus]] and [[Katran]], plus a third one used as a '''Rehearsal shard'''.

The Rehearsal was a test under NDA, an ongoing quality assurance of newly deployed Uru content, done by fans but overseen by Cyan. The NDA kept testers from talking about this little-known aspect for a year.

Each time new content was to roll out, once deemed ready by internal testing at Cyan, would be passed to those in Rehearsal, a group of a few hundred, in order to test for problems. It would then be deployed to the public shards a week or two later. This concept was introduced while, publicly, Prologue was still going on, around early December [[2003 CE|2003]]. The GameTap version of ''Uru Live'' featured a similar shard, also known as Staging shard. 

====The Clerical Error====
While it was to continue past Prologue and throughout actual subcriptions, none of this ended up happening, due to a mistake that became known as the '''Clerical Error''', the Rehearsal in fact ended much earlier than the Prologue itself. On January 2, [[2004 CE|2004]], mere weeks after Rehearsal had begun, an Ubisoft employee in Montreal accidentally invited all pending Prologue registrations, causing a script to send out thousands of invitations simultaneously, and many to actually join within the day. The two public shards were completely unprepared to handle the added node, and, in an effort to minimize the damage, the Rehearsal shard became a public one under the name [[Achenar]]; to undo the invitations was deemed unethical, even though it had been a mistake.

Due to the lack of an actual subscription-based Uru Live launch, and due to the premature Rehearsal cancellation even during Prologue, the idea was not truly tested at that time.

On February 9, [[2004 CE|2004]], the shards were switched off; this event left many people deeply saddened that their long-sought dream was, apparently, dead forever.

===Uru Live===
After several periods and stages of testing, Rand Miller announced<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.cyanworlds.com:80/letter.php|title=Rand's letter to the community|website=Cyan Worlds website|access-date=November 29, 2019|archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20070408111524/http://www.cyanworlds.com:80/letter.php|archive-date=April 8, 2007}}</ref> (on behalf of Cyan and Ubisoft) on February 4, [[2004 CE|2004]] that the project was aborted, and that servers would cease to run on February 9, citing failure to generate enough potential subscribers. Among fans, this has been in heavy debate ever since, with many accusing Ubisoft of not having given the project its due chance.

For many fans, the product represented a very highly and long-anticipated project of Cyan's, making its cancellation agonizing. However, many details of what went right and wrong were never disclosed, and a fair analysis is therefore, for better or worse, not possible in public. 

====Criticisms====
While it went through various stages and forms of testing (Choru, Ubiru, Prologue and Rehearsal), Uru Live '''never actually had a "release"'''; it was constantly in beta. There were never paid subscriptions, and even the monthly fee was never disclosed, although a price point of $12–$15 was likely, based on what comparable MMO games cost.

Cyan (and many testers) apparently felt that the product was nowhere near stable enough to be ready, and that more time in working out problems (such as bugs, crashes, and lag) was needed. That, in turn, means that many never joined or showed interest to begin with, turned off for lack of stability.

It is conceivable that many would have signed up after an announcement that testing was over, that a sufficient milestone of stability had been reached, and that details on how subscriptions will work and what they will cost have been worked out and are publicly available, but none of this ever happened.

On the other side, Ubisoft had invested a sizeable amount of money and other resources (such as servers, community contacts, a new forum software and several websites) to bring it even to the state of Prologue to begin with, and any further day of delays and of insufficient stability probably meant further costs.

Some argue that '''Ubisoft generally wasn't as enthusiastic''' about a multiplayer online concept to begin with. From very early on in their involvement with Uru, they apparently started deemphasizing the multiplayer aspect.

Based on Mudpie, Uru was at first apparently to become multiplayer-only: the working title Myst Online was jointly announced by Cyan and Ubisoft, and a now-defunct website created accordingly. In addition, when Uru was first stated as the final name for the product, some T-shirts were handed out to fans featuring the slogan "Online Ages Beyond Myst". Soon after, this was rather quietly changed to read just "Ages Beyond Myst", as can still be witnessed as the subtitle of the original box, Uru: Ages Beyond Myst.

Focus began to shift further towards offline gameplay when the Ubiru testers were asked, surprisingly, to concentrate on finding problems in the single-player aspects of the game. This confused many, as the existence of an external beta test was unusual and primarily the case because Uru was to be online.

Also, round the same time as they cancelled Uru Live, Ubisoft also backed out of several other MMO games, such as The Matrix Online, which was subsequently picked up by another publisher. 

===Untìl Uru===
After the cancellation of the original Uru Live effort, many fans were hoping for a self-hosted alternative, without new content, but still retaining the ability to meet in-game. This finally came to fruition on August 7, 2004, under the name of '''Untìl Uru'''.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://plasma.cyanworlds.com/|title=Untìl Uru official website|website=|access-date=November 29, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060710212813/http://plasma.cyanworlds.com/|archive-date=July 10, 2006}}</ref>

Though frequently spelt '''Until''', the Untìl actually doesn't primarily refer to the English word, but actually the two Sumerian words '''''un''''' (people, community) and '''''tìl''''' (live, keep alive): ergo, the title actually means the community keeps Uru alive.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://mystembassy.net/dmalafaq.html|title=D'mala Untìl Uru Shard FAQ|website=Myst Embassy|access-date=November 29, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180617152632/http://mystembassy.net/dmalafaq.html|archive-date=June 17, 2018}}</ref>

Untìl Uru consisted of:
* A modified Uru client based on the original purchasable [[Uru: Ages Beyond Myst]] client, replacing the Uru Live component.
* The registration mechanism, i.e. a one-time fee to Cyan to activate the client.
* The "auth" (authorization) server, hosted at and by Cyan, verifying the registration.
* An open-source server, representing a shard.

Several such shards were created, such as '''Tapestry''', and the system has seen satisfying success among many fans.

Regarding Untìl Uru's future beyond Myst Online: Myst Online: Uru Live's launch, GreyDragon announced the following:

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="overflow:auto; float:left;">
{{Quote
| quote = Now that we've announced Uru Live's renewal, we've been asked to clarify our position on Until Uru. After careful consideration, here it is.<br/>
Cyan is committed to and dependent on Uru Live's success, so we are putting everything we have into it. Since our resources are limited, we cannot actively support Until Uru as well. With that said, we have no intention of taking back what we've made available—we intend to maintain the auth server so existing users of Until Uru can continue to access their Until Uru shards. However, because we're moving on to Uru Live, we've decided not to issue any new Kagi keys. We encourage any new users who want a taste (albeit an imperfect one) of Uru prior to Uru Live to visit the D'mala shard.<br/>
Until Uru was carefully named to convey hope and set expectations. We're excited that the time has come for us to move on.<br/>
Le Roi est mort. Vive le Roi! 
| author = The Team at Cyan Worlds, Inc.
| multiline = y
| source =
}}
</div>



While somewhat ambiguous, this implied that:
* Since Cyan would continue to maintain Untìl Uru's auth server, the platform itself was to remain usable;
* Cyan's D'mala shard would be phased out in favor of Myst Online: Uru Live, and it would once again be up entirely to third parties, such as Tapestry, to run shards.

A message posted to D'mala users through the [[KI]] on December 19 clarified D'mala's future:

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="overflow:auto; float:left;">
{{Quote
| quote = D'mala Explorers:<br/>
Thank you for all support on the D'mala shard this year. The Bahro scream that was just heard throughout all the Ages, and the subsequent simultaneous linking of every person back to Relto was a significant event. This event signals that D'mala's chapter in Uru's story has officially come to a close. The story will pick up from this moment in Uru Live.<br/>
Please note that we're leaving D'mala open for a while because, unfortunately, Uru Live is not yet available to everyone who is here on D'mala. But everything that occurs in D'mala from that event forward (including this KI-mail) should be considered OOC.<br/>
Thanks again for all your support. We hope to see you all in Uru Live soon.
| author = Your friends at Cyan
| multiline = y
| source =
}}
</div>



On Janurary 31 [[2007 CE|2007]], Cyan announced they would be closing Untìl Uru on February 5.<ref>{{cite forum post|url=http://www.mystonline.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=6340|author=greydragon|title=D'mala, Until Uru and player created content.|forum=Myst Online forums|date=January 31, 2007}}</ref>

===D'mala===
'''D'mala''' was an ''Untìl Uru'' shard launched on February 15, 2006 and run by Cyan.

D'mala was used as a means to gauge interest in a revival of ''Uru Live'', and in that sense, it has been a tremendous success, as evidenced by ''Myst Online: Uru Live''. Between its original launch date and December 19, 2006, ''D'mala'' served as the canonical continuation of the DRC storyline. From the 20th on, ''Myst Online: Uru Live'' took over this role. ''D'mala'', however, had briefly remained online, mainly for people in countries not currently supported by ''MO:UL''. On February 5, 2007, D'mala and Untìl Uru were finally discontinued.

A number of software updates were deployed throughout the year of 2006, mostly to fix long-standing bugs and sometimes including minor additions, such as new clothing.

====D'ni soccer ball====
One patch provided on December 15 actually added a hidden goodie. Two balls in the same shape appeared: a green one in [[Kadish Tolesa]] and a purple one in [[Ae'gura]]. They have writing in [[D'ni (language)#Alphabet|D'ni script]] on them, but it is not actual D'ni. It appears to be a D'ni transliteration of the English phrase "D'ni soccer ball".<ref>{{cite forum post|url=https://mystonline.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=73723#p73723|author=Maratanos|title=D'mala|forum=Myst Online forums|date=December 17, 2006}}</ref>