Myst Online: URU Live once again has life. The faithful kept hope alive that "perhaps the ending has not yet been written." The explorers of the cavern had been kicked out of the cavern again for the second time as of April 9, 2008. URU Live comes back again as of the July 2008 announcement that GameTap has give Cyan Worlds the rights to self-publish the game. Cyan has dubbed the next incarnation of URU Live "M.O.R.E.", or the "Myst Online Restoration Experiment". No new content is promised at this point from Cyan Worlds, but they have said that they will proceed with user generated content. A structure has been put in place with respect to the Guild of Maintainers and the Guild of Writers regarding age creation and testing. The fans continue to keep URU Live alive. Ironically, holding true to the D'ni way of life which involved creating worlds for their society, the new explorers of the worlds of the D'ni will now carry on the tradition and the art of writing ages and will continue the spirit and the structure of the D'ni Universe... for now. The future, of D'ni and of Myst Online, now really comes down to the efforts of the fans for the short term.

Being one of the faithful, and knowing these fans as I do, I have great optimism for the future.

Below was my opening paragraph while we were "Live". Once again we hope for the best:

The cavern was a lonely place for a while. Walking the city, it was eirily quiet. No sounds of working on the city. No voices of other explorers. Just quiet. Now, explorers have returned. The city is once again a busy place. The D'ni Restoration Society (DRC) is back working on ages. Murmers from other explorers are heard in the city once again. New areas are now open and explorers of D'ni are out having fun as it was meant to be -- together. Come join us. Until URU was a nice transition. It is great that the community held together. The rebirth is here. Myst Online -- URU Live. And as they say... "perhaps the ending has not yet been written".

I would like to thank GameTap for their efforts with what I would call Version 2.0. Lots of us were upset when the game ended so suddenly again in February of 2008. Lots of us were bitter with GameTap, me included. As we learned more about the true relationship between Cyan Worlds and GameTap/Turner, we found out that the history goes back even before the first "Prologue" version by Ubisoft, shut down before it even really got started. They saved it the second time around with the help and some nudging from Erik, who ran the Tapestry Shard durning the UntilURU days. As one who lived on Tapestry, my hat is off to Erik for all of his efforts with the Tapestry Shard as well as his behind the scenes work with Cyan Worlds and GameTap. The efforts of GameTap with bringing us 2.0 and giving it a chance and the quick release of the rights to publish URU Live in a V. 3.0 form are most certainly appreciated by me.

The Myst Online site and forums are the place to find out any new information.
I hope to see you in the cavern soon!

The Myst Series games I have played:

Myst
Myst Masterpiece
realMyst
Riven -- the sequel to Myst
Myst 3 -- Exile
Myst 4 -- Revelation
Myst 5 -- End of Ages
URU -- Ages Beyond Myst, To D'ni and The Path of the Shell
URU Live (the original online game that ended 2-10-04)
Until URU (frequenting Tapestry as mtn'man, member of T.A.G., the Tapestry Activity Group)
Myst Online -- URU Live Open Beta on GameTap
Myst Online -- URU Live

I also played the Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time, from Presto and Red Orb (look at your Riven and Exile boxes if you don't know who they are). I've also played with The Manhole too (on GameTap).

NOTE: Right as Cyan Worlds looked like they were going to have to close, I grabbed the URL for untiluru.com since it was available. As Cyan began the journey leading to the second version of URU Live in 2006, I wrote asking if they wanted the URL. They said I could keep it! I created an area for screenshots and tutorials and general goodies from the many games relating to Myst. The overall concentration is on the URU game.

Myst, Riven, URU, To D'ni, The Path of the Shell, Until URU, Myst Online URU Live are copyright Cyan Worlds.