Hey, I have had this post sitting around finished for a little while for my site about virtual worlds, Virbex. I have decided to also post the entire thing here on my personal blog because 'Myst Online: Uru Live Again' is a fantastic online game that is one of my all-time favourites, and I have mentioned it in other posts/pages here before. I haven't had much chance to engage with it's community and their events due to timezone differences, but you feel their presence and passion throughout the game regardless, especially in the fan/player created 'ages' (levels or worlds). Hopefully this illustrates to some degree how the game (and those in it's community that I have met) made me feel, and why I love it so much. Anyway, hope you enjoy!
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Uru Live, Intimately Immersive
estimated read time 11 mins
I can't quite remember where I first learned about "Myst Online: Uru Live Again" but I decided to check it out in mid 2024 and was immediately blown away by the world. The mixture of early 2000s visuals (think source engine - unreal engine 2 era), the music (mixing elements of 'world' folk/traditional music, classical, and contemporary) and an immediately compelling story with gameplay that rouses an instinct to explore. It provides a very strong element of immersion that I am still enamored by every time I hop on. The player community in 'the cavern' is surprisingly strong too, they host a variety of activities almost daily including; music perfomances, cooking classes, storytelling sessions, meditation & relaxation sessions, karaoke, game nights, age tours, radio station sessions, and more. They also have a solid collection of 'guilds' which handle affairs like introducing new players to the world (Guild of Greeters), creating new 'ages' (levels) and expanding the lore of the game (Guild of Writers), creating maps for the ages (Guild of Cartographers) and managing events and public information (Guild of Messengers). I don't think I can do the game and it's community justice trying to explain it all here, and there are much better sources for that like the Messengers Guild website, or hopping on and experiencing it for yourself. I also have not played and engaged with others enough to appropriately speak for the community, as I am in an inopportune time zone. The main thing I want to focus on here is my experience so far, and the things that stood out the most, which were it's level of immersion, and intimate feel.
My first day I was dropped in 'The Cleft' with that resonator guitar track firmly grounding me in virtual New Mexico. Even today it sends shivers down my spine, a lot of Uru's music and ambience does actually. I was slowly working my way around the area and through it's puzzles. There is no immediate HUD in Uru, it genuinely took me a while to work out how to even close the game. About 20-30 minutes in something kind of confused me, the dialogue with the only NPC in this level (Zandi) was still present in the text chat log, but a new message had flashed up with a name followed by some numbers. I initially thought I missed some dialogue but then realized it was the username of another player, who I will refer to as 'C'. C had sent a few messages inquiring about me, but was aware I could not reply yet. It was a bit of friendly banter from someone that was monitoring my progress through the tutorial stage. It felt odd, like "oh I'm being watched? but they seem helpful". She had asked if I was a 'flying dutchman' which I thought was some game specific jargon, but it turned out she was just asking if I was Dutch. It was a unique feeling of uncertainty and vulnerability; I was trying to complete the first level of an online game, in and genre that was new to me, and I was being watched or monitored by someone I couldn't reply to, I also had no clue what they were talking about at the time.
I ended up cheating a bit and looking up how to access the communication system, which led me to mystjourney.com. As an aside, even the information you find online about this game often has such personality. You can tell it is hardcore fans making their own websites like podhopper, untiluru, zarf/eblong, allthingsuru, and the guild of archivists. Even this companion aspect to the game is much more immersive than the usual reddit, fandom wiki, discord combo that most modern game communities rely on. I assume this is because the game is from the early-mid 00s and the player community has maintained it's structure and feel from that time. Anyway, I read that I had to travel to the Gahreesen age to collect my 'KI' which would allow me to communicate, take photos, and provide more of a user interface for the game. Having to travel in world to collect a device through which you can contact others felt SO engaging and immersive. I could finally message back C who then gave me instruction on how to travel back to my 'Relto' (private 'landing' age, almost like a personal starting world) and access my 'hood' (shared player neighbourhood) through a 'linking book' teleport. This brought me to a balcony overlooking the hood inside an enormous cavern (THE cavern). C was standing there waiting to greet me, I was still kinda blown away by the visuals of the cavern though. I am always really impressed when a fictional civilization or faction isn't just an immediately recognizable allegory, shows like Farscape and Babylon 5 were very good at this. Similarly, the D'ni civilization who built the cavern (in game) aren't like clearly identifiable as "oh they're just Greco-Roman" or whatever.
C and I talked for a bit, exchanged where we were from (when I deciphered the 'flying dutchman' comment). She explained that she was in the Guild of Greeters, and that she makes new avatars regularly so that she can be added to new 'hoods' when they are created. The hoods are the home locations of up to 20-30 explorers, so every time one fills up with new players, a new one is automatically created. You are always able to see the players from your hood, whether they are online, and where they are, this is why C would try to have an avatar in every new hood. She was able to catch players as they just joined and introduce them to the world and the concepts of the game, this is also how she was able to message me even though I was in the cleft without a KI to communicate back. C then explained that you can share your personal age, your Relto, with other explorers. "You must face me and stand arm's length away, while I present my Relto book, and you will see a prompt to link there". I did as instructed and that spine chilling linking sound took me to C's Relto, although hers looked a bit different to mine. She informed that the differences came from gameplay and exploring. You find loose pages to add to your Relto book which you carry on your belt/person at all times, providing an in lore reason why you never die falling down a pit (you just link to your Relto before you are injured). C's Relto also had a screen with a few photos on rotation, one that stood out was her avatar sitting on a toilet (from Elonin, a fan created age).
C then showed me the ropes, explained the instancing of the cavern city and personal ages, how to access and use the 'nexus', but left it at the base game for me. That is to say, I wasn't shown everything at once, which allowed me to explore further on my own to discover the fan made ages, the pubs, and Guilds Bevin/hood. It was a tempered approach that did not overwhelm me and allowed me to engage with the game at my own pace. I met up with C several times after that, as she was very active at the time and resided in a closer timezone to me than most players. I recall her telling me she had been playing and enjoying the Myst series games for many years, so being very active as a greeter in Uru Live was her way of "giving back". I will note, that there are other greeters too, typically you can find someone in the "Guild of Greeters Hood" via the nexus, C was just the person who happened to help me out a lot when I first started.
A few months into playing I randomly came across another player while searching around Ae'gura (the cavern city) for markers (a sort of mini-game). 'R' entered global chat in the city and was immediately very pleasant, our avatars physically met by the broken bridge overlooking the Kadish gallery. R explained she had just hopped on to relax and see if anyone else was around, said she has been playing for years. We got to chatting about the game and my progress so far. She mentioned she was watching Stargate SG1 at this time, of which I am a huge fan as well. It was a funny coincidence, because Stargate had been on my mind a lot while playing Myst Online, I find there is a lot of similarities between the two in regards to themes, style, and cultural era. Scrappy humans exploring something that is far beyond us, being both alien and familiar; the D'ni city and 'linking' underneath New Mexico (MOULa), and gate travel to alien planets which often have connections to past Earth cultures & prehistory (SG1). They share the exploration of fantastical worlds beyond human comprehension, while securely grounding their story in the real world of the late 90s and early 00s. I feel that they both adhere to the ideas of 'hope', 'collaboration', and 'anything is possible' that came with globalization in the 90s (albeit, mostly for the first world, where these franchises are set).
I ran into R a few more times after this, including the first time I managed to find the 'New Messengers Pub'. The pub is a player created age that was added into the game by Cyan Studios, the developers. It's a very beautiful space designed for gatherings and events, even having a dozen or so 'conversation booths' that contain voice chat for small groups. R showed me all of this stuff, and we got to talking again, this time about a recent chromebook she had purchased. She was talking about how she doesn't like Google (the feeling is mutual) but it was just what was available to her, and she was considering trying to put Linux on it. Another funny coincidence, as switching to Linux had been on my mind with the contemporaneous 'Co-Pilot' data scraping/security controversy. I ended up making the switch a month or two later. R also gave me a hint that something about the conversation booths related to Chiso Preniv, the fan made ages hub. I really enjoyed discussions with R, as I have with everyone I have met in game. There is an unpretentious maturity that can be missing in other places online. People in the Myst Online community will happily explain, sometimes academic, interests to you without the need to grandstand. That inherit comfort level they maintain, and a lot of the time running into people one on one, has really contributed to the overall intimate nature I love about this world. It's a place of genuine platonic closeness with strangers.
Another instance that reinforced this for me was randomly meeting another player in the new messengers pub. 'A' and I were chatting about the game world, and I mentioned I had not explored the fan made ages much yet, as I was still working on the Path of the Shell (base game expansion pack ages). She told me of her favourite age, Eder Naybree, and how she loves showing it to people. I followed along, linking to Chiso Preniv, then to Naybree (Eder means garden in D'ni). A showed me around the landing area, and the tree branches which used to be the main path up the mountains, achieved through platforming/jumping. They had since added a way to climb up and around, which is the path we took after a few poor jump attempts by me. Atop the mountains revealed the sky and the beach of Eder Naybree, I realized I had seen this before in images online. I previously thought the colouring was a bit garish, but in the context of the whole age, it was actually really beautiful. A directed us to jump off the mountain and land on the purple sand of the beach. The beach had a fireplace surrounded by deckchairs, and is a very popular event spot in Myst Online. They even had a few pride flag beach towels laying around which is really sweet. A had mentioned there was a 'swim trunks' clothing item that could be collected here, we eventually found it was on the beach. When you collect a clothing item, it immediately puts it on your character, so I had altered my 'serious explorer' outfit with some pink, blue and white board shorts.
It was a really nice spot along the beach, and since I had only just started the Path of the Shell, I did not remember you could actually swim in the game. A and I 'tried' to swim out to the world border (knowing it wasn't possible), and came back to swimming around the beach area. We then crossed this massive drain grate thing to a river on the other side. A wanted to show me her favourite spot in the entire age, so we had to swim up the river a ways. Coming to land on the opposite side, a few hundred metres upstream, there was a path up to a spot with the clearest view of the sky and water. There was a telescope to look up at the stars, and a picnic rug to sit at, with a slight but constant wind noise in the background. A explained that the sky changes in real time, and that if I came back later I could see the night sky instead. Shortly after this A had to leave, I think she was American so it was probably the middle of the night, she bid farewell and I stayed at the spot a while longer enjoying the view.
In August 2024, the twenty fifth 'Mysterium', a fan convention for the entire Myst series, was held in Montreal. To coincide with this monumental event, the Myst Online community decided to revive 'D'ni Palooza', a multi day in-game music festival that had last been held in 2013. They were taking submissions and organizing event times for months leading up to event which spanned 5th-11th August. I was following it closely, but as is the case with many events in world, my time zone made it difficult to attend (I am not an early riser). I did manage to catch the last hour or two of the final day of performances, seeing Dah'mpa and Podhopper play in the morning of August 11 (my time). I finally had the chance to experience an in world event! it was very cool how they facilitate streaming the music on a separate site they host (I assume because the in game VOIP is not great quality). There were a number of people in the hood who took the sitting animation facing a fountain where the performer sat. Chat was respectfully at a minimum, with clapping/cheering animations and messages of gratitude saved for the conclusion of each set. I was glad to be able to catch even part of a once in a decade event! This was such a fortuitous time for me to get into MOULa.
Anyway, I really believe Myst Online: Uru Live again to be the best virtual world experience I have ever had. While I understand in more open ended worlds like Second Life and related, you can 'do anything', that 'anything' usually costs quite a bit of money, and I think there is a strength to the visual and stylistic consistency of Myst Online. Even the player made ages they add to the game feel as if they were developer made, which demonstrates the passion of the community. I have been slowly working my way through the Path of the Shell and Chiso Preniv ages for the past several months, when time permits. But this game just has immaculate vibes that always bring me back, even as a place to sit and zone out.
Thanks for reading :)
P.S. I forgot to mention anywhere here that it is totally free to play, can be downloaded from mystonline.com. It runs in Bottles for me on Linux Mint/Debian/antiX, with no extra configuration beyond choosing the 'Gaming' bottle type. There is a guide for running it on Mac and Linux on the guild of messengers website (and maybe some of the other sites I linked in paragraph two have guides like that)