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Monday, September 2, 2013

URU thingies!

This year marks 10 years of URU. A multiplayer online game that is based off the Myst games. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myst_Online:_Uru_Live)

I have not played the entire 10 years but, I did make friends there, have fun, etc. and thought it would be fitting to post some of the Myst/ URU related projects I have worked on over the last several years.

For the tl;dr peoples: scroll down to the pictures. Pictures are where the shiny things are.

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A brief history of my Myst obsession:

1993: Myst comes out and I get to play it on our new at the time Apple PowerPC. One of the first games I ever owned on CD-ROM.

1997: Riven comes out and I get to play it on our less than new computer of the day. Takes me almost a year to complete it on and off.

2001: Myst 3 is released and I rush down to buy it. While the game is pretty, the story isn't as good as the first two (IMHO) and I end up beating it by walkthrough sometime later.

late 2003: I get URU: Ages beyond Myst. On Christmas 2003 I got the single player incarnation of URU. URU: Live was going on but I thought I would do the single player version first. Unknown to me: the funding for URU: Live was pulled just 2 months later.

2004: In the same month: Myst 4 comes out and I join Until URU. Myst 4 was ok but now I get to play URU with other people! Since Live was canceled, in sept. of 2004 Until URU was released as a fan-operated client/ server system. It was now possible to play URU multiplayer again for the first time since Live was canceled.

 2005: In early 2005 I became a co-admin on the Great Tree shard. I had great fun with great people and got to learn a little bit about how the game worked and some simple python coding. (There were far more skilled people in the programing areas than I.) Had great fun playing both in Until URU and in Alcugs (an open source port of the game that was being developed).

2006- 2013: Things in here are kind of a blur. I participated in two beta tests, two Mysterium conventions, the beginning and ending of a couple incarnations of URU, and then kinda disappeared off radar due to RL, other hobbies, work, lack of interest, etc.

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Most of my projects can be divided into two groups: Music videos from in game events and metal working projects. These were done in my most active years on URU which were 2004-2007ish. Coincidentally, the years before I got a full time job lol.

Things:
      [Photo by Ashtar]

These were some keychains I machined out of brass in 2005. I made 6 of them iirc (and one for myself ;) )


 A CNC milled Great Tree logo in aluminum


A CNC milled D'ni ring in brass (I wish I had a better picture than this..)


A replica of the KI used in URU (kinda like a fancy communications/GPS like device)



A remote controlled wheeled traffic cone. Cones are something of an inside joke to people who play URU. We would move them around in various ways. Make art out of them, surround someone with them, use code to put them in very odd locations, etc. I made this for a Mysterium in 2006. The motor I scavenged for this was woefully underpowered and by this picture it was on it's last legs. I did get a pic 'chasing' Rand Miller (Atrus) with a cone though. Mission Accomplished.  :)

Movies:

I didn't have a full version of fraps (the screen capture program I used to make these) until the middle of the 2nd movie. So you will see the watermark on some (ok, a lot) of the footage.

These two were uploaded to Youtube by Tomala a few years back. I need to sort out some issues before uploading the rest. It seems the files no longer want to be read by my old mac and I may have to re-render them. I may not have all the pieces anymore. I used to have all my URU videos hosted on a private server but, it appears it is longer up. :(

UU2: My second URU movie. Made with footage right before and beginning when I got my adminKI. I don't know if it is my slow computer or if it is a bit out of sync but it is all I have up atm.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQxH3X_Iqgo

Having fun in UU: My last full song length video. Made mostly with footage of me and some friends messing around on the Slackers, H'URU project shard, and possible the Great Tree shard. Again, not sure if it is my slow computer but it seems a bit out of sync.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDq-D4WtTHQ

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Hoped you enjoyed the Myst ramblings. I may add more to this post as I re-discover things buried on old hard drives.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi there,

  I'm running an ARG style competition to give away some Uru Journey Cloth bookmarks I made. My plan is to do ten stages (or "Ages" if you will lol), the winner of each will receive one of my bookmarks. Then to culminate it all I'm planning a grand prize draw. I saw your keychains on a tumblr post and wanted to ask you if you'd be interested in contributing to the prize pool?

  I'm looking for for anything really. Can be something small like the keychains or something larger. Can be one item to include in the final draw or a number of items to include with the stage prizes. Completely up to you.

  I know how much it costs to give things away for free, in both time and materials, so I certainly understand if you can't do it.

  Either way thanks for your time and consideration.

  Stewart bobslb at hotmail dot com

Unknown said...

bobslb at hotmail dot com

Kristen said...

Yikes. As you can tell I am sometimes not good at looking this site up on a regular basis. I apologize for the very delayed reply. Your competition sounds awesome but, I am afraid I no longer have access to the equipment that I used to make these projects on. I made most of the items when I was in college and had ready access to a machine shop where they didn't mind my 'side-projects'. Sorry! ~Kristen (Weldergeek on URU)