Mwahaha, since I am not syndicated on Mystblogs, I can feel free to write a post about the new Until Uru shard without readers sifting through it for the twelve billionth time.

My intials thoughts on the news? "Woo. Another UU shard." You must understand that after the first few days following the release of Until Uru, my interest waned considerably and I left to do other things. I started to get involved in other retail MMORPGs and just overall lost interest in Myst as a whole. I did not at all consider UU to be a replacement for Live, and quickly got bored with the limited things to do. Tried to get involved in running In-Character stories and even administrated a user shard at one time, but it got boring.

So when with Rand's letter to the community (caution! UruObsession link) hit the 'net, I read it and went "woo!" in the flatest, most unenthusiastic way possible. A first step, yes, but I wasn't impressed. I don't know why because I wanted to be excited... which was weird.

But then I actually played it... and it all came rushing back. This is a CYANWORLDS operated shard! No silly powerhungry administrators, no stupid KI mods, Cyan employees wandering around in cameo. For all those who never experienced UruLive, this is what Uru really meant to be. Granted it's still compatible with Until Uru, it's so much like what Live was before it was cancelled. There are actually people in the cavern! More neighborhoods than one. (Why do you need neighborhoods when the whole shard is essentially a 'hood?) There's a sense of progression and information flowing now. You're afraid you're going to miss something now and you explore and try to find groups of people to see what's up.

So yes, I think I'm excited now. Not nearly as much as when I was first allowed into the cavern, but it's slowly getting stronger. There's some really interesting things brewing beneath the surface of all this... it's going to be fun watching what happens. I mean... how could it possibly get worse than it already was? I don't feel there's anything to lose now if nothing comes of this, so I think it's less stressful, haha. (No, I really don't like Until Uru... call me a spoiled brat. I want Uru Live. )