If you appreciate the work done within the wiki, please consider supporting The Cutting Room Floor on Patreon. Thanks for all your support!

User:Sapphics

From The Cutting Room Floor
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Contributions

Pages that I've created. For a full list of my contributions, see here.

  1. Volume (Windows, Mac OS X)
  2. Riven: The Sequel to Myst (Windows, Mac OS Classic)
  3. Myst: Masterpiece Edition*
  4. Myst V: End of Ages
  5. The Beginner's Guide
  6. realMyst: Masterpiece Edition
  7. Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and The Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist
  8. FTL: Faster Than Light
  9. Tacoma
  10. HIVESWAP: Act 1*
  11. A Normal Lost Phone*

* Has since received significant contributions from other users.

Other pages

I didn't create these ones, but I've made non-minor contributions to them.

Uru release timeline

Uru, generally considered to be a spin-off series of the Myst series, is the fragmented remains of a single game, and its history is.. somewhat of a mess.

Uru began development after Cyan had finished work on Riven, and the game was originally going to be an MMO puzzle game, though at the insistence of the publisher, Ubi Soft, a singleplayer version of the game was developed as well. The original multiplayer version of the game, Uru Live, was made available to a large number of testers prior to the game's release, though was apparently never officially released, and was cancelled by Ubisoft in 2004.

2003

  • November 11th: Uru: Ages Beyond Myst (also known as Uru Prime) is released on Windows by Cyan Worlds (published by Ubi Soft)
    • Note: sources differ on whether or not Uru Live was also released at the same time as the singleplayer game; most seem to say that it was delayed and was never actually publicly released, and that the large-scale open beta testing was as far as it progressed before it was cancelled.

2004

  • February 4th: Ubisoft's decision to cut the multi-player component of the game, Uru Live, is announced.
  • February 9th: The original Uru Live is shut down.
  • March 22nd: The singleplayer game's first expansion pack, Uru: To D'ni, is released as a free download. This contained some content that was previously present in Uru Live.
  • July 7th: The singleplayer game's second expansion pack, Uru: The Path of the Shell is released, containing more content from Uru Live, including a fair amount of content, including multiple full Ages (worlds), which was never released to Uru Live‍ '​s players. This expansion pack is released both by itself (for owners of the base game), and along with Ages Beyond Myst and To D'ni in a compilation called Uru: Complete Chronicles.

2005

  • September 20th/23rd: Myst V: End of Ages is released, mostly made up of content originally intended for Uru, scrapped when Uru Live was cancelled.

2006

  • January: Cyan Worlds release the self-published Untìl Uru, which allowed owners of Uru to access fan-run 'shards' of Uru Live. The content of Untìl Uru was identical to that of the original Uru Live, and this version of the game received no content updates.
  • February: Cyan Worlds set up their own shard, which becomes the de-facto official shard.
  • May: Cyan begin to receive limited funding from GameTap, allowing them to start developing Uru again, though no new content is added at this point.
  • December: Untìl Uru is shut down, and the open beta of Myst Online: Uru Live begins.

2007

  • February: Myst Online: Uru Live, the successor to the original Uru Live and Untìl Uru, is released, developed by Cyan Worlds and published by GameTap. MO:UL is, apart from the shared content, completely separate from the singleplayer Uru, released for a monthly subscription fee via GameTap's distribution platform. The beta of a version for Mac OS X, developed by TransGaming, also begins.
    • Myst Online: Uru Live recieved many content updates throughout the year, adding most of the content from The Path of the Shell, as well as a large amount of new content.
  • March: Myst Online: Uru Live‍ '​s Mac OS X port is released (ported by TransGaming, published by GameTap). This is the only version of Uru to have been given a Mac OS X port, or, indeed, a port to any platform other than Windows.

2008

  • February 4th: It is announced that GameTap are dropping funding for the game, and that the game will become defunct in April.
  • April 9th: Sure enough, the game's servers are shut down, thus ending Myst Online: Uru Live.
  • September 1st: Cyan Worlds regain the rights to Uru Live.
    • TODO: Find out what MORE (Myst Online: Rerestoration Experiment) was. It's unclear whether or not it actually ever existed, apart from it becoming MO:ULagain...? The game engine was also made open-source at some point (related to MORE?)

2010

  • February 11th: Cyan Worlds once again make Uru Live officially available, as Myst Online: Uru Live again, or MO:ULagain, with the same content as Myst Online: Uru Live. This iteration of Uru Live at first received no content updates, though did receive occasional bug fixes throughout the following years. This iteration went back to being Windows-only.

2014

  • August: Cyan announce at Mysterium (an annual fan-run Myst/Uru/Cyan convention) that they are working with a small group of fans to get new content developed for MO:ULagain, by the fans, (including finished versions of cancelled Uru Ages partially developed or conceived by Cyan prior to their cancellation, and versions of Myst V Ages), and to set up a fan content system allowing for more fan-made Ages to make their way onto the MO:ULagain shard.
    • Note: It's been "almost there" for a couple of years. The generally-quoted reason for the delay seems to be the lack of a finished 'library'/'nexus' Age specifically for fan-made Ages; there have been several attempts, but all of them seem to have just generally stopped being developed, with one two recent exceptions, currently in-development. (The project in general is still being worked on, to clarify.)

2015

  • February 3rd: The first (fan-made) content update is released on the official MO:ULa shard, simply containing a few new clothing options.

2016

  • November 16th: Another two small fan-made content updates are released, containing a new clothing design.


Other notes:

  • There are a few other currently active shards, most notably:
    • OpenUru.org's Minkata Shard, which is currently (and usually) fairly similar to the official shard, with a few minor tweaks and fixes. This shard is currently part of the pipeline for getting fan updates implemented into the official shard.
    • The Guild of Writers' Gehn Shard, which in addition to having fixes and tweaks, also has some fan content, which is intended to eventually make its way onto the official shard, likely via the Minkata shard.
    • These two shards are explicitly approved by Cyan, and are even linked to from the MO:ULa website.
  • There is indeed, as can be expected, overlap regarding unused content in Uru, between the singleplayer game and Uru Live.
  • Though honestly, the amount of unused content in Uru doesn't seem enough to justify writing this timeline out, lol

Uru asset name prefixes

"DIRT/Descent" demo

Age / area Prefix
Desert Canyon dscn (an early version of what would become Eder Gira)
Great Shaft / Nodes gsnd
Channel / Bug Cave chbc
"GTGH" gtgh (not in the game; just referenced in the files. early version of the Great Tree Pub, judging from the room names? i still think it's short for "Great Tree / Guild Hall")
Teledahn shrm (not in the game; just referenced in the files)

"Hector Cove" demo

Age / area Prefix
Hector Cove hcov (an early version of what would become Noloben)
"GTGH" gtgh (not in the game; just referenced in the files. see above)

Uru

Ages are roughly sorted alphabetically by MOUL Age filename.

Age / area Filename (CC) Filename (MOUL) Sound
prefix
Texture
prefix
Ahnonay Cathedral Ahnonay AhnonayCathedral ahny (misspelt a few times as anhy in both sounds and textures)
Ahnonay (Sphere 1) AhnySphere01 Ahnonay
Ahnonay (Sphere 2) AhnySphere02
Ahnonay (Sphere 3) AhnySphere03
Ahnonay (Sphere 4, exterior, office) AhnySphere04
Bahro Caves (Yeesha's Journey) BahroCave bhro
Bahro Cave (wedges; MOUL-only) LiveBahroCaves
Bahro Cave (pellet) BahroCave02 PelletBahroCave
Baron City Office BaronCityOffice tldn bco (used for a single texture)
shrm (primarily used for Teledahn; see below)
  (primarily used for Teledahn; see below. only used for one BCO-specific sound file - the area's music)
Ae'gura
(incl. Kadish Gallery, Spy Room)
city,
spyroom
islm dnit (used for a handful of textures. possibly related to the old "City Courtyard Visualization Test" footage from 2001? "D'ni Test"?)
  (short for 'Island Main', perhaps?)
pub (Kahlo Pub; only used for three textures in the game, but was also used for several more textures that were not used)
kdsh (only the Kadish Gallery; this prefix is primarily used for Kadish Tolesa [see below])
Cleft Cleft clft
tmna ('Tomahna'; this refers specifically to the rainy instance of the Cleft)
Dereno Dereno drn   (the textures use these prefixes more or less evenly)
drno
Descent
(incl. Great Shaft)
Descent dsnt chbc (appears to specifically relate to the Eder Tomahn, despite its original context [see "DIRT/Descent" above])
 
gsnd (the Great Shaft, specifically; see "DIRT/Descent" above)
Eder Delin EderDelin dln (a rare three-letter prefix)
Eder Tsogal EderTsogal tso (a three-letter prefix, as with Eder Delin)
Er'cana Ercana erca  
Er'cana City Silo ErcanaCitySilo ercasilo
Eder Kemo Garden gd01   ('Garden 01')
grdn (rare)
kemo
  (rare; ie. only used for three textures and two sounds)
Gahreesen Garrison grsn
Eder Gira Gira gira
Watcher's Pub
(aka. Watcher's Sanctuary,
Restoration Guild,
Great Tree Pub)
RestorationGuild GreatTreePub rstr fndr (specifically relates to the pub area itself. unclear what it stands for)
gtgh (appears to specifically refer to the inaccessible upper area of the pub. also see notes under "DIRT/Descent" above.)
gtp (MOUL-only, used for a few textures)
  (specifically relates to the 'path of the shell' puzzle area and the tree. likely short for "Restoration Guild")
Great Zero GreatZero grtz  
gz (only used for a single texture)
Cartographers' Pub GuildPub-Cartographers gpub gpcr
Greeters' Pub GuildPub-Greeters gpgr
Maintainers' Pub GuildPub-Maintainers gpmt
Messengers' Pub GuildPub-Messengers gpms
Writers' Pub GuildPub-Writers gpwr
Jalak Jalak jlak (jalak is also used for five textures)
Kadish Tolesa Kadish kdsh (kadsh is also used for a few textures)
K'veer Kveer kver
Minkata Minkata mink
Myst Myst myst
Negilahn Negilahn ngln
Bevin, Seret Neighborhood nb01 grdn (used for the 'garden' area of the neighborhood. seeming unrelated to the identical abbreviation used for Eder Kemo)
 
nb (only used for a couple of textures)
nbtc (used for a handful of textures, seemingly related to neighborhood variations [eg. lamp style]. meaning of 'tc' is unclear.)
Kirel Neighborhood02 krel
Nexus Nexus nxus
Payiferen Payiferen payi
Relto
(incl. Phil's)
Personal,
Personal02
psnl prsn (used far less often than psnl)
 
Teledahn Teledahn tldn shrm ('Shroom'; usage seems to predate tldn)
  (also used for the Baron City Office; see above)
Tetsonot Tetsonot tetso (there are no textures specific to Tetsonot)
(global) (various) x
(physics) p
(avatar movement) (no prefix) (constitutes walking, running, turning, jumping, and swimming sounds, and, in MOUL, for whatever reason, firework sounds)
Desert Canyon dscn (the original Desert Canyon was never properly released, but much of it was reused for Eder Gira)
Kahlo khlo (Kahlo was never released, but bone textures with this prefix are used in the Cleft, Eder Gira, Gahreesen, Jalak, Minkata, Negilahn, and Teledahn)
Laki'ahn laki (Laki'ahn doesn't appear in Uru, but its sky and sun textures are used in MOUL a few times; specifically, the sky texture appears in the files of Payiferen and Eder Tsogal, and the sun texture appears in the files of Minkata, Eder Tsogal, and the Cleft)
Noloben (Siralehn) srln (doesn't appear in this game, but one texture from the Age is used in Eder Tsogal in MOUL)
Tahgira thgr (a single bubble texture with the prefix can be found in the files of Dereno in MOUL, along with an ice texture with the prefix tghr)
Great Marsh mrsh (the 'Marsh Scene' location from Crowthistle [not a Myst game]. two textures with this prefix are used in Negilahn, and another one is used in Eder Tsogal)
Rowan Green mntn (the 'Mountain Scene' location from Crowthistle. a tree bark texture with this prefix is used in Eder Delin and Eder Tsogal)

Myst V: End of Ages

In addition to the following prefixes for the Ages and areas in Myst V, along with two Ages/areas which had not been released in any form when this game was released, there are also a significant number of reused assets from Uru; those Ages will not be listed here.

Age / area Filename Sound
prefix
Texture
prefix
Descent
(incl. Caldera, Great Shaft)
Descent dsnt chbc (as in Uru, this refers here to the Eder Tomahntee)
  (in Myst V, this is only used for the caldera and the tunnels shortly before the Great Shaft)
gsnd (as in Uru, this refers here to the Great Shaft [see "DIRT/Descent" above])
Direbo Direbo drbo
K'veer Kveer kver  
Releeshahn rele
Laki'ahn Laki laki
Myst Island Myst myst (almost all of the Age's textures use realMYST-style texture names (ie. without a prefix), due to it largely being ported from that game)
Noloben Siralehn srln hcov ("Hector Cove", the internal name of the Noloben that was going to appear in Uru – see "Hector Cove" demo above)
  (the Age's name was changed to Siralehn during development of Myst V, but was changed back before release)
Tahgira Tahgira thgr tgra (rare)
  (in a few cases misspelt as tghr)
Todelmer Todelmer tdlm
(multiple) (various) x
glbl (used for the speeches by Esher which can occur in any of the four Ages)
Desert Canyon dscn (the Desert Canyon didn't appear in this game either, but some bird textures with this prefix were reused from the Cleft in Uru: Ages Beyond Myst)
Negilahn ngln (there is one texture [of an urwin, in the Direbo files; see the Myst V: End of Ages page] which has the ngln prefix, belonging to Negilahn, which wasn't released until Myst Online: Uru Live in 2007)

Additional prefixes

Age / area Prefix
Todelmer dlmr (the original daytime version of Todelmer, from before the Age was remade from scratch for Myst V)