Wait, What? What Did I Just Read?

I don't know if it's because I've never cared for online multiplayer games or what, but I feel like this article had the opposite of the intended effect on me. Rather than marvel at the strong sense of community of the Uru players, I found their efforts to be largely misplaced, and the article and the players' reactions to be over-dramatized.

The reading had a lean toward the cheesy side, describing the shutdown of the servers in a very literary style of prose, emphasizing how the players "moved into a circular configuration close enough so that their avatars would appear to be holding hands," and cinematically illustrating the chime of a clock as it symbolically summoned the doomsday "There is something wrong with your internet connection" message. You can just hear the strings and choir building to a crescendo in the background. The author even goes so far as to include poetry and similarly emotional responses from players - "The tears the tears why can't I stop the tears / It was only supposed to be a game, no violence, no fears" - painting the shutdown as a "trauma" or "harrowing experience," and citing the fact that some players were disabled as though it were a relevant issue. It may very well have been a very sad moment for the players of the game (which had never even left beta - Uru was originally intended to be single-player only and the community aspect was somewhat experimental), but the way the chapter describes it is far from being in good taste - to me it seemed almost to demean the situation of a real refugee.

Even putting aside the style of the article itself, the reaction of the players was not appropriate. Upon having their play servers shut down, they proceeded to search for a new outlet by which to continue their community in a similar way. There's nothing wrong with this in and of itself, but the way they went about doing this was trying to rebuild the world of Uru on existing servers: those hosted by Second Life and There.com. As they themselves acknowledged, it was a poor substitute for the actual game, as the limitations of these utilities prevented them from accurately portraying the world of Uru as it was originally intended. More importantly, however, these online worlds already had existing communities. For a group that supposedly understood so well the importance of community and togetherness within a game, the Uru players were awfully willing to invade en masse the community of another game, using the resources of these communities for their own purposes. The upset "Thereians" were wary of the "Uruvian" immigrants, and tensions between them resulted in griefing. That the There.com management began catering to this large new group did nothing but cause greater tensions from existing "Thereians." Eventually, the There.com management was able to find a way to accommodate the Uruvian immigrants on their own in-game island, and when There.com threatened to close, these members offered to pay higher subscriptions, allowing the site to continue. Interestingly, there.com is now closed as of March 2010, though I don't know of their relations with the Uru players at that point.

Why don't I know that? Well, that's the part of the article I did like. Some Uru veterans had a much more interesting idea. They began the project Until Uru - a fan-made, fan-supported Uru server in collaboration with original developer Cyan. The game went online as the above events were taking place, and was "just as [the players] left it." It provided Thereians and other non-players who had interacted with Uruvians with an explanation for some of their culture, and was a place for Uru players to come back to and enjoy the game as it originally was. Until Uru has since shut down, but for good reason: the original Myst Online: Uru Live project was revived. This new project is still maintained and has gained quite a large member base. Google it and see for yourself.

Yes, it's clear from the article that games can form a strong player community. This very strength even succeeded in reviving the game whose server crash left them in such despair and helplessness (as the article will have us think) in the first place. There are a few things of note, though. (1) The "sense of community" described in the reading, such as players flocking to different sites, was not the cause of this revival - it was more derivative of the Until Uru project resulting from a few hardcore fans' dedication in hosting Uru themselves, and (2) the way the reading presents this community is unnecessarily over-the-top and too sensational to be taken seriously. More interesting to me was what happened with this community after the article was written - There.com and Until Uru both shut down, Myst Online: Uru Live was revived, and the Second Life refugee groups are still populated.

Links with more info:
http://there.com/info/homepage
http://secondlife.com/community/groups/ (search for "uru")
http://en.mystlore.com/wiki/Unt%C3%ACl_Uru
http://mystonline.com/en/

So I guess I have to ask a question, so I'll pull the obvious: how much does the community of a game mean to you? How far would you go to stay connected with your fellow players?