The Gathering of Uru is an interesting discussion of the kinds of relationships that can be formed through the internet. A large-ish group of people regularly put on the guise of their avatar and interacted in an immersive virtual world. These people forged a community and lasting friendships on the Uru Live servers. Some of them even went so far as to call it a family. And the company took it away from them.
These Uruvians referred to themselves as refugees. They had lost their homeland of Uru and tried to find a replacement for their virtual home. Imagine someone told you you could never see your best friend ever again and that you would have to talk to them via email forevermore. That would be devastating. You would try your best to keep up with each other, but without interaction, a part of the relationship would be missing. You may try to find a way to communicate better than just via text, like through a voice chat program, but it would just not be the same. The citizens of Uru felt the same. One day, they were given the message that they were no longer allowed to journey into Uru with all of the great friends they had made. They first moved their community to forums, but there was still an amount of interaction lacking.
Their solution? Populate a different virtual world with "Urufugees." They went to take over an MMO called There.com and also populate Second Life. In these places they found a poor substitute for the lives they lived in Uru. They eventually integrated themselves into these worlds and found their place, still longing for the Age of Uru.
Have you ever had a game you loved lose developer support? How did you feel?
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