Playing Together
This page describes how you can join a Shard to play the Uru ages, both those provided by Cyan as well as fan-created ages, together with your friends.
What is a Shard?
"Shard" is a term Uru and others borrowed from Ultima Online to refer to a discrete server you can connect to to play Uru online. Two explorers playing on the same Shard can chat with each other, meet in the same age, exchange KI pictures, and otherwise interact normally. Two players on different Shards however are totally separated, and there is no way for them to communicate or interact within the game. In other words, each Shard forms an independent instance of the whole Uru universe, just as every offline installation is totally separated from any other.
There are different kinds of Shards, depending on which Uru version they are based on.
Public Shards
There are several public Shards available that you can easily join for free. They all have their own installation instructions, which you should carefully read not to disturb the operating of the Shard.
- The Guild of Writers hosts the Gehn Shard which uses the GoW account database. This shard runs a custom fork of the latest development versions for Plasma (client) and dirtsand (server).
- The Deep Island also uses the GoW account database and forums (using Alcugs, offering all fan-ages available through Uru Age Manager)
- The Open Cave (using Alcugs and MOSS)
- Destiny Shard, a CWE "testing" shard that anyone can test their own client or age on.
- Myst Online: Uru Live Again, offered by Cyan Worlds. Currently no fan ages available.