When it comes to Uru Live, one common criticism or argument towards “it hasn’t launched yet” (read me. now.) is that there has been “no new content”.

Superficially, that appears to be true. Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, released in fall 2003, had Relto, the Cleft, Teledahn, Gahreesen, Eder Gira and Eder Kemo, Kadish Tolesa, and some minor stuff like the Kadish Gallery. With Prologue, or with To D’ni, you also got some of Ae’gura, a neighborhood or two (Bevin, Kirel, perhaps Seret), Nexus, the Great Zero, and that’s just about it.

And right now, things don’t seem very different. Until a few days ago, there wasn’t even the Great Zero, and even now, it isn’t completely there. Changes, perhaps completely invisible to the shallow eye, are few and far between. There is completely new stuff, such as the doors between the Kadish Gallery and the Canyon Mall, which, in previous builds, weren’t even hooked up to any function whatsoever (rather than merely deactivated), finally being enabled. Or the reworked Spy Room, and the added decorations in the alcove. Or the rotating thingy on Relto. Or that sparkle which appeared just this week. There is stuff to talk about, to wonder about, to draw or not to draw conclusions about. Perhaps there’s even subtle hints at a deeper meaning to some of this; perhaps, though, much of it is really nothing but decoration.

Now, this very day, a new age is coming; apparently, it’s been confirmed to be Eder Delin. And some of the beta testers will say “fine, but we’ve been testing that months ago; this isn’t exactly new”. And some who never tested it will say “this is little but an Eder Kemo with altered colors and textures and very similar structures”.

But the truth is, whether you like it or not, that this is exactly how things are gonna be. This current state, “Preview”, “pre-launch”, “open beta”, name it what you will, has been running since December 20th. That’s just under a month. What we got throughout this month was one major client update (this week), a minor hotfix or two, and, content-wise, constant minor updates, several times a week. Today, we’re getting one major addition.

Are you with me?

It’s simple, really. You have one big change a month. Typically, a new age, or a big new area in an existing one. In addition to that, you have, over the course of the same month, many smaller changes. Mostly, unlocked areas and added items in existing ages (such as in Ae’gura).

Naturally, the pace on this might pick up a little when the client has been stabilized more. They’ll be able to focus less on bug reports and more on quality/quantity of content. Keep in mind, though, that already, there’s several dozen “Rehearsal” testers outside the company, plus their internal quality assurance team. Keep in mind, too, that most of the developers who work on the big problems right now (networking anyone?) are likely not particularly qualified to also work on ages; less need to focus on certain software issues therefore does not necessarily imply more ability to focus on content. This, in fact, is a common fallacy, i.e. “I wish they’d concentrate less on this and more on that”. Some employees at Cyan may be universally capable; most were probably (and for good reason) chosen because of their specialization.

So within a few hours from now, we’ll see the first major content update. It never got to this point in the original Prologue, and that alone is a very relevant milestone: we’re finally seeing, far more so than ever before, how the concept of rolling out additions was meant to work. And assuming that the Age has any of them, we’ll finally have new puzzles to crack, together in groups, alone, giving hints to each other on forums, with a friend or two, or perhaps in a wholly different way. Never before has Uru actually gotten to this very point.

And from tomorrow on, nobody will be permitted any more to argue that “there is no new content”. If Eder Delin isn’t new and unique enough, then this product, it seems, just wasn’t meant for you. Whether it was meant for me is a topic of another discussion.