GameTap, host of MOUL, Myst Online: URU Live, announced last month that they would discontinue operations 4/4/08. In the time the community of near 3,000 had, they have been looking for a place to keep their community together. Second Life is being considered. There, Guild Wars and possibily others will be scouted too. About 70 new residents came to SL Saturday 3/1/08, twice what they expected, for a “Field Trip” to test drive Second Life. The excursion included an orientation speech, pictured, and talks on Landmarking, Teleporting, Camera Angles, Exploring, Flying, Property & Building and a Karaoke event. DeAnn Dufaux, Part of Thend’s Puzzler group on MOUL reports, “I’ve had several react positively. Mostly they were afraid of not finding their way around or…… perhaps ending in a place they’d rather not be…….

The Field Trip, gave them a secure way of looking at the world and seeing if it would suit them. They are reacting pretty positively.” A drawback the MOUL community sees in SL is the mature content not found at Game Tap’s site and the restriction on the ages of players. DMom2K Darwin, MOUL Relayer, says, “We have our Uru kids….really talented kids and it is hard to have to leave them behind. The MOUL community plans a field trip to “There” in a week or so. She adds, “There is a strong desire to keep our community together. There is a lot I like about SL that really suprised me. I never expected what I found here, from what I had read. what people have built…the ideas….really cool stuff — very, very creative. Field Trip organizer Thend Destiny said, “We came here to keep the Community together but, I feel we will branch out, as others have done before us from Uru, in SL. It’s my hope we bring the spirit of Uru and the lessons we learned there to Second Life, instead of merely ‘integrating’.” Considering the open sourcing of Second Life, where servers could be privately hosted and administered, and what that could mean to her community, DMom2K reacted, “That would be so wonderful!” MOUL already has a foot hold in Second Life and There of about 300 residents in each community. Linden Labs seems to have dropped attempts at age verification. The last indication of work on it was a blog mention, in early December, that international attempts to verify age were failing at an unacceptable rate. Had age verification been resolved, it is possible that Second Life would be the best alternative for MOUL’s thousands of refugees. Jim Sella for iReports.
Submitted by Jim Sella