Bottom Line, for now

Another day off, spent in replaying the rest of Uru. Got out guidebook, went back to Teledahn, beginning with control panel at top of trolley to lower water, etc; went thru rest of age -- prison cave, using gun to shoot counter-weights, etc, and found book which takes you to prison cell in Gahreesen. Finished both those ages...

Then did kadish, the purple puzzle age, until game service itself shut down for couple hours -- then did a 40meg 'update' before relaunching. Had trouble leaping gap near ziggurat to other side, where formerly was a relto page -- now nothing. (This has been discussed in forum as 'missing page'.) completed age, then did eder gira/kemo, remarkably easy, even kicking the buckets. the leaps at end of gahreesen went ok too -- either they've made the game slightly easier, or i'm just getting better at it, or perhaps different computer/keyboard makes responses more accurate. (Even found it easy to climb and jump on ledge in eder kemo to get relto book there, and to jump down and across lava river in eder gira without once falling in or panic linking to Relto.)

What's new? noticed in forum mention of a relto books for a bridge (!) in cleft area near zandi's trailer... and realized that, part-way through, there was no way to get back to cleft. (the new game starts on relto, with one pillar in place holding the book to the cleft. after visiting there, you return to relto and find the four pillars to the ages, and the cleft book gone.) eventually after finishing all four ages, you automatically return to cleft, visit yeesha again, get the rain and see the bahro climb into the volcano. and then you find a firepit near zandi's trailer (that wasn't there before), with a relto page... it creates a bridge from the relto island to a couple of the pillars. on the second pillar is a compass rose kind of diagram, and a small object (a lamp? candleholder?) containg a glowing sparkle...

Other discovery was in Kadish, in the pillar puzzle (the huge pillars with counterweights you must raise in the right sequence to climb up through the ceiling), there's a 'sparkly' floating at the top of the third pillar. you have to perform a separate setting of the pillars to climb up and let the sparkly surround you--and it does something to your relto book. that *may* be the same glowing sparkle across the bridge in relto, except that one forum post said that when you find the sparkle, if you don't already have the bridge (which i didn't, because i hadn't finished the four ages yet), it would have no effect. so should i revisit kadish now and encounter the sparkle again? [update later -- no]

Apparently was one earlier sparkle that's not there now. speculation is there'll be one new one a month, that the compass rose is some kind of calendar or clock.

Also new: completing each of the four ages puts a segment of floating rock hovering and slowly circling above the donut-shaped rock on relto. (according to forum, completing the 2 new eder ages with friends results in 2 more objects there)

Maybe new? i don't recall a separate, empty vault at the end of kadish -- thought there was a stonecloth to somewhere, but not that. could re-read closely the original uru guidebook to see. now, in the empty vault is a relto page for butterflies -- didn't remember that either. (maybe i should relaunch uru on other computer and see?)

Another minor discovery: linking to relto while surrounded by fireflies (in eder) brings fireflies to relto. apparently this was always possible.

Bottom line for now: the live release has several incidental new features scattered throughout the original ages, and two rather small new ages apparently designed to teach players how to play together, and that's about it. no substantial new ages, nor suggestion of some overall 'story' about where the game is going... but there are still a lot of empty slots in the relto bookcase!

Also interesting: haven't appreciated, perhaps, the implication in uru guidebook that uru was the vision of where the myst games would go following riven... that myst iii, iv, and v are in some sense all sidebars, or repeats of the original myst pattern (of independent ages around a hub age).