Mytharria
Mytharria is a long-running Persistent World RP Community with its origins as a famous, private Ultima Online shard. Since 1998 it has maintained a role-playing focused environment, which distinguished it from Origin Systems' original Ultima Online shard environments, and many other privately run shards' environments alike. Mytharria has seen many incarnations, these including: Mytharria (1998), Mytharria: Reborn (1999), Mytharria: Dawn's Rising (2000), Talamh Lore (2004), Mytharria: Deliverance (2004), Mytharria: Southern Isles (2005), and Mytharria: Inherritance (2007). Though the administration, playerbase, design and popularity of these incarnations has varied, Mytharria has always featured role-playing and heavily customized environments. Though Mytharria is best known as an Ultima Online emulating shard, As of 2004, the world of Mytharria has also existed on another platform, Neverwinter NiGHTS. Mytharria: Inherritance is now run on the latest release of RunUO 2.0, which provides almost unending world customization options.
As of October, 2007, the staff that is supporting the current Ultima Online server have launched a new persistent world for Mytharria, using the latest RunUO platform. The beta test is currently ongoing, and players can log in to help test the systems.
Chronology
Mytharria (1998) The original Mytharria shard, Mytharria was being run by Gheltire. It used the basic UO map with a couple of cosmetic alterations, and action was pretty much centred around Britain. It was running on the FUSE emulator, and then later converted over to cFUSE. Unfortunately, due to data corruption, Mytharria died (for the first time) at the end of '98. The playground for DW, Razi, Racalac, Stacey and Gyr was no more. Here's Gyr's account of things at the time:
"Yes, I remember the CFuse server completely dying. We finished the last quest (a quest for a keg of the first beer brewed by Gyr I believe... Makes me wonder why all adventures I'm involved with deal heavily with alcohol ?) as the server was dying. It was getting more and more corrupted and we couldn't make the story ProgresS anymore before the server would crash and we would be stuck redoing it all again. At one point I think the corruption went beyond repair and that was the end... Until Eric Swanson (Syzygy) created POL. Dream Weaver and Racalac would come on as script designers."
Mytharria Reborn (1999) Live Spring 1999
MR was the POL showcase server.POL was a new kind of UO server software that allowed vast customizability to the game world through a dedicated scripting language, designed and created by members of the original Mytharria development team, it was built to replace the restrictive cFUSE software. Razi was the Shard Leader until around June, but left due to high internet costs in the UK. Gyr took over until October, at which point Stacey took the reins until December when Razi returned. Towards the end of this particular era, work was going on behind the scenes to produce the next major update to the world of Mytharria.
Mytharria: Dawn's Rising (2000) Live January 1st 2000.
MDR began life using a heavily modified map, centering around Dawn Island with a particularly heavy focus on gods and religion. This phse of Mytharria was the most popular, with online player counts reaching 100 at its peak. Razi resumed the role as Shard Leader of Dawn's Rising for a short time before handing over to Hammersmith. Leadership was then handed to Gambrinus in June 2000, who assumed to role for over a year before handing over to Basara temporarily in June 2001. Basara handed over to Wind Walker. MDR died July 26th 2002 - due to a hard drive fault.
Talamh Lore (2004) Entered beta in Winter 2002. Live in January 2004
With the demise of M:DR due to the HD fault and complete loss of data, the development team were tasked with the almighty task of getting a world up and running quickly enough to keep the interest of the players, having to build a new land from scratch. Wind Walker was the Shard Leader throughout the Talahm Lore period. Due to pressure from the players who were already beginning to look elsewhere, TL was launched. Unfortunately, it went live too early with bugs that couldn't be fixed fast enough. These proved to be too much of a hindrance to the player base, which lost interest and looked to other splinter shards.
Mytharria: Deliverance (2004) Launched October 31st, 2004
An ambitious project, Mytharria was, for the first time, created on a platform other than UO. Mytharria's starting town had always been the town of "Dawn" until this world iteration. For a time, Dawn was the center of the world, and the starting location. "Deliverance," for the first time, changed this model. During this project, the world was "wiped" once early on to change the module of NWN hosting the RP. And, for many reasons, after nearly three years of up-time, the server's population trickled off, leading to a second wipe. This server is in a phase of reconstitution. It seems that the server will be redesigned using the NWN platform, and it is clear that Mytharria's persistent strength will emerge through its massive playerbase, and bring to the fore another era of Mytharria.
Mytharria: Southern Isles (2005) Launched July 27th, 2005
Mytharria: Southern Isles was a nostalgic trip back to the glory days when Mytharria ran solely as an Ultima Online shard. The world was built using The New RunUO engine. DreamWeaver was project leader, with script support from Amokrun. Tassyon built the world, nearly in its entirety. With an explosion of players in the test phase, the playerbase slowly trickled in number. In the fall of 2005, Tassyon took over as leader of the UO shard. Competing for players with Mytharria: Deliverance, which ran on the newer, more graphically-pleasing NWN engine, the playerbase continued to fall. Most players joined the NWN persistent word "Mytharria: Deliverance," which became the most popular "flavor" of Mytharria.
Mytharria: Inheritance (2007) Hopeful Launch Date: January 2008
Mytharria: Inheritance is the newest version of Mytharria. It is currently in development and has entered the test phase. Inherritance features a fully custom map and custom player classes, quite similar to Dawn's Rising. Players can now log on (as of Friday, October 27th) to participate in testing the newly-scripted systems!! For more information, visit the forums at mytharria.org
- Public beta testing has begun!!
Staff and Devs
Since the creation of Mytharria in 1998, there have been a vast number of players who have been elevated to the lofty heights of GM-hood (over 60 in total), and have been a crucial part of the development team - either in administration, programming, questing or maintaining high standards on the server. A list of those who have contributed throughout the years:
Aegis,
Akantha,
Alderan,
Almira,
Amokrun,
Arctic,
Argus,
Arthrese,
Ashensugar,
Ashleigh,
Austin,
Azimuth,
Basara,
Bellatrix,
Cain - (RIP),
Caltrop,
Ctharth,
Didymus,
DreamWeaver,
Exar Kun,
Errno,
Freya,
Gambrinus,
Garou Rennt,
Garr,
GateKeeper,
Gheltire,
Gilean,
Gil'Glorion - (RIP).
Gravegirl,
Grzyk,
Gyr,
Hammerstorm,
Indy,
Ironclad,
Isis,
Kalen,
Kalila,
Khaziglu,
Larva,
Lucid,
Lumina,
Madman,
Majmaj,
Marius,
Mercator,
Miller,
Mooncalled,
Myrathi,
Nexus,
Nichtus,
Nightwind,
Nimaia,
Noden,
Nyndelius,
Odinn,
Orion,
Orwinus,
Paulon,
Poe,
Polemics,
Praetor,
Pyro,
Qamos,
Racalac,
Ravel,
Razi,
Renfield,
Reverend,
Roth,
Rykard,
Scormus,
Seliana,
Shadow,
Sirius,
Syzygy,
Tassyon,
Tempest,
Tenzin,
Trickster,
Wind Walker,
Zazen,
Zephyr