Not too long after the announcement that Shadowbane will survive in a new form comes word that another Ubi.com title, Uru Live, will be making a comeback, finally seeing the light of day as a GameTap downloadable product. (Another link).

Terranova is excited by the news, as is the community apparently. This will not be the first playable version of the Uru universe: CyanWorlds had previously released the old server code as Until Uru, allowing players to set up their own servers unsupported. Apparently, there was enough of an interest for CyanWorlds to pursue bringing back the service. (Wikipedia entry). It’s nice to see CyanWorlds pursue this – Uru was incredibly expensive to build. I think I saw a post once where a founder said it was the most expensive game ever, and given the price it takes to make all of that hi-res content, I would believe it. Allowing all of that tech and content to see the light of day the way it was meant to be will (a) mean all that content wasn’t wasted and (b) allow us to see another MMO that isn’t men in tights.

That being said, I’m awaiting word on whether or not they figured out a way to solve one of their toughest design problems – puzzle griefing. It seems that, back in their original beta days, they had a real problem with people standing next to a puzzle and saying “Red! Green! Blue! Then use the crowbar on the broken lever!”