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The Game Archaeologist: Myst Online: Uru Live
The impact of Myst in 1993 was akin to an atomic bomb going off in the PC gaming world. The leap forward in graphical fidelity (aided by the large storage capacity of a CD-ROM and all of the full-motion video and gorgeous images tucked into it) captured gamers' imaginations and made this adventure title the best-selling PC game of all time, at least for several years. Brothers Robyn and Rand Miller's story about a stranger who had to solve puzzles through a good-looking (if deserted) landscape was devilishly difficult, yet that challenge kept players coming back for months and even years. The Myst franchise surged forward at that point, with several sequels, remakes, and ports selling like hotcakes through the final game's release in 2005. Yet something interesting happened along the way when an offshoot of the series -- Uru: Ages Beyond Myst -- evolved into an MMO. With a focus on multiplayer exploration and puzzle-solving instead of non-stop combat, it may be one of the very few MMOs out there that eschews fighting for brainpower. It's an oddity, no doubt, and despite it being an incredibly niche title, it has fascinated me enough to pull me into a research rabbit hole. So let's take a look at Myst Online: Uru Live!
Myst Online goes open source (again)
If a dictionary entry for the phrase "long, strange road" existed, it likely would feature an image from Myst Online. The fantasy MMORPG began its checkered life as the multiplayer component of 2003's Uru: Ages Beyond Mist before being scrapped and subsequently revived by GameTap in 2007. Cyan Worlds then acquired the title and released it as a free-to-play MMO, a strange move considering that the company also open-sourced Myst Online assets in 2008 but continued to support a commercial-grade centralized shard. This morning, Rock, Paper Shotgun tipped us to the fact that Cyan is once again fanning the flames of open source by announcing that the game's MOULA client engine and associated development tools (as well as a MOULA server replacement called MOSS) will be made available and hosted on OpenUru.org. "The goal of the open source CyanWorlds.com Engine and the MOSS server is to provide a playground where new writers can learn their craft, and new maintainers can inspect it, and new cartographers can map it. The Cyan Worlds MOULA servers will continue to provide a (relatively) safe environment for the D'ni faithful to mingle and share," explains Cyan's Rand Miller.
The Daily Grind: Would you help run your favorite MMOG?
What would you do if your favorite MMOG were suddenly sunsetted? That's a dilemma that's faced several different communities recently, with the closure of Mythos, Hellgate: London (only just saved from the fire, apparently) and Myst Online: URU Live. However, in the case of the last one, the project is being opened up so that users are able to create content moving forward, and that is what is expected to propel the project for the next while. So this morning we ask you -- if your favorite game were suddenly shut down, but re-opened so that you could create content on an unpaid basis to help it survive (and maybe even flourish) would you do it? Or would you just move on to the next game?
The Daily Grind: Could a survival horror MMO work?
Survival horror games like Silent Hill or Fatal Frame are fairly niche single player genres and that certainly has something to do with how they operate: scaring the bonkers out of people. While the big scares are certainly a high point within these games, it's the ever present sense of dread that makes the best of them truly horrifying. Some games like to give players terrible controls to heighten the scare factor, while others use forced camera angles. Yet this isn't the problem with transitioning them into MMO-form. The innate problem with making a horror MMO stems from the logical school of thinking that people probably don't want to be terrified for hours on end. Which is pretty reasonable when you think about it. Still, this isn't to say that a horror genre of some sort couldn't persist as a wonderful niche game like this within the greater MMO market.The question we pose today dear readers is: Do you think a horror MMO of some sort could work? Also, roughly how would it work? Any tolerable MMO obviously can't be hours of radio noise followed up by wiggling, throbbing, convulsing aberrations popping out at you. Well it could be that, although somehow we doubt such a game would find much success. One possible idea is to borrow from Myst Online with a persistent world that favors puzzle-solving over combat situations. We kind of like that concept.
The reasons why you need to play Myst Online: Uru Live
Shorah, readers! Kehnehn rahm b'yihm shehm!Myst Online: Uru Live seems to be one game that not only continually gets the proverbial shaft, but also knows how to come back from the dead better than the Scourge of the Eastern Plaguelands. Ubisoft canned it, Cyan Worlds brought it back via a shard system in "Until Uru", GameTap brought it back officially, GameTap canned it after one season, and now Cyan Worlds is once again attempting to put life back into their only online Myst game thanks to the extremely active and vocal community.Mike Fahey over at Kotaku might think Uru should die already, but this blogger is currently squealing in glee in his computer chair. In an attempt to pass the glee on to you, loyal readers of Massively.com, I've compiled not only what Myst Online: Uru Live is all about, but why you should turn your attention to this massive online adventure game.
Cyan acquires Myst Online, opens game development to fans
We all felt for the Myst community a few months back when Myst Online: URU Live was shutdown. Yet there looks to be some light at the end of the dark tunnel for fans of the unique MMO experience, as Cyan Worlds has acquired the game back from GameTap and plans to re-open its worlds for fans to not only play in, but help develop as well. With a staff that equals less than ten people total, we can understand why the developers are opting for letting the fans help develop new content. Plus, it's a really interesting prospect to have people like the Restoration Engineers creating new content in their own beloved title.We've seen a few games take on user-created content, with Pirates of the Burning Sea coming to mind. However, the type of content one would expect for Myst Online is entirely unique to any other MMO. This is literally a chance for players to see their own stories and puzzles featured in one of their most beloved franchises. Cyan has said that they're considering a $25 per six month fee purely to maintain in-house servers for the players to run on, which is a very small price to pay for the resurrection of an MMO like this.[via Kotaku]
Post mortems for Uru Live and Auto Assault relive the pain
An interesting piece at 1Up talks about the effects of closing down an under-performing MMO, both on the players and the developers. Getting the "don't look back in anger" treatment are Cyan Worlds's Uru Live and NCsoft's Auto Assault. Containing snippets of quotes from the creators of both games, there are lessons here for upcoming MMO devs that should be heeded.Interestingly, there is mention of an indie MMO being developed by some of the Auto Assault team called Apokalypsos, apparently featuring a post-apocalyptic setting. Combining FPS gameplay with vehicular combat, this sounds like Mad Max for the massively multiplayer crowd. We'll keep an eye open for further developments.
ION 08: Taking an MMO community from pre-launch to live
Yesterday was the final day of ION 08, but that didn't mean there weren't some incredbly great panels to attend. "Taking Your Community From Pre-Launch to Live" was just one of these panels and to make things even better it included some previous speakers I quite enjoyed hearing from.This time around the moderator was Steve Danuser (38 Studios) while Craig Dalrymple (Sony Online Entertainment) took a panelist seat along with Katie Postma (Firesky), Meghan Rodberg (Turbine) and Victor Wachter (Cryptic Studios). It's important to point out that all the panelist are in fact community managers, as opposed to Steve Danuser who is the lead content designer and director of community development for his company. However, Danuser was previously a community manager for EverQuest II.%Gallery-23015%
The father of Myst weighs in on the closure of URU
Rand Miller is probably one of the most influential game designers you've probably never heard of. He, along with his brother, co-founded the company Cyan Worlds. Cyan is the developer of the title Myst and subsequent titles in that series. With 12 million copies sold to date, the simple (but beautiful) point-and-click adventure game has impacted the public perception of videogames to an unprecedented degree. As you might imagine, Mr. Miller had a few things to say about the closure of the online version of Myst, URU Live.The game ended its run earlier this week, with a touching farewell given by the Restoration Engineers. Julian Murdoch, of the Gamers with Jobs website, had a chance to chat with Mr. Miller to get his reaction on URU's closure. What resulted is a twenty minute conversation that touched on GameTap's decision to close the service, Miller's hopes for the MMO genre, and what the talented designer plans to do next with his life. If you're still looking for some closure about the closure, this is some of the best you're likely to get.
The Restoration Engineers say goodbye to Uru Live
It's official: Myst Online: Uru Live is dead. It was a complex, beautiful world and those who had the opportunity to experience it have come away all the richer. This blogger didn't, but has always been a fan of the Cyan Worlds aesthetic, and regrets not jumping into it when the opportunity arose.As a final farewell to its explorers, the Restoration Engineers (Uru Live's version of Greeters) have recorded their thoughts on what it was like to work for the community every day, and how much fun the whole thing was. When it came time to say goodbye, one of them was obviously too moved to say more than 'thank you', and that was enough. Here's hoping that the creative minds behind it all find something new to put their hands to -- in a world filled with knockoffs and retreads, the universe of Myst was a true original.
Under The Hood: Going Live
Live events. Where developer interacts with players. Traditionally, this has been a pretty contested battlefield, ranging from forums, to chat rooms, to game masters. Where it really comes together, however, is in the classic legacy of live events, where developers and game masters interact with the players in-game. But not only that, they assist in furthering the story, or fleshing out the game world. But where did live events come from?
The Escapist wants you to consider Myst Online
Storytelling in massively multiplayer games usually occurs only in footnotes. You might read a lore item's description here, get a hint in the quest text there, but it's almost always an ancillary part of the experience. In the olden days of text MUDs, that wasn't necessarily the case. In some MUDs, players and wizards engaged in communal storytelling, as in the best pen-and-paper roleplaying sessions.If you look at today's mainstream online games, it seems as if that art has been lost. There are some smaller communities out there that still herald that kind of experience, though. The Escapist focused on one of those in an article titled "The Ending Has Not Yet Been Written." It's an excellent piece about how players and developers alike have fostered a unique, niche-storytelling experience in Cyan Worlds' Myst Online: Uru Live.Myst has always been an eccentric in the gaming world. It was a groundbreaking success for computer games, and it spawned countless clones, but no one ever recaptured its magic. Now the series is treading a unique path in the online world, despite past setbacks.
Uru Live to let players create ages with developer tools [update 1]
As mentioned in our interview with Rand Miller, co-creator of the Myst empire, Myst Online: Uru Live will eventually let users build their own ages. Miller has always had this poetic goal of letting players "write" Myst environments of their own; Cyan Worlds plans to provide its own development tools to gamers to make this happen.While Miller states that this is "forward looking" and may change, he thinks ambitious gamers are up for the challenge. He says, "We're always amazed at what our fans are able to accomplish, frankly, and by making those tools available, I think we'll be even more surprised. ... Essentially what we're creating in the mythology of all this is a writer's guild."Miller anticipates that the development tools will be available in about six months, the time he thinks is needed for them to stop being updated.Developers rarely give their own game- or level-creating tools to fans. This move is especially uncommon in an MMO with a plot, versus online sandbox games like Second Life. We're interested to see how Cyan Worlds lets players move between its content and community-created ages.Myst Online: Uru Live will launch this "holiday season" as part of GameTap's standard $10 monthly fee.[Update 1: fixed ship date error.]
Joystiq interviews Rand Miller of Cyan Worlds [update 1]
Myst Online: Uru Live will let thousands of players convene in Myst ages to solve puzzles. Touting the persistence of the world as a major feature -- light switches and doors stay how you leave them -- Cyan Worlds thinks the collaborative nature of Myst will make a unique Massively Multiplayer Online game. Two years ago, Uru Live was canceled just before its initial launch under Ubisoft. Now, after developing it for a total of six years, Cyan Worlds is working with its new publisher, GameTap, to prepare the game for a "holiday" release. Uru Live will be offered as part of the monthly $10 GameTap subscription for the U.S. audience, but GameTap will release Uru Live as a stand-alone subscription in other parts of the world. (GameTap is not yet offered outside of the U.S.) We recently spoke with Myst co-creator Rand Miller, while Producer, Mark "Moke" Dobratz demonstrated the game. They talked about how Uru Live supports the collaborative sensibility of Myst players, how the game will let you have individual experiences within its MMO structure, and plans to let users build their own ages.[Update 1: Fixed ship-date error.]
A second life for Uru Live
Myst fans who weren't stymied by installation problems and frequent crashes in the Uru spin-off games were left lamenting the cancellation of Uru Live back in early 2004. The opportunity to build virtual neighborhoods and engage in multiplayer exploration of the Miller brothers' wondrous ages was taken away when Ubisoft decided there were not enough projected subscribers to support an online service.Enter GameTap. Last week at E3, Ted Turner's on-demand gaming service announced they will team with developer Cyan Worlds to give Uru a proper online home this holiday season. The decision was due in no small part to the active Uru Live community that nurtured the franchise after the plug was pulled two years ago. Read more about these fan-created services in the CNET article, and for more information on the game itself, visit Uru Live where you can sign up for the beta.Now, maybe Ted can do something about Duke Nukem Forever.[Thanks to Daniel at CNET]
