Okay, that title has to be the worst yet.
Anyway, Myst is a franchise that has permeated the contentiousness of it’s fans. Those who love the game really do love it.
In my case I remember first hearing about Myst back in 2000 through an ad in a magazine for it’s real-time 3D remake, realMyst. At first I did not know what to make of it. I had never played adventure games before so I thought it was similar to SimCity for some reason. I was a kid, I was stupid. I also remember hearing about the Myst books from one of my busmates. I didn’t think much of it at the time. Years later I spotted a copy of the 10th Anniversary Edition which bundled the first three Myst Games on three DVDs for what must have been dirt cheap because back then I couldn’t think of a reason to buy it otherwise. I was really into cheap bargain bin games back then and I still am actually, most of the games I own fall into that category.
I brought it home, played it and was immediately hooked, I was honestly surprised I haven’t heard about this game before (aside from the realMyst ad) because it was so bloody brilliant. But, while it was one of the biggest games of the 90’s, it is simply not that big today. For one thing pre-rendered images and cinematics have been reserved for crappy kids movies and JRPGs, and the gaming public are generally more interested in either mass-murder or chatting it up with their buddies. Knowing murder would never work in a Myst game Cyan (who I should mention are the creators of the Myst series) decided to do the latter and attempted to take Myst Online.
While it sounds like a good idea in theory, it stops when one takes a good long look at Myst. Throughout the game are puzzles, several in fact, each of which open doors, and the doors stay open. If Myst was a multiplayer game it would be pretty boring because odds are someone else would have already solved all the puzzles ahead of you and all you need to do is go through all the open doors. It would be very, very boring. I guess it would work if all the puzzles were specifically designed to work in a multiplayer environment. However if you had to leave and then come back, possibly the next day because virtually no one can solve an age in one day…unless they cheat, you would need to redo all the puzzles again, and as you are solving one puzzle you might see someone go by and solve it while you are watching, pretty much giving you the answer which would take all the fun out of it. The only way I could see around this is to give each person their own copy of each age, that way you would be the only person in each age, but that would defeat the purpose of having the game online wouldn’t it?
I guess what I’m getting at is the idea of Myst Online, or Uru Live as it was known at the time seemed like a bad idea from the start and it didn’t really take off, so all the content they created for Uru Live was released in a single player edition: Uru: Ages Beyond Myst.
The name Uru has an elegant double meaning. It’s a Sumerian word meaning “city” (refering to the D’ni underground city), but is also an acronym for the philosophy of Myst. You are you. Throughout the series you were always meant to be playing you. Which is why you never talk or see your own face because it would ruin the illusion if it didn’t look just like you.
Anyway, after playing all the Uru content (Including the two expansion packs that were released at a later date) I can safely say I don’t see why it would have ever worked online. Unless there are significant differences between the single player and online versions, the puzzles don’t fit the criteria I mentioned above. So it simply would not work.
If those who have already played Uru don’t believe me then I reccommend you check the Age Ahnonay, my personal favourate. If the age has already been completed, then someone else who might be coming up behind only needs to do half the work. It becomes piss easy and that is not the Myst way.
There is also another problem that I did not think about until I saw it in one of the ages that were made for online play. Parts of a puzzle can be very far apart, so as you are solving one part of the puzzle someone else may do something that screws you up so now you have to go back and fix what they did before continuing.
But on the other side of the coin I must note, as I play the game I feel like I am missing something. Like the online community really made the game what it would have been. As I explore the D’ni cavern it feels dead, like really dead. Which I guess is accurate after the Fall, but if others were there I don’t think it would have felt so dead, and my activities in activating the Great Zero would not have felt so pointless, and if I had others helping me, it would not have felt so tedious.
So in conclusion, everything about Uru works better offline, except for the D’ni city which would be better online. If someone wants to correct me and tell me I’m wrong, by all means I welcome it.
So I said Uru Live was cancelled earlier, half-truths are funny that way. Approximately four years after the release of Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, Cyan cut a deal with Turner Broadcasting to release Myst Online: Uru Live on Turner’s GameTap system, which isn’t a bad system, or at least it wasn’t before they switched to something completely web-based. Anyway, while Myst Online was online, much content was released by Cyan. In total, nine ages were released, and that’s not including the various journals and visuals they might have added but I’m not sure about because I didn’t get a chance to actually play it because it was shut down a year later.
Sitting here like a Luddite, I missed out on much Myst. There is currently talk, by Cyan, on their official website, to release Myst Online: Uru Live into the open-source community. Thanks to my lust of open-source software, this makes me very happy, but I wonder where new content will come from, the community? No offence but I haven’t really seen a lot of good ages from the community. Also, that doesn’t fix my aforementioned concerns about how well this stuff works online anyway. Not that I don’t want to play it online, it would be nice to test out.
Apparently there were some differences between the online and offline versions of Uru, but without a proper list I can’t tell if they would work, as it stands now it’s a big fat no.
So anyway, here’s my idea, and I think it’s a good one: You know all that content that was released online? Well now Cyan can release it in expansion packs for the single player Uru. Make more money that way, and money is always fun. Call it “Way of the Wavy Line with Four Circles.”
So now you can tell me why I’m wrong, and it’s likely many fellow Myst fans will do so. In the meantime, I will be listening to Peter Gabriel’s music. Maybe he’ll tell me off too.
There is much I could say here. I won’t. I’m sure there are others who can speak to your points far more eloquently than I. Suffice it to say that if you had actually gone into the online game, or at least done your research, the ‘facts’ you presented regarding MOUL’s puzzles and gameplay would have been far different. “Half-truths are funny that way.” :)
I don’t think I used the word “facts” in my descriptions. It was just problems I see regarding taking the Myst formula online. I’m sincerely hoping I’m wrong. Also, I did attempt to research the differences between Uru Live and Uru: ABM, found nothing. So I based it all on what I gathered playing Uru: Complete Chronicles. I know there were a few changes, specifically in Ahnonay, that require a co-op style of game play. But I still don’t see how that would effect the fact that if someone else already completed the puzzle, (Spoiler Alert!) someone else wouldn’t need to go through the trouble of breaking into the tower to turn off the water currents in Pod 1.
I read you blog. I am waiting to see if you actually do post comments unfiltered, as a associate posted one and it has not appeared yet.
I see that you claim to be a journalist. How much research did you actually do? Just a bit should resolve your conflicts quite nicely. Mystonline.com is an excellent place to start. I would also recommend the Guild of Writers and Guild of Maintainers websites for info about player created ages and the open sourcing of Uru.
As I said I did attempt to find a list of differences between the level design in the online and offline Urus but I didn’t find anything, and I didn’t really care enough to spend hours looking through Google, primarily because in spite of my journalistic training, I am not getting paid for this. My point is I tried and looked and couldn’t find anything, and it doesn’t help that the Uru Obsession website is currently offline. But if you know of a site that gives a list of the changes made to each age in the online and offline versions of Uru, then by all means, enlighten me. I really want to have a complete list, it might put all my concerns to rest…or it might make me more pissed off, who knows?
As for my beef with player created ages, I’m sure there are a few gems out there, but the ones I found on the Guild of Writers site was mostly work in progress and the only one I could manage to play was actually very pointless. I am not quite sure why most won’t load but that is irrelevant.
I think Ben Croshaw said it best so I’ll let him make my point for me: “I don’t want to have to wade through waist-high rendering plant runoff to find the good levels, especially when I can do that just by playing the story mode. You know, the levels designed by professional fucking level designers. If I buy a house, I want an architect to design it. If I design it myself, it may have a more personal touch but it’s going to fall over very fast and even if it doesn’t the giant fibreglass breasts on the front will be very tacky. And the neighbours will complain when the gingerbread garage starts to smell.”
So you don’t want to do the research but you don’t mind if someone else does it for you? Sorry, dude, but the teacher in me will not allow me to do that :P If you’re going to make claims you need to be ready to back them up. Good luck with that.
“attempted to take Myst Online.”
URU was planned to be online and a multiplayer experience from the very start. It was tested in Beta but that closed in 2004. The engine was not up to the challenge but the new engine runs it fine with up to close to 200 people in the game in one area. At the close in last April there were hundreds and hundreds throughout the Cavern. The game was planned to be a dynamic ever-changing constantly evolving environment that was persistent, that means that changes seen by one would be seen by all. That took a lot of work and remains one of the most beautiful and advanced games yet of the type.
“. For one thing pre-rendered images and cinematics have been reserved for crappy kids movies and JRPGs,”
wrong, it is beautiful and the cinematics work fine and are used in many other successful games with great success. Ditto the NPCs who appear in the game.
“If Myst was a multiplayer game it would be pretty boring because odds are someone else would have already solved all the puzzles ahead of you and all you need to do is go through all the open doors.”
Wrong. You can solve the puzzles in your own personal instance of the ages except for the multiplayer ones and they are a LOT of fun to do together. the way the online Myst Online works is that each player has their own private instance of all the ages PLUS access to the public ones. That allows you to play alone or together. Two of the ages require help and that is all part of the fun.
I never never ever in six years of playing all versions of URU online, for there where three, the first beta called Prologue, UU or Until URU which was authorized shards of the base game accessible on limited servers thru a pass from Cyan and Myst Online URU live with Game Tap…never heard anyone complain about group play ..it was loved by one and all you could play by yourself if you wanted, and many of us did, and you could join in hundreds of activities, parties, events, official game story progression and hundreds and hundreds did daily from all over the world.
You cannot say the things you say about the game without playing it, the closest thing you can get to a feeling is visiting the synopsis posted on the site that is the site for a group of Game developers I am the admin for, here:
http://chris-today.blogspot.com sorry about the name it started life as my personal blog and i never bothered to change it but we use it now for our group of game researchers and developers. You will have to scroll to the bottom of the front page and proceed to the article about URU.
“I guess what I’m getting at is the idea of Myst Online, or Uru Live as it was known at the time seemed like a bad idea from the start and it didn’t really take off, so all the content they created for Uru Live was released in a single player edition: Uru: Ages Beyond Myst.”
You guess wrong. again you are uninformed and make your credibility nil by posting such a silly statement. It did not seem like a bad idea ever, hundreds of thousands of people play URU and millions have over the years. It is evolving and continues to grow and will be back as soon as circumstances allow. For now, Cyan is planning to restore access through servers and content that they administer, and new content will be added through approval from the community. There are very talented and skilled people making new ages and some of them are beautiful and will improve with time and experience. Making Ages of the quality of URU demands the most from even the most talented graphics teams as cyan has made some of the most beautiful settings of any CGI game.
“Anyway, after playing all the Uru content (Including the two expansion packs that were released at a later date) I can safely say I don’t see why it would have ever worked online. Unless there are significant differences between the single player and online versions, the puzzles don’t fit the criteria I mentioned above. So it simply would not work.”
Yes it takes a LOT of work to make an Age or an area work with multiple players, sometimes hundreds of them. The walk meshes, the game triggers and event scripting all need to be changed and adjusted and that takes literally millions of code entries. So yes the game is very different and LOT MORE FUN and very very interesting with lots of people in it. that was the plan from the start. You cannot say anything about it without trying it and I will be happy to host you when it is back up to show you around. Just look for me as Dr CrisGer.
“So in conclusion, everything about Uru works better offline, except for the D’ni city which would be better online. If someone wants to correct me and tell me I’m wrong, by all means I welcome it.”
Based on what I have said and showed, and you will see if you study the detailed description of the game I have online, this statement is pretty unsubstantiated. I hope my comments will give you food for thought. I do not enjoy conflict or confrontation so please see my comments as just that, not an argument or a debate …the facts of URU stand for themselves and the quality is there for any to see who can see.
“So anyway, here’s my idea, and I think it’s a good one: You know all that content that was released online? Well now Cyan can release it in expansion packs for the single player Uru. Make more money that way, and money is always fun. Call it “Way of the Wavy Line with Four Circles.”
Sorry but the engine of the game has been changed, and the new ages and indeed the entire new game would not run on the old engine that URU runs on. Fact Check will help a lot :)
And please realize we are NOT fans off the game or URU, we are people who love to explore and appreciate new and challenging worlds and experiences, both real and virtual. The vast player community of URU which is from all over the world, is drawn from all walks of life, young, old, all nations from all over, kids, teachers, students, lawyers, shop owners, househusbands and wives, men, women, airline pilots, rocket scientists, engineers, factory workers, nurses, doctors, farmers, robotics engineers, artists, musicians, graphic artists, cartoonists, videographers, surfers, heros and scoundrels, and many many more. We all enjoy and love the sharing and the caring community of players, we are not fan boys and girls or chasers after this or that fad. Many of us have been with Cyan games and the series for years, and plan to remain.
I am by profession a 2D artist of some 40 years practice and over 10 years ago became interested in 3D and 3D worlds and virtual creations in CGI games. I began my research from the very earliest games and have been playing and studying them since as both an interest and as a form of art and literature. In this research I have played and studied thousands of games of all genres now, and have found the Cyan games and URU in parcitular to be among the very best in any genre by any maker or developer. They continue to show the greatest creativity, quality and vision and continue to be path finders in this new form of art, entertainment and literature.
Good luck with your blog and enjoy your time in MOUL when it returns, all are welcome and your eyes will be opened if they are open. :)
Dr CrisGer
Integrative Ecologist
Okay, there’s a lot here, I’m going to take it point by point.
First off, when I said they attempted to take Myst Online, I was talking about the Myst franchise. They attempted to take the Myst franchise online, resulting in Uru Live.
When I was talking about pre-rendered content, saying it’s reserved for crappy kids movies and JRPGs, I did not say I agree with it. In fact I wish more games used pre-rendered cinematics (when appropriate) so they don’t look like crap.
Okay so the ages themselves are not all multi-player and each time you visit one you are visiting your own version of the age. Well that puts all my concerns to rest and I love it. Except I don’t see how that works in-universe, maybe Yeesha’s awesome writing skillzorz…But that’s irrelevant. I’m all for suspension of disbelief.
You know I think the only obstacle in the way for Myst Online to return is funding. Cyan needs to find a kick-ass business model. Go to the old standby of ads…that works. Sell swag. OOO! Sell Relto Books and KIs for those into cosplay!
Now…Expansion packs. If the old engine can’t run the new ages, then include, with the expansion pack, a patch that upgrades the old engine to the new engine…or completely replace it. Obviously it won’t be as easy as the first two expansion packs but that’s why we will give them money for it.
“The vast player community of URU which is from all over the world, is drawn from all walks of life, young, old, all nations from all over, kids, teachers, students, lawyers, shop owners, househusbands and wives, men, women, airline pilots, rocket scientists, engineers, factory workers, nurses, doctors, farmers, robotics engineers, artists, musicians, graphic artists, cartoonists, videographers, surfers, heros and scoundrels, and many many more.”
Why does that sound like a really bad infomercial? I’m sorry I just find that hilarious.
I love the Myst franchise. I have never seen a computer game with such a rich back story, sadly most are not interested in deep back-story and rich storytelling, they’re interested in murdering demons or aliens or Nazis or Commies.
Thank you for commenting. I find it odd that only now do my traffic figures go higher than 20 and only now do I get comments that are not spam. Makes me happy.
Yes, CrisGer, I will be picking apart your comments too.
I’m afraid you are mistaken here, Uru was not planned to be a multiplayer from the start, at the start Uru was DIRT, a single player game that took the player from the Cleft down to D’ni with the odd Age (Teledahn) here and there and that was it.
The engine was not up to the challenge, and whilst they improved it greatly come the time MOUL was released, it was still not up to the challenge. Whilst Prologue would choke if there was 20+ people in the hood MOUL could handle more, but when it got close to 100 it started to choke too, and for an online game that isn’t a good thing.
I give WoW as an example, Wintergrasp valley, a PVP contested zone, where 2 teams of roughly 120 people on each side fight it out, now there is spells being cast, shots fired, pets, shadow rendering all sorts of crazy stuff going on, and whilst it occasionally lags up a bit when it comes to the final push for The Keep, it still handles relatively well, as does most of the cities.
For a city that only really has people running around and talking, it doesn’t really stack up too well.
The levels being made currently and there are over 70 of them now, are works in progress and few are as fully developed as they could be. NONE will work on MOUL Myst Online URU LIve as the engine is different and we must wait for Cyan to develop tools and plug ins that will allow these to be done for the new game engine. So what you see is learning and developing, not finished product as it can be.
The main point is that you need to do more research before posting, and we are not here to do your research for you. If you complain that you have to look for the facts, that is because that is part of any journalism of any format and the ease of blogging and typing instantly into publishable text is one of the great weaknesses of modern media, the ability to put thoughts in to print does not automatically give them validity or substance. I do not mean this unkindly, just trying to ask you to do the footwork before you publish. Enjoy the journey.
URU Obsession is just one of the sites about MOUL and the best place to go really is the main site, the official MOUL site with Cyan. URU Obsession is also back online.
I am glad you read my comments with something of an open mind, and I hope you spend some more time learning about how game design works. You cannot patch from one engine to another that is a very basic fact that indicates you will enjoy learning a lot more about games and game design.
I tried to explain, players have BOTH an instance of the ages that is private AND SHARE the public ones. So one can play alone OR together.
I am glad you are enjoying having a blog and hope as I said you continue to learn and research. I am glad you found my description of the player communtiy funny. I meant to convey the diversity and the depth of us all. Please learn to repsect others sharing rather than just look for ways to be clever. It will go further in life and in print.
Peace and Shorah.
I aee Dr CrisGer posted. CrisGer is very passionate about Uru, and a great fan of Cyan. I like Uru myself, quite a lot, and have been around Uru, online and solo player Uru, since 2003. We both like Uru, but here’s a somewhat different view of the online game.
On online multiplayer Uru – one small correction, which I see was made before. The puzzles all occured (think I’m right on this) in your own instanced ages. All of the private ages were instanced – you had your own persistent copy of them. The public age was the ciy, The neighborhoods (Bevin) were shared ages, though most, not all, neighborhoods were public.
The original design for a couple of the puzzles was multiplayer — you had to ask someone into your age to help you. The Teledahn “get into the ballon” puzzle was originally multiplayer in the beta. A few of the other puzzles appear to be originally designed for multiplayer, though I can’t confirm that for sure – anything with a time delay seemed like it was probably originally designed as a multiplayer puzzle, without a time delay. They had to put in the time delay, as far as I can tell, to allow a single player to do them.
The overall age architecture, private ages (where you could invite people in), public and shared ages — I thought it was a great setup. I really liked it. The public areas (the city) and the shared areas, the neighborhoods — they worked out well as multiplayer. It was nice to see people in them. It was also great to invite people into your private ages.
Online Uru really was two separate games. One aspect was puzzle solving that told a story, Sadly, the story aspect of puzzle solving changed in the Gametap release of online Uru. In that release the puzzles unlocked ages, but the story aspects weren’t there as much. The Yeesha videos, the ones you saw when you completed an age, they were gone. It was sad.
The second aspect was live events – characters, played by Cyan people, appeared and their actions advanced the story. There was a lot of debate on this aspect. Some people really liked it. A number of people didn’t. I didn’t like it. It was hard to get to the live events, also not worldwide timezone friendly. Most people missed them, so they had to rely on text recaps, no videos. There were a lot of issues.
Aside from the mess that was live events (my opinion), the biggest issue, also shared by others – nothing to do. Puzzle solving isn’t a good driver of gameplay in a multiplayer game. Good players solved the puzzles for an age in a day, and then there was nothing to do.
———-
As for liking content created by fans, oh, I don’t know – different things for different people. I want Uru to come back with fans creating ages, because that’s the only new content we are going to get. I agree it will be a different Uru, so we’ll just have to see what happens. I see you’ve seen the proposal for Uru to come back under an open source agreement, but it appears to be delayed. We’ve heard nothing for months and months.
Hi Blackwidower,
For one only experiencing the off-line game your thoughts are reasonable. For those of us considering how to change the open source game to make it more player friendly you experience is valuable. As you can gather from others, that is not quite the way the game worked. Ages like Teledahn were ‘instanced’. Each player got their own version. Your version remembered your progress through the age. I could turn on the solar power and you could turn yours off. When I went back mine was on and you found yours off.
It was not as lonely as you assumed. Myst players came from the standalone games. We expected Ages Beyond Myst Online to be much the same. MMO’s were a new phenomenon when Uru was in Open Beta. Many old Myst fans had no idea how to deal with it. But, the books in the Relto allowed me to invite you into my version of Teledahn. We could play and solve puzzles together.
Additionally there were Alternate Reality Game aspects to the game. Budget limits brought that to an end and Cyan & Ubi tried to make it with the online version. By the time it appeared on GameTap it was only the online game. However, it did pick up new fans. Now iPhone Myst is bring new players to the Myst series.
As you have found some fans are …sensitive… to any negative view of Myst-Uru. There are 3 places you will find Myst Uru fans. The Myst Online site and forum, the Guild of Writers (GoW) and in Second Life. The first two you can connect with via Google. In SL find the group D’ni Refugees. There you can meet the more gregarious and upbeat fans and get a sense of what people were like in Uru.
If you want to experience the game in multiplayer mode, visit the GoW and look for their invitation threads. Don’t get your hopes up too high. Some of the underground shards are for personal friends, development groups and experimenters only. They are of questionable legality and generally low profile. Invitations are rumored to be rare.
The fan created content has created about 100 ages. Of those 15% to 25% are excellent and of a high enough quality to approach or match Cyan’s work. A large number are made by novices and look it.
There is considerable Myst Uru history in the fan sites. Check out http://rel.to/
Thanks for blogging.
I don’t think that pre-rendered deserves the comments you gave it, it has the potential to create nice looking imagery (as indicated with Riven, Myst 3 and Myst 4, although parts of the latter were lacking somewhat), that said the time for pre-rendered is over with the advent of real time looking nicer and nicer (likes valves stuff they did with Half Life 2).
It is indeed a shame that you did not get to partake in the online aspect as that would have shown you a lot of how the puzzles worked from a multiplayer perspective.
The problem with the expansion packs were that
a. They were hastily done for release after Uru Prologue closed down and
b. Were mostly mutiplayer puzzles which were retooled for single player.
Myst Online handled the problem with instancing, each player had their own version of the Ages where they could solve puzzles alone or with friends (unless it was a multiplayer puzzle like in Delin and Tsogahl), that way the problem of a puzzle being solved for another person wasn’t really an issue, the majority of Ages also had reset features or reset themselves after time.
Not all the content for Live was released in Uru Ages Beyond Myst, they eventually released the rest of the content they had made in Myst 5 and Myst Online (although some of it redesigned).
Whilst the philosophy of Myst was technically a “you play yourself” you were in fact taking the place of a person unknown and acting through them, not to mention the Myst games are set during the 1800’s whilst Uru is set in a present day where the You are You concept is better applied, it is also worth mentioning that whilst Uru is set in the Myst universe, it isn’t a Myst game, and doesn’t have to conform to the play style Myst set out, a concept that many people (including seasoned fans) often fail to understand.
The community aspect did play a great part in it, when all Ages had been solved, you could always run into someone you know in the city and spend hours chatting away, playing ‘heek or hide and seek or other such foolery (like watching a friend get stuck in the Teledahn buckets for half an hour because they bugged out).
Some people can’t really get to grips with returning to the single player version because of this, others have no problems with that.
Whilst I kind of miss the social side of it (I liked hanging out with a few friends and exploring the new things) I’m pretty happy to not explore with others (unless it’s my wife).
As for fan Ages, well there’s some gems in there if you can find them, I feel a lot of them (my own included) could use a lot of work and improvement, but give it time, those dedicated to getting it right will get it right, however there will always be some Ages which stick true to the lore and those who are just wacky fun.
I think Uru could have done well, had they started it off differently, with DIRT they could have structured it to grow without being a train wreck, but as it stands it’s pretty much had it’s time and now all that’s really left is what the fans hold on to.
Why do people keep thinking I’m dissing pre-rendered graphics? I like prerendered, my point was it’s never used anymore. Also, I know Uru is not a Myst game, it’s a spin-off.
But my problem with user made content is…well Ben Croshaw put it best: “I don’t want to have to wade through waist-high rendering plant runoff to find the good levels.”
Here’s an idea, let the users create content, but have Cyan create a seal of approval, which they only grant to levels that are creative and interesting and not crap. Let the users play whatever they want and I know most, myself included, will probably stick to the Cyan approved levels.
Indeed, and I agree with Ben’s comments (not matter how quickly he says them). I’m one for a Cyan stamp of approval mechanism being in place. Alas, not a sentiment that goes down too well in the community, some feel that-that is not a a good idea (cries of equality, elitism and other such nonsense get thrown in), but yeah I’d love to see Cyan do something like that.
I just realized I broke the blockquote tag in my reply to CrisGer >.<
You know those who don’t like the idea and scream cries of elitism need to realize something: elitism is only bad if the elitist has no reason to be an elitist. The people at Cyan are professional level designers and the people in the community are not. If Cyan wants to be elitist then by all means I am for that.
You seem to have found Dr CrisGer. You need to understand he is a devoted defender of Cyan and the game. Well, maybe that’s obvious. It’s nice, and mostly harmless, but he does it with a religious zeal to the exclusion of some realities. I love the game and I love Cyan just as much as any fan, but a couple things need clarification:
1. While many people like multiplayer puzzles, there was a LOT of noise from people who detested them in MOUL. I think Dr CrisGer knows this, but he outright misrepresents the truth of it. Many thought the people who so disliked the multiplayer puzzles and felt excluded were on the irrational side because there was enough else to do. But the fact remains, some were unhappy. There were other things to complain about too, but on the balance there were plenty of ways to really enjoy MOUL.
2. Dr CrisGer made the correction already, but I will second that most ages are available for you to choose at any time to play 1) privately, 2) with a group, or 3) in public ages. Not all ages were available in all modes, but for the most part an appropriate instance mode was available where it made sense. But there were times instancing did not always make sense or work intuitively. It needed some work.
3. Dr CrisGer says, “Cyan is planning to restore access through servers and content that they administer.” What he does not say, because he does not wish it, is that Cyan’s plans – unless they change their statements – for open source retain control only over their own content. He wants Cyan to have complete control. He is in the minority here, but an official Cyan server would probably be the most popular. Anyway, nothing is fact until Cyan makes it happen, so you can take what I say or what Dr CrisGer says with a grain of salt about what’s going to happen with open source.
My my. This is probably the most sensible summation I have seen in “ages”. I felt all along Cyan would have been far more sensible to release single player add on packs. Rather than to try and run a nursery school. You hit the nail on the head. These games are brilliant, but not suitable for internet multiplayer. All people want is violence. Damn shame they never stuck to single player. Cyan might have been thriving today if they had done just that. Hopefully the tides will turn and we will see Myst 6.
I have enjoyed the chance to share some of the information about URU and MOUL that you posted about. I am very open about my support for and belief in Cyan and the way they have created their wonderful games. It was a simple and absolute part of the plan for URU from the very beginning to have it be a living world with multiplayer as a totally fundamental part of it. The only reason that was delayed and single player was released was that the engine could not run the game with more than 20 people in an area before becomming very laggy. 99 percent of all people I have talked to or seen in the game loved the mulitplayer part of it. A few wanted a single player experince and that was possible except for two puzzles which could be solved to progress the player easily with the help of others ..people were always willing to help and did so at the drop of a hat, myself included. There is absolutly no water in your continual claim that multiplayer does not work for the game. It is brillant.
As for the future of the game, Cyan will control ALL of the content, it will oversee any open source activity…and will decide what goes into it. It will NOT be a second Second Life. It is a simple fact and a fact of life that games and making them costs money, and Cyan has spent a lot of effort and funds making URU. They are NOT going to give it for free totaly to the players. Nor should they. The only people who want that are a vocal minority who want control of things for their own purposes and that is pretty silly in a virtual world when there are plenty of chances for control in the real world.
I have spend seven years and thousands of hours in the world of URU and MOUL in three phases of its existence. I know what the communty at large feels because I have spent a immense amount of time with them in all phases of the game, and know what is true and what is political noise. URU and MOUL is a wonderful game and a wonderful world. I urge any to spend time in it when it returns. and to read the plans that Cyan has for the future. There is a post on the MOUL forum that has the full thoughts of Rand Miller the creator of the Myst series along with his brother Robyn…. and you can see what he says in full detail.
Rand Q and A + Panel: Mysterium 2009 at Cyan
http://mystonline.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=18109
I know that the overhwelming majority of the players of MOUL love the community feeling and the shared journey and that shared journey was the plan from the beginning for URU and an essential part of its visiion. There are thousands of other games out there and hundreds of virtual worlds to play in. If you dont like the demans that URU and MOJL make, ie that you learn about the backstory and enjoy the sharing then go to the other places. For those thousands of people who enjoy MOUL now and the hundreds of thousands who have enjoyed the URU single player game, URU and MOUL remain as a wonderful chance to explore and enjoy a unqiue world. Shorah and Peace.
Did I say Myst Online was a bad game? No! I said as someone who only played the single player games I don’t see how it would work online. Besides later that day I wrote a follow-up explaining how it would work thanks to the instancing concept they implemented. Maybe you should read it.
Now as for Cyan controlling all of the content for the new Myst Online, I say fantastic, but is it worth it for them to do that?
You know what, screw it, this deserves it’s own entry.
And once again I must tell you that that was not the plan from the beginning, I’ve been following the course of Uru since they first started dropping hints about it (hell I even have some of the original DIRT stuff) and I can tell you DIRT was originally a single player game, it was only when DIRT became MUDPIE it became an online mutiplayer aspect.
I believe the decision for the single player game came from Ubisoft, not Cyan or because of any reason of lag, more of a money thing going on there.
And once again, just because the 99% of the people you spoke to liked multiplayer doesn’t mean all liked it, I could ask 99% of the children (2 in this case) in my household if Mc Donalds is good food and they will say yes, yet the 99% of adults (my wife and I) would say no.
I don’t quite know how you can honestly say that, Cyan haven’t even decided how they will handle it yet, and chances of them having complete control are slim, underground Uru shards have already taken control away from Cyan.
Dr CrisGer says something “will” be true because he wishes it to be true despite mixed opinion, despite the unknowns of what Cyan “will” actually do, and despite the very nature of open source. “Will” is a fantasy in search of prophesy. It’s the same thing that happens all the time in politics, especially during presidential campaigns in the Unites States when ALL the candidates are introduced as the “next President of the United States.” It’s a special Jedi mind trick and they actually believe it works.
Even though both sides say it and one will be wrong.
But you know the word prophecy and when you talk about wishful thinking, it reminds me of religion.
I am not a fan of religion, so many bad things have been done in it’s name. Also, when someone does something good only so they get rewarded after they die, makes me think they are doing it for all the wrong reasons. However considering humanity is such a self indulgent race I can over look that.
But what I really hate about religion is the idea that the faithful must start crusades to defend that which they worship. It’s sad. I remember reading a comic that had a fundamentalist Christian on a shore watching a protozoa evolve into a man, he points to the bible he is holding and tells the man: “-which is why you don’t exist.”
Fanboys are like religious fundamentalists who must kill all those who don’t agree.
Although I share a similar view of organized religion, I am compelled by fairness to dispute the common statement that so many bad things have been done in the name of religion. There have, but the same can be said about any organization (including the ironic organizations that promote anarchy). Bad things have also been done in the name of sports, medicine, science, preservation, education, child welfare, charity, economics, physics, peace and any other human endeavor.
Touche. It’s funny you mention sports because the Daily Show did a piece on just that last night. They held a contest for Douchiest fans: New York or Philly.