Myst Online: Uru Live
Encyclopedia
Myst Online: Uru Live is an open source massively multiplayer online adventure game
developed by Cyan Worlds
. The game is the multiplayer component to the 2003 video game Uru: Ages Beyond Myst
. Like Uru, Myst Online takes place in 2000's New Mexico
, where an ancient civilization known as the D'ni once thrived. The D'ni had the ability to create portals to other worlds or Ages by writing descriptive books of the Age. Players uncover clues and solve puzzles together; plot developments were added via episodic content updates.
Urus multiplayer segment was delayed and did not ship with the single-player component as planned; in February 2004 the multiplayer was scrapped entirely. Dedicated fans kept an unsupported version of the game alive through Cyan-maintained servers. Online game distributor GameTap
resurrected the game as Myst Online in 2007, but this version was canceled due to a lack of subscribers despite generally positive reviews. Cyan received the rights to Myst Online from GameTap and has announced its intention to bring the game back.
In 2010, Cyan Worlds
released the game free of charge, under the name MO:ULagain. It is currently hosted on Cyan-maintained servers.
In 2011, Cyan Worlds
and OpenUru.org announced the release of Myst Online's client and 3ds Max plugin under the GNU GPL v3 license .
Myst Onlines gameplay is a massively multiplayer online game
, where players interact with others to solve puzzles and advance the story. Players communicate with others using a "Ki", an artifact which provides a special interface. Each player has their own personal Age, called Relto; unlike in public areas, each player's Relto is different depending on the player's tastes. In public areas, any action a player takes is persistent
and remains part of that world — kick a stone in one player's game, for instance, and the stone will be moved when any other player enters the area.
Myst Online takes place in fictitious caverns below Earth's surface. Thousands of years ago, a race known as the D'ni practiced a craft known as The Art. By writing special books describing a location, the D'ni created a link to that world. The D'ni had their own number system and language distinct from the humans dwelling above them. According to the story, though the D'ni society crumbled (shortly after their first contact with a human who found her way down from the suface, and whose presence triggered a cultural collapse), archeologists much later discovered the caverns and teamed with a development studio (Cyan Worlds) to produce educational video games based on their findings; thus, the story in the Myst games is canonically findings from the caverns. New content and additions to the story were revealed through "episodes".
—the sequel to the bestselling Myst
—in 1997, developer Rand Miller
and his company, Cyan Worlds
, began development of what would become Uru: Ages Beyond Myst
. Initially, the game was to have been called Myst Online and have been a multiplayer-only title, but game publisher Ubisoft
pushed for a single-player dimension. The online component, branding Uru Live, did not ship with Ages Beyond Myst; in 2004, Uru Live was suspended entirely. In 2006, Cyan developed a stand-in for Uru Live, called Until Uru; this replacement was hosted by players in servers known as "shards", and did not have content updates or official support.
announced at the Electronic Entertainment Expo that Myst Online: Uru Live would be returning in the holiday season of 2006. The GameTap version did not require any physical purchase: all the game content was downloaded through GameTap, which was subscribed to for a monthly fee. A major reason for the resurrection of the game was the fan support. According to GameTap's vice president of content Ricardo Sanchez, "One of the reasons [GameTap was] so attracted to Uru Live is that it had this persistent group that kept it alive during the dark days of it not being a product." Closed public beta testing
of Myst Online: Uru Live began in August 2006. A period of semi-open beta testing lasted from December 12 to December 18, 2006, with an open beta beginning on December 20. On January 18, 2007, it was announced that a Macintosh
port of the game was being developed by TransGaming
; a beta became available soon after. This coincided with the release of the first new Age, Eder Delin. GameTap brought Myst Online: Uru Live online in February 2007. On May 19, 2007, Myst Online made the move to episodic content releases, with each episode adding new Ages, puzzles, and a plot continuation. It was also released for Mac OS X
, the first GameTap game for the platform.
In February 2008, GameTap announced that Myst Online was canceled. Sanchez released a statement that "The decision was a very difficult one and was made for business reasons rather than due to any issues regarding the design and vision of the amazing world that Cyan Worlds and Rand Miller have brought to us. Despite the great Myst Online experience coming to a close, Cyan is still a very valued partner of GameTap, we are on excellent terms, and we look forward to continuing our relationship in the future."
Various explanations for Uru Lives continuing troubles were given. Game designer Ernest Adams stated that "An important part of Mysts atmosphere came from being alone in a very strange place." Adams stated that the realities of online play distracted from the fantasy setting. When asked about the game's commercial failure, Miller responded:
GameTap parent Turner Broadcasting
's product development vice president Blake Lewin added that he did not believe any budget would have worked, due to the difficult content production pipeline. Lewin compared the game's production to the television series Lost
, which had difficulties producing a full season. In an article discussing the current state of the adventure game genre, IGN
writers Steve Butts and Charles Onyett considered the major issues with Myst Online that while a different kind of adventure game, Myst Online was not accessible to players other than the "hardcore faithful". The authors suggested that the franchise needed "to try something more dramatic than slapping an online architecture onto a game that already released, then periodically putting out small content updates."
MORE was postponed after revenue to Cyan was disrupted and the company was forced to layoff all but seven employees in November 2008. The company has since announced that Myst Onlines source code and tools would be given to the fans, making MORE an open source project
. On April 6th, 2011, Cyan Worlds released the client and the tools under the GNU GPL v3 license, along with a compatible server called MOSS, on the OpenUru.org http://www.openuru.org website.
Fans are, however, attempting to revitalize the community through existing means. One notable example is the inclusion of an experimental Artificial Intelligence
called OHBot http://www.orangehairedboy.net, named after his creator's avatar OHB.
Also, attempts are being made to revitalize the community through generous donations from those that wish to contribute.
and Game Rankings
, respectively. The Age's varied visuals and strong aesthetic design were praised, as were the ambient
sounds and music. The world that persistently changes depending on player actions was also lauded as more sophisticated than other MMOs.
Complaints from Uru: Ages Beyond Myst carried over to Myst Online; for example, Robert Washburne of JustAdventure found that the interface was still clunky. Charles Onyett of IGN
said that those who had played through the previous Uru content would not find many changes: "As a result, Myst veterans uninterested in plugging through Urus content again will be left with a dearth of things to actually do, shifting the onus of gameplay creation to the community." Onyett continued that the only reason to subscribe to the game was the dedicated fan community and the potential for the game to expand. Sarah Borger of GamesRadar
noted that most puzzles could be completed without the help of other players, making the game "a pretty chat room
".
Massively multiplayer online game
A massively multiplayer online game is a multiplayer video game which is capable of supporting hundreds or thousands of players simultaneously. By necessity, they are played on the Internet, and usually feature at least one persistent world. They are, however, not necessarily games played on...
developed by Cyan Worlds
Cyan Worlds
Cyan Worlds, Inc. is a video game development company, founded by brothers Rand and Robyn Miller in 1987, and best known as the creators of the Myst series. After Myst and its sequel Riven sold several million copies each, Cyan went on to create the massively multiplayer online adventure, Uru,...
. The game is the multiplayer component to the 2003 video game Uru: Ages Beyond Myst
Uru: Ages Beyond Myst
Uru: Ages Beyond Myst is an adventure video game developed by Cyan Worlds and published by Ubisoft. Released in 2003, the title is the fourth game in the Myst canon. Departing from previous games of the franchise, Uru takes place in the modern era and allows players to customize their onscreen...
. Like Uru, Myst Online takes place in 2000's New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
, where an ancient civilization known as the D'ni once thrived. The D'ni had the ability to create portals to other worlds or Ages by writing descriptive books of the Age. Players uncover clues and solve puzzles together; plot developments were added via episodic content updates.
Urus multiplayer segment was delayed and did not ship with the single-player component as planned; in February 2004 the multiplayer was scrapped entirely. Dedicated fans kept an unsupported version of the game alive through Cyan-maintained servers. Online game distributor GameTap
GameTap
GameTap is an American online video game service established by Turner Broadcasting System . Dubbed by TBS as a "first of its kind broadband gaming network", the service provides users with classic arcade video games and game-related video content...
resurrected the game as Myst Online in 2007, but this version was canceled due to a lack of subscribers despite generally positive reviews. Cyan received the rights to Myst Online from GameTap and has announced its intention to bring the game back.
In 2010, Cyan Worlds
Cyan Worlds
Cyan Worlds, Inc. is a video game development company, founded by brothers Rand and Robyn Miller in 1987, and best known as the creators of the Myst series. After Myst and its sequel Riven sold several million copies each, Cyan went on to create the massively multiplayer online adventure, Uru,...
released the game free of charge, under the name MO:ULagain. It is currently hosted on Cyan-maintained servers.
In 2011, Cyan Worlds
Cyan Worlds
Cyan Worlds, Inc. is a video game development company, founded by brothers Rand and Robyn Miller in 1987, and best known as the creators of the Myst series. After Myst and its sequel Riven sold several million copies each, Cyan went on to create the massively multiplayer online adventure, Uru,...
and OpenUru.org announced the release of Myst Online's client and 3ds Max plugin under the GNU GPL v3 license .
Gameplay
Myst Onlines gameplay is a massively multiplayer online game
Massively multiplayer online game
A massively multiplayer online game is a multiplayer video game which is capable of supporting hundreds or thousands of players simultaneously. By necessity, they are played on the Internet, and usually feature at least one persistent world. They are, however, not necessarily games played on...
, where players interact with others to solve puzzles and advance the story. Players communicate with others using a "Ki", an artifact which provides a special interface. Each player has their own personal Age, called Relto; unlike in public areas, each player's Relto is different depending on the player's tastes. In public areas, any action a player takes is persistent
Persistent world
A persistent world is a virtual world that continues to exist even after a user exits the world and that user-made changes to its state are, to some extent, permanent...
and remains part of that world — kick a stone in one player's game, for instance, and the stone will be moved when any other player enters the area.
Myst Online takes place in fictitious caverns below Earth's surface. Thousands of years ago, a race known as the D'ni practiced a craft known as The Art. By writing special books describing a location, the D'ni created a link to that world. The D'ni had their own number system and language distinct from the humans dwelling above them. According to the story, though the D'ni society crumbled (shortly after their first contact with a human who found her way down from the suface, and whose presence triggered a cultural collapse), archeologists much later discovered the caverns and teamed with a development studio (Cyan Worlds) to produce educational video games based on their findings; thus, the story in the Myst games is canonically findings from the caverns. New content and additions to the story were revealed through "episodes".
Development
After completing RivenRiven
Riven is a puzzle adventure game and the sequel to Myst. Developed by Cyan Worlds, it was initially published by Brøderbund. Riven was distributed on five compact discs and released on October 29, 1997, in North America; it was later released on a single DVD-ROM, with improved audio and a...
—the sequel to the bestselling Myst
Myst
Myst is a graphic adventure video game designed and directed by the brothers Robyn and Rand Miller. It was developed by Cyan , a Spokane, Washington––based studio, and published and distributed by Brøderbund. The Millers began working on Myst in and released it for the Mac OS computer on September...
—in 1997, developer Rand Miller
Rand Miller
Rand Miller co-founded Cyan with brother Robyn Miller and became famous from the unexpected success of their computer game Myst, which remained the number one-selling game for the remainder of the 1990s...
and his company, Cyan Worlds
Cyan Worlds
Cyan Worlds, Inc. is a video game development company, founded by brothers Rand and Robyn Miller in 1987, and best known as the creators of the Myst series. After Myst and its sequel Riven sold several million copies each, Cyan went on to create the massively multiplayer online adventure, Uru,...
, began development of what would become Uru: Ages Beyond Myst
Uru: Ages Beyond Myst
Uru: Ages Beyond Myst is an adventure video game developed by Cyan Worlds and published by Ubisoft. Released in 2003, the title is the fourth game in the Myst canon. Departing from previous games of the franchise, Uru takes place in the modern era and allows players to customize their onscreen...
. Initially, the game was to have been called Myst Online and have been a multiplayer-only title, but game publisher Ubisoft
Ubisoft
Ubisoft Entertainment S.A. is a major French video game publisher and developer, with headquarters in Montreuil, France. The company has a worldwide presence with 25 studios in 17 countries and subsidiaries in 26 countries....
pushed for a single-player dimension. The online component, branding Uru Live, did not ship with Ages Beyond Myst; in 2004, Uru Live was suspended entirely. In 2006, Cyan developed a stand-in for Uru Live, called Until Uru; this replacement was hosted by players in servers known as "shards", and did not have content updates or official support.
GameTap
On May 9, 2006, Cyan Worlds and GameTapGameTap
GameTap is an American online video game service established by Turner Broadcasting System . Dubbed by TBS as a "first of its kind broadband gaming network", the service provides users with classic arcade video games and game-related video content...
announced at the Electronic Entertainment Expo that Myst Online: Uru Live would be returning in the holiday season of 2006. The GameTap version did not require any physical purchase: all the game content was downloaded through GameTap, which was subscribed to for a monthly fee. A major reason for the resurrection of the game was the fan support. According to GameTap's vice president of content Ricardo Sanchez, "One of the reasons [GameTap was] so attracted to Uru Live is that it had this persistent group that kept it alive during the dark days of it not being a product." Closed public beta testing
Software testing
Software testing is an investigation conducted to provide stakeholders with information about the quality of the product or service under test. Software testing can also provide an objective, independent view of the software to allow the business to appreciate and understand the risks of software...
of Myst Online: Uru Live began in August 2006. A period of semi-open beta testing lasted from December 12 to December 18, 2006, with an open beta beginning on December 20. On January 18, 2007, it was announced that a Macintosh
Macintosh
The Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a...
port of the game was being developed by TransGaming
TransGaming Technologies
TransGaming Inc. is a company specialized in video game portability technology. The company has its head office in Toronto and a research hub in Ottawa. It was founded by Gavriel State, who ran the Linux product division at the Corel Corporation...
; a beta became available soon after. This coincided with the release of the first new Age, Eder Delin. GameTap brought Myst Online: Uru Live online in February 2007. On May 19, 2007, Myst Online made the move to episodic content releases, with each episode adding new Ages, puzzles, and a plot continuation. It was also released for Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
, the first GameTap game for the platform.
In February 2008, GameTap announced that Myst Online was canceled. Sanchez released a statement that "The decision was a very difficult one and was made for business reasons rather than due to any issues regarding the design and vision of the amazing world that Cyan Worlds and Rand Miller have brought to us. Despite the great Myst Online experience coming to a close, Cyan is still a very valued partner of GameTap, we are on excellent terms, and we look forward to continuing our relationship in the future."
Various explanations for Uru Lives continuing troubles were given. Game designer Ernest Adams stated that "An important part of Mysts atmosphere came from being alone in a very strange place." Adams stated that the realities of online play distracted from the fantasy setting. When asked about the game's commercial failure, Miller responded:
I'm always going to fall back on 'we were ahead of our time,' because it's easy. The biggest thing we did was an all or nothing proposal from an entertainment point of view. It's not like you can start up a new TV network and give one show a month and expect it to be successful... We couldn't quite pull that off with the money we had."
GameTap parent Turner Broadcasting
Turner Broadcasting System
Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. is the Time Warner subsidiary managing the collection of cable networks and properties started and acquired by Robert Edward "Ted" Turner starting in the mid-1970s. The company has its headquarters in the CNN Center in Atlanta, Georgia. TBS, Inc...
's product development vice president Blake Lewin added that he did not believe any budget would have worked, due to the difficult content production pipeline. Lewin compared the game's production to the television series Lost
Lost (TV series)
Lost is an American television series that originally aired on ABC from September 22, 2004 to May 23, 2010, consisting of six seasons. Lost is a drama series that follows the survivors of the crash of a commercial passenger jet flying between Sydney and Los Angeles, on a mysterious tropical island...
, which had difficulties producing a full season. In an article discussing the current state of the adventure game genre, IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
writers Steve Butts and Charles Onyett considered the major issues with Myst Online that while a different kind of adventure game, Myst Online was not accessible to players other than the "hardcore faithful". The authors suggested that the franchise needed "to try something more dramatic than slapping an online architecture onto a game that already released, then periodically putting out small content updates."
MORE and future
After several months of negotiations, Cyan regained the rights to Myst Online for no charge. Miller stated that Cyan was committed to resurrecting Myst Online once again, giving fans the chance to interact with and create content. The new version of Myst Online was dubbed the "Myst Online Restoration Experiment" or MORE, and Cyan planned to reopen the game on their own servers without new content; instead, tools would be released for fans to create new content. Cyan put forward a tentative outline, which started with Cyan running MORE servers, the restructuring of the MystOnline.com web site, the release of MORE tools to players, and the delegation of approving fan-made content given to groups known as "Guilds". The ultimate goal was a continuation of the storyline and new content, with or without fan aid.MORE was postponed after revenue to Cyan was disrupted and the company was forced to layoff all but seven employees in November 2008. The company has since announced that Myst Onlines source code and tools would be given to the fans, making MORE an open source project
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
. On April 6th, 2011, Cyan Worlds released the client and the tools under the GNU GPL v3 license, along with a compatible server called MOSS, on the OpenUru.org http://www.openuru.org website.
Uru Live Again
On February 8, 2010, Cyan Worlds announced the return of Myst Online under the new title "Myst Online: URU Live Again". The game is now running a live server and is being advertised as entirely free to play. Until MO:RE is released, MOULAgain won't be hosting any new content.Fans are, however, attempting to revitalize the community through existing means. One notable example is the inclusion of an experimental Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
called OHBot http://www.orangehairedboy.net, named after his creator's avatar OHB.
Also, attempts are being made to revitalize the community through generous donations from those that wish to contribute.
Reception
Myst Online was generally well-received by critics. The game has average critic scores of 77% and 83% at aggregate sites MetacriticMetacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
and Game Rankings
Game Rankings
GameRankings is a website that collects review scores from both offline and online sources to give an average rating. It indexes over 315,000 articles relating to more than 14,500 games.GameRankings is owned by CBS Interactive...
, respectively. The Age's varied visuals and strong aesthetic design were praised, as were the ambient
Ambient music
Ambient music is a musical genre that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality.- History :...
sounds and music. The world that persistently changes depending on player actions was also lauded as more sophisticated than other MMOs.
Complaints from Uru: Ages Beyond Myst carried over to Myst Online; for example, Robert Washburne of JustAdventure found that the interface was still clunky. Charles Onyett of IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
said that those who had played through the previous Uru content would not find many changes: "As a result, Myst veterans uninterested in plugging through Urus content again will be left with a dearth of things to actually do, shifting the onus of gameplay creation to the community." Onyett continued that the only reason to subscribe to the game was the dedicated fan community and the potential for the game to expand. Sarah Borger of GamesRadar
GamesRadar
GamesRadar is a multi-format video game website featuring regular news, previews, reviews, videos, and guides. It is owned and operated simultaneously in the UK and US by worldwide publisher Future Publishing...
noted that most puzzles could be completed without the help of other players, making the game "a pretty chat room
Chat room
The term chat room, or chatroom, is primarily used by mass media to describe any form of synchronous conferencing, occasionally even asynchronous conferencing...
".