Myst Online: Uru Live Returns As Free-To-Play

agrif writes "Shorah b'shemtee! Uru Live has been released for free, as a first step towards opening its source. This game, an MMO released by the makers of Myst and Riven in 2003, has been canceled, zombified, resurrected, canceled again, and is now about to be released as open source to its dedicated fan base. Massively has written a brief newbie guide if you're unfamiliar with the game."

Comments

Re:Who would pay for the hosting cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well there are a couple of options available, to start with there could be ads at the beging of the game; or the game could be open source but the servers them self may require some kind of login which wouldn't be free; or lastly the whole system could be completely decentralized and require no server over head. personally I'd vote for the last one.

How open?

[Anonymous Coward]

Will the art be open, or just the code?

Re:How open?

[walshy007]

art will be too, slashdot has covered the discussion of this being open sourced previously

Re:How open?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The 3D models and textures that were used to create Myst Online: Uru Live will not be part of the open source license. We will probably release some of these models and textures, but under a different license than the code source."

From the Myst Online website, on the 'Developers' link.

Re:How open?

[agrif]

I believe Cyan plans to continue offering the content for free (as in beer) for as long as they can. They also want to be able to make content for it, but they're tight financially right now and have no resources to spare. It's sort of like their baby... they spent so much time and money and thought on it, they have as much an attachment to it as the community does. A perfect future would have them back making ages, but nobody realistically expects that to happen.

It seems they'll also be releasing parts of the content as open, like the parts that are common everywhere and serve an identifiable purpose. It would be weird if all the fan-created content used different nexus pedestals or KI icons. However, this is my interpretation, and Cyan (especially Rand Miller and RAWA) are being characteristically vague and mysterious.

Re:Who would pay for the hosting cost?

[masshuu]

Any game can be opensource, with official servers having p2p or microtransaction.

Oh look! More Myst ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Cyan's hubris is what killed Uru the first, second, third, and fourth times. It will be no different this time. The promise to go open source has been up for nealry a year, with no sign of it actually happening. The community went to Cyan and requested it to be open source, or even open world development, after it died the first time. Yet, Cyan insisted on driving itself into the ground with a poor, thinly veiled story line.

Good luck Cyan, good luck.

Re:Oh look! More Myst ...

[Pteraspidomorphi]

It's sad when someone posting the truth needs to do so as an anonymous coward.

Re:Oh look! More Myst ...

[WarlockD]

Then I will say it, the game is crap:P Why do you think it was canceled so often?

I was there on the release, before ubisoft killed it, and on the rez done on gametap. It was a grand idea to have live actors, but it just never felt right in the game. The whole balancing act all mmorgs have is to show how important you are make 1000+ players feel the same way. There was just nothing "different" about any of the other players. It was like being part of those improve local theater where your hand was held to where you needed to go and you solve some puzzles. Puzzles, I might add, could be solved by yourself. Hell, it started to become like highschool. Eveyone had their own cliche, people judged you on how much of the content you completed. Not to say everyone wasn't nice about it, but its the same kind of ribbing death knights get in Wow that bothers me in the back of the mind.

I am not saying it wasn't fun at some parts though. When the servers started dieing, there might only be 8-9 people online for the show and it REALLY shinned then. The puzzles were really good, but never really justified the amount of people online.

However, there is NO way a "community" driven game like this is going to work without some basic planning. If you want examples, where are all the "great" maps for the Half Life engine? I have been learning the hammer tool and its SO easy to create even a CS map. Even one for TF2 isn't that much harder. Where is all the mods for Quake 4 now? There are a number of excellent UT2004 mods out there just dead because no one cares anymore. That's the issue with Uru. After the initial excitement wears off, it will take a SERIOUSLY dedicated group of fans to keep the game going. Putting in a new GOOD puzzle evey week. Giving a new story line. Building new textures and models.

Hell, the reason so many people do these things in SL is because of money. Is there any plans for Cyan's 2 man team to implement that kind of system?

People need motivation to add content and I have yet to see why I should spend hours playing this game vs playing a better written single player adventure game.

Re:Oh look! More Myst ...

[Pteraspidomorphi]

I've been there every time as well. I love the game, as in, I like the content - the puzzles and scenery and whatnot. I don't mind playing it again every couple of years, even. But, while it's fun seeing other people around and discussing things directly - as well as solving the puzzles that require multiplayer coordination - there really isn't much incentive to play it online, and the trickle of content that was being released every month doesn't in any way justify a subscription.

Also, the whole live actors thing was increasingly made the focus of the experience and that's really stupid - it should have been at most a bonus. And whenever the actors made their appearances Ages would get immediately full and extremely laggy and lots of people would be left out. Voice chat never worked right for me, probably because if you don't live in the US (or anywhere else with very low latency to the american servers) and have at least 10mbps of bandwidth, it simply isn't usable.

And I kind of agree with you about cliques, even.

However, I have to say you are wrong about two things - I don't think Uru should try to be anything like a generic MMORPG, and gameplay shouldn't be focused on making you feel important; And most importantly, you are seriously underestimating the diehard fan community (of which I am no member).

Sure, they may make cliques, but they are *seriously* commited to this game. Every time it resurfaces, there they are again doing wonders to keep things moving. These people are adult nerds, not twelve year olds who like to shoot monsters. There are many skilled programmers and artists among them, and even while the game is *not* running there are always extras being developed, parts being modified, new fan-made Ages being designed, even bugs being fixed...

What baffles me is that these people also defend Cyan to a degree that reminds me of Appleheads - And I don't understand why. Cyan may have created great MYST games, but they clearly do not have any business sense. They have always lacked skilled members in key areas of the development process, and they have lied to their fans many times - even if they apologize and explain later, and even if they have good reasons, lies are lies, and these fans, who are better than in *any* other online community I've ever seen, are treated like crap, repeatedly left waiting for years, and they still lash out at anyone who insults their beloved company... I'm not sure why they enjoy this punishment so much.

So that's where I stand on this subject. Cyan has always been reluctant and slow to open up to fan participation, other than when exploiting them as unpaid beta-testers and quality control. Had they done this when they should - several years ago - or even last week, I believe things would be running five times better now, and new content would be showing up as we speak. And these people would be doing this *gladly*. But after promising to open-source the project for a year, Cyan throws a bone at us by setting up a game server and promising that they're so short-handed they're not going to fix *anything*, change *anything* or even show up at all, and what is unsaid but implied is that they are not going to release the code any time soon either. If they truly gave a damn, they'd work on this even if in their off-hours, don't *we* all do that? I mean, for other open-source projects? Don't their exceedingly loyal fans do that? They are not being paid for their efforts, so why do they gobble up Cyan's bullshit?

Sorry for the rant, but I've never been able to post this anywhere else - All of Cyan's forums are highly censored by the most fanatic members of the community and anything that diverges even slightly from the everybody's-always-happy-about-everything mood is quickly deleted. This is no troll - it's what I genuinely feel, and I'm rather sad that things are the way they are.

Re:Oh look! More Myst ...

[tsa]

I totally agree with you that Cyan has no business sense. Putting all their money on the next Myst game, and as a result being continuously on the brink of bankruptcy has never really done them good. Giving or selling (part of?) the rights to Uru to GameTap also wasn't a smart decision in the long run. Cyan is run by artists, not business people. I don't think Cyan opening a server but not doing anything else now is 'throwing a bone' at their fans. I think they genuinely wanted to show they still care about their fans. And what they did now is better than nothing.

Re:Oh look! More Myst ...

[Pteraspidomorphi]

I'm afraid I have had multiple threads closed in their forums in the past, yes. But I've noticed that even there the air was getting stale, possibly due to moderators losing interest and not deleting threads quickly enough these days. Maybe that's what prompted them to bring back the game, who knows.

I'm aware of the number of employees Cyan currently has, but it's as you say - bad communication. If they can't do it with 7 people they could have said so back in 2008.

Re:Oh look! More Myst ...

[Pteraspidomorphi]

It may be better than nothing, but it's less than what they SAID they'd do. I'm not saying I'm unhappy about the game being back online - and for free even - but that doesn't change the fact that Cyan didn't fulfill their promise yet. Pardon my cynicism, but after all these years I'll believe it only when I see it.

Re:Oh look! More Myst ...

[tsa]

As far as I know they have troubles getting the rights back from GameTap. I don't understand why they hadn't expected this. I think we should call this a bit too much of careful optimism by Cyan.

Re:Who would pay for the hosting cost?

[asdf7890]

Completely decentralised would be difficult, probably impractical, to get make work right. If by decentralised you mean people run their own discrete servers then you lose a large chunk of the MM from MMO. If they try disparate but connected servers with no centralised management the key problem would be one of consistency and coherence - the feel of the game could be lost in a mess of individual changes in areas controlled by different servers which would create a complex learning curve at best or alienate players at worst. Of course it could work well, creating an interesting free-form experience, but you would have to be lucky for that to happen.

Caveat: I've never played Myst (it has been on my "really must find time to try that one day" list for many years, but I get the impression it is something that I'd want to find lost of time for to savour rather the rush through) so I might be just talking out of my arse here.

Still Wondering

[wisnoskij]

Still Wondering, after reading the guide, if they managed to put enough content into the game to make it make sense to be a mmo game, Are you expected to explore the same age over and over again?
And how does it differ from Uru: Ages beyond Myst, The screen shots looks like at least a large portion of it is in the same places.

Re:Still Wondering

[firefarter]

I also never understood the MM part of Uru.

How is interaction supposed to be? I ask where I have to go, somebody tells me, and we each go our merry way?

Re:Still Wondering

[brandorf]

In a nutshell, the entire city of D'ni was the common area of the game, with all the other ages behaving like instances. All players belonged to a neighborhood which behaved a bit like a guild hall. In addition to the social aspects, you could bring other players with you into an age to cooperatively work together, and several of the new ages that were released after the retail release required multiple people to solve. However the core of the MMO experience was this: there were live actors playing characters in the game a certain times throughout the month. These staff members represented the fictional org (D'ni Restoration Council) that was attempting to exhume/restore the remains of this lost empire. How the players interacted with them (roleplay!) and the decisions that they made determined what new areas of the city were opened up and any plot developments that occur because of that.

Re:Still Wondering

[Aladrin]

Think of it as a chatroom on myst worlds. Because that's basically what it is.

You -can- solve the puzzles together, but after the first time, well, it's not like you forget the solution or anything.

Back when it first came out, solving the puzzles with a few online friends of mine was great fun. But obviously, as everyone is pointing out, it never changes after that, and there's not much point in going back.

Re:Still Wondering

[Calmiche]

The answer to that is yes and no.

Maybe I can shed some light on this, having played the original beta and also when it was live on GameTap.

It depends on what you mean by MMO. No, it's not WoW. It's more of a graphical chat-room. All of "Ages beyond Myst" is here. (Ages beyond Myst is the original beta live game, altered for offline play and with a couple of ages that Cyan finished before canceling the beta.) Almost certainly there will be some added content from when the game was available under GameTap. (At least most of the files are included in the download).

When the game was actually live, there were monthly events put on by Cyan staff. These included plot and storyline events, opening of new areas, multi-user puzzles to unlock new content and from time to time, new clothing for avatars. These almost certainly will not happen in the foreseeable future.

The big draw, however, were user created events. There were regular meet-and-greets, poetry nights, dance parties and heek competitions (Similar to rock-paper-scissors but with up to 5 players.) There were D'ni language classes, tours of Bahro glyphs and paintings and discussion groups, especially about in game history and working translations of D'ni scripts and books.

Cyan released several new ages during the course of their run on GameTap. Some of the puzzles were altered to make them only solvable in groups or with at least two people. There were also at least ten other ages in various stages of development as well as quite a few fan created ages that are still being worked on.

So, if you are looking for fighting, leveling, auction houses and monsters, this probably isn't the game for you. If you like adventure games, long discussions, thought puzzles and linguistics, this might be something you would like to try. Don't expect any official updates, new content or bug fixes in the foreseeable future. Supposedly, the source code will be released. There are quite a few very capable coders and programmers in the Uru community so there is the possibility of fan created patches and updates before to long.

It's free. If you don't like it, that's fine. If you do, maybe I'll see you at the next poetry slam or Guild of Archivists meeting. Also, think about dropping a donation on Cyan. The more money and support they get, the more likely we will see real progress.

Re:Still Wondering

[Pteraspidomorphi]

It has ABM, PotS, more Relto pages to collect, all the Great Zero marker missions, a new Age for multiplayer games, two garden ages to be solved in groups, and two new normal ages/puzzles to solve, as well as all the extra little areas and collectibles. But then it died so there is nothing else beyond that (until they open source it).

Re:Still Wondering

[Ihmhi]

Oh man, that's everything I would want a MMO to be. Fuck the game, that sounds like an awesome community.

The stuff you do when you're bored - organized a parade or a game of leapfrog with a few random people - that will tell you more in 5 minutes about the community of MMO than listening to public chat or reading the public forums for 2 hours.

Re:Still Wondering

[Ihmhi]

I've never played Myst.

Before anyone threatens to remove my geek cred, keep the following in mind:

• My first computer was in 1999 and had a blazing fast processor speed of 199Mhz.
• I didn't have Internet access until 2005.
• I became a heavy PC gamer around 2007.

I understand the basic appeal of Myst is its great story and puzzles. Since it seems like you know a good bit about the game, where could I go about finding the originals legally? Are they open souce/free to download yet, or am I going to have to hit up Amazon? Are there any real stinkers in the series? Etc.

Re:Still Wondering

[tapo]

The Myst series is pretty awesome, but you need to be the type of person that enjoys a difficult puzzle and a slow pace. GoG.com (Good Old Games) sells Myst and Riven (the sequel) in modern compatible versions for $6 each, no DRM. Those are by far the best games in the series. Myst itself comes in two forms, Masterpiece edition and RealMyst, a real-time 3D remake where you can walk around in first person. I prefer masterpiece, but its a matter of preference.

Re:Still Wondering

[tsa]

It was so much fun. When the European football competition was going on, in 2006 or so, all not-football lovers would gather in the City and have conversations about anything but football there. When the Dutch were playing I was dressed in orange. And of course everybody still wanted to know if 'their' club was winning or not.

Re:Who would pay for the hosting cost?

[h00manist]

Any game can be opensource, with official servers having p2p or microtransaction.

Well some more discussion of how to pay people to do open-sourced stuff is certainly needed IMO. These days I'm thinking some bounties or variation of that should work more, but it has to be more organized.

microtransactions

[tlambert]

Any game can be opensource, with official servers having p2p or microtransaction.

Except no one has come up with an economically viable microtransaction infrastructure. Even the phone company relies on measured time units and call completion charges, or counting your text messages and billing you at the end of the month, so even they don't have it worked out, for the closest thing that exists.

-- Terry

Re:Who would pay for the hosting cost?

[Rennt]

Anyone who can host a dedicated server? My ISP hosts a whole bunch of game servers for free use of its customers.

OS availability?

[raju1kabir]

Am I missing something or is it not available for Mac and Linux?

Re:OS availability?

[Fred_A]

Am I missing something or is it not available for Mac and Linux?

According to the website :

System Requirements:

        * Windows XP, Vista, or Windows 7
        # 512MB of Memory, 1GB or more recommended
        # Video Card: 32 MB RAM, DirectX9.0 -compliant video card and compliant audio card
        # DirectX 9.0c

Might work in a virtual machine or in emulation/wine. Or not.

Re:OS availability?

[eugene2k]

It isn't available, but once it is released as open source (provided all of the code is released), nobody is there to stop you from porting the client to Linux or Mac, which for some should be an interesting project to take part in.

Re:OS availability?

[644bd346996]

When it was hosted by GameTap, there was an official build using one of the proprietary Wine forks. The game works fine under the standard Wine as well.

Re:OS availability?

[agrif]

There was a Mac version available in the Gametap days (using Cider), and I've heard good things about this client working under cider, as well.

Uru has always been semi-playable under Wine in Linux, but apparently the new client is even better. It seems like the mouse cursor is sorta funky, but everything else works as expected.

With the plans to Open Source, as well as the dedicated Linux fans within the community (and Cyan itself, though they have little time to spare), I expect an OpenGL renderer would be a top priority for many. At the very least, it could be changed to play nicer with Wine.

Re:OS availability?

[kiyoshigawa]

I know there are at least 5 people currently playing on Linux using WINE, because I have talked to them in-game.

This thread has a discussion about how to get things up and running in linux.

Re:OS availability?

[DaVince21]

Because alternative OSes have started picking up more market share and general use ever since back then.

I'm not saying they should've ported it, I'm just answering your question about why you could expect ports to exist.

Great news!

[Rogerborg]

Now all that remains is for everybody and their dog to create their own Dragon Rider Teen Vampire Pirate themed fork, run a yo-yo server (it's up, it's down...) on their home ADSL, and watch it die in a spread out whimper of indifference.

Re:Torrent

[spyrochaete]

No but the link in TFA has direct HTTP downloads of the full game and the downloader/installer.

System Requirements

[Lord Grey]

From their About page:

• Windows XP, Vista, or Windows 7
• 800MHz PentiumIII or AMD Athlon or better Processor
• 512MB of Memory, 1GB or more recommended
• Video Card: 32 MB RAM, DirectX9.0 -compliant video card and compliant audio card
• DirectX 9.0c
• 3+ GB free Hard Drive Space
• Broadband Internet Connection
• 800 by 600 16 bit displays

One of their forum topics asks about Mac users running this. Several replies indicate that it does work, mostly, under emulators.

Zarf's FAQ

[agrif]

I would like to mention here for those interested that Andrew Plotkin has written a FAQ that he has maintained meticulously through all of Uru's incarnations. Interestingly, this is the very same FAQ that was linked when Uru's first demise was posted to Slashdot.

Uru attracts dedicated fans, and Cyan has some of the best fan relationships of any company. This is a game worth trying out, if you haven't. You may not like it, but I guarantee, if you like it at all, you'll love it.

Re:Who would pay for the hosting cost?

[kiyoshigawa]

For the time being, Cyan is running the servers on donations from users.

If you like the game, feel free to donate and keep it running.

The donate button is at the bottom fo this page here.

.torrent

[naturaverl]

Will someone please post a .torrent?

RealMyst was cool

[KWTm]

Not a gamer here, but when I first got my own job after grad school, I bought myself a nice fast computer (for that time) and RealMyst as a treat; it was only $10 at the EB discount bin.

There were bugs in the game. In particular, I had quite obviously solved 2 of the puzzles but the gateway wouldn't open (or whatever magical thing was supposed to happen when I solved the puzzle). I checked some walkthroughs to make sure I wasn't missing something.

But RealMyst was very cool. I haven't seen any other version, but I suspect they were static versions of this . RealMyst was immersive --the entire screen was used for the game; there was no legend or status bars or anything other than the game environment. (There was a mouse cursor that could change shape/status, and there were keyboard commands taht opened menus.)

Re:RealMyst was cool

[brandorf]

RealMyst was the prototype engine for Uru and later Myst: End of Ages. As far as Myst goes, there are two sets of games as far as the story goes: Myst: Riven: Myst III: Exile Myst IV: Revelations (My personal Favorite) Then Uru Myst: End of Ages

Re:RealMyst was cool

[brandorf]

I always forget that Slashdot strips out extraneous spaces and newlines. Sorry for the lack of commas there. Myst, Riven, Myst III : Exile, and Myst IV: Revelations. Then the second story arc of Uru, then Myst V : End of Ages.

Linux Port

[VulpesFoxnik]

The game is mostly written in python. Going to love to see the code...

I can only hope there is effort put forth to convert the game from DirectX to Opengl and have it run in a Linux environment. A while back there was also effort to make open source shard servers.

I bet...

[DaVince21]

...They didn't actually finish or polish the game, hope that open-source devs will pick up the code to do it for them, and have open-source haters criticize how bad the game is and how it's all the fault of open-source, right?