Tonamel on 9/2/2010 at 06:10

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That's not TTLG snark, "again" is <i>actually part of the title now</i>.

ROUND 1. FIGHT!

Uru had a rough beginning. I mean, when one of the major design talking points of your game is multiplayer, and the game ships without any... Well, that's a setup for disappointment. As pretty as you'd expect for a Myst game, but poor puzzles and the total absence of their #1 selling point hit them hard. Didn't do so well, but attracted a bit of a cult following, as these things might.

ROUND 2. FIGHT!

Of course, the absence of multiplayer in the initial release didn't mean they weren't working on it. And working on it. And working on it. Eventually the publisher (Ubi) ceased funding. But, weirdly, the playtesters were allowed (by Cyan Worlds) to run their own unofficial servers, and the cult following from Round 1 was very, very happy that they could finally see how the game was supposed to be played. Far from optimum, but at least they could play.

ROUND 3. FIGHT!

In 2007, GameTap got the rights for Uru, and released it as Myst Online: Uru Live. This is where I joined the party. And you know what? It was actually pretty fun. Not in a game sense, of course - the puzzles were as terrible as ever - but the community was full of friendly, chatty people, which I'd never really seen in an MMO before. It was very social, and was probably the best, most expensive chatroom ever. And Cyan Worlds had some pretty radical ideas going on, too. They maintained an ongoing story, with the devs playing the roles of key characters live in the game. And they were organizing a series of player guilds with the express purpose of having players write, build, and playtest their own Books to be released along with the Official ones. It was interesting, it was exciting, and no one subscribed. GameTap cancelled shortly after opening.

ROUND 4. FIGHT?

And that brings us to today. (http://mystonline.com/en/) Cyan Worlds have restarted their Uru server, and are releasing the game as free and open source. No disc to buy, no subscription to pay for. Just a PayPal donation link, if you're so inclined.

The registration and download servers are getting pretty thrashed from all the traffic right now, but when things calm down I highly recommend giving it a shot. It's a fascinating experiment, and I certainly feel the game deserves more than the attention it got.

And hey, the price is right.

Sgt_BFG on 9/2/2010 at 07:15

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Wow, I never thought this would see the light of day! I guess they must have got a bit of money from putting those games on GOG.com and managed to finish this thing off.

ercles on 9/2/2010 at 08:57

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Uru was the only Myst game I never played because of logistics at the time of the release. But as a long term Myst fan I've always watched with interest, and been impressed with how it's community of battlers continue to keep their heads bobbing above water.

gunsmoke on 9/2/2010 at 14:09

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I was a paid subscriber to GameTap for ~ a year. I pulled my credit card when they switched over to the browser-based client, and beta-tested it on us paid members. :mad: I really liked the way they did it before the big switch, however.

That said, I tried Uru for a bit back when they had it. It was interesting, but WAY out of my style. I was expecting something quite different, and it just wasn't my thing. I am sure that this is right up the alley of a lot of people, but it is too close to just being an MMO/chat client for my tastes. Gameplay has to be the focus for me, not merely looming in the background.

OOC, how large is the download?

Tonamel on 9/2/2010 at 15:49

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I managed to connect to the patching server once, and it's 1.2gb. But it was running so slow, the download time was listed as 43 days :erg: