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Myst online gets the can...

DangerzoneDangerzone
edited February 2008 in General Chat
i am not sure if many of you have heard over here, but Myst online will be discontinued as of April 4th 2008... a letter concerning the cancellation can be read on the game homepage http://www.mystonline.com/

i know that telltale and cyan were very close under Gametap, and this is very sad news to us all... and while many of us saw it coming, it was still a shock

well... it looks like there is an opening in the puzzle adventure MMO demographic which has no alternate game to fill it... any takers, lol :rolleyes:

Comments

  • KedriKedri
    edited February 2008
    Alive

    dead

    alive

    dead

    ...

    *Looks to the future*
  • EmilyEmily Telltale Alumni
    edited February 2008
    I never really got into Myst Online, even after it came to GameTap (I wasn't much of a Myst fan to begin with), but I had the chance to meet the guys from Cyan a few times in the past year or two, and always enjoyed hanging out with them. They were so excited about what they were doing, and it was hard not to get excited by their ideas.

    I feel bad that the project won't continue, and I hope they will be able to move onto something new with as much enthusiasm and excitement as they had for URU.
  • ShauntronShauntron Telltale Alumni
    edited February 2008
    That's a shame, Myst Online would have been a great to play with my sister and my dad now that we're all living apart. Playing Myst together is kind of a family tradition.

    Will the content still be accessible offline after April?
  • splash1splash1
    edited February 2008
    uh no, not yet, but it will possibly be this year..and soon, after all you gotta have something to keep the fans happy :(
  • SegSeg
    edited February 2008
    While I covered a quick history of Uru and my involvement with the project on my blog, I can't pass this thread without saying something.

    Uru was a wonderful and needed project for this industry. For all it's successes and failures, Uru was a triumph of narrative based MMOs. It showed there is an audience for an MMO that isn't based on combat but on storytelling. However, I think it's time to put the project to bed. There isn't any shame in this, but I think it's time to put the project to bed and move on.

    That said, I do hope two things occur in the near future:

    1) An extreamely comprehensive postmortem that tells the story of development, explains the choices made and why, and wraps the intent of the story line.

    "The Lessons of Lucasfilm's Habitat" by Chip Morningstar & R. Randall Farmer, 1991

    This is a prime example. Anyone ever considering an MMO needs to read this document. I hope a document of similar importance is made for Uru's development.

    2) The server code and client is released with little to no restrictions. As we have civil war reenactors that help to preserve slices of history, so too is this preservation needed.

    I point to Habitat as a situation where I would love to experience the title, but can't since no one has maintained it.
  • ShaggEShaggE
    edited February 2008
    I didn't care much for Uru, but this will be a pretty hard hit for GameTap.
  • Hyperkinetic_MartianHyperkinetic_Martian
    edited February 2008
    I played Uru a bit when it was still in its final beta stages on Gametap, but the painful loading times (almost a half an hour a couple times--and I'm not on dial up) and the fact that I'm not much of an MMO person contributed to the rapid loss of my slippery interest. Still, it's sad to see a unique game leave Gametap's library, even more so for the fans, especially those who were anticipating the game before it was cancelled and revived...and now cancelled again.

    What startled me when I first read the news was when I realized how Uru's revival was parallel to Sam and Max's...then I slapped myself out of it when I realized how the Sam and Max series was more successful than Uru....right?!

    *slaps self again* Sorry, what were we talking about again? :p
  • fco.fco.
    edited February 2008
    Hyperkinetic_Martian wrote: »
    especially those who were anticipating the game before it was cancelled and revived...and now cancelled again.

    That'd be me... This is already the second time I don't get to play Myst Online. :(
  • KedriKedri
    edited February 2008
    fco. wrote: »
    That'd be me... This is already the second time I don't get to play Myst Online. :(

    You have two more months. Don't waste another moment!
  • AllenBAllenB
    edited February 2008
    Aw, this sucks. I was a beta tester for URU, shame to see it die again.
  • SloppyJimboSloppyJimbo
    edited February 2008
    As much as I love Myst, I never was a huge fan of Uru. A lot of the puzzles were frustrating (see: fireflies), the co-op ones were ridiculous (7+ people for one puzzle? Neat if you could get it to work, but I've wasted hours trying to coordinate some), and some puzzles simply required you to be in the right place at the right time, like the capsules which ran on strange time cycles, if I'm not mistaken.

    Nevertheless, it's sad to see this go. It's something I wanted to get into, but I just couldn't. I need to give it another chance, yet again.
  • fco.fco.
    edited February 2008
    Kedri wrote: »
    You have two more months. Don't waste another moment!

    Sure! now if only I lived in the US...
  • Hyperkinetic_MartianHyperkinetic_Martian
    edited February 2008
    fco. wrote: »
    Sure! now if only I lived in the US...

    A non-Gametap version is avaliable from Cyan itself. Specifically here.
  • marsanmarsan
    edited February 2008
    AllenB wrote: »
    Aw, this sucks. I was a beta tester for URU, shame to see it die again.

    Hey, how awesome is that. I was a beta tester too during the open and closed beta :D In fact I over-beta tested it, so when it was finally released with all the bells and whistles, I was so sick of it that I just had to stay away.
    But, it was an awesome beta testing.

    I hope the closing of URU live is not the end of Cyan, because there is no other company who makes the style of games they make. Personally, I prefered The Journeyman Project series by Presto Studios, but after they closed up shops(even though they didn't, the company name still exists, they just don't make games with it anymore), Cyan has been the only company left making such deep and entertaining games. Anyway, I think Myst, RealMYST and Riven are the best games in the series. The 3th one(Exile) is pretty good too, since it's developed by Presto Studios :D but I never got past a puzzle in that game... so it's stuck unfinished on my shelf. Perhaps I will finish it someday.

    Anyway, I remember how much Cyan was struggling before the "unknown investor" invested money in them to get them to re-open URU live. I hope they will make more games.
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