Cyan Worlds To Open-Source Myst Online: Uru Live 39
644bd346996 writes "Cyan Worlds, Inc., creators of the Myst franchise, has decided to make their unsuccessful MMORPG Myst Online: Uru Live into an open source game. They will release all the source code for the client, server, and tools. They will continue to host the data on their own servers. Uru was originally intended to be an online-only game. The publisher, Ubisoft, requested that a single-player version be made as well. They then canceled the online version in February 2004, while it was still in a closed beta. Cyan allowed fans to run their own servers as part of a completely unsupported service known as Until Uru. In February 2007, GameTap picked up Uru as one of their biggest games, only to cancel it a year later."
Re:It's a interesting idea. (Score:5, Informative)
The engine Uru is based on (Plasma) was acquired by Cyan from a startup that hadn't released any products with it yet. Cyan bought it expressly for building what eventually became Uru. Along the way, they did make RealMyst, a fully 3d remake of the original Myst.
RealMyst and Uru were the first Myst games that weren't all pre-rendered graphics. The previous games (Myst 1-4) were built with various technologies, and by various 3rd parties. Myst 5, however, was built off the Plasma engine, because the content of the game had originally been planned to be part of Uru.
Re:It's a interesting idea. (Score:5, Informative)
yes, the first myst was a hypercard stack, which is why it came out on the mac earlier than the pc. and why, if you had the developer/s hypercard, you cou find out different things (not that i remember that far back - i *do* remember deleting hypercard and seeing myst die a horrible death).
I beta tested this one (Score:2, Informative)
I actually had the pleasure of beta testing this one. It was quite fun (if you like the complex puzzles that Myth/Riven presented you).
One of the best beta-testing experiences I have had and if I remember correctly, I'm actually in the credits on the retail CD.
Besides all that, it's a great game and I'm pleased they are open sourcing it!