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February 11, 2004
NewsA Blow for Myst Fans, Plus New Rumors
On February 4th, UbiSoft/Cyan announced the
premature demise of the multiplayer portion of their most
recent addition to the Myst franchise, Uru:
Ages Beyond Myst. The online version, which
was in an open beta 'prologue' had attracted
thousands of diehard Myst fans who eagerly
logged on to explore the virtual 3D world
of D'ni together. A thriving community was
built over the holidays and into the new
year, and the official launch was looked
forward to with much anticipation. Unfortunately,
the player base proved to be inadequate to
support the ongoing development, and after
what surely must have been a painful decision,
the plug was pulled on February 9th at midnight
PST.
Cyan had done an amazing job in creating
the most realistic alternate reality yet,
made up of 3D worlds, cities and neighborhoods
that were beautiful to explore, and added
the capability of interacting live in the
same space with other players from around
the world. Think of the multiplayer version
of your favorite 1st-person shooter game
and take away the weapons and gore, add cooperative
interaction, chat and intelligent puzzles,
and you'll get an idea of what it was like.
Well, at least what the potential was.
The mourning players went through at the
end of Uru: Live was visceral, with many
gathering in their neighborhoods to be with
friends as the clock counted down to midnight.
Players wanted to be together at the end
of the world, so to speak, and spent their
last minutes partying, taking group photos
and reminiscing. All is not lost, however,
as Cyan announced it will be releasing much
of the content developed for Uru: Live as
single-player expansion packs. To get an
idea, we've archived some DivX videos of Uru: Live before it
was killed.
In other news, a rumored rabbithole has seemingly
been found for a possible upcoming ARG (geez,
can we be any more non-commital?). An anonymous
tipster pointed us to the Amboy Monthly, and we're told this will become a trailhead
site for an ARG in development entitled Aware.
Stay tuned for this one, as it looks very
promising.
posted on February 11, 2004 12:03 AM | print this