Ah, succinct and to the point.
With my recent post saying the basic theory of Myst Online was a bad idea, I got a lot of traffic and a lot of corresponding feedback, and all I have to say is they are right.
Apparently in Myst Online, for many ages when you visit them you are the only one there. You visit your own instance of that age. So in that case, Myst Online: Uru Live is a good idea. Now here is where people will get to hate me.
The fact that I did not know that doesn’t make me lazy. I did attempt to search for information about the differences between the two encarnations of Uru. Perhaps I didn’t phrase my searching right, but I doubt there was anything out there to begin with.
While I might have been able to catch that if I followed journalistic practices, I doubt the people at Cyan Worlds would have cared enough to do an interview for some asshole’s small time blog. People forget, this is a blog. Not a newspaper. There is no prestige here, I write primarily because I need to keep in practice and the primary goal of this site is for me to write.
I’d also like to point out the whole idea of each person who visits an age visits their own instance of an age, while it works well in game, makes no sense in-universe. Each linking book links to a specific age, and if you write another linking book to that age it will link to the same age. In order for this concept to work it would mean each age has to be duplicated, and I don’t just mean someone copied the descriptive book, because then it would link to a copy of the age as it existed before it was first visited, meaning Teledahn would have no machinery and no slave cages.
However, it works for the game so I really don’t care, I’ll say we can attribute this discrepancy to Yeesha’s mad writing skillz. But it was completely unintuitive. How was I supposed to know? However now looking it up I see there is a reference to this phenomenon. Which I now find because I know what I’m looking for.
It’s funny, people often ridicule others who don’t know the things they know. I once saw a video where a man takes a banana and uses it to “prove” the existence of god, and it’s a good theory, except he didn’t know the wild banana, the one supposedly made by god, is actually very disgusting and it’s only through thousands of years of selective breeding that we get bananas that are edible. Not his fault he didn’t know that. It’s his fault he never corrected himself…that I know of.
But here’s the thing, this is a blog, it’s not meant to be professional, it’s meant to be fun for me. Got a problem? Don’t read it.
NB: I do actually appreciate all the comments, it makes me feel like this is not pointless…increases my motivation. So thank you.
No Prestige 
I never really cared for the “yeesha did it!” explanation for the instancing. I think Cyan Worlds just got a bit too caught up in the IC wave. Such things should be ignored.
Uru is a great game, it just it’s not great enough for most of the regular Myst gamers.
BlackWidower, I appreciate the time you took to do your original blog as well as your correction. I was one of those that didn’t think I’d like a multi-player Myst game. I played the URU ABM after being a big fan of Myst, Riven, Myst III Exile and Real Myst. I really enjoyed the offline Uru game, but hesitated signing up for Uru Live (original by Ubisoft). My hesitance was for two reasons, 1) I had slow internet, and 2) they were going to give you 1 free month, so I thought I’d wait until they got the kinks worked out or maybe I’d get faster internet (which I have now).
I finally signed up anyway and was allowed in for 1 month, with the “Great Clerical Error”. I surprisingly enjoyed the experience a great deal (lag and all) and made many new friends. When it was gone I was pretty bummed. I spent a lot of post Live time on the Ubisoft forum and made more Uru Community friends. Then there was Until Uru, which was pretty successful considering there was no content, but there was community.
Gametap’s MOUL was unsuccessful (in my mind) because there was only a small amount of new content (Eder Delin & Eder Tsogal, Jalak, Minkata, Pod Ages) and then repackaged To D’ni and Path of The Shell ages. I did like the multi-player aspect of the Eders and Ahnonay. For the most part you could play alone or together. The live acting was a bit difficult for most to be part of, again creating a disconnect in a lot of fans. Mostly, it failed because it was expensive to produce, and they were not successful in grabbing the drop in for a look fans. I’m not sure how it could have been done differently.
I appreciate your experience of how you liked the offline game. It is still unclear how the online game will be once (when or if) it is released as open source. There are some ages now that are really well done, some with good puzzles (Sonavio & Archane). I’m optimistic about the future of Uru, but I can appreciate others doubts that Open Source Uru Live will ever happen. There are a lot of folks in the Uru community, some active, others lurking not too far off, and too many others that have lost interest but hopefully some will return if things get back on track. Unfortunately, some are less able to handle differing opinions, and for that I apologize.
Peace!
Hi Blackwidower,
Lots of novice players have the same experience. Finding information buried in forums is not easy.
Google can do a good job but it is hard to know what to search on. The forum search engines are weak and most won’t search on 3 letter words. To solve that problem I created the Guild of Cartographers Uru Search Tool. Just Google on Uru Search.
You will find that many of the Uru fans are intolerant of negative comments about Myst Uru and respond …rudely… (which is about as gently as I can say it without being ridiculously PC). The majority of us will just see you as another new player that does not know all the back history, which is difficult to find, an try to help out.
You are correct about instancing. Some of the former Cyan employees have written about problems with the ideas and the lack of game play consistency in that regard. Many of us have considered it. You pegged the problems in your Missed Uru post. Instancing was the solution used.
That fans ridicule others for a lack of knowledge says something about those fans. It is not funny. It is a serious handy cap in the fan community.
The lack of knowledge and the difficulty in finding it is another problem. Those busy ridiculing and annoyed by new players asking the same questions repeatedly are missing the point that the community has a problem. Many have done things to make it easier for new players. But, obviously what has been done is inadequate. If you’re not a long time fan that hangs in the fan forums, you are SOL. There are those that are working to figure out how to make all this back story for fans easier to come by. Myst Online has a Resources section in the forum. Check it out.
Keep blogging and don’t let the ridiculers silence you. Come by Myst Online and give them a hard time. :) … I do.
Are you kidding? The ridiculers make me want to post more. Mainly because this is my blog and they can eat it if they don’t like it. But mostly it’s because this post has bumped my traffic numbers from never going higher than 20 to today going over 120. That makes me so happy. So now I must piss more people off.
I love it!