8 ms·

Myst Online: Uru Live Again

189 points by evolve2k 13y ago

arianvanp 13y ago
The Myst series are probably one of the games that bring back so many memories. When my brother and I heard they were turning URU into an MMO we were pretty excited, but also scared that there wouldn't be a big enough user base. We were right, and the project 'died' . Then I told him they'd probably open-source it, and there we are! I'm gonna play the MYST series again. Any programmer/hacker will love these series. they're a real classic brain cracker, and worth the play. You will get pulled into the myst worlds as if it are your own. it's so immerssive!
- martindale 13y ago
  Another game that I feel doesn't get nearly enough credit is Douglas Adams' "Starship Titanic", which was built on the backstory of the book and came on a five-CD collection.
  - henryaj 13y ago
    Yes! Such a wonderful game - from the dry humour to bots' AI and the gorgeous art deco design of the ship itself. Although it's not exactly solvable without a walkthrough...
  - mikeash 13y ago
    Nitpick: the book was based on the game, rather than the other way around.
    - Pxtl 13y ago
      And the book was written by Terry Jones (of Monty Python fame) and, to be honest, didn't measure up to Douglas Adams' writing. But who does?
      - ninjin 13y ago
        From what I remember, it is rumoured that Terry Jones asked Douglas Adams for permission to be naked when writing the book.
    - martindale 13y ago
      That's incredible, I had no idea! I always thought the book was based on the book.
  - sp332 13y ago
    The "full text" of the book is online, with the words in alphabetical order :) http://www.starshiptitanic.com/novel/ http://www.starshiptitanic.com/novel/ Here's the end: http://www.starshiptitanic.com/novel/lastpage.html http://www.starshiptitanic.com/novel/lastpage.html
    - MrBra 13y ago
      Why has it been posted with words in alphabetical order?
      - sp332 13y ago
        It's a joke by the author. It only goes to 30 pages anyway.
darkxanthos 13y ago
I loved Uru and I'm curious to try this. What is different this time? This plus the article yesterday tells me something big is being prepped. EDIT: typo
- maxsilver 13y ago
  It's very similar to the old Uru, but it may have new content, depending on when you last played. (this version contains most-to-all of the original release, and also contains extra content from the GameTap revival)
  - HCIdivision17 13y ago
    Ah, spectacular! A few friends and I had a lot of fun in the GameTap updates, especially solving some of the nonexistent puzzles (I just call missing puzzles Hard Puzzles, like Jalak). This should be a lot of fun!
jlebrech 13y ago
this + photosynth
- caycep 13y ago
  I only really went through the original and Riven - what's Uru, and were there more installments in the whole Myst universe?
  - maxsilver 13y ago
    There are five installments in the original Myst series : Myst - (Cyan Worlds) and realMyst (same game, re-created in 3D) Riven - (Cyan Worlds) Myst III : Exile - (Presto Studios, of Journeyman Project fame) Myst IV : Revelation (Ubisoft Montreal) Myst V : End of Ages (Cyan Worlds) realMyst - (Cyan Worlds) the realtime 3d remake of the original Myst game There's also a 'partial spin-off' series "Uru", created by Cyan Worlds, which exists in the Myst universe, but happens in a different portion of that universe, and in present day (although this is somewhat of a misnomer, as the Myst V game also takes place in the present day, after events in Uru, and references them) Uru - Ages Beyond Myst Uru - To D'Ni Uru - Path of the Shell Myst Online : Uru Live (MO:UL) is the latest incarnation of the original "Uru Live", and represents the state of the project after it's second (GameTap) cancellation, with some additional changes / bugfixes / ect. Myst V is sort of an odd-ball in the series, as it was originally meant to be content for Uru Live, but Uru was cancelled and Cyan could only get funding for another single player Myst-type game (something considered 'lower risk' than an online game). So a lot of content was re-purposed from the Uru Live pipeline for Myst 5, and it attempts to closely bridge the two different parts of the universe and wrap them up together.
    - ngoldbaum 13y ago
      The real issue with Myst V was the awful drawing mechanic that was necessary to solve almost all of the puzzles. I don't have a lot of artistic ability and what I have is made worse after trying to use a mouse rather than a pen to draw with. Worse, the drawing recognition was poor, so even if you did draw what you were supposed to it was a crapshoot whether the game would recognize it as such. For me, that mechanic reduced the game's puzzles to an incredibly boring session of trial and error.
viame 13y ago
I remember playing this 13 years ago, what a game. I might have to find an old Windows machine to play this again :>
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- redblacktree 13y ago
  Or a VM?
- rocky1138 13y ago
  You're probably thinking realMYST, which launched 13 years ago. This game came out 10 years ago in a pre-release, invite-only fashion.
Intermernet 13y ago
Hmm, looks like account sign-up doesn't use SSL, and includes the ability to include your password in the confirmation email. Probably worth being careful with password choice if you're going to sign-up to this. Don't use one of your existing ones! Other than that, I'm so glad to see Myst back!
- mhurron 13y ago
  >Don't use one of your existing ones! Well you never should.
  - redblacktree 13y ago
    Aye, but people do. Often. I suggest to people that they set up a system that uses some permutation of the domain name or company name to uniqueify their passwords. This way, you only have to remember one password, plus your system, and you have unique passwords everywhere. On the subject of red flags during signup, a password length restriction is always a red flag to me. If you're hashing my password, you don't care how long it is, right? If you limit length, I assume it's stored in plain text.
  - criley2 13y ago
    >Well you never should. All of my accounts hooked to finance, or email, etc, are all unique strong passwords. However, I have a throwaway password for throwaway sites, or sites I'm unsure of the security for. Can anyone explain why using the same junk password for forums, crappy webgames, temporary reddit accounts, etc is a problem? Why should I take up the brain-space to memorize a unique password for a site like this?
    - robmil 13y ago
      You don't need to take the brain-space — use a password manager like 1Password or LastPass, plus a YubiKey for two-factor auth, and you can use unique passwords everywhere.
    - bargl 13y ago
      Don't use any brain space for any passwords (except one ofcourse). https://lastpass.com/ https://lastpass.com/ Steve Gibson uses it, I won't pretend to be as capable of speaking to it's benefits so I encourage you to listen to Security Now. Edit: Last pass can be loaded once in the browser, and if you link it to a yubikey it is much more secure. http://blog.lastpass.com/2010/07/lastpass-gets-green-light-from-security.html http://blog.lastpass.com/2010/07/lastpass-gets-green-light-f....
sp332 13y ago
Since 3D content is relatively difficult to make, Andrew Plotkin is making a platform called Seltani that lets people write their multiplayer Myst-universe puzzles in text format. http://dev.seltani.net/ http://dev.seltani.net/ Edit: perhaps more informative wiki page http://seltani.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Main_Page http://seltani.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Main_Page
- jared314 13y ago
  > write their multiplayer Myst-universe puzzles in text format It looks more like a text based MUD based on the Myst universe.
  - sp332 13y ago
    I guess? But you can write your own "ages" (worlds) for other players to play.
    - GrantS 13y ago
      I also thought you were saying that this project was an actual implementation of Myst's fictional art of writing ages (as practiced by Atrus), as in you describe something with text and an interactive 3D world is generated that corresponds to what you wrote. Given a limited vocabulary to describe terrain and buildings and furniture and their physical relationships, along with a database of tagged 3d object models or procedural methods of generating such, this could be done but I'm not aware of anyone having attempted to create such a thing. Edit: Actually, I guess Scribblenauts is the closest approximation to this that exists yet.
      - troymc 13y ago
        Of course, you could always rely on the reader to imagine the world based on your text description. Nah, that would be crazy. It would never catch on.
      - serf 13y ago
        Scribblenauts would be interesting in a big 3d environment like Myst
sigre 13y ago
Looks like the code for the site is also open source: http://www.openuru.org/pages/Development.php http://www.openuru.org/pages/Development.php
mhax 13y ago
anyone try running this with WINE?
nols 13y ago
Did you get to this through the Grantland article on Digg? Here's the link if anyone else is interested, it's a nice look back at Myst. http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/9713372/looking-back-game-myst-20th-anniversary http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/9713372/looking-back-gam...
davexunit 13y ago
So, from what I read, the client uses an open source license, but the server is proprietary? I hope they will eventually go the extra mile and liberate the server too.
- bromagosa 13y ago
  Not only that, but the client is only available for a proprietary OS... so much for open :(
  - wtallis 13y ago
    Cyan open-sourced it because they no longer had the resources to further develop it. They weren't able to produce new content for the Windows version, let alone fund a port. Open-sourcing it as-is was all they could do.
- indeyets 13y ago
  Both Server and Client are here: https://bitbucket.org/OpenUru_org https://bitbucket.org/OpenUru_org Both are GPL3 licensed
m_mueller 13y ago
I was a big Riven fan but I never tried URU so far - this seems like a great chance doing that. Could someone sum up what the multiplayer experience is like? I could never really imagine how this works. Are there puzzles that you solve together, something like in Portal 2?
- wtallis 13y ago
  Most of the puzzles are solvable by a single player, because the original Uru Live got cancelled before release, and they had to re-work things to create a single-player offline version. The only puzzles that strictly require a second player are in content introduced during the short-lived GameTap revival. However, may of the puzzles that are theoretically solvable by a single player were first solved by group effort of observing and mapping out the new worlds.
- maxsilver 13y ago
  Yes, there are puzzles. Most are 'exploratory' (they can be solved by just one person who does a lot of backtracking / note taking, but are easier with two) A few actually require two people. (I can't remember if they are still in MOULa today, or if their one-player counterparts are live). A few are "cheat" puzzles -- they rely on the (very bad) physics engine or stupid-long wait times. (some are upwards of 20-30 minutes, some are over 24 hours). They were always bad ideas, but luckily these are few and far between. While I'm a big fan of what they were trying to accomplish, the experience is significantly less polished when compared to Portal 2. If you found Riven enjoyable, the puzzles are slightly easier and simpler. You'll probably have fun, either on your own or with a few friends.
- AsymetricCom 13y ago
  Uru's single player mission has incredible high-def graphics that still look great today. The geometry is obviously a bit limited, but the textures look great even at 1920x1200
sandGorgon 13y ago
Please take my money and somebody give me an Android game please. There are no complex haptic interactions - this is perfect for the mobile !!!
joshdance 13y ago
I was just thinking about Myst after having read this article yesterday - http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/9713372/looking-back-game-myst-20th-anniversary http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/9713372/looking-back-gam...
jeroneemou 13y ago
hmm, im on gmail, and i dont get the activation email, sad :/
Industrial 13y ago
Why is this even being posted? URU has been in this state for far more than a year now. Hardly news.
- laCour 13y ago
  Yup. The blog post was posted on 2010-02-04 19:15:47 UTC (http://feeds2.feedburner.com/uru http://feeds2.feedburner.com/uru).
chenster 13y ago
I didn't see anything about Mac support. http://mystonline.com/en/play/ http://mystonline.com/en/play/ Am I missing anything??
- wtallis 13y ago
  The only Mac version that ever shipped used a commercial Wine wrapper. None of the open-source client forks have completely removed all the windows-specific dependencies, so there are not any native ports yet. The biggest sticking points are Direct3D and an older version of PhysX.

189 points by evolve2k 13y ago

The Myst series are probably one of the games that bring back so many memories. When my brother and I heard they were turning URU into an MMO we were pretty excited, but also scared that there wouldn't be a big enough user base. We were right, and the project 'died' . Then I told him they'd probably open-source it, and there we are! I'm gonna play the MYST series again. Any programmer/hacker will love these series. they're a real classic brain cracker, and worth the play. You will get pulled into the myst worlds as if it are your own. it's so immerssive!

martindale 13y ago
Another game that I feel doesn't get nearly enough credit is Douglas Adams' "Starship Titanic", which was built on the backstory of the book and came on a five-CD collection.
- henryaj 13y ago
  Yes! Such a wonderful game - from the dry humour to bots' AI and the gorgeous art deco design of the ship itself. Although it's not exactly solvable without a walkthrough...
- mikeash 13y ago
  Nitpick: the book was based on the game, rather than the other way around.
  - Pxtl 13y ago
    And the book was written by Terry Jones (of Monty Python fame) and, to be honest, didn't measure up to Douglas Adams' writing. But who does?
    - ninjin 13y ago
      From what I remember, it is rumoured that Terry Jones asked Douglas Adams for permission to be naked when writing the book.
  - martindale 13y ago
    That's incredible, I had no idea! I always thought the book was based on the book.
- sp332 13y ago
  The "full text" of the book is online, with the words in alphabetical order :) http://www.starshiptitanic.com/novel/ http://www.starshiptitanic.com/novel/ Here's the end: http://www.starshiptitanic.com/novel/lastpage.html http://www.starshiptitanic.com/novel/lastpage.html
  - MrBra 13y ago
    Why has it been posted with words in alphabetical order?
    - sp332 13y ago
      It's a joke by the author. It only goes to 30 pages anyway.

darkxanthos 13y ago

I loved Uru and I'm curious to try this. What is different this time? This plus the article yesterday tells me something big is being prepped. EDIT: typo

maxsilver 13y ago
It's very similar to the old Uru, but it may have new content, depending on when you last played. (this version contains most-to-all of the original release, and also contains extra content from the GameTap revival)
- HCIdivision17 13y ago
  Ah, spectacular! A few friends and I had a lot of fun in the GameTap updates, especially solving some of the nonexistent puzzles (I just call missing puzzles Hard Puzzles, like Jalak). This should be a lot of fun!

jlebrech 13y ago

this + photosynth

caycep 13y ago
I only really went through the original and Riven - what's Uru, and were there more installments in the whole Myst universe?
- maxsilver 13y ago
  There are five installments in the original Myst series : Myst - (Cyan Worlds) and realMyst (same game, re-created in 3D) Riven - (Cyan Worlds) Myst III : Exile - (Presto Studios, of Journeyman Project fame) Myst IV : Revelation (Ubisoft Montreal) Myst V : End of Ages (Cyan Worlds) realMyst - (Cyan Worlds) the realtime 3d remake of the original Myst game There's also a 'partial spin-off' series "Uru", created by Cyan Worlds, which exists in the Myst universe, but happens in a different portion of that universe, and in present day (although this is somewhat of a misnomer, as the Myst V game also takes place in the present day, after events in Uru, and references them) Uru - Ages Beyond Myst Uru - To D'Ni Uru - Path of the Shell Myst Online : Uru Live (MO:UL) is the latest incarnation of the original "Uru Live", and represents the state of the project after it's second (GameTap) cancellation, with some additional changes / bugfixes / ect. Myst V is sort of an odd-ball in the series, as it was originally meant to be content for Uru Live, but Uru was cancelled and Cyan could only get funding for another single player Myst-type game (something considered 'lower risk' than an online game). So a lot of content was re-purposed from the Uru Live pipeline for Myst 5, and it attempts to closely bridge the two different parts of the universe and wrap them up together.
  - ngoldbaum 13y ago
    The real issue with Myst V was the awful drawing mechanic that was necessary to solve almost all of the puzzles. I don't have a lot of artistic ability and what I have is made worse after trying to use a mouse rather than a pen to draw with. Worse, the drawing recognition was poor, so even if you did draw what you were supposed to it was a crapshoot whether the game would recognize it as such. For me, that mechanic reduced the game's puzzles to an incredibly boring session of trial and error.

viame 13y ago

I remember playing this 13 years ago, what a game. I might have to find an old Windows machine to play this again :>

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
redblacktree 13y ago
Or a VM?
rocky1138 13y ago
You're probably thinking realMYST, which launched 13 years ago. This game came out 10 years ago in a pre-release, invite-only fashion.

Intermernet 13y ago

Hmm, looks like account sign-up doesn't use SSL, and includes the ability to include your password in the confirmation email. Probably worth being careful with password choice if you're going to sign-up to this. Don't use one of your existing ones! Other than that, I'm so glad to see Myst back!

mhurron 13y ago
>Don't use one of your existing ones! Well you never should.
- redblacktree 13y ago
  Aye, but people do. Often. I suggest to people that they set up a system that uses some permutation of the domain name or company name to uniqueify their passwords. This way, you only have to remember one password, plus your system, and you have unique passwords everywhere. On the subject of red flags during signup, a password length restriction is always a red flag to me. If you're hashing my password, you don't care how long it is, right? If you limit length, I assume it's stored in plain text.
- criley2 13y ago
  >Well you never should. All of my accounts hooked to finance, or email, etc, are all unique strong passwords. However, I have a throwaway password for throwaway sites, or sites I'm unsure of the security for. Can anyone explain why using the same junk password for forums, crappy webgames, temporary reddit accounts, etc is a problem? Why should I take up the brain-space to memorize a unique password for a site like this?
  - robmil 13y ago
    You don't need to take the brain-space — use a password manager like 1Password or LastPass, plus a YubiKey for two-factor auth, and you can use unique passwords everywhere.
  - bargl 13y ago
    Don't use any brain space for any passwords (except one ofcourse). https://lastpass.com/ https://lastpass.com/ Steve Gibson uses it, I won't pretend to be as capable of speaking to it's benefits so I encourage you to listen to Security Now. Edit: Last pass can be loaded once in the browser, and if you link it to a yubikey it is much more secure. http://blog.lastpass.com/2010/07/lastpass-gets-green-light-from-security.html http://blog.lastpass.com/2010/07/lastpass-gets-green-light-f....

sp332 13y ago

Since 3D content is relatively difficult to make, Andrew Plotkin is making a platform called Seltani that lets people write their multiplayer Myst-universe puzzles in text format. http://dev.seltani.net/ http://dev.seltani.net/ Edit: perhaps more informative wiki page http://seltani.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Main_Page http://seltani.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Main_Page

jared314 13y ago
> write their multiplayer Myst-universe puzzles in text format It looks more like a text based MUD based on the Myst universe.
- sp332 13y ago
  I guess? But you can write your own "ages" (worlds) for other players to play.
  - GrantS 13y ago
    I also thought you were saying that this project was an actual implementation of Myst's fictional art of writing ages (as practiced by Atrus), as in you describe something with text and an interactive 3D world is generated that corresponds to what you wrote. Given a limited vocabulary to describe terrain and buildings and furniture and their physical relationships, along with a database of tagged 3d object models or procedural methods of generating such, this could be done but I'm not aware of anyone having attempted to create such a thing. Edit: Actually, I guess Scribblenauts is the closest approximation to this that exists yet.
    - troymc 13y ago
      Of course, you could always rely on the reader to imagine the world based on your text description. Nah, that would be crazy. It would never catch on.
    - serf 13y ago
      Scribblenauts would be interesting in a big 3d environment like Myst

sigre 13y ago

Looks like the code for the site is also open source: http://www.openuru.org/pages/Development.php http://www.openuru.org/pages/Development.php

mhax 13y ago

anyone try running this with WINE?

nols 13y ago

Did you get to this through the Grantland article on Digg? Here's the link if anyone else is interested, it's a nice look back at Myst. http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/9713372/looking-back-game-myst-20th-anniversary http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/9713372/looking-back-gam...

davexunit 13y ago

So, from what I read, the client uses an open source license, but the server is proprietary? I hope they will eventually go the extra mile and liberate the server too.

bromagosa 13y ago
Not only that, but the client is only available for a proprietary OS... so much for open :(
- wtallis 13y ago
  Cyan open-sourced it because they no longer had the resources to further develop it. They weren't able to produce new content for the Windows version, let alone fund a port. Open-sourcing it as-is was all they could do.
indeyets 13y ago
Both Server and Client are here: https://bitbucket.org/OpenUru_org https://bitbucket.org/OpenUru_org Both are GPL3 licensed

m_mueller 13y ago

I was a big Riven fan but I never tried URU so far - this seems like a great chance doing that. Could someone sum up what the multiplayer experience is like? I could never really imagine how this works. Are there puzzles that you solve together, something like in Portal 2?

wtallis 13y ago
Most of the puzzles are solvable by a single player, because the original Uru Live got cancelled before release, and they had to re-work things to create a single-player offline version. The only puzzles that strictly require a second player are in content introduced during the short-lived GameTap revival. However, may of the puzzles that are theoretically solvable by a single player were first solved by group effort of observing and mapping out the new worlds.
maxsilver 13y ago
Yes, there are puzzles. Most are 'exploratory' (they can be solved by just one person who does a lot of backtracking / note taking, but are easier with two) A few actually require two people. (I can't remember if they are still in MOULa today, or if their one-player counterparts are live). A few are "cheat" puzzles -- they rely on the (very bad) physics engine or stupid-long wait times. (some are upwards of 20-30 minutes, some are over 24 hours). They were always bad ideas, but luckily these are few and far between. While I'm a big fan of what they were trying to accomplish, the experience is significantly less polished when compared to Portal 2. If you found Riven enjoyable, the puzzles are slightly easier and simpler. You'll probably have fun, either on your own or with a few friends.
AsymetricCom 13y ago
Uru's single player mission has incredible high-def graphics that still look great today. The geometry is obviously a bit limited, but the textures look great even at 1920x1200

sandGorgon 13y ago

Please take my money and somebody give me an Android game please. There are no complex haptic interactions - this is perfect for the mobile !!!

joshdance 13y ago

I was just thinking about Myst after having read this article yesterday - http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/9713372/looking-back-game-myst-20th-anniversary http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/9713372/looking-back-gam...

jeroneemou 13y ago

hmm, im on gmail, and i dont get the activation email, sad :/

Industrial 13y ago

Why is this even being posted? URU has been in this state for far more than a year now. Hardly news.

laCour 13y ago
Yup. The blog post was posted on 2010-02-04 19:15:47 UTC (http://feeds2.feedburner.com/uru http://feeds2.feedburner.com/uru).

chenster 13y ago

I didn't see anything about Mac support. http://mystonline.com/en/play/ http://mystonline.com/en/play/ Am I missing anything??

wtallis 13y ago
The only Mac version that ever shipped used a commercial Wine wrapper. None of the open-source client forks have completely removed all the windows-specific dependencies, so there are not any native ports yet. The biggest sticking points are Direct3D and an older version of PhysX.