Myst Online goes fully open-source
by Krystalle Voecks 
Dec 13th 2008 at 11:30AM
Filed under: Puzzle, Myst Online: URU Live, MMO industry, News items
As many know, Myst Online: URU Live has had an incredibly rocky road throughout its history. First sunsetted by Ubisoft, then by GameTap, URU's fans agreed to trying MORE (Myst Online Restoration Experiment) after Cyan Worlds got their IP back. Most recently in October, Cyan posted word that due to financial difficulties, URU and the entire MORE project would be placed on indefinite hold. Since then, nothing - until now.
In a startling move, Cyan Worlds has decided to release all of URU Live's assets to the public as open source. This includes the client and server architecture. Amazingly, they aren't simply releasing it into the wild and leaving it alone; Cyan has decided to hold one Myst Online server shard open for players to have a centralized world, despite the fact that others can now freely put up their own Myst Online servers.
It's a bold and daring move to open source a project of this scale. We applaud Cyan Worlds' dedication to their fans and love of their game to take a brave step like this, and wish all the URU users the best as they develop their worlds as they see fit. It's going to be really interesting to see how this develops.
In a startling move, Cyan Worlds has decided to release all of URU Live's assets to the public as open source. This includes the client and server architecture. Amazingly, they aren't simply releasing it into the wild and leaving it alone; Cyan has decided to hold one Myst Online server shard open for players to have a centralized world, despite the fact that others can now freely put up their own Myst Online servers.
It's a bold and daring move to open source a project of this scale. We applaud Cyan Worlds' dedication to their fans and love of their game to take a brave step like this, and wish all the URU users the best as they develop their worlds as they see fit. It's going to be really interesting to see how this develops.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Bam! said on 11:51AM 12-13-2008
I bought this game and all the expansions after it had gone down the first time (for those not in the know it can be played fully single player, it is Myst after all). When Gametap brought it back I logged in, but didn't want to spend the MONTHS AND MONTHS it takes to get back. Myst is hard, and though I love it, the one new age they put in wasn't work the work of rebuilding my Relto to my spec.
I am a diehard myst fan though so I might try it out. I only just got Myst V now, and so far I'm enjoying myself, even if it isn't the magnum opus that is myst 4
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Arashikou said on 6:56PM 12-13-2008
A complete, fully-functional, AAA MMO title whose entire source will now be open for anyone to examine? This could be huge - not just for Uru fans wanting to save their game (I can't believe this game has been sunsetted so many times... it doesn't deserve it) but for any developer looking to develop an MMO.
Until now, there's been very little shared knowledge about the best ways to handle some things in the MMO space, with every game jealously guarding their secrets in a competitive space that requires a lot of funding to enter. Certainly, Uru isn't the most cutting-edge tech, but it should still be a fascinating study for anyone wanting a primer in how these systems are architected, and could form the kernel at the core of a larger body of knowledge, much as the Quake engines have for FPSes and 3D games in general as each has been open-sourced in turn.
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UltimateQ said on 11:12PM 12-13-2008
Only read the title, and WOW!
Amazing, I support open source in every form that it exists. This is absolutely fantastic.
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L4Linux said on 5:17AM 12-14-2008
Will it be under the GPL licence?
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Sarreq Teryx said on 10:53PM 12-14-2008
one would wonder if (given development of the protocol/server software) this could be the first MMO to have interconnected servers, each with a different world, where a user could just walk from one to the other, retaining their avatar and it's stats, rather than having to log out of one and logging in another with a totally different avatar. that could open up so many possibilities for players.
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