This evening I was going through some old images I had saved to an external hard drive, when I came across some screenshots from the virtual world created by Cyan called Myst Online: Uru Live (or MO:UL for short). Actually, I would probably classify MO:UL as an MMO/MMORPG, instead of a virtual world.
Cyan, of course, is famous for their line of cerebral puzzle games starting with Myst, where you tried to piece together where you were and what you were supposed to do to solve fiendishly clever puzzles. By 2003, the Myst franchise had sold over 12 million copies of its games worldwide, with Myst representing more than 6 million copies in the figure. The game was the best-selling PC game until The Sims exceeded its sales in 2002.
MO:UL is still probably one of the most beautiful virtual worlds that you can visit and explore. Here are some screenshots I took in 2011 (please click on each of these pictures to see it in a larger size):
I couldn’t remember my old username and password, and I figured that they probably weren’t saved when Cyan shut down the MO:UL servers sometime after 2011. But according to their website, Cyan has made Myst Online: Uru Live available again, and for free! So I tried to see if I could resurrect my old account. And I could!
But when I logged in again after seven years, all my previous setups, the house I had built after solving all of the puzzles that MO:UL had to offer, was gone. And I just didn’t feel like starting it all over again. Also, the software has not aged terribly well and it wouldn’t play nicely with my Windows 10 computer. So in the end, I uninstalled it.
But for a time there was a real sense of community in Myst Online: Uru Live, as players helped each other to solve the various puzzles and achieve their goals.
Hey Ryan – I just got this email from Rand at Cyan last Thursday:
Hey Myst Fans,
Rand here. No, really! I’m typing this – not some highfalutin marketing person. A normal email with no pictures or fluff… just little old me.
Hopefully we’re not bugging you too much, but I just wanted to make sure everybody knows about the Myst 25th Anniversary stuff going on right now! There are only 6 days left to grab these Myst artifacts, so we’re doing everything we can to get the word out.
If you’ve already gotten in on this limited-time deal, well… thanks so much! We’re as excited as you are to finally get all the games working, and to have them accompanied by the Myst Linking Book and Gehn’s Inkwell.
If you haven’t heard about it, you really should check it out. Cyan doesn’t usually make physical items — we stick with virtual worlds. But for this big occasion we’re stepping out of our comfort zone to build some very cool items, in this collection that you can only get for another six days…
– All 7 of the Myst games (for PC or Mac)
– Myst Linking Book (with LCD linking panel)
– Replica of Gehn’s Inkwell from Riven
– Digital versions of all the Myst novels
– Tons of digital goodies
You can get the details on all the goodies here.
And again, in 6 days this is over, and the artifacts won’t be available! Please check it out.
And thanks so much for all of your support. We have the best fans in the world!
Peace,
Rand (Miller) (Atrus) (Achenar) 😉
Cyan