Latest News:
July 31, 2004
Another Great Review of PotS
Groovalicious gave PotS 8.2. Here's a sample of the review: "While it's not necessary to have actually played Uru to enjoy PotS, it will obviously appeal most to those that favored the original, and for that group, it's practically a must-buy - even more so if you missed out on the To D'ni expansion, since that content is included as well. It's far from being a revolutionary expansion pack, but it's a quality title that provides a satisfying final chapter for Uru fans." Read the full review here.



The Path of the Shell is IGN's Game of the Month
Posted by FF7fan, here's what IGN has to say: "Why we picked it: Though it was a light month for PC games, we nevertheless found ourselves impressed by this adventuresome expansion. In a day when the twitch-happy crowd requires frenzied and constant stimulation, it's nice to see developers opt for a more reserved approach. Path of the Shell succeeds in erasing the boundary between the player and the game, drawing you deeply into a world that makes sense, both from a standpoint of the interface and the story. Forgoing the gamey feeling of most adventure titles, the puzzles in Uru all fit within the game world in a logical fashion and have solutions that make sense. Add to that a brilliant, though spare, musical score and some genuinely impressive graphics and you've got a game that you won't want to stop playing. -- Steve Butts"



Narayani Collective Discussion Forum Returns
Annacat wrote to The Lyst: "As some of you probably noticed the Narayani Collective Discussion Forum was
down for maintenance for much of the past week.
"We now proundly present the fruits of our labors (well, Froggey's labors, really-- he does the tech stuff and I keep the members from rioting-- team work and all ;-) ) at our new location,
Narayani Collective Discussion Forum
"Please feel free to visit us at our new digs or check us out for the first time as the case may be. If you need to, please be sure to update your signature banners (so you won't direct people to the old site ) and
bookmarks accordingly. We'll also be announcing a new location for our website soon.
Thanks! Annacat (on behalf of the Narayani Collective Admin Team)"

July 30, 2004
Gamespot Gives PotS 7.6 Out of 10
Andrew Park has some good things to say. Here are a few: "Like the final episodes of a cult-favorite TV show, Uru: The Path of the Shell may not win over many new followers, but it will surely be appreciated by fans of the original, first-run material."
"The Path of the Shell, like its predecessor, also sounds great, though the sound in many of the environments is a bit more sparse than it was in the original game."
"That said, The Path of the Shell draws Uru's story to a satisfying close, and, by and large, it offers a satisfying experience for anyone who enjoyed the original game."



MystWorlds Buttons
Deg has created some new MystWorld buttons. Check them out here: Myst Worlds Buttons. Please store them on your server and make sure they link to http://www.mystworlds.com/.



Help Design Nick White's Avatar
Futo has announced another contest: "As you may know, a group of explorers are presently working on an Explorer Generated Xpack (EGX). The puzzle I'm calling the D'ni History Puzzle and naturally Nick White is the central character. Since nobody has ever seen Nick, and now probably never will, I thought it would be fun to have a contest to design his avatar. The winner will be decided on by a poll of the explorers and the resulting image will appear in a portrait with him and Sharper in Nick's office.
"Here is how we are picturing Nick. He is something of an excentric character. Fresh out of college he is in his early twenties. He has a genius level IQ and has a wide variety of interests which include languages (of course), photography, riddles, and chess. He is up with the latest technology and owns a laptop computer. If there are any other known characteristics based on your understanding of Nick, you can use them too.
"Once you have designed him in the closet, you can modify him with image manipulation of you wish but the final result must look like an avatar. We will take the poll in about 2 weeks (the exact day will be based on the flow of submissions. It is looks like everyone has their submission in then we will take the poll sooner, if there are requests for a little more time, we can do that too. So have fun! Pa'trick (Futo)"
NICK WHITE'S AVATAR DESIGN CONTEST



Chris Brandkamp Heads a New Venture
Not truly Myst-related, this is an interesting story of what one Cyantist (Cyan’s chief operating officer Chris Brandkamp) is doing: Brandkamp heads new venture.


July 29, 2004
Uru Book Covers
Chris did some exploring in the .prp files within Uru and found the map for the book covers. He noticed a few that we've not seen before, as well. Here's the pixture:




More Avatars in inki's Portrait Gallery
inki has created 6 new portraits and Eleri has created 6 matching buttons, bringing our total to 58! Be sure to check it out: inki's Uru Avatar Portrait Gallery.



Uru Glossary Updated for PotS
Norfren posted: "The Uru Glossary has been updated according to POTS. All suggestions, corrections are welcome!" Thanks, Norfren.



GreyDragon's Blog
GallifreyLady discovered a new entry in Ryan's blog: "Information"
"Something Else" is looking fantastic even though some of it is in a very early stage. Sitting in on some of the meetings I really have learned to appreciate the time and effort the employees here at Cyan Worlds are undertaking. Not too long ago I took a screenshot of "Something Else", printed it and then hung it up on my desk. It tricks some people who think it?s an actual photo. But a photo will never do "Something Else" justice. When this is finally on the shelves I think some will wet their pants with glee over the whole feel of the game. I will say it again "Something Else" is really that... Something else!"

Recap of Futo's Puzzle
As I am unable to keep track of all the goings-on with Futo's puzzles, I've asked him to supply a recap.
"Okay, quick summary...First Anidor assembled puzzle 3 and noticed a missing piece (which happens with jig saw puzzles). Anidor's Puzzle Three. Then Deius assembled puzzle 2 and noticed another missing piece...a pattern is developing. Deius Puzzle Two. Then Toboe, a 12 year old explorer with the help of his grandmother- Mystdee and their family solved a puzzle that was created just for him.  The pieces spell out the question "Don't you just adore those quabs?"  Can you figure out the word they found? Toboe's First Puzzle Solution. It has been reported that Toboe has already assembled his second puzzle but is still trying to figure out the word he is looking for. Rutland1 and his wife did an excellent job of piecing together puzzle one cutting out and assembling puzzle one by hand...here is an in progress shot.... Rutland1's In Progress Shot. They did finish it and noticed another missing piece.  Susanszy54 posted a digitally assembled version of puzzle one that we see here....Rutland finishes puzzle and susanszy54 posts digital version. Ti'Chelle noticed that the Quabs and their shadows didn't seem to be shaped right...too pointy.  Deius had the idea of overlapping the completed puzzles.  Anidor was the first to put it all together.  After putting the correct word into the URL, here is what he saw.... Triangle copy. They are all now working on the second half of Futo's Italian Vacation Puzzle. Pa'trick (Futo)"



Updated Myst4 Specs
Jerle posted an update from Patrick:
Windows
PIII 700 mhz, 128 Mb Ram - 256 Mb on XP, 32 Mb video card, Nvidia Geforce 1, 2, 3, 4, FX, Ati 7000-9800, Matrox Parehlia, Intel i865G - intel i915G, DVD Reader, Win 98, Win Me, Win 2000, Win XP
Mac
G4 667 Mhz or +, 128 Mb Ram +, 32 Mb video card, Nvidia Geforce 2, 4, FX, Ati 7500-9600, DVD reader
OSX 10.2 (jaguar) or better.
And there will be a short demo (200 megs) and a long demo (600 megs). There 2 demos are very close in content, but one contains a rather heavy additional cinematic (and an extra node).



First Parts of Futo's Puzzle Are Solved
Check out the thread: FUTO'S ITALIAN VACATION PUZZLE. Toboe solved the first puzzle, with the help of his family (including Grandmother Mystdee). Futo, unfortunately, will not be going on vacation, after all.



July 28, 2004
Why No Cyantists at Mysterium?
GreyDragon posted in his blog: "Bad quote comes from an IM but in fact I don’t remember who sent it. "Why aren’t there any Cyan Employees at Mysterium? Did the Committee suck this year?" I took extreme offense to this right off the bat. I am on the committee, both me and RAWA.  It was nothing the committee did this year that Cyan Employees didn’t make it to Mysterium.  I didn’t have the money to send myself and Cyan is on the fastest schedule ever to make "Something Else." All and all if Cyan employees could have made it to Mysterium some of us would have."



Guild of Greeters Mysterium Presentation
Dan'ni posted: "Each year during the Mysterium someone does something incredible. This year Guild of Greeters made a presentation that could be called like that. As Tijara writes on the GoG forums, the movie is very touching, but it is not meant to elicit sympathy, but to share other's unique Uru experiences and perspective, and offer inspiration and hope." After watching it, all I can say is "Wow." Guild of Greeters Donwload Page, Low-res presentation (21MB), Hi-res presentation (53MB) and accompanying literature (PDF). Thanks, Dan'ni.



Mysterium Photos
Leesa sent a link to The Lyst: Mysterium Pics. And a blog!



Mystery Solved
The riddle previously mentioned was no riddle, after all, but a teaser for a project involving fan-created areas of Uru. Here's the post by korteenea: " To all those who are following this:
I am newage. Or at least... I was. This was not intended to be a puzzle... it was intended to be more of a Cyan-inspired 'peek' at a fan project.
"The title, "Phase One" does indeed refer to the stages through which the DRC went to release an Age, and as far as I know those stages also represented Cyan's actual progress.
"The model is an inkwell... it does not currently exist in the Uru game files. There were going to be two new images: a pen and a book. The intents of the images were:
1.) To let you know that there is new stuff being "written"--by fans--for Uru.
2.) To show you some of what's been created.
"The project, headed up by futographer and myself, is pretty basic: development of a small environment that can be explored via the Uru game engine. As you know, the folks at COBBS are working on hacking Uru and such and hope to be able to add in objects to Relto or perhaps even add new environments. This is one of the environments.
"What's being developed? Nick's office. Why?
Well... that's futographer's part. Let's just say it's a new puzzle.
"Anyway, unfortunately the plan for the 'peek' got botched. I had forgotten that one couldn't register more than one screen name here per IP... which Dan'ni kindly pointed out to me (my sincerest apologies, Dan'ni!)
"My apologies as well to anyone who thought this was a puzzle, or something more than it was... I hadn't intended such a response. Forgive me? The other two images will be forthcoming.
"On another note... if I happened to catch your interest with this tiny fiasco and you're interested in helping, visit us here. I can't apologise enough.."



July 27, 2004
Riven Dagger Sells for $61 on eBay
And it wasn't bought by CAGrayWolf! Check out the auction here: "Myst and Riven - D'Ni Dagger paperweight."



Jenny H Interviews Kha'tie
Jenny H chats with Kha'tie about her recent trip to Europe. Here it is: "MystWorlds Interview with Kha'tie."



Check Out PlanetMYST
myst-bert at DPWR.net wrote: "PlanetMyst, a website set up by amon-re, is a place where members of the MREDU community can read blogs by the many other members of the community. You can also send a request to join the blog-feed on the page..."



Speculation and Expectation, According to RAWA
RAWA wrote to The Lyst: "Friends, Just a quick note so that hopes and expectations are not set unrealistically.
"Last week, a picture was placed on our website showing "UruVision", a gentle reminder that the idea of Uru Live is not completely dead.
"The speculation it raised is good, and comments along the lines of "Maybe this means <insert theory here>." are great. The problem is that some have set their expectations very high, and presented their interpretations as fact, or at least as something more than just speculation. This will hurt people in the end if those interpretations are believed and do not turn out to be correct.
"Uru Live isn't dead, but rumors of its resurrection have been equally exaggerated. For Uru Live to truly return as it was intended would require a large amount of funding - funding we do not have and do not expect to get in the near future.
"In light of that, it would be wise to set your expectations low. Better to be pleasantly surprised than sorely disappointed. :) RAWA"



More From "DpThrt1"
Here's the latest: "Progress. The remaining returns. Not directly, but . . . to use one of my old favorites ...
http://home.comcast.net/~zardoz99/ides.htm. BTW, Choru and Ubiru existed in parallel." Zardoz recognized that URL immediately: "...that's my eggsite! Wowsers!"
Update from DpThrt1: "You have enough to progress. Discover more, and more will be shown through our eyes. Remember our location. It is important. Don't get derailed. I will now retire to my cloud under the seas, where a new age dawns."



Myst 4's Music is Done
Jack Wall updated his Journal: "Man, it's finally done. Myst IV is in the bag. On Friday, I counted the minutes of music written - 104!! I'm telling you, the whole thing came in waves with rather large breaks in between, but this last push was intense. All the implementation and mixing. The in-game mix of music is really varied (well, with 104 minutes, it would have to be!!). I definitely feel a little like Homer - back from the Odyssey. Traveling to Europe 3 times - Paris, Bratislava, Warsaw, Montreal twice - definitely a journey and it is very satisfying to listen to the music in it's final state. I sincerely hope that the Myst fans feel it a worthly successor to Exile, done me best I have!"



And a Mystery Unfolds...
On the COBBS H'Uru forum, a poster (DpThrt1) wrote: "Perhaps you could use this?"
This was followed by a long list of code, and: "More will come." When Zardoz began to question the poster identity ("The drcConfig.cfg file is for someone who was accessing the Cyan internal servers - parablelive0.cyanworlds.com. As a Choru tester, I accessed ParableLive1.CyanWorlds.com, so I'm thinking our mystery guest was an internal tester?"), DpThrt1 replied: "Yes, Zardoz. I know you. You are mostly correct. However, I am not an Internal tester. As I said, more will come. It has come. Cam. Watch, Choruers. Help them. We will soon. Watch Choru."



The Riddle Continues...

A new riddle has appeared. A poster named "newage" created a new topic: "Phase One, Underway..." with the picture to the left and a note: "Another clue another day..."

"Hmm.. a lantern? That gives off light! This is no lantern; With this you write."

"Do not seek what you cannot yet find."

Great Review of PotS by IGN
Juan Castro at IGN reviewed PotS and he loved it: Here are just a few of his comments:
"Path of the Shell closes the spin-off series with gusto. It's mysterious and satisfying. It fulfills its promise of delivering an immersive, unforgettable journey. It even delivers a few great surprises for old-school Myst nuts. It's an adventure gamer's wet dream. Maybe I'm just that nerdy, but I loved it. Everything just worked the way it should. A few of the puzzles roasted my mind ever so slightly, but most called for logical solutions. No abstract views of alien physics required."
"But it's not the puzzles that drive you too keep playing Path of the Shell. And it's not the graphics or music either, although the game owes its sublime level of immersion to them. It's the mystery that drives you. The feeling of genuine exploration and discovery. This single element elevates Path of the Shell, and the Uru series for that matter, above most modern adventure games and seals its status as a classic. You want to look around every corner, go through every door and investigate every inch of game space available. Every piece of the world, whether it is a symbol etched on a wall, a diagram sewn unto a magnificent tapestry or a large island looming off in the distance simply begs you to come over and have a closer look."
"Suffice to say, Path of the Shell delivers. Some may complain about the ending. I know I had a few issues with it. But remember, Uru was never supposed to end in the first place." Warning: The review contains spoilers.



July 26, 2004
Mary De Marle Responds to Criticism
There's a thread at UO where some fans are getting quite critical of Myst 4 without much cause. In response, Mary had a few things to say.
Here's just a few comments: "After talking to people at Mysterium, I realized that many of you do not know the full story behind how Myst 3 and Myst 4 came into existence. You’ve heard that a company other than Ubisoft (Dreamforge) was originally hired to create Myst 4 – but did you know that Dreamforge was hired to create their game before Presto was hired to create Myst 3? In fact, Dreamforge’s "story of the brothers" was originally intended to be released as Myst 3. Presto was only hired after it became apparent that Dreamforge’s game would take at least 4 years to develop.

"The game’s publisher (at that time it was Mattel, not Ubisoft) wanted a Myst game to come out sooner than that, so Presto was given only 18 months to create Exile. Cyan told us not to tell the story of Releeshahn, so we couldn’t expand the mythos in that direction. Nor we could we tell the full story of the brothers, since that one was being developed by Dreamforge. To complicate things even further, we had to be very careful not to create a story line that might conflict with anything Dreamforge put in their game – the details of which were still being worked out and not known to us when our development of Exile began.

"A very interesting challenge, you might say, but one that all of us at Presto were committed to accomplishing."

Here's one comment she wanted to respond to: "Exile went nowhere, and the graphics made me angry, angry that people didn't have the dedication to create something that would raise the bar over Riven."

Mary: "I am sorry that Exile’s graphics made you angry, but the assumption that your statement makes is flat out wrong. The creative team who made Exile were some of the most dedicated people I know. They routinely worked over 20 hours a day trying to perfect the game – one of the artists worked so hard that when Exile was finally released, he literally didn’t know what to do with himself. After spending more than four months of his life never leaving Presto’s offices for more than 4 hours at a time – literally eating and sleeping at work every day (and weekends too!) just to get everything finished on time – he was almost afraid to go home because he didn’t remember what his life had been like before Exile began. He had lost touch with almost all his friends and family, and he didn’t know how to restart relationships that had lain fallow for so many months.

"So you see, the team definitely did have the dedication and commitment to create something that would raise the bar over Riven; they just didn’t have the time. Riven took 4 years to complete. Presto had only 18 months and a limited budget in which to do it. As it was, they practically killed themselves doing it.

"The result was Exile – which admittedly does have its flaws – but it’s still a game of which I’m proud to have been a part."

Another negative comment: "I find it annoying that people think so lightly about the Art of Writing a great game.
Mary De Marle is the Gehn, whereas Vanderwende is the Atrus in this."

Mary: "If Pat were answering here, he might say something like, "That’s your opinion and you’ve got every right to have it, but I find it annoying that people make sweeping statements about how other people think without knowing those people or looking at the bulk of their life’s work and efforts." (Apologies in advance, Pat, for putting words in your mouth! )

"In my case, I most certainly do not take the Art of Writing a great game lightly. It’s a subject that is very near and dear to my heart – so much so that I have put hours into researching the field, learning everything I can about the challenges of writing games, and even trying to educate others in the game community so that the quality of writing in games can improve. So surely I must be misconstruing Ageren's statment here. The "people" referred to must be somebody else..."
"(Admittedly, as a diehard Myst fan, it made my eyes bulge to see myself cast in one of these comments as a cruel, sadistic, megalomaniac who routinely tortured people who didn’t agree with him, but then Van Gogh wasn’t appreciated in his day, either. So I stick by my previous statements.)"

Her view of criticism: "Actually, an unfavorable critique of a given work definitely hurts the feelings of the artist on some level, but you’re right, Areth: We’re artists and we must learn from both the positive and negative criticism we receive. It is the only way to become better artists. And that is why I will also defend the right to make those criticisms until the day I die."



Something Else Entirely™?
This post appeared, from newage: "Something Else? No. This is Something Else Entirely™



Uru's Silver Lining?
asa160 posted: "URU: Complete Chronicles : Prima Official Game Guide has been shipped and it really is an outstanding publication. on the last page - "And the true silver lining is that the vast majority of the Ages and stories created for Uru Live will see the light of day, in one form or another."



A new riddle...

A new riddle has appeared. A poster named "newage" created a new topic: "Phase One, Underway..." with the picture to the left and a note: "Another clue another day..."