Myst Online Status Getting Clearer

Shorah,
Who wants more rearrange-able runes and Sumerian names with apostrophes in them?

Pulled around between Ubisoft, Cyan Worlds, and Gametap, Myst Online: Uru Live has been given and deprived of life more than once over the past few years. The most recent development: Myst Online is coming back, currently going by the name “Myst Online: Restoration Experiment.” With their work force diminished, Cyan Worlds told the Myst explorers that “the roadmap does not involve any new content from Cyan at this time. The plan is to start to move the content creation - the ‘Art’ - to you.”

Extended possibilities for user-made content– a defibrillating jolt to a struggling game, or something more substantial?  Well, Myst is certainly not done for yet.

Despite recent blows, the Myst cult shows a pretty respectable amount of bustle: humming forums, the entire D’ni language, three published books worth of story, and most impressively, guilds of “Maintainers” (who screen for story continuity problems), “Cartographers” (who design maps), “Writers,” and the like, made up of players who have simply signed up to do what they can to enhance their game, and who are needed now more than ever.

After completing a final puzzle, you don’t repeat raids or move on to PvP, but sit back and await new chapters; in the meantime, building worlds and puzzles is much more appealing than thumb-twiddling. It’s no wonder that people immerse themselves in the Myst lore to an extent you don’t often see. Other games might allot written and graphic details into skippable cut scenes, but it seems that the Myst community will be aligning itself around story more than ever before by encouraging users to create the story on their own.

Story is so often shoved aside in games that it’s wonderful to see story as absolutely central, compelling players to pause, think, listen, and contemplate. Now that Myst Online is returning, let us hope it will survive and flourish. The explorers of Myst certainly have the passion to form a civilization nowhere near its downfall.