I last wrote about Myst-Uru in May. You may or may not know that fans have been hoping to see the Myst story made into a major motion picture. Today I saw that we have news on the Myst Movie. A day or two before, I was reading a thread in the Myst Online Forum. It is about how fans might promote Myst-Uru and get more people playing. That should sound familiar to Second Life users. As these two things come together in my mind I can see some possible changes coming for the Myst franchise and online game.
The thread “A Myst Movie Update” brings fans up to date on what is happening with the possible Myst Movie. Events and information leading up to current events can be found on MystMovie.com.
If you do not know, there are a series of books that tell the story of Myst. It is that story that provides the background for the Myst Games. It is a fascinating enough story fans wanted more. One of those books is called the Book of Ti’ana. For some time it was considered as the sole basis for the movie. But, Hollywood types looking at it objectively did not believe the book provided the starting point needed for telling the Myst story to an audience with no clue about what Myst is, the Cavern, or the D’ni.
As one further opens the Myst cannon the story is more easily related and likely to make sense to an audience unfamiliar with the series of Myst games and story. There is some drama and politics but as Cyan and some MFG (Myst Fan Group?) people begin to listen and realize what Hollywood was saying, the decision to shift from just the Book of Ti’ana (BoT) and allow more of the story and some cannon shifts was made. Now it looks like a successful US$100 million production and franchise are a real possibility.
Nothing is ever certain until the papers are signed and the money changes hands. But, the movie seems to be moving forward now.
Promotion
For years Myst fans have discussed, debated, argued, and fought over how to promote Myst, change it to improve player retention, improve immersion, modernize the user interface, and every imaginable aspect of the game. There has been loads of drama and politics. The community like any other game community has some of the best and worse people.
For some time I have advocated making links all over the web to point to the PLAY page of the Myst Online site. I still do. It now rates 5th on a Google search for the search term: Myst. The Wikipedia, Cyan Worlds, and Apple iStore position ahead of it. All but the iStore lead directly to this forum & site. So, the game has achieved good search position. More links always help, so create them where you can. Hopefully Cyan will realize the importance of the existing links and not break them by eliminating the specific URL of the Play Page.
Uruites in Guild Wars, Team Fortress, Second Life, OpenSim, Minecraft, and most other MMOG’s have formed groups of Myst players and often point people to Myst-Uru via the Myst Online site. Anyone playing in those games can point people here. Most of us have learned to do it without spamming the games.
You have just planted a super silly thought into my head.
“Second Life – The Movie”
Directed and written by Dr. Uwe Boll.
Maybe he’ll even make it look cheap enough for actual Second Life to look adequate afterwards.