Myst Forums Change

For those readers that have come from the Cyan Worlds, Inc. game of Myst Online, there is some news. Cyan is changing some things in regard to their web presence. A few weeks ago they updated the MO:UL forum’s software.

New Cyan Forums

New Cyan Forums

Today I see they are opening a new forum: Cyan Forum. They are also updating their main web site: Cyan.com. The new web site is a responsive design site, meaning it resizes and flows to fit any size screen; mobile, tablet, or desktop. This is much better than the previous Cyan site.

If you have been a member of the MO:UL Forum, you can use your ID/password from that site in the new site. There is a link in the forum list that takes you from the Myst section of the new site to the MO:UL Forum most of have participated in over the years. It will remain the main forum for MO:ULa.

New Cyan Web Site

New Cyan Web Site

If you have never played a Myst game, then check out Myst Online: Uru Live. It is a free to play MMOG.

Changes

While it is nice to see the forum software updated and to see Cyan provide a better web site for their mobile customers, I have to wonder about the change announced by Chogon. (The post.) Cyan is pulling the forum moderation back in-house. I am not sure of the reason for that. It means all moderators are now Cyan staff.

Previously, for the last several years, fans were the forum moderators. Cyan would most likely have closed the forum if fans had not helped out. Chogon acknowledges that in his post. Cyan simply did not have the funds and staff to moderate the forum for some time.

With the new forum each game has its own section. The corresponding sections that are in the MO:UL Forum are now locked in Read-Only mode. This allows fans to focus on the game they are interested in. I suppose it also makes it easier for Cyan to get stats on which games are generating conversation.

They are also reviewing the forum policies. The forum ‘rules’ have been a point of controversy for some time. They have also been changed from time to time. It looks like they might get changed once again.

As new people take over moderating tasks it makes sense to consider the wording of and decide on definitions of what the rules actually mean and how that will look in practice.

Future

Cyan never says much about what is to come next. They seem to want to have it ready to roll out before saying anything. Chogon does hint there are more changes coming. Whether that is new games, forum changes, or policies we didn’t get a clue. Well, may be that big “Beta” star on the forum site is clue…

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