Shorah fans of Cyan,As you may be aware, Cyan's situation has not improved on the "resources" front. We continue to work on small projects (including Myst for the iPhone/iPod Touch), and it looks like we will only be able to concentrate on projects that are fully funded for the foreseeable future.
However, all of us at Cyan and everybody that has ever worked on the creation and building of the dream called UruLive (a.k.a. Mudpie, Until Uru, MystOnline:UruLive and MORE) can not just let it die! (My definitions: "UruLive" is the original dream of the virtual world. And "MystOnline" is the current implementation of UruLive.)
So, Cyan has decided to give make MystOnline available to the fans by releasing the source code for the servers, client and tools for MystOnline as an open source project. We will also host a data server with the data for MystOnline. MORE is still possible but only with the help from fans.
This is a bit scary for Cyan because this is an area that we have never gone before, to let a product freely roam in the wild. But we've poured so much into UruLive, and it has touched so many, that we could not just let it whither and die. We still have hopes that someday we will be able to provide new content for UruLive and/or work on the next UruLive.
This is also a bit scary for the fans. We realize that this could turn UruLive into the "wild west" and lead to many fractured and diverse MystOnline servers. But it is our hope that with the help of dedicated core fans (if you are reading this, it probably means you) that a safe and secure MystOnline server set (many servers from around the world working together as one) can be created that will let people explore and live in UruLive.
We also are pretty sure that releasing MystOnline will result in some pleasant surprises for us. Our fans have always been so innovative, creative, and resourceful!
This release will probably be accomplished in stages, but we hope to get things ready for the first stage very quickly. More details to surely follow.
Copy of message at spokesmanreview.com