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  • Mysterium 2022

    Mysterium 2022

    The XXIII Mysterium was held in Denver, CO on August 12–14, with the panels and presentations streamed to both Twitch and YouTube.

    Minasunda and Civer Gaming made summary videos; Belford wrote a two-part summary ([1], [2]) in his blog, commenting on Cyan’s announcements.

    Friday started at 10:00 KIT with the Opening Announcements and Cyan’s “State of the Union”, with Eric A. Anderson (Creative Director) and Hannah Gamiel (Development Director). They are super busy developing Firmament (they also showed a preview video), so they will combine Myst’s and Riven’s anniversaries next year. They will share something new every month, including challenge coins, Cyan logo shirts, re-releasing the ebook versions of the Myst novels, and digging through Riven’s archives. They are working with members of the community on “special, secret projects”. There are no plans for an official remake of Uru.

    At 11:30 the Walkabout Mini Golf: Myst panel with Don Carson, Henning Koczy, Lucas Martell, Edward McAndrew of Mighty Coconut studio discussed their approach to design for immersive gameplay with realistic physics, in combining their VR mini golf game with Myst’s iconic island.

    At 14:00 the The Last Clockwinder panel with John Austin and Anita Tung of Pontoco studio talked about their game, developed with Cyan Ventures (which has shifted role from publishing arm to development-support group).

    At 15:00 Kefrith’s Cryptic Contraption presentation revealed his surprise Myst-inspired creation, discussing the setbacks he got into in the creative process.

    At 16:00 the full recording of the concert held by the NULP Dance Group in Elonin was released as a YouTube Premiere.

    At 18:00 it was time for the trip to the Meow Wolf: Convergence Station interactive art series.

    Saturday started at 10:00 KIT with the Cyan Q&A, with Eric Anderson, Rand Miller, Ryan “greydragon” Warzecha discussing what is happening at Cyan, their artistic and technical approach to game design, and the rationale behind some decisions on Myst and Uru lore.

    At 11:15 the MOULa Fan Creations: Tech Development panel with Colin “Maccodemonkey” Cornaby, Adam “Hoikas” Johnson, Darryl “Paradox” Pogue, Paul “rarified” Richards presented the latest development news about MOULa, with an update on the process to make the client cross-platform. To get involved, you can contact the OpenUru team (testing) on Discord, or the H’uru team (developing) on GitHub and IRC.

    At 11:45 the MOULa Fan Creations: Ages panel with Ametist, Patrick “Doobes” Dulebohn, Harley “Calum Traveler”, Keith “Tweek” Lord discussed the challenges of creating and modifying environments for MOULa. The current tool for creating ages is Korman for Blender. You can find tutorials in the GoW wiki; Calum Traveler also made a series of videos.

    At 13:45 the Area Man Lives panel with Amy Green, Ryan Green, Mike Perrotto of Numinous Games, and Ryan “greydragon” Warzecha of Cyan, discussed their VR game produced with Cyan Ventures.

    At 14:45 the highlights of the concert held by the NULP Dance Group in Elonin was released as a YouTube Premiere.

    At 16:00 Erik Oberg’s Libraries of Myst presentation analyzed how libraries fit into Myst, both in the explicit sense of literal, in-game libraries and the broader presence of librarian principles and practices in the Myst universe, as well as how Myst fits into real-world libraries.

    At 19:45 the Achenar: Redemption in One Part panel with Guy Sprung, who played Achenar in Myst IV: Revelation, discussed the process behind playing a character who experiences both sides of being the villain and the savior.

    At 20:45 it was time for Cavern Feud, hosted by Dan Binder, in which teams competed against each other to see who best knows how the Myst community responds to various survey questions, like “what would Yeesha name her cat?” or  “which Myst animal would make the best pet?”

    Sunday started at 10:00 KIT with the Myst Documentary Sneak Peek and Q&A, with Elana Bogdan, Katie “Kha’tie” Postma, Joshua Reinstein, Philip Shane, giving insights into the creation of The Myst Documentary, which will cover Myst, Riven and Uru, the near-collapse of Cyan in 2005 and its climb back in the following years, and the new era that started with Obduction. Attendees had an exclusive sneak peak of the documentary, then they showcased the new online Community Vault of Myst Stories.

    At 12:00 the Closing Ceremonies were held, wrapping up this year’s convention, running the prize drawing, and announcing next year’s location: Spokane!

    Thanks and kudos to the Mysterium Committee, who did a great job at organising and managing the event.

    Looking forward to next year!

  • {:en}News roundup #17{:}{:de}Nachrichten in Kürze{:}

    {:en}

    • Actor and runner John Keston, who played Gehn in Riven, passed away on February 13, due to complications from Covid-19.
    • Cyan’s 2nd Annual Cake Contest started on February 28 and will end on March 7. This year’s theme is “the artifacts of Riven”: choose your favorite artifact (e.g. a maglev, Gehn’s inkwell, the Moiety dagger, etc.), craft a cake, upload a picture of your creation and tag it with #CyanCake2.
    • A Firmament project update released on February 17 went into details about the use of “greyboxing” in game development.
    • A Myst Documentary project update released on February 26 noted they are ready to start “principal photography”, as they call in Hollywood.
    • The 3rd Deep City Lecture, about the D’ni legal system, will be held on March 5 at 15:00 KIT, in the Guild of Archivists’ Hood (Twitch, Discord).
    • There was another great set of submissions for Mysterium’s Prompt topic “glass”, with two short stories from calumTraveler and Talashar and two drawings from KellyC and laughingpineapple.
    • For March, the Prompt is about stickers for the Mysterium Discord server. The plan is to have multiple winner this time. The same rules as the normal submissions apply, so feel free to publicly discuss works in progress. Stickers can either be static or animated.

    {:}{:de}

    • Schauspieler und Läufer John Keston, der Gehn in Riven gespielt hat, ist am 13. Februar aufgrund von Komplikationen nach einer Covid-19 Infektion gestorben.
    • Cyans 2. Jährlicher Kuchenwettbewerb hat am 28. Februar begonnen und geht bis zum 7. März. Das diesjährige Thema ist “die Artefakte von Riven”: Wähle dein liebstes Artefakt (z.B. ein Maglev, Gehns Tintenfass, der Moiety-Dolch etc.), erschaffe einen Kuchen, lade ein Bild deiner Kreation hoch und markiere ihn mit dem tag #CyanCake2.
    • Ein Firmament Projektupdate vom 17. Februar hat detailliert über die Nutzung von “Greyboxing” in der Spieleentwicklung berichtet.
    • Ein Myst Documentary Projektupdate vom 26. Februar informierte, dass man für die ersten Probeaufnahmen bereit ist.
    • Die 3. Deep City Vorlesung Über das Rechtssystem der D’ni findet am 5. März um 15:00 KIT in der Guild of Archivists’ Hood (Twitch, Discord) statt.
    • There was another great set of submissions for Mysterium’s Prompt topic “glass”, with two short stories from calumTraveler and Talashar and two drawings from KellyC and laughingpineapple.
    • For March, the Prompt is about stickers for the Mysterium Discord server. The plan is to have multiple winner this time. The same rules as the normal submissions apply, so feel free to publicly discuss works in progress. Stickers can either be static or animated.

    {:}

  • November 2021 All Guilds Meeting Summary

    Here is the summary for November’s Meeting, along with the raw and cleansed chatlogs!

    Contents

    1. Fan Ages Touring Club
    2. Mysterium news
    3. Deep City Lecture
    4. D’ni Language Classes
    5. R’Tayrtahn’s Story Nights
    6. The Waterlogged Relto Book
    7. Minkata
    8. Miscellanea

    Fan Ages Touring Club

    Korov’ev gave a quick update on the Fan Ages Expeditions he is hosting on the Deep Island shard, every Sunday at 11:00 KIT.

    In October they started a new cycle, visiting the very first ages (at least those still around) released in 2005: First Age of Dustin, Eder Rilteh Inaltahv, Galamay, Atlantis Outpost, Niveerah.

    In November, the plan is to visit more of these early ages, then Pre-Swaltu, Janga, and outline the concept behind Ahra Pahts.

    More about the Expeditions (click to expand)
    • The expeditions are streamed (without comments), and the videos will be available for two weeks after.
    • After the tour, those who still have the energy are welcome to Korov’ev’s Gahreesehn for some Wall training (send a message to #194197 for an invite).
    • A gallery of fan ages with some details is available on the Writers’ wiki. Setting up a Deep Island client can be a bit tricky in some situations; a quick guide is available in our Troubleshooting section.

    Mysterium News

    Event submissions are now open: T-shirt designs until February 20, Events until May 22, Writing & Artworks until July 31. There will not be Pins submissions, because the Committee still has those submitted for 2020 and will use those.

    They also launched a new section in the Mysterium Discord server called Creativity Prompts: periodically they will post a topic and invite everyone to submit any creative works you can come up with. Music, fanfics, costume designs, etc. are all welcome.

    The only requirements are that it must incorporate the posted topic, and somehow be related to Cyan’s games (including Obduction, and Cyan Ventures like Zed).

    The inaugural topic is Giving Thanks – not necessarily related to Thanksgiving, any expression of gratitude fits the requirements. The deadline for this Prompt is November 30 at 21:00 KIT.

    Deep City Lecture

    Former ResEng G.Buddell announced a lecture he and J.D. Barnes will hold on Sunday 7 at 15:00 KIT, to share with the Community some new historical information they have found combing through the DRC archives, about the Mee-Dis War.

    The lecture will be streamed on Twitch and on CyanChat, and will be uploaded to the Guild of Archivists’ YouTube channel at a later time. They plan to hold a lecture every couple of weeks, taking a break in December to help with Lexember.

    D’ni Language Classes

    R’Tayrtahn gave two announcements, one for the D’ni Language Classes and one for the Story Nights. There are now three more instructors in the Guild of Instructors: shokhootahn Ana, shokhootahn Jo, and shokhootahn phoenixRisen.

    More about the D’ni Language Classes (click to expand)
    • Those who would like to attend the lessons should contact Rehn via PM or KImail (KI# 58324); be sure to include your KI number in the message!
    • The Guild of Instructors’ Hood will be open and public unless a class is in session, currently on Monday–Friday starting at 12:00, 13:00 or 14:00 KIT, and on Wednesday–Friday starting at 20:00, 21:00 or 22:00 KIT, depending on the student’s schedule.
    • Last-minute changes to class times are posted on the left-hand imager in the hood.

    R’Tayrtahn’s Story Nights

    Story Night has started a special, five-part story of fan fiction written by Janai. After the Meeting, Story Night Europe began chapter 3, while Original Story Night began chapter 1.

    Then it will be time for the bi-annual Bahro Glyph Tour, visiting all the ages that contain bahro glyphs; some have explanations while others just generate more questions.

    After that, the Stories will restart from the very beginning, the D’ni story of creation.

    More about the Story Nights (click to expand)
    • Story Nights are held in Tsahno’s Hood every Saturday, gathering at the fountain at around 23:00 KIT, with the story starting at about 23:30 KIT.
    • For Story Nights – Europe, the gatherings are on Saturday starting at 13:30 KIT, with the story starting at about 14:00 KIT. On All Guilds Meeting days, the event will begin at 14:00 KIT or 15 minutes after the end of the AGM, whichever is later.
    • The stories are told using voice chat, so you will need to have your speakers, headphones or KI devices on. If you would like a reminder, please send r’Tayrtahn (KI# 58324) a KImail with your KI number included in the text, so that he can add you to his buddies list.
    • Last-minute changes to Story Night times are posted on the left-hand imager in the hood.
    • Recording of the Stories are available on r’Tayrtahn’s YouTube channel; however some hardware issues are preventing r’Tayrtahn from uploading the latest episodes.

    The Waterlogged Relto Book

    Calum Traveler gave an update on the saga of the waterlogged Relto book, found mangled by the Docks in late October. The book belonged to an explorer named Wayne Todd, who went ‘camping’ in an industrial area of the Cavern. He is fine, but did not tell anyone where he was going.

    Wayne discovered a facility that appears to be part of one of the D’ni’s ‘safety measures’ to prevent spikes of overfeeding the lake. The feasibility of restoring this particular facility to functionality is currently being debated.

    It was also confirmed that lake water samples taken at the area are matching the composition found at the Docks and elsewhere: oxygen and carbon dioxide levels are becoming more consistent, and the lake algae are definitely beginning to glow in sync.

    Tis means that the lake light may begin to cycle again quite soon, possibly around December or January, if explorers continue feeding the lake as consistently as they have been.

    Minkata

    Rarified gave an update about the OpenUru testing shards. Between bug fixes, client improvements and fan ages testing, they will probably release the next set of changes on MOULa in late November or mid December.

    A lot of work is still in the pipeline; during the next month, they will need as many visitors as possible on Minkata to help make sure things are safe for release.

    The KI bug is next on the list of bugs being worked on from Cyan’s end, but that too appears to be difficult to debug.

    How to be a tester (click to expand)

    To be a tester, you will need to open an account on the Minkata shard; it is highly recommended to read the Tester’s Guide to understand what is expected. To test the cutting edge additions, you can sign up for the Minkata alpha shard.
    To report bugs, you can post on the OpenUru Discord server (channels #hood or #dev); on Discord you can ask to be added to the Testers role to be notified of testing requests, which sometimes need quick response in terms of hours, not days.

    Miscellanea

    • A new IC forums for story progression, in the vein of the DRC forums, opened; it is hosted by Tweek’s Beneath website.
    • Forecast says Serene will be getting its snowfall again, likely by December.
    • November 11 is the Third Feast of the Maker, and the anniversary of Uru ABM; the 17 is
    • the anniversary of Prologue; the 22 is the anniversary of the coronation of King Kerath.

    And that was it for this month. Please consider donating to keep the Cavern open!

    October ended with the CavFunding at 107% (CavCon 4.1) and the reserve at 346%, with no extra expenses. Population was at 42,273 (⇑284), with 1142 unique visits. Donations are back to normal.

    The next All Guilds Meeting is planned for Saturday, December 4 (Leevobro 7) at 13:00 KIT.

    Until then!

  • Mysterium 2021

    Mysterium 2021

    Like last year, the XXII Mysterium was held entirely online, on July 16–18, with the panels and presentations streamed to both Twitch and YouTube.

    Friday started at 18:00 KIT with Rand Miller playing through Myst and giving some insights in the design process. One highlight was the medallion on the planetarium door.

    At 19:00, it was time for the discussion rooms, this year held on the Mysterium Discord server, and for the marker missions in MOULa. You can still get them by PMing Mir-o-Bot (#32319) or MinBot (#9292763) the command “sendme 10800192” for the Red markers or “sendme 10801032” for the Blue ones. While you’re there, make sure to grab the Mysterium shirt in your Relto wardrobe, it won’t be available afterward!

    Saturday started at 8:30 KIT with a message from the Committee, giving some info on the organisation of this year’s convention.

    The first panel was at 9:00, with some members of the Myst IV: Revelation team: Meinert Hansen (Art Director/Sr. Concept Artist), Brian Wrench (Actor – Sirrus) and Geneviève Lord (Producer), discussing how Myst IV evolved in its looks, styles and immersive design.

    At 11:00 it was time for the Myst State of the Union panel, with Eric A. Anderson (Creative Director) and Hannah Gamiel (Development Director) presenting Cyan’s newly re-imagined version of Myst before its release for PC/VR and Mac.

    At 12:30 the Cyan Dev Team Q&A panel, with Abner Coimbre, Brandon Collins, Hannah Gamiel, Karl Johnson and Josh Van Veldhuizen discussing what it means to be a developer at Cyan and how they adapted to working from home.

    At 13:30 the Cyan Art Team Q&A panel, with Eric Anderson, Blake Bjerke, Jeremiah Castro, Autumn Palfenier and Derrick Robinson talking about how the look of a game is established and what inspiration they draw from in designing worlds.

    At 15:00 Vincent Weaver presented his Apple II Myst Demake, talking about the challenges involved with getting a fully playable version of Myst working on an 8-bit system from the 1970s, fitting on a reasonable number of floppy disks. To learn more (or try it yourself!), see Vince’s website.

    At 16:00 Chuck Carter (original Myst Artist) presented his reworking of the Selenitic Age for Unreal Engine 5, which will add some new twists (e.g. the maze ship is now destroyed). The redesign will have original music by Conductor/Composer Lucas Richman. You can follow Chuck on his website, Twitter and Instagram.

    At 17:00 it was time for the discussion rooms, with two focused chats beside open discussions: “Unwritten Character Workshop”, about creating a character for the Myst RPG, and “Dancing with Annacat”, to get some exercise after sitting and watching streams all day.

    Sunday started at 8:30 KIT with a message from the Committee, giving some info and announcing the location of Mysterium 2022, one that will give attendees the true Myst experience 😉

    The first panel was at 9:00, with Maxx Hirsch’s honors thesis “Finding Tomahna”, analyzing Myst as a product of American 1990s cultural movements and ideas, considering attitudes towards war, violence, new technology, reading, community, and diversity. You can read the full text here.

    At 1o:00 documentary filmmaker Phillip Shane gave an update and a sneak peek of the Myst Documentary, along with his collaborators Elana Bogdan, Will Cavendish, Rachel Kittner, Anais Michel, Katie Postma, Joshua Reinstein and Randy Woods. You can follow and support the development of the documentary on the official website.

    At 11:30 the Uru Worldbuilders Panel, with Eric Anderson, Mike Hines, Doug McBride, Steve Ogden and Bill Slease discussed about the original development of Uru, from DIRT and Mudpie up to the GameTap era.

    At 12:30 the MOULa Fan Development Panel, with Mark “Chogon” DeForest, Patrick “Doobes” Dulebohn, John “Marten” Johns, Adam “Hoikas” Johnson, Keith “Tweek” Lord, Darryl “dpogue/Paradox” Pogue and Paul “rarified” Richards discussed how fan developers and creators are keeping Uru alive and well, with client bugfixes, QoL improvements and new fan-made ages. To get involved, you can contact the OpenUru team (testing) on Discord, or the H’uru team (developing) on GitHub and IRC.

    At 14:00 the Unwritten Update panel with Veronica Hamilton gave some updates on the RPG and its role in Cyan Ventures, discussing the design and how it focuses on non-violent solutions. To learn more, visit the official website.

    At 15:00 it was time for Cyan Games Completed Rapidly, a round of speedrunning, with some unusual categories like Myst on the Apple II, and a few races.

    At 17:30 it was time for the discussion rooms, with no preset topics, and the Speedrun After Party, in which the speedrunners chatted with the attendees about the runs and racesfrom the panel.

    Thanks and kudos to the Mysterium Committee, who did a great job at organising and managing the event.

    Looking forward to next year!

  • Weekly news roundup

    • On Monday, Chogon has released some statistics about the CAVCON, and they do not look good. Donations have not been covering the server costs at least since June 2019. Various options are being discussed.
      (Click to see the CAVCON data)
      Month CavFunding
      		 CAVCON  equiv. Population Unique visits
      January 2020 41 % 1.4 32,253 1084
      December 2019 73 % 1.7 31,897 1020
      November 2019 52 % 1.5 31,682 1114
      October 2019 44 % 1.4 31,446 1016
      September 2019 31 % 1.3 31,157 990
      August 2019 35 % 1.3 30,932 N/A
      July 2019 27 % 1.3 30,717 N/A
      June 2019 42 % 1.4 30,438 N/A
    • Some of the tracks played at the Relaxing & Balancing Hour with Ghaelen, in the Guild of Healers’ Delin, are part of the Altus project (specifically Sleep Theory Volume 3 ) and free to download – but do support the artist!
    • With the announcement of Cyan Venture’s new project Area Man Lives by Numinous Games, clear evidences have emerged that an ARG is ongoing, starting with the address to KQV Radio that appears in the teaser. The mystery is being investigated on the #areamanlives channel of the OCC Discord server.
    • A new event has been launched on the Deep Island shard: a weekly exploration of fan Ages, every Monday at 13:00 KIT.

  • 20th Mysterium, Day 2

    The second day of Mysterium has come and gone, and what a day it was. If you could not be present, remember that you can follow the convention live on Twitch and Discord.

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