URU/Myst Beta Info's

[Dhel]

Hey

I thought i'll start a thread about URU and Myst Beta stuff. URU and the Myst series are Games by Cyan Worlds (also known as Cyan Inc. or simply referred as Cyan).

They made Myst in 1993, and it kinda changed the gaming industry. Sadly, there arent really any Beta pics or anything else of Myst.

Riven, the Sequel to Myst , came out in 1997. I searched a long time, but couldnt find any real Beta stuff for that also...

In 1997, they then started working on something called "Mudpie" (Multi User D'ni Player Interactive(?) Environment), which is today known as URU. Now for URU, theres quite some Beta stuff available.

The URU Multiplayer Beta (aka "Choru") began in early 2002 with a few selected people in it (Their names are in the URU Credits).

The only known Choru Beta pics can be found here: [url]http://bit.ly/auyFgP[/url]

On the BetaTube, theres also a Video of a very early version of Mudpie, thanks to hogsy for uploading it

[Dhel]

In realMYST, which came out in 2000 and was a test of the Plasma Engine (Plasma1 was used for realMYST, URU uses Plasma2), there were 2 easter eggs, that revealed Screenshots of either early versions of the URU Worlds, or unreleased Worlds.

One of them is named "Vika", those are the only 5 screenshots available of this world:


It is unknown if this was a planned World for "URU Live", or if it was just a Test. Also, it hasnt been leaked yet...

[hogsy]

Woah that looks interesting! I doubt that would have just been a test world

[Suumpmolk]

bit too small images

[lucas93]

But that size was like HD back in the day

[Suumpmolk]

not realy

800x600 was like HD

DOS games resolution was 600x450 if im not mistaken (forgot correct dimensions)

[Rixel]

Maybe offtopic, but weren't they supposed to release URU as open source, I know they were working on it, does anyone know if it was released?

[Dhel]

bit too small images

You're right
Here's how those pictures have been discovered:
In realMYST, their first "Testgame" based on the Plasma 1 Engine, there are 2 easter egg videos, "huevo.avi" and "vika.avi". Huevo contained various Images of Cyan employees, Images of early URU versions and some Riven screenshots (or one actually LOL). Vika contained the Images above. They're encrypted in some strange way which i couldnt figure out yet. And the size of those Pictures is the size of the source video. And that's why they are so tiny

Maybe offtopic, but weren't they supposed to release URU as open source, I know they were working on it, does anyone know if it was released?

Open Source URU has been announced in late 2009, but so far we've only seen some Age making plugins for 3DS Max and the Source for the Animations and the KI. My guess it that it'll take some more time before its going to be released (IF it ever comes that is...)

[elrawen]

what about atlantis?
same date to not sure. awesome graphics for that time
same makers like myst i think.

a example of atlantis the lost tales also 1997

http://www.cdaccess.com/gifs/screen/atlanlt1b.jpg

[Rixel]

Atlantis, though it does seem very Myst-esque, wasn't made by Cyan, it was made by a company called Cryo Interactive, I think they were probably trying to get in on the Myst craze at the time.

There may be a beta, but the company no longer exists (merged with publisher), and the game was panned for being annoying in the way you interacted with people.

Interestingly both got a Saturn release, along with PC, ps1, etc. There were a couple sequels so it is very similar to Myst.

[elrawen]

yeah it's by cryo

still atlantis is hard to get.
i got the game but don't find the cd's

[klaiser]

[pictures]
It is unknown if this was a planned World for "URU Live", or if it was just a Test. Also, it hasnt been leaked yet...

looks like an underwater world but i think its an jungle world maybe thats why they canned this part of game? interessting, thank you for the pictures.

[Dhel]

here's one more official picture of "Kiva":

[1PlayerD]

I could make a game demo of Vika, set up the pictures and such in a order. If there is enough.

[Dhel]

I could make a game demo of Vika, set up the pictures and such in a order. If there is enough.

Well, above, i posted all the Pictures i have of that Age..There aren't any others. If you wanna try to re-create it, go ahead

[Dhel]

Hey guys
After some silence, i decided to update this thread with some more pictures
I recently got my hands on some early Myst and Riven screenshots, which i will post veery soon here too, but for now, enjoy these early URU screens



Those are from an ad of the Westwood College. No one really knows the whole ad, as no one's willing to share it..it appears to be about game design, and Cyan gave them some of their footage to use.
The first four screens show the age of Eder Gira apparently, but it can also be a very early version of the cleft..as the lighting is different in the first two, it could very well be that those are seperate ages, but thats all speculation.
The last two show the Descent, the entry to D'ni from the surface.
that's all for now..now to sort out these Myst/Riven screenies! *woosh*

[Dhel]

here's more, very rare stuff! this time, its all about Myst IV..but this is not about the game that Ubisoft made..
It's about the cancelled title by Dreamforge. Its work title: "Myst IV: Adventure beyond the D'ni Ultraworld".

Dreamforge started working on this in ca. 2000 i guess..shortly before Ubisoft took over the rights of it.
Mattel Interactive, former rightsholder for Myst 4, hired Dreamforge to make this game..
sadly it didnt come far..according to Patrick Fortier, Ubisoft's Creative Director of Myst IV, the game's concept was done 100% with a running game done about 20%. It was supposed to be in realtime 3d, other than Ubi's version.

Screenshots and Videos of this game are rare to find these days, but i got my hands on 14 Videos of it!
http://vimeo.com/user6030676/videos (Uploaded on Vimeo, because of Youtube's quality..)

I got tons of screenshots of this too, but posting them would make this thread explode..here are 3 of them

[dezodor]

Some more screens and videos can be found on David Locke's (he was the head R&D artist on Myst IV) site about the old Myst IV, when it was still 3d.

http://pixelosity.net/myst/myst.html

the site is cool, David added personal comments to almost all screens

[Dhel]

thankies for posting the link didn't have it in my bookmarks anymore XD

[n2607]

Hmmm... I was in the URU beta test.... I surely have some screenshots on whichever machine I used at that time... but it would take me quite some time to track down the screenshots. I certainly would have taken tons of screenshots as I was very excited to be playing the beta. Only problem is that the performance was terrible on my machine so I didn't play nearly as much as I wanted to.

[Dhel]

Hmmm... I was in the URU beta test.... I surely have some screenshots on whichever machine I used at that time... but it would take me quite some time to track down the screenshots. I certainly would have taken tons of screenshots as I was very excited to be playing the beta. Only problem is that the performance was terrible on my machine so I didn't play nearly as much as I wanted to.

It would be awesome if you could dig out those shots It's really an interesting thing to see how totally different the early versions of URU were..You had the closet with you all the time, as a little bar on the bottom of the screen!







And here's another early screenshot of the Eder Gira age. This is the only (public) screenshot, that shows a skeleton in the 2nd part of the age (after you jump over the stones, near the waterfalls)