I recently re-read a book I got back some years ago. The book really made me believe in games again, im not going to go into it too much, but the book was "from myst to riven" those of you how have read it, will likely agree its a stunning book, even now its full of insights and inspiration.
But dear Cyan, why not publish a new book, "from riven to uru" aside from the creative genius, you have been around for so long, you have experience which is unique, and your view on world building is simply phenomenal.

I'm sure, a look into what went on behind the scenes, in a format like "from myst to riven", would be recived with great anticipation.

Lars

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Back during 2004 there was some talk about it, unfortunately for a reason or another the project never saw the light of day. That's too bad because it had the potential to be a great book.

I suggested a reissue of "From Myst to Riven" but I guess that's not happening either.

The book is kind of a collector's item now and sells at really high prices.

If Cyan were to print a new batch of that book, it could sell well. Not a huge number of copies, of course, but some.

That would be good news for all the people who can't find a copy of it, and bad news for those (like me) who have one and recognize its market value.

But I still endorse the idea of a reprint.

As for making-of materials for Uru, have you seen the end section of Prima's game guide for Complete Chronicles?

It has over 100 pages of full-color behind-the-scenes content.

If somebody wants to make a book on the story of Uru, take that book into account.

The CC guide, for some reason, does not cover the making of POTS, and of course doesn't cover MO:UL. So there's a lot that could be added onto it. You could make a second Uru book, basically, covering the span of Cyan work from POTS to MO:UL, and covering the old stuff again, too, in a way that isn't plagiarism of Prima's work.

I know that there have been some good fan-Cyan inititiatives in the past. This could potentially be another one, if anybody feels up to the challenge.

I can imagine this turning out a lot like MystWear - That is, fans create and sell the product, and Cyan gets a cut of all sales.

Book-on-demand or self-publishing are a really viable option nowadays, get several of the best fan graphic designers and writers over to Cyan and interview everybody about Uru in all its forms. Take cameras. Take loads of pics of everything. Contact the Cyan staffers who worked on MO:UL but are no longer part of Cyan. Get lots of material, and then compile it into a book. Then start selling it online.

You could probably sell maybe 5000 copies around this fanbase, possibly more.

Just a thought. It's not something major publishers would want to touch right now - the fanbase is too small - but fans who want to self-publish could do pretty well making an Uru book.

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Matthew L. Hornbostel, creator of Panoramic Worlds,
a Myst fansite , and
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That's a pretty cool idea. Sounds totally doable, and would make for some interesting activity while waiting for MORE.
You should start pitching it on the various forums..

Sounds like an inspiring idea - I have read more than a few games design books and making ofs, always a treat to learn about the magic behind the magic. However, I live nowhere near any of the team members, and an Internet based interview scheme would lack a certain viability, especially with no real images to add.
An interesting project, if anyone takes it up.

Shevek

[sorry - error, accidental double post]

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Matthew L. Hornbostel, creator of Panoramic Worlds,
a Myst fansite , and
various other stuff.

Last edited by matthornb on Thu Sep 25, 2008 2:32 am; edited 1 time in total

The project would of course depend on having some people in the book creation team who live near Cyan. I imagine we have some people in this community who do. In any case, a lot of the people who have worked at Cyan are working in other places right now - like Josh Staub for Disney - so interviews could likely be arranged - indeed, would have to be - in more locations than just Spokane.

I'd volunteer if I weren't so busy right now. Not to go to Spokane (though that would be awesome) but to work on the book in some way.

Maybe I will at some point, but not right now.

As for getting pictures, I'd like to see stories of how all of the production took place, images taken at Cyan HQ, images of the staff, images from Uru, and lots of material from the production of the game - wireframes, screencaps of the production stuff and preproduction work (Vika?) and the visual concepts that never made it into Uru for lack of financing.

It's stuff like that that makes a book like this special, the things that you don't know about if you're just looking at the game itself.

We can split it into chapters, covering the different phases of Uru's creation, births and rebirths, and finally ending with a section on MO:RE and showing the best UCC that has been released by the time of publishing and the future of Uru as a (primarily) fan-run game with limited Cyan involvement.

I'd like to go full-color on this, make it a reasonably nice coffee-table book like From Myst to Riven was.

I don't want to make it as physically large as that book though, I think somewhat smaller font and more average-sized pages (but a lot of pages!) would be good. The idea is to pack in a large amount of imagery and information without going overboard on printing costs per copy.

Just some thoughts...

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Matthew L. Hornbostel, creator of Panoramic Worlds,
a Myst fansite , and
various other stuff.

I'd buy a copy. maybe put it up in like an order type thing on the cyan website. heck, id get both!

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Wow, that's actually a pretty cool idea - such a shame that it's posted here in the never-read suggestions board!

A "making of" book made by fans - that's EXACTLY the kind of stuff I'd like to read. It often annoys me that the guys who make these sorts of books or interview the developers don't really have any in-depth knowledge of the game, so their questions are irrelevant to the fanbase and the things they write are often innacurate. But a book made by fans would be as close to perfection as it gets! I wholeheartedly support this idea.

As for who would do the field work - I know there are some fans who live in the area, but there's also the possibility of organizing a trip to Cyan's HQ in order to collect the material. Those who flew to Spokane would have part of the profits to cover their expenses.

We should pitch this idea to Cyan; when I have more free time I'll try to write a proposal that sums up all these ideas. Anyone willing to help is welcome, specially as I'm not a native English speaker.

Actually I hope the "from riven to uru" (awesome name by the way) would be written only by Cyan Worlds. We don't know enough to make it interesting, and I bet many of us read most of the info on the net or whatever.

Though if we take material from Cyan Worlds... nah, I still think they should do it. Remember there is also the image part: many people would like to buy an "official" book rather than fan-made.

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Previously known as "The stranger"

larsdidriksen wrote:

I recently re-read a book I got back some years ago. The book really made me believe in games again, im not going to go into it too much, but the book was "from myst to riven" those of you how have read it, will likely agree its a stunning book, even now its full of insights and inspiration.
But dear Cyan, why not publish a new book, "from riven to uru" aside from the creative genius, you have been around for so long, you have experience which is unique, and your view on world building is simply phenomenal.

I'm sure, a look into what went on behind the scenes, in a format like "from myst to riven", would be recived with great anticipation.

Lars

It may sound stupid, but why not develope a fan created book? Just a thought!

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I thought about that. I took a look at my Myst folder, and it contains a huge amount of images sketches etc. but A lot of it was not released, and needs a confirmed story from a reliable source before doing anything with it. Also there would be need of a license of some sort and quite a lot of the images are rare (well at least i haven’t seen them more then a few times, at best, and even then they disappeared pretty fast) Im properly not allowed to post them in any form. But I would surely be happy to help any such effort, if the above could be resovled.

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The stranger wrote:

Actually I hope the "from riven to uru" (awesome name by the way) would be written only by Cyan Worlds. We don't know enough to make it interesting, and I bet many of us read most of the info on the net or whatever.

It's unlikely that Cyan will have enough time to do this by themselves anytime soon; that's why I suggest we assemble a team of fans willing to go there and have some in-depth discussions with the Cyantists (whenever they are free) and possibly to get a behind the scenes looks at Uru, so that they could compose a book without the need to burden Cyan further.

chrissifniotis wrote:

It may sound stupid, but why not develope a fan created book? Just a thought!

The problem with that is that it wouldn't contain any material that wasn't already released to the general public

larsdidriksen wrote:

I thought about that. I took a look at my Myst folder, and it contains a huge amount of images sketches etc. but A lot of it was not released, and needs a confirmed story from a reliable source before doing anything with it. Also there would be need of a license of some sort and quite a lot of the images are rare (well at least i haven’t seen them more then a few times, at best, and even then they disappeared pretty fast) Im properly not allowed to post them in any form. But I would surely be happy to help any such effort, if the above could be resovled.

Hmmm, what do you mean by "images that weren't released" and "rare images"? Do you happen to have any kind of inside connections?

As far as I know, most of what has been released to the public is available at galleries like the one at DPWR or Uru Obsession (which is down at the moment, though)

Quote:

Hmmm, what do you mean by "images that weren't released" and "rare images"? Do you happen to have any kind of inside connections?

sadly no.
I do however have a tendency to go rummaging through Google cache and otherwise saving every image i come a cross. Also there were a lot of images on myst3 4 and 5 forum that didn’t show up here, most were later taken down. Some have come up again here and there but there are still some that haven’t. I was also lucky enogh to get hold of the Uru press kit for the original boxed game, that one showed concept art from places that showed up in Myst V and places i cant even begin to imagine where are from. I posted an image on the forum once, but ill go find it again hang on

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Story wise i think the games would go

Myst-->Riven-->MystIII Exile-->Myst IV Revelation-->Uru Ages Beyond Myst-->Myst V End of Ages

and thinking that makes me wonder why it would be "from Riven to Uru" and not "from Riven to Exile"

I figured out the timeline by how old Yeesha is in each game