Here is the transcription of this interview. Thank you very much to CrisGer and Mara for their help ensuring its accuracy and readability. I hope the spoiler tags work...

[spoiler]
GWJ: So briefly, probably the first question is: so what happened?

Rand: (laughs) Oh my goodness. Umm... You know, Uru is a unique animal. I think that umm, just the way we tried to take the Myst franchise and do it online needed to be different, and I think the way we defined it early on was that was gonna be unique, and was going to take a large commitment of money to make content on a regular basis, and I don't know if publishers were ready for that. And so, and please believe me, we didn't do everything right; there were plenty of things we could have done differently as well, but I think at some point somebody will make some changes that will allow a more content based interactive online experience, um, work and work well.

GWJ: What do you mean by more content based one? Certainly, Blizzard would argue that they're content based.

Rand: Um...yeah I guess I look at Blizzard has content, but the goal of the game that you go in on a daily basis. To play the game is to level your character, and you see that in the content, but the purpose of the game is to level that character. I think that somebody is going to realize just that the other way that people are entertained, There is not any right or wrong way that people are entertained. It is very diverse, but one of the ways we are very used to in the United States is fresh content. I mean, we watch TV because we want to see fresh content. When the episodes of Lost go off for a while, so does the viewership. So if you can provide that same experience in an online world, where everyday I come back not just to level my character, to jump on the treadmill, but to see what might be new there today, I think there is a compliment there that is very intriguing.

GWJ: Yeah, I mean, one of the things that struck me about Uru, and also about the whole Myst series, is I know myself and other writers were drawn to the world, back however many years ago, because it was sort of one of the first examples we saw of storytelling without text, where we weren't being told a story in a sort of Lucas Arts adventure game mode. We were actually sort of trying to figure the story out by what was presented to us to explore and, you know, I think that one of the interesting things about Uru is that it almost seemed that Episodic was too structured. You almost wanted to have that stuff show up, like you said, every moment, you wanted there to be one new thing right in front of you.

Rand: Yeah I totally agree. I think that, umm, the constraints of budget were to kinda move you to an episodic route. Our goal at the very beginning of Uru, that was (you know we are talking many years ago), to truly have something intriguing every time you came back in, so as you are at school or work or something you are actually anticipating, wondering, "Hmm, I wonder if that waterfall will be open tonight or if there will be a new age there tonight I can, or if that one person who I met the other day will show up in that new spot of a character will perform something they said they were going to do." I mean all those things are content, and they're more story based content that I think a mass market audience would respond to. Unfortunately, that also takes tons and tons of money to create a never-ending supply of content, so the alternative to that is, since people are paying on a monthly basis, you just provide content that says once a month we'll give you something new. But I totally agree with you that the best way is to always keep people guessing, keep them wondering what's around the corner.

GWJ: So, I mean, do you think there is a failure of business model ingenuity in the industry here? Is there a new way to think about this? A lot of people are focused on either microtransactions or free but advertising based, or do you think there is another model other than simply pay for the content that might work here?


Rand: Yeah! I absolutely think there could be another model. Like I said, I don't think we had everything lined up the right way with Uru. I think we had a great idea, and I think the core of that concept of content is key, but how to get people to pay and how it works in the real business world is still something to be solved, and I don't know how…and to be honest with you, I think that it's something every medium has to deal with. When television was young, they had to figure out how to get people to pay for it and they went with the advertising route, and it became the norm, but we have ever since have been struggling with different alternatives to that, and what people will pay, and how much they'll pay, and how can we afford to put something new on television every night, and the same kind of ideas. So somebody may come up with a different route. I hope though that people don't look at Uru or Myst Online and think "oh well, I guess the idea of fresh content on a regular basis doesn't work," and I hope what they think is "well let's look at what they did right, what they did wrong; let's learn from it and see if we can learn from this, to take the idea of content and see if we can be successful there.

GWJ: I mean one of the things that's interesting is that there are plenty of other MMOs obviously out there that release content on a fairly regular basis, and folks like particular games that come from very story rich environments, like Lord of the Rings online. Obviously they have this huge mythos to explore, so they have tried to make that very very much about every month or two - have tried to dribble new stuff in, but the place bell is, as you said, very methodical and very traditional. Do you see how, I mean, there are not a lot of games out right now, or popular in the last five years, that have the explore and experience pathing that Myst had, or Riven, or any of the ones after it, and as a huge fan of the series, I somewhat lament that, and whether you call that adventure gaming or not, do you think that has that been replaced, is there just a generation of gamers that just doesn't care?

Rand: You know what, I think that it's just too expensive at this point. For Myst or otherwise. Our point with Myst was, and this is something we had trouble with when we first made Myst, we are going to make a game where you don't die, you don't really have a traditional gameplay system. You, in fact what we are going to do is build enough content, we are going to build enough original content, so you can actually feel like you got your money's worth buying this game. We are not going to use the traditional friction of repetitive game play or leveling to try and get more game play out of it. We are going to try to build a pure place to try to get your money's worth. It was a couple guys in a garage and it managed to work. The idea behind Myst Online was that we ought to be able to do that on a regular basis. We ought to be able to provide another age, and another age, and another age, and your exploration. The idea of you exploring your world or having an adventure in a world should never end. Now, I don't think that one type of game play is better than another, but I think there is something easier about doing the treadmilling because it's so well defined, and believe me I play World of Warcraft, like it. There is something really intriguing about it. It's a different kind of entertainment; it's more of competing with other people or competing with myself. It is satisfying in a different way. I think that what's appealing about Myst and the series in particular is I feel like I am in a real place, and I do wonder what is around the corner, and I do wonder how I am going to get there and what is going to be revealed and who came here before me, and it feels like I am taking part in a story instead of a competition.

GWJ: Right. And clearly one of the things that's so enticing about the worlds of Myst is the depth of the story, and certainly the books that came out very much exposed that that carried the feeling of exploration in a more personal way, but how much of that can be carried forward. There is a tremendous community obviously behind the Myst online idea, and that community seems like it wants to grab onto something, and certainly the story of Uru, the arc that it went through as a game before it finally came out, sort of shows the power of the community just never letting go (…). (Rand: That's right.) Is there another chapter in this story or do you sort of feel like you need to move onto something new?

Rand: Yeah, actually I have mixed emotions. It's…I don't want to be part of a game that wouldn't die kind of situation. But at the same time I feel the same way as some of the community members, like we've grown to love this thing. We have contributed countless hours to the design of it, well beyond what people have seen the background story, and the design of architecture, and the history, and all the things we built to keep a very consistent story line that we were excited to do. And we always anticipated that, little by little, that would continue to dribble out in this story. So some of the story that never ends, or game that never ends, you know, is maybe because it's so big there was a lot to keep coming. Now, all that said, the most intriguing aspect of all this to me is I think that the whole mythology of Myst is about people writing worlds. Was about somehow these people were empowered to start making their own places. And we have for a long time had some sort of dream that at some point people would be making their own ages to contribute to this universe, this Myst universe. Now that doesn't solve all your problems, but it opens up some really interesting opportunities, and boy, a whole huge discussion as well. But anyway, a long way of saying that we would love to see that happen now. We have a lot invested in this engine and the 3D technology and the artwork, and I suppose at this point it would be nice just not to see it go to waste, so we are still pursuing trying to open that up and see what happens if you throw open the doors to that.

GWJ: Right and I assume that your publishing relationship with Turner leaves you with all the rights to do that sort of stuff as you choose, right?

Rand: No, I mean, not really. To a certain extent Myst Online or Uru was sort of dead in the water before and Turner jumped in through GameTap and kinda resurrected it, so a lot of rights passed their directions and they put money into it as well. So we are still talking with them to get enough rights back in the right way that everybody's happy and nobody's afraid that if in some crazy way if the game takes off, that Turner's not left going, "wait a minute, what did we do". You want to protect your interests, especially after you've invested in something, but by the same token, if you just let it die you have no chance of making anything with it. So somewhere in there is the right balance, and we would love to convince them we can open this thing up and at least leave the door open for it to resurrect again in a different way yet again, and see what happens.

GWJ: Yeah, I mean there has been a lot of community sort of crying for, "Let us put up our own server," which I think has happened every time an MMO has either died or started to fail. Even with games like Auto Assault there was a die hard community that really wanted the game. They were willing to go buy a server and stick it in a server farm so that they could keep playing. So the idea that kind of thing is possible, and possibly even expandable, by giving the people the tools to make the game is very intriguing. That implies a lot of funding to me.

Rand: It's a lot of funding, but it's surprising sometimes what happens when you have a small group that wants to continue a dream. Sometimes the amount of server and bandwidth stuff you need is surprisingly small, especially these days, with the cost of servers and bandwidth continuing going down. So it's possible that something like that happens, that the idea that the masses are working on something instead of just a few people behind closed doors. I think you get a lot of bang for your buck that way and, unfortunately, it is not always the best, but every now and then the jewels come out and you still provide an expanding universe which is what to me Myst was always all about, for people to explore.

GJW: So, but at this point obviously you are not in a position to say, "This is what's next for Cyan Worlds!"

Rand: Oh no. I actually I wish I could nail it down. I wish I had that all nailed down. We're still talking, we're still trying to figure it out. We put a lot of our eggs in the Myst and Uru basket, but we still have got some other ideas that we would love to try to build, too, that are unrelated to Myst in any way. So we have a few of those with publishers and let's face it, this industry is tough and you are as good as your last product. You build it, and you get a publisher to fund it if you can. And there is not (houses)? little independent developers who are kinda in the middle of nowhere and who do their thing. We may be…we'll see, we'll see what the next project is. And some of that will be out of our hands, frankly.

GWJ: I mean are you going to be able to…I mean do you have any plans to keep the community going? I know that there is an annual convention. I think that it is in Boston this year. What can...are you going to try to sort of actively keep that alive for the next project? Or, what can you do in that regard?

Rand: Yeah! We have got some of the best fans in the world. I can't believe the fans we have. It's crazy. the fans give us pizza parties in the office. It truly is amazing. They're wonderful. It is a small group of people who really have invested, you know, not monetarily, but timewise, in all the things we have designed, and I would like nothing better than to keep it going. A lot of them are friends, a lot of them feel like family sometimes, and seeing them once a year, getting together once a year, or helping with that, is certainly a good thing to do. Now to me the thing that keeps it going is having the place, the virtual space, where everybody stays together. So that will be a key component, if it can exist beyond that virtual space being there for very long, I don't know. I don't know.

GWJ: Yeah it seems like there would be something of a half life there. Only so much time can go by. That was one of the amazing things about the interim period that Myst Online went through, where it was going to be a game, then it wasn't going to be a game, then it came back, was that that community seemed to stay sort of frothed up.

Rand: Yeah, it's true and it was interesting, because when we came back they came from all over. It was like the gathering. A lot of people had gone to There or Second Life or other smaller, more social oriented online universes, and a lot of people came back from those to Myst Online when it came back. Maybe they'll do it again. I don't know if it'll come back again. I tend to think that if it comes back again it would truly have to be something more open at this point. I think people would actually respond to that favorably. They love it, they want to contribute to it, and if we had some way for them to do it, that would be the most intriguing thing.

GWJ: I mean that sort of sounds a little bit like Second Life. I mean sort of, you know, user-generated content. Have you played around in there very much or do you have (…) experience with that?

Rand: Yeah, yeah. In a lot of ways, I think it is Second Life. I think that what Second Life lacks is, (this is going to sound a bit of a critique) a lot of people will like this, but I think what it lacks is some sort of government. This sounds sort of odd, but a governing body of some sort is not always that bad. I really don't want to get into politics because it's terrible. Helps keep the world in a good state. So the interesting thing about Myst Online is there is a history, there is an old government way that is set up, and there are people who are ready to take that on. And the way I see that working is that not everybody gets to make their content in completely anarchistic ways. You make content and submit it. It is approved by somebody, and it is tested by the same rules and regulations that were a part of this D'ni culture and history that we have sort of educated everybody on, and it if fits, it is added to the content base, by the community. It's built by the community and controlled by the community, which is kinda an interesting concept.

GWJ: Yeah, yeah. I mean it sounds like a world I'd love to play in. You know, it sounds like a world that would be interesting and evolving, and my experience with Second Life hasn't really been that. It's been a bit too much Wild West.

Rand: Yeah yeah. And granted, I don't want to diss Second Life, because they have some really cool things going on there. I just think that it really is, a lot of it is out of control, and some of it is by design. They want to see what happens. It's a big sandbox to see what people will do. But I think if you, as an iteration, or as the next phase, or as an alternative to Myst Online having someone who governs that more, and even having parties that are set up to set aside portions of design having parties to is not a bad thing. Having the government to say this area is going to be a park, and this area is going to be an opera house, and we need somebody to design those things specifically, I don't think that's all that bad.

GWJ: Yeah. I can see that. It allows some level of structure to exist, and it falls somewhere in between the world that is handed to you by Blizzard, and the world that rises from the chaos of something like Second Life. I can see that being compelling.

Rand: Yeah, yeah something in between where you've got free roads and parks that are designed, but you can get some places that are designed by other people that might surprise you by what they've done.

GWJ: Well, you know I wish you all the success in creating that for me.

Rand: You know, I may not jump into that right away. We'll take a little breather and we'll see if we can stay around a little bit longer as a company, and we'll see what happens with the rights, and we'll see what happens with the fans, and uh, but boy, I have long stopped trying to guess what'll happen next with Myst and Myst Online. It's kinda got a mind of it's own, a life of it's own. Yeah, and to be honest with you, sometimes, in some ways, things have to die before they can be resurrected in a different way, and you never you learn from it, and you move on, and sometimes things end up a little bit better the next time around.
[/spoiler]

Thanks for posting the transcription.
I listened to Rand's interview and he is definitely grounded in reality about the failure of this project. He knows that he has a unique product that borders on the edge of being "too unique" in the MMO world. Warcraft and others have built in leveling which fills the user with both goals and accomplishments. Those are run on "competition based gameplay" and Rand wants an MMO that is a "content based gameplay". The inherent problem in that design is the need for a constant stream of content that cannot be maintained based on the subscription numbers. It was difficult for them to fill 4-5 days every 5 weeks with content that would make a subcription worth the money.

People are complaining that they should have given it a second season before making a decision. If you had your money in a stock that was losing your money and projected to lose you more money, most if not all of you would get out of that stock. You don't hold on to it for sentimental reasons. I've been involved in starting up of a niche record label and it's rough work. Your investors have to acept that it takes time to catch on and will most likely lose money in first few years. However, you have to be willing to pump money in to make it inticing to people. If something looks like it's failing, people aren't very likely to pay attention or join up. It's a real sink or swim approach and URU Live was wading into the water one toe at a time. The fatal mistake in this plan was not hitting the ground running. There should have been prepared ages in the pipeline for the first season so that there was a Minkata type age every month. They also needed cinamatics, voice acting and things to tie together ongoing events and storylines so that you didn't feel like you were walking into a party without an invitation. There was no way to know about past events except for user message boards of people who logged events.

Uru was cancelled because they didn't believe that it's earnings could ever match up with the overhead costs. The only way this could ever work again was if they came back with an explosion of new content and kept up the pace, and advertised to the right people. It's still a risk because the cooperation aspect works against them and eats up content and playing hours faster than a competitive MMO. Rand admits that there were mistakes made on both sides that may have doomed this project from the start. After 2 failures, it's going to be a while before another investor would want to take this to a wide market. On top of all this, the engine is falling out of date very quickly, so the graphics would need to be redone before it can be tried again. The only alternative is a small user-run community on a limited server with story and content approved by Cyan. Things are getting cheaper so it's possible if the right holders can agree with "art for art's sake". If that doesn't pan out, unfortunately, I think it's going to be a long wait for another shot at a Myst MMO.

I must respectfully say that i feel that the evolution of MOUL and URU has been right on the money and right in line with the philosophy of Cyan and many many of us in terms of quality and time taken to develop.

I would NOT after years spent studying over 700 CGI games and learning the basics and intricacies of game developement and design and having been a creative professional for 39 years say anything about Cyan or URU or MOUL was any kind of failure at all in anyway. It was and is rather a brilliant accomplishment and continues to evolve and deepen in quality, and amazing beauty at every level.

I look forward with great interest to a speedy return to the Cavern and a continuation of the wonders of our shared Journey.

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URU MOUL Lives

There is nothing wrong with URU. The fact that Cyan cannot make the worlds fast enough to make regular content contributions does not mean that URU has failed. The business model may have failed, but URU still keeps me coming back wanting more.

I will keep my fingers crossed.

Thanks for the post!

Nivlaek

Thanks again, Generator, for the transcription.

I am very ambivalent about the closure of MO:UL. In many ways, as someone who is most satisfied by role playing, I found it to be potentially great but actually frustrating. I never found where the RP was going on, and the few instances I ever saw of people trying to act IC, they weren't really engaging the (consistently beautiful) environment.

MO:UL's closing almost makes me want to go ahead with building a D’ni Ae’gura-based MUX, a place where writing worlds could be actually writing; however, as long as Cyan sees the potential to restart URU, I don't see how. Setting up some sort of "alternate universe cavern" seems like a bad idea. I doubt that Cyan would allow it under a FCA agreement, and I wouldn't blame them for not doing so.

So, waiting and seeing here, but I don't expect anything to hear either "This is the end of things" or "We will be back in X months" any time soon.

Generator,

THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH FOR THE TRANSCRIPTION!!!

Christine

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the journey begins again . . .

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MOUL KI: 174162

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Grand Master
Guild of Archivists
http://www.dpwr.net

Thoughtful points Alah, thanks.

URU MOUL is a magnificent Eagle that is gaining strength to fly.....give it wings and it will and we along with it.

Analysis is interesting, i will devote what evergy i can to helping us all continue until Cyan feels the time is right for contining. I am sure that the story and the energy of URU are fine, the modern game market is deeply flawed by simplstic and violence oriented games that merely continue the struggle of the selfish jungle that daily life is increasingly becoming. If i wanted to continue that fruitless struggle i would go to the mall or to any city street instead of into MOUL.

thank you Rand and Cyan for being true to a vision that is true, valueable and worthy of your talents and thank you to all of us who stand by them.

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URU MOUL Lives

Great analysis Alahmnat, really interesting - enjoyed and appreciated it. I'm not a fan of live players filling character roles (prefer AI, computer generated characters to advance the story) - but the way you describe it, it makes a lot of sense. I also liked the part about ages needing to roll out, as well as repeatable content. To me, repeatable content is the biggie - I think that Uru needs to provide things to do in the game, apart from solving puzzles to open up new ages, and to (sometimes) advance the story.

It will be interesting to see what happens. I do think that, to have the "original Uru", with all that content , it's unrealistic at this time. I'm hoping for an Uru, with, at a minimum , fan ages and some content, then, maybe later - Uru big time.

I don't think the game industry is flawed, not at all. There are games out there I like, both some big selling games, and some smaller games, though I always want more games I want to play. I also want Uru.

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Retired forum mod, mszv, amarez in Uru (KI 89257), other online games
Blog - http://www.amarez.com, Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/amareze

Last edited by mszv on Wed Apr 16, 2008 7:03 am; edited 1 time in total

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MOUL KI: 174162

I read Alahmnat's post again, carefully. It doesn't seem to me that we are going to get the online Uru that was originally planned, anytime soon - given the fact that the game was cancelled by publishers twice. If you do it the way it was going to be done, original plan, it will need massive amounts of money and time. I know this community is all about hope, but it doesn't seem like a grass roots thing to me. To use an analogy - you don't get a Lord of the Rings movie triology with an indie budget.

That doesn't mean that other versions of online Uru can't happen. I'm thinking (guessing actually) that, assuming the publisher rights get worked out - we'll get a different Uru, one with fan ages and maybe a little tiny bit of content from Cyan. It's not the Uru I signed up for, but hey, it's Uru. I would like to see fan ages. I could live with that!

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Retired forum mod, mszv, amarez in Uru (KI 89257), other online games
Blog - http://www.amarez.com, Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/amareze

Last edited by mszv on Wed Apr 16, 2008 10:46 pm; edited 1 time in total

Alahmnat wrote:

The problem is that with Uru, all of the pieces have to be in place before hitting the pavement, or the wheels just start flying off. Content has to roll out regularly and substantially (and ideally have some degree of replayability); players need other things to do to keep them entertained and playing the game; story has to be easily discoverable and accessible to everyone in-game; people-controlled NPCs have to be fixtures of the game, and not guest stars.

Thanks for the response, Alahmnat. The thing I forgot to mention in my post which you hit on was the replayability factor not being there. Once you solve a puzzle you can't solve it again, unless it has multiple solutions, which these puzzles did not have. The essence of Myst does not have a replayable quality to it. Of course, you'll want to play the games again, but usually not until a few years have passed. So in addition to the regular Myst-type puzzles, they need to write good sandbox ages (NOT LIKE JALAK) that can be played with multiple players. It's the only way to keep people coming back instead of solving the monthly age and then leaving for 5 weeks. I felt no sense of community in the game because there were more reasons to come to these forums than there were to randomly sign on to URU. It's a problem I believe they would have worked out if they had the time or money, but I think Cyan knew there was a good possibility of being cancelled far before the end of season. You can get a feeling from your investors that they're getting impatient and ready to pull the plug. I think the decision to end it was being made by GT about six months into the project. It just cost them too much money and didn't bring in the subscriber base they wanted.

Great interview! Thanks so much for it and the transcript.

What Cyan could do is release a free version (doesn't have to be as good as theirs) of the program they use to make the Ages (just adding models, textures, etc. in, not actual model creation. I'm thinking along the lines of Forge in Halo 3 with this, but without limitations on what can be placed there, and without the ability to import the Age into the game, to prevent possible hacking, errors, etc.), let the fans create Ages, and then at regular intervals, work with the one(s) they like the best and try to get it (them) all perfected and ready to be released as some of the smaller Ages that don't have a multiple Age storyline to them. Sort of like Until Uru, except Cyan is part of it this time.
Every so often, the accepting of Ages will be temporarily suspended, and Cyan comes out with a big release of a major addition to the story (like Ages Beyond Myst, To D'ni, and Path of the Shell were) resulting in some change in the Cavern, bevin, or another Age. (and possibly having multiple endings, so each user has a different end result, none of which involve death or dead ends where you have to start all over at the Cleft again...)

Also what could happen with it is each Relto is unique and will change based on the actions you do ingame (different scenery, weather, possibly clothing, etc.) This would probably only work with a multiple-ending storyline, though...

edit: this would only work if another publisher picks up Uru, though...