MOULa 10th Anniversary Celebrations
Minasunda was first, with a reminder to register to the three events of the celebrations that require it: the Door Run Quest, the Fashion Show Quest and the Magic Dance.
She also had another important note about the Door Run Quest: occasionally the gate seems broken, some players cannot see the symbols, while others can. After extensive experimenting, the conclusion was that this happens when using an internal client. It is therefore recommended to play with the standard client.
Also, some events are likely to be disrupted by using the bot. Please avoid using an internal client and avoid using magic commands, in order to prevent malfunctions, lag or crashes.
An outline of the celebration events is available on the MOULa forum thread, or in our dedicated post.
Cavern Tour
Among the celebration events there is the second Cavern Tour of 2020, on Saturday 8, 11:00–12:45 KIT, starting in the Cavern Tour’s Hood for a brief orientation. CT Hostess Susa’n was on stage to announce the date and answer some questions.
The first tour gathered 43 participants. The tours occasionally visit hard to reach places (but not places like e.g. Kerath’s Arch). Mir-o-Bot (KI# 32319) is employed for special effects and long-distance travel (and to avoid stairs). If you arrive late, you can PM Susa’n (KI# 9122427) to join the in-progress tour (but do try to arrive in time).
D’ni Language Classes
Shokhootahn Rehn is still putting things away and finding homes for everything after his recent move. So there will be no daytime classes until sometime in Spring. Nighttime classes are unaffected.
Details 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 Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights, starting at 20:00 or 21:00 KIT, depending on the student’s schedule;
- the left-hand imager and Magic Bot are employed to announce last-minute changes to class times: to get notified, add the bot as a buddy (KI# 27527), then send him a PM with the word “advert”. If Magic Bot is not online, you can send a PM to Mimi Bot (KI# 71459).
r’Tayrtahn’s Story Nights
Story Nights and Story Nights – Europe are now at the same stage. They are continuing with the story arc of the D’ni kings, and will continue for the next 26 weeks.
Next week’s Story Night – Europe is part of the celebrations for the 10th anniversary of MOULa, with a special story of the Restoration. The event will be held in Mir-o-Bot’s Baron’s Office and will start at (or after) 14:30 KIT.
Details about the Story Nights (click to expand)
- Story Nights are held in Tsahno’s Hood every Saturday night, 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 14:30 KIT or 30 minutes after the end of the meeting;
- 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;
- Magic Bot is employed to announce last-minute changes to Story Night times: to get notified, add him as a buddy (KI# 27527), then send him a PM with the word “advert”. If Magic Bot is not online, you can send a PM to Mimi Bot (KI# 71459).
Cyan social media pages
On late January, Cyan announced their decision to retire a bunch of social media pages: Myst, Obduction and Firmament on Facebook; Myst, Obduction and Firmament on Twitter; Myst and Firmament on Instagram.
All the news will from now on come only from their main social media pages on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
The given rationale is that Cyan has a small team, and an even smaller subset of the team is responsible for PR. Time spent managing social media is time spent not working on game development. So, to avoid stretching their resources, they decided to limit the number of channels they use and monitor.
Fan-managed websites, pages, groups and forums are of course not affected, as Cyan is not directly involved in their management. In this regard, we are aware that Rel.to is not accessible, we are working on it 
No news has yet came out about the state of the cavcon, and whether other channels will be set up if and when it will be restored.
Retirement of the MOULa and Cyan forums
More controversially, Cyan also announced the retirement of the MOULa and Cyan forums. On Tuesday, February 4 the forums will become read only. Registering an account for the forums will also be turned off, which is effective immediately. On Tuesday, June 16, publicly-accessible threads will be archived, and the forum sites will no longer be hosted.
The last point has been poorly worded in the announcement: the content of the forums will still be available in some form, so the history of the community will be preserved, except for hidden threads, or personal messages. Also, the MOULa website itself will still be accessible.
Because of this, users are encouraged to archive any PMs or specific threads they wish to keep personally before the change takes effect. PMs can be exported en masse as table files (by clicking on “Export this view” at the bottom of the PM list), and for single posts it would be a good idea to save the BB code, to keep the formatting for an eventual export to another forum.
Even more controversially, Cyan announced that the replacement of the forums will be the Official Cyan Chat Discord server. Many fans have expressed their objections that Discord is not a suitable replacement for a forum.
OpenUru.org, the Guild of Writers, the Guild of Archivists, the Guild of Messengers, and other fan groups with their own forums will welcome anyone who prefer this time-tested format of discussion.
Events will still be regularly announced on the usual channels, like Facebook groups, Discord, and through the GoMe calendar (which, if you have a Google account, you can add by clicking on “+Google Calendar” at the bottom right of this page).
Bug reports should be reported on the recently-reopened Support page, or by sending an email to support[at]cyan[dot]com. MOULa downtime reports will be most quickly received via Discord.
Mysterium
Submissions for art designs are now open. There will be four categories: T-shirt, pins, activity books, writing and artwork table. Deadlines will be staggered through early-to-mid 2020.
- For the T-shirts, the Triumvirate encourages the artists to incorporate contrasts in their designs: Sirrus vs Achenar, Red vs Blue, Haven and Spire, etc. Tying in the host city of Washington, DC is also encouraged. The winning design will be rewarded with a free Mysterium shirt. The deadline is February 16, 2020 (hurry!).
- For the pins, they are once again planning a set of enamel ones. Pin design is an easier and faster process than shirts. The deadline for these is March 15, 2020.
- For the activity books, which are the new thing for 2020, artists can create a coloring book page, a word search, a crossword puzzle, etc. The deadline is April 19, 2020.
- For the writing and artwork table, artists will be able to showcase their Cyan-related artwork or writing. All content must be in by July 31, 2020.
Also, barring any unforeseen issues, registrations should open on March 1. Stay tuned for more info about this year’s hotel and how to book your room, as well as transportation and parking details!
Assorted news
As you probably know by now, the Starry Expanse team is now working with Cyan to complete the Riven remake. In a recent post, the team has outlined how they are dealing with objects that are small and blurry in the original game, but that you will we able to look at up close in VR – specifically, the blue light pole globes in the Mag-Lev dock.
Ars Technica posted an interview with Rand Miller, about the development of Myst and Riven, and how they pushed the limits of the then-new CD technology.
Some time ago, the MYSTAges wiki was put offline. The data has been salvaged, however, and posted on Archive.org by Deledrius. The Guild of Archivists is looking into merging some of the lore info from there into their own wiki.
And that was it for this month. Please consider donating to keep the Cavern open!
The next All Guilds Meeting is planned for Saturday, March 7, 2020 (Leevotahr 24) at 13:00 KIT.
Until then!
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Ages of Doobes
Doobes was first, with an update on the Ages he is working on:
- The revamped GoMe Pub: a fitting start to the ‘Journey’ and Doobes’ first official release; the other Ages will be found somewhere in the Pub.
- The Library: Doobes hopes to feature other fan Ages here as well, but it will also act as a ‘Nexus’ of his own.
- Veelay Tsahvahn, a.k.a. the Memorial Age: a remembrance for explorers who have passed away, and a place to gather, mourn and celebrate those we have lost over the years; it will be available in the Library right away.
- The Vale: a mysterious garden Age that has distinctly D’ni architecture, but a bit of a mysterious origin; it is known that a D’ni Writer did not Write it, which was quite unusual at the time it was Written.
- Kotsahvosahn, a.k.a. the Waystation: the journey begins and ends right where it should, in the Cavern; this was a port used by the D’ni Guild of Messengers right up until the Fall and will be the beginning of Lothias’ journey (more on that in the future).
A couple of these Ages are just about ready, while some have several details that still need to be knocked out. The plan is for a tentative early 2019 release on Gehn Shard, The Open Cave, and Deep Island. Later, Minkata and (hopefully) MO:ULa!
To keep updated on Doobes’ work, check his blog and his Facebook page.
guildofmessengers.org
Next, Doobes announced the launch of the website you are currently reading! The GoMe site has been absent for over a year; the old “.com” domain lapsed and fell into the hands of some sort of… gambling thing. The new site now ends in “.org”, in line with the Guild of Writers’ site.
Some of the information pages need to be carried over; you yourself can help! The look is similar to the 2.0 site (WordPress with the ColorMag theme), mostly for consistency. The All Guilds Meeting chatlogs, which have been previously hosted on Doobes’ own website, will from now be located here, both raw and cleansed.
The new domain is hosted and maintained by Doobes, so it will not be going anywhere for the foreseeable future; the maintenance costs are fairly cheap to maintain, so he will not be looking for donations.
Videos will need to be linked to instead of being stored on the site, as the storage space has its limits; an RSS feed for the news page is likely, and the rel.to link is in the process of being updated.
Ages of Tweek
Tweek gave an update on Eder Fahsee, a familiarly unfamiliar garden Age that celebrates Myst and the impact it had on all of us. As such, he is inviting any one who is interested to contribute to the Age: he is compiling 25 books (and maybe another 25 later) to go within the library on the Age that will chronicle the first interactions the explorers had with Myst. It can be something short or long (but not too long!), expressing your thoughts, feelings, etc. Not all submissions will make it into the Age, but Tweek will try to fit in as many as possible.
To keep updated on Tweek’s work, check his blog and his Facebook page.
Myst25 deliveries
The discs for Cyan’s 25th Anniversary Kickstarter have been shipped, and in many cases already reached their destinations! If you are still waiting, check your emails for a tracking code to know where your discs currently are. For those living in the UK, if your tracking is showing a “failure to deliver”, you probably have additional custom charges to pay.
At the moment, it appears that only the Windows discs have been shipped; macOS users unfortunately will have to wait a bit longer.
The Cyan staff took a winter break from December 21 to January 2; if you sent inquiries at support[at]cyan[dot]com, info[at]cyan[dot]com or press[at]cyan[dot]com during this period, please allow a few days as they are preocessing them in order of receipt.
The Lost Art Season Two
Not one but two videos have been released on their Youtube channel: a Christmas teaser on December 16, and Episode 6 on Christmas Eve.
Around March some extra avatar operators will be needed for some special scenes; requirements will be the ability to use an internal client and a Skype account to coordinate acting. If you are interested, you can contact .
Get well, Chiro
Korov’ev ended the speaker session wishing get well soon to explorer Chihiro.
And that was it for this month. Don’t forget to donate to keep the Cavern open! The CavCon status has not been updated yet; internal sources assured that the situation is good, but that can only continue with your help.
The next All Guilds Meeting is planned for Saturday, February 2, 2019 at 13:00 KIT.
Until then!
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Shorah and salutations to one and all!
As you can see, we’re back up and running at our new website, guildofmessengers.org! Be sure to change your bookmarks too, as the old site (guildofmessengers.com) is no longer valid…although if you’ve been by there lately, that’s quite obvious.
So why the new domain, you may ask? A few reasons:
- We let the ownership of the old domain lapse. It has been passed around by previous Messengers (such as Leonardo and Lyrositor) as previous owners moved on to other things. Due to inactivity and lack of interest, nobody picked it back up when it was for sale again. As such, an unrelated party snapped it up and now uses it to advertise some sort of gambling nonsense. So if you thought we’d ventured into more seedy territory with that, we’re happy to report that’s not the case!
- The “org” extension brings us more in-line with other Myst-related websites, such as our friends at the Guild of Writers. Plus, it was available, so that didn’t hurt either.
- As the previous site was not backed up and had to be rebuilt again from scratch, a completely fresh start was needed. While Leonardo is still graciously hosting the first site here, the second site only exists in the web archive, which can be hit or miss as far as content retention.
The older sites were also more geared towards a busier Guild. As it stands currently, the GoMe is mostly dormant, save for the tireless efforts of Guild Master Korov’ev. Not only has he been maintaining the Guild’s Google Calendar, but also the Facebook page, thus keeping all the GoMe faithful informed.
The new site will be a bit more streamlined, with explorers able to submit news, and the approval to be handled by both Korov’ev and Doobes (plus others if anyone would like to volunteer). We are also set up to offer translations of each and every post by anyone who would like to volunteer to do so. If you’d like your language added, let us know! Our support for the international community, as always, is unwavering, and GoMe 3.0 will be no different!
Note that, while the site is now live, there’s still a few bugs to squash, kinks to iron out, and informational pages to re-add. If you have any comments or suggestions, feel free to contact us.
In the meantime, enjoy the new Guild of Messengers site!
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