February 2020 All Guilds Meeting Summary
Here is the summary for today’s Meeting, along with the raw and cleansed chatlogs!
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!
