Joined: Mon Mar 10, 2008 9:06 pm
Posts: 658
Location: Houston, Texas
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Don't wait for an Uru Kickstarter to materialize.
Back Uru now with what we currently have in place.
The Cyan staff has, for the most part, admitted that they are in some sense cutting their losses on Uru - leaving it as it now is - and will be very unlikely to ever run an Uru Kickstarter. I have chatted online with a couple of Cyan staffers about this - including Eric A. Anderson, when he was actively involved as art director on Obduction, and he said Cyan staff didn't think there was any good reason to ever do it because Uru has failed to find a wider audience so many times and is still barely limping along funding-wise as MOULa despite MOULa having had 7+ years to gain momentum, with still, only a fairly small group of players really actively supporting it and keeping it going.
The donate page on this website funds MOULa specifically, keeping it running and (ideally) adding new updates over time. Sadly, there's never been enough going on there to make much happen, but it still could work well if the fanbase was determined to make that fund grow over time.
I, for one, just sent another in a long list of smallish payments over the past 7 1/2 years, to the MystOnline fund on the 'Donate' page even while the Kickstarter was active (I also backed the Kickstarter). I am still hoping Uru can grow, maybe that's delusional but... I still want it to happen. And I'm still, mostly quietly, working on some fan ages, using Blender with Korman, Photoshop, and some other scattered plugins, software, and utilities.
I think if the MOULa fund climbs high enough it will not only surprise the Cyan staff but force them to reconsider their perception of Uru as a creatively meaningful work that failed to find more than a niche audience, and a disappointing release that almost bankrupted their studio.
If they are taken aback by Uru's growth, given what they've said regarding the MOULa fund, well, it is directly and totally dedicated to Uru, maintaining and ideally expanding and improving Uru.
But I suspect that even if all the active Uru supporters pushed their support further, it would not be quite enough - and of course, that means we need a larger number of people interested. Given Uru's age as a game, it's not easy to make that happen. Maybe, however, the Kickstarter will help make people a bit more aware of the series in the first place and remind them about "that old 'Myst' game I played on a CD with one of my first desktop computers", and let them realize that there have since been way more Myst games than the first and most famous one from '93.
Let's start with not just backing the 25th anniversary KS but using it as an opportunity to remind the wider world of the Myst series.
Here's a draft of a poster I'm working on for the KS campaign, anyone who wants to is welcome to print it out, and post it somewhere public IRL that is appropriate, and public events where you have legal permission to post it or hand it out, or maybe even add their own suggestions for alternate versions, that might improve the message?:
Here's the full resolution version, aimed at 8.5" by 11" paper at 200dpi.
In other words, it's 1700 by 2200 pixels. Probably not good to post in this forum!
http://www.mystfanart.org/myst-poster.jpg
I cannot post things like this poster on telephone poles, etc, in Houston, TX due to local anti-littering ordinances. There are fines associated with violations of this ordinance. So check your city's local laws before doing anything of that nature. Some urban areas have similar rules on the books. Some do not.
I recommend if you are going to do something like that, and it's allowed, that you use a clear packing tape to attach the pages to the relevant surfaces, and go over the entire surface of the page, not just the edges, to keep the paper from being ruined by the first rain that hits. An alternate DYI waterproofing solution for the center of the page might be rubbing the paper and coating it with a thin layer of cheap beeswax, which adds a waterproof coating to it and might be a bit cheaper but more labor intensive.
Beyond the poster art and animated GIF banners, I have my own strategies to make this 25th anniversary KS gain momentum - once which could perhaps cause a noticeable uptick in support on May 4, and another, maybe much bigger boost on May 20, near the end of the campaign, but that later plan especially, may or may not work out at all.
_________________ Matthew L. Hornbostel, creator of Panoramic Worlds,
a Myst fansite, and
various other stuff.
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