Sorry for a prolonged absence. First was the annual summer vacation, then that was quickly followed by a spell in hospital having something removed that should ensure that I don't rattle as much as I walk along anymore :)

So, down to the news:

Blue Mars
The beta testing is going well, and the BM team are proving very responsive in sorting out the bugs the devs are uncovering. The open Public Beta is planned to launch on the 31st August.

A fourth demo city has recently been added, New Venice, created by Virtual Space Entertainment (VSE). It is still work-in-progress, but the work so far definitely has the wow-factor.

Some further screenshots are here:

Blue Mars have also confirmed that they have now added Google's Sketchup to the list of 3D packages they officially support.


Myst Online
Back in December 2008 Myst Online (URU Live) announced that they intended to release their sourcecode as Open-Source. However, progress has been slow in following through with this announcement. Apparently the problem lies in the 3rd party plug-ins that Myst Online uses, and the need to remove these and replace them with in-house code. They are currently looking for volunteer coders to help with the work.

Rock