Myst Online: URU Live Forums

Hardest, Stupidest and Craziest Puzzles in Myst History?

Virg — Thu Mar 11, 2010 11:13 pm

Author: Virg

Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 11:13 pm

I have to say that the spider chair is by far the hardest puzzle I ran into anywhere, because it was entirely non-intuitive. It wasn't just that the clues about it were strewn about as though by some mad whirlwind. It wasn't that you could search for hours and not find half of them, and trying to make sense of what you had was like trying to bake a cake by mail order. It was that the whole age simply didn't make any sense. I got the concept of using power to affect the floating rocks, but why did he go to such lengths to set things up in such a perplexing way? Considering the amount of wire he found or made for his devices, why didn't he build a ladder to the ground instead of a floating magna-ferry? What was the purpose of the chair at all, when doing the experiments would have been easy on a flat surface? And why did someone living in solitude on a prison Age worry so much about locking stuff up? And to top it all off, why did the crazy genius that is Sirrus spend so, so much time developing an explosive to blow the linking chamber apart, when anyone with half a brain for spatial relations could see that the little swivel drawer that was used to pass stuff back and forth was made of sheet metal and the hole it fit through was big enough for a grown man to crawl through? Wouldn't prying out the swivel drawer and clambering through have been a whole lot less work? It was all so pointlessly jarring that it wasn't fun, and this is really the only Age anywhere about which I've ever said that.

Dumbest puzzle? I personally didn't have any real trouble with tuning Atrus's Rime-o-scope. I was done in less than a minute. So, it didn't really bother me that much, but I can definitely see why it may have bothered others. Still, I have to think it was the lockbox in the cabin on Myst island. Three numbers? I didn't even bother to find the answer, I just brute-forced it and it took me three minutes or so. If you're going to have a puzzle, at least make it a challenge other than "finish before your hand cramps".

Craziest? In a good way, by far I thought Amateria was the best. It's still one of my favorite Ages anywhere, and I have a saved game specifically in the position where I can run the end of that Age for fun. Crazy in a challenging way has to be the Mangrees. The reason I liked this one, though, was not only that the clues for how it worked were pretty obvious, but it also developed the story, showing you how Achenar had grown and learned and changed during his imprisonment. After realizing that he'd befriended the Mangrees near his hut, it was a lot easier to believe that he'd turned to good when it all came down to choices at the end.

Virg

Awww...No more Sharper?

ces — Thu Mar 11, 2010 11:05 pm

Author: ces

Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 11:05 pm

They can find out all the answers to those questions and many others by going to one of the numerous Uru websites and reading Sharper's various journals on them.

It's not like his journals are lost & gone forever. Sharper yes maybe but not his journals.

Coordinates in Nexus

ces — Thu Mar 11, 2010 10:59 pm

Author: ces

Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 10:59 pm

Wasn't Laxman in charge of The Great Zero coordinates? I seem to remember him mumbling something about the lattice wasn't working and he hadn't had time to devote to it.

Possible New Guild Pubs?

Paradox — Thu Mar 11, 2010 10:57 pm

Author: Paradox

Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 10:57 pm

It is my secret hope that Cyan will one day reveal that behind the curtain on the second floor of the Guild Pubs is the rest of the Guild Hall, and that the Pubs are all connected to a single large structure.

I'm not counting on it though

Open Source Fears

DocOlanA — Thu Mar 11, 2010 10:55 pm

Author: DocOlanA

Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 10:55 pm

Quite frankly I was assuming that if there's enough capital at Cyan to make Uru open source, there would be enough to bring the plot and thus the DRC back at least in a limited fashion (if nothing else, Cyan would have to bring the ResEngs back to deal with incorporating new ages and fixing bugs, and if they do that why not have someone stop by as Laxman every so often.)

Once again, this only applies to the Cyan main server, not to any shards.

Why so much MATH?

DocOlanA — Thu Mar 11, 2010 10:53 pm

Author: DocOlanA

Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 10:53 pm

I adore Minkata. I really do. Beautiful music, very atmospheric age, fiendish puzzle that nonetheless makes absolute, perfect sense once you understand it (as all good adventure game puzzles should.)

GeForce - Blue screen of death - USB conflict?

Teknobubba — Thu Mar 11, 2010 10:48 pm

Author: Teknobubba

Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 10:48 pm

geoffree wrote:

and to Teknobubba.
Bizaare! A fridge with a surge protector. What will you kids think of next?

I didn't even know the thing had a motherboard! It's like five years old.

I'm getting too old. My first computer experience was a mainframe running FORTRAN off of punch cards at University of Hawaii. ::sigh:: Now my fridge has more computing power than that mainframe.

D'nitionary

Whilyam — Thu Mar 11, 2010 10:16 pm

Author: Whilyam

Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 10:16 pm

JWPlatt wrote:

We have one. See sig.

No, that's the Open URU wiki, not one for the D'ni language.

The Atrus bloodline: does evil skip a generation?

DocOlanA — Thu Mar 11, 2010 10:12 pm

Author: DocOlanA

Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 10:12 pm

If Myst V can be believed Atrus is still alive, but reaching the end of his life. And he's not really... mentally fit to do anything but take care of Releeshan.

Fact or fiction? a real cleft exists?

Monkeyboy — Thu Mar 11, 2010 10:08 pm

Author: Monkeyboy

Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 10:08 pm

Cedward1, Here is a link to a thread about such things where you can add your thoughts and knowledge.
http://mystonline.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=17868

Making An appartment in 3DS MAX 2009

Nalates — Thu Mar 11, 2010 10:05 pm

Author: Nalates

Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 10:05 pm

Nice work...

How much do you "Clean Up/Straighten"?

Tai'lahr — Thu Mar 11, 2010 9:52 pm

Author: Tai'lahr

Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 9:52 pm

Virg wrote:

sacred wrote:
Before I log off every day, I put on my PJ's and link to Teledahn. I go up the elevator to the aquarium room and sleep in the green bed.

Boy, if Dr. Sharper was upset about people who were reading his journal, I can only imagine how well this would go over....

Then, please don't tell him that I jumped on his bed once.

what has happend to uru

Firesign — Thu Mar 11, 2010 9:33 pm

Author: Firesign

Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 9:33 pm

DocOlanA wrote:

Um... Myst was far from one of the first games on the computer. In fact, there were 3D FPS shooters before Myst. Myst wasn't even the first adventure game, not by a long shot. Myst did change the adventure gaming genre, and most likely did change computer games in general, but it's not the end-all-be-all grandaddy of games. It is the grandaddy of 3D first person graphical adventure games, which is significant.

And I've got to say that as a kid growing up when games like Doom and Wolfenstein were coming out, I preferred to play Myst. And Monkey Island, and Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, and The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes, and...

And Wing Commander, but Wing Commander actually took a space fighter game and added story to it, so it's the same basic principle. I needed a reason for doing things

not to mention that myst wasn't even a PC game at first. it was for macs. it was developed on mac too. the windows version came later.

Network Error 6

Mac_Fife — Thu Mar 11, 2010 9:30 pm

Author: Mac_Fife

Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 9:30 pm

So there's at least two of us who don't have a Net 6 issue

I'm inclined to agree with you Firesign. If it was purely a server end issue then you would expect it affect people more broadly than the evidence currently suggests. However we also thought that about the problem that arose after the server move in December 2007, which also seemed to only affect certain people, and that did turn out to be a server problem, so I won't discount it as a possibilityfor now.

I've been trying to think of a schedule of simple tests that people could do to try testing the route. Unfortunately, a regular tracert wont work, as (in common with many server setups now) ICMP Echo requests are being ignored by the servers so you can't be sure you're seeing the whole route, and TCPTraceRoute is a bit clumsy for a lot of people. I'm sure I had some other gadgets in the tool box from back in MOUL days... I need to do some digging.

CAVCON Meter

Rusty_Russell — Thu Mar 11, 2010 9:23 pm

Author: Rusty_Russell

Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 9:23 pm

It's always been my expectation that the guild of maintainers will have a test server. I can't see any age being released to production until it's been through some sort of quality control, whatever shard it's on.