VoiZod wrote:

Yes it is true you have to roll the ball up the spiral slope and get the ball into the small groove at the top
so it will stay up there. Then stand in the light.

IIRC, the ball was just a red herring and you don't have to do anything with it.

I do know that I wasted a lot of time on it originally.

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MOULagain KI: 00042417

I doubt Cyan ever intended to open up the tree area in MOUL, it would take way too much reworking after the reworking they already did for the PotS ages to work in MOUL. With their small group I would think they needed to work more on puzzles that could be replayed, not public ones. But maybe I only think that because at the time before the announced cancellation I was really hoping they were focusing on getting Kahlo in game in some form and that they were done with just converting stuff we had already seen in CC to MOUL... If anything it would be nice if Open Source could somehow lead to see the ages we never got at all in Uru...

But, it is clear they had very different plans at some point long before MOUL and PotS, when they were much more... well staffed. PotS areas especially getting big changes. I wish I could still find some of the really old screenshots I saw of areas like Ahnonay and Negilahn from earlier development stages

A small thing I find interesting is The Watcher's Pub is missing two wall imagers (like the ones with a visitor list and the ones you can put pictures on in Bevin). You can actually "feel" the solid meshes for the imagers still in game if you run at the spots on the wall on both sides of the main doorway that you link-in in front of.

If you play CC, and look carefully at the link panel for the CC Watcher's Pub you can actually make out the wall imager in the linking panel picture.


See it in the red circle?

Then again, you also can see a Nexus book on the Nexus stand in the link picture for the Great Shaft, but I find that stuff interesting.

Also, I seem to recall a preview picture of Minkata back in the Gametap days that showed a Minkata cave, but with a weird looking device in it rather than one of the stones... so I guess those kinds of weird changes are normal in age development.

Nice catch! I had not looked closely at that image before. I know that during the original Uru Live, they planned to have several heek tables in the "Restorers" Pub. I guess the wall imagers would have been for the scores and a visitor log. Of course, there would also be the central imager that would have some use as well.

For those who did not know, there were originally two pubs listed on the DRC's site. The Great Tree Pub was Douglas Sharper's project which was suspended during phase four in December 2003 when he was removed from his work. The other was the "Restorer's" Pub that I mentioned above. It was suspended during phase four when the restoration was cancelled in 2004. It was originally to be opened in 2004 sometime after the full launch of Uru Live.

For POTS, the "Restorer's" Pub was released as the Watcher's Sanctuary (the game files still call it "Restoration Guild"). In 2007, the current Watcher's Pub was released with a facelift and inaccessible tree compared to POTS. The central imager does not work at all either. The game files and other sources IC also refer to it "The Great Tree Pub'.

Apparently Cyan's work on the two different pubs from Uru Live became one pub for POTS and MOUL. I suppose that IC the "Restorer's" Pub could be explained as a location the DRC was to originally restore, but they did not return to it during the revival. Instead they focused on the five guild pubs we currently have. I know I am speculating on some of this. Has Cyan ever provided and explanation?
.
I think that Cyan had planned to eventually fix the tree and put in the heek tables.and connect it with a new age(s). It was just something that would have to wait for one of the future seasons. Maybe (just maybe) someday we could possibly see it happen.

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It's possible that resources from the Great Tree Pub were used in the Restorer's Pub or vice versa from the get go. There's examples of reuse all through the game, after all. I remember a piece of concept art that match the layout of the Watcher's Pub we see today, but with a "great tree", the stairs built through it. Presumably that was the original Great Tree Pub, whether that vision made it past the conceptual stage we may never know. However It does, as I said, show the Watcher's Sanctuary layout, so if the Pub we know today is more "Restorers" than it is Great Tree, it's likely the two Pubs were very similar to begin with. It makes you wonder if they were planning something like the Guild Pubs (in appearance, if not necessarily in practice) even back then.

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In Cavern: Dryhad (KI: 01316560)

Bogardan Mage wrote:

It's possible that resources from the Great Tree Pub were used in the Restorer's Pub or vice versa from the get go. There's examples of reuse all through the game, after all. I remember a piece of concept art that match the layout of the Watcher's Pub we see today, but with a "great tree", the stairs built through it. Presumably that was the original Great Tree Pub, whether that vision made it past the conceptual stage we may never know. However It does, as I said, show the Watcher's Sanctuary layout, so if the Pub we know today is more "Restorers" than it is Great Tree, it's likely the two Pubs were very similar to begin with. It makes you wonder if they were planning something like the Guild Pubs (in appearance, if not necessarily in practice) even back then.

I think the orignal idea was the
'pub rooms' were actualy going to be Rooms for each of the 19 Main Guilds.
After Cyan opened up the Guild Hall area you would go to your Guilds doorway, put your hand
into a nexes type terminal off to the side of the Door.
You would then link into these Guild rooms/pubs from there.



.

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--=VoiZod=-- MO:UL is:
MOUL - KI - 07289007, MOULa - KI - 00815646,
UURU - KI - D'mala 00943458, TMP - KI 131549,
URU - KI - Atrus 03668735, Katran 00982487,
URUb - KI - 00356281

Voizod wrote:

I think the orignal idea was the
'pub rooms' were actualy going to be Rooms for each of the 19 Main Guilds.

19 Main Guilds?...please expound...

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Moul(A) Charura KI#00055400 Char Gearz KI#00706359 Cannon Belle KI#13686512 Teri Dactyl KI#12658065
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How Many Times Does A Myst Player Play Myst Before A Myst Player Decides To Play Myst Again

Please, have a look here ...

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MO:ULa is

I wonder what else Cyan has almost completed before cancellation and can't make available due to lack of resources. Cyan, how about donations for specific Ages? Similar to bounties in small open source projects which are very successful.

dragossh wrote:

I wonder what else Cyan has almost completed before cancellation and can't make available due to lack of resources. Cyan, how about donations for specific Ages? Similar to bounties in small open source projects which are very successful.

They hadn't "almost completed" anything (that they haven't already put in the game by now). There were (are) lots of concepts and plans, some of them extremely ambitious, dating back to before Prologue of which the only trace in the game today is a mere skeleton upon which content would be placed once sufficient funding was obtained. The Guild Hall is an example of this, as are likely most of the inaccessible buildings in the city. But the point is all they ever did was the skeletons and the plan, even ages like Kahlo that appear to be "almost completed" require a huge amount of work, so what hope do mere ideas have?

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In Cavern: Dryhad (KI: 01316560)

I thought Cyan had Noloben and/or Todelmer almost there. Todelmer's book even has a toggle in the city files. Sort of like how the Great Shaft and K'veer were almost done before closing of Prologue and got into the game at a later date.

dragossh wrote:

I thought Cyan had Noloben and/or Todelmer almost there.

Go get Myst 5.

dragossh wrote:

Todelmer's book even has a toggle in the city files.

Irrelevant. That's exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about. Putting a book somewhere is a thousand times easier than making an entire age. So what happened was they had the concept of Todelmer and knew that concept would involve a link from the Museum so they put the book there. Are you aware it's been there since before Prologue? You can see the (radically changed) remains of Todelmer in Myst 5.

dragossh wrote:

Sort of like how the Great Shaft and K'veer were almost done before closing of Prologue and got into the game at a later date.

Anything in that category is already in the game (or in Myst 5).

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In Cavern: Dryhad (KI: 01316560)

Amen. There is so much TO work, so much to do just sitting broken. I am not a writer, only a supporter explorer as many of us are. Waiting for equipment for our expeditons. Its all such a shame. Skydiving keeps most of us going because we want adventure in new places and love what there is to see. Thanks for all the efforts of those who can.

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L'sahna
KI 06906967