Free Bird wrote:

Why was Catherine played by Sheila Goold but voiced by Rengin Altay in Riven?

I've often pondered this decision myself. One of the actresses, I recall, either Goold or the actress who played "Nela" I don't recall which, was chosen based on her extensively mixed ethnic background.

JWPlatt Is On Your Ignore List.

JWPlatt wrote:

But Duck'nee got through. Go figure.

I think by the time we got to "Duck'nee" people had stopped giving a crap and the standard of quality hit rock bottom.

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Free Bird wrote:

I've been trying to find out if this question was ever answered officially. I can't imagine it not being, but I can't find the answer either! So if it was answered before - sorry about that...

Why was Catherine played by Sheila Goold but voiced by Rengin Altay in Riven?

Wow... great question! Richard Vander Wende directed the acting in Riven and, as far as I can remember, overdubbing the voice of Catherine may have had something to do with characterization of the original performance. I don't remember all the details... Richard V.W. or Rand would have a more clear account.

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JWPlatt wrote:

Aww, now that wasn't necessary, taking something in good humor and turning it into something bad. If you knew the history of Duck'nee, maybe you wouldn't be so quick to characterize it that way. David Ogden Stiers has a good history with Uru and Myst V, and the person who gave final acceptance of Duck'nee certainly does have the utmost care for quality, and was willing to go with something creative. Performers appreciate that. It's just fun to make fun of it. I don't do it to criticize.

Perhaps "rock bottom" was a pun?

Perhaps it wasn't criticism. I admire Stiers and that comment, while not meaning anything in particular, was certainly no slight against Stiers.

Don't read into it. If anything it was just a remark on Vs standard of quality, which is to say not up to par with the rest of the series, imo. now back on topic... wait, what topic?

I disagree, I felt the quality of Myst V was exceptional. The slate concept could have been developed a bit farther and the bahro story didn't really mesh well with the "Myst" series but the acting was great, the facial cam work was genius, and it was awesome to finally be able to move around the environment of a Myst game in realtime. Go back and play it now with all the graphics at their highest settings. Take note of the tiny details like the eclipse in Laki'ahn or the swaying grass in Noloben.

You have to also understand that Myst V was made entirely from assets intended to be used for Uru. The story was invented on the fly and had to not only complete Uru's plot but end the entire franchise. I personally feel it did an admirable job of both. Had Uru not continued after, Myst V was a satisfying conclusion. I wish Myst V had never had to have been made though.. I wish Ubi hadn't pulled the plug on Uru Live and the bahro could have been slowly introduced over months and years as intended. We'd be running around a complete City Proper right now instead of the tiny unfinished island in the middle of the lake.. For what they had to work with Myst V was quite good.

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robynmiller wrote:

Wow... great question! Richard Vander Wende directed the acting in Riven and, as far as I can remember, overdubbing the voice of Catherine may have had something to do with characterization of the original performance. I don't remember all the details... Richard V.W. or Rand would have a more clear account.

We'll just have to wait for Richard to create an account here, or for Rand to double his post count on this forum, then...

Loshem wrote:

You have to also understand that Myst V was made entirely from assets intended to be used for Uru. The story was invented on the fly and had to not only complete Uru's plot but end the entire franchise. I personally feel it did an admirable job of both. Had Uru not continued after, Myst V was a satisfying conclusion. I wish Myst V had never had to have been made though.. I wish Ubi hadn't pulled the plug on Uru Live and the bahro could have been slowly introduced over months and years as intended. We'd be running around a complete City Proper right now instead of the tiny unfinished island in the middle of the lake.. For what they had to work with Myst V was quite good.

Slight Correction: Myst V was not made "entirely" with assets from Uru. It was made from some Uru and DIRT stuff. But alot of it was still in early concepts. The most complete things done at the time of Uru's cancellation was K'veer and Descent. And we were probably not going to see that much of Descent in Uru anyway. What we saw in Myst V's Descent was scrapped together from DIRT production stuff.

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ChloeRhodes wrote:

Slight Correction: Myst V was not made "entirely" with assets from Uru. It was made from some Uru and DIRT stuff. But alot of it was still in early concepts. The most complete things done at the time of Uru's cancellation was K'veer and Descent. And we were probably not going to see that much of Descent in Uru anyway. What we saw in Myst V's Descent was scrapped together from DIRT production stuff.

Laki'ahn and Todelmer were both on the original DRC site as Ages in restoration for Uru Live. Noloben was altered drastically from its original concept but it too was an Uru Live Age, and Tahgira is the name used for Stephen Martiniere's painting used as the backdrop for Eder Gira suggesting that it was at least partially made from the "Eder Gira II" concept also listed on the DRC site. Direbo has some of the files from the Urwin suggesting that it may have been a reworked Negilahn. Todelmer was shown in a very early form in media advertising the original Uru Live. The Great Shaft was of course the very first screenshot we ever saw for Uru Live and its linking panel is still in the texture files to this day even though no linking book to get to it exists yet.

As far as questions regarding Myst. Were the notebooks in the library referencing how the Ages looked prior to the game written after the Ages had been made or before? Meaning for example, did the concept of the tree-dwellers in Channelwood or the boys in Stoneship come before the art assets were finished, or was the completed work what inspired those stories?

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Negilahn and Todelmer were phase 4. That's why the link to them was in the museum. Noloben is referenced in URU ABM - the house is not empty. There was also a broken Bahro stone link to the silo (pre-Ercana) where the link to the classroom roof is in Kemo.

Running this down from the beginning of Myst V:

Descent - Plasma 1 content that was scrapped between DIRT and Uru Live. Was later reworked for Myst V.

Direbo - Possibly a purely Myst V age. The Urwin located in Direbo is actually much much larger than the one in Negilahn. About twice the size. It's likely that the original idea was to have a Urwin appear in Direbo, walking along the perimeter of the jungle there. Hence the size of it, as it was meant to appear about the size of the Urwin in Negilahn from far away. And not meant to be seen up close. So while it's true that the Negliahn Urwin was originally going to be used in Direbo. It's unlikely that Negilahn's jungle was reworked to become Direbo (In fact screenshots and renders of Direbo from Myst V's development back this up). Plus we have Negilahn appearing finished with people in it in the original Uru Live trailer.

Todelmer - Uru Live age, reworked for Myst V. In 2004 it was still in phase 4. Which meant it was still being modeled and wired.

Noloben - This is where things get wacky. Noloben as it was going to appear in Uru was just a cove with a small house. It originally went by just "The Cove" then it was given the official name of Noloben. Parts of Noloben was used to make the one we see in Myst V. However it changed so much that a new name was given to the age. Siralehn. In fact that's what the age's files and textures are actually called. However at some point during Myst V's development, the age was renamed Noloben to make use of the reference to Uru Live and the note in the Baron's office.

Lakiahn - Was in phase 2 (The massing model stage of Cyan's design process). at the time of Uru's initial cancellation. So, while some rough modeling of it was done to give the basic layout of the age. It was far from complete and no textures or lighting had been done with it yet.

Tahgira - I'm going out on a limb and saying that despite the rumors, Tahgira was also a purely Myst V age. It never appears in the DRC list of ages. And, while a concept piece of art may have been made for it, it doesn't even look like the concept art. It's highly possible that the concept art was for Gira II. And just mislabeled Tahgira in Stephen's book. Publishers are known to make mistakes.


Oh and K'veer. - Uru Live age. Enough said.

So we have four ages, in various stages of development that were used in Myst V, and one age that was from Plasma 1.

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Great job Chloe! You summed that up well.

Just to clarify for those who don't know, "modeled and wired" in Phase four means they do some final "refining" of the models and adding textures and then they "wire" (or program) everything to work (like buttons and machines). From the screenshots we have seen, Todelmer was probably on the wiring stage when Uru Live was cancelled. The age was likely reworked quite a bit for Myst V.

It's been awhile since I read about the Tahgira history. If I recall correctly, Tahgira was originally the name of an age in some concept art (probably the one in Stephen's book). At some point around that time, a test age was being made for day / night cycles that used imported assets from the original Cleft in DIRT. Rand ultimately decided to make it an actual garden age and suggested using the Tahgira art as the horizon. The name "Tahgira" was reworked into "Eder Gira" and given to the garden age. The intention was to eventually make the area seen in the horizon (as well as other areas) available to explore. The music piece "Beyond Gira" was even composed for it at some point.

When it came time to do Myst V, it seems the original Tahgira artwork (and name of course) was a loose basis for the otherwise brand new new age. According to the DRC site, Cyan apparently still considered doing "Eder Gira II", but they ultimately decided against it (at least for the first season or two).

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Rusty_Russell wrote:

There was also a broken Bahro stone link to the silo (pre-Ercana) where the link to the classroom roof is in Kemo.

This must have been early in (or before) Prologue, as I've never seen the silo until TPotS.

About the quality of Myst V... At the time I thought it was rather painful to see Rand claim that the game "is the best thing we've done", as it clearly looked as if he didn't believe this himself... Obviously Rand couldn't say that they more or less rushed the game out and that Riven was better. But still. The actual quality of the game was a bit hit and miss. I think it was the buggiest game in the series. Especially the slate gave people lots of problems (and opportunities to cheat). There were more issues like that. By contrast, Riven felt very finished and Myst, even though it was done on a much lower budget, also had a certain sense of completeness.

The comparisons to Myst and Riven were mostly an attempt to keep the thread on topic and Robyn interested in following it, I must admit.