surely you can find one other to join you? it seems it can be done with two

(i am still mightily impressed with those who finish it with two people. wow.)

i love the multiplayer aspect and am glad they are putting them in place. i know there are those out there that want to be able to do it alone, but isn't the point of playing online the chance to play with others?

as far as the future of puzzles go, so far it does seem to be unnessesary towards any story, just another relto alteration. maybe storyline stuff will be solvable by one, easier with others? maybe we will have puzzles that can't be solved by less than 12....

who knows...its way too early to jump up and complain.

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President of the ResEng fan club
Bound by reasonable constraints, the Angel of Boundless Possibilities ponders escape.

ripped from my blog because I am lazy



I have long noticed that the community, not all of the community mind you, seem to get hung up on the wrong words in things. Yeesha’s “Alone or Together” phrase is an example of this.

Now as I see it, “Alone or Together” means that there are somethings that will be solved alone, and somethings that will be solved together, heck thats the reason I created the Looking For Group section to DJC. I also acknowledge the fact that some people do not have a big list of friends in the game which I hope this section will address.

However some people seem to take “Alone or Together” to mean that all puzzles and area’s must be able to be solved as a group or as an individual. Which is an unrealistic thing to ask, not to mention the fact that by making every puzzle solvable in both forms you will end up being limited in what direction you can take an Age or puzzle, I would rather see Cyan break out and take things into a new direction that people were not expecting, even if I have to solve it with 8 people or 20.

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UruBlogs - Blogs from Uru Explorers
Inkwell - Age development Blog.

To paraphrase Jishin here, Yeesha would have been better off saying Alone and together, (even though the video before the quote should give you idea enough).

Tweek wrote:

ripped from my blog because I am lazy



I have long noticed that the community, not all of the community mind you, seem to get hung up on the wrong words in things. Yeesha’s “Alone or Together” phrase is an example of this.

Now as I see it, “Alone or Together” means that there are somethings that will be solved alone, and somethings that will be solved together, heck thats the reason I created the Looking For Group section to DJC. I also acknowledge the fact that some people do not have a big list of friends in the game which I hope this section will address.

However some people seem to take “Alone or Together” to mean that all puzzles and area’s must be able to be solved as a group or as an individual. Which is an unrealistic thing to ask, not to mention the fact that by making every puzzle solvable in both forms you will end up being limited in what direction you can take an Age or puzzle, I would rather see Cyan break out and take things into a new direction that people were not expecting, even if I have to solve it with 8 people or 20.

QFT.

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For cowards die a thousand deaths, while heros die but one.

Well, unless they're playing video games, in which case heros die a lot too.

I liked solving the puzzle with persons unknown to me. This morning while wandering down on the ferry landing some players were asking for volunteers to help open the door. A few of us joined them through a designated neighborhood and we worked together to solve it. It was a good experience.

I'm not an outgoing person, but found it interesting that the players pulled together to get the job done. A little cooperation and the puzzle got solved relatively quickly. It was great to hear the door opening and make the mad dash to pass through!

When I want to go solo, I can. When I want company, I can have it. The best of both worlds. I'm happy to see some puzzles where teamwork is necessary.

Jahuti wrote:

Since the Delin age is hood specific, how about all the people that have less than a half dozen members in their hoods?

Work with people from other hoods. We tried doing it with only 1 or 2 people who actually belonged to the hood while the rest were from other hoods.

IMO (and I may be wrong, but I don't think I am) the fact there is no story is part of the story. Yeesha hasn't completed the Eder Delin portion of this new journey. Back in 2003 Yeesha made available Teledahn, Eder Kemo, Eder Gira and Kadish Tolesa before the DRC was able to. The DRC had been planning to release those, most likely very soon, but Yeesha beat them to the punch. Now its the DRC's turn. They've released Eder Delin before Yeesha got a chance, so it isn't completely ready for us.

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The concept that this could be an abandoned journey is very interesting to me...a half written quest to do something..perhaps set up by Calam shortly before his death

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Beneath - Journey of an explorer in D'ni
UruBlogs - Blogs from Uru Explorers
Inkwell - Age development Blog.

To all of you people who only solve puzzles alone: You're totally missing out on a super-awesome magically floating and spinning rock of sheer coolness! I could stare at it for hours on end.

So yeah, you're really missing out.

Tweek wrote:

Now as I see it, “Alone or Together” means that there are somethings that will be solved alone, and somethings that will be solved together,

I almost agree with your post, Tweek, except that the English statement "Alone or together" doesn't allow for that reasoning. The words are "Alone OR together." Just looking purely at the English grammar, that means a choice of alone or together or being forced to do it alone or together. Either way, it doesn't allow for being forced to do both (some alone and some together). If that were the case, it would be "alone AND together", since some things you have to do together.

Aside from the grammar, though, there are reasons to disagree with this puzzle. I don't mind the multiplayer aspect, even though I might like also having a single player aspect, but a puzzle is a puzzle and if you know the solution it should be relatively easy to solve. Now it might be super hard to figure out in the first place, but once you know how to work the place it shouldn't take hours to finally get a correct code. There should be more leeway. I'm not sure why it takes that long, because people aren't fast enough? Or because they touch the cloths to fast in succession? Either way, there should be some leeway. How many people take hours to solve a single puzzle now in any of the Myst games after you know the solution? Hours to solve a single puzzle might be okay if you continually work towards a goal, but not if you slip back to square one every 5 minutes.

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18

"Either way, it doesn't allow for being forced to do both (some alone and some together)"

Well, you're *not* forced to do both. That's something you choose if you decide you want to explore every bit of the game. The fact that there are in-game trophies for the various bits does not obligate you to collect them.

I recently finished Lego Star Wars 2 (a thoroughly fun game); the in-game progress meter now reads "100%". To do that, I first had to complete all the scenes in the story. Then I had to spend dozens of hours re-playing scenes, picking up hidden bonuses. Then I had to spend more hours collecting money to buy (optional) bonuses. But if I said "The game forced me to waste my life collecting money!" I'd be laughed at. Most games, I don't go trawling for every bonus after I finish. This time, at a whim, I did.

I haven't decided how I'm going to treat Uru Live. Presumably there will be a constant flow of both single-player and multi-player areas, as long as the game survives. So I could solo forever without getting "stuck". Maybe I'll do that. More likely I'll pick up multi-player trophies once there are community mechanisms for dealing with them: I expect there to be (say) weekly Delin runs by players who are experienced and can make it work without much fuss.

If there is story to reach, or significant areas which can't be *entered* without multiplayer cooperation, then I'll decide how to deal with that. But that's not what we've got today.

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Pardon the replying-to-myself, but I also wanted to respond to this bit:

"Aside from the grammar, though, there are reasons to disagree with this puzzle."

Yes. It's buggy. People would be a lot happier if the bugs were fixed, so that it would reliably behaved as designed. But that's not a reason to disagree with the design.

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Andrew Plotkin (KI#00102725)
Uru Newcomer's Guide and Answer Sheet
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OOC:
I'm going to agree with some people and disagree with others.

At first I hated that I'd have to solve the puzzle together with strangers. If I find a puzzle and I can solve it myself I always tend to do that. But once I started trying to find groups to get the puzzle solved I found it more enjoyable. Game mechanics and their problems aside, a small, highly focused group is great at streamlining through the puzzle and once we got it done we came back and tried and tried until the people in our group got through the door.

Now would I like to do this again, probably not. Although when I was shunted to Eder Tsogal because of the bug it looks like we will. But it was an interesting experience and an interesting direction for Cyan to take. Who know, after the fiasco's with this one they can refine the "multi-player portions" of the puzzles to make it easier to live with the inconveniences.

IC:
As we have seen, the Bahro are definitely starting to exert their will and whether this culminates in a plan that compliments or clashes with Yeesha's and the DRC's we don't know, so the theory that this was the Bahro's doing is probable and an interesting step for them to take (it would at least show that they are learning from past mistakes and from Yeesha/DRC/D'ni teachings.)

FTLNewsFeed

You know why it's buggy? Because it's the BETA version of the age, in the BETA version of the game. You know why they released that age in beta form? So they could actually make us, the fans, happy by showing that they ARE capable of keeping timeframes, and for that, I extend my deepest gratitude. But sometimes I think we'll never be happy no matter what they give us. And, if it hadn't occurred to some of you, perhaps the heavy reliance on so many people will be fixed in the final release of the age...perhaps it was just like that currently to see our opinions on a puzzle of that caliber.

And to say you're not playing Myst Online anymore because of a multiplayer puzzle aspect in an - wait, get this - MMO of all things, is the most ridiculous thing I've heard ever. There is no one telling you that you MUST do Eder Delin to play Myst Online. It's not stamped by the DRC (which is a bug, I think), it's not a real part of Yeesha's journey either because it's not stamped by Yeesha and doesn't have one of her great speeches either. You people take things so seriously and final, it's really annoying me.

And I may have some minor complaints about Myst Online, but that will never stop me from playing Uru Live (the only thing that would is a higher price to pay each month)...people like you are responsible for the sudden and abrupt death of the original Uru Live (which, by the way, was cancelled ON MY BIRTHDAY!)...and I'm almost sure it was people like you who caused Cyan to go bankrupt, resulting in the sub-par Myst V, which I wish was never made as it doesn't really have anything in common with the other 4 games. Myst Online already is the best MMO out there, with already the best story out there (seriously, how many MMOs have a maintained, affected-by-us, non-independent story? Most either rely on how many kills we can make, or each quest has its own story and nothing is relevant in the future.) Plus each character has their own backstory! I could spend all day reading about each character and the D'Ni kings, and never get bored. Cyan spends the utmost attention to detail and backstories and future storylines, and what do they get for it? Flak and whiners - unwanted and, frankly, unneeded flak.

I could not hold that in any longer. If Myst Online dies again, I'll know it's because people refuse to socialize in a socialistic game (in features we were TOLD would be used before the game even went to a closed beta!). The whole point of Eder Delin is, actually, to RELAX from all our troubles each day and perhaps make a few new friends along the way plus solve a unique puzzle to the Myst series. Besides, what's stopping you from making your own neighborhood private and inviting one or two of your own friends? And what's the use of the invite to ages feature if none of you are using it? You're just causing more strain for Cyan.

And perhaps solving ages together is more fun in the long run! You get to combine brainpower to overcome the most challenging tasks, and especially in the already-released ages, we get to see the effects of our actions from a different viewpoint.

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Hi, remember me? I'm the one who started the thread.

I set up this thread to talk about the STORY IMPLICATIONS of the spiral journey, not the multiplayer mechanics since that's what's been hashed out over multiple threads on these forums.

So I'd REALLY like to get back on topic..

Did Yeesha set up the spiral journey or was it somebody else? If not her, then who?

What is the purpose of the journey? Why are we getting no story behind it?