Myst Online: URU Live Forums :: View topic - A Simple Fix To The Watcher's Pub Puzzle?

Alien

Joined: 04 Feb 2011

Posts: 514

Location: Guild of Sleepers Hood

I am no expert on these things, so I ask those with more knowledge than me to comment.
I think I have come up with a way to make the Watcher's Pub puzzle work in a multi-player environment.

I will first explain how the puzzle works in the single player game (I will spoiler this) :

You open the door from the Watcher's Pub side, then inside the chamber, you see a huge ball which you can try to push up a spiral path. It just rolls back down again.
There is a switch you can pull, this closes the door to the Watcher's Pub and turns on a light.
You need to stay under this light until for a specified time.
A ladder appears, having come out of the wall. You can climb this ladder and follow the spiral path
This then leads to another door.

The problem comes if while you are doing the puzzle behind the door to the Watcher's Pub, someone else opens it.
So, I suddenly realised, why not disable the button to the door on the Watchers Pub, preventing anyone coming in.

The button lights up again (becomes active) when the puzzle is finished.
If more than one person is inside, doing the puzzle ... they ALL have to do the puzzle (this could add a touch of co-operation)

It seems so simple to me, but I'm no expert on how feasible this is.
Thoughts from anyone please

Alien

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Guild Of Sleepers ... the best kept secret in MOULa

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Last edited by Alien on Mon Jun 18, 2012 7:54 pm; edited 1 time in total

Mac_Fife

Uru Live Moderator

Joined: 10 Nov 2006

Posts: 3143

Location: Scotland

It's probably quite feasible, but you may be trying fix a "problem" that ought not to exist in the first place. I'm fairly sure that the puzzle was probably concieved as a multiplayer task from the outset, but was mangled in order to make it solvable single-handed for the Uru expansion pack.
The time delay device used with the light in this is similar to that used to make the Ahnony/Er'cana Bahro caves solvable alone. To me, that's enough of a hint that this isn't the way it was meant to be, and that the single palyer solution is just a "fudge". There's no puzzle to it, just a deception, and that's not really Cyan's usual style.
Like Ahnonay, there may be things taken away or added in converting this to single player, and it'd be difficult for us to tell. Maybe there were controls on the balcony looking out to the Great Tree. Maybe the door could only be closed from the outside. And so on.

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