All the talk about bringing back Riven in Uru Live got me thinking about how to most logically include Ages from previous games in Uru, and I think I've come up with an explaination that would not only quite elegantly solve the problem, but also deal with some of those nagging continuity problems.

The only detail is, while it is a fairly logical explaination, I'm not sure how I feel about it's impact on the over all story, and it's implications for a multiplayer world.

Basically, here's the idea: Yeesha recognizes one explorer as the Stranger, who saved her, and Atrus on numerous occassions two hundred years ago. Using her established time manipulating powers, she sends this explorer (obviously the player) to the desert around the volcano, where the player finds the original Myst book.

Perhaps the player is would even be treated to Atrus's famous "I realized the moment I fell into the fissure..." narration.

The player then gets to solve the mystery of Myst island, and retcon that whole Prison Books or Prison Ages thing at the same time, by revealing that Sirrus and Achenar were actually in Spire and Haven, but they escape by stealing the player's Relto book if you link through those books. Thus the player gets to experiance remastered versions of Myst, Stoneship, Mechanical, Channelwood, Selenetic, and Rime.

After dealing with Sirrus and Achenar, Atrus then sends the player to deal with Gehn, and thus a remastered version of Riven. When Gehn asks the player to link into the Prison Age Atrus gave you, Relto allows you to slip out,again before Gehn links in.

Story-wise there isn't much that needs to be modified for Exile and Revelation, except for dealing with the decades in between the games.

Even though that solves the question of how to bring back these old Ages, it doesn't make sense within a multiplayer setting, since only one person can actually be the Stranger.

Additionally, although I would like to get to re-explore the Ages of the original Myst, taking this route seems like focusing too much on the past, and not enough on creating new Ages, since each Age would have to be completly rebuilt for Uru. Further, it takes alot of the mystery out of Myst, which is the element that first drew me to the game. In many ways, knowing exactly who the Stranger was, and all that, greatly diminishes that sense of intrigue and curiousity I felt when first playing the orignal Myst.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents on the issue of Ages from previous games.

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Alec Winters KI 06399622

"History is irredeemable."
- Kain, Scion of Balance

Revisiting the past is not such a bad thing. You must remember that there will be many new players who never even played Myst!

Yeah, I know...all those of us who have already been through the earlier games are thinking...NO, I don't want to have to solve those puzzles all over again. Well, who knows what content will be included in Uru.

I say, the more content the better. And if it means re-doing past puzzles and Ages, all the better. We all will be re-living the fun and doing it quickly as we remember how to solve Every Puzzle, right? Muhahaha!

Toodles,

Noldor Numbwit
Eternal Newbie

Of course, almost everyone who has played the original Myst more than once knows that you can complete it with out going through all the puzzles.


Going through the old ages as my Uru self just wouldn't feel right to me.

But a realRiven might be cool.

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Noldor, you do have a good point. But, it's not like the previous games aren't available to anyone who wants to play them. Putting the old Ages in Uru is more of a nostalgic move, giving old school fans a little treat from the past.

I do enjoy replaying the old Myst games, but like www2 seems to feel, I'm not sure if it's really appropriate to put the old Ages in Uru. Honestly I really don't think doing so is really a good idea, but I had the idea for how to do it, and just had to get it out of my head.

...And then part of me thinks it would be really awesome to invite friends in Uru to hang out on Myst, or Stoneship, and play "spin the fortress" in Mechanical.

Like I said, I'm not really debating one way or the other on whether or not Uru should include the old Ages, I'm just suggesting the best way I could think of to do it, if Cyan decides to do so.

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Alec Winters KI 06399622

"History is irredeemable."
- Kain, Scion of Balance

Although I wouldn't object to old ages being included in Live, Cyan only has limited resources. They either devote it to conversion of old material or creation of new material. I personally think that, given a choice, I would much rather have new ages than old ones with a fresh coat of paint.

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The ending to this post HAS been written

blackhole wrote:

Although I wouldn't object to old ages being included in Live, Cyan only has limited resources. They either devote it to conversion of old material or creation of new material. I personally think that, given a choice, I would much rather have new ages than old ones with a fresh coat of paint.

Amen

/clap (Oh, wait. That only works in Uru )

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I wouldn't mind it at all, if it were all part of an elaborate quest or something.

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"The age of Riven is closed forever."

I think we shouldn't see Riven again. It was the game equivalent of an author killing off a character. A bold move that helped define the game. To bring Riven back would, I think, damage the Riven story.

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-Whilyam

ya im starting to believe that Riven should stay dead, a cameo, like a non-working riven book, or some picture or another item, would be nice (i know we already got our treat around the cleft... but i want more ) visit tay would be possible.

but we cant ask for yeesha to do more time travelling. yes shes special, but shes getting too godlike.

also you theory would only work for singleplayer game, online, yeesha would have to recognize us all as "the stranger", which is impossible

The idea of retconning the original series this way doesn't particularly hold strong to me... I think Riven in particular should 'stay dead'. It would be nice to see the dead book again if we ever got to Tomanha, but anything more explicit than that would be just... wrong.

Having said that, Tay? Now THERE'S something to see.

(BTW, the thing with Relto books clearing up those plotholes? Now, that's a good notion. Unlikely, but a good notion nonetheless.)

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The Deviant Gentleman | Reality on the Norm

Interesting problem.

I think personally, we get a little too hung up on the continuity problem. I know it's just about all we have to show that there's more to the Myst franchise than just puzzles and ages, but truly, I think revisiting a URUfied realRiven would be fantastic.

And frankly, if the continuity is so important, I'd just have the age linking book take you to a time before the collapse.

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Lee Edward McIlmoyle
Adventure Game Devotee at large

The age of Riven is gone, but the ages that we linked to from Riven are still around. I'm sure that the discriptive books aren't lost. They are somewhere.

Depending on how they were made that is. If those books we used to link to those other ages were indeed the discriptive books the those ages are lost, but that wasn't accually stated within that story and can be used to bring back atleast the ages of Riven.

goofy wrote:

The age of Riven is gone, but the ages that we linked to from Riven are still around. I'm sure that the discriptive books aren't lost. They are somewhere.

you are right, the riven soundtrack booklet says dr. watson has been to age 233 and Tay is somewhere too, because katran has been there some times

It would be nice for us to have more time in Releshaan (sp?) at some point. The Bahro did not fly high enough! And Tay, yes, since again - we saw but a limited part of it in Riven.

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"Oh, Rabbit," Pooh said, "is that you?"

"Let's pretend it's not," said Rabbit, "and let's see what happens."

It might be easier to go to the EoA Ages, both from a technological AND storyline sense, since already having 3D Ages in Plasma might make it easier to port. Also, since Yeesha's whole URU story was freeing the least, it's possible that Yeesha could show us how it finally happended, so we know why the least don't need us anymore ^_^

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