Right is that "somewhere" like "oh you have to pick up a broom in age such-and-such, forge it together with a dinosaur hair from age such-and-such, but that forging only works in age so-and-so while you're facing exactly in the direction of Mecca. If you face in the direction of Rome you'll create a different item, which you need in the next puzzle, but won't work in this one. Oh and you have to do this within 5 minutes, otherwise the broom will melt."
Or have they gone for more player-friendly puzzles?
Aldo on
0
Options
NocrenLt Futz, Back in ActionNorth CarolinaRegistered Userregular
edited February 2010
Player friendly in that most ages are self contained or any clues are a link away. You never have to pick up anything though. Like most other Myst games, you dont have an inventory. Just be observant and read the journals lying around in an Age and you should be able to figure things out.
The worst cases are Kadish and Minkata though. Near the beginning of Kadish you'll find a linking stone to a museum that pretty much has all the information you need to solve the Age, provided you can decipher it.
Minkata though... that's beyond Riven hard.
Nocren on
0
Options
AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
edited February 2010
Heh, well there are no item gathering puzzles. Well, none that I am aware of. In fact there is no inventory system to speak of, so I would imagine there isn't any item gathering.
By "somewhere" I meant more along the lines of painted on a wall, written in a diary, the answer to a riddle, uh things of that nature.
Having a notebook handy and writing down or drawing things you see is a useful thing to do. I think for the most part everything you need to solve an Age is in that age.
Basically, I have yet to come across any puzzles that I found to be "cheap". They still fill me with an unbridled rage most times, but when I figure them out I realize that, yeah, all the clues were there.
edit- Yeah fuck Minkata. :x
Though to be fair, all the answer to Minkata are in the journal right next to the Minkata book. Still fuck hard though. :P
edit 2- Best tip for the game is this: When you enter an Age don't go running off trying to figure out the puzzles. Take a moment to walk around, look at things, push buttons, pull levers, get a feel for the area.
Axen on
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
Well that sounds cool. Maybe I should give it a shot once I have some more time off.
Aldo on
0
Options
NocrenLt Futz, Back in ActionNorth CarolinaRegistered Userregular
edited February 2010
Wish I could remember this one webcomic, when Myst 3 came out one of the characters really got into the D'ni language as was trying to explain it to the other guy.
"See that marking right there? That tells me in D'ni how to solve the puzzle exactly."
I'm a big fan of exploration and I love Sam & Max and Monkey Island. One thing I do not like is illogical and needlessly complex puzzles. I tend to just look up a guide if I notice one is too complex for me to keep track of without needing a notebook. I know I know I'm doing it wrong, but my mind has troubles focusing anyway and I don't want to waste too much thoughts on videogames.
So how is this game with its puzzles? Am I going to enjoy it without wasting hours on it?
Oh and how are the graphics? Myst was world famous for being one of the first games to be visually pleasing...
If you don't like needlessly complex puzzles, you aren't going to like it. That's what the Myst series IS. It's a series of needlessly complex puzzles that was incredibly fun to me, because it basically meant infinite fiddling.
Darkewolfe on
What is this I don't even.
0
Options
AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
edited February 2010
Just reposting this since it is handy.
Beginner's Guide is located here. Very helpful if you are just starting off. It explains a lot of the basics, how to get your Ki, what you can do with your Relto, and tells a little bit about what the hell is going on. :P
Also for convenience, the list of people playing and there Ki #.
This program will convert the pictures you take with your Ki into something usable. Yes, they are JPEGs, but slightly corrupted so they can't be read by a regular program.
Where to find your pictures:
Windows XP: My Documents\Uru Live\KIimages
Windows Vista: (username) > Documents > Uru Live > KIimages
Mac: Username | Library | Preferences | Myst Online Preferences | p_drive | My Documents | Uru Live | KIimages
Spoilered are images that I took on my first trip back to Uru. I'll also edit a couple of my posts to show where the Relto pages are.
Nocren on
0
Options
NocrenLt Futz, Back in ActionNorth CarolinaRegistered Userregular
edited February 2010
The Nocren (AKA John Turner, Ki # 00326152) Guide to making your Relto home pretty (A work in progress).
So, if you're like me and already started played through the game you've probably noticed a weird symbol in various areas with a glowie thing hovering over it. Well, you collect these, but before you can collect them, you need a Relto page. Back at the Cleft. That you can not get back to until you've finished the Bahro totems.
Well, here's where you can find it.
And here's what it does.
Also, in other news, I plan on establishing our very own Bevin complete with name. So what should we call ourselves? Once we settle on that, I'll post if we have the Relto page in the garden and what Eder link we have.
EDIT: And before I go, here's TWO (2) more Relto pages for you! This one will be told mostly in pictures. So just click the spoiler below.
Nocren on
0
Options
NocrenLt Futz, Back in ActionNorth CarolinaRegistered Userregular
edited February 2010
Ok, so the Arcadian Archeology Club now has it's own Bevin. However to make things official and have people move in (and thus we'll see each other as neighbors) I'm going to need a partner.
Ok, so the Arcadian Archeology Club now has it's own Bevin. However to make things official and have people move in (and thus we'll see each other as neighbors) I'm going to need a partner.
How so? Isn't the Bevin public the moment that it's made?
GSM on
We'll get back there someday.
0
Options
NocrenLt Futz, Back in ActionNorth CarolinaRegistered Userregular
edited February 2010
Yes. Ok, here's the deal. When you make a character, you're randomly assigned a Bevin.
If you go to your Relto and delete your Bevin link book, you will remove yourself from your Bevin and if you go to Nexus you have the option to create your own Bevin (it will be called <charname>'s Bevin).
Now here's the thing. If you deleted your Bevin link book and then get invited to someone's Relto and link to THEIR Bevin you will join that neighborhood permanently.
It should be public already...
Ok, I'm logged in as Arcadian Archeology Club.
Ki is 02307022
Let's see if I can get this to work
EDIT: Well, once you guys get here, our Bevin does have the Relto page and links to Edar Tsogal
I added you as a buddy and still don't see your bevin.
*sigh*
I think the method he's described requires us to meet in one of the non-instanced locations like the city, where he would hold out his relto book, and once we had linked, he would open his bevin book on his shelf for us to link through. Then, and only then would we become members of the same bevin.
GSM on
We'll get back there someday.
0
Options
NocrenLt Futz, Back in ActionNorth CarolinaRegistered Userregular
It should be public already...
Ok, I'm logged in as Arcadian Archeology Club.
Ki is 02307022
Let's see if I can get this to work
EDIT: Well, once you guys get here, our Bevin does have the Relto page and links to Edar Tsogal
I added you as a buddy and still don't see your bevin.
*sigh*
I think the method he's described requires us to meet in one of the non-instanced locations like the city, where he would hold out his relto book, and once we had linked, he would open his bevin book on his shelf for us to link through. Then, and only then would we become members of the same bevin.
Correct. Though you should be able to visit the Arcadian Bevin at any time. Though why you're not seeing it at all... that's news to me. Every time I sort the list alphabetically we're right there on the first page.
The puzzle are. . . well "Myst" like. It's not easy.
The puzzles actually all have an inherent trick in them - they ARE "Myst" like. If you know what to look for, and you have an aggressive team, you can actually knock right through this shit and feel extra badass about it later.
I will add the background information to that statement, because on a gaming forum, it's actually GOOD to admit to things like this: Several old friends and I have made a practice of beating Myst-series games in insane tag-teams, working around the clock and sleeping in shifts, since high school. We solved original Myst in 22 hours (anyone who claims substantially less is lying - you can't click through all the screens in less than about 16 hrs) and Riven in five days. Exile took four days, but one of those days was sadly detached because we all fell asleep at once. By Revelations we were all in college and/or working and one of us had a kid, so that took almost a month of playing twice a week. End of Ages we had to save 'til like two years ago because one person had to come back from Antartica first, I was getting married, and the other one had to find time with that whole silly having a kid business. Stupid grown up lives where you can't camp out for a week over winter break and do nothing but game.
Anyway, the point is, we have been team-myst playing since WELL before MO:UL was conceived, and we developed a rather aggressive and effective strategy. Generally you want to have at least 3 people playing at a time, preferably more, who all have very different observation and learning styles. You take turns driving and one person takes notes. The driver has to refrain from doing that FPS thing where you pan the perspective about wildly (only a problem Myst 4 and after), as if you were frantically searching for hints of motion that indicate someone is about to shoot your ass. Walk in a slow and orderly fashion (take the first right and the first right until you hit a dead end, back up and repeat) to allow the secretary to map everywhere you're going. Draw any symbols, pictures, charts, d'ni numbers, whatever, you see, and note where you saw it. If you see brightly colored items or anything that might be part of a pattern, note it and it's location. Also look for patterns in sound, especially patterns that are triggered by an action you take. if you flip a switch, NOTE THAT YOU FLIPPED IT AND WHAT THE OFF POSITION WAS. It can take days to figure out which switch is "on" that should be "off" if you flipped things randomly.
If your notes are copious and organized enough, and you explored EVERYTHING before you walked up to the giant door that needs to be opened, the chances are very good when you finally arrive at the puzzle, you'll already have the solution. Usually the "Myst-like" tendency is to have a "goddammit" moment when you arrive at something with a combination lock that needs a code. That code is usually spelled out plainly in your notes - if your notes are good enough. For example - the first puzzle in Myst 3. You project light through a series of reflectors and finally through a prism onto a door. The light refracts, coloring each button on the door. With the light on, you can see that you obviously now need a color-series code to punch into the door to open it. The code is in the reflectors - each one had a different colored knob, and the order the light goes through them is the order to punch the buttons on the door.
If you took copious enough notes, mapping the island, linking the reflectors in order to the prism, and notating their colors as you passed them, you have the code immediately.
Otherwise you can go "goddammit" and spend another hour running all around the island figuring out what the order was.
They're all like that. We almost broke something when we realized the code to unlock the fifth island of Riven involved patterns from all four of the previous islands, and that we'd have to go back and find all of them. Often they're coded in something nonvisual, like the pinball puzzle on the dynamic forces sub-island. Or the shit with all the wild animal calls that keeps recurring.
The moral of the story is: play in a group, and write EVERY FUCKING THING down.
There's an option that says "make public" for your bevin. Otherwise you have to personally invite. I've never tried inviting like one does ages - usually I meet them somewhere public, let them into my Relto, then manually link to my private bevin. After we're all joined in the private bevin it's a nice place to meet up when someone gets booted and needs to be privately linked in. Yes, you can invite to ages in your ki, and then they can get to your age via nexus, BUT they can only go into the picture window for the starting point, NOT link to your journey cloths. the only way to skip someone to the later areas of an age is to bring them to relto, turn your book to the journey cloth, and then let them link in.
Infuriatingly, you CANT share ages the way you can share bevins, except for ahnonay, and that is by virtue of a bug. So by the fucking way, don't solve one person's ercana and someone else's ahnonay, or you will be as mad at yourself when you have to link the two as we were.
Posts
Or have they gone for more player-friendly puzzles?
The worst cases are Kadish and Minkata though. Near the beginning of Kadish you'll find a linking stone to a museum that pretty much has all the information you need to solve the Age, provided you can decipher it.
Minkata though... that's beyond Riven hard.
By "somewhere" I meant more along the lines of painted on a wall, written in a diary, the answer to a riddle, uh things of that nature.
Having a notebook handy and writing down or drawing things you see is a useful thing to do. I think for the most part everything you need to solve an Age is in that age.
Basically, I have yet to come across any puzzles that I found to be "cheap". They still fill me with an unbridled rage most times, but when I figure them out I realize that, yeah, all the clues were there.
edit- Yeah fuck Minkata. :x
Though to be fair, all the answer to Minkata are in the journal right next to the Minkata book. Still fuck hard though. :P
edit 2- Best tip for the game is this: When you enter an Age don't go running off trying to figure out the puzzles. Take a moment to walk around, look at things, push buttons, pull levers, get a feel for the area.
"See that marking right there? That tells me in D'ni how to solve the puzzle exactly."
It's not that simple, but it's pretty close.
[edit] My ki # is 01369379
If you don't like needlessly complex puzzles, you aren't going to like it. That's what the Myst series IS. It's a series of needlessly complex puzzles that was incredibly fun to me, because it basically meant infinite fiddling.
Also for convenience, the list of people playing and there Ki #.
Nocren - 00326152
Axen - 00495770
Damagemanual - 00328928
Xaviar - 01369379
=only played Myst. and watched an LP of Riven=
http://code.google.com/p/mystlore/
This program will convert the pictures you take with your Ki into something usable. Yes, they are JPEGs, but slightly corrupted so they can't be read by a regular program.
Where to find your pictures:
Windows XP: My Documents\Uru Live\KIimages
Windows Vista: (username) > Documents > Uru Live > KIimages
Mac: Username | Library | Preferences | Myst Online Preferences | p_drive | My Documents | Uru Live | KIimages
Spoilered are images that I took on my first trip back to Uru. I'll also edit a couple of my posts to show where the Relto pages are.
So, if you're like me and already started played through the game you've probably noticed a weird symbol in various areas with a glowie thing hovering over it. Well, you collect these, but before you can collect them, you need a Relto page. Back at the Cleft. That you can not get back to until you've finished the Bahro totems.
Well, here's where you can find it.
And here's what it does.
Also, in other news, I plan on establishing our very own Bevin complete with name. So what should we call ourselves? Once we settle on that, I'll post if we have the Relto page in the garden and what Eder link we have.
EDIT: And before I go, here's TWO (2) more Relto pages for you! This one will be told mostly in pictures. So just click the spoiler below.
How so? Isn't the Bevin public the moment that it's made?
If you go to your Relto and delete your Bevin link book, you will remove yourself from your Bevin and if you go to Nexus you have the option to create your own Bevin (it will be called <charname>'s Bevin).
Now here's the thing. If you deleted your Bevin link book and then get invited to someone's Relto and link to THEIR Bevin you will join that neighborhood permanently.
Understand?
And then you have to send me something?
I'll do the first if you'll do the second.
My, that was a bit of a word salad, wasn't it?
That's what I thought too, but apparently you need to be invited to a new Bevin via that person's Relto.
Ok, I'm logged in as Arcadian Archeology Club.
Ki is 02307022
Let's see if I can get this to work
EDIT: Well, once you guys get here, our Bevin does have the Relto page and links to Edar Tsogal
*sigh*
I think the method he's described requires us to meet in one of the non-instanced locations like the city, where he would hold out his relto book, and once we had linked, he would open his bevin book on his shelf for us to link through. Then, and only then would we become members of the same bevin.
Correct. Though you should be able to visit the Arcadian Bevin at any time. Though why you're not seeing it at all... that's news to me. Every time I sort the list alphabetically we're right there on the first page.
The puzzles actually all have an inherent trick in them - they ARE "Myst" like. If you know what to look for, and you have an aggressive team, you can actually knock right through this shit and feel extra badass about it later.
I will add the background information to that statement, because on a gaming forum, it's actually GOOD to admit to things like this: Several old friends and I have made a practice of beating Myst-series games in insane tag-teams, working around the clock and sleeping in shifts, since high school. We solved original Myst in 22 hours (anyone who claims substantially less is lying - you can't click through all the screens in less than about 16 hrs) and Riven in five days. Exile took four days, but one of those days was sadly detached because we all fell asleep at once. By Revelations we were all in college and/or working and one of us had a kid, so that took almost a month of playing twice a week. End of Ages we had to save 'til like two years ago because one person had to come back from Antartica first, I was getting married, and the other one had to find time with that whole silly having a kid business. Stupid grown up lives where you can't camp out for a week over winter break and do nothing but game.
Anyway, the point is, we have been team-myst playing since WELL before MO:UL was conceived, and we developed a rather aggressive and effective strategy. Generally you want to have at least 3 people playing at a time, preferably more, who all have very different observation and learning styles. You take turns driving and one person takes notes. The driver has to refrain from doing that FPS thing where you pan the perspective about wildly (only a problem Myst 4 and after), as if you were frantically searching for hints of motion that indicate someone is about to shoot your ass. Walk in a slow and orderly fashion (take the first right and the first right until you hit a dead end, back up and repeat) to allow the secretary to map everywhere you're going. Draw any symbols, pictures, charts, d'ni numbers, whatever, you see, and note where you saw it. If you see brightly colored items or anything that might be part of a pattern, note it and it's location. Also look for patterns in sound, especially patterns that are triggered by an action you take. if you flip a switch, NOTE THAT YOU FLIPPED IT AND WHAT THE OFF POSITION WAS. It can take days to figure out which switch is "on" that should be "off" if you flipped things randomly.
If your notes are copious and organized enough, and you explored EVERYTHING before you walked up to the giant door that needs to be opened, the chances are very good when you finally arrive at the puzzle, you'll already have the solution. Usually the "Myst-like" tendency is to have a "goddammit" moment when you arrive at something with a combination lock that needs a code. That code is usually spelled out plainly in your notes - if your notes are good enough. For example - the first puzzle in Myst 3. You project light through a series of reflectors and finally through a prism onto a door. The light refracts, coloring each button on the door. With the light on, you can see that you obviously now need a color-series code to punch into the door to open it. The code is in the reflectors - each one had a different colored knob, and the order the light goes through them is the order to punch the buttons on the door.
If you took copious enough notes, mapping the island, linking the reflectors in order to the prism, and notating their colors as you passed them, you have the code immediately.
Otherwise you can go "goddammit" and spend another hour running all around the island figuring out what the order was.
They're all like that. We almost broke something when we realized the code to unlock the fifth island of Riven involved patterns from all four of the previous islands, and that we'd have to go back and find all of them. Often they're coded in something nonvisual, like the pinball puzzle on the dynamic forces sub-island. Or the shit with all the wild animal calls that keeps recurring.
The moral of the story is: play in a group, and write EVERY FUCKING THING down.
Infuriatingly, you CANT share ages the way you can share bevins, except for ahnonay, and that is by virtue of a bug. So by the fucking way, don't solve one person's ercana and someone else's ahnonay, or you will be as mad at yourself when you have to link the two as we were.