SPOILER:

All be it, I loved this game but I found the ending of this game at first far to deffinate and not to sophisticated...but maby not now: Yeasha is saved and she becomes the grower (although that actualy can be disputed) and Esher is punished, and "good" triumphes. But then again, looking at it from another level, one could say that curelty triumphs, as I atleast found Yeasha to be rather disturbing and Esher less so. I like this second ending better, both sides are cruel.

Let me add then another thing I belive: all is by the roll or each one of us is "the maker".

If you found that my post made no sense: Just discuss the ending, I think it can be viewed in many ways.

There are four endings altogether.

four? i thought there were only three. And on that matter, i felt a let down. I was looking forward so much to going back to myst island and exploring again but it turned out to be a total wreck and it became a prison. I was so dissapointed

There is an Esher variant where you go to Myst island without the tablet. (Leave it on the plinth).

Give tablet to Yeesha.
Give tablet to Esher.
Give tablet to Bahro.
Give tablet to no-one.

Isn't that the same as when you give it to Yeesha? I mean, you still end up on Myst without it.

And the archive doesn't list any additional dialouge.

You can't give it to Yeesha, strictly. You offer and she declines non-verbally. Game over. Anything you do after that is beyond the Yeesha ending.

Why is this not in the spoiler forum?

quote:

But then again, looking at it from another level, one could say that curelty triumphs, as I atleast found Yeasha to be rather disturbing and Esher less so. I like this second ending better, both sides are cruel.

Their motives make all the difference. Yeesha's desire was to free The Least, ending their imprisonment and guaranteeing a joyous future for the remaining D'ni people in Releeshan. So her quest was not at all self-motivated, although she could seem rather fanatical about it. Esher, on the other hand, was entirely driven by the selfish desire to have complete control over the Least, and to revel in the power that would give him. He represented the lowest qualities of the D'ni, while Yeesha represented the highest.

So yeah, they both may have seemed cruel. But I really only see Esher as cruel, both to the Bahro and to the D'ni race he wished to dominate. (If I understood him correctly.) Yeesha seemed forceful and distant because the fate of her race rested on her shoulders, and all of her previous attempts to save them had met with failure. You were her last hope, and she was very definite about that, desparate really... to the point of appearing insane.

I could see the points about Yeesha appearing cruel. As far as Escher goes, I think D.O. Stiers played him well - the first time he opened his mouth in the beginning of the game, I knew he was insane. If this had been for real, I'd have buttered him up, playing his ego like a violin to obtain whatever information I could, but I never would have gone to Myst Island because he wanted me to go there... Yeesha however is a toughter nut to crack - people have been known to commit horrers inthe name of a good cause too. Two clues to her mentality is when you go to Myst Island and get stranded there- she lknows you meant well but were fooled but she just leaves you there knowing you are going to starve to death-who took that D*** linking book away? Another is the banal dismissivness she shows when the Bharo take away Escher in the other ending, for whatever ... only in the hints book do we have a clue the Bharo are not going to do horrible things to him. I think in the good ending, yeesha will be spending the next 200 years healing from the past 200 years.

I didn't like the character animations, especially at the end. And let's face it, however many times we may repeat the same wrong ending, Yeesha is never going to get better if she keeps taking the tablets.

But in the end the game redeemed itself by the return to Myst Island. For me this was the most moving and significant part of Myst V. It was beautifully done. It's what I will remember above almost everything else in the game. I will return to my preferred ending, to Myst Island, and remember where it all started. I will wander in the rain, along well-trodden paths - and off them - and in my mind relive past explorations. It's like a real place now - rain falling on a roof, a door banging, rusting metal, a broken lever. We can no longer enter the magic of the Ages. The power has dissipated with the passage of time, yet the magic of Myst remains as a poignant memory.

And there is the tablet where I dropped it, on the dockside - that coveted item of such power, now abandoned to the storm.

Excellent post, Thietris. I also found the return to Myst Island to be a very poignant moment. As mentioned elsewhere, when that marker switch broke in my hand, it was almost painful. It reminded me of when I first returned to the Cavern in Uru after Prologue had closed, and I was playing "To D'ni." When I saw the smashed 'heek table, it put a lump in my throat. Both of these elements eloquently expressed a sad finality.

Yes, Mowog. And having completed the final Myst game there remains a certain emptiness. Myst V could be irritating - annoying - at times, but now that it's all come to an end ....

The first thing I did after completing Myst V ... was to load Myst I. I explored the island again, in its original incarnation. Despite the intervening years, the advances in technology and the complexities of the evolving plot - or perhaps because of these things and at that time we knew so little about what it all meant - the magic was still there.

Advances in technology and complexity can sometimes get in the way. In Myst I there was a directness of communication. I could sense the love of the creator in producing it, like the potter who puts more of himself into a piece when the wheel is operated by hand than when it is powered electrically. Or the painter who conveys more by using a limited palette. The limitations can provide the space through which the creator speaks to us.

Beautifully said Thietris.

You also call to mind George Lucas and the "old" Star Wars films for me. I think Lucas invented an actual camera at the time just for shooting Star Wars the way that he wanted. This one of numerous examples shows the push & drive that people have & put into something when they know they don't have the option a click away. The truth is... that with all the new technology at Lucas' fingertips (Episodes I, II & III) the older films still remain to be the foundation of the magic although I did think Epsiode III was pretty good...however...it took him I & II to get closer to a film that was more reminiscent of Star Wars....and it also has to be said that he didn't direct Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi. The man just can't write screenplays (as he freely admits) or direct very well (the directing one he wouldn't admit though).

I suppose the point is... that when something is truly a "classic" so to speak...there is a lot more than just technology that make it so.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: neo...1,

I too thought it sad that Myst Island was left in such a dilapidated state. For me, to return to Myst Island in all its glory was to return via RealMyst, a 3D wonder. It's ages come alive.

Then in contrast, the Myst Island in Myst V was not too bad, as some years ago I played the parody Pyst. It showed the effects on Myst Island after having 4 million visitors. Pretty stupid game, but its still a part of my Myst collection.

I just finished End of Ages, it's defintiely the end of Myst games for me, I can see why Cyan wants to move on as well.

The endings:

1) give it to Yeesha, Escher gets it and all goes badly.

2) take it to Myst, see 1

3) just leave it there and go to Myst without it, see 1

4) drop it and let the Bahro take it. The right ending. I tried this as distruction seemed the best choice, if I could have gone back to the Volcano I would have thown it, Escher and one of my fingers in together.

There were several annoying parts of this game, the worst are:
- Escher

- the Arena elevator, which doesn't follow logic, why is the formula Me+Pedestal+Slate+2, why are the numbers base 3, and the arithmetic base 2? Where did the +2 come from? To solve this Newton's method is useful as logic is not.

- the keep symbol in Toldemar, why so all three scopes need to be set properly, since 2 of them were just to see through the infrastructure of the scopes themselves? What was the hint that speeding up time was needed? Why does it all align at the end, regardless of when started?

- the really lame facial expessions of Yeesha and Escher. These characters were really poorly drawn, it's a travesty when compared to the real Yeesha in Revelation. What was gained by using CGI for these, when real actors look so much better.

- interminable speeches by Yessha and especially Escher, and you can't escape, these are just plain tedious. But the good ending goes so far beyond tedious, it's like the drawn out ending of a bad soap opera, where was the editor?

- bugs, bugs, bugs. I guess the QA team was off at the pub with the editor. I had to play most of the windmill, cage and arena over because I made the mystake of going to bed right after getting to the arena pedestal, when I returned the pedestal was underground.

I know this sounds harsh, but I actually enjoyed the whole series, the return to Myst in the first 3 endings could have been better, some of the levers should have still worked, there should have been a half burned linking book somewhere that took you Reel and let you recover from your Mystakes.

My favorites are still Myst itself and Riven.

quote:

Originally posted by pkwooster:
- the keep symbol in Toldemar, why so all three scopes need to be set properly, since 2 of them were just to see through the infrastructure of the scopes themselves? What was the hint that speeding up time was needed? Why does it all align at the end, regardless of when started?

The scopes need to be aligned so that you can see the pedestals on other pillars. It's a gameplay-extending puzzle in that if you had the information from the beginning, you wouldn't actually NEED to run around setting the other two scopes.

I'm not sure what you're asking in the rest of this comment... you needed to speed up time so that the planet's rings would be positioned for you to be able to see the Keep from the moon you're exploring.

quote:

- the really lame facial expessions of Yeesha and Escher. These characters were really poorly drawn, it's a travesty when compared to the real Yeesha in Revelation. What was gained by using CGI for these, when real actors look so much better.

Unfortunately, real actors in a realtime 3D environment aren't something that can be done even remotely as well as anyone would like because of the difference in the way pre-rendered and realtime games are delivered to your computer screen. Live actors composited into CG scenes - be it in film, games, or TV, only look correct because the elements are all 2D plates when they're being composited together. In a realtime game, while the screen is still delivering an ultimately 2D image, the engine is drawing a real 3D scene to do this. Dropping an actor into the scene would be equivalent to dropping a cardboard cut-out into the scene and then trying to move the cardboard cut-out in a manner which reflected the movement of the actor, resulting in something that would look mildly awkward at best and downright comical at worst. While CG characters are not and never will be as realistic as real actors, it's one of the results of moving to realtime 3D worlds for the sake of a more responsive and dynamic environment.

Obviously, the next question is why Cyan did it in realtime in the first place. The answer is twofold: one is because Rand wants to do things in realtime, and would have from the start if the technology had been there. The other is that pre-rendered games are expensive and time-consuming to produce (not to mention a logistical nightmare), and Cyan did not have the luxury of either, being asked to crank the game out in a year or less.