Has anyone heard anything definitive yet about Myst V's timeline? This has bugged me the most about the game. I know, it's Myst, so it should be "MYSTerious", but it being the last game and all, I would think Cyan would give us a less-confusing idea of what's going on. We know the game takes place after Uru, but how long after is anyone's guess. But as we know from Uru, Yeesha can link across time at will (or else she was a very young-looking 190+ years old), so EoA could take place in 2006 or anytime later. She looks at least 30 or 40 years older in EoA than in Uru, so does it all take place 30-40 years after Uru, or is she time traveling back and forth?

And as if all THAT wasn't enough, there are other things...

When and how did Atrus "lose" Tomahna as he says in his letter? (I think it was an earthquake, but again, who knows?)

When and how did Catherine die? In Atrus' voiceover at the beginning of Uru, he talks, if I remember correctly, about Yeesha's "leaving us" - presumably meaning Atrus _and_ Catherine, so she was still alive at that point. In one of Yeesha's holo-recordings in the Great Shaftâ"ž¢, she talks about seeing her mother die, so she apparantly came back to Tomahna sometime after her experiences with Calam in D'ni. But how long after that is Atrus' "suicide note"?

Oh, and one of my personal favorites, although not timeline-related: what the heck is going on on Releeshahn that has New D'ni ready to fall apart? Yes, the Bahro were still bound by the Tablet, but I thought the D'ni had long ago stopped enslaving them. So what's the deal? I'm still so confused....

The only definite dates given for EoA are from the strategy guide, and I'm not entirely inclined to believe said dates until there's confirmation of them from Cyan, and so far there hasn't been, so I'm not treating them as official.

I've speculated elsewhere that EoA is set not just post-PotS, but post-whenever-Uru-Live-returns-and-ends (wULrae?), and for that reason there probably won't ever be a firm date given until Cyan has accomplished some or all of the things they set out to do in Uru Live. The changes to the Great Shaft and the somewhat restored appearance of Atrus's old prison on K'veer indicate that the DRC came back and did a fair amount of work at some point between PotS and EoA, and as Cyan's held out hope since February 2003 that Live will come back, I think it's a safe bet that they've got a few of those changes planned to take place during the course of the game, should it return. Once Live's course of events finally plays out, then EoA will be able to pick up the story and finish it off.

Hmmm...I always thought the changes to the shaft were more creative license. Oh well, I guess it really will stay MYSTerious....

Oh and btw, we never found out what the name Releeshahn means. Always wondered about that.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: riven2000,

quote:

Originally posted by riven2000:
Oh and btw, we never found out what the name Releeshahn means. Always wondered about that.

http://dpwr.net/archive.php?showarticle=349

(check the comments on the article)

[/QUOTE]
http://dpwr.net/archive.php?showarticle=349

(check the comments on the article)[/QUOTE]


Fantastic! Thanx much.

quote:

But as we know from Uru, Yeesha can link across time at will (or else she was a very young-looking 190+ years old), so EoA could take place in 2006 or anytime later. She looks at least 30 or 40 years older in EoA than in Uru, so does it all take place 30-40 years after Uru, or is she time traveling back and forth?

Well, the D'ni are known to be long-lived people, and she has some in her ancesty, does she not?

But worse than Yeesha being 190, the player would have to be aged along a similar time-line. After all, don't we, as the player(s), play the part of the same Nameless Friend who helps Atrus all the way back to the original Myst game?

So if Yeesha is 190, I'd say we'd each have to be at least 210 or so -- -- --

I just posted on this in another thread.

Some people do this complicated chronology where some of the games are in the past - Atrus' technology does look sort of Jules Vernish (Victorian, Edwardian) some of the time. I just assume that they happen in sequence, and if the earlier games are supposed to be set "in the past", then maybe I did some time travel thing to help Atrus in all the games.

Whatever the exact dates - I think that Uru and Myst V are set in "present day" and Myst V is set after Uru. Given how the clothing in Uru seems a bit dated - Uru first came out in 2003, and you can see that clothing styles, particularly for women, have not remained the same - if it was me, I'd say that Uru was set in 2003, and Myst V was set when it came out - 2005?

That's just speculation on my part, but Uru and Myst V are both contemporary, and Myst V is after Uru, right Alahmnat?

Just reread Alahmnat's post - gosh I hope you aren't right on that. All the games were set up so that the next game is set chronologically after the other. So, it's Myst, Riven, Myst III Exile, Myst IV, Uru and Myst V. I'd like to hope that chronology remains the same and the reborn Uru is set after Myst V. Myst V has already happened - it's there, it's part of the story canon, and Cyan should deal with it. You don't get to take it back.

I don't think they plan to take it back. I think we've just seen the last 5 minutes of a 6-hour movie, and a revived uru Live would be filling in the blanks to whatever end, at which point EoA would wrap up the tale.

Well - OK, but the chronology still seems goofy to me. I mean Uru is done, and Myst V is done and now it's time for Uru 2. In my mind, you can't go back. We already know what happened in Uru and in Myst V - why would I want to go back to before Uru or Myst V ended? That's never happened in the other games. I want the whole thing to start past the current Uru and Myst V - I already know what happened!

But, that's just me - of course Cyan (the game developer for Uru) may have other plans.

This is part of why I'm confused - it seems very convoluted. Yes, there have been a lot of complicated theories about the timeline and other things (I probably put half of them out there myself - I love doing that ), but it seems to me that Cyan tries to keep it simple most of the time.

Alahmnat mentioned the "restored" look the Great Shaftâ"ž¢ has in EoA compared to Uru. I really don't think there was a deliberate attempt to make it look that way - I think it's just creative license. In the Eder Tomahn in Uru, if you look at the Shaft, the elevator tracks, and the distance to the Shaft floor, it's different enough from EoA that no amount of restoration could account for it. In Uru we see the lower set of tracks, but they continue up some way into the Shaft from where we are, while the Shaft floor seems WAAAAY down there. The closest we get to an Eder Tomahn in that position in EoA is the one at the junction between the upper and lower elevator tracks - but the floor of the Shaft isn't nearly as far down as in Uru. I think Cyan just made those changes for convenience and/or dramatic effect, including the support "spokes" in the Shaft. Besides, in Uru the Shaft is really dark - you can't hardly see anything - and it's much brighter in EoA. They probably figured they could get away with it.

So if that's the case, and if "Uru 2" takes place after EoA, then it's a bit easier to wrap one's head around. But I still want to know in what time period Yeesha has spent the last 30 or 40 years of her life sending people on the Journey. We know she travels in time, so has she been in the present day since Uru, and it's now the mid/late 21st century? Or has she maybe spent most of her time back in the 19th century, and decided that we, Atrus' old friend, are her last hope, and she has just brought us into 2005/06 from that time? Or is it a combination of the two? Or neither one? Or am I making any sense at all?!?

Ok, babbling over. I will now go take my meds....

Regarding the 'nmaeless stranger', that is to say, the player of the games.

My assumption when I started Uru was that I was playing a different character to the one who became a family freind over the the first 4 Myst games. It wouldn't make any sense otherwise. The suggestion was that I was just one of many who had been 'called' to D'ni, and I knew nothing about them until I came to the desert. So I couldn't have been the 'same person'. Considering Uru was originally intended to be online this must be the case. Those people couldn't ALL be the family freind!

The trouble is End of Ages follows on from this and it is clearly shown there that I am playing the same person as in Mysts 1 - 4. As has been said, this would have to make me incredibly old. It also raises the question of at what point I fell out of touch with Atrus and family and why, as a lot has changed since REvelation. After all the help I gave to Atrus it would seem a little ungreatful of him to stop writing to me and to not invite me round every now and again. Certainly not to even tell me he'd changed his address from Tohmana to Releeshan or invite me to Katherine's funeral!

But then, I never thought I got much thanks. After all at the end of the first game I was just left wandering around Myst island forever... Thanks Atrus.

I agree with mszv that perhaps some people have over-complicated the matter but it seems to me that Cyan have done that themselves with End of Ages.

So my questions are:

The first 4 games are clearly chronological with the player taking on the same character. I got the impression that they took place within a timespan of about 25 years.
Is the player of Uru the same person as the one who played these games?

If not, is the player's character in Myst V the family freind from 1 -4 or the 'drawn' stranger from Uru?

Alahmnat - you are good at knowing this stuff, or knowing where there are links - do you have anything on the chronology of the games?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: mszv,

I think there is supposed to be a different, longer timespan (not sure) for the games - and, to some folks, most of the games, except for Uru and Myst V, are set in the past - I think at least a hundred or more years ago, but I'm not sure.

To make it all work, some people talk about "the stranger" and not the player. I think this violates the idea that you play as yourself - which to me is the charm of the games. Still, if you want to get the chronology right, and match it up to the time periods of the books, you have to do all this work. The way I explain it to myself, if I'm forced to go along with the idea that some of the games are set in the past - is a "time travel/alternate dimension" thing. I just refuse to go along with any concept of "the stranger" being different from the player, but that's me. There are different views on the subject.

I'm vague on the "when are the games set" thing because, and yes, I'll admit it - it annoys me,so I haven't done research on it. The whole charm of the Myst series games is, in my opinion, that we play as ourselves, that we become a friend to Atrus - the player, not some distant other person. That means that I'm kind of a bad person to speak to the chronology, except for being sure that, as the games are set up now, the time series matches the order of publication - Myst, Riven, Myst III Exile, Myst IV, Uru and Myst V.

Yes, if we've been a good friend to Atrus, it is odd when we all come into Uru, when Uru was an online game. Are we all good friends of Atrus, the person who helped out him and his family in all the games? It's very odd. I explain it to myself by thinking that I am the one true friend of Atrus, and all the other people in Uru just got the call - they aren't the one true friend that I am.

quote:

Originally posted by chinaboatman:
So my questions are:

The first 4 games are clearly chronological with the player taking on the same character. I got the impression that they took place within a timespan of about 25 years.
Is the player of Uru the same person as the one who played these games?

No The person you are in Uru is not the same person that you play in Myst through Revelation. The games take place within about 20 years of each other (Riven is about 8 months after Myst, Exile is 10 years after Riven, and Revelation is 8 years after Exile), and all take place about 200 years in the past, chronologically.

quote:

If not, is the player's character in Myst V the family freind from 1 -4 or the 'drawn' stranger from Uru?

Cyan has been rather mute on the subject of EoA's place in the timeline, but from what was said before the game came out, it was implied that you resume your role as the family friend from Myst. Of course, the trouble is that time is quite definitely not on your side here, since EoA takes place after the events of Uru. The running theory (or at least, my running theory) is that you were pulled forward through time by Yeesha as the only person she knows she can count on to make the right decision in the Quest. The alternative explanation in the EoA strategy guide that you are, in fact, the Uru player, and that Atrus is simply senile doesn't make terribly much sense, as Atrus seems perfectly lucid to me.

So ultimately, what we've got is the Myst games, which are set in the early 1800's, Uru, which started in 2003 and has been running continually ever since (I blame the bad fashion and dance sense on the lack of clothing stores and clubs in the Cavern ), and EoA, which is set at some unspecified point in the future. A revived Uru Live would, logically, continue in present day, placing it after Uru (again, logically), but before End of Ages. Since the time period isn't specified in EoA, Cyan effectively has all the time in the world to run whatever story they want, culminating in a finale (EoA) that could very well be many years in the future (assuming Uru Live does return and run for an insane length of time). We've essentially got the exposition and the final page of a story with a lot of middle left to tell (and, for whatever reason, Cyan decided now rather than later would be a good time to close things out... of course, I don't think they planned on ringing back Uru Live as soon as they did either, and that's possibly made EoA's release a bit premature). The DRC thus has plenty of time between now and EoA to effect the changes to the Great Shaft we see between Uru and EoA... fixing the lighting, the elevators, the floor, etc. (also, just a small note, just because the Eder Tomahn we can get to in Uru isn't where the Eder Tomahntee are in EoA doesn't mean it's not still there [ignoring the fact that it probably wasn't built into the game's model to save on polygon count], it just means the elevators don't stop there ).

Right. Actually that all makes more sense than I expected it would.

Personally, I can accept the idea of a kind of time distortion, allowing the player to interact with Atrus and co over a long period of time, even without Yeesha's involvement. After all, do we really know the nature of the various Ages, relative to Earth? Are they other dimensions? Are they other planets, existing somewhere in our Universe? We just don't know (or at least I don't). Not knowing the ages relationships to space therefore, we can't really know their relationship with time either. Therefore it is perfectly feasible that they don't run at the same 'speed' as our world, a kind of black hole effect. Maybe this reflects nothing more than my personal whims, but I prefer that notion to the idea of Yeesa transporting the player through time.

This allows the player of Myst 1-5 to be the same person, which is certainly preferable to the notion of Atrus being senile!

It also means that the games do not have to be set in the past, an idea I really don't like. There are quite a lot of modern notions in the Myst series that probably would have seemed far less straightforward to an 18th century lady or gent. We are looking at the ages with a modern eye so we should be 'playing' a modern character.

Lastly, I really empathise with what mszv said regarding our status as Atrus' freind. This may make me sound a little sad but I thought it was a really nice moment at the beggining of Revelation when Yeesha was demonstrating the camera and she said of our photo 'You can take it out and look at it whenever you miss us'. That was a great touch. Although I don't want to constantly go on about this (honestly!), maybe that is one of the things missing from Uru and End of Ages for me: That sense of continuity, that sense of familiarity that we worked hard to aquire in Mysts 1 through 4. It felt lke I earned Atrus' respect and freindship. In End of Ages it just feels like i'm being used as a tool.

Well, I don't know about the rest of you - but I am a friend of Atrus and his family. I'm the one who has been with him in all the games!

And you know - I think he could be a better friend - as soon as I appear, either something bad happens or he puts me to work!

I'm a little concerned about Yeesha too - all that preaching, and to me. I've known her since she was a baby!

Well, she always was a precocious and bossy little so and so. Remember her tantrum when you accidentaly let out those fireflies in Revelation?

Personally I didn't really notice a great change in her personality when she was 'inhabited' by Cirrus!

I don't want to go bad-mouthing my good buddy Atrus but I don't know, he hasn't raised the greatest bunch of kids in the world.

And I have to say, I never believed his flimsy story in Exile when he said 'he couldn't follow Saveedro and myself into the book because of the flames'. Hey Atrus, you were only a few steps behind me! Honestly, I don't know why I do it sometimes... Guess I just love em too much.

Well, I guess we now have a bit more info on the EoA timeline. For those who haven't been to the DRC Site lately (and for those who care ), check out the timeline at the bottom of the page. 2005: "Yeesha searches for someone to free the Least". Sounds like EoA to me. So now we know - she apparently hasn't spent the last two years in the 21st century, since she's aged a LOT more than that....

We (the player) Are outside the timeline

First off we, are not D'ni, and frankly ingame theres been no reference as to exactly where we come from. When you start Riven, Atrus mentions perhaps, if all goes well, he can make a linking book to send you (us the player) back to where we come from. Yet he does not. All know is somehow, the Myst book fell through the star fissure and somehow it came into our posession. After "free"ing Atrius from is prision we return (Riven) to see him at the same desk worried about catherine. At the end of Myst we have to option of going back to Myst Isle, but not home. SO we wander around until we go see Atrus who then sends us off to see Catherine.

After Saving Catherine we come to see Atrus in his new home. Hes working on the new book for Dni and wants to show it off to us. How did we even link to this new home? Where did we go after Riven?

With these few between game holes I take it we are the same player, character wise. At the beginning of Myst V Yeesha mentions that father will not be requiring our assistance this time around as hes dead.

As far as Uru Live, should it ever go live (Gametap supposidly going to host it), it was scrapped before it went live the first time around, and they decided to finish it off with Myst V EoA. Even though Uru has Yeesha yet again, because its called Ages Beyond Myst, Ive kinda put it into that catagory, its a Myst game, but not in Direct linking to the Myst saga, storyline.

As the beginning of URU Ages Beyond Myst and of Myst V End of Ages show, you (=the player) end up on Earth after falling through the star fissure, in the desert in New Mexico - you can see the remains of the Riven telescope and a wahrk skeleton in the desert in URU, and a digger in the volcano in Myst V.

Tomahna, the new home Atrus built after you freed him and Catharine, is not far from this volcano, i.e. on earth too.

Ahh, was under the impression Tomahna was yet another age, not just the name ot the Atrus home on Earth, thanks for the info. I noticed the telescope in Uru and figured it was there as a prop for fans of Myst. THinking more about it now however, the crevice in the desert is shaped a lot like the star fissure..... Maybe one of these days Ill read the books.