Hi, first off i have the largest respect for what cyan do, i just want to make that clear.

After playing the demo on my pc i'm not left satisfied in comparison to the tremendously polished games cyan have produced before (excluding uru).

Here are some things I hope cyan will fix before they release the game:

- Considering this is a realtime 3d engine, which have been around for many years, I am not sure why cyan have produced such a crude version. For example using the mouse to move around 360 degrees like any other fps game is not at all correct in myst V. The Y axis is a lot faster then the X axis, creating a very clumsy interface for the user.

- Whilst its nice to move around the world as if it was Myst III, Myst V moves WAY too fast and too far.

- There are also graphical inconsistancies that make me think cyan are just being careless.. The wave loop on Noloban is clunky and often twitches, the character who you meet at the start is floating and his clothes flapping inside him. And i must say, the character design of the Bahro is strangely poor.

Now, I wouldn't usually be so picky with a game, but it is cyan and i've come to expect so much from them.

This is just some constructive critism of the demo i hope cyan will take note of.

Thanks for reading.

U are being a bit picky

1. I didn't notice that at all...
2. I like the fast movement, its nice to be able to jump around. But I agree, I think it needs a speed slider for classic and classic+ modes. (Err.. can we just call it C and C++ and be done with it ) (That's a programmers joke for anyone who has no idea what I'm on about).
Every game from Myst 1 to 4 let you pick the transition speed... why not M5?
3. Wave loop is pretty good, a little repetitive but who cares. Esher's clothes, yes I did notice them go inside him a bit, but its very good cloth sim for the most part.

I was MUCH more concerned with the extremely visible problem when he's walking in Direbo - he's walking on a flat plane while the ground is curved. When he comes closer to you, his shadow shows that he's clearly FLOATING above the ground lol.

also does anyone know why theres no 5.1 audio? is it just because otherwise the demo size would be too big?

when ur in the game move the mouse up and down, then side to side, theres such a huge difference... maybe theres a config file to change it?

quote:

Originally posted by digitalshaman:
when ur in the game move the mouse up and down, then side to side, theres such a huge difference... maybe theres a config file to change it?

I noticed the same thing when navigating with the arrow keys. Forward/backward movement is fine, but trying to turn with the left/right arrows is painfully slow. In fact, the mouse is much faster for steering when using the arrow keys.

I was also surprised that the Bahro figures look so crude. You never get all that close to them in the demo, but it's pretty obvious that they are really low-res. Frankly I hadn't noticed the other stuff you mentioned. I was largely pretty impressed with Esher, but I was basing my observations on the Uru avatars, and not with characters from other realtime games.

Apart from the cloth simulation messing up abit, The model of Esher is better then most realtime game characters... the face isn's as expressive as half-life 2 but is better then anything else.

But the Bahro look like just a general bad character design to me, i'm sure its nothing to do with the engine or polygon amount.

Normal mapping would have really brought End of Ages to life. Too bad they didn't use it.

That cloth simulation is nothing special, as I have seen it in a number of action games. And I think it looked better in them as well.

The problem Cyan faces is that to get the game to look as good as they can on as many configurations as possible, Cyan can't use a lot of high-end tricks... they just aren't willing to limit the number of people who can see the game at its best to the relatively small number of players who actually do keep up with system upgrades every few months. End of Ages only implements 1.0 pixel shaders and equivalent technologies; 2.0 and 3.0 shaders were left off the table completely because not enough Myst players have systems capable of actually making use of them, so it would have been something of a waste of development time to implement (and as Cyan apparently only has 2 programmers now, there isn't a lot f manpower to make massive engine upgrades which PS2.0/3.0 would require).

Myst, frankly, doesn't sell as well as it used to (and the reasons can be argued, but I'd rather that not be done in this thread...), nor do adventure games in general, so the audience for this game is already very limited. On top of that, Myst players have, over the past 6+ years, moved from being "early adopters" of new technology (like the CD-ROM drive for Myst or the Pentium Processor for Riven) to being very much behind the times on system configurations (beause Myst will play on a 386, so anybody and their grandmother can play it on the family's aging $299 Dell). This, obviously, makes creating new games which implement the latest technology difficult if not impossible because the market of people who would actually buy the game can't run it if the specs are too high, and with an already diminishing market for the games in the first place, further restricting the market to the small portion of cross-over players from the FPS/RTS genres is a bad idea, simply from a financial standpoint (which is, like it or not, a huge factor for Cyan after the failure of Uru, which drained all of the company's reserve funds).

That said, and speaking as someone who is much more an aspiring developer than an actual gamer, I think End of Ages is beautiful. I also don't think it's necessary for it to aspire to a realistic aesthetic, partly because - Riven aside - Cyan's games have always had a very surrealistic bent to them (and I really think Riven is both an anomaly of gaming development and a huge obstacle for everything Cyan will ever do from now on, because nothing will ever match it ever again... the era of those kind of games is simply no more), but also because, speaking as a CG artist, realism is over-rated, and trying to dupliate it, rather than caricature it, is the wrong approach. Computer simply won't ever be able to completely duplicate reality (and Riven has plenty of its own problems in that area, so don't put it on a pedestal ), and the closer they get to being able to, the easier it is for the slightest inaccuracy to knock you out of the believability of the world (my favorite comparison is The Incredibles versus The Polar Express... which one is more realistic, and which is more believable?). I don't think the latest pixel shaders and mapping technologies are necessary for Cyan to make a visually stunning, quality Myst game (which is, for me, more about the characters and story than the photo-realistic visuals it has been increasingly typified for since Riven). Yeah, it may not be as much of a visual assault as Exile and Revelation are, but I don't think visual overload is what makes a great Myst game. It looks way better than Myst (and if you beg to differ, I invite you to actually go re-play it before doing so ), and it's much more alive and dynamic than Riven or Exile... I'd put it on par with Revelation in that area, personally. I also enjoy the new types of puzzles that a realtime engine affords... and interaction with the Bahro, is, to me, a lot of fun. I got a kick out of the fact that there is actually an animation for the Bahro returning the Slate to the pedestal, even though not many people are likely to ever see it. There is still a lot of attention to detail going on, most of it is just unseen (because it's in the details ).

Of course, I may just not be as picky about things. Yes, it's a Cyan game, but I don't put their work on trial to be compared to their last outing, I simply enjoy it for what it is, and I've greatly enjoyed the demo.

Myst isn't supposed to be a graphical explosion. That's not ultimately what sells a Myst game, although it's much appreciated when it appears. Myst is supposed to be a subtle game, where the story is presented in a manner that fits with that theme of subtley and even peace. Should the developers create a game with bright and flashy colors all the time, they would be abandoning the very thematic core of Myst.

I'm tired so that may not have made a lot of sense. To simplify: if I had to choose between Myst as graphically intense and Myst as subtle storytelling personified, I'd pick storytelling.

quote:

Originally posted by Alahmnat:
I also enjoy the new types of puzzles that a realtime engine affords... and interaction with the Bahro, is, to me, a lot of fun. I got a kick out of the fact that there is actually an animation for the Bahro returning the Slate to the pedestal, even though not many people are likely to ever see it. There is still a lot of attention to detail going on, most of it is just unseen (because it's in the details ).

To see the Bahro return the slate to the pedestal all you have to do is write Hi Bahro on the slate after you have finished the tunnel puzzle...they nicely come pick up the slate return it to the pedestal and give you a new lighted area to touch. Which then sends you to Intel Not what I hoped would happen but I'm pleased to find I saw something most don't see, thanks Alahmnat.

thanks for the in depth post alahmnat

I understand what you're are saying about realism, but have never said i come to expect realism from cyan. I expect the detail, the polished-ness, the consistency of design (which is why the Bahro dissapoint me), and as you say, the believability.

When i see characters floating, bad designs, and poor interfaces all it does is brake my suspension of disbelief!

I understand what you say about new technologies like pixel shading etc, and i think cyan gets around these problems fantastically. Even though uru was a bit of a flop it still looked amazing, purely from the texture standpoint. I'm a Computer animation student in the uk, and as i've already said i have great respect for what cyan do. Myst V also looks brilliant.

Alahmnat, great explanation.

quote:

You cannot please all the people all the time, you must displease everyone equally

Perhaps the "demo" for the sake of file download size is on the lower end of some's quality scale at present. For me, Myst has been the "puzzles", the rest just atmospheric eye and ear candy. Well, except that **** marble puzzle in the great Gold Dome on Riven ... I like getting immersed into the unhurried world and slowly surround myself with sheaves of paper filled with nonsensical scribbling to the non-players. I can over look the "floating" in the beginning, in fact after the third time, I put the laptop down while he was mumbling and got a beer... Personally, I'll take the "logic" and puzzling solving over perfection in graphics. Example, do you really notice the blades of grass waving in the wind when hurriedly running to each of those stone pedestals to turn them just so?

Is Cyan going to make any more games? I don't know anyone who buys Myst games anymore. Everybody I know gave up on Myst around 4 years ago. I think that maybe they are having a hard time staying in business.

Cyan apparently has other, non-Myst-related projects in the works, including something called "Latus". We don't know anything about Latus at this point except the name, and that it's something new that maybe won't really be a "game" as we think of it.

Ok, First since I have a geforce 6800 GT , I would not mind them putting a patch out for the 3.0 shader setting for demo or full game, two since I have had a wireless-G access or yahoo dsl since around when uru offline a few months or a lot of months since then I use to try it with dialup but dialup was not working so I talked by parents into getting me dsl, anyway in the final Myst V game I hope that they do put in the shader 3.0 option for those of us who can or have gotten a Geforce 6 and that new 7 which I will not get its too much like 6 , the demos for 7 run just fine on 6 so I am sticking with Geforce 6800 GT card with 256 mem thing I have , but since not many games besides farcry uses 3.0 I hope they put it into Myst V , and fix the sound too the character in the demo , could only hear him when you turn up the volume a lot , since I have a 5.1 2 front 2 back and one center speakers with subwolfer setup in my room , I hope that they put 5.1 sound option in the final game, also character could look better too , the background was ok ,

but the characters look like something out of unreal 1 game engine characters.

So here what I hope the full game has

* 5.1 sound and sound fix on character , sometimes his voice could not be heared right or it was just bad voice acting

* 3.0 shaders for people who do update their system , etc.. those of us who keep are computers update too date , "yes just try and run the demo on a pentium 1 ,2 and or 3 I dare you!!"

* Charater need to look more real and or less like unreal 1 Characters , I can't even compare them to unreal Tourenment 2004 nope can't do it he was just too bad of a character. The creature was ok , but then again it looked a little too much like the friendly creatures from unreal 1

In the end , I hope they do change it from 1.0 or give a update to 3.0 for those of us , who could run it better

@robsmyst-

You don't really understand what I was saying, or at least I don't think you do. I'm saying for what the engine is and does, the performance isn't up to other engines. Even on low settings, something like Splinter Cell:CT without all the whipped-cream and sugar-delights of high-end shaders still looks good and runs smooth. Having a card that enables them doesn't bring down the FPS either.

It's also a statement of fact - a lot of people with midrange-to-low computers have 11fps or lower on top of Noloben with grass that doesn't even move due to the quality settings. This shouldn't be happening. Other problems appear to be the cloth simulation coupled with overdraw in Direbo when Escher appears.

Some people report the game as smooth - in fact, one person who did on these very forums performed an FPS test and suprised themselves with the results which were a lot lower than they expected. The performance does leave a lot to be desired, but this is the demo and it looks increasingly likely that the recent gold statement wasn't true.

But as you say, who know? Maybe a patch will be issued later on, but any upgrade to the Plasma engine, which wasn't designed to the same flexibility as the Crytek one (which was always going to take advantage of code which allows for plug-in compatability), doesn't seem likely.

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

"low-enders who can barely play it"

Look at it this way from lowenders they will get less money then highenders etc.. and highenders will not buy it just because it was made for the low-ender money less people. and money less people won't be given the game makers money so the game will suck air...

I really don't care if its made for lowenders , my point is that since its the Last Myst game that is every going to be made don't you think they should make it work right on the high enders computers ,etc puting in the shaders 3.0 and fixing the sound problems etc.. 5.1 sound needed etc. and characters need more stuff to them, like a patch can add the 3.0 shaders , just like they did with farcry,

Since its last and final myst game I think it should go out with a boom and not a flick. last game we are talking about here , some day lowender will upgrade and be better then etc. use patch and make myst V into highender version needed for a final or game just dust in the wind

When you get a high ender computer and/or 3D you go too play myst V (Last GAme Title)from coming from a lowender user to someday turns into a highender user ) you go to play your myst V , and say to yourself I wish they made this game better now that I have the highend type computer playing this game , its low-res grahics don't even give me joyment any more, you thought that the last myst game that try made does not even cut your current hardware and will wish you could of gotten your low money back your $29 dollars back because they doop the price down because it was made for lowender hardware and its not a $49 game that would be a game like doom3 or farcry which really is made for a geforce 6 card

want I am saying here is that the game is not made with current technology or hardware like Geforce 6 etc.. people will not want to pay 49 bucks for a cheaply maded game
Also I has point out the fact that once you can upgrade your computer you will not look at the game the same way you did when you had the older hardware, Ever one remembers dos and green screen monitor , think or lowenders as Dos users and Green Monitor as their Myst V displays , think of playing on a big floppy disk drives , think of that as a lowender , and think of our current techno. compared them what if all users will used dos and green screen monitor , then the game makers would have to get ride of the big size mb and gb and start using kb again and forget 256 colors and higher Think of a lowender using 2 colors green and black only (type) Diffent shades of colors of green on black background in Myst V, would you still want the game made for low-enders since low-enders used to be Big floppys and dos only mode maybe they chould remake Myst V in Qbasic from dos , since all lowenders = old type pcs

A little long of a descripion but I think you get my point now

also my point is I started with a green screen computer with big floppys, then came win 3.11 then windows 98 and windows me and when I got windows xp and then I got a ati card then I upgaded to a nvidia 4 then I went to a 6 card but once I was or started as a low ender computer uses and upgraded my way to a high ender , but High you go the less you want the low end stuff

PCs should be called 'boats' because that is what they are. Constantly in dry dock & needing repairs. Another term that applies is 'money pit'.

quote:

Originally posted by robsmyst:
"low-enders who can barely play it"

Look at it this way from lowenders they will get less money then highenders etc.. and highenders will not buy it just because it was made for the low-ender money less people. and money less people won't be given the game makers money so the game will suck air...

I really don't care if its made for lowenders , my point is that since its the Last Myst game that is every going to be made don't you think they should make it work right on the high enders computers ,etc puting in the shaders 3.0 and fixing the sound problems etc.. 5.1 sound needed etc. and characters need more stuff to them, like a patch can add the 3.0 shaders , just like they did with farcry,

Since its last and final myst game I think it should go out with a boom and not a flick. last game we are talking about here , some day lowender will upgrade and be better then etc. use patch and make myst V into highender version needed for a final or game just dust in the wind

When you get a high ender computer and/or 3D you go too play myst V (Last GAme Title)from coming from a lowender user to someday turns into a highender user ) you go to play your myst V , and say to yourself I wish they made this game better now that I have the highend type computer playing this game , its low-res grahics don't even give me joyment any more, you thought that the last myst game that try made does not even cut your current hardware and will wish you could of gotten your low money back your $29 dollars back because they doop the price down because it was made for lowender hardware and its not a $49 game that would be a game like doom3 or farcry which really is made for a geforce 6 card

want I am saying here is that the game is not made with current technology or hardware like Geforce 6 etc.. people will not want to pay 49 bucks for a cheaply maded game
Also I has point out the fact that once you can upgrade your computer you will not look at the game the same way you did when you had the older hardware, Ever one remembers dos and green screen monitor , think or lowenders as Dos users and Green Monitor as their Myst V displays , think of playing on a big floppy disk drives , think of that as a lowender , and think of our current techno. compared them what if all users will used dos and green screen monitor , then the game makers would have to get ride of the big size mb and gb and start using kb again and forget 256 colors and higher Think of a lowender using 2 colors green and black only (type) Diffent shades of colors of green on black background in Myst V, would you still want the game made for low-enders since low-enders used to be Big floppys and dos only mode maybe they chould remake Myst V in Qbasic from dos , since all lowenders = old type pcs

A little long of a descripion but I think you get my point now

also my point is I started with a green screen computer with big floppys, then came win 3.11 then windows 98 and windows me and when I got windows xp and then I got a ati card then I upgaded to a nvidia 4 then I went to a 6 card but once I was or started as a low ender computer uses and upgraded my way to a high ender , but High you go the less you want the low end stuff

did you even read alahmnat's post?

i started this thread for constructed critism and discussion. not mindless babbling with REALLY long sentences (use a full stop!)

and there will be 5.1, its just not in the demo

quote:

Originally posted by Alahmnat:
I got a kick out of the fact that there is actually an animation for the Bahro returning the Slate to the pedestal, even though not many people are likely to ever see it.

It's pretty easy. If you draw the slate shape (looks like a tombstone) then the Bahro will return the slate to the pedestal -- because the pedestal has that shape drawn on it in the place where the slate sits.

I expect that each pedestal will have its own unique symbol, which you'll be able to draw in order to ask the Bahro to move the slate to that pedestal. Probably will come in handy when you can't carry it there yourself