Who Really is The Stranger

Free Bird · **Joined:** Tue Sep 05, 2006 10:52 pm **Posts:** 179

JWPlatt wrote:

Free Bird wrote:

All we need now is Rand posting in this thread and the party will be complete.

+Ryan. I haven't seen him since the Ae'gura Tent Rope controversy.

We'd also need Bonnie, Chuck and Chris for the ultimate completeness, as far as Myst is concerned, anyway...
But to be honest, I'd settle for less.

RIUM+ · **Posted:** Sat Oct 15, 2011 5:08 pm

The butterflies on Myst are called Mortimer and Willow, RAWA says? New official information!

But as one question is answered, a dozen more sprout up...

Is there any chance Michael Engberg named his daughter after one of these butterflies? Is this why Willow Engberg used the nickname "Wheely" - so no one confused her with the butterfly, especially the many moths hanging around the lamps in the cavern? Did Wheely like butterflies? Did butterflies like Wheely? Are Willow and Mortimer the same species? Are they friends, enemies, acquaintances, coworkers, strangers? Or are they fellow strangers that found the Myst book?

For me, Myst has always been about finding out the answer to everything. Even where things contradict, I want to know where and why. Some things I'll never know, like how many pairs of socks Atrus owns. Some things stay the same, like D'ni time. Some things change (even subtly), like the cabin on Myst. Over time it's been represented as I first saw it in original Myst, more colourful, 3D, appeared "blurrier" on certain systems with lower resolution, been distressed/aged 200 years, artistically represented in box art and briefly described in one of the books in a manner not entirely consistent with its appearances anywhere else. And that's only something minor, let alone trap books or the stranger's identity or Yeesha's additions to quantum linking theory!

What's correct? It doesn't matter to me, I just want to know about all these changes and why it's changed. Even things that changed in development and never appeared in the games. My journey is the discovery of all of this, right up to the point where people start giving me weird looks (like when I worked out the "official" definition of one prorahn: the duration of 12804025083.767865923 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom at 0 K... Yeah that sums up my determination very well).

To Robyn, Rand, RAWA, Chogon, Spyder, the Penguins taking over the world by stealing all the Ice Cream, all stink bugs named Larry (even the girl ones) and all the other past/present Cyan employees: thank you for creating such detailed games. This surrealistic adventure has definitely become a world to me.

Free Bird · **Joined:** Tue Sep 05, 2006 10:52 pm **Posts:** 179

Would the Bahro break a butterfly on a wheel?

Eleri · **Posted:** Sun Oct 16, 2011 2:01 am

RIUM+ wrote:

To Robyn, Rand, RAWA, Chogon, Spyder, the Penguins taking over the world by stealing all the Ice Cream, all stink bugs named Larry (even the girl ones) and all the other past/present Cyan employees: thank you for creating such detailed games. This surrealistic adventure has definitely become a world to me.

What he said, even though it took me a good 5 minutes before I stopped laughing enough to type this. RIUM, you nut!

Mowog · **Joined:** Tue May 09, 2006 2:18 am **Posts:** 1420

Just wanted to stick a toe in here and say how fascinating I've found this thread to be. Someone once said that Myst would "Become our world," and in a very real way, it has for many of us.

Robyn, thanks for stopping by. Don't be a stranger! (There's that "stranger" bit again...)

One of the reasons I enjoyed Myst so much when it first appeared on the scene was that I was already quite familiar with The Manhole and Cosmic Osmo. As I've mentioned in the past, these titles came around just when our son was getting to the age when he could manage a computer mouse, and we spent many an hour playing the original black and white Manhole on our Mac SE as a father and son team. Time passed, we got into Osmo, got a color Mac and the Manhole Masterpiece Edition and Spelunx... all of this to say that Myst didn't seem like a bolt out of the blue to me so much as a grand enhancement of the themes we'd already experienced in The Manhole and Osmo - except that this time the worlds were beautiful, colorful, and mysterious; with an obvious, but unknown past; but best of all, we now had a purpose for our explorations. Even if that purpose only gradually became clear, it was the hook that caught us and pulled us deeper and deeper into these amazing new worlds.

Many, if not most, of us here will state outright that Riven set the standard for all the adventure games that followed. I still maintain that Riven is unsurpassed in the ways it integrated puzzles into the storyline and environment. It brought us the same compelling purpose as did Myst, but this time with a deeper sense of urgency and a broader image of good and evil. Now we could see the consequences of evil, and it drove us on ever harder toward the ultimate solution.

Robyn, I understand that your involvement with Cyan ended with Riven. But I strongly feel that Uru was intended to be every bit as compelling as Myst and Riven, and perhaps even more so, as it provided an experience that could be shared among adventurers. No longer were we a single stranger, we were a band of associates and friends - and some of those friendships grew to be quite close. Some resulted in marriages... and Mysterium became a pilgrimage for those who could take part. I was among the crowd at Cyan HQ back in 2006, and it was my great pleasure to meet Rand, RAWA, Chogon, and the other Cyan staff on hand who proved to be gracious hosts. It was also the first chance that I was able to join my fellow staffers from "The Cavern Today," a slick Myst-oriented podcast that ran for several years and still makes an occasional appearance.

Anyway, enough rambling. I've always been fascinated by the people at Cyan who made the worlds of Myst happen, and at the creative processes they used to realize those worlds. To hear new personal accounts of what it was like behind the scenes has been a real treat, and I've made an extra effort to visit this forum regularly to stay up on the latest posts in this thread.

Robyn, welcome back. You guys did something truly amazing, and we thank you deeply for all those late nights.

Mowog

Enzan · **Joined:** Wed Mar 10, 2010 6:52 pm **Posts:** 77

I never considered the Stranger to be "me". The joy I take is in the honey-sweet wisps of history to be discovered. The Terokh Jeruth offers us infinite worlds, filled with infinite cultures and species and ideas. Even the identity of the Stranger his or her self is a tantalizing puzzle to be gathered and assembled. Compared to all this, the fantasy fulfillment of making "me" the protagonist is dulled into sheer irrelevance.

Free Bird · **Joined:** Tue Sep 05, 2006 10:52 pm **Posts:** 179

May I ask when you first played Myst, Enzan?

mszv · **Joined:** Wed May 10, 2006 5:28 am **Posts:** 2266

Of the Cyan games, Myst is the game for me, always was. I'm not that much for Riven, which I know is heresy for many fans! Still, after all this, I'm tempted to go through Riven again, with a walkthrough. Of the non Cyan games, it's Myst IV, always Myst IV.

In the solo player games, it was never the D'ni for me, though I really like uncovering the D'ni civilization in Uru, quite a lot. For me it was going into the world. Fictionally, if felt nice to be a friend of Atrus.

I think there is a successor to Myst, though it's not in the realm of adventure games. The successor is the world of MMOs, mostly MMORPGs -- pick your favorite -- World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, Vanguard, Lord of the Rings Online, Rift, Everquest, Everquest 2, many others, and upcoming ones, Guild Wars 2, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic. Though gameplay is different, that's where you get a big wonderful world, a world you would like to lose yourself in. . That, and some of the big RPGs, Morrowind and Oblivion come to mind, also the upcoming Skyrim.

There are adventure games out today, the genre never went away. They tend to be story driven, third person games, with more characters and a lot of character interaction. I'd say most of them are not focused on the world as world, though there are exceptions. This is different from the game type of the Cyan series. Not only are the games in the series first person, but they are a very specific sort of 1st person -- wander around in the lovely, mostly empty world and figure stuff out. Most of the games in the series (3 done by Cyan, 2 by other development shops) do not make use of AI characters, they use videos of actors instead. It's a very specific, niche genre, nothing wrong with that. That's the old games -- who knows what new games will be like, assuming Cyan continues to make games.

Main_Avvie · **Posted:** Sun Oct 16, 2011 7:46 pm

Myst redefined the classic adventure. Giving it a new style of presentation. So much so that some people don't put Myst in the category of classic adventure game. To me, it harkens back to some of the first text adventures such as Colossal Cave and Zork which were presented in the first person with no characteristics ascribed to the player.

Later graphic adventures were presented with a character player's weren't exactly meant to assume but rather to pilot more like a vehicle such as Monkey Island's Guybrush. he had all his own characteristics and behaviors. Those games were presented in a very removed third person both graphically and in terms of narrative.

Myst put no barriers between the player and the virtual world. The interface was transparent. Only the disembodied hand and a Windows UI on occasion. There was no vehicle for the player, the player was the vehicle. We saw the ages of Myst through our own eyes, not through the eyes of a character we lived vicariously through... though we find out later on that such was indeed the case. It matters not to me. that same feeling remains.

Enzan · **Joined:** Wed Mar 10, 2010 6:52 pm **Posts:** 77

Free Bird wrote:

May I ask when you first played Myst, Enzan?

I'll say '98, as a rough estimate. Probably earlier.

Rudolfson · **Posted:** Tue Oct 18, 2011 1:32 pm

Robyn did you ever take a look at URU? I mean a multiplayer URU.
If not I think maybe a little description of my experience may put the Stranger business in perspective. First of all I was excluded from the URU experince since it was windows only. So I just forgot about it. Late 2007 however I chanced upon the info that URU was alive. I took a little sceptic look at it, you know, beeing conservative the third person perspective did not appeal, and also the idea that I would have to relate to somebody else online scared me. I started my explorations mainly keeping to my self, but the odd interaction with fellow players went well. Then one day I assumed I needed more than one player to solve part of the riddle in an age. So inviting a fellow swede, Sirli (where are you?), she went with me to this age with huge mushrooms (I bothered as little with age names as when playing myst)* And Lo! or rather And LOL! To be in my age talking to, seeing and coworking with a fellow player was such a joy. It was like having a friend with me in Riven. Can you imagine that! (talk about nerdgasm) Then when Kimmie taught me the /dance emote I laughed myself absolutely silly and woke up my kids. It was the contradicting emotions, this austere and heavy environment, then to have fun with friends and dance right on top of the ruins. Funny enough it just added to the magic. Nowhere did URU jump out and tell you that some other dude saved the day in MYST or Riven. It's not like that. The retcon spoken of is not there, in game.
To me the experience is everything, and MYST, Riven AND URU got it. Backstory is good for making that immersive experience, but it need only be just enough for that. I sort of get the feeling that players like me are in majority.
But people like me eventually start thinking that the development of the D'ni language, music and everything is a cool and interesting thing. And find a joy in it.
you know...
And when people in URU start talking about what happened in MYST it is natural to refer to "The Friend" or "some stranger" it's cool.

realXCV · **Posted:** Tue Oct 18, 2011 9:49 pm

Rudolfson wrote:

Nowhere did URU jump out and tell you that some other dude saved the day in MYST or Riven. It's not like that. The retcon spoken of is not there, in game.

If you exclude when Dr. Watson said he gave the tablet to the bahro.

Mystdee · **Posted:** Tue Oct 18, 2011 9:57 pm

Wait. . . . It was ME!! I gave the tablet to the Bahro, how could Dr. W be the one??? . . . .

protoomega · **Joined:** Wed Jan 10, 2007 7:36 pm **Posts:** 167

realXCV wrote:

Rudolfson wrote:

Nowhere did URU jump out and tell you that some other dude saved the day in MYST or Riven. It's not like that. The retcon spoken of is not there, in game.

If you exclude when Dr. Watson said he gave the tablet to the bahro.

But that's not "written" into the game-i.e. there's not a cutscene you're forced to see that tells you that information. It was a one-time event and the only place to find it out is here in the forums.

Personally, I like the idea of the Stranger being an entirely different person. Mainly because, had I suddenly found myself dropped onto Myst Island, I would have sat down and probably died of shock, not gone on a world-hopping tour, lol. On the other hand, in Uru, I'm an Explorer-I CHOSE to search out D'ni and explore it. For me, personally, that makes more sense for my character.

But of course, everyone should play the game in a way that fits THEM.

dragossh · **Joined:** Mon Jan 18, 2010 6:39 pm **Posts:** 517

Dr Watson did give the tablet to the Bahro. But in MYST V, *you* did. MYST is fictional, and in that fictional world you are Atrus' best friend, save Catherine, go kick Saveedro in the nuts and free the Bahro. But in Uru's world, the Stranger and Dr. Watson did that.

Who Really is The Stranger

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