Guild of Writers

Shorah,

I was talking with Zuri, one of the people from my bevin (who said he is a writer) and we got to discussing ideas for future ages. He directed me here so that I could run these ideas by you guys in case any of you might find them helpful or interesting in creating your own ages. I'm not good with technology and I don't know exactly what Blender/3DMax are capable of, and I'm not really interested in learning about how to use them, but I figured that I can at least contribute some concepts to the Guild of Writers' work. Some of you may have come up with these ideas anyways, but here they are:

1) A burial age. We know from the lore that some of these exist, but what they are like and what security measures against grave-robbers exist are currently unknown. If nothing else, this sort of age would, like Er'cana and Gahreesen, help to expand our knowledge of D'ni culture. Along the way to the final destination in this age (whatever that may be), we might read translated memorials for people of different social classes and professions (see the journals from that one rooftop in Ae'gura). The overall impact should be not only informational but also emotional or sympathetic, since we'll essentially be reading headstones and eulogies. On a similar note, death ages (basically execution grounds) and wedding ages would be interesting.

2) A sound-based age. Zuri said that you've been thinking of creating an age for blind people, but I was thinking more along the lines of an age in which you're effectively blind. What I thought of is something like the Selenitic Age in Myst I, specifically the Mazerunner section. Basically, sounds would tell you what's in your general vicinity. When you step to a certain area, you'll hear a series of 4(?) sounds, one for each of the cardinal directions. These sounds would be based on pitch and effect, where the pitch tells you the direction and the sound effect you hear tells you what sort of terrain is in that direction. For example, there could be a pitch for "west" and a sound effect that represents "wall" which, when combined, tell you that "there's a wall to the west of you." There could be others for "stairway," "nothing," "door," or "something important." Think blind man's buff meets Zork. Maybe there could be constant sounds that would direct you in certain ways. There could be some sort of KI upgrade effective in this area only, or some other sort of device that would help you find these sounds. There would be information in the beginning of the area that would somehow explain the significance of each sound.

In order to make this an actual challenge, there would have to be something that limits the effectiveness of your vision. The area could either be almost totally bright or dark so you can't see anything in the vicinity. I also have another idea, though this might be too challenging given the technology you currently have at your disposal. What if the WALKABLE map (where your avatar can actually go) is significantly different from the VISIBLE map? In other words, you might see a stairway but you can't climb it since it doesn't really exist and is just an illusion; conversely, you could go through illusory and insubstantial walls or "walk on air" using invisible stairs because what actually exists in the area is not the same as what you see. There may be places where "what you see is what you get," but in others, what really exists is invisible and you can only locate it by following your ears instead of your eyes. If this were the case, it may help to create a "test room" or two so that players could get used to the illusions and how to navigate around them. The first room might have the two maps sync up perfectly, whereas the second might have a door that only appears to exist and the real exit is through a seemingly solid wall.

3) I understand that one of the main ages you're all working on is a collaborative age that consists of many "shells" that connect to one another. It's basically a superpuzzle/hub; the one age contains many linking books, but also puzzles in its own right that allow you to progress further into the shells or towards the outside. If this is the case, why not have the sub-ages themselves be part of the puzzle? We know from Er'cana that things from certain ages can affect things in other ages to an extent, so maybe solving each age could have an effect on the "superpuzzle." Or it could be like Riven, where the central "golden dome" or firemarble puzzle (for example) requires information from numerous other areas and affects some aspect of the entirety of Riven when solved.

4) My last idea has to do with plots and puzzles in general. The journey cloth concept has kind of been overdone in my opinion, so why not turn to linking books? Maybe the "save" option in these new ages is related to finding missing pages from linking books

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like in the original Myst, where we had to find the missing page to Atrus' linking book back to Myst

so that you can complete them and return to wherever the book lets you go (obviously somewhere you have already been on the age by that point). Perhaps the pages have been deliberately hidden, or maybe the wind just picked 'em up and put them somewhere inconvenient, I dunno. That's up to the age writers.

Let me know if any of these have already been considered, if you need futher clarification, or if you have any other questions I could answer.

--Equinox

Shorah,

Yep Zuri is one of our own and you can his work scattered around the site. And it's ok if you are more interested in the story/concept aspect, so am I. You just either give your ideas to the world or work on building a team. Now onto your very good opening ideas.

1. I have heard of burial Ages, two in fact but both were Explorer not D'ni made. Death Ages I always assumed were like Be-el-ze-bub instantly uninhabitable, but and Exicutioners Age would be facinating, and a Wedding Age sounds really lovely and romantic quite honestly.

2. Never heard that one sounds very interesting.

3. Ahra Pahts, ... sounds interesting but for the most part it is largely puzzle free I thought.

4. I like alternate game save ideas... good job... it is more than likely quite workable.

Great start have a great day!

Hey Equinox! Good to see you here. As per our conversation in the Cavern, I think the Burial and Wedding ages would be nice. Even if you stay on the storyline side of things - don't forget that there is a wiki here on the site that will provide you with valuable information.

Welcome, and enjoy your stay!

1. Burial/Execution/Wedding Ages would all be interesting (not all together, although that could make for a very interesting Age if it worked). We have some information about some of those in BoT, right? (at least, a vague mention of burial ones, and perhaps we could infer something about the wedding accommodations in general unless they just cut past scenes around that time)

2. That sounds interesting.

Maybe it's a giant set of imagers, set up for... I have no idea, but it would be a good training excercize for any group that might have to deal with similar conditions (maybe to accustom a certain group to sound or other commands that they'd usually use at night or in Ages with strange physics) - maybe Surveyors or Maintainers. This would be a fairly safe area (and due to the imagers, the view could be easily changed between various setups, maybe the physical setup could be changed too [by moving walls and such]) to practice using such communication by necessity.

Sounds would be interesting, but perhaps other methods could be used too (KI signals, maybe - it would be one use of such communicators*), or maybe it would be navigated partially by using KI coordinates.
*Or maybe the KI camera can see invisible marks of some kind (like the one 3.14 image thing), and these are placed either by the player (watching where they hit walls and where they don't) or prearranged (so the original people training would be expected to know to follow such things.

On a related note, it makes me think of http://en.mystlore.com/wiki/Katha

3. I don't think Ahra Pahts has overall puzzles - it's mostly made as a nice way to navigate through (all in one Age) the different shells (some of which have puzzles and some don't), if I read right. It would be nice to see some kind of multi-shell (and multi-person, perhaps, to have it be more than the three or so each person can claim) puzzle - maybe coordinates hidden amongst bunches of shells (each of which would be focused on other things, maybe - it would just be that a short image/string of numbers/message would be stuck in somewhere according to their wish).

4. Well, we are a little unsure on how easy it is to actually reattach linking book pages, but it would definitely be interesting (hope it doesn't rain there). (oh, and then the inventory problem comes up)

Perhaps the player could also tear out pages as well, and this would get them caught up again by the wind/other force. So it would start out with say 5 pages missing, set into 10 or so possible locations (some of which require puzzle solving or running/jumping/etc. around, and some of which are hidden from normal view). Players would pick up those 5 pages and put them back into the book to continue. Then later they could tear out a certain number of pages and scatter them for replay value (which would be randomly placed in those 10 or so locations), or for when a friend was coming through.

All of these sound like great ideas! I am especially interested in the idea of a tomb age. I know big characters like Kadish would be off limits (though you KNOW he probably wrote himself some huge puzzle filled age for his tomb long before he would die!) but I bet there are a bunch that would be cool to find.

Of course I immediately think of Indiana Jones when we talk about exploring tombs.

BAD wrote:All of these sound like great ideas! I am especially interested in the idea of a tomb age. I know big characters like Kadish would be off limits (though you KNOW he probably wrote himself some huge puzzle filled age for his tomb long before he would die!) but I bet there are a bunch that would be cool to find.

Of course I immediately think of Indiana Jones when we talk about exploring tombs.

And then Kadish goes and dies in his vault anyway so his tomb doesn't get to be used!

I've actually been wondering about the viability of a multiplayer age with fiendish puzzles (I like fiendish puzzles) that change based on who's come through before you... A little like the chase for Saavedro in Exile, where he's broken things and you've got to make adjustments to get it all working, only each person or group that goes through leaves things in a different (but still needing to be solved) state.

I'm still nibbling at the concept there.

Katreeny

About 3 and 4...

OK, now I know that Ahra Pahts isn't meant to be a superpuzzle, but what about a unique age that would contain one of these? They did it with Riven, so it should be easy enough to do it here. I was surprised that you guy were excited about the burial and wedding ages...I thought that someone would have worked on these a long time ago. Given your enthusiastic response, how about a "circle of life" super-age that contains birth, education, wedding, old age, and burial ages? You'd have to complete them all in order to finish the final puzzle.

As for the linking book idea, it was done twice in Myst:

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once in front of our eyes when Atrus added the final page to the linking book back to Myst, and (arguably) by the player him/herself by attaching missing pages to Sirrus and Achenar's trap books. We don't know exactly what happens with those, but somehow someone with no knowledge of the D'ni (at the time) who is at least as intelligent as the average URU player added the pages back to the trap books. And without having played Myst IV, I know that trap books don't really exist in the canon, but in Myst and Riven they were basically modified linking books.

I had originally considered that the player could writer his or her own linking books, but we haven't really discovered (as far as I know) the materials and methodology of creating these books. There's a special ink of course, but how is it manufactured? And is just writing a descriptive passage in D'ni script enough, or are there conventions for exactly how to describe your surroundings that you want to make a linking book for? I just think that it would be pretty easy to specify locations where the player could write a linking book based on important/interesting details in the surroundings, like a particular vista or a room that's especially noteworthy. And as we all should know, linking books must be written in the age where you intend to return to, and in the general area you want to return to.

--Equinox

Oh, and Gehn, there's a lot of material about weddings and families in the journals on one of the Bahro stone-accessible rooftops in Ae'gura. They mostly describe the actual process of getting married and having kids, but the writer specifically mentions "wedding ages." Some of them are public and open to everyone, sort of like Las Vegas chapels (?) but many are private, family-owned ages if I remember correctly.

--Equinox

And yet another idea...the linking books we have to find pages for could be a problem...we can't carry anything at present, and we can't even carry a linking book "in our pockets" so to speak (meaning that it can't be an item and we can't really have it on our person due to the restrictions of the game engine). But maybe these pages could act sort of like Relto pages? Or maybe we can stuff them in the Relto book or something until we put them in the actual linking book? I don't know how we could circumvent the "no carrying" restriction otherwise without making something so elaborate that it would defeat the purpose of finding pages.

--Equinox

It could work like the marker missions. You don't actually have to carry anything.