Cyan Fans

[Collector]

I am a bit disappointed of Cyan's remake of this game since 1997. Did you forget who your fan base is? Instead of catering to your true fans, you're kowtowing to the VR kids of today. As a fan of your work since 1993 when you made Myst I feel like you are still trying to figure out where you fit into today's gaming. Stop trying to build a game for today's players and keep the formula simple for your fans. I am talking about the minimum requirements to even play the remake of this game, they are just plain silly. I may sound like a rambling fool for saying all this, but your sales on steam for all your games don't exactly prove me wrong either. I wanted to try this remake, but I have a laptop with a RTX 3050 graphics cards. Good luck with your future sales.

[Konscience]

I agree that minimum requirements could be lowered, but you could have made your point without insulting half the userbase really.

[Jarilo]

VR kids of today? Virtual Reality tends to skew older and is typical consumed by older individuals, the Quest has attempted to changed that up a bit. I think your frustration with your lap top, which isn't great and wasn't even designed for gaming brought you here to vent pointlessly.

[Henry]

I take issue with “VR kids.” I’m in my late 40s and had been waiting for VR to mature for decades, and jumped at the chance to experience immersive Cyan worlds…

[Hellish Fiend]

I dont agree with your take at all. You are implying that the core fanbase of Cyan are largely running on older/low performance systems, and care nothing for VR? I would argue the opposite on both points, actually. Cyan's core fanbase was arguably on the cutting edge of technological implementation back in the day, and furthermore, our desire to immerse ourselves in imaginative worlds transitions quite nicely into the VR space.

Case in point, for its day, Myst had MUCH higher system requirements compared to the average system in comparison to the Riven remake today:

CD-ROM Adoption: "Myst" was one of the first games to be released on CD-ROM, a relatively new technology at the time (1993). CD-ROM drives were not yet widespread in home computers, so early adopters of this technology were more likely to be tech enthusiasts who were keen on exploring new advancements in hardware.

Technical Requirements: The game required relatively high-end computer hardware for its time, including the aforementioned CD-ROM drive, a color monitor capable of displaying 256 colors, and a sound card for the immersive audio experience.

Software Environment: The game was initially released for Macintosh and later ported to Windows. Macintosh users, in particular, have often been early adopters of multimedia and graphics technologies.

[Draaloff]

Originally posted by Hellish Fiend:

Case in point, for its day, Myst had MUCH higher system requirements compared to the average system in comparison to the Riven remake today

Correct. Myst series games have never been made for low-end hardware.
As a fan, what really bothers me are the many puzzle and pacing changes from the original.

[handerwayne]

I played Riven on my old GTX 1060 6Gb almost on all Ultra settings. RTX 3050 has the same 6Gb (or even 8Gb) of VRAM, so you will be able to play Riven without any problems.

Well, I see you have RTX 3050 Mobile, which has only 4Gb of VRAM on board.

[FlooderQB19]

Originally posted by Hellish Fiend:

I dont agree with your take at all. You are implying that the core fanbase of Cyan are largely running on older/low performance systems, and care nothing for VR? I would argue the opposite on both points, actually. Cyan's core fanbase was arguably on the cutting edge of technological implementation back in the day, and furthermore, our desire to immerse ourselves in imaginative worlds transitions quite nicely into the VR space.

Case in point, for its day, Myst had MUCH higher system requirements compared to the average system in comparison to the Riven remake today:

CD-ROM Adoption: "Myst" was one of the first games to be released on CD-ROM, a relatively new technology at the time (1993). CD-ROM drives were not yet widespread in home computers, so early adopters of this technology were more likely to be tech enthusiasts who were keen on exploring new advancements in hardware.

Technical Requirements: The game required relatively high-end computer hardware for its time, including the aforementioned CD-ROM drive, a color monitor capable of displaying 256 colors, and a sound card for the immersive audio experience.

Software Environment: The game was initially released for Macintosh and later ported to Windows. Macintosh users, in particular, have often been early adopters of multimedia and graphics technologies.

I'm with you on this one Hellish. Riven is one of the first PC games I ever asked for as a middle school kid. My grandparents gave it to me as a present for my birthday.

When I got home I was sooo excited to get the PC running (gateway 2000) and start playing, only to be disappointed because we couldn't run DirectX 5 which was required for the game.

So my dad and I had to wait about a week, before we could go to a store and get a new Video card. We had also discovered we would need a new audio card and so we got that as well. It was my first ever experience in needing to upgrade computer components.

Eventually we got the game running, and both my dad and I loved it. Good memories

[Hellish Fiend]

Nice! I'm glad you were able to get what you needed to enjoy it. I was an early adopter of Myst (we had just purchased one of those ubiquitous Packard Bell systems that were quite popular at the time), but was late getting to Riven. However, even though I played the original Riven years after it came out, it was still just as powerful and memorable for me as it could have possibly been. And I do believe the remake lives up to that legacy and honors the memories/nostalgia that many of us have for it.

[FlooderQB19]

Yeah, I have been enjoying the MYST remake and the Riven remake. Riven has been in my top 5 games ever since middle school, and has one of my favorite soundtracks ever.

There have been some changes they made to Riven remake that i didn't quite care for, but overall I found it to be excellent.

[Ol'Kyle]

Myst has always been about being cutting edge. People had to buy or upgrade cd rom drives in order to play Myst when it came out. Their old computers wouldn't be able to play Myst. It is essentially considered a game that pushed graphics and computing for its time.

Cyan is just continuing that legacy. And continued to for Uru, Obduction, and Firmament.

I played Riven in VR and flatscreen. And I have to say Riven looks much more cutting edge and immersive in VR. Making it available for that platform is just a continuation of cyan's long commitment to pushing graphical boundaries.

[Melt]

As a Cyan fan that has upgraded hardware and purchased VR, ya know, stay with the times and all that... I have to say that I fully disagree with the OP and completely welcome the vast improvements. Seems like Cyan left you behind, maybe you should try to catch up.

[vcatkiller]

Originally posted by Melt:

As a Cyan fan that has upgraded hardware and purchased VR, ya know, stay with the times and all that... I have to say that I fully disagree with the OP and completely welcome the vast improvements. Seems like Cyan left you behind, maybe you should try to catch up.

I don't have a headset, but I still fully appreciate what they did with Riven on a flat screen. As a Cyan fan this has been one of my favourite games this year.

[patrick.greer]

I am in my late 50's but always a kid at heart. I love it.

[Seamus]

Dude, the game runs on a steamdeck.

If your laptop is weaker than a steamdeck, you made a poor purchasing decision.

[Hellish Fiend]

A 3090?? No way, man! You must mean some other card, as I dont think an ultra high performance, top of the line card from 4 years ago is something anyone should be looking to buy at any given point in time, unless second hand and for current-gen mid-tier card pricing.

The problem with the OP's 3050 is that it is the laptop version of the chipset. A desktop 3050 with discrete video memory and proper cooling systems would do this game absolutely fine, and in fact I would recommend such a card if someone can spend no more than $200 (though you might get more overall bang for the buck with a similarly priced AMD card instead), since the 40xx series cards are kind of iffy in that price range.