Better than Myst & Riven?

[Valis]

When Myst first came out, the world stepped back in amzment, after all it was 1993 and we were all used to 8 bit and 16 bit graphics with crappy sound, So Myst was like next gen graphics, with great sound and it was hard as hell as well. and so which is why it is remembered so fondly, And riven took that 10 steps even further!

So without looking through rose coloured spectacles which game is better?
If we could have Riven with Obduction graphics I would say Riven.

[XIII]

I think they did a great job with Obduction, but it does not top Riven. I still feel the excitment and wow and I did not get it with obduction. Something is missing. The other games were just so much better, they were hard, they just wow'd you and left something special in my gaming heart.

[Sirrus6B]

kickstarter?

Aerisana původně napsal:

CYAN will get a few million to get the Myst Holodeck up and running.

[Sirrus6B]

Riven is greater in that it is grander, the way a sequel needs to be. Myst starts off and you know nothing. You meet a few people and you hear of a people. In Riven you see the worlds shaped and lived in by these people. Riven is bigger, thus longer, though not necessarily harder. The tech behind Riven's still image graphics was way more advanced than what went into Myst's still image graphics, but i found both sufficiently immersive (especially when paired with the sounds and music). It's hard to compare one against the other, because they're both part of the same storyline, and they were introduced to us, the audience, at an appropriate pace: First we get an origin story, then we get to explore that universe in the sequel.

[tahgtahv]

I don't believe Riven was any more advanced than Myst. Both Myst and Riven were HyperCard games for the Mac. (If Myst is older than you, or for anyone else interested, you can read about the tech here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperCard ) It is true that Riven was a much bigger undertaking than Myst, as any good sequel should be. Obduction I feel is on the level of Myst as far as content goes. In a way this makes sense, Cyan as a company has basically had to start from scratch, and don't have a huge publisher to back them. (This is a good thing, as 85% of the profit is taken by the publisher right off the bat.) While I don't expect a sequel to Obduction, hopefully Cyan will be able to make more games, and with any luck they can go with a bigger scope than what they were able to pull off with this game.

[Macktronic]

I feel like, with obduction, that computer tech is finally at the point where games like RealRiven and RealExile would be doable and look as good or better than they did when built with pre-rendered nodes.

[CobraA1]

I don't believe Riven was any more advanced than Myst. Both Myst and Riven were HyperCard games for the Mac.

The technology used to run the game may have been the same (although I don't see any information confirming that Riven was HyperCard?), but the renders used in Riven are far more advanced than Myst.

I feel like, with obduction, that computer tech is finally at the point where games like RealRiven and RealExile would be doable and look as good or better than they did when built with pre-rendered nodes.

Do we know if Cyan still has the assets for Riven anymore? I have actually noticed that no such thing ever came out, despite having a RealMyst.

It would be too much work and too much expense to try to clone a game from scratch. RealRiven would only appeal to people who already played the game before and have some nostalgia. It would only make sense if there were some way to recover the old assets and easily recreate it. I'm not sure that is possible.

Exile was developed by Presto Studios - Cyan wouldn't have access to their stuff.

I think the best thing to do is to extend the worlds of Obduction instead. The Myst series has come to a close - it's time to pass on the torch.

[Erik]

I think Obduction was better than Myst! Of course, then I'm only considering the actual gameplay. If you would take into account the whole legacy of Myst and what it meant at that time, it's hard to beat that.

I did have several "wow!" moments while playing Obduction.
Entering Hunrath for the first time.

Turning on the power in Kaptar, when the giant windmill starts to turn. And then later on, when you go past it in the elevator and you hear the *woosh* *woosh* sound.

Getting to the Hive in Kaptar...

And probably I'm forgetting some moments!

Graphics-wise, I think this is the first game from Cyan in realtime 3d that starts to approach Riven. Where Riven still excells in graphics is the distance IMO. For instance, you could look far out over the sea to another island. That really gave you the impression that the world was huge.
In Obduction you're stuck in a dome. Though that's part of the storyline in Obduction, it's also a graphical boundary.

CobraA1 původně napsal:

The Myst series has come to a close - it's time to pass on the torch.

I hope that the ending has not yet been written! :P

[CobraA1]

Erik původně napsal:

Graphics-wise, I think this is the first game from Cyan in realtime 3d that starts to approach Riven. Where Riven still excells in graphics is the distance IMO. For instance, you could look far out over the sea to another island. That really gave you the impression that the world was huge.
In Obduction you're stuck in a dome. Though that's part of the storyline in Obduction, it's also a graphical boundary.

It would be difficult to compare them without playing Riven again (it's been a long time), but after looking at some images for Riven in Bing search results, I'd definitely agree. In some ways, Obduction may actually surpass Riven graphically. Technology has come a very long ways.

I think the biggest graphical leap that has made such a thing possible is the introduction of programmable shaders, which has exploded into massive parallelism (there are thousands of these on high end GPUs), which allows engines like UE4 to use physically based rendering, which is similar to raytracing and global illumination techniques that were out of reach for realtime renderers for such a long time.

Erik původně napsal:

CobraA1 původně napsal:

The Myst series has come to a close - it's time to pass on the torch.

I hope that the ending has not yet been written! :P

. . . every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end . . . ("Closing Time", Semisonic, 1998)

[Denis]

In my opinion, Obduction is pretty much up there on the same level as Riven. In both games, the majority of the puzzles are masterfully crafted, serve the story and draw from the history and geography of their worlds. That being said, Riven has a little more depth, because it focuses on one world, whereas Obduction is more accessible, has a better pacing and feels less frustrating in the beginning. And I love how Obduction's story is much more focused than Myst V or Uru, which are too vague for my taste. Anyway, for me Obduction beats everything else Cyan has done, except for Riven.

[Segador]

I've finished Obduction, and I love it, but I was waiting for a more difficult game, more than Riven. Riven for me it's the first in complexity and puzzle -story integration. Riven is a very complex chinese box delicious to solve.

[Ray tracing is faster]

Not better or worse but different yet still amazing. Larger environment and the puzzles use the environment more, and involve more traveling. The puzzles are easier and more "practical."

[Tiki]

The graphics were great, but let's be honest, the best part of Myst was the concept of the ages, worlds within books. It was the set up for those graphics that made it so amazing, that's why so many of us were WOW'd by Myst as much as Riven and Exile.

[Dreossk]

That and the puzzles that are not mostly numbers that you have to find elsewhere.

[Nebride7]

Riven has a special place in my heart because it was the first computer game I played EVER. I had never experienced anything like it and it totally blew me away. Also ruined me for life when it comes to games made by other companies. That being said, I ended up loving all the games that Cyan produced, this one included. I'm not sure I could chose between them.