Slight glitch in mechanical age

[vaughn3539]

So like many of you I've beaten Myst countless times and at this point could do it with my eyes closed. Every now and then it is fun to go back and explore the ages and enjoy the tranquility atmosphere each creates. I noticed a small glitch on the mechanical age and wanted to see if anyone else has this problem. As most of us know the 4 sounds that equate to directions that you learn from the fortress rotation simulator play a crucial role in navigating the maze on the selentic age.

Problem is the east sound (sounds like a spring) and the west sound (sounds like a strange frog ribbit) are backwards. On the simulator east sounds like the frog ribbit and west sounds like the spring. This would be no big deal but in the selentic age the maze still uses the traditional direction sounds for east and west.

So if you've never played the game before you are going to be pulling out your hair in the maze when it plays a frog ribbit sound and you think you are supposed to go east when in actuality you need to be going west. I imagine this would be an easy fix just wanted to see if anyone else notices this.

this problem is in realmyst masterpiece edition

[LuigiHann]

Ah, I had this problem, but I just assumed my notes were wrong. Right off the bat in the mazerunner, the first time you get an east/west sound, there's only one way you can go, so I just corrected my notes at that point. It'd obviously be better if the game were consistent, of course.

[vaughn3539]

Yean i mean it's not game breaking by any means but its just a small inconsistency I found. Just threw me off since it has always been accurate in every other version of the game. Just seems if a line of code in the mechanical age got crossed somewhere seems like it should be an easy fix if they release a patch.

[ljbade]

Make sure you log a support ticket so they add this to the TODO list.

[vaughn3539]

Yeah, I logged a support ticket just shortly after posting in the forum

[Jamie Marchant]

It's possible solve the puzzle by knowing what direction your facing and timing the gear changes correctly. The sounds only play when you pull the left lever, so I actually didn't know about it until I saw someone else do it in a play-though. However this is a bug so it should be reported.

[vaughn3539]

Agreed, it's actually not too difficult to solve the remainder of the puzzle on the mechanical age with the sounds being backwards. Where it plays a big role is in the selentic age, making the maze section much harder to navigate with sounds that don't match up.

[ArkhamNative]

I agree it's probably a bug in rMME, but it's not too much of a disconnect (imho) to say "psshhh" is one direction in this age but another direction in another age. Each age is internally consistent at least, as there are clues which direction each sound means.

On a related note, I do like seeing how people hear and spell the sounds differently. Dink, psshhh, thunk, twee here.

[belford]

I agree it's probably a bug in rMME, but it's not too much of a disconnect (imho) to say "psshhh" is one direction in this age but another direction in another age.

It's a serious disconnect. I'd call it bad puzzle design. (If it were design, rather than a bug.) Thus, worth fixing.

A puzzle element that looks like a clue but is misleading -- with no additional sign that it's deliberately misleading -- is a very frustrating thing to encounter in a game. If Myst had shipped this way in 1993, people would have been furious about it. (On top of all the people who were furious about the maze because they *missed* the audio clue.)

(Which included me, by the way.)

[Rayhdeeyoh]

Heh, yes. Looks like a bug to me. Unless Cyan is messing with us. But they would never do that, would they?

Luckily I never use those sounds in the Mechanical Age, so I didn't even notice. And every time I do the Selenitic Age I have to teach myself the sounds again, so I wouldn't even have noticed anyway.

[Eat_My_Shortz]

Ah, I noticed that the other day as well. I was waiting to report it after I completed Selenitic (to see whether it was reversed in both Ages or just Mechanical). If it's not reversed in Selenitic, then it's a straight bug and should be fixed.

Interesting... it reminds me of the bug in Myst: Masterpiece Edition (which is still present -- to this day) where the left side of the torn page tells you to turn all the marker switches to the "off" position, when it should say "on". It is impossible to complete Myst: Masterpiece Edition if you directly follow the (misleading) clues; you either need to guess that they are wrong, or cheat using the Internet. Thankfully that bug was corrected in realMyst.

[Hannah]

Moved this topic to the technical discussion of the realMyst: Masterpiece Edition (2014) forum.