Let's everybody collect their suggestions of things they like to see in the game.
Please don't suggest things that alter gameplay or the core-elements. Rather technical touches and mechanical elements.
Please add them as a nicely highlighted list.
Here I go with some extra details.
Weather variations.
Yes this is purely additional, but I just always love as much details as possible to immerse you in those places, making them become real. The more variation the better. Those are things like:
Slight alteration in atmospheric composition; starting from simple overcast to hazy weather. Effecting sky-color and environment lighting.
Slight rain, rarely even strong, with/without lightnings, variable frequencies.
Wind gusting, variable strength
Leaves that fall off trees, or simply fly trough the air (Regions with trees)
Lot's and lots of enivomental stress elements/sounds. I.e. hearing some pebbles rolling down a rock. Creaking of wood
Fish or various forms of life in water, seaweed, variable frequeny.
Those are details should occur as seldom as possible. The less the better. So you could actually play hours and still encounter new stuff
Another nice suggestion i read on a Starry Expanse Youtube video:
Earthquake type shaking of screen, rumbling which happens at various frequencies.
This same thing happens in the beginning of Myst V (D'ni). It's a very simple technique which adds a lot of life. This is due the state of which Riven is in = unstable
Some movement from other people. The occasional person way off in the distance in the village or on the island. Kind of like the villager encounters that you already have, but maybe a few more from the guildsmen or the moeity, but off in the distance so that you might not notice, especially on a first play through. Should still only happen very rarely.
The periscope in the village basin was going to follow you in the original game but that was cancelled for technical reasons. If it was to be done here, it should happen every second or third time you visit rater than every time for a little bit of realism.
Those guys in the watch towers, what the heck do they do, they're too far away in Riven to see clearly, and you never get a good look at the tower itself, but in Starry Expanse there'll have to be a bit less cheating!
EDIT sine the original post, I have read from Myst to Riven (which anyone who hasn't should go and do right now!) And easy that in the very first draft of ideas, Robyn and Rand sought to include occational tremors, and also changes made to the world by Atrus as the player went through. Posibilities?
with all the heat sources around there might also be more opportunities to show the water bubbling away as the bacteria flee; Crater Island's lake, however, looks pretty dead to me--even the pond outside Gehn's lab
(also I've always wondered what the Big Island looked like before it rifted but that'd require re-rendering/someone to make a new Rivenese-style painting--though that might work if they want to do new box art)
MisterP wrote:(also I've always wondered what the Big Island looked like before it rifted but that'd require re-rendering/someone to make a new Rivenese-style painting--though that might work if they want to do new box art)
You mean before it was riven!
I agree with crater island, maybe the minerals in the water kill the bacteria off? Or maybe being as it is a volcanic island the heat killed it off.
though I do want to see how the Rivenese style would handle a big island with a giant, gnarled, fortress of a tree almost as big as the island itself would look, or the heat-warped pond that Atrus nearly drowned in; the unified Island was their entire cosmos, remember! if we game-players can remember all the details by heart, imagine how the characters must know it!
their constellations would be pretty whack, too
and I love From Myst to Riven to bits, I do--to see how their designs went from a few blocky pentagonal gardens and lakes to a jungle that's dying even as it growls and crawls as you pass through it and clifftop eyries remade into golden temples by what's basically an intercosmic Saddam Hussein
The pool that Atrus nearly drowned in; I always assumed that that was the pool that the golden elevator is in, as that pretty accurately matches the description. And remember that before Gehn was trapped there and claimed survey island as his own (and also before the islands were riven from Riven), the area was a garden and not the ugly place we see in Riven.
I know some of these might be too hard but if I had my druthers I would like to see:
- The system requirements should not be higher then Obduction.
- The book press(http://riven.interiority.com/secret_two.php)
- Fixes for all the continuity glitches
- Surround sound(though this might be built into the engine)
- Zip mode(which seems to be absent in some 3d Myst games)
- You should be able to more easily see the lava elevator in the up position with you 'under' the lava.(like in http://mrillustrated.com/rivnoticed.php "The Elevator")
- The faces in the rocks(in the cave on the first island) should not be visible unless you enabled the easter eggs.(currently the break the perfect immersion).
- All the easter eggs should be unlockable, just as they are in the real game. You should be able to save your game with them on.
-The combinations for the gold domes and the starry fisher telescope should NOT be generated each game.(they should be constant)
Last edited by Jamie Marchant on 25 Oct 2017, 16:53, edited 1 time in total.
