Talk:Myst (series)

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Contents

[edit] Backstory

I think that this page's Backstory is duplicated in the D'ni History page (especially since I used the DRC section from there to complete this page). As such, I will move any information not contained there but is here to there and remove it from here. (How's that for convoluted?)

Anyway, I will put the most recent version of the Backstory section here if someone want's to restore for a good reason, but I will remove it after doing so.

The D'ni history (rightfully) does not contain information about Exile or Revelation. I think that information would be worthwhile in this article, as well as basic details of all the other games. What do you think? The Myst games are, after all, about Atrus and his family - not about D'ni (not until Uru & EoA anyway). --Baryonic Being 13:59, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Backstory 2

The D'ni live in a great underground city for about 10,000 years, having the ability to Write books that can take their user to another Age, or world. The D'ni empire falls around the year 1740 when a woman, Anna, comes down into the city from the surface and marries a D'ni, Aitrus. Veovis, a conservative D'ni lord, becomes furious about this, and another lord, A'Gaeris (aka The Philosopher), destroys the D'ni city--and most of the life in it--with a huge poison cloud (Myst: The Book of Ti'ana; Myst: The Book of D'ni). Anna and her 8 year old son, Gehn, escape to the Cleft, which is near the volcano over the D'ni cavern.

Gehn grows up, and later his wife, Keta, dies while giving birth to their son, Atrus. Miserable and unable to cope, Gehn runs away to the D'ni caves, leaving his son in Anna's care. Some 14 years later, Gehn comes back and takes Atrus away from Anna to teach him how to Write Ages. Eventually, Gehn locks Atrus in the K'veer basement (the last area you visit in the Myst game). Atrus finds the Riven book, goes there, meets Katran, and marries her. Atrus finds out that Katran and Anna wrote the Age of Myst together, and the newlywed couple goes there to trap Gehn in Riven by opening up the Star Fissure (Myst: The Book of Atrus). Atrus looses the Myst book in the fissure, and the book eventually comes to Earth, where you, the Stranger/player, find it and use it to go to Myst Island, where you find Atrus' library.

In the library you find a red and a blue book, which are the linking books to Sirrus' and Achenar's Prison Ages (Spire and Haven respectively). On the brothers' request, you collect the red and blue pages, and as you proceed, the brothers each tell you that the other brother is guilty of burning the books in the Myst library. After you collect five pages, they tell you the pattern for unlocking a secret hideout behind the fireplace of the library. Sirrus tells you to bring from there the final red page, but not the blue one; Achenar tells you the exact opposite. However, they both tell you not to touch the green book. If you open the green book, you see Atrus in the K'veer basement, and if you bring him the white page for the Myst book, he goes back to Myst and burns the red and blue books, thus imprisoning his two sons forever (Myst). He then asks you to go to Riven to save Katran from Gehn, who has gone mad and is trying to convert Riven into another D'ni civilization. Once you save Katran and capture Gehn, then you return home by taking the Star Fissure (Riven).

While you are back on Earth, Atrus & company abandon Myst and build a new home, Tomahna, in the desert near the Cleft. They gather all the D'ni survivors that they can find and put them in an age called Releeshan. When you come to Tomahna, you witness someone, Saavedro, steal the Releeshan book from Atrus to get revenge on Atrus' sons for destroying his own world, Narayan and take it to his new home world, J'nanin. You save Releeshan, help Saavedro return to the main part of Narayan, and go back to Tomahna (Exile).

Years later, Sirrus and Achenar somehow escape from their prison worlds and kidnap Yeesha (Atrus' daughter). You save her from being fatally possessed by Sirrus, who tries to do so in order to fool Atrus into teaching him the Art of Writing Age Books (Revelation].

In 1987, D'ni, The Art, and D'ni's Ages were rediscovered by a human, John "Fightin' Branch" Loftin. Elias Zandi, a friend of Loftin, founded the D'ni Restoration Foundation, with hopes of restoring the D'ni cavern. When he died in 1996, he left his son Jeff the land on which The Cleft is located. The task of restoring D'ni was left with Dr. Richard Watson, who founded the D'ni Restoration Council (DRC). The DRC continued its restoration effort steadfastly, and opened the cavern in November 2003. However, the DRC was quickly losing funding, and in February 2004, three short months after allowing the general public down, the restoration effort was cancelled indefinitely.

An excellent reference on the books and games, with book (chapter) summaries, biographies, dramatis personae, game plots, etc. is Tales of the D'ni.

[edit] Needs more information

It seems as if the Myst articles have been abused lately, having cut out articles for Yeesha, the Bahro, and many D'ni subtopics. I'll try to bring back-up. 64.126.54.56 (talk) 08:29, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] realMyst

Perhaps a more appropriate image for realMyst is in order? A better representation would be a screen shot, perhaps a duplicate of one of the screen shots for the original already in the article? Rehevkor (talk) 00:25, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Revamp proposal

In an effort to consolidate all the Myst info and promote it all, I propose merging all the soundtracks into their relevant game articles, merging all characters into a main characters list, and merging universe info into a 'canon' article; my proposed changes can be seen at User:David Fuchs/workshop. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 21:28, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely, David is the most active current creator of Featured Articles, and if we consolidate this information in the way he suggests, the Myst articles will become a string of featured articles. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 21:59, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
I think it's a huge shame that you started merging soundtracks (i.e. the Riven soundtrack) before actually guaging concencus - there's absolutely no reason why you couldn't have waited. Having said that, I think your proposal has merit. The characters suggestion, however, I think needs some work. Someone like Atrus, in my opinion, deserves and is notable enough for an article on his own. Sirrus and Achenor could probably share an article, and it could certainly be argued that Yeesha is article-worthy (what with her being the centre of the URU fanchise). All minor characters -> one article, absolutely. All characters -> one article, no. TalkIslander 22:05, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm going with what the sources are. Atrus might be able to have his own article, but I haven't been able to find enough information on development/reception of Myst's characters to merit their own articles (going with fiction guidelines and notability policies.) What we can do is simply migrate all the info over to Characters of Myst, then depending on sources that appear pop characters in an out. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 22:21, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
That all seems reasonable to me. I'll try to lend a hand where I can when I have time. Islander, its generally been established that spinouts should first cover the concept of the characters within a series, and then branch out from there for individual characters when there are sufficient sources to warrant that. Usually this works in reverse in practise as fans created the individual pages long ago, resulting in merges more than creation. Take a look at WP:VG's FA and GA articles on characters, we've got some really good examples over there on how best to approach characters within a game or series, with information on overall design and reception. -- Sabre (talk) 22:32, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
Also, to echo the above comment, from the searching I've done so far it looks as though none of the soundtracks (at the very least the first few) have any more info than cannot be summarized in the main article, so it makes more sense to just merge. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 23:34, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Myst reader merge

Also, suggesting here that the first three books be merged into a 'The Myst Reader' collection. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 19:45, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you should merge in the fourth novel as well and do a "Novels of Myst" article as that seems to be a stub as well. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 22:28, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
I was thinking about that, but the Myst Reader is a definite book collection, so it works as a whole from a editing standpoint as well as reality-based. As the Marrim book hasn't come out, I'd want to wait until after publication to see what will happen with it. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 13:06, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
Since it's still a tiny stub, that two-three sentences could perhaps go into this article instead under novels until we have more information on it. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 16:29, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
That's also a good idea. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 16:42, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Image

Looking at the image on this page, it strikes me as being somewhat tacky. For a start, it's pointlessly animated - a simple jpeg of the first frame of the current picture would be much better. Having said that, I don't really like the image at all, but am at somewhat of a loss as to what could replace it. Ideas?... TalkIslander 16:46, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I put that one up as a placeholder, because I wanted to make a graphic with the linking book having a flythrough animation like in the original games. As to what to put there instead, I've got no clue. The games don't have a set typeface or logo we can use, as in Age of Empires or Halo (series). Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 17:07, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
The typeface for the titles is pretty consistent between all the games. I've found an appropriate image, I've uploaded it. I've moved the gif image down a bit and replaced the identical non-free one in use on Myst canon. -- Sabre (talk) 17:25, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Stub sections

I reverted a recent "undo" edit. The editor believed that we should leave out the {{expand-section}} tag because it's obvious that it requires expansion. I believe that we should keep the placeholder sections in the article with stub tags so that people will feel more encouraged to contribute to those sections. Also, it is less likely that the article will end up with non-standard section names or confusion about what the article's purpose is. I also left the list of soundtracks there for now, because at least that gives people the information they might be looking for if they're looking at the music section. Once the actual text is written, the list can be changed, but for now it is a useful placeholder. Thoughts? — OranL (talk) 01:43, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

I reverted them because those tags are way out of control - they are so obtrusive and they interfere so much with readership that they need to be reserved for important functions, such as cautioning readers about possible POV. Just saying "somebody else needs to expand this" is not, IMHO, reason enough to clutter up the article with them. If you think it's really, really important that the sections are expanded then you can, of course, expand them. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 01:51, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
The problem is that I don't know enough about these subjects to add to these sections. Someone does, though, and maybe the ambox will grab their attention and get them to contribute.
I think that since Wikipedia is a work-in-progress, if things need to be pointed out for cleanup, than that is acceptable. Personally, an empty section with just a heading would confuse me more as a reader than would a box explaining how to help expand it. As for removing empty sections completely, I think that most people feel more comfortable editing something than creating new content, and having the section already existent, while still requiring them to create content, may help guide their efforts and make them feel more comfortable when adding something. — OranL (talk) 02:16, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
OK, since you feel strongly about it. (Usually when these boxes are removed, nobody even notices - a comment about how they are generally useless litter.) But I would urge you to think twice about "nag tags", which (in my opinion, of course) over-emphasize wikipedia's role as a place for us editors to play and leave each other notes, thus harming its role as a place for people to come and find information. - 10:35, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
I think you have a good point, and people should be able to read through without being disrupted by the boxes, but I also like to see Wikipedia get improved by people who might not know about how it works. I feel that a good way to help out is to leave the boxes on the page, because not only does it alert readers to the request for more information, but also it adds the page to a specific category requesting cleanup. What if instead of a box, there was a one line sentence in italics explaining a request for information (similar in appearance to {{main}})? Is that a good compromise, or could we just use hidden comments to request specific edits? — OranL (talk) 19:51, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
We used to have one of them, that was exactly what {{sectstub}} used to be. It was deleted after a rather quiet AfD, and redirected to the obstructive {{expand-section}}. There may be a case for deletion review, there was never any mention on the template that it was being discussed for deletion. -- Sabre (talk) 20:01, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
I don't really care if they're there or not, I'll be expanding it when I can after the main games get FA, shouldnt be more than six to eight weeks... if they're gone before then I don't mind, it's whatever everyone else wants. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 20:05, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
What happened to that template? I can't seem to find the TfD discussion. — OranL (talk) 00:08, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Don't hold your breath - a lot of Myst articles have recently got the chop without any form of discussion or consensus finding... TalkIslander 00:11, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Nevermind, I found it here. I think that maybe we should ask if the functionality of the {{sectstub}} can be merged with {{expand-section}}. Perhaps it could have a variable switch such as "inconspicuous=yes" that would switch it from using an {{ambox}} to using the one-line italic style. Does anyone here think that the one-line {{expand-section}} would be good to have? — OranL (talk) 00:16, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
→Islander: None were deleted that didn't deserve it. I'm watching all of the articles, and I'm a staunch defender of deleting articles that have a purpose. All the articles that have been deleted so far have either been, 1) Not appropriate for Wikipedia 1 2 or, 2) Merged with a larger article. — OranL (talk) 00:22, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
"I'm a staunch defender of deleting articles that have a purpose"???? I hope you left out a word there ... - DavidWBrooks (talk) 00:42, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
I think he did. As I noted above, I'm running a workshop out of my userspace with the goal to reduce and improve Myst to about 12 articles. Part of it was half the stuff didn't meet notability, the other half was that it made organizational sense to stick things together which might be notable but which would languish as stubs otherwise- such as D'ni. It still needs cleanup, but we're already much better off. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 00:51, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Your efforts are most definitely commendable, but that aside, articles on Wikipedia are never deleted without a) meeting the speedy delete criteria, b) being proposed for deletion, or c) going through a deletion/merge/whatever discussion (with one or two exceptions, like 'office actions'). I personally am very uncomfortable with articles being deleted without going through one of the above processes - it kinda undermines the systems already in place. Those with a sysop flag should not be deleting articles that don't qualify for speedy without first asking the community, even if it seems fairly obvious. I don't know how far through the process you've got, but I'd ask you to follow standard protocols for any articles that you still has 'marked' for deletion. TalkIslander 00:55, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
To my knowledge, I've only outright deleted three articles at most; the rest have been cut and pasted into larger article (like Myst canon) before being rewritten (most of it hasn't, at the moment). The only articles where I haven't really bothered merging in material has been the soundtracks, as for the ones I've completed (Myst, Riven, and Exile) the articles had more content then the soundtracks did, so I just copied over the track listing. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 01:12, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
OK, to be clear, when I say 'deleting', I use it as an umbrella term to mean 'outright deleting', 'merging and deleting the original article', and anything else which involves the deletion of an article in some form or another. The fact that information has been deleted from the soundtrack articles without AfD's is, in my mind, pretty dire, regardless of the likely outcome of said AfD's. I'm in half a mind to restore them, after them having been wrongfully deleted. TalkIslander 01:17, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
By all means, do so then, or just save us some time and open up another discussion page below here and ask for broader input, if that's your boat. I'm simply being bold, and seeing as how it was just me and Oran talking about improving this stuff in the beginning, I was operating in a vacuum anyhow. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 01:20, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Those articles should only be restored if you can make a case that their content overflows from their respective section that it deserves its own articles. As their does not appear to be a superabundance of audio info from the games, it is best to have several FA's with full audio sections instead of stubby little articles that say very little. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 05:23, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
My apologies about the "I'm a staunch defender of deleting articles that have a purpose." I was very tired, and the sentence made sense to me... What I mean is that I defend the articles that have a purpose, so they don't get deleted. In any case, Fuchs and I have already discussed deleting articles without going through the process, and he hasn't done it since then. Discussing it again now is kind of superfluous and counter-productive, using time that could be better spent fixing these articles. — OranL (talk) 16:01, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
My appologies, I didn't realise it had been dealt with before. So long as it doesn't happen again, I'll certainly drop it ;). As for "I'm a staunch defender of deleting articles that have a purpose.", I just thought you might be bit rouge ;P TalkIslander 20:40, 12 June 2008 (UTC)