My friends and I were talking about myst this morning and we still play it on a regular basis. Is there any chance that somebody will reissue it on vista or windows 7 or just put out a patch so we can keep playing. Its a shame that (in our opinion) the greatest game ever made is going to be lost forever with all the updates and advances. ???????

I think they can be played on Win7 you just have to faff on a bit. Recently had another go at the Myst games (RealMyst in particlar) for the umteenth time - and yet again it got put to one side. When I think of the Myst games I always feel I should enjoy them but when I actually try to play them I realise again how joyless and dull they are. Never got into any of them even though I think Ive bought them all. Must have had more money than brains:-)

The older versions of Myst and Myst Masterpiece play OK in Virtual PC. (RealMyst won't because it requires a 3D graphics card.)

GOG's versions are supposed to play in Vista.

http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/myst_masterpiece_edition
http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/real_myst

I'm pretty sure I played realMyst under Virtual PC (could be wrong - I'll have to locate my disc).

So long as the game doesn't require 3D acceleration, it should play fine under VPC. If not, there's always VMware Player which does a fairly good job of it.

Steam has versions of realMyst and Riven that run on Vista and win 7.

GOG has downloadable Myst (not sure about RealMyst), Riven and URU. I played the Myst one, am stuck in Riven (forgot how hard it was before ; ) and will play the URU one (my favorite of all) soon. And since the Myst atsmophere and mood were and are so different from all the other adventure games, I did not ever feel any of them were dull or boring or lonely either.....there is a certain mystique about these special games. I read the Myst books too (all 3) and dearly wish Cyan had offered them all as "hard copies". The one about the time prior to MYST was an enjoyable look at the history of Atrus as a boy with his grandmother (Atrus is the father of the two boys who are bad boys in the first Myst game). I also discovered the MYST audio tapes and have The Book Of Atrus and The Book of Ti'Ana - would love to have all the MYST tapes and books but some of them don't exist...boohoo. I cannot explain how the games came to be so enticing to me - maybe you all felt the same enchantment when you first got MYST and played it. Now looking back you seem to have lost that feeling. And that's too bad IMO. Newer adventure games seem to have dulled your prior feelings about the MYST games. "To each his own"
Love, Betty Lou

GOG also has RealMyst.

Betty Lou: The books when first released were hard copies. I have them.

Bill

Yes, MrBill, I have all 3 of them but in paperbacks. Funny thing is that I stumbled upon The Book of Atrus quite by accident at a used book sale by SSPCA several years ago for $1.00 and woke up to the fact that they even existed -had heard nothing about them before that. Then got online and looked for the other 2 - can't remember now where I found them and I know I paid more than a dollar each for the other 2 but it did not cost me an arm and a leg either. I just wish all the games stories had been put into book form - ah well, at least I have all the games. Just have to get in the mood to go back and play thru Riven where I am stuck....so many other sweet distractions Life is GOOD
Love, Betty Lou