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These really should be in the story posted on Slashdot itself. No good reason to link to another site first...

Marathon Trilogy Website with the downloads of the games and the tools. Also the FAQ.

Aleph One website with the Free software client which will hopefully be compatible with all three of the released games.

These really should be in the story posted on Slashdot itself. No good reason to link to another site first...

Marathon Trilogy Website with the downloads of the games and the tools. Also the FAQ.

Aleph One website with the Free software client which will hopefully be compatible with all three of the released games.

One of the best ones is the Halo 2 RSS Excel Workbook", which reads the RSS feed and provides pivot-table capabilities.

An RSS to CSV utility has been created for simplifying analysis.

Several Cold Fusion/Flash entries have been made to parse the RSS.

And, of course, I'm currently working on a Halo 2 Statistics Tracking Utility, which pulls in a bit more than just RSS. Right now it just throws everything into a database (I released this bit early so that people could get started archiving), but a useful UI beta should be coming out this month.

There are people who think Marathon and Halo share one univsere: clicky. I find it hard to disagree.

Acgh, my mistake! You're absolutely right, I was misremembering... Doom 1 shareware was released on 12/10/93 and Marathon wasn't announced until 7/25/04, with a demo and release in Nov/Dec '94 (ten years ago, obviously). So, Doom predates Marathon by six months to a year.

Basically, I didn't double check my memories and I blame Steve Jobs' Reality Distortion Field for this oversight. However, since both games were in development for several years I still assert that it is hasty to claim one is a derivative of the other.

My googlin':
Bungie's history page
Marathon Story: M1 demo overview
Marathon Story: M1 demo readme
Wikipedia: Doom 1

Acgh, my mistake! You're absolutely right, I was misremembering... Doom 1 shareware was released on 12/10/93 and Marathon wasn't announced until 7/25/04, with a demo and release in Nov/Dec '94 (ten years ago, obviously). So, Doom predates Marathon by six months to a year.

Basically, I didn't double check my memories and I blame Steve Jobs' Reality Distortion Field for this oversight. However, since both games were in development for several years I still assert that it is hasty to claim one is a derivative of the other.

My googlin':
Bungie's history page
Marathon Story: M1 demo overview
Marathon Story: M1 demo readme
Wikipedia: Doom 1

No, Aleph One is just the engine, and is incompatible with the original Marathon data files. But, some kind souls have rebuilt the original from scratch - it's called M1A1, and is available at http://orbitalarm.bungie.org/downloads/alephone.ht ml

...Nevermind the whole bungie.org phenomenon.

But you are correct when you say the gameplay's important. Marathon was revelatory. I remember the first time I rocket-jumped (by accident--had a shield and survived the blast at my toes--then I realized I could get places!) It had a "third" dimension that made Doom pale in comparison. But, hey, even the guys writing Doom wanted there to be -some- story, hence the whole Hell on Mars thing. Marathon took that to another level--it wasn't a paragraph on the screen--it was a whole back story that we still don't know all of--ironically given out in bits and pieces by in-game paragraphs-on-screens. I remember the first time I saw a Compiler, just interfacing with the terminal--too distracted to notice me. That was disturbing--it gave the bad guys a life outside of KILL TEH URTHMAN!!11

I downloaded Aleph One and the new Eternity module last night. I'm looking forward to heading back in.

...Nevermind the whole bungie.org phenomenon.

But you are correct when you say the gameplay's important. Marathon was revelatory. I remember the first time I rocket-jumped (by accident--had a shield and survived the blast at my toes--then I realized I could get places!) It had a "third" dimension that made Doom pale in comparison. But, hey, even the guys writing Doom wanted there to be -some- story, hence the whole Hell on Mars thing. Marathon took that to another level--it wasn't a paragraph on the screen--it was a whole back story that we still don't know all of--ironically given out in bits and pieces by in-game paragraphs-on-screens. I remember the first time I saw a Compiler, just interfacing with the terminal--too distracted to notice me. That was disturbing--it gave the bad guys a life outside of KILL TEH URTHMAN!!11

I downloaded Aleph One and the new Eternity module last night. I'm looking forward to heading back in.

...Nevermind the whole bungie.org phenomenon.

But you are correct when you say the gameplay's important. Marathon was revelatory. I remember the first time I rocket-jumped (by accident--had a shield and survived the blast at my toes--then I realized I could get places!) It had a "third" dimension that made Doom pale in comparison. But, hey, even the guys writing Doom wanted there to be -some- story, hence the whole Hell on Mars thing. Marathon took that to another level--it wasn't a paragraph on the screen--it was a whole back story that we still don't know all of--ironically given out in bits and pieces by in-game paragraphs-on-screens. I remember the first time I saw a Compiler, just interfacing with the terminal--too distracted to notice me. That was disturbing--it gave the bad guys a life outside of KILL TEH URTHMAN!!11

I downloaded Aleph One and the new Eternity module last night. I'm looking forward to heading back in.

...was the music.

The music set the stage just as in a blockbuster movie. Not that the Marathon games were "all that," but what would "Star Wars" feel like without John Williams' scores?

My favorite track: "Blaspheme Quarantine."

The sad part about the music was that is was made using musical instrument simulations built into QuickTime version 2.5. When QT version 3 arrived, the music didn't play the same and things sounded very weird.

The MIDI music was available online at one time, but it is hard to find now. This site might be of help for some.

Happily, I just find my Action Sack CD, and I may be able to find a Mac that can play the old QuickTime and then record the output--it would be nice to record the music as it was meant to be heard.

However, if you really want, the full terminal texts are at the Marathon Story page.

Here's the clickable link http://marathon.bungie.org/story/_page2401/theseve ns.html

DMUKYA

I have the Marathon Trilogy box set on my desk as I type this. Best game software purchase I ever made. I don't even generally like video games, but I tried the limited 4 level demo and got completely hooked. I had to buy it. Aleph One, as mentioned above, lets you play it on modern Mac and Windows systems as long as you can find an old copy of Marathon 2 or Infinity. It runs great on my Powerbook. Ebay may be your best bet at this time to find the original games. Since no one mentioned it, I thought I'd bring up the great free mod Marathon Evil, which extends the story and features great new and updated aliens. It would be even better if they had hired someone who passed 9th grade English to write their terminal messages. Other than that, it's wicked. Check it out. http://bighouse.bungie.org/evil/

And with M1A1 you can play through the original Marathon on Windows (only Marathon 2 was ever released for Windows): http://orbitalarm.bungie.org/downloads/alephone.ht ml#M1A1_SE

I've been playing through M1A1, and it still holds up pretty well.

http://source.bungie.org/ claims to have it, but the link I clicked "Download Marathon Aleph One" for OS9 resulted in a 1.9 megabyte file, a little small for a FPS even in 1994.

This site claims to have it but in the faq it says you need "a copy of Unreal Tournament" which is way too high-tech for a G3 Mac with 2meg video card.

any other real sources where I can download a full copy of Marathon?

http://source.bungie.org/ claims to have it, but the link I clicked "Download Marathon Aleph One" for OS9 resulted in a 1.9 megabyte file, a little small for a FPS even in 1994.

This site claims to have it but in the faq it says you need "a copy of Unreal Tournament" which is way too high-tech for a G3 Mac with 2meg video card.

any other real sources where I can download a full copy of Marathon?

Sorry about the link that's BUNGIE

Marathon was a great game. I think its gameplay AND story far surpasses halo. It's was really fun to replay the game when I was older, as reading all the information that's available on terminals and such makes the game SO much better.

You can play it in a kind-of redoing of the engine if you have the original data files with Aleph One is available (it's open source, too!) Be sure to check out the official Bungie Marathon site for more info.

"How did Bungie whore themselves out? Because they got acquired by the company who makes the main platform they target with their games?"

No, because they changed the main platform for their games to the company that acquired them.

Bungie did Mac games first and foremost. Minotaur and Pathways Into Darkness were Mac-only. Marathon was originally Mac-only, later ported to Windows. Myth was released for Mac and PC on the same day. And the world's first glimpse of Halo was a demo run live on a Mac, shown at MacWorld '99. After being acquired by Microsoft in 2000, Bungie had to promise they would still bring Halo to the Mac. Halo was released for the Xbox in late 2001. It finally appeared on the Mac in December 2003.

Ask and yee shall recieve.
http://halo.bungie.org/movie1.html

You can't tell me there are many other games out there that you can do something like this for. These days, you are lucky if the game contains a few easter eggs or other secrets to find, much less an environment that looks as if it actually existed for some other reason than just for the hero to walk around in and kick butt. Or a story line that is more than "You Tarzan, you kick bad guy ass. Here is bad guy. Kick ass." Halo's story was fleshed out before they even began work on the first game. They've got the history for the universe down to the point where the "Halo" story is like a blurp compaired to the bulk.

The truth is, this game will become very popular. It's already on it's way to break the record for day one sales (which you would have noticed if you actually read the blurp.) And while it might not be the best selling of all time, it's definately going to be a highlight of this year and possibly several years after this one (assuming a PC port.)

Why exactly does Microsoft deserve any congratulations, here? Virtually every single aspect of Halo's graphics, gameplay, and storyline were thought up in 1999 and 2000, by Bungie, while the XBox was still on the drawing board, before Microsoft had any part of it. It was going to be released on the Mac first, then on the PC. Bungie was probably THIS CLOSE to a beta, or at least an alpha, and Microsoft exploded the whole thing and wasted months and months re-writing the whole thing for the XBox.

Why look, Here's one of the original trailers, from 2000, 100% Microsoft-free. There's even a rocket warthog. Just ONE MONTH after that trailer was shown at E3, Microsoft bought the whole thing.

I really do think MS has done nothing but fuck up everything. Mod me down all you want, but I really think Microsoft realised the XBox was going to fail, utterly, without Halo. It's a great game, but Microsoft didn't friggin' make it. Let's congratulate them for making Virtual PC too. And Windows.

Good, I was hoping I could speak out somewhere about this. HBO's forums were not accessible. I need to release my opinion on this, as not doing so would create some sort of cancerous growth within me. That and I just had my third double espresso...

I never pre-ordered Halo 2. I just think the idea of pre-ordering a game is ridiculous, as real shortages almost never appear. So I sat here counting down the time last night all the time while being accosted. "Oh, I bet you can't wait for the nerd convention!" "Hug the first guy dressed as Master Chief!" My local video game retailer (Rhymes with "GameStop") was opening at "12:01" to sell the game. Now, I'm sort of in the middle of nowhere, so I didn't expect a lot of crowds as there were other ritzier stores also selling the game probably with like chips and soda and balloons. But this store was about half a mile away so I could deal with not having the fanfare. At about 11:30 I decided I would swing by the parking lot to see if there was a line, and, if not, get some groceries from the supermarket.

Well, there's a line. There were about 100-150 people all single-file, wrapping around the corner of the shopping center. What surprised me is that they were almost all kids. I'm not saying "kids" like how old people say it (i.e. 'under 40'), I'm talking about 18 and under boys, many not accompanied by their parents but rather a hoodie and a pack of Camels trying to stay warm in the November cold. From talking with others in the line I find out most of the crowd got there by 8pm, with a few bringing chairs and camping out at 5:30pm earlier. They had been sitting there for six HOURS. Purely unnecessary, as you will soon find out.

At about 11:40 one of the frightened employees came out and told us to form two lines. One would go to the right and was reserved for "VIPs" -- that is, people who had pre-ordered and paid in full. Anyone that did not order or pay in full can form a new line to the left.

Well, the line on the left was me and about 4 other guys. By 11:45 I was leaning against the window of the store, about a yard away from the entrace. One of the VIPs who had been there since 5:30 as it turns out, was a Mom from Maryland (next state over, lots of people coming from Maryland) who was there with her children and apparently all her children's friends. She was talking about Halo 2 and Marathon and a bunch of games you don't hear outside of Penny Arcade's front page, in general. Then she handed out Mountain Dews. (Now, as "cool" as this "cool mom" is, I still don't understand why so many schoolkids were out here so late -- at best I can hope there was a strict 1/2am curfew for them. I really hope none of them got a "sick day" the next day).

At 12:02 or so, the doors opened, they let in about 20 VIPs who formed a line to the right of the store. The line on the left, my line, further split itself into two -- partial preorders and no preorders. I was now 2nd in line. Apprently, I wasn't the only one having no pre-orders because the credit card systems were incredibly slow. I can imagine there were thousands and thousands of requests suddenly coming in to the processing centers here in Delaware (Hello, MBNA/BankOne/Chase cardholders!). At 12:06, I had the "Limited Edition" version in hand ($5 for a neat-looking case and a DVD with filler isn't highway robbery). By 12:10 I was home. I dusted off my Xbox and played for the next three hours.

Like any true geek, the first thing I did was configure my player and options.

Disclaimers: Mild game-quality, non-plot spoilers ahead!

And here I ask the question, were Bungie's QA testers on Quaaludes??? For serious. I saw more build/clipping/texture errors in the first 10 minutes of Halo 2 than I ever saw building levels on UnrealEd. Models popping in and out of focus (What's this, the N64 version?). Brushes/BSP errors. Textures "flickering" to and from the background. Textures switching from "hi" to "medium" quality (mipmapping, I believ

Actually, Halo was the next version of Myth.

For anyone interested, the original Halo Demo video from 1999.

The interesting thing is how close it looked to the final game. The "big lie" is that it was targetted towards a 200Mhz PowerMac 8600 with Rage Pro video.

Unfortunately, nobody can be told what Halo is...you have to see it, for yourself.

And for what it's worth, vehicles were really quite awful pre-Halo. This is long before Battlefield, after all.

Again, point by point...

There is some (limited) documentation on the project, but most of it is badly out of date (as always :)). The main site for the effort is source.bungie.org; there is also our SF project page, where you can join the developers' mailing list. That's really the best way to get involved. BTW, what sort of coding experience do you have? We need pretty much everything--engine, networking, UI, etc. Do you know anything about coding for Carbon or Cocoa? The engine is in C and C++, if that's relevant.

There is a project called "Marathon|Rampancy" to port the maps/sprites to Unreal Tournament, which is probably what you were thinking of.

SDL is the Simple DirectMedia Layer, a set of multimedia libraries for sound, 2D and 3D graphics, keyboard/mouse, etc., which is used in a lot of open source programs.

The hi-res and 3D substitutes are controlled via an XML language called MML, the Marathon Markul Language, which tells the engine to replace with what.

There were builds for classic, but they haven't really been kept up. The last build is over a year and a half old, and I have no idea if the classic maintainer is still working with us.

...and if you love Marathon as much as CaptMonkey here, don't forget about Marathon:Aleph One.

I haven't checked it out in a while, personally...but I loved Marathon, mostly for the same reasons the good 'ol Capt just talked about.

I'm sorry but any article about the story from Halo that doesn't touch upon the Marahon series(to which Halo is the spiritual successor, though not a direct sequel) really misses what could be a far more interesting discussion.

Breif history on the Marathon subject: Could be considered Bungie's first 'hit'(Yes, Pathways into Darkness may qualify to some, but since that game is in the same 'universe' as Marathon, it could be considered a prequel and we'll just lump it in with Marathon for now, okay.) The Marathon series was a first person shooter from around the same point in time as the original Doom and Doom 2. It could be considered one of the first FPS games with a significant 'plot.' At first glance the plot was an alien invasion of a colony ship, throw in some human created AI's that are helping organize the defense against the invasion. The plot was fairly intricate for the time, and at first glance wouldn't stand up to plots today(since the focus on plot has been increasing), but certainly very notable for its time.

What made Marathon interesting, was that if you looked close you'd realize there are a lot of unanswered questions. If you looked closer, you'd realize the game is littered with hidden messages and clues to fill in all those gaps. The amount of analysis and reading between the lines was in essence an entirely separate game in and of itself. The amount of effort that's gone into interpreting Marathon's story is impessive. I can't think of any other game that has a story with this kind of depth(not to say other games don't have deep stories, just no others that have depth in this particular manner). This aspect of the Marathon series is its one truly unique aspect that sets it apart, and the reason why it's a favorite of mine to this day.

An interesting comparison between Halo and Marathon that I really wish would be discussed is that a lot of the 'hidden depth' found in Marathon's plot could be attributed to how the plot was told(which was via text 'computer terminals'). I'm curious if someone who was involved in both could offer any discussion as to whether it would even be possible to form a plot similar to Marathon's using the 'cinematic' style of game that is released today... Would you have to create a game with a similar text heavy storytelling to reproduce the effect(which wouldn't fly today)? Could(with enough effort) a cinema style game actually contain that amount of misdirection and hidden clues and whatnot? Or would some 'happy medium' have to be found(the necessary plot bits are done cinematically but there are optional plot bits to be found that are text...)?

Maybe I'm just a pessimist, but somehow I feel the requirements to sell a 'modern' game will make it so we'll never see another game with a plot like Marathon. Pity.

cheers. :)

cheers. :)

They had demonstration movie footage of the PC game several years before the X-Box launch.

Demonstration footage doesn't really mean anything. There's a very interesting film on the evolution of Halo. That E3 2000 footage, for instance, turns out to have been a complete sham - it was all scripted, and there really wasn't that much in the way of actual playable game there.

I think this may be a contributing factor to people not believing the reasons for missed release dates. They see 'gameplay' footage, they see screenshots, and they believe that what looks like a game must be a game. Even if it's just smoke, mirrors and sleight of hand. :-)

Before MS bought them out. How can a game company produce only 1 game and not sell the game engine to anyone and still stay in business? Id and Valve are different in that they sell the engine to other folks.

Erm...

There are quite a few game companies who have written their own software without licensing it out as a basis for the games of others.

Ignoring the fact that Bungie already has one licensee for the Halo engine, there's probably one little secret, one little flaw in your theory...

The Halo (1) engine actually isn't that great, and has many peculiar limitations. It's difficult to extend it (Halo PC is somewhat limited in modding potential - there's no chance of adding extra code without hacking the main Halo executable). Its design isn't really suited for online play, and isn't client-server like Quake, Half-Life, Unreal etc. (Gearbox did a pretty good job of retrofitting some modern netcode, but it's still not perfect).

There are a bunch of weird physics bugs involving moving objects (lifts, etc) and non-player entities - persuade a vehicle or monster on to a lift, and it'll fall straight through.

It's perfectly tuned for the game it was written for and works extremely well for that, but it's not some cross-platform, ultra-versatile thing like a Quake or Unreal engine. Anyone wanting to add to it will have to dig deep down into its innards.

As for the Halo 2 leak, probably the biggest problem isn't so much the hand-wringing about copyright theft, more the fact that Bungie has kept the full story of the single-player game a complete secret. There are most likely whole races of creatures you're not supposed to know about yet, like in the original Halo. And the pricks pirating the game are likely to be just the sort who will jump into some online forum to describe all the plot twists and characters.

Halo.Bungie.org has already closed its forums to new posting. Bungie.net are threatening people with permanent bans. Vicious, yes, but for a Bungie game, where the sotory is incredibly important, revealing the plot is wrong...

Linked because I'm lazy too and don't want to cut and paste this into my browser seven times...

http://www.xbox.com/en-AU/news/0408/0831-MCRooster s.htm

http://www.schnohne.de/2004/08/masterchief-im-hrte sten-einsatz-aller.html

http://www.nightmarearmorstudios.com/

http://files2.bungie.org/dragoncon2004.mov

http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=122 218

http://files.bungie.org/rapture/saturday_update_1/

http://files.bungie.org/rapture/sunday_update_3/

Linked because I'm lazy too and don't want to cut and paste this into my browser seven times...

http://www.xbox.com/en-AU/news/0408/0831-MCRooster s.htm

http://www.schnohne.de/2004/08/masterchief-im-hrte sten-einsatz-aller.html

http://www.nightmarearmorstudios.com/

http://files2.bungie.org/dragoncon2004.mov

http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=122 218

http://files.bungie.org/rapture/saturday_update_1/

http://files.bungie.org/rapture/sunday_update_3/

Linked because I'm lazy too and don't want to cut and paste this into my browser seven times...

http://www.xbox.com/en-AU/news/0408/0831-MCRooster s.htm

http://www.schnohne.de/2004/08/masterchief-im-hrte sten-einsatz-aller.html

http://www.nightmarearmorstudios.com/

http://files2.bungie.org/dragoncon2004.mov

http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=122 218

http://files.bungie.org/rapture/saturday_update_1/

http://files.bungie.org/rapture/sunday_update_3/

Man, those costumes are actually damn impressive. The funniest thing is the guy on the right in this pic. He looks completely fitshaced. Thanks for the links!

Actually, that was the forum, the story stuff is here.

To see what's he's talking about, here's a link: Marathon's Story

How can you forget Pimps at Sea? (You'll have to wait until next April to see the full site.)

I'd have to say that Bungie has amazing control over what they put out, and that they do a good job of maintaining the plot they set out with. But you do have to hand it to the guys, they sure put a whole lot of extra work into it, that's almost unnecessary. Cortana Letter's, anyone?

In fact Halo was featured in an Apple ad for the G4 when it was a Mac game, and later for the G5 when it was an Xbox-cum-Mac game.

I wonder how many people on /. played Pathways into Darkness...

For those who don't know (and who would moderate as offtopic) Pathways into Darkness was one of the FIRST Bungie games, and considered by some to be the forerunner of an underlying mythos that ties all of the Bungie games together (with possible exception of Oni, although some argue about that too.)

You know you've delved too deeply into Bungie's games when you see se7ens and pfors everywhere...

Marathon and Halo share so many storyline elements that I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Bungie brought the two universes together in one of the sequels. Hell, there are those who call Halo "Marathon 4," and if you think of Pathways Into Darkness as the first installment of the series and a prequel to Marathon, Halo 3 will be Number Seven. Oooooh.

Marathon and Halo share so many storyline elements that I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Bungie brought the two universes together in one of the sequels. Hell, there are those who call Halo "Marathon 4," and if you think of Pathways Into Darkness as the first installment of the series and a prequel to Marathon, Halo 3 will be Number Seven. Oooooh.

But i gotta say, alot of the messages are very cool, almost like Nintendo's ilovebees.com on a much smaller scale.

The ilovebees.com thing is actually from Bungie in regards to Halo 2. It's not like it's the first time they have pulled this stuff either, although admittedly it was never on this scale. For more general information on Bungie, including similar stuff (like box acronyms), and also Marathon and how it relates to Halo, see the Marathon Story Page.

But i gotta say, alot of the messages are very cool, almost like Nintendo's ilovebees.com on a much smaller scale.

The ilovebees.com thing is actually from Bungie in regards to Halo 2. It's not like it's the first time they have pulled this stuff either, although admittedly it was never on this scale. For more general information on Bungie, including similar stuff (like box acronyms), and also Marathon and how it relates to Halo, see the Marathon Story Page.

So here you go so you don't have to look for stuff. Most of the popular machinima films can be found on machinima.com, these awards are from the Halo community so the most popular films are at XboxOttawa, home to Fire Team Charlie Productions, the famous RedvsBlue, and ThatWeasel. Tonnes and tonnes of videos are up for prizes and awards, trick vids, tutorials or documentaries as well, browse through a major list of all halo videos here at Halo.Bungie.Org. And in case you hadnt seen this awards show last year it was huge, and got a few mentions on slashdot here and here