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I was about to respond with the knee-jerk "cheat codes are for losers", when I remembered all the times that I resorted to god mode, walkthrus, saved-game modifiers, secret-room revealers, etc. just so that I could see if it were possible to get past a particular bottleneck in a game, and from there figure out how to do it without cheating. That's how I got to the end of Quake I and the insanely difficult Marathon mod Marathon RED. I can empathize with this guy's experience completely. Of course, if you always play by cheating, then what is the point, really?

Doom and Marathon were both ground-breaking FPS games.

The big difference was in the actual gameplay. ID makes game engines (darn good ones, but still game engines). ID can make totally kickass game engines. Carmack amazes me every time he pulls out a new effect and makes it run at the speed he does. I can't *imagine* what tricks he's pulling.

That being said, ID does not make good games. ID games aren't detailed, have no story whatsoever, and don't try for player immersion in this lifetime.

Doom had one of the worst stories ever. Marathon had the best story of any game I've seen yet. There are still people analyzing it, years later. Despite the fact that years and tens of games have gone by since then, I have yet to see as detailed a game story.

Doom was really, really simple. Walk into room, shoot thirty enemies, get ammo, repeat. Over and over and over.

Marathon was *scary*. Nasty. It wasn't a speed game, and it wasn't a mow-down-the-enemies game. It didn't have little floating heart powerups or unrealistic gimmicks. It's lighting was...intimidating. Half-Life comes close to Marathon's lighting (remember the assimilated scientist sitting at the madly flickering laptop in the darkened room near the very beginning?), which the map makers used brilliantly. I still remember a few scenes:

Arrival!: Walking down a brightly lit, curving hallway. You know something's gone wrong -- one of the ship's AIs nearly killed you on docking. You've shot a bug-eyed alien moments before. Now you step into a darkened observation deck. Huge windows on the side of the room cast three patches of light onto the floor. Then, you just make out dark shapes moving toward you, past the light patches...

Arrival!: You're walking down tiny maintenance corridors, turn a corner and come face to face with a big floating creature, intent on fiddling with the computer terminal in front of it.

Bigger Guns Nearby: You're walking through a darkened room. A light, either damaged or controlled by one of the crazed AIs, is casting a harsh, erratic strobe through the doorway twenty feet ahead of you onto the walls, ceiling, and floor. As you approach the doorway, an alien pops around the corner.

Eat the Sheep (a later Marathon): Insane. Nearly invisible creatures floating around, strange shapes, lights all around, spinning energy discs coming from the air at you.

(I forget the name, but the map in Marathon 1 with all the lurkers): A dingy brown (like a dark Quake) level infested with small floating bugs that act like evil, floating, homing land mines.

Bungie was one of the best game companies ever. I greatly regret the fact that they chose to become part of the Borg (for the money and power they got, I suppose I can't blame them). It'll probably mean that I'll never play another one of their games.

Rest in peace, Marathon. We loved you.

no-so-random-link

...if you attempted to play more than two (1 to 1) players, then it would really kill Jbandwidth[sic], as it would mesh (bridge to everywhere) all traffic. This isn't needed, since with the "System Link" games, one console is a server, and all other clients only need to talk to that one server, not to eachother. Thus, this would be another huge waste of bandwith.

Smell the multi-platform goodness...

RTF website! (In this case, the Halo FAQ at halo.bungie.org. The Halo is not a "Ringworld" in Niven's sense (i.e. a ring encircling a sun, with a diameter equivalent to a planet's orbit). It is instead a planet-like object in the shape of a ring, "10,000 kilometers across."

-Elendale

Excellent point. That's pretty much happened with most generes

Might be that plot structure is already happening...Half-Life, Max Payne, the older and unfortunately not-widely-played Marathon all have actual, immersive plots.

That's no mere story! It's recorded in Herodotus' Histories. The king in question was Xerxes II, ruler of Persia in ~450 BCE. He was trying to build a bridge across the Hellespont (in the upper right of this map -- almost 2/3rds of a mile, no small feat back then) when a sudden storm tore apart the almost-completed bridge.

Xerxes flew into a rage and ordered that the Hellespont be given 300 lashes with a whip. During the whipping, the scourgers were instructed to say a variety of hateful insults to the ocean, and then a pair of leg irons were thrown into the sea as additional punishment. To top it all off, he had the sea branded a few times!

Xerxes wasn't really trying to make a point so much as he was a megalomaniac (he believed he was an incarnated god).

I believe the saying goes something like "Truth is stranger than fiction because fiction has to make sense to the writer."

(Extrapolation to our current commander-in-chief is left as an exercise for the reader.)

I've always thought that Bungie was successful in finding a good mix between a compelling story and an innovative gaming engine. Look at engines like those in Marathon, Myth, Oni, and the upcoming Halo. They always made some significant contribution to their respective genres, whether it be in graphics, physics, or gameplay. Additionally, the story in most of these is reason enough to play them; for Myth and Marathon I was especially compelled to keep playing just so I could find out what would happen next. To get a sense of the importance of a good universe and plot background, check out the Marathon's Story page. For a game released in 1995/1994, it's pretty amazing that the site is still being updated almost every day (except, of course, when the maintainer is on vacation ^.^).

This isn't precisely true.

According to Bungie, Halo will debut on the X-Box before being ported to both the PC and Mac. In fact, the first time most of us saw footage from the game was when it was shocased at Macworld.

Halo.

An M1A1?

• Marathon, Marathon II & Marathon Infinity

  Back when Doom was the big thing, Marathon came out. You actually had to aim up and down. Enemies would float down on you from above and behind. There were real puzzles. And the story! Never have a played a game with as engrossing a story. Marathon II took things up a notch, but wasn't as revolutionary. Marathon Infinity was a whole new story--a troubling and confusing one, at that. And Marathon still lives. There are tons of interesting mods (Tempus Irae, a Rennaissance Italy mod, is one of my favourites), and even an open source (yes, that means Linux!) version. Marathon II had a Windows version; all other commercial version were Mac-only; the open source is Mac, Linux, Windows and BeOS.

• Escape Velocity

  Want an exploration game? Want to be a space trader (remember trading games?)? Want an arcade space combat game? Want to conquer the galaxy? Escape Velocity allowed one to do all that and more. An incredible engine, not in terms of graphics, but in terms of capabilities. Truly outside-the-box thinking, it was one of the real greats. It is Mac-only.

• Angband

  First there was rogue. Then there was Moria. And then there was Angband. Expandable, extensible, just plain fun. It was winnable, too, which I cannot say for NetHack (which is in many ways a superior game, except that I spend all of my time on the first 6 levels) or Omega (I've just not played it enough).

• Descent

  Another one that came out right around Doom. Doom (and Marathon) had a boring map type--walls went straight from floor to ceiling; all floors and ceilings were parallel. The player ran around killing things. Descent changed all that by offering a FPS with true spherical movement: the player flew through tunnels, able to turn in any direction, control pitch, yaw and elevation. The gameplay was incredible. I'm not certain why this genre has not caught on. In many ways, it's similar to a flight simulator, but with an arcade flavour. A ripping good time; I'm playing Descent III on Linux these days. Descent was originally offered for Mac and Windows boxes.

• Contra

  I'm not certain why, but Contra was one of those games I could just play for hours and hours without end. I loved it deeply, and was awful at it. But man was it fun!

Incidentally, when's slashdot going to support <dl>?

I think Mr. Carmack is right, although as another poster mentioned, one thing Marathon did that Doom, Wolf3d, et al never did was add an incredible plot. People still are combing through the dialogue to Marathon like it's a novel much the same way the Quake and Doom communities are still going strong. While you can debate the whether or not the engine was 2D (more like 2.5D I figure), it's a very different feat to create a story that rich, and it's not exactly the type of thing you'd expect out of a bunch of code monkeys.

If you're curious, go to the marathon story page and check out the stuff for yourself. It's epic in scale and it's full of mystery the way any great story is. They've created this incredible science fiction world that I've never seen another game pull off as effectively, especially in the FPS genre. People lauded Half Life for its in depth plot, but when you play it, it's a two bit hack job compared to Marathon's story. For instance, there's no character development at all in Half Life (and even less in Doom, Wolf, or Q123) but Marathon's AI's were all individuals.

I just don't see why everyone who posts about Marathon feels the need to lambast that it wasn't full 3D. That's not where it triumphed. It triumphed in plot, and I'm still waiting for another FPS to match the richness of Marthon's storyline.

"I may not have morals, but I have standards."

The creator code, and the filetype, are four characters apiece, and essentially hidden to normal users. Allowing four characters from the full 255-char range instead of just printable ASCII means there are virtually no conflicts between codes for example, the *.css extension which is now registered for Cascading Stylesheets was also used for some kind of archaic presentation program's "Continuous Slide Shows." Since the Mac codes are hidden, it doesn't matter if a creator code looks meaningless, as long as it is unique. The Marathon game used a creator code of '26.2', since obvious things like 'MARA' or 'MTHN' were taken.

Also, having both a creator code and a filetype allow you have, say, a text file (type: 'TEXT') owned by SimpleText (creator: 'ttxt'), and another owned by Netscape (creator: 'MOSS'). On Windows the single extension maps all files of its type to the same application. All your textfiles belong to NOTEPAD.EXE.

As compared to DOS "8.3" filenames, Mac files could be called "31.8" or even "255.8" if it weren't for the Finder's limitations. How is this inferior?

Then you've got to be talking about Marathon. Sure, it was only for the Macintosh for the longest time, but not only did it manage to include some amazing 3d engine work (for the time), it had a plot.

Shocking, I know. But that's why li'l ol' Marathon still beats out Quake [II[I]] in my book. Now that it's open sourced, it even has OpenGL support. All it's missing now is some good ol' TCP/IP networking...

If they had SDL they could run this Marathon... :P

Other relevant links (also available from Marathon):

Bungie.org

Bungie Source Code

The Marathon Story

Other relevant links (also available from Marathon):

Bungie.org

Bungie Source Code

The Marathon Story

Actually... Aleph One: The (originally Macintosh) game Marathon by Bungie, released under the GPL. Now available for Macintosh, MacOSX, Linux, Windows, and even BeOS.

Actually... Aleph One: The (originally Macintosh) game Marathon by Bungie, released under the GPL. Now available for Macintosh, MacOSX, Linux, Windows, and even BeOS.

http://source.bungie.org/.
Yes, a microsoft owned game company, that actually has released one of their games to the GPL, and have continued to actively develop it.
---

Check out Marathon Aleph One from Bungie. Believe it is Marathon 2 open sourced and enhanced

They started this before being brought out by Microsoft, and seem to be still doing it.

Bungie.org

Rampancy.net

Don't worry, there are plenty of great sites left!

The open source version of Marathon has been adapted to SDL. This has allowed Windows and Linux versions of the previously Macintosh-only game.

-Elendale

Actually in those days I really didn't use macs very much at all. One of my friends happened to be a VMS BOFH, at a school with a mac based campus. At the time I was mostly a DOS user. I also had acesss on the HP frame for internet access at another college near there where I was actually attending. However I was never really impressed with Doom. I dunno, I was just not that impressed. I suppose that the graphics (I thought the monsters looked rather lame IMHO) turned me off. I did like the Warcraft series as well as Moral Decay a MUD that I used to play on via DOS machines hooked up to the HP frame via lanman or some shit like that (if I remember correctly).

To me, (and BTW I am writing this from Konquerer on FreeBSD which connects to the net through a Slackware Linux box running NAT) Marathon was more real to me as a game than anythinng else I played until that point and for years afterwards. BTW here is a link to the Marathon Story.

Firing 199 shots from a pistol without reloading hurts what could be called "the suspension of disbelief". Adding reload to a game is not an amazing thing as far as how hard it is, but the important part is that it adds a level of realism. Having Aliens in a game that are neat and insectoid is cool, but having them have political parties/factions that are fighting/warring with each other is awesome.

Now obviously I have not played every game ever made, but I have played a few, and some of them were FPS. Halflife looks great, the aliens/other dimensional creatures look kinda bleah to me. I like how flexibly you can move and interact, but on the same token I got annoyed at the 15 or so keyboard keys to move/jump/whatever and quit playing before really getting used to it. I also have yet to see it on Linux or MacOS or BSD.

In my apartment is: my k6-2 500 Win98SE/FreeBSD, my powermac 8500 MacOS 9.1/YellowDog, my roomate's iMac MacOS 9.1/MacOS X PB/Win2000 on VPC/Win ME on VPC/Slack 7.2(2.4 kernal) on VPC, my roomate's pent 233 Slackware, and a Powermac 7100 DOS MacOS 8.6/Win95. On our VPN there are a few more windows boxes and a few more slackware boxes. I like playing my friends. Generally I don't like playing single player. (Exception Baldur's Gate II rocked ass) So, I really like games like Quake II. Quake II runs on nearly everything here. So does Warcraft II, Starcraft, etc.

So here is what it all boils down to:
1)It is open source now, who cares what it was before.
2)It runs on the MacOS, Windows, Linux, and BeOS (and since FreeBSD has Linux compat mode maybe even FreeBSD).
3)This can give people who program better than I, and are game enthusiasts perhaps a platform to build a new game (as in moded all to hell, or just built onto existing code). It should be possible to make this thing capable of doing a Larger scale online FPS. Perhaps nothing approaching Everquest, but like say 50 players?? *shrug*
4)If you don't like it, prefer windows only games, are afraid of running more than one platform, whatever YOU DON'T HAVE TO DOWNLOAD/PLAY IT.
5)The Aleph One team has been working very hard on this for a while and they deserve some respect for their efforts. If you have not created/developed on a GPL or open source project for the community at large, then you have no room to trash these guys.

The tru7h behind Bungie's real plans was revealed last year - on a t-shirt...

Bungie's 7-Step World Domination Plan

[X] Start independent gaming company.

[X] Dominate Mac platform; launch assault on Windows platform.

[X] Announce killer gaming title.

[X] Acquire strangely addictive Chinese food company.

[X] Recover Ling-ling's head.

[ ] Stage bloody coup of new parent company.

[ ] Take over world, shoot enemies into the sun with giant slingshot.

Ford Prefect

The tru7h behind Bungie's real plans was revealed last year - on a t-shirt...

Bungie's 7-Step World Domination Plan

[X] Start independent gaming company.

[X] Dominate Mac platform; launch assault on Windows platform.

[X] Announce killer gaming title.

[X] Acquire strangely addictive Chinese food company.

[X] Recover Ling-ling's head.

[ ] Stage bloody coup of new parent company.

[ ] Take over world, shoot enemies into the sun with giant slingshot.

Ford Prefect

The tru7h behind Bungie's real plans was revealed last year - on a t-shirt...

Bungie's 7-Step World Domination Plan

[X] Start independent gaming company.

[X] Dominate Mac platform; launch assault on Windows platform.

[X] Announce killer gaming title.

[X] Acquire strangely addictive Chinese food company.

[X] Recover Ling-ling's head.

[ ] Stage bloody coup of new parent company.

[ ] Take over world, shoot enemies into the sun with giant slingshot.

Ford Prefect

It's a conversion of the original Marathon demo to Aleph One - great if you want to find out how it all started, and want to do so in glorious OpenGL.

Ford Prefect

The 2D format in which levels are designed is very limiting. Bridges ARE impossible (believe me, I've tried). Personally I think that the Marathon: Resurrection project will have a more fruitful outcome.

As a former member of the M:R team (I hate you, school) I've seen the goods, and Aleph One, though exciting, pales in comparison.

I love Marathon as much as the next Bugie acoly.. erm fan, but at some point, it needs to become clear that the engine does have its limitations.

Hopefully we can port the content of Marathon to HALO (without getting sued) when it launches.

1. Bungie no longer owns Oni. Oni is owned by Take 2/GoD. This was part of the deal of the MS buyout. In exchange for Take 2's shares of Bungie, they got Oni and the Myth games. Take 2 is currently developing Myth 3.

2. Microsoft bought Bungie because they (MS) needed a killer app for the xBox when it comes out. That killer app is Halo, which IMNSHO will be one of the best games ever created, and will probably ship with the xBox. However, it will be followed later by the Mac/PC version(after the initial xBox sales)...sorry, a linux version if HIGHLY unlikely to come out of MS. :(

BTW, the opening of the source of Marathon 2 is pretty old news, but still very good news. The aptly named Aleph One project is awesome and doing a great job keeping the Marathon universe alive. Here's a few sites of interest:

Marathon.bungie.org - Tons of Marathon info including links to the story page, the Aleph One project, and many many user created maps and scenarios.

HBO - Lots of Halo information. This game is going to ROCK!!!

Rampancy.net - A Bungie community site that primarily focuses on Halo but covers all things Bungie.

Hope this info is useful to some of you. :) I hold Bungie in very high esteem because they have always made quality games with excellent plots (well, since PiD at least...)

out.

1. Bungie no longer owns Oni. Oni is owned by Take 2/GoD. This was part of the deal of the MS buyout. In exchange for Take 2's shares of Bungie, they got Oni and the Myth games. Take 2 is currently developing Myth 3.

2. Microsoft bought Bungie because they (MS) needed a killer app for the xBox when it comes out. That killer app is Halo, which IMNSHO will be one of the best games ever created, and will probably ship with the xBox. However, it will be followed later by the Mac/PC version(after the initial xBox sales)...sorry, a linux version if HIGHLY unlikely to come out of MS. :(

BTW, the opening of the source of Marathon 2 is pretty old news, but still very good news. The aptly named Aleph One project is awesome and doing a great job keeping the Marathon universe alive. Here's a few sites of interest:

Marathon.bungie.org - Tons of Marathon info including links to the story page, the Aleph One project, and many many user created maps and scenarios.

HBO - Lots of Halo information. This game is going to ROCK!!!

Rampancy.net - A Bungie community site that primarily focuses on Halo but covers all things Bungie.

Hope this info is useful to some of you. :) I hold Bungie in very high esteem because they have always made quality games with excellent plots (well, since PiD at least...)

out.

The thing I used to love about these games was the depth and quality of the story that you pieced together as you played the game. It really felt like it was worth playing on, something that can't be said for today's crop of blast-em-ups.

For more on the story in the Marathon games, look here.

On a vaguely-related matter, have a look at this... some lunatic is porting Bungie's Marathon to the HalfLife engine! Now if only I had that sort of free time... I might get that Linux MIDI sequencer finished... :-)

The Dreamcast compatibility was apparently hinted at by an 'anonymous source'. Microsoft and Sega spokespersons deny everything.

It's just some half-baked rumour - there's loads going around relating in some way to the Xbox. Like Halo for Windows and Mac apparently being cancelled (this rumour was described as 'a load of bollocks' by a Bungie spokesman...)

So, take everything you read with a pinch (or two) of salt...

Ford Prefect

players would "rather run around in short shorts raiding tombs than experience real stories...

What about the Marathon Trilogy, by Bungie? Granted, it is fairly linear, but as far as stories go, it beats a lot of RPGs out there. AFAIC, it defines what an FPS SHOULD be for the single player scenario. Of course, a lot of you (read 90+% of this community, I'm sure) x86 people out there may have never played it. Well, they have it for linux over at source.bungie.org.

out.

Bungie software, recently aquired by the unholy of holies

-----
If Bill Gates had a nickel for every time Windows crashed...

The biggest deal about Marathon is the fan community that it spawned, want more, check out the Aleph One movement to work on the Source Code that Bungie released. The plotline in the Marathon series is so deep that people are still exploring it, check out Hamish Sinclair's Marathon Story Page I personally think you're lacking when you compare it to doom, a mindless shoot-em-up with no brain power required.

This message will probably rehash a little of what has been said in other comments, but I will try to be more complete to make up for it. Most of the people in this discussion have pointed out that Bungie is nothing compared to its contemporaries in terms of gameplay, game engine design, etc. This is a little true and a little not true. Yes, the Marathon engine was essentially the same as the Doom engine. However, there were a few significant improvements that the Marathon engine had. The physics model was much more complete -- height was a consideration, explosions could actually knock you into the air, you had to look up and down, etc. Also, the Marathon maps had the cool ability to do '5D space' where two rooms could occupy the same space at the same time and yet be distinct rooms. This made for some very cool and incredibly frustrating levels.

But the most important difference between Bungie and most of its competitors is this: Bungie actually cares about plot. As someone else said, Doom was go-kill-all-find-exit-next-level, whereas the Marathon series had an intricate storyline with twists, turns, deceptions, and all kinds of mysteries. Just consider The Marathon Story Page. For like five years Hamish Sinclair has been compiling his and others' observations about the Marathon storyline and trying to puzzle together all of the secrets, plot pieces, and inside jokes that Bungie has worked into the Marathon games.

Bungie's attention to plot depth and detail is not just part of the Marathon series. Since Pathways into Darkness, which was, I think, Bungie's first single player game, the company has loaded all of their games with so much plot that you'd have to draw a chart just to keep your head straight. Their dedication to plot also played into the Myth series and doubtless will play a large role in Halo.

The real difference between Bungie and other games is not innovations in game engines (though they have had a few of those) but absorbing and enthralling plot lines in their games. Once you start playing a Bungie game it's hard to stop.

This message will probably rehash a little of what has been said in other comments, but I will try to be more complete to make up for it. Most of the people in this discussion have pointed out that Bungie is nothing compared to its contemporaries in terms of gameplay, game engine design, etc. This is a little true and a little not true. Yes, the Marathon engine was essentially the same as the Doom engine. However, there were a few significant improvements that the Marathon engine had. The physics model was much more complete -- height was a consideration, explosions could actually knock you into the air, you had to look up and down, etc. Also, the Marathon maps had the cool ability to do '5D space' where two rooms could occupy the same space at the same time and yet be distinct rooms. This made for some very cool and incredibly frustrating levels.

But the most important difference between Bungie and most of its competitors is this: Bungie actually cares about plot. As someone else said, Doom was go-kill-all-find-exit-next-level, whereas the Marathon series had an intricate storyline with twists, turns, deceptions, and all kinds of mysteries. Just consider The Marathon Story Page. For like five years Hamish Sinclair has been compiling his and others' observations about the Marathon storyline and trying to puzzle together all of the secrets, plot pieces, and inside jokes that Bungie has worked into the Marathon games.

Bungie's attention to plot depth and detail is not just part of the Marathon series. Since Pathways into Darkness, which was, I think, Bungie's first single player game, the company has loaded all of their games with so much plot that you'd have to draw a chart just to keep your head straight. Their dedication to plot also played into the Myth series and doubtless will play a large role in Halo.

The real difference between Bungie and other games is not innovations in game engines (though they have had a few of those) but absorbing and enthralling plot lines in their games. Once you start playing a Bungie game it's hard to stop.

I'm stunned. I've just been over to Halo.bungie.org and the amount of invective on the forum is amazing. If Bungie was worried about what effect this announcement would have on their loyal fans, they must be feeling pretty sick at the moment.

Two long time Bungie fan sites seem to be closed or on the verge of closing - The Mill and Marathon Story. For those not in the know, these were the two linchpin sites for Myth and Marathon fans. While the announcement on The Mill is a little overheated (read the source for the real reason) its understandable given that a lot of long time fans feel as though they have just lost a close friend.

I also worry about the possibilities of a Linux port. To my knowledge, not one MS branded game has been ported to Linux, and I believe it is now highly unlikely that a Linux version of Halo or any future game from Bungie will appear, mainly because while Bungie has a say on what versions are produced, MS holds the exclusive distribution rights. MS knows that games are one of it's strongest cards, and that many Linux users keep a Windows partition to play the games available. Hey, with Descent 3, Terminus, Quake 3 Arena, Railroad Tycoon and Sim City 3000 and Halo on Linux, I would kiss my Windows partition goodbye.

Cheers,

Toby Haynes

I'm stunned. I've just been over to Halo.bungie.org and the amount of invective on the forum is amazing. If Bungie was worried about what effect this announcement would have on their loyal fans, they must be feeling pretty sick at the moment.

Two long time Bungie fan sites seem to be closed or on the verge of closing - The Mill and Marathon Story. For those not in the know, these were the two linchpin sites for Myth and Marathon fans. While the announcement on The Mill is a little overheated (read the source for the real reason) its understandable given that a lot of long time fans feel as though they have just lost a close friend.

I also worry about the possibilities of a Linux port. To my knowledge, not one MS branded game has been ported to Linux, and I believe it is now highly unlikely that a Linux version of Halo or any future game from Bungie will appear, mainly because while Bungie has a say on what versions are produced, MS holds the exclusive distribution rights. MS knows that games are one of it's strongest cards, and that many Linux users keep a Windows partition to play the games available. Hey, with Descent 3, Terminus, Quake 3 Arena, Railroad Tycoon and Sim City 3000 and Halo on Linux, I would kiss my Windows partition goodbye.

Cheers,

Toby Haynes

I'm stunned. I've just been over to Halo.bungie.org and the amount of invective on the forum is amazing. If Bungie was worried about what effect this announcement would have on their loyal fans, they must be feeling pretty sick at the moment.

Two long time Bungie fan sites seem to be closed or on the verge of closing - The Mill and Marathon Story. For those not in the know, these were the two linchpin sites for Myth and Marathon fans. While the announcement on The Mill is a little overheated (read the source for the real reason) its understandable given that a lot of long time fans feel as though they have just lost a close friend.

I also worry about the possibilities of a Linux port. To my knowledge, not one MS branded game has been ported to Linux, and I believe it is now highly unlikely that a Linux version of Halo or any future game from Bungie will appear, mainly because while Bungie has a say on what versions are produced, MS holds the exclusive distribution rights. MS knows that games are one of it's strongest cards, and that many Linux users keep a Windows partition to play the games available. Hey, with Descent 3, Terminus, Quake 3 Arena, Railroad Tycoon and Sim City 3000 and Halo on Linux, I would kiss my Windows partition goodbye.

Cheers,

Toby Haynes

Sad news indeed. I just hope some other company will take over producing entertaining games for those of us who actually appreciate a storyline

Take a look at Bungie Software's offerings - Bungie actually bother crafting something approaching a plot for almost all of their games (as evidenced by the ongoing discussion of the Marathon story years after it was released). Better still, Loki ported Bungie's Myth II to Linux, so there is hope that we might see Oni and Halo at some point. Plot/story/whatever make a huge impact on the longeivity and repeat playability of a game, and it's sad to see a company like Looking Glass shut it's doors, regardless of the rest of the industry.

Cheers,

Toby Haynes

My company is developing a few games (some really cool stuff) and focusing on Linux as the primary platform, with the secondary platforms being Windows, MacOS, and BeOS. The Linux gaming market is practically untapped, and we see great potential in this area (as well as BeOS.) By the time the first game (a first-person shooter like no other... think Halo meets Saving Private Ryan, and you have a pretty good idea) is released, OpenGL support on Linux will be up to speed with that of Windows, or at least close.
--

Halo by Bungie Software also has a very sophisticated physics model. Everything in the game is handled by one physics engine (from the vehicle dynamics to the empty gun shells rolling off a hill), so I suppose it's also not faking anything.

--

For all of you Mythers take a look at The Mill. It is the place to get 3rd party plugin's for Myth and Myth 2. And while you are there download The Wild West. =) Michael

Pretty sure you need the full game.

Clan Plaid's Townhall is a good forum with knowledgeable and helpful people. The Mill also has reviews of the original Leggo TC and maybe this as well.

The Marathon Story