Bungie Releases Marathon 2 Under GPL

bravehamster writes "Bungie Software has announced that at 7 pm CST tonight they will release the Marathon 2: Durandal source code under the public GNU license. Programmers need only apply, but gamers everywhere should reap the benefits." The press release is attached below. Or you can just cut to the chase and download the sit version or a gzipped version.

"Today at 7 pm CST Bungie Software releases the Mac source code for their classic game "Marathon 2: Durandal" to the net. This game represented the pinnacle of first-person shooter technology in 1995, and was the most successful of the highly-acclaimed Marathon series."

"Programmers only need apply: the code is in MPW format (Macintosh Programmers Workshop, which can be freely downloaded at developer.apple.com), and because various components had to be removed before public release, devising some workarounds will be necessary before the code will compile. Nevertheless, for those with the skills to manipulate it, the code can form the basis of all kinds of 3D, first-person perspective games, and we look forward to seeing what is done with it."

"The code is being released under the terms of the GNU public license, and Bungie does not offer technical support with the code. More information can be found in the ReadMe that accompanies it. You can download sit version or a gzipped version "

Update: 01/18 04:25 by CN : Jason Pellerin of Bungie writes: "I'd like to see a linux port, and I can donate some server space and time to help it happen, please write me at m2linux@bungie.com if you want to get in on the fun."

Comments

Marathon enhancements

[jessimko]

For some time people have been discussing what they would do if Marathon's source code went public. One of the most exciting ideas that may happen now is the use of OpenGL for rendering better looking graphics. There is already a freeware application available called MapViewer that lets you walk through Marathon levels in real time. (get it from bungie.org.) It uses OpenGL to eliminate pixelization and jagged edges. It now seems feasable to combine the OpenGL map viewer with the Marathon game code to create a more modern looking Marathon, some kind of a hybrid with all the graphical beauty of a game that's five years newer than Marathon.

A Brief History of Marathon for the PC/Linux ppl

[Masem]

Marathon was released to the Mac world around the time that Doom II was about, predating Duke Nukem by a few months and also before the first wisps of "vaporware" were circulating regarding Quake - about 6 years ago, roughly. I remember it's release well because someone accidently let an early beta through, and despite the fact that it was only one level ("Mars Needs Women"), every Mac gamer was playing the beta. Sales of the game skyrocketed when it actually hit the virtual shelves.

The storyline of Marathon is nothing new: one of the moons of Mars has been converted to a human colony ship and shot off to a new planet for colonization. Midroute, the ship is hijacked by an alien race called the "Pfhor" (pronounced 'four'), who begin to slaughter the humans. To make matters worse, one of the 3 AI, Durandal, apparently communicated with the alien ship, and has decided to do whatever possible to escape his computer prison.

You are the ships only hope as a security guard (your true identity is still a mystery through the remaining games).

At that time, the engine featured 8 player multiplay over Appletalk (not networkable :-/), a pseudo 3-D enviornoment: the maps were made of polygons in the x-y plane, with the ability to overlap polygons to achieve 4-D effects, but was limited in that no wall between polygons could have more than one opening), monsters and items were rendered as spirits, and various lighting effects. Liquids were only simulated, and floors and ceilings of each poly had to be horizontal and walls had to be vertical. Sure, that's a lot of limitations, but on basically 68030's, the game ran rock solid. Additionally, the ggame when beyond just shooting, providing a detailed story through terminals that you interacted with.

Marathon 2 did a lot of revamping of the engine, allowing larger and more colorful textures, liquids, transparent textures, and more lighting effects, but not much else. The plot of M2 took off where M1 ended: you've saved the colony ship, but have been abducted by the rogue AI Durandal, who is looking to save his butt before the universe collapses in 1x10^13 someodd years (paranoid, aint' he?). To do so, you visit the Pfhor homework as well as the homeworld of a race they have enslaved, the S'pht, looking for a device that might be able to transport planets across universes. As your survival is controlled by Durdanal, you have but little choice to follow him.

Marathon Infinity (the last of the trio) didn't do much to change the game engine, and mostly extended the story line and play to sort of wrap up the series... while the game play in Infinity is pretty good and the cleanest of the 3, the story at that point was a bit weak. IMO.

By this time, however Quake for the PC was out, Quake 2 was in the works, and MacSoft was working on getting Quake ported to the mac; the Marathon series had fulfilled its goals to fill in that FPS game that the mac players did not have. While people have begged Bungie to make a 4th Marathon sequel, they will probably not, as work with Myth and Halo continues. Oddly enough, people will be watching Halo carefully - the story in Marathon actually includes elements from a Wolvenstein clone that Bungie created called Pathways Into Darkness, and the players expect to see a drop or two of Marathon references in Halo and Oni.

One of the key things that made Marathon much better over Quake for me was the intelligence of the monsters: supposedly, the game adjusted the AI of the monsters as you continued depending on how well you played, and while it's hard to reproduce such events, I truely believe that is the case. Only recently has the AI of other games improved over Marathon's (that being Half Life), going above the basic 'charge the player'. The aliens in Marathon would seem to be able to cut around to your back if there was a way and get you trapped between two sets of them. They also seemed to know how to lurk well. Alot of this depended on the mapmaker's ability as well, but in general, the game was tough.

What we need now is a Linux port

[blam!]

As Bungie's SysAdmin and resident Linux enthusiast, what I'd really like to see is a Linux port. I want to play Marathon again, dammit!

My C skills are not the best, but I can contribute space for a cvs server, time to manage it, and time to manage patch submissions, builds and testing. And a mailing list and bugzilla db, if those are needed.

If you want to get in on the fun, please email me at m2linux@bungie.com.