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Myth II Updated
Bullseye writes "Today, MythDev and Project Magma are releasing their first update to Myth II: Soulblighter, created by Bungie Software. This update brings the game to version 1.3.2, and patches noticeable bugs in Windows XP/2000, as well adding native support for Mac OS X. Coinciding with this release, the group is also announcing Myth II 1.4, to be released May 15th, which is a major update to Myth II that contains over 100 enhancements, including: graphical and interface improvements, OpenGL support for Windows and Mac OS X, gameplay bug fixes and improved AI, and the addition of vTFL, allowing virtual play of Myth: The Fallen Lords in Myth II. The Myth II 1.3.2 update can be downloaded here. New players may also sign up for Myth II's free community-provided online gaming services, playmyth.net and mariusnet. An update to the Linux version of Myth II has been rumored, though not confirmed as of yet." Update: 03/14 23:02 GMT by M : See also MythDev's site about the game.
There already is a Linux Port you can buy it here
The Anti-Blog
Insightful? I think not. Ignorant, yes.
If you read about Loki's demise in detail, you'd understand that their upper management was raiding the company's coffers while they were trying to desperately keep afloat. There's no indication that they could not have pulled themselves out of the hole - the staff certainly seemed willing to go through with everything until the bitter end.
Don't get me wrong - the lack of huge numbers of sales also contributed, but to say that was the only reason, or even the primary reason, is just not true. This was a real case of bad management.
-Erwos
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
Myth II product page on Bungie's web site.
For eveyone who thinks either:
/. posting a game update
a) it's awesome to see a game developer supporting a 5 year old game
or
b) why is
This game is NOT being supported by the developers. The game was originally played on bungie.net which is no defunct (after M$ shut it down).
This is a community led support project. Probably the best example I've seen because not only have they updated the code, they've also recreated a free on-line gaming service. I'd say that is a major success story for an aging game community.
Also, for those of you not familiar with Myth (or Bungie games in general), this game is the most revolutionary RTS game as much today as it was in November 1997 when first released. I still haven't seen RTS game that comes close to the user interface and visceral intensity of this game. Although at first glance it appears similar to other games, don't be fooled. An expert Myth player can control a large army with a frightening amount of micro-management. The unit balance offers a WIDE variety of strategies and tactics to be effective, and in general the whole thing is so well designed that subtleties of the game continue d to emerge for years after it was developed.
My only regret is that the community has been reduced to a small pool of expert players and a slightly larger pool of rank-whoring players who only play one game type (generally one of the most boring). To me this game is dead, but I can never forget the greatness of Myth II in its prime. Check out Myth World Cup '99 for some of the best films ever.
Well, there's a difference between 'bungie.net' and www.bungie.net. The latter is still running; it's Bungie's community page (mostly). The former, bungie.net, was Bungie's game metaserver which provided support for Myth:TFL and Myth II. That server ran for about eight months after Bungie moved to Redmond, and then was taken down.
Myth II v1.3.2 will support films from 1.3, however, due to all the fixes in unit pathfinding and AI, old films will be incompatible with version 1.4.
But don't worry, you can always reinstall version 1.3 and watch all your old films =)
Myth and Myth 2 were done by Bungie Software Products (not BioWare), who are now the Bungie Studios division of Microsoft.
However, as of the sale of Bungie to Microsoft, Myth and Myth 2 became the property of Take 2, along with the game Oni (as part of unwinding Take 2's minority stake in Bungie, and as a consolation prize).
Now if only Take 2 would let Bungie fans muck around with the Oni source code...
Bungie was a game company that made games for the Mac platform, famous things such as Marathon (like Doom, but much better).
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Acording to legend, some staff saw the movie Braveheart and came up with the idea of making a "big bloody war game" based on mythology.
So with just a few staff, the company hacked the 3rd-person shooter game Marathon's code into a 3D real time strategy engine. Myth isn't like anything else (no, it's nothing like Warcraft), it's more like a movie where you move the units and fight battles. It's a real genre of gaming which has been totally ignored, apart from rather lame clone (ironically) named "Braveheart" which stunk. The game contained a huge number of references to European mythology and placenames. It seems to have been particularly inspired by myth of the British Isles.
Myth: The Fallen Lords was released on November 5th for Win95 and MacOS. It supported 3D graphics via Voodoo and Rendition cards, but most people played on software (it looked fine anyway). Minimum requirements: Pentium 90.
The game went kind of like a book/movie, where you'd watch some scrolling text telling the storyline, hear music (very well done), then enter into a mission. The main units you'd control were warriors/knights with swords and shields, whooping yellow-skinned archers, and surrly Dwarfs and yelped funny comments like "burrrrrrn!!" when chunking bombs, and journeymen who could heal and swing shovels (and said "goodnight!"). There was a 3D landscape called a "map" with trees, rivers and buildings. You'd move your units to fight the enemy: the "dark", or an army of half-dead Ghols, Thralls, Soulless and lightning-spewing Fetches, and Wights who explode (voted best game monster ever by some import gaming mag), who fought for the Fallen Lords.
All the game's sounds, music, art, cartoons, storyline and software quality were very good. Myth's solo play may've been very good, but it's multiplayer was outstanding. There was a free online server. Myth TFL could also be run under Wine on Linux.
Bungie, assumingly in want of more revenue, rushed together a sequal, Myth2: Soulblighter, in just one year, aiming for a Christmas 1998 release. It's basically the MythTFL engine with some improved bits and pieces such as support for higher screen resolutions and Direct3D, plus a new storyline. Myth TFL is almost uniformly considered to have been a better game than Myth2. Myth2 was rushed, and it showed. The unit physics were odd, some of the sprites looked chunky (the Wight has square edges on his head), the Dwarf's bombs didn't bounce, you couldn't install too many plugins at once lest the game take too long to launch and lag hard, the game even crashed. The game ended up being released on December 31st 1998, after Christmas, and presumably depriving Bungie of alot of sales. However Myth2 managed to sell reasonably well, subsequent patches lessened the game's problems, and well over 60,000 people played the game on Bungie's server.
However Myth2 is infamous for having probably the worst bug ever shipped with a game: when you ran the uninstaller, it deleted the hard drive's contents. Needless to say, Bungie had to recall CDs and issue a patch in no short order.
However, 5 and a half years later, people still play both games online. Myth TFL is played on www.mariusnet.com , and Myth2 is played mainly on www.playmyth.net
Bungie was sold to Microsoft a couple of years ago, they seem to have bought them just to get a hold of Halo. Bungie doesn't really exist anymore, as few if any of their staff still work there, and besides, Bungie is merely an office on the Microsoft Campus.
The rights were cast off to a 3rd party, Godgames. They got a startup called Mumbojumbo to put together Myth3 in breakneck pace. The game was basically released in an alpha state: it didn't work with so many video cards it wasn't funny. It had halarious bugs, such as Dwarfs being able to walk underwater, weakling Thrall beating knights, semi-transparent walls etc.