Slashdot Mirror
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.
If any of the people involved in producing these updates hang out here on Slashdot, a Linux version of these updates would be verra nice!
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
Since when does slashdot post game updates? If that's the case you missed update 1.21f of Civilization III. At least that is more interesting because the updated DRM on the game causes it not to work on a lot of machines.
They managed to port it for MacOSX, it shouldn't be too hard doing a Linux port as well, since OpenGL is not platform dependent. I really hope the rumors are true. :-)
Note to self: get smarter troll to guard door.
Avoid the tubgirl link unless you want to be emotionally scarred for life...
Roving Web-Teleoperated Robot
I think the big question is, will they include fun with the 1.4 patch?
The World's Worst Webcomic!
Actually Loki went out of business because of bad management (who wasted LOADS of cash, etc.)
Facts > You
Myth would be one of the worst games to be the FNG. I don't know how many times a wight has managed to get too close for comfort, despite my archers. Quickly picking out somebody with no battle honors, the veterans tell him to, "Go kill that thing, be a man." Then they duck, because big chunks of exploding wight and a red splatter (that used to be the new guy) are inbound.
Andrew Borntreger
Champion of cinematic disasters
Bad management == thinking you can run a game company on a game buying public of about 1500 people
Maybe we can expect to see Halo finally! Go Bungie!
Disclaimer: This post suffers from Rose Colored Glasses Syndrome (RCGS), a sometimes deadly disorder associated with blind devotion to particular software companies beyond all evidence to the contrary. Please give as much as you can afford to the RCGS support outlet near you. With your help, we can eradicate this dread disease.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
Bad management == thinking you can run a game company on a game buying public of about 1500 people.
Exactly. Mod that man up. The sales figures on Loki's games were appalling beyond belief. Crappy shareware Notepad replacements for Windows have sold better.
In all fairness, this is a bit different since the game is no longer being supported by the developer. All of these updates are being done by a third party, and all of the support for this game is now being done by the community. In that sense, it's fairly monumental and great to see on Slashdot because many people have long written this game off as abandonware.
This is great news, and a thank you out the the dozens of people involved since the beginning, from Vista, Project Magma, Playmyth, Mariusnet, this is an extraordinary under taking to keep a 5-6 year old Game alive but you people have done a magnificient job, and I hope you guys keep up the good work.
;)
Oh and as a side note, I hope the NVidia driver becomes available, I can only get 640x480 on my 17" iMac on OS X M2
PS I KIK UR DED, I OWNZ J00 N BC TRO!
Be True, Unbeliever
I'll bet the Myth engine could do an awesome recreation of Helm's Deep. It features rain, lightning, ambient sounds, could create the same effects. Just needs sound, Aragorn, Lego and Gimli (with an axe, not satchels) and a host of Orcs, Archers, Elves, men.
I'd love to see a mod file that did this, and the video to watch it.
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.
Maybe I could RTFM/A, but not here: does the updated version support old films? Films, for example, with the various mod packs, like WWII, Civil War, or Lego Land? The films from this game were so watchable, just great.
(If someone had recast MOO II in a similar way, it'd rate a /. story. This is just as cool a game, or moreso.)
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Could you inform us all of what exactly "bad sales figures" are in Loki's case (ie, provide us with the exact number of copies sold of each game they made), and then give us figures from a similar company to compare against?
-Erwos
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
I don't know what it is about the Myth series that hooked me. Perhaps it was the way the dwarf said "Buuuurrrrnnn!!" as he lobbed a molotov dessert to a pack of life-force-challenged, body parts flying... and other battlefield physics. Maybe it was the tension inherent in one of your archers dying... for the rest of the level. Maybe it was the enhancement that allowed really good characters that stayed alive and kicked ass, to appear in the next level (with their improved skill) and even allowed you to name them.
All in all, it was definitely a polished, atmospheric game, with interesting constraints and levels. Not an FPS, and not an RTS.
One thing's for sure - if you never tried the multiplayer or the level packs which basically redesigned most of the game (fighting Lego characters? World War II armaments?), you missed out on at least half of the fun!
This man is a genius! I guess people still care about this game and playing this game after five years because it's not very fun. :(
What was I thinking?
Damnit, there goes my calculus grade.
"Linux is not a gaming platform, but some people tend to think so."
If anyone's not played MythII on linux, it's highly reccommended.
It sounds like a lot of people here are hooked on it... maybe someone should post some good reasons to download it? Or update their web site? Otherwise this story is pretty much only interesting to those who already have it....
Forgive my ignorance, but I never played Myth the first time around.
The article and web site doesn't say what this download IS! Is it a freely downloadable version of the game Myth or do I need to already have the game and this provides some kind of patch to the game?
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
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.
It was intended more as skript-kiddie sarcasm than genuine 1337-ness;)
Myth, Myth2 / Myth II, and everything related to BioWare has been property of Microsoft for over 5 months!
I'm sure that's just a slip, but it's Bungie. Hasn't MS owned them for a lot longer than five months? Like a couple of years? I remember going to the Bungie online store a couple of years ago just after they were bought, and one of the guys there had a funny good-bye note, referencing being
'assimilated by the Borg.'
They're talking about Myth II, not Myst II (aka Riven).
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Could it handle the destructible and climbable walls, though? Also, I'm not sure it'd scale to quite that many troops. The Total War series also has an engine with most of the right components to do a Helm's Deep simulation, but as far as I know, it still would be unable to handle troops on the walls, or ladders for climbing the walls.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
I just love these arguments. Loki released Rune for Linux on July 20th, 2001. The posting you refer to is dated September 17th 2001. So that's 1000 units over what ... less than 60 days assuming the sales figures are exact as of the date of the posting? More likely it was the numbers as of the end of August. I'm not saying 1000 units over 30 days is something to write home about but please put this kinda post into context. By September 17th 2001, the Windows version had already been out for just shy of a year. Also, when a game has been around for a year, there's no "rush" to by the game on it's release. This release date lag was one of the biggest factors working against Loki, the first of course being lousy management.
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
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 =)
Back in the day, I was often near the top of the bungie.net ladder (even had an eclipse for a bit a couple of times), was a bungie.net volunteer admin, and contributed to one of the main Myth-centric websites... it's nice to see that folks are keeping Myth going and extending it. Sweet. :)
"People" using "unnecessary" quotes should be "shot".
The posting you refer to is dated September 17th 2001. So that's 1000 units over what ... less than 60 days assuming the sales figures are exact as of the date of the posting?
Traditionally, commercial games sell the majority of their units within the first 60 days of release. I know you wish Loki were more successful, but they just weren't moving many units.
...Projectile Diarrhea.
In other words, nearly as bad as that certain Website which claims to be about goats.
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...
Indeed! That's the only game I've bought for Linux and I wasn't sorry. I heard good things about Myth from a Mac user, then saw that Loki had ported it, so I went down the mall and there it was!
By the way, the Linux version has had OpenGL support for a long time, though on my hardware, it didn't look or perform much better than the software rendering.
Actually, I don't really care about Loki going away. Their model would never have had legs long term. By the time they released a game for $50 it was already in the $5 bin at BestBuy. The last thing I want to be is canon fodder for some punk who's been polishing their sharpshooting skills for 9 months when I finally get online.
That said, I do wish more publishers would put out titles for Linux (and Mac) but I think this is more a factor of the game engine makers than the game publishers themselves. I mean if they can put out games for the PC and the PlayStation, the portability is obviously there. Reality is that most (with a few notable exceptions) game engines simply don't have Linux support and so Linux ports don't happen. Of course there's a critical mass element too but I'd think that would be secondary to the feasibility of the port itself.
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
Yeah, I know... the Elves didn't save Helm's Deep.
But it was a nice touch. In all realism, I think Tolkien's oversight was to think that the Elves would not stay to defend Middle Earth. Old aliance... eh, if the Elves loved Middle Earth at all, and they did greatly, then they would have come to aid. I'll bet the Dwarves would have as well, if they were told what was going on.
But yes, of all things, why PJ messed with the Ents and Huorns saving Helm's Deep, I don't know. It's as great an injustice as Eomer failing to acknowledge Galadriel the fairest of all creatures, from Gimli's perspective.
But the addition of the Elves to Helm's Deep, though not true to the book, was nice. If we had only ever seen the beautiful armors and peoples of the Elves in the prologue... THAT would be the injustice.
And a tidbit for you - I think Arwen went with the host to Helm's Deep. Haldir is the gate-warden of Rivendel, Arwen is seen leaving Rivendel bearing the garb almost identical to the Elves that arrive at Helm's Deep, but without the Armor, which could have been easily carried by horses or a cart at the back of Arwen's host.
I think she went to Helm's Deep and RotK will see her reunite with Aragorn - at the very least, I hope she was not slain in the battle, only to be discovered wounded and dying by Aragorn.
Just some thoughts. KHAZAD!!
To put things in context, out there one the net somewhere is a large extension to MythII called "Seventh God", also done by volunteers, that adds completely different levels and character types to the original.
Used to play Myth2 hardcore. Haven't played in a long while. Guess I'll have to dig out my Myth Codex discs and play this weekend. I remember when WWII:Recon came out, it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. Can't wait to play some 6x6 KOTH again.
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
You know, us. The folks that use Linux?
When ya gonna take care of us??
How about updating us??
Bungie was a game company that made games for the Mac platform, famous things such as Marathon (like Doom, but much better).
.
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.
Or just buy the Windows version for about $5. Played both. Linux version sucks ass compared to Windows (even more so now this fix has been released).
RTS without the tedious resource gathering. Actually inventive levels rather than "build this base from scratch, defend it... Lather rinse repeat" that so many other games do.
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.
ARGHH! Say it ain't so Joe! I have over a thousand films... That's irritating that they can't make it backward compatible without having the game installed twice! ARGH! All my movies of completing the game on legendary, gone...
I found two bigs bugs when playing on XP.
1) Scrolling around the map was totally hosed if you had a certain XP powertoy running (I forget which one. Task something or other). Kill the powertoy, that fixes it.
2) The mouse pointer would flicker, and weird things happened below it. Bits of other parts of the screen appeared below it, clicking was unresponsive.
Number 2 is definitely fixed. Mouse seems to move a little slower now, but it works properly.
If you want to be exact; Mariusnet is not based off of the Myth II server source code. It's actually completely reverse engineered with the help from Bungie. The fact that the guys pulled it off at all is pretty amazing.
"Or just buy the Windows version for about $5. Played both. Linux version sucks ass compared to Windows"
Windows version sucks. I had to install the super-unstable nvidia drivers, and the even-more unstable DirectX 9, and now it takes 3 reboots (one shuts-down the PC when starting windows, second one is in safe mode, third one has no video support, forth one works) to even get into Windows to play the game.
No thanks, I prefer to just type "myth2", and have it running without having to waste 10 minutes getting Windows to boot.
The game's major strength is multiplayer. Both of the metaservers support ranked play and there are many tournaments. Were it to be open sourced every lamer with a C for Idiots book would be able to introduce the simplest cheats, such as seeing where all the enemies are on the map (the first that springs to mind - there'd be many others). The fact that this game has been updated by fans of the game without expectation of any reward is sufficient to make it /. worthy. When has anything like that happened before?