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Myth III Gets Fan-Improved Levelbuilding Tools

Posted by simoniker on from the post-release-goodness dept.

BladesP9 writes "A group of Myth fanatics have made good on their pledge to create a cross platform tool for the Myth III RTS game engine. FlyingFlip Studios has completed its first stage in the creation of a tool for the Mac/PC game Myth III. The tool, named Ballistic, is based on the old Vengeance code which was released to the public by the game's original publisher back in 2003. The update is native to Macintosh OS X, yet works well on Classic Mac OS, and there's also a version for Windows - many will remember the Myth III game shipped with a very basic tool that was Windows only. This same group is making updates to the Myth III game as well and plan an update to be released shortly."

6 of 22 comments (clear)

  1. This is great news. by aster_ken · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's great to see that the creators and publishers of the Myth games will allow fan improvements to their code-base. This was also seen a while back with this Slashdot article about a fan-created Myth II patch.

    1. Re:This is great news. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Your link is one year old and discusses the 1.4 patch.

      Hop onto playmyth.net, and you'll see that 1.5 shipped just a few days ago. So the development is still very active on Myth II as well.

  2. Looks awesome. by Talonius · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Has anyone else considered how some games take a life of their own, with the fans supporting them long after the game company has come and gone? Look at Thief and Thief 2, or any game from Looking Glass -- there is a rabid fan following patching, extending, and otherwise supporting the games better than the publisher.

    The Myth series definitely deserves this support, I might add. I was never much of a fan of limited unit strategy games -- I felt that the designer deciding what units I had was too limiting -- until I played Myth. I fell in love then. :)

    Myth III represents the absolute worst of game development. The team was forced to release the game early, then the entire team was fired. *shakes head* It is stuff like that which makes you wish marketing and executives never got involved with game development.

    Despite this -- it is ironic how many games are fan supported yet the number of open source, high quality games remains dismally low. (I said low, not non existent.)

    --
    My reality check bounced.
  3. Good idea, bad people... by Pendersempai · · Score: 4, Informative
    Unfortunately, it looks like this group is being spearheaded by Clem and Blades. Previously, Take Two Interactive put those two in charge of Myth II development, but they were so immature that Take Two took it away from them.

    We're talking profanity in the forums like you wouldn't believe, petty sniping, inhibiting progress to stroke their egos...

    Bungie had open-sourced their Myth II metaserver code after the demise of they Myth II bungie.net server. Blades set up his own metaserver, and then added mandatory encrypted networking to the Myth II program as an update along with shiny new features as bait. As soon as people upgraded, only his metaserver would work with Myth, so the competing one (which was not run by egotistical bastards, I might add) had to close.

    In other words, he intentionally changed Myth II so it couldn't work with the server source that Bungie itself released. All to give his own server an advantage. Why? Well, he didn't make money from the server. I think he just wanted a bunch of prisoners to exert power over.

    Eventually, Clem's and Blades' malfeasance got so bad that the publisher yanked their right to tinker with the code and gave it to another group of programmers, who have done excellent work and remained responsive and dedicated ever since.

    I hope Blades and Clem do better work now and focus less on ruling the community with an iron fist, but I have my doubts. They are like a plague on the Myth community -- every time you think they're gone for good, they make another power grab. Clem has been around for 7 or 8 years now. They are the reason I stopped playing.

    According to their website, they already have plans to make Myth III incompatible with versions not under their control. They're going to rebrand the game "Legions of Destiny" or something and prevent it from interfacing with tools or servers they don't own.

    Sigh.

  4. Re:Unfortunately... by Pendersempai · · Score: 3, Informative
    The encryption was not built into the server and client to keep wanks from crashing games. It was built into the server and client to prevent competing servers from connecting to the client. It was anticompetitive.

    This isn't a flamebait, it isn't a troll, and I'm telling the truth. The proof is in the fact that Blades and Clem refused to provide Mariusnet the ability to interface with the new clients until all of its players had left. Mariusnet, by telling people how to bypass the encryption built into the server, was only trying to survive.

  5. Re:Flamebait? by CrockPot · · Score: 3, Informative

    Erm no and I posted my name. Auslander. I am a member of FlyingFlip and have the balls to put a face to my posts. Unlike you hence the Anonymous Coward.