Movement at the station

Eddaweaver · Post by **Eddaweaver** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 2:44 am

It has been too long for me to remember precisely, but from what I remember the scenery and ambient sound(s) are wrong in the Magma version. The Badlands version is a more acurate reproduction except for the unit placings.

The trees being in the wrong place unbalances the gameplay and having the wrong ambient sound changes the atmosphere.

Industry · Post by **Industry** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 4:15 am

The tags for "Cryptic Wightings" and "Going to Town" can both be found in "large install" so I don' t think they are post release. I think they are release. You just have to be an incredibly creative player to play them.
Forget about a 2 minute planning/unit trading time, they come with a 2 day "finishing the map" time.

vinylrake · Post by **vinylrake** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 11:05 am

Orlando the Axe wrote:I believe those two weren't post release maps... if I remember correctly they were given away as bonuses if you preordered the game at software etc. or somewhere like that. Similarly when I bought the game at Best Buy it came with a free Myth comic book. The other three were released much later (7PR for the corresponding tourney won by voodoo and the other two to debut new units) and are generally a lot more polished.

I think maybe you are thinking of the Myth III map "Pepper Heights" which was an EB freebie if you pre-ordered Myth III from EB?

Cryptic Wightings and Going to Town were (I am all but 100% positive) definitely never officially released by Bungie.

Archer · Post by **Archer** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 6:18 pm

iron wrote:
zach wrote:sadly a lot of people that look for a game to play its mostly comes down to graphics.
For new teenage players you're mostly right. For older gamers, less so. For Myth veterans, graphics is nice but like you yourself said, its all about the gameplay. People are still playing games like Go, Scrabble, Poker and Chess - Myth blows them away graphics-wise already.

I don't agree, though probably not in the way you're thinking. Especially for a real-time game like Myth, graphics are criticalâ€”you must be able to tell, within a very short timeframe, what units are what. I'm not sure how good it is for colourblind users, but for the rest of us it's quite good as it is with default units.

An example of what happens when this goes wrong is the Civilization series. With Civilizations I and II, there was little to no chance of mistaking one unit for anotherâ€”you might not immediately know exactly what a given unit is (I still have memories of my first Civ I game, when I mistook a tank for a meditating Buddha-figure with an outstretched hand. Boy was I surprised when he started destroying my armies left and right), but you're not going to mistake it for a different unit, even if you've never seen either of them before. Then go to Civ III and IV, where (for example) Warriors and Workers look way too similar, and rapidly identifying special units can be a nightmare in some cases.

Like I said, though, Myth is doing pretty decently in this department; the developers may want to consider, if it hasn't already been done before, doing some usability testing on team colours for colourblind people (there are utilities available that will temporarily alter your display colour profile to emulate different types of colourblindness), but other than that there's not much that needs to be done (or could be done, even if it needed to be), so I guess this post is mostly just an excuse for me to ramble about usability.

~J

ChrisP · Post by **ChrisP** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 4:41 am

Eddaweaver wrote:It has been too long for me to remember precisely, but from what I remember the scenery and ambient sound(s) are wrong in the Magma version. The Badlands version is a more acurate reproduction except for the unit placings.

The trees being in the wrong place unbalances the gameplay and having the wrong ambient sound changes the atmosphere.

If you mean that Bungie used some sort of exact science to precisely balance their maps, then that's akin to saying the government unfailingly works for the greater good.

Leaping to my defense (though its been rather long for precise memories on my part as well) the trees are placed pretty accurately on the TFL multipack. The method I used was to compare, in the respective versions of Loathing, every section of a map from multiple angles on side by side monitors.

Scenery that looked exactly correct from one angle, by some weird trick of the blending of a 3D mesh with one sided 2D sprites, tended to jump 5 yards off to one side when viewed from any of seven alternate angles. It took a lot of fiddling back and forth to get them right. This was repeated for hundreds, maybe thousands, of trees, not to mention bushes, rocks, etc..., which were placed with only slightly less care.

The task took months at a time in my life when I was unemployed, had lots of free time, and was temporarily insane. The best part was when Iron announced, shortly after release, that he'd developed a program that ported scenery automatically, near instantly, and with 99.99% accuracy.

I'm sure there are MANY small errors, but to spot them from memory would require rainman levels of autism. Truth be told, I never compared the Badlands version, but I have trouble believing anyone else could have been as obsessed as I had been.

Tireces · Post by **Tireces** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 8:05 am

Heh, come on, who rly cares for few trees in the middle of the battle

Eddaweaver · Post by **Eddaweaver** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 9:35 am

ChrisP wrote: I'm sure there are MANY small errors, but to spot them from memory would require rainman levels of autism. Truth be told, I never compared the Badlands version, but I have trouble believing anyone else could have been as obsessed as I had been.

For what's it's worth the TFL Multipack is fairly accurate apart for the missing flag & killer stones in Grave

but otherwise Creep is the only one that is noticeably wonky (to me).

I carefully compared the Magma, Badlands and Stoneheim ports of Creep with the TFL original for Mwc06 to find out which was the best.

The Badlands guys worked for Bungie on developing Chimera and I think Gimble on the Wabe too. They would have had access to Bungie's materials and tools.

Tireces: if someone gives you Creep LMOTH in the Mwc you'll find out the hard way

Tireces · Post by **Tireces** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 9:39 am

Heh, Ive played original TFL much - so that may be it

vinylrake · Post by **vinylrake** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 10:37 am

ChrisP wrote:...
The task took months at a time in my life when I was unemployed, had lots of free time, and was temporarily insane. The best part was when Iron announced, shortly after release, that he'd developed a program that ported scenery automatically, near instantly, and with 99.99% accuracy. ...

Yeah I see how that would be a bit of a downer, but how many TFL maps have been converted to SB SINCE the port program was completed? Have any of them become 'must haves' like the TFL multipack is to anyone with even a modicum of Myth cool?

See, it might have seemed futile or a waste of time in retrospect once an easier method was available, but I say you can't beat the craftsmanship of something painstakingly built by hand. And that even includes Myth maps.

Frumius · Post by **Frumius** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 11:19 am

vinylrake wrote:See, it might have seemed futile or a waste of time in retrospect once an easier method was available, but I say you can't beat the craftsmanship of something painstakingly built by hand. And that even includes Myth maps.

True, except when the object is an exact duplicate. I'd copy-paste my 185,000 word journal easily, but to retype it with care by hand in order to get an exact copy I would indeed have to be (at least) temporarily insane, as ChrisP said he was when he copied by hand!

But the attention to detail that he dedicated himself to before the copy-paste equivalent was available is very admirable.

ChrisP · Post by **ChrisP** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 4:10 pm

Yeah, Frumius is right, Vinyl, but really, it never bummed me out in the slightest.

For one, it meant the TFL solo levels were going to be ported, and at that time, I was just so happy to be part of Iron's team working on Myth II 1.4, arguably the most important, though maybe not most beloved, Myth community project ever. The programming part was entirely out of my league, so I was just happy to contribute something worthwhile (at the time no one believed Mazz would have any significant impact) that even if I knew there was going to be a 'copy/paste' method soon, I'd probably still have done it by hand just to have it ready for the advent of vTFL.

In fact, I suspect Iron felt the same way about needing the Multipack ready for the 1.4 deadline, which is probably why he never told me of his plans for an automated porting tool - which he never released, by the way. That's at least one reason you don't see more TFL ports. Maybe it's very buggy and requires fiddling with rabbit-ear antennas just so to make it work. Iron never was one for releasing anything he considered less than complete.

Anyway, can anyone tell from the sappy reminiscing that I've been missing Myth? Maybe it's due to the upcoming uDog Myth weekend!

Website · Post by **iron** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 5:21 pm

Hehe, good to see you back on the forum CP

Btw I didn't really have a plan to write that program at all, not until I started The Fallen Levels (after 1.4 and B&G were finished) and realised the task would be impossible without it. Then it all came together rather more quickly than I expected...

Yes, it needs lots of rabbit ears fiddling, not only to run the program but to setup the mesh _exactly_ the right way before you can run the program. I could tell it was going to be a massive support hassle so I never released it.

I did give the proggy to a couple of guys (Quartermann was one I think) who wanted to port some TFL plugins, but I don't think anything ever came of it. I also started on a second TFL multipack a while ago but put it aside until 1.7's done (and assuming I have the motivation).

:: misses Myth as well ::

ChrisP · Post by **ChrisP** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 6:07 pm

Heya, Iron. Will you be attending the uDog get-together this weekend? Try to show up a few hours early; I have a list of minor engine improvements I need to suggest, all of which whose resemblance to WoW dynamics is purely coincidental. The time has come where level 1 to 70, persistent server-stored units, with advanced inventory and skill UI, played on a single, persistent 128 quadrillion by 128 quadrillion pixel mesh are absolutely vital to maintain the integrity of classic Myth.

Cya this weekend and we'll iron out the details, so to speak.

Website · Post by **iron** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 6:18 pm

Haha, well ... sorry, I can't make the Myth night. I haven't played Myth online at all for over a year now - ever since changing jobs actually.

Actually I think you'll need to make a proof-of-concept plugin to demonstrate your ideas

Post by **Death's Avatar** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 6:53 pm

I still have one of those laying around...

The Tain

Movement at the station