Bungie unit models

[Renwood TWA]

There should be some new evil myth character called "Drama"

"And so it was the evil Drama drew attention to itself making people bicker and and hate one another. And with every day that went by more people were drawn into Drama's evil clutches"

They say on a silent night when the moon is full you can hear Her laughter on the winds "BWUAHAHAHAHA!"

[iron]

Fear of take2's wrath is what has kept things like this being added:

A. Increased amounts of people on the map at 1 time, the limit has allways been 400+. thats pretty whimpy for an RTS game.

B. Increased numbers of projectiles, with more people fighting at one time more projectiles also need to be added, since more blood would flow and more things like arrows and body parts would be flying through the air.

C. being able to zoom the camera out further = more view distance.

The reasoning has been that changes such as these, allthough VERY SIMPLE to make, would increase the system specs required to play the game and thus be, somthing take2 wouldnt like (if they ever cared or noticed).

Um, no. The reasoning behind leaving those changes out is:

(a) People were still playing with old systems. As developers we had a "no myther left behind" strategy.

(b) Some of those features were tried and caused new bugs. Larger numbers of units and projectiles greatly increases the likelihood of OOS, especially if one (just one) person in a game has a slower machine or slower connection. Zooming the camera out further does introduce rendering bugs and it greatly slows the framerate. As mapmakers can lower meshes themselves its not really a feature that belonged in an update.

If fear of Take 2 was the problem then Myth would still require you putting a CD in the drive, and the demo version would not be compatible multiplayer-wise with the full version. AFAIK the only things we haven't done due to Take 2 is distribute the game online, open-source the code or use it as a basis for a new game (Blades wanted to do the latter with Myth 3's code & I believe was warned off by Take 2).

[The Elfoid]

B. Increased numbers of projectiles, with more people fighting at one time more projectiles also need to be added, since more blood would flow and more things like arrows and body parts would be flying through the air.

We need that already. You can't do a 5 minute DM game with dorfs/arcs without getting hundreds of "invisible" attacks and sats vanishing.

(a) People were still playing with old systems. As developers we had a "no myther left behind" strategy.

Much as I'd love things to improve, I think this is a fair point and a good principle. I know guys on 45k internet who play Myth. I know guys who have a PC so old they can't play anything OTHER than Myth and that's abig part of why they still play it.

(Blades wanted to do the latter with Myth 3's code & I believe was warned off by Take 2).

That explains why that project just melted away without even being canned.

[Renwood TWA]

Good points iron.

Allthough im trying to be nice, Im a bit drunk right now, so if anybody could get mad about i might say then dont read this post please!

When i say "Fear of take2's wrath i only mean that i have been informed by many magma members that one of the things that take2 directly said they were NOT allowed to do was to increase the system specs.

The thing is, the very nature of technology says you need to upgrade your stuff to play newer/better/more advanced stuff.

Exactly what is stopping people with slower computers from getting a job/ maybe selling some of their stuff or saving some money over a period of time and upgrading their computers? Then to be able to play the newer more advanced feature rich whatever.

This is part of being a gamer, allways will be ALLWAYS has been.
To stifle the ceativity or the options for new never been done before content by artists because of the limitations of older versions/keeping support for really old computers, is contrary to the ENTIRE computing industry/video game industry.

Dont take that as an insult, because im just saying what evreybody i have allways know who likes to play video games has allways done/known they have to upgrade very few years to play the latest and greatest versions of their favorite games.

System specs ALLWAYS increase so people can play the newer more advanced better looking larger versions of whatever game.

Im one of the poorest people i known for years and years, and even i can put money aside to upgrade my system every 3 or 4 years, or maybe every 1 or 2 years if something breaks.

All other gamers that play and purchse modern games allready have system specs far beyond what would be needed to pull off these changes well.

The OOS factor you mention would seem to be a problem though.

Increasing view distance WILL NOT greatly lower the framerate.
I have tested this in many ways and with further view distance then anybody else ever in the history of myth, and on 3 diffrent systems.
(Its true and not just a boast)

Going from 45 FPS at normal zoom to 25 FPS with 1024X768 at the new maximum view distance @ 3X more viewable area then before is about what happens. Its not a big hit FPS or gameplay wise. And this is with a maximum about (Around 400+) units on the screen at one time killing each other/ projectiles all over.

Now with the newer builds if you play at the modern PC windowed version of myth, the tracers of things and projectiles flying by the very edge of the map, wont cause crazy looking things/artifacts like before. The edges of the viewable distance NOW at least, are just black. it really looks allright even if you ever do end up seeing it. And im talking higher camera "V" zooms out more, not just lowered map meshes.
Besides it limits the maximum zoom IN distance if you just lower the mesh

If maps with further maximum view distance are made well, you wont even bearly ever be able to see this blackness of non rendered edges, if ever.

If the main reason that we cant increase numbers of units and projectiles and view distance in myth is because of people with old/slow computers, I ASK YOU ALL THIS.

DO YOU WANT TO STIFLE NEW FEATURES AND MORE UNITS ON SCREEN INCREASED PROJECTILES AND ALL THE NEW EPIC CONTENT, BECAUSE A SMALL NUMBER OF PEOPLE ARENT WILLING TO ONLY UPGRADE 1 TIME EVERY 5 or 10 YEARS?!??!?!!??! Really its not that hard, i make less money a year then ANY of you, and still i can afford to upgrade every 3 years or so.

I know people with 5 kids that are broke as hell, that even upgrade every 4-5 years.

Allthough im trying to be nice, Im a bit drunk right now, so if you DID get mad about what i said, remember i said dont read this post!

-Renwood

[William Wallet]

So yeah, the Bungie unit models.

Basically; unless I go back in time and be really nice to Blades, we're not going to see hide nor hair of these things?

[Zeph]

you can buy a computer for 300$ that is going to run myth with 200+ FPS on max resolution these days, there's no reason not to upgrade myth specs......

Just look at those Dell hybrids or the small HP computers

myth is not Crysis, you dont need 3x SLI 8800GTX to run it, just need a pentium 4 processor.

[Myrd]

When i say "Fear of take2's wrath i only mean that i have been informed by many magma members that one of the things that take2 directly said they were NOT allowed to do was to increase the system specs.

I believe that was just rumors spread by non-magma members (or possibly magma members who didn't know better).

As far as I know, the decision to not raise system specs was made by us based on our own desire to keep Myth playable on low-end hardware.

[Myrd]

If the main reason that we cant increase numbers of units and projectiles and view distance in myth is because of people with old/slow computers, I ASK YOU ALL THIS.

As has been mentioned previously, increasing these limits will cause other problems (ex: OOS). One thing not previously mentioned is the extra code that would be required to maintain backward compatibility (ie: be able to watch existing films) when these limits are raised.

[vinylrake]

While I love the game of Myth, it is a 10 year old game that is not supported by the company that owns the rights to it, nor by it's original creators. Since no one has the right to create a really new version of the game, it is unrealistic to expect any new version of Myth to compare favorably with newer versions of other games. If it DOESN'T compare favorably to more recent games, it ISN'T going to attract new gamers to Myth, no matter how high the projectile limits or camera zoom are raised. So if it ISN'T going to attract any NEW gamers to the community and might cause some gamers to LEAVE Myth if they can't play it anymore, WHAT is to be gained by raising the limits? Slightly more fun for fewer people?

The way I see it, whether or not to make modifications that will increase the hardware requirements necessary to play Myth II comes down to the answer to one simple question.

Will increasing the hardware specs of Myth 2 increase or decrease the size of the Myth gaming community?

Given that the game is 10 years old and bitmapped sprites (even higher rez ones) won't be able to compare to the latest games with fully 3D renders and shaders and lighting engines and new eye candy even if limits and camera resolution/zoom were raised to infinity, I think it's a no-brainer to realize that increasing the hardware specs isn't going to increase the size of the community. Can anyone really imagine a gamer saying "Gee, I've heard a lot about Myth II over the years but I never tried it because it had such low hardware requirements I figured it must suck. But now that they've boosted the specs I just might give it a tryout!"

On the other hand, at least anecdotally, there are accounts of people who do not have recent computers who play myth regularly who might find themselves unable to play Myth if the hardware requirements were raised considerably. This WOULD make the community smaller. Smaller community is a bad thing. The more people, the greater chance of finding someone to play online with, the more potential mapmakers there are, etc.


Of course all this pales next to the spectre of OOS. OOS must be avoided at all costs.

Because of the OOS problem and negative impact to existing player base raising requirements could have, I believe ProjectMagma has made the right call, and I applaud their thoughtfulness and reason in deciding on and sticking with a decision/principle that they feel is best for the community.

[Pyro]

Besides, Myth doesn't exactly run better on more recent hardware. I don't get 200 FPS. Direct3D which runs better for me than OpenGL but it has some issues, so I use OpenGL most of the time. With OpenGL the max I get is somewhere around 30 fps. Some maps with high resolution collections for units, scenery, etc run poorly for me. Here are some of my specs:

Windows XP Pro
2.5 GHz Intel Pentium 4
1 GB DDR SDRAM
ATI Radeon X1650 Pro (512MB AGP)

Far from the newest stuff out there, but Myth plugins with lots of high res units runs poorly on OpenGL. Under Direct3D, I max out at about 60 FPS with default stuff. So I would have to play under Direct3D, which has some issues for me. And that would mean no detail textures for maps for me as well as other things.

It is true gamers have to update from time to time, but never for the same game! This would be different if you were talking about raising the specs for a sequal of the game. Meaning that you had low specs for one game, but the next sequal can have those same specs or much higher. If that were the case, I would say higher would be better. Since new games will get attention of new players. Increasing the specs for this old game won't bring new blood into the fold.

[The Elfoid]

So yeah, the Bungie unit models.

Basically; unless I go back in time and be really nice to Blades, we're not going to see hide nor hair of these things?

Or spike his drinks.

When i say "Fear of take2's wrath i only mean that i have been informed by many magma members that one of the things that take2 directly said they were NOT allowed to do was to increase the system specs.

I believe that was just rumors spread by non-magma members (or possibly magma members who didn't know better).

As far as I know, the decision to not raise system specs was made by us based on our own desire to keep Myth playable on low-end hardware.

Blades increased system specs on Myth III. The graphics improved a fair bit by the time MythDev/Flying Flip took the game from 1.0.2 to 1.3.1. Blades always struck me as more likely to be afraid of the law than Magma.

[vinylrake]

Blades increased system specs on Myth III.

And how much do you think that increased the Myth III game playing community?


ps. I think your impression of who respects the law more (I replaced 'fear' with 'respects' for the law, because I don't think 'fear' of the law is quite the accurate term) might be based more on which of the parties was more likely to use the law, threat of the law, or make up 'laws' to achieve personal goals, or smite wrongdoers, than it is on who actually *respects* the law more.

[Renwood TWA]

O yea and good idea pyro we should all list our system specs:
Hmm is there a place to put system specs on our user proflies?

Main PC:
Win XP
3 Ghz dual core pentium 4
2 Gigs of system Ram
512 MB video ATI OpenGL/direct 3d video card.

Backup PC system:
Win XP
single core 2.4 Ghz pentium 4
3 Gigs of system Ram
128 MB video ATI OpenGL/direct 3d video card.

VR dont forget the 24 bit color maps that Oak can create, and the super high res units from the likes of our dev team, Hooligan and Carlinho.

They look really good, even much better then other RTS games like the total war series.

We are even making all new high res screnary, like multi angle trees and bushes/weeds/grasses.

Yes myth will never look like crysis or some other super fancy first person shooters, but then again RTS games are NEVER on par with FPS games in terms of graphics.

Also my fellow mythers, never forget increasing system specs with more units on screen or more projectiles wont make any map for myth 2 made not work for people with older computers, because they would only make a difference on NEW maps. All the current myth 2 maps ever made would work just fine like they allways did for evreybody.

I belive its kinda like the detail textures feature in 1.7 with Oak, what are you gonna do, not support great new things like Oak because some people who dont have OpenGL cards wont be able to see the new 24 bit map textures?

Im belive the same as you to not leave mythers in the dust...on all the CURRENT myth 2 content, but there is no reason that should keep the creation of all new content that could really use a boost feature/system wise to help the artists make new visions and creations for other mythers to enjoy, and maybe draw in some more people with the updated more action packed nature of new myth content.

Figuring out just HOW to do go about implementing these things from a programming implementation standpoint is something that could be done, so in the future if there is ever funding and people such as yourselves (Magma types) could get paid to make these updates/changes with the blessing of take2. Ahving the research and groundwork allready there would be a good idea.

The films not working with older versions isnt a problem really, and people can have multiple versions of myth and films folders, its very easy to do, so they can watch any films they want. This is what the testers all have to do with 1.7 betas anyways.

Besides past releases of patches/updates to myth have made films not compatible before.

I think the logic the magma devs used when they decided not to increase systems specs 5 or so years ago?, made a lot more sense back then, and now it should be re-evaluated to see if the same still holds as much in 2008 soon to be 2009! ~8^)

-Renwood

[The Elfoid]

Blades increased system specs on Myth III.

And how much do you think that increased the Myth III game playing community?

ps. I think your impression of who respects the law more (I replaced 'fear' with 'respects' for the law, because I don't think 'fear' of the law is quite the accurate term) might be based more on which of the parties was more likely to use the law, threat of the law, or make up 'laws' to achieve personal goals, or smite wrongdoers, than it is on who actually *respects* the law more.

Yes, fear of the parties was what I meant, sorry.

I was just saying I can't picture Blades breaking a law like that needlessly, so that encourages me to believe that it was not something Take 2 opposed.

I wasn't discussing player numbers!

[iron]

So yeah, the Bungie unit models.

Basically; unless I go back in time and be really nice to Blades, we're not going to see hide nor hair of these things?

Have you tried contacting Melekor? I have an idea he _may_ have copies of them, but I could be wrong of course.