Project magma: last of the great map-makers? - How many are left?

The Elfoid · Post by **The Elfoid** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 11:42 am

Myth II is dying. Alebit slowly, it must be said it's happening. We're currently on a plateu of sorts because all the old players are gonna be online FOREVER and we still, as always, get a few n00bs joining every now and then. I myself have known 2 ordermates quit TFS.

Anyway, on to the point of this topic. The biggest difference between current Myth and the Myth of old is the lack of map-making groups. I could be wrong on this (I'm not in any map-making circles) but I think most map-making groups have vanished.

Just look at all the classic maps people have played for years, they were made by now dead teams. Santa's Head vanished after making a mess on the Myth III dev team, Badlands, Creation Games, the Vista map-making cartel (makers of Jinn which looks good but I can't get to play) and Bar 7 are gone.

The same has happened with the more famed developers: Santa's Head vanished after making a mess on the Myth III dev team, Ares, Clem and Cydonian never appear on any credits these days either.

Even Bungie stopped making maps. They released several great maps before Myth was bought by Take 2.

The death of map-making was brought on by several things (in my opinion):

1. Myth II meant that TFL was obselete and noone wanted to develop for it.
2. New versions of Myth II had more complex dev tools and lone map-makers couldn't keep up with large groups.
3. Group leaders got bored and whole teams folded.
4. the classic TFL maps and edited versions of TFL and Myth II maps had been done, leaving many people with nothing to do.
5. The game, as with everything, got older and people moved on.
6. When Bungie pulled out many people never went to Myth websites again and never heard about MariusNet and PlayMyth.net, which came about a while after the fuss had died down about what Take 2 would do.
7. Myth became less popular when things like Myth III: The Wolf Age, Myth II: Worlds and Myth II: Green Berets came out and dissiapointed the public.
8. The folding of The Mill meant many people had nowhere to put their plugins.

On a lighter note, Myth map-making isn't dead yet. Project Magma, The Idiot Map-Making Collective and The Wolf (I don't know who he works with but he also seems to work alone a lot) are still around. Maybe TheTain.org will show us some new plugins we'd forgotten about, that rested in only a single player's plugin folder for years. I'm learning to make maps as well (though currently I'm just altering units sets on Bungie maps) and will release some more soon. Magma's TFL multiplayer map packs have brought TFL maps back to life on Myth II.

So, what is the point of this topic? To find out about more map-makers hidden out there that I wanna find out about, to state my views and to let me hear the views of others.

Website · Post by **iron** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 6:52 pm

You're mostly correct with the above list, except that mapmaking flourished when Myth 2 came out. Bungie's releasing Fear and Loathing made it more accessible to many people.

In addition to the gradual decline, Myth has taken several big hits over the years. The Microsoft buyout, the closure of bungie.net and the failure of Myth III being the biggest. These were responsible for droves of people leaving and not coming back. The number of mapmakers will be proportional to the number of players so its no surprise that after these events their numbers plummeted. Seperately the mapmaking community took bodyblows from Creation's announcing that Myth 2 was dead & closing its doors, and later from the Mill's final closure, though by then most of the old groups had gone.

Magma was a TFL based mapmaking group, but now has members from many old Myth 2 groups that have joined forces. It'd be nice if there were new groups, but that'd only happen if there was an influx of new players to the game.

The Elfoid · Post by **The Elfoid** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 5:01 am

As I said Idiots are still arround, and flting flip has begun M3 map making. I think the closure of Bungie.net was the biggest thing because many people didnt even look for another server.

cov · Post by **cov** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 1:35 pm

hey, me and krille have a map we starting making a while ago and which we're going to finish. Howevever, i am unsure about what tools to use now that 1.5 is out. Do I have to download a new loathing and fear? How do I use all the new features of 1.5?

carlinho · Post by **carlinho** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 1:56 pm

From my humble opinion Myth II mapmaking community heavy blow was the death of the mill.
You had at the moment the mill closed 2 or 3 new maps every week posted there.
I don't say they were the best creations ever...but that meant that people still were creating and participating in SHARING.
The main fuel of creating is that your creation reaches players...
And now I don't clearly see a central place to see posted maps or to post new creations, but scattered small groups that can be accessed only by people who know all the little details of everyday myth developing.
No wander many map makers went away...
jeezzz I'm one of those...
It was fun when you could do a map and post it and then in a few hours see all the downloads it had and the ratings and mainly the feedback from other players...
that meant something, at least all those hours seating in front of the computer meant something...
buahh..I'm gonna cry...hehe
anyways...I keep coming and coming to the forums, it seems somebody told me that a new sort of mill is on the horizon...
is it true?
keep it real,
carlinho

Post by **Doobie** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 2:35 pm

it's true, thetain.org gets closer every day.

ChrisP · Post by **ChrisP** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 10:51 pm

Ah, the good old days.

On a brighter, shamelessly self-promotional note, Project Magma is obsessively working on a coop campaign that will hopefully rival great works like Chimera, Seventh God and Jinn, as well as a very cool futuristic total conversion - and that's among several other projects that steadily inch along towards completion.

Edited By ChrisP on 1089345123

The Elfoid · Post by **The Elfoid** » Fri Jul 09, 2004 11:08 am

Well, I don't believe ANYTHING can rival The Seventh God. TSG is just so big. Anyway TSG also had 18 multi-player maps. Magma has a smaller dev team but Creation Games had less good dev tools so it's hard to call. How long is this taking? TSG took a year.

Chimera is easy to beat I'd say. It's got terrible voice acting, is highly repetitive and doesn't have a decent story or game world. That said, it's challenging, mixes 'hero' style play with 'reg' play and has lots of new units.

As for Jinn, I can't get the damn thing to work. The pictures on the back of Myth II: Worlds look great tho

TheTain.org can't replace The Mill because The Mill was unique, nothing, no matter how good will BE as good. It's not your fault, it's just that people have so many fond memories.

Do u know any other small dev teams out there?

Post by **Doobie** » Fri Jul 09, 2004 3:16 pm

you're right, the tain won't be as good as the mill, it will be better

mauglir · Post by **mauglir** » Fri Jul 09, 2004 4:07 pm

Everyone of course has their favorite plug-ins and we're not trying to rival any of them with our own creations. We just hope people will enjoy some of our current and upcoming projects as much as some of the greats.

Laws of Evil is a multiple level coop scenerio with a story centered around several heroes. It was largely inspired by the old pencil and paper D&D games most of the development team played before they got heavily into computer games. Our team is small compared to the TSG team, but we're experienced and dedicated. The project has been under way for a very long time, but I guarentee it will be finished. That's all I will say about the project for now.

ChrisP · Post by **ChrisP** » Fri Jul 09, 2004 8:21 pm

Mmm... by rival I mean TSG, Chimera and Jinn hold special places in the esteem of the Myth community. Part of that is because all three projects obviously took a tremendous effort and were of at least semi-professional quality. Other, perhaps even better or more popular (WWII) plugins were created, but none were quite in the same category.

I hope 'Laws of Evil' will be found worthy of the same league, but truth be told, it will be very different than TSG, Jinn or Chimera. It's only five levels for one thing, and many gameplay elements will be unique, even somewhat unorthodox in some respects. However, the effort going into it is very intense, the artwork gorgeous, and the gameplay extremely challenging but in a non-frustrating way.

We'd planned on finishing it by end of Summer, but more realistically, I predict October some time.

The Elfoid · Post by **The Elfoid** » Sat Jul 10, 2004 4:00 am

Cool

Idiots made Sisters of the Blade a very underplayed conversion that's really fun as well

ChrisP · Post by **ChrisP** » Sat Jul 10, 2004 11:38 am

Ah, yes, 'Sisters of the Blade' deserves to be in the same category. I had thought it was made by Creation, but what do I know.

mauglir · Post by **mauglir** » Sun Jul 11, 2004 9:23 am

ChrisP wrote:Ah, yes, 'Sisters of the Blade' deserves to be in the same category. I had thought it was made by Creation, but what do I know.

Heh, now we're getting into murky waters again in Myth history.

I used to be part of the Idiot Mapmaking Collective, though I didn't do much while with them -- but I do still consider myself to be part of their order: Even Idiots Can Win, which by now is basically just a few people who hang out on a Hotline server

But anyway, Sister of the Blade was the brainchild of Giant and Demonsthenes who were both long time members of Idiots. They had somewhere between 50 and 75% of the work on SoB done when the IMMC collapsed on itself and Giant and Demos decided to migrate to Creation. This is something of a chicken and egg scenario -- some believe Giant and Demos left to join Creation and that effectively ended the IMMC, but others might say there were circumstances that existed much earlier which prompted Giant and Demos to leave.

Whatever the reasons, Giant and Demos left Idiots and joined Creation, and Sister of the Blade was eventually released (after TSG). I can't remember off hand if the plug-in was officially considered a Creation release, or if it was something like "Idiots and Creation present..." I lost this (and many other) plug-ins when an old hard drive crashed, so I no longer have the original documentation. But, if SoB was an official Creation release, then it was their last, though most will remember TSG as the Creation swan song.

The Elfoid · Post by **The Elfoid** » Sun Jul 11, 2004 10:43 am

I have SoB and I got it from the IMC website. They're still active by the way. Check their site for evidence of their latest Myth III map making 'atempts'.

The site doesn't seem to mention any of them leaving and Giant is still on the members list I think. SoB is a great plugin, if short and WAS an Idiot map.

The Tain

Project magma: last of the great map-makers? - How many are left?