tain.totalcodex.net

Myth III Update? Yep It's a Myth.
Sat, 10/30/2010 - 14:44

Hey Heath & Dan

Thanks for the recent emails. The two of you are the aggregate of several types of emails I've been getting over the last few weeks and months. After thinking it over and doing some soul searching the last few years, I thought I'd let the community know (through you 2 as I really don't plan nor like to post to forums) that I'm done with Myth.

My interest in all things Myth kinda died when my good friend Rick Stufflebean (aka Clem) decided he no longer wanted to work on the game he and I had been working on and building - namely a Myth III project we codenamed Legends. We had a lot of work done on a new multiplayer based game with Myth III at the core and had the workings of maps made for it but ultimately, Clem's interests took him in new directions. Without a strong creative presence for the Myth III game, the idea of somehow improving the engine, overhauling the UI and all of the ambitious things we had once thought of doing really didn't seem desirable. Granted, there are a ton of very talented and well-meaning designers and map makers in the Myth community (especially in the Idiot Collective of whom Ama and Giant are still great friends of mine to this day), but Clem was the spoon that stirred the drink in so far as the creative direction of our Legends project went. That at CIK's defection to Magma (although he and I have since mended fences and have from time to time talked about reforming the band) really just kinda sealed the deal. Incidentally those maps that were made for Legends were eventually released for Myth III. I can't find them linked anywhere. One of them was called Pieces of Hate... I remember that one. Then there was a temple map which was my favorite. I have them around here somewhere... I'll see if I can find them and, if Magma doesn't have them, forward them on. It was all part of I think a map pack that we split up. Myrgardaritaville was another on I think... it's been a long time.

I had thought that time would heal all things and bring everyone back to the table. But it just looks like (after 6 years) that isn't going to happen. Hard to believe it was almost 6 years ago when I walked away from Myth. I had always hoped that I would want to come back and work on it, but truthfully there are a few really good reasons I really have no desire to return.

1. Life. My life is really, really packed right now. Kids. Family. A new wife. I'm in a good place with all of it for the first time in nearly 10 years (reality: I was headed divorce even before Myth and it all dragged out for 5 years after I started) and to dedicate time in one direction would be to take it from another. And that wouldn't be fair to my daughter Laura or my wife Nicholle.

2. Ownership. Opinions are like assholes, everyone has them. But it's my opinion that there is zero to be gained by maintaining Myth. Project Magma is doing a noble thing by further working on Myth, but my position is that nobody will ever "own" myth outside of Take 2. And Take 2 was long since done with the Myth game. They are waiting for someone to offer them a big check for the franchise. It's like a domain name that is really good. It's cheap to own and renew, and you won't sell it unless someone makes you an offer you can't refuse. Unfortunately, I don't see anyone paying top dollar (the kind Take 2 would want) for a damaged game (Myth III) that people always confused with Myst anyway. It's somewhat destined to languish in digital obscurity regardless of effort. If I "owned" Myth, the first thing I'd do is take the name, change it, revamp the engine and go from there. When you think about it - that means pretty much developing everything from scratch. With that in mind, why would you ever want to buy it? If I were to ever work with this kind of game again, I would have to have a stake in it and have the option of turning it into something I could do full-time, for profit and make it worthy of putting my time into. As it stands, I make a lot of money hourly for my time. To give it away for something I don't own is kinda foolish from a business perspective. Mind you it's not about greed, it's just the simple facts of life. As the goblins of WoW say ... "Time is money, friend.". I'd rather develop my own tech that didn't rely on 15 year old antiquated tools that you have to hack to work than try to patch together a system to make a game. In my opinion, that's where Myth III *seriously* missed the boat. We *tried* to change that, but you're talking about fundamentally changing an engine from working off an engine (Tiki) that nobody cared about to maintain to something that could be managed over the long term. Nearly an impossible prospect.

3. Projects. I'm working on many other projects both in the web and mobile space. I even at one point started a Myth II port for iPad, but couldn't even get all that interested in that. (for the record: it never went anywhere beyond some initial tinkering). Mobile is the future of gaming - and a game like Myth would be amazing on a mobile platform. Just look at Epic's demonstration of the Unreal Engine on iOS. Stunning. That is the way to go (IMO). Not some sprite-based tech built on stuff that was cutting edge 15 years ago.

So there you have it. I should have put this together a long time ago and posted it to my web site. The next revision of my site will be void of all things Myth -- save for a download link to the last build of Myth III ever produced. I suspect it will break over time with the evolution of MacOS and Windows... but everything goes away sometime. I used to not believe that, back when I was a lot less realistic than I am now.

I'm going to post this as my blog entry on my current web site. Of course, the blog is also going to go away at some point.

I hope this answers your questions. Any further myth related questions should likely be directed to someone at Magma. Kyle Maclean (Doobie) or Myrd over at Magma. They seem to be the ones with the most info on the current happenings. They've had it together for a long time now and hats off to them for a much higher propensity for community-based stuff than yours truly I've CC'ed Kyle on this email as he's the only one for whom I have an email address.

So ... at the end of the day. My best to Myth and the community. You all have a lot of love for it and that is admirable. Life just has taken me other places. In the end, we all gravitate toward the things we like to do and keep us motivated. I think that's just where I ended up

I'll be taking my site offline sometime in the next month or so for a stripped down redesign. God knows it needs it

Peace to everyone;

Michael Bagnall
The artist/programmer formerly known as Blades.

killerking wrote:Somebody should back up his myth stuff before he removes it.

I think Blades left the myth community before I started playing, because I remember not being able to register at <a href="http://www.mariusnet.com">playmyth</a>.com . The only thing I found at the <a href="http://www.mariusnet.com">playmyth</a> website was a message that everything would be fixed within a day. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. What sucked even more, is that there were almost no folks at mariusnet yet, so there was noone to tell me that it was possible to log in as a guest at <a href="http://www.mariusnet.com">playmyth</a> .

I remember playing some of the maps Blades mentions, and I have to say they were quite good. Thus, I'd like to thank him for those.

Killerking

vinylrake wrote:i recall that was a frustrating time for some in the community because there was a period of several months where the <a href="http://www.mariusnet.com">playmyth</a> registration wasn't functioning due to the hacker attack that hosed the whole site, so no new players could register,there was no way to log onto <a href="http://www.mariusnet.com">playmyth</a> as a 'guest', and anyone returning or checking out <a href="http://www.mariusnet.com">playmyth</a> because they wanted to play myth online had no way of getting an account, reactivating an old account, or even knowing there was another server they could play myth on.