Myth E3 '97 Movie

When I purchased Mac OS 8 from MacWarehouse some time ago, I was sent a collection of free CDs with my order. Among them was a game demo collection, which also had on it a giant Quicktime movie from Myth TFL that wasn't mentioned anywhere on the package. The file is named "Myth E3.mov", and is apparently the trailer Bungie showed at E3 in 1997 (the file was created on June 17 of that year).

The gameplay in this movie is slightly different from the release version of Myth TFL, and may represent yet another unreleased stage of development. Many of the situations shown in it are familiar, however, and it bears further analysis.

The movie is very large (184 megs) so in lieu of uploading it I've made this transcript/analysis of the action, accompanied by stills of the more interesting parts. Descriptions of scenes are on the left, my comments are on the right.

The traditional "vortex/shockwave/Bungie" logo spins out of the blackness, and fades.

The Myth logo fades in and out. There's no music, and there never is any during the video. Was it merely not included or not yet recorded?

A still image of some Warriors beating up a group of Thrall. The interface isn't visible. Appears to be in Crow's Bridge, there's a house and a field of pumpkins nearby.

A still image of a column of Thrall menacing a Dwarf and some Archers. Still no interface. Obviously from Homecoming, there's a column and a shattered wall visible. The Dwarf has thrown a molotov that looks like it'll land right on the Archers. Heh... Whoops!

Some Thrall guard a flag while Warriors engage Archers. No interface yet.
A Fetch flings a blast of lighting at a Warrior while Myrmidons move in for the kill. Most likely from Silvermines, there's a familiar hut in the corner. The Fetch is giving the Warrios quite a beating, the ground around them is blackened.

Flying over what appears to be Crow's Bridge. First moving image, and first glimpse of the interface. The usual 4 Archers, 4 Warriors, and 1 Dwarf are visible. The interface seems to have undergone some changes during development. It's just a flat grey bar, with no borders, flavor text, or circular unit portrait space. The Pause icon is implemented, but next to it are two identical blank spaces. The overhead map toggle is just a triangle, rather like the Mac OS's Control Strip.

Quoate from Boot magazine: "Myth promises to take real-time strategy gaming to a new level..."

Flying over a snowy mountain range, likely Bagrada but there's little to recognize. Snow is falling. This screengrab (and probably all of them) was taken in software mode, the pixels are square and obvious on the higher ranges. Also, there's no wind, indeed no ambient sound at all throughout the movie. The only sounds are the sounds of battle and the "Casualty" voice.

Quote from Computer Games Strategy Plus: "Myth promises to be the next leap in technology for real-time strategy gaming."

Flying over Covenant, right over the statue. Statue is the smae as ever, except perhaps slightly blurrier (thanks to the old Cinepak compressor)

Quote from Gamecenter: "Myth is going to make your head spin."

Fade to Out of the Barrier. The camera orbits around 2 Beserks, a Journeyman, and Archer, and a Dwarf. They are approaching a large group of Ghols. This level must have been made after the Five Champions cutscene, it has the correct units for the level. Alric is nowhere in sight however.

Crossfade to Homecoming. A pair of Warriors climb the stairs toward some columns while the camera continues orbiting.

Some Thrall emerge from a river.

A squad of Soulless float through the Silvermines graveyard.

Quote from Next Generation: "More than Command & Conquer or Warcraft II in 3D, [Myth] pushes the genre in startling new directions." WACCSMD! ;)

The familiar bridge from Five Champions, however this time it's being crossed by a Dwarf and 5 Archers. When they're halfway across, the camera swings to the right to show the bridge from another angle. Judging from this movie and other screenshots, the story arc containing this level and its successor must have gone through a great deal of changes. The missing plot rears its ugly head.

Back in the Barrier, a Beserk, a Journeyman, a Dwarf, and an Archer pass by the buried temple. No sign of the Bow of Stoning or the Ghol ambush. The player seems to have lost a Beserk since recording the first shot of this level.

A Warrior walks across a pond. He is joined by some more emerging from behind nearby trees.

A long line of Beserks emerge from behind one of the statues near Bagrada. It's still snowing, as it always is at the beginning of this level. This level must have been finalized quickly as it made it into the Myth demo.

A group of Warriors storms through Crow's Bridge. One of them says "crow's bridge will be cleansed!" (yes, all lowercase). Someone (see below) says "what's going to happen to my pumpkins?!". Another piece of another plot. Perhaps the first mission was to be the rescue of Crow's Bridge after it had been taken by the surprise attack depicted in the released version. Also, the peasant's random chatter doesn't occur in the released game, they only speak when under script control or if attacked. One wonders if peasants were ever able to shout "They're everywhere!" ;) There is no voice to accompany this text, no on-screen text is ever read aloud except "Casualty". The ghostly Beserks in the still are artifacts from a cross-fade. "crow's bridge will be cleansed!" is onscreen very briefly.

Elsewhere in Crow's Bridge (assumed), a group of Archers and a Dwarf are heading out. Someone repeats "what's going to happen to my pumpkins?!" and one of the Archers turns around for a moment, then turns back and continues with the others. Cowardly, rustic archers? (check out the lowest one, barely visible above the house.) The manual indicates that the fir'Bolg were enemies of humanity until they allied with them to fight the Fallen. Archers could have originally been drawn from the human peasants as the Warriors are, and one of them has just lost his nerve and tried to head home. Perhaps troops who chicken out were a planned feature, but dropped before release. Also, there is no evidence that the player has directed the Archer, not even a mouse pointer. Most likely this video was taken of a game film.

Crow's Bridge's bridge. The action plays out as it does in the released game, except the Warrior shouts "oh my god, look at that!"

2 more shots of the Warriors fleeing.

A phalanx of Warriors move forward, followed by a Dawrf and four Archers. Ideentical to the released Crow's Bridge. Another demo level, it must have been ready to go from early on.

A large group of Thrall is approaching from the bridge, flanked by Soulless. the "Casualty" voice is heard, accompanied by the text.

The Thrall have neared the Light forces. The archers are firing into the forerunners. A number of satchel charges lie in wait.

A new perspective, so that the Thrall are marching across the screen. The Soulless have begun to fire on the nearest warrior. Then the Warriors rush forward to engage, and the Dwarf launches a grenade.

The Warriors and the Thrall rush together. The Dwarf's grenade comes in and sets off the satchel charges, taking out of few Thrall. The dwarf says "Yeah!" in an annoying, nasal voice, and does so virtually every time he gets a kill.

A different perspective of the Warriors tearing into the Thrall. The Dwarf throws in another grenade, and another "Yeah!". Then the camera swings around, showing that the Archers are being attacked by Ghols.

The Ghols have scattered the archers and are chasing them around. A Warrior kills one, but he's too late for the Archer who we quickly see getting killed.

Back in Bagrada, the camera zooms in on a line of Archers ,just before they let off a volley of arrows and the Dwarves behind them fling more grenades. Then we see the grenades bouncing along and scoring a kill. The Dwarves are very accurate during the video and seem to throw at a longer range than I remember. They may have been toned down for the release.

Archers are firing into a crowd of Thrall when they (the Thrall) are flanked by Beserks. The camera pulls a nice "pan-zoom-rotate" maneuver and follows some Souless javelins as they fly into the crowd.

A Beserk succumbs to javelins, and dies in a hideous scream. The dying Beserk sounds a lot like Doug Zartman. His days of doing Bungie voices may not be over... Other than that, this is typical Bagrada action.

A Fetch is trying to break up a fight between a pair of Myrmidons and some Beserks. It takes her 3 shots to actually kill something, and she gets the Myrmidon by accident. The Beserks move to attack her. The Fetch's sounds are rather weak, a sort of "zzt, zzt, zap" instead of the released blast of lightning. Also the Fetch seems to be weaker than usual, the Myrmidon absorbs 2 blasts before shattering.

A Beserk approaches the Fetch, but ends up a smoking hole in the ground (with 1 shot this time). "Casualty". A second does the same.

A second view of the same event, 2 beserks toasted by a Fetch. Then the Fetch casts lightning straight up in the air, and it comes down and strikes some nearby Thrall. The Fetch then blows up a Warrior. The Fetch must have been full-fledged magic users at one point, with a variety of spells. Perhaps they once functioned as the Dark's healing unit.

A pair of Dwarves are laying satchel charges when they are approached by some Warriors. They destroy the Warrios with molotovs, but one of them goes astray and sets off the satchel charges, killing the Dwarves and leaving a lone Warrior. Again, the Dwarves are stronger and more accurate than before. They do seem almost too powerful in this incarnation. Also, there's no "Causalty" report when units on either team die.

A Warrior challenges a Wight guarding the flag, and gets blown to pieces. The camera waits while pieces of Wight fall all over the place. the message "Flag contested" is briefly visible. Most of the unit behaviors must have been in place from the beginning, as nearly all of them were available in the demo. No "Casualty" here either.

A Ghol goes after some Archers on "I'll Dance on your Grave".

Slow motion view of a Dwarf's grenade blowing up a Warrior and a group of Thrall.

A formation of Warriors and Thrall move down a dirt road, in a wasteland-type sand-colored setting.

Another formation of Thrall, Warriors, and Dwarves nearby. They suddenly turn and go off to the left, probably to attack the other army.

Two teams of Warriors are fighting, when a Dwarf starts throwing grenades into the melee. The camera spins around as he sends limbs flying.

A Dwarven grenade decimates a warring crowd of Thrall.

An army of Thrall approaches 5 Dwarves. They fire, but most of the grenades go off ineffectually in mid-air (set off by the first explosion). One hits a Thrall on the head, but he doesn't go down. The camera spins to show that the Dwarves are completely surrounded.

Warriors begin to beat up a group of Thrall.

One of the Dwarves blows up a pair of Ghols, but his shot goes astray and kills all the Dwarves as well.

A Warrior, an Archer, and a Soulless kill a Ghol. Friendly Soulless or errant shot?

Repeat the Fetch blowing up a Beserk in silvermines. Repeat Dwarves blowing up Thrall on Bagrada. Repeat Dwarves bombing Thrall in Crow's Bridge. Repeat Fetch blowing up second Beserk. Repeat Warriors walking up stairs in Homecoming. Repeat Dwarf blowing himself up. These are rapid cuts building to a climax.

Fade to black. Myth logo. I'm a little dissapointed they didn't have any music to speak of. It could have been much more exciting.

Crossfade to Bungie logo. Ditto.

2 large armies are fighting on a sandbar between 2 lakes. 2 Wights emerge, one on each side, and blow everything to kingdom come. There are so many limbs flying around that the frame rate drops a good bit. It rains body parts for almost half a minute.

Fade to black. Coming soon.

The traditional "vortex/shockwave/Bungie" logo spins out of the blackness, and fades.
The Myth logo fades in and out.	There's no music, and there never is any during the video. Was it merely not included or not yet recorded?
A still image of some Warriors beating up a group of Thrall. The interface isn't visible.	Appears to be in Crow's Bridge, there's a house and a field of pumpkins nearby.
A still image of a column of Thrall menacing a Dwarf and some Archers. Still no interface.	Obviously from Homecoming, there's a column and a shattered wall visible. The Dwarf has thrown a molotov that looks like it'll land right on the Archers. Heh... Whoops!
Some Thrall guard a flag while Warriors engage Archers. No interface yet.
A Fetch flings a blast of lighting at a Warrior while Myrmidons move in for the kill.	Most likely from Silvermines, there's a familiar hut in the corner. The Fetch is giving the Warrios quite a beating, the ground around them is blackened.
Flying over what appears to be Crow's Bridge. First moving image, and first glimpse of the interface. The usual 4 Archers, 4 Warriors, and 1 Dwarf are visible.	The interface seems to have undergone some changes during development. It's just a flat grey bar, with no borders, flavor text, or circular unit portrait space. The Pause icon is implemented, but next to it are two identical blank spaces. The overhead map toggle is just a triangle, rather like the Mac OS's Control Strip.
Quoate from Boot magazine: "Myth promises to take real-time strategy gaming to a new level..."
Flying over a snowy mountain range, likely Bagrada but there's little to recognize. Snow is falling.	This screengrab (and probably all of them) was taken in software mode, the pixels are square and obvious on the higher ranges. Also, there's no wind, indeed no ambient sound at all throughout the movie. The only sounds are the sounds of battle and the "Casualty" voice.
Quote from Computer Games Strategy Plus: "Myth promises to be the next leap in technology for real-time strategy gaming."
Flying over Covenant, right over the statue.	Statue is the smae as ever, except perhaps slightly blurrier (thanks to the old Cinepak compressor)
Quote from Gamecenter: "Myth is going to make your head spin."
Fade to Out of the Barrier. The camera orbits around 2 Beserks, a Journeyman, and Archer, and a Dwarf. They are approaching a large group of Ghols.	This level must have been made after the Five Champions cutscene, it has the correct units for the level. Alric is nowhere in sight however.
Crossfade to Homecoming. A pair of Warriors climb the stairs toward some columns while the camera continues orbiting.
Some Thrall emerge from a river.
A squad of Soulless float through the Silvermines graveyard.
Quote from Next Generation: "More than Command & Conquer or Warcraft II in 3D, [Myth] pushes the genre in startling new directions."	WACCSMD! ;)
The familiar bridge from Five Champions, however this time it's being crossed by a Dwarf and 5 Archers. When they're halfway across, the camera swings to the right to show the bridge from another angle.	Judging from this movie and other screenshots, the story arc containing this level and its successor must have gone through a great deal of changes. The missing plot rears its ugly head.
Back in the Barrier, a Beserk, a Journeyman, a Dwarf, and an Archer pass by the buried temple. No sign of the Bow of Stoning or the Ghol ambush.	The player seems to have lost a Beserk since recording the first shot of this level.
A Warrior walks across a pond. He is joined by some more emerging from behind nearby trees.
A long line of Beserks emerge from behind one of the statues near Bagrada.	It's still snowing, as it always is at the beginning of this level. This level must have been finalized quickly as it made it into the Myth demo.
A group of Warriors storms through Crow's Bridge. One of them says "crow's bridge will be cleansed!" (yes, all lowercase). Someone (see below) says "what's going to happen to my pumpkins?!".	Another piece of another plot. Perhaps the first mission was to be the rescue of Crow's Bridge after it had been taken by the surprise attack depicted in the released version. Also, the peasant's random chatter doesn't occur in the released game, they only speak when under script control or if attacked. One wonders if peasants were ever able to shout "They're everywhere!" ;) There is no voice to accompany this text, no on-screen text is ever read aloud except "Casualty". The ghostly Beserks in the still are artifacts from a cross-fade. "crow's bridge will be cleansed!" is onscreen very briefly.
Elsewhere in Crow's Bridge (assumed), a group of Archers and a Dwarf are heading out. Someone repeats "what's going to happen to my pumpkins?!" and one of the Archers turns around for a moment, then turns back and continues with the others.	Cowardly, rustic archers? (check out the lowest one, barely visible above the house.) The manual indicates that the fir'Bolg were enemies of humanity until they allied with them to fight the Fallen. Archers could have originally been drawn from the human peasants as the Warriors are, and one of them has just lost his nerve and tried to head home. Perhaps troops who chicken out were a planned feature, but dropped before release. Also, there is no evidence that the player has directed the Archer, not even a mouse pointer. Most likely this video was taken of a game film.
Crow's Bridge's bridge. The action plays out as it does in the released game, except the Warrior shouts "oh my god, look at that!"
2 more shots of the Warriors fleeing.
A phalanx of Warriors move forward, followed by a Dawrf and four Archers.	Ideentical to the released Crow's Bridge. Another demo level, it must have been ready to go from early on.
A large group of Thrall is approaching from the bridge, flanked by Soulless. the "Casualty" voice is heard, accompanied by the text.
The Thrall have neared the Light forces. The archers are firing into the forerunners. A number of satchel charges lie in wait.
A new perspective, so that the Thrall are marching across the screen. The Soulless have begun to fire on the nearest warrior. Then the Warriors rush forward to engage, and the Dwarf launches a grenade.
The Warriors and the Thrall rush together. The Dwarf's grenade comes in and sets off the satchel charges, taking out of few Thrall.	The dwarf says "Yeah!" in an annoying, nasal voice, and does so virtually every time he gets a kill.
A different perspective of the Warriors tearing into the Thrall. The Dwarf throws in another grenade, and another "Yeah!". Then the camera swings around, showing that the Archers are being attacked by Ghols.
The Ghols have scattered the archers and are chasing them around. A Warrior kills one, but he's too late for the Archer who we quickly see getting killed.
Back in Bagrada, the camera zooms in on a line of Archers ,just before they let off a volley of arrows and the Dwarves behind them fling more grenades. Then we see the grenades bouncing along and scoring a kill.	The Dwarves are very accurate during the video and seem to throw at a longer range than I remember. They may have been toned down for the release.
Archers are firing into a crowd of Thrall when they (the Thrall) are flanked by Beserks. The camera pulls a nice "pan-zoom-rotate" maneuver and follows some Souless javelins as they fly into the crowd.
A Beserk succumbs to javelins, and dies in a hideous scream.	The dying Beserk sounds a lot like Doug Zartman. His days of doing Bungie voices may not be over... Other than that, this is typical Bagrada action.
A Fetch is trying to break up a fight between a pair of Myrmidons and some Beserks. It takes her 3 shots to actually kill something, and she gets the Myrmidon by accident. The Beserks move to attack her.	The Fetch's sounds are rather weak, a sort of "zzt, zzt, zap" instead of the released blast of lightning. Also the Fetch seems to be weaker than usual, the Myrmidon absorbs 2 blasts before shattering.
A Beserk approaches the Fetch, but ends up a smoking hole in the ground (with 1 shot this time). "Casualty". A second does the same.
A second view of the same event, 2 beserks toasted by a Fetch. Then the Fetch casts lightning straight up in the air, and it comes down and strikes some nearby Thrall. The Fetch then blows up a Warrior.	The Fetch must have been full-fledged magic users at one point, with a variety of spells. Perhaps they once functioned as the Dark's healing unit.
A pair of Dwarves are laying satchel charges when they are approached by some Warriors. They destroy the Warrios with molotovs, but one of them goes astray and sets off the satchel charges, killing the Dwarves and leaving a lone Warrior.	Again, the Dwarves are stronger and more accurate than before. They do seem almost too powerful in this incarnation. Also, there's no "Causalty" report when units on either team die.
A Warrior challenges a Wight guarding the flag, and gets blown to pieces. The camera waits while pieces of Wight fall all over the place. the message "Flag contested" is briefly visible.	Most of the unit behaviors must have been in place from the beginning, as nearly all of them were available in the demo. No "Casualty" here either.
A Ghol goes after some Archers on "I'll Dance on your Grave".
Slow motion view of a Dwarf's grenade blowing up a Warrior and a group of Thrall.
A formation of Warriors and Thrall move down a dirt road, in a wasteland-type sand-colored setting.
Another formation of Thrall, Warriors, and Dwarves nearby. They suddenly turn and go off to the left, probably to attack the other army.
Two teams of Warriors are fighting, when a Dwarf starts throwing grenades into the melee. The camera spins around as he sends limbs flying.
A Dwarven grenade decimates a warring crowd of Thrall.
An army of Thrall approaches 5 Dwarves. They fire, but most of the grenades go off ineffectually in mid-air (set off by the first explosion). One hits a Thrall on the head, but he doesn't go down. The camera spins to show that the Dwarves are completely surrounded.
Warriors begin to beat up a group of Thrall.
One of the Dwarves blows up a pair of Ghols, but his shot goes astray and kills all the Dwarves as well.
A Warrior, an Archer, and a Soulless kill a Ghol.	Friendly Soulless or errant shot?
Repeat the Fetch blowing up a Beserk in silvermines. Repeat Dwarves blowing up Thrall on Bagrada. Repeat Dwarves bombing Thrall in Crow's Bridge. Repeat Fetch blowing up second Beserk. Repeat Warriors walking up stairs in Homecoming. Repeat Dwarf blowing himself up.	These are rapid cuts building to a climax.
Fade to black. Myth logo.	I'm a little dissapointed they didn't have any music to speak of. It could have been much more exciting.
Crossfade to Bungie logo.	Ditto.
2 large armies are fighting on a sandbar between 2 lakes. 2 Wights emerge, one on each side, and blow everything to kingdom come. There are so many limbs flying around that the frame rate drops a good bit. It rains body parts for almost half a minute.
Fade to black. Coming soon.