Myth@Bungie.Org

News Archive for October 2003

Friday October 31st

Happy Halloween!! { Zandervix }

On the off chance that anyone dresses up like a character from Myth, send us some pictures. And if you don't dress up like a character from Myth, why the Hell not!?

Wednesday October 29th

MariusNet Server Updates { Zandervix }

MariusNet has announced a new update that will allow the latest builds of TFL and SB to be played on MNet. Oh, and by the way, this also allows MWA to be played there as well(!). Now you can play all three games on MNet! The simplest way to tell you about this, is to let Conner tell you in his own words. Check out this post, or check out MNet's front newspage.

Tuesday October 28th

Myth Fan Films { Zandervix }

BigMuff asks the question, "Star Wars has fan films....so why cant Myth?" Why can't Myth indeed. So, in order to solve this problem, he is planning to make a fan film of his own. And guess what? You can check out his site with all the info here.

Perhaps now would be a good time to point out my years in film school, and my additional digital video training. But I digress.

Monday October 27th

MythDev Releases MetaServer { Zandervix }

From MythDev:

This morning I have posted the updated Bungie.net/MythDev metaserver source code for downloading. This is being licensed under a BSD license - so go over everything and then have fun setting up your very own Myth metaserver for use with all three Myth clients.

Sunday October 26th

Mill Stand-Ins { Zandervix }

Now that the Mill is gone, the community is coming together to fill the void. Here's a few that I know of:

MythForums download page
PlayMyth download page
MythWA download page
Creation
ProjectMagama
Order of H'Pak
uDogs
Omac
Army Gaming
Cadre

hotline
hl.udogs.net
hl.clanplaid.net
hl.mythdev.com
hl.renaissancegames.net
hl.wolfpackgaming.com

FTP
Badlands

Looking for Mapmaking Tools, etc... { Zandervix }

With the shut-down of the Mill, many are scrambling to put together mini-archives of their own. And MBO is no different. We have a project that has been put aside for far too long. We never finished it because The Mill was there, and we saw no need. But now the time has come.

What we are looking for is this: mapmaking resources. I'm talking about tools, resources, walkthroughs, texture collections, etc... If you are an author/creator of any of these things, please let me know. I would love to add your resource to our page. If you know anybody else who has something, please let them know to let me know... or something. Please don't send me anything that isn't yours. In order to have these items on this site, I would need permission from the author. On the other hand, for tools that are just too valuable to have, and the author can't be found, I may be able to do something about that. But we'll work with that when the time comes.

So, if you've got something, please let me know. Together we can build this resource up, and provide a little something to the community.

Pick of the Week { Zandervix }

For those of you who don't remember, I used to do a Pick of the Week around here. Laziness caused me to stop doing it. But now, in light of recent happenings and such, I've decided that it would be a good thing to bring back. So, without further ado, here is this week's pick:

This week's pick comes from a little floating around the internet, and I happened upon this little gem. It's a site by a guy named Wight Zombie. Here, he put together a few things from Myth's past (or the present at the time), and placed them on a nicely done site. At Myth Zombie, you can find some interesting [Myth] pics, quotes, schemes, slang game terms, and a few other things. I had a good time looking around here.

So when you get a chance, go take a look. You can find the site here, at Myth Zombie.

Saturday October 25th

The Mill is Dead! Long Live The Mill! { Zandervix }

Well, it's official. The Mill is gone. It's gone because of the complainers and wankers and abusers. It's gone because the Admins and owners grew tired of spending massive time and money and getting little thanks. I believe it may be gone for good this time. I want to thank those associated with The Mill for their long-standing efforts. You will be missed.

With that being said, though, I must say I'm a little dissapointed in something. The end came all too quick and with no warning. All in one day, the news of the shut-down was given, and downloads/uploads were stopped. Sure, this was probably to stop a massive run and skyrocketing bandwidth; but c'mon. The site went down just a few days later, leaving those of us who at least wanted to search the site, and looking at what was there in hopes of getting in touch with the authors directly for their work, without a hope. There is much that I wanted that I didn't have the time to get to (I was out on business this past week when all this was happening). I mean, really, what would have been the harm in leaving the site up (without the FTP, I mean)?

Repeated attempts by many (myself included) to Admin the site and take over (albeit, non-financial) responsibilities were met with rejection. The files that were housed at The Mill will be archived and stored, yet, no one will have access to them. They will not be transferred due to certain agreements originally made between The Mill and all the author's of original works. So, no-one will be able to get copies of the archives; nor will The Mill's administration allow anyone else to host all of the files.

This isn't to say, though, that you could not host your own archive and let others put their own files there. But, for all the old stuff that was there, and for the author's who are long gone, we are out of luck. That stuff is gone and supposedly archived for good. It's a sad, sad shame.

And what about those of us who had files there who don't have a back-up copy? Yes, I know that The Mill is not a back-up service, but, in my own case, a recent computer crash lost me at least one of my maps. And, since I don't fancy myself to be a great mapmaker, and my maps weren't downloaded all that much, I may be hard pressed to find anyone who has the one[s] I'm missing. And that's just my own case. What about those who have authored many a map or tool, and have had no extra space to store them. Are those files locked away from us forever?

The Mill will always be remembered (at least by me) as one of the long-lasting cornerstones of the community. It will be sorely missed. Thanks for the memories.

Friday October 24th

MythDev Updates for Myth Clients { Zandervix }

A simple cut and paste from MythDev:

Tonight I have posted the updated builds of all three Myth clients. You should download these in order to take advantage of the latest/greatest editions of these three games!

You can get them by going to the downloads page or by clicking on the links on the right hand side of this and many other MythDev.com screens. These updates are critical to player who are going to be upgrading to Macintosh OS 10.3 anytime soon. Current builds of all three clients have issues under Apple's latest edition of their OS X operating system.

Be sure to visit the project page for each to see what other changes have been made.

In addition, we've completed preparing the Metaserver Open Source project with all of the files needed to get you up and running your own Myth server for all three myth clients. I hope to have this posted Saturday, October 25, 2003 sometime during the day. I'm just too dang tired to do it tonight. Plus I want to have some others review the license before things get posted to be sure we're all on the same page.

We are in the process of opening a sourceforge project for the metaserver project but until that has succeeded we will be hosting the files here. I will also be launching a new forum area for server discussion.

We've approached Bungie about these updates as well but have yet to see a reply. We really don't expect one at this point.

Thursday October 23rd

Legal Issues Put to Rest { Zandervix }

As reported earlier, the alleged legal action against any new EEL files grew pretty ugly. However, there seems to be a light on the horizon. Here's some excerpts from PPE posted at MariusNet and MythForums:

For whatever reason, the past few days have grown ugly as all hell for the Myth community.
>~> ...has been tarnished by by past grievences, misunderstandings, arguments, etc.. and finally culminated in threats of legal action.

The first step of us puttin this crap behind us has been taken tonight. Something that more likely than not should have taken place months ago, happened tonight. Two people, one from each side, got on the phone and started working this crap out.

>~>

This evening I spoke with the lawyer representing MythDev in this EEL nightmare. Both sides agreed that the whole thing is out of control

>~>

The bottom line here is there is a new EEL file for playing on Mariusnet... and this one is legal, complete with a legal letter of authorization to distribute as I see fit.

Additionally, I've been assured of future support from the MythDev side of things should something like this ever occur again. So, should, for whatever goofy reason, the IP Addy of Mariusnet change again, we can count on having the full cooperation of MythDev in obtaining a new EEL.

On top of this.. the original reason for not adding the encryption to Mariusnet was that the associated NDA's were deemed unacceptable as they would have, depending on the interpretation, prevented the operators/proprietors of Mariusnet from doing as they see fit with their own server, a server they build from scratch. Well, I've also been told tonight that these NDA's can/will be rewritten so that they both protect the encryption code that they are intended to, as well as preserve the the full rights of the Mariusnet staff to do as they see fit with their application. Based on this, as soon as it's technically feasible, I plan to integrate the MythDev encryption into the Mariusnet app, which will then remove the need for any EEL files.

>~>

The new EEL file can be found here.

Wednesday October 22nd

The Future of Myth? { Zandervix }

If you've been around to any of the other sites, you know there's trouble. I can't positively say where it all started, or what exactly is going on, but I'll give you what I know.

It seems that MariusNet recently changed IP addresses. "So?," you say. Well, somewhere in your Myth II files is what is called an EEL file. This is one of the files that allows you to play on Marius. Somewhere in that EEL file is encoding to MariusNet's IP address. Well, if you change the IP address of the site, and you don't change the file, you can't play on Marius. See where this is going? So, someone was nice enough to mae a new EEL file (currently being hosted at MythForums). It seems that Blades (from MythDev) got all in a tizzy (I make no apologies), which sparked this. For those with short attention spans, it basically says that they [Marius] are in some sort of copyright infringement. Or, in other words, "Thou shalt play on no server before PlayMyth."

Next, Blades decides to retire from admining at PlayMyth.

As if that wasn't enough, a cryptic message on the newspage at The Mill, although it doesn't outright say, suggests that The Mill is shutting down.

What the Hell is going on?

Let me ask you a few questions. Does MythDev own Myth? (Answer:No). Isn't this all about a game? Why is there SO MUCH trauma in this community? Is The Mill shutting down? (Answer: I don't know [yet]). If it does shut down, where will the slack be taken up? When will all this crap end? Why can't we all just get along? Will Bungie come back and save us? (Oh, dear God, please!).

I still can't understand what is going on here. Why is there so much strife between the entire community? Nobody in the community owns Myth. Sure, MythDev has a pretty decent size stake in it; but they don't own it. This is absolutely ridiculous.

I'm in too much of a rant mode now to continue this article, but I'll try and keep you posted as things happen. I'll get on this again tomorrow.

Sunday October 5th

Looking for Artifacts { Zandervix }

Okay. I'm on the search. I have always had this desire to have all things Myth. So what I'm getting at is this. If you have something that I don't have (and I don't mean all the current things on sale from MythDev). I mean the stuff that's not on sale anymore. Why am I posting about this on the news page? Because not only do I want this stuff for myself, but as a staffer here, I want this stuff for use by MBO and for the posterity of the history of Myth. So, here's a list of stuff I have. If you have something that is not listed here, please let me know, even if you don't want to sell it. This way, I'll know about it and can be on the look-out. But I'm always willing to make an offer.

Myth TFL Disc
Myth TFL Manual
Myth TFL (official) Strategy Guide (Sybex)
Myth TFL (unofficial) Strategy Guide (Prima)
Myth SB Disc
Myth SB Manual
Myth SB Strategy Guide (Sybex)
Myth MWA Disc
Myth MWA Manual
Myth MWA Strategy Guide (Brady Games)
Myth MWA Board Game
Myth 2: Worlds
Myth: Green Berets
Myth: Total Codex
Soulblighter Figurine
Myth 2 Poster
Myth: TFL Hat
Myth II Handbook
Myth Comic
Myth GURPS
GFA2 disc