Lemuridae Caveat

News Archive for December 1999

Friday December 31st

Last Post of the Millenium { Pie-rat }

Well, we've made it to the end of the third millenium of the Common Era (or something).

The Myth@Bungie.org staff would like to wish you a wonderful new year, century, and millenium. Have a good one!

-Pie, Forrest and the bungie.org crew.

Thursday December 30th

Bungie-fest in San Francisco { Pie-rat }

Freewill, continuing on his never-ending quest to unite all Bungie fans, has released this invitation to a gathering of Bungie fans at MWSF:

I, Miguel Chavez, certified as Bungie's Number One Fan ;-) , have arranged with Club-I, San Francisco's only PC gaming center & cafe to host a Bungie Gathering of Fans on Jan 5, Wednesday, from 7:00 PM til closing. This is timed to occur during MacworldExpo. Club-I is located within short walking distance of the Moscone Center in downtown San Francisco.

NOTE: This event could be canceled if there's not enough interest! Keep reading and if you plan on attending, please email me!

Club-I has 24 gaming workstations. The games of choice will be Myth:TFL and Myth II:SB Come and play head to head against other Myth players with no network LAG but plenty of good clean fun! I apologize for not being able to showcase other Bungie games, but there may be some last minute additions. Stay tuned :-)

For those that were not planning on attending MacworldExpo but still want to participate in a gathering of like-minded Bungie-fanatics, this is the place for you. Or maybe you *are* attending MWSF and still crave more Bungie goodness? Then come on down! As a bonus, we're scheduled to have some Bungie personnel in attendance. Have an obscure question you'd like answered? Here's the place to ask it! Wanna plead with the programmers to add one particular feature to their newest games, Halo and Oni? Tell it in person! Always wanted to try your skills against some Bungie employees? Bring it on!

Due to circumstances beyond my control, there is a $7 admission fee per person. With that in mind, I urgently request emails from interested parties in this event. If it appears that turnout will be too low, the event may be canceled :-( However, a small part of me, buried deep within my cerebral cortex, believes that it will not be canceled.

There is no age restriction, but I urge all minors to be accompanied by parent or guardian.

Club-I's kitchen serves an assortment of food, from salads to sandwiches. Also available is every computer geek's favorite: pizza!

Since this is a private function, Club-I will not honor Club-I membership cards to this event. My apologies about that.

More information as it becomes available. Any questions, feel free to email me.

Please remember, this event is not run by Bungie. This is a fan-driven event. Be courteous to your fellow Bungie-fanatics.

Relevant links:

Sounds great! If you're interested, please get in touch with Freewill.

Saturday December 25th

Merry Christmas, Earth People! { Pie-rat }

Enjoy the last Christmas of the millenium.

That is all.

(Yes, I know it's not really the new millenium yet...shut up, you geeks!)

Friday December 24th

Myth II Tournaments at Macworld { Pie-rat }

Freewill sent out a message concerning Myth II tournaments at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco. Seems that last time a Myth tourney was set up at a MW Expo, the playing time the organizers set up was about 30 minutes per game -- much too long for a standard Myth carnage-fest.

To remedy this, Freewill talked to "Vinny" (the head honcho) and recommended that each Myth game should last 10 minutes. Vinny agreed, and said he would tell his staff.

Just to make sure no one forgets this amendment, Freewill asks that mythers going to MWSF print out the following message from Vinny to Freewill and show it to whoever's running the Myth tourney there.

>Hiya -

>Last time around, Alf didn't quite understand how
>to run the MYTH II Tournament, and we've made
>sure he knows now. The 30 minutes will actually
>be 3 separate 10 minute games :-)

>Happy Holidays!

>>> Vinny

So there yout have it.

Going to Macworld this year? Make sure that the guys over there get it right this time!

Single Player Map Guide { Pie-rat }

Crappy has created yet another page for the enjoyment of the Myth community: his Post Release Single Player Map Guide (patent pending).

Seriously, this is a very informative page that reviews many 3rd-party single player campaigns for Myth II. Since most single player maps are hefty downloads, this is a great place to get some info about the map first. Dig in!

Tuesday December 21st

Acrappa Updates i have filmz { Pie-rat }

Acrappa notes that i have filmz, his Myth films archive, has been updated.

While you're in the film-viewing mood, check out Myth Master Central, run by none other than our cuddly friend Forrest.

Monday December 20th

Source of the Five-Hundred Poisons { Forrest }

Creation has just released their latest map, the first new map in the Coming of the Dark series since the original CoD Level Pack 1. In Ares' own words:

In the tradition of Myth-style solo combat comes a map which incorperates striking new gameplay elements, yet still retains the old-school feel. Source of 500 poisons will challenge the way you think solo map should be played.

Features include:

- Scene set by a story that took place in Myth's history, supplemented by all-new flavor texts for player and enemy units
- All-new artwork (win / loss screens) and appropriate pre-game graphics and music
- With the exception of "With Friends Like These," the most heavily scripted solo map of all time!
- First multiple-world knot network on a solo map... yet at the same time a design of elegant simplicity
- Incorporates the most randomness ever on a solo map. Over 40 possible games! (compare that with 6 on Shadow of the Mountain)... play it over and over again and it'll never be the same twice.
- In addition to Pure Skeelz Combat, several puzzles / traps are on this map that require you to solve a puzzle from clues provided in order to survive... Hints section included in the readme gives you help if you're stuck.
- Absolutely amazing terrain... Stunningly realistic black chasms and mountain trails (Mesh by Clem, author of Morte Della Luna)
- Very high difficulty range... for those who like to Vid levels, there is ample opportunity to show off your skills by attacking enemy squads that were never meant to be fought (this ties in with the puzzle / trap thing mentioned earlier)
- Best of all to PC-users, this map has none of the platform-specific problems that plagued previous CoD maps.

This is the culmination of months of work and testing. I sincerely hope you like it... Have fun! Watch the included film and you may learn a thing or two...

So, head on over to The Mill and check it out. Make sure to go back and rate this excellent piece of work once you've played it.

Saturday December 18th

Myth Accademy "School" { Pie-rat }

Remedy sends us the following PR about a new Myth "school" (note that the spelling errors are not ours):

The Myth Accademy is a school for new players on b.net (Myth2: Soulblighter), we teach new players the ropes of multiplayer-Myth. Many sites have walkthroughs and guides but our program introduces a personal touch to the subject. We play with the new players, teach them, and have fun with them. Its like school, but 60% is rescess. Students can enroll in a class under a teacher by either sending an email through the webpage, or seeing them on b.net and asking (Note teachers wear the "¶" tag).
Sounds really cool. Check out the Myth Accademy [sic] website here (temporary address) or drop a note to Remedy for more info.

Friday December 17th

Bones of Feros Total Conversion { Pie-rat }

The Townhall has some information about a new Myth total conversion called The Bones of Feros.

Actually, this TC looks pretty cool...there are some new dwarven units (not all dwarves are pyros, you know).

Check out the site here.

Thursday December 16th

TFL Beta From 11/27/96 Surfaces { Forrest }

Thanks to Jenova of our very own Myth story forum, The Asylum, for pointing this out. Apparently, on the Myth TFL CD, version 1.2 only, there is a hidden Myth beta version (Mac only; sorry Wintel users. But hey, that's payback for the recent Windows-only eager-egg reported on Myther.com). I'm about to get working on permission to post this for those without the 1.2 CD, but here's a bit of text extracted from the resource fork as a teaser...

This is a window on the days before double-clicking or formations or waypoint markers, before the Trow or Fetch or the death of the Skrael, before we had a real user interface and we threw away a bunch of cool reflection code to make the rasterizer faster.

Back when we all thought we'd be able to spend some time outside during the coming summer of 1997.

But we've got physics and blood, and Ghols can still pick up little bits of their enemies and throw them around. The dwarf hasn't changed much, but he moves a lot faster and has these cool things called satchel charges now.

Networking works as well, and it wasn't too long before this build that Ryan and I detonated the first dwarven grenades in anger, during an early Myth netgame. Unfortunately the grenades were all his because the starting locations were unbalanced and I lost. Since then I've buried a thousand dwarves on bungie.net, and my hatred of the little men has waned. Somewhat.

So look around and have fun, but don't dwell too much on what you see.

Now ... where did we leave Durandal?

Jason December 19, 1997
Durandal, eh? What could he have to do with anything? Oh, Hamish...

Monday December 13th

Creation Releases Morte Della Luna { Pie-rat }

Let me start this post with the immortal words of the Unknown Newsie:

"Wow, slow news week!"

The following PR was lifted without shame or remorse from The Townhall:

Morte is a 2-team multiplayer map with a design unlike any you have seen before. The huge central bay provides excellent hiding places for thrall and wights, and forces the action to the edges of the map, the sandy beaches and jungles that form the curve of the U-shaped bay. Four meshes provide excellent opportunity for endless mayhem.

If multiplayer isn't your thing, a fully developed solo mesh is also included, with an engrossing story and original artwork - lead Gorlan the Blind, Warlock Prophet, and his army around the bay from one end to the other, fighting the hordes of Undead that charge endlessly of the bay...

If that doesn't make much sense, I'll give you a hint: it's referring to Creation map called Morte Della Luna. The map contains both multi- and single-player variants (the story for the single-player game can be found on the site) and looks pretty cool.

As always, you can find the map at The Mill.

Wednesday December 8th

He-e-e-ere's Johnny! { Forrest }

Heyo!

I'm sure you all know me already; I'm Forrest Cameranesi. I've run the Legends & Lore and Myth Master Central section of Myth Borg here for quite a while. I was around in the old Nontoxic days, and introduced Joshstar to the B.org crew here, which lead to what you see now as Myth@Bungie.org. And now I'm finally a newsie.

Not that that's gonna change anything much, but you'll be seeing my name in the headlines a little more often :-)

Seriously though... like, yeah. Whatever.

Tuesday December 7th

Myth Master Central Updated { Pie-rat }

Forrest sends us word from the front lines that Dan "Face" Rudolph has sent in films of all the levels of Chimera.

Need help with a certain level? Want to see classy ways to slaughter undead? Check out Myth Master Central here.

Monday December 6th

Tournament of Heroes Regis. Open { Pie-rat }

Troche the Hungry had this to say concerning his new 48-team tournament:

My journey began 1 year ago. I received word of a legendary place, wheremen tested their strength doing battle with demons and half deads. Whereyoungins' left their mothers as boys, and returned home warriors. TheMythical land ruled by Alric, defeater of Soulblighter. I traveled beyondGonen's Bridge to the great city of Muirthemne, to the legendary Tain andthe impeccable Great Library. No matter where my travels took me, onequestion was echoed by warriors everywhere. "Who possessed the ultimateskill, Team players of the FFA berzerks?" This question has caused many toexclude themselves from participating in many a battle due to the format notbeing worthy of their efforts. Hence, a new battle has been created. Onethat includes the challenges of strategic planning of teams and the quickresponses of Free For All. The battle is the

Tournament of Heroes

A combination team and FFA tournament. 48 teams do battle in a variety ofteam games, ffa games and multi - team FFA Death Matches. Those thatsurvive shall be dubbed the legendary Heroes of the land of Alric, and atrue complete Myth II players.

Do U have what it takes? Are U and your mates up to the challenge? Even onunfamilar terrain?If U have the skill to play team and ffa on familiar and unfamilar maps,then enter the

Tournament of Heroes

Got what it takes? Check out the Tournament of Heroes website here and register.

Creation Group Launches New Website { Pie-rat }

Both Mythology and The Townhall mention the Creation group's new website.

The Creation mapmaking group was responsible for the amazing Coming of the Dark series of maps. These maps let you re-enact events that take place before the Myth:TFL storyline (such as Truan's escape from Muirthemne after he recovers The Head - seen in the TFL intro cutscene). Their website reports that a second set of levels is on the way, so stay tuned.

For more information about the Coming of the Dark series, check out Creation's page here or Mythology's review of the first set of levels here.

Thursday December 2nd

UK Myth II Weekend at Exeter { Pie-rat }

Ceri Thomas passed on this message from Obitus:

The final date is set and the plans are laid. The UK Myth II Weekend isfinally here, but we still have room for a few more; If you want to gettogether with some Mythers and can make it down to Exeter on the 10th ofDecember then please email Obitus.

We have use of a empty house and a complete office full of computers, so allyou need to do is pay for transport.

Indeed.

Not quite sure where Exeter is...but if you live 'round those parts,mail Obitus and head on down!

~ You have reached your journey's end ~