Saturday August 9th 2003
MythDev Explains Their Position { Zandervix }
I've been getting a number of e-mails about my little editorial on Aug 5th [Myth:TFL v1.4]. Most of them have been quite nice, thanks. But I want to point out one particular one that I got yesterday from someone on the inside. It explains some of the reasoning behind the way the update was made. I'm going to say this again: I totally appreciate the work that MythDev has done for this community, and will continue to do for this community. And I thank [anonymous] for their letter. But I still have to say, "why didn't you say so in the first place?" Here's an excerpt to help the understanding begin:The main goal of TFL 1.4 was to be OS X native, which is a major feature for us OS X users. Other goals were to make it playable on pmnet and not to change anything else. After watching all the problems brought on by the changes in Myth 2 w/ 1.4, we had no desire to mess up a game that people have played for years and love. There are plans in the future for bigger and better things that involve TFL but we just wanted to get something out there that worked first. Porting it to OS X and replacing the entire network layer in 2 weeks while finishing updates for Myth2 & Myth3 was a pretty major thing. The code for the entire low level networking code was last or Bungie maybe never had it, because Apple pretty much wrote it for them. Which is also another reason the entire networking/metaserver layer had to be replaced..Ok. That does explain a few things; but I have a question. Now, first understand that I'm no programmer, so maybe I'm totally ignorant in this situation. However, wouldn't it have been possible to do all the things to it that they wanted to (besides playability on PMNet) in patch 1.4, then make a 1.4.1 that adds the required items to play on PMNet? Then, everyone could have the updates, and those who wanted to play on PMNet could add 1.4.1, and the MNet players would miss out on nothing. Just a thought. Again, I'm no programmer/coder/etc...
On the mnet thing: TFL 1.4 is using the complete metaserver layer from Myth3 which mnet will not support.
Even if the secure myth protocol was turned off it still wouldn't work on mnet because the packet structures are all m3 ones.
I do appreciate the explanation given, and hope that future updates may include the rest of the community. We are, after all, one big (happy?) family, no?