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Dated: Written on November 19, 1997
About: Myth, The Fallen Lords
Author: Randall Shaw
Updates: Nov 20 '97 Added Quote
Nov 25 '97 Added Net Install Woes.
Added Warnings/Work-arounds.
Dec 2 '97 Added Some new Ideas.
Striked wrong PC Net Install.
Dec 3 '97 Adjustments due to 1.1b2 update!
Dec 14 '97 Adjustments due to 1.1b5 update!
Added some new ideas.
New update content, is in this color.
Items striked out, are items that were not right, or have been fixed.
"Fixed in v#" means just that: the item has been fixed in that version number.
Myth is a pretty darned good game. I would actually say it is worth buying when you get the chance (it's out now). Just make sure if you do buy it, you buy the Mac Boxed Version! Support Apple by buying the mac version.
An Overview: It is pretty much Warcraft, without all the building and harvesting criteria. Which is what I couldn't stand as much in warcraft. Myth just gives you a group of units, and you go out to battle with only your wits (and the luck of the draw) to aid your victories.
The battles are great and gory, can't refute that. I was amazed at the quality of the graphics. Being the graphics man myself, I was pleased that Myth sported good quality graphics on everything about it. The title screen, the preferences area, and the game itself all had nice uniform graphics. I still get a kick out the occasional rolling head down a hill!
However, Myth isn't all that perfect (what is?). Even after the first update (which is an incredible fix I might say) I expect to see more updates coming out that will address most of the points that are made later on in this paper. Many things where just the cause of realesing too soon. Others where no doubt the cause of making a PC version at the same time. By making the PC version, they knew of the PC's short comings in windows, so they had to adjust for that... they might have decided to ignore some of the most basic of functions and features that the Mac supports, just so that they could make the PC one work the same.
Due to the nature of all the things I wish to cover about the good and the largely annoying regarding Myth; I will put everything into a list for ease of reading.
GOOD THINGS:
Installation was quick, and undamaging. Many times have I gotten some new game or software, and went to install, and it would replace my new versions of quicktime, or throw in some extremely uneeded extensions that would cause a crash on restart. Also many installers would quit everything and require you to restart (which I absolutly do not like to do. I own a mac, I am not used to restarting). The installer for Myth didn't do this bad stuff. It also didn't do something else, which is explained later.
Update 1.1b# was fast smooth and extremely easy. Like the installation, the update was quick and simple and didn't ask you a billion questions to get a task done. I am glad to see they took the time to make a decent updater like they made installer.
Graphics are Top Notch. The gore and body parts flying about are enough to lose a netgame for; just so you can see the massive gore that goes on after you die. Really well done. I still get a kick out of blasting off a wight on dwarf explosive packs, and seeing body parts fly across the whole map. Hoowaaa.
Sounds are incredible... although lacking on the PC version (most likely due to the crappy sound cards in all the PC's I use). Sounds of water, buzzing bees (that bugged me actually, I hate bees... heh), and grunts of wild animals which you actually never see. I just wish I could pump up the volume on the whole game, because it seems set to low (even with the system sound up to 7, and the sound in the Myth prefs set to the highest).
Somewhat no-lag Net play. I was able to play games over slow connections to people in Australia. However, losing connection seems to be common if you visit bungie.net.
Ability to move the camera around during film playback. Something that everyone wished Bungie put into Marathon (as to watch the carnage from a floating camera). Odd, Bungie thought the idea for marathon was "utterly stupid"... yet they put it into Myth. Riiiight, we believe you :nudge:wink:
PROBLEMS OR CONCERNS:
PC Installer messed up. I was trying to install a Net only spawned version onto a wintel machine, and to my dismay I found out that the Installer was slightly messed up for this. It says "Space required for installation: 0k", and sure enough when you hit continue, it flashes, and quits saying it was installed successfully. Oh well, at least I can do it on the Mac. REASON you can only do it on Mac: The Mac Myth suppots LAN playing, where the PC Myth does not. Spawned net-only installs will only work over LAN games, so therefore the PC has no use to install a net only; when it won't do it anyways. Sorry for the confusion.
Out of Sync Films? What is up with this? You would think that if the film plays at all, that it would be in sync. Also, if it is out of sync, why didn't the actual game being played notice this and quit? Something fishy going on there. I noticed the out of sync films accur more so from films saved off pc, played on mac; than films saved on mac played on mac or pc. It 'might' be a file corruption issue (something Bungie should look into for sure).
THINGS THAT NEED CHANGING:
Options before next solo map is loaded. Many times have I wanted to save, and quit solo between levels. Now, you have to wait for it to load the next level before you can quit. It would be nice if you could quit out before it goes through loading up the next level you are going to quit anyhow.
F-keys... Bite Me. Making a program for Mac, you have to realize that not everyone in the world owns, or wants to own, a keyboard with f-keys. How hard is it to actually setup a multi-key equivalent, or allow the user to set another key for all f-keys? Not hard... Running With Scissors (makers of Postal) released a good update to Postal to fix their f-key requirements... they were smart! Let's hope Bungie is too.
F1,F2 - Game Speed up/down. These two really need to have some other keyboard equivalent, or allow the user to set two keys of their choice to this action.
F3,F4 - Lowers/Raises sound volume. I don't understand it. I set the sound volume to the highest in the prefs, and I set the system volume to the highest, yet the sound is still very very quiet? I can't use these sound adjusters to see if they can raise it any higher, because they are f-keys. But at least sound is setable in the preferences.
F6 - Toggles toolbar on/off. Yes, I would like to see more of the battlefield thank you. This should be an assignable key.
F7 - Brings up net stats. Like the above, this should be an assignable key because the net stats help you identify how many units a certain person has got left.
F12 - Turns on Auto Camera. Like the above, this should be an assignable key.
All of the others can stay f-keys because they can be set in the preferences, or are only information that really is not needed during a game. Worse thing, is that any f-key emulator programs, or outside links to make a certain key combo an f-key, will NOT work in Myth!
Waypoint control. Maybe I just haven't gotten used to how this really is supposed to work, but it sure seems like a hassle to get it to work. Half the time, troops cut straight to the destination no matter how many different places you placed a waypoint. And also, waypoints mean nothing whenthe destination you click is an enemy unit.
FIXED in 1.1 - Jump back after viewing a film. Notice how after you view a film, it sends you back to the main startup screen? Why does it do that! This is not needed, cause if you are watching a film, most likely you will be either deleting that watched film, or going to watch another film. I think it should send you back to the film viewing directory setup after you get done watching a film. Seems only logical that's what it would do. It's a real pain otherwise to have to always go back into the films section after each and every film you watch.
FIXED in 1.1 - Unit AI needs a few adjustments. The warriors and thrall show the most noticeable problems, and that's their stupidity for walking. At least make them stop walking forward when someone is blocking them... It is really disturbing to see something doing a moon-walk behind another something, or into a foe for no reason but to be doing it. Also, I have noticed that when I send a group into a box formation, seems the guy who was supposed to go to that middle spot, always gets there after all the other guys do... It would be helpful to have them get into formation regarding where they are when they get there. I could go on, but also the lack of any sort of AI for your own troops, adds to the challenge of commanding them and making them do what you want. However, them dwarves really are stupid till they learn (or kill themselves, heh).
THINGS THAT NEED TO BE ADDED:
Copy and Paste! God Fucking Damnit! This game is not only for PC, where they have no standards... it's for Mac too! Make copy and paste of IP numbers a reality! This was no doubt part of Bungie selling out to PC (blinded by impudence of the windows saga). Everyone I talk too (being Mac people AND pc people alike) think the lack of copy and paste is pure genius, NOT!
I-Beam Insertion. See above... how hard is it to make the I-beam go where you click with the mouse in ANY text field? That's a Mac standard, and I cannot believe they left it out. Shame on them, another notch. Use the arrow keys to move the I-beam to where you want it? Pahshure! Why did I buy a Mac again?
Net Maps Install. I would like to be able to install just the NET maps onto my HD so that net games do not timeout when it takes so long loading them off the CD. Right now, you can do either a full or minimum. I want a middle, where it leaves the solo levels on the CD, and copies the net to your drive. THAT way, you can load up quick netgames, without wasteing friggin 340 megs of hard drive space! The Spawned Net Only Install, for some ungodly reason uses up 340 megs of disk space just like the full install... so why bother? To implement this, they would need to make an external Installer program that extracts out the maps from the full map file, and then patch the Myth app to look to a certain folder first for net maps. Would be a tiny download for something so helpful.
Film directory handling. I seem to notice that I have an incredible large amount of films in my folder. Oh how wonderful it would be if I could make sub folders in the "reco" folder, and have them act like sub directories within the film browser. I mentioned this to others, not one thought it was a bad idea, they actually wish it was implemented, or will be implemented (some testers mentioned it to Bungie aswell). I myself would like to have a folder for other peoples films, solo films, my net films, net films on certain maps... it could go on for a good deal of file structuring. Really neat thing (it's the darn Mac in me again).
Also on the topic of the film section; the ability to rename films within the film browser. They have a "Delete" button, so why not a "Rename" button? Seems if they wanted you to organize films through an in-game browser, they would give you more tools to do it with. When playing net games and you hit "save replay", it makes this really long name of the date and time of the recording. Albeit it's helpful to know when it happened, it's still ugly and I always rename them. It would be easier to rename them while in the film browser, where you can see what they are by clicking on them (which I think is an excellent little feature in itself), OR have a popup enter field of the name of the film when you hit "Save Replay" after a net game.
A practice map section within the tutorial. Sure the tutorial was way awesome, showing you how to throw a maltov cocktail at a dummy, and then hacking a bunch with your warriors. However, it would also be really neat if it allowed you to go out on a map with dummies all about, and an army, and let you practice moving and formations, and attacking them. Imagine setting up pack charges just to watch a dummie fly.
Ability to switch out of Myth while it is running. You can do this by default on the PC because of the alt-tab thing, but on the Mac there isn't a backward jumpout key sequence. Just allowing the menu bar to popup while paused or idle in a Myth menu would be helpful. Or setup a jump out key setable in preferences (not an F-key).
- --Added from a mail from Finn Smith:
"I found this quite annoying. I thought, as you seem to, that with the
addition of a menu bar it would be easy enough to switch out of Myth. So as
a work around I downloaded a few different extensions which add exactly the
functionality that you mention Windows has. By pressing a few modifier keys
you can cycle through your apps. None of them worked. At first I thought
that Bungie had just disabled all the modifier key commands, but this is
not the case since I am able to take screenshots using Snapz Pro
(command-shift-3). Apparently, they have disabled the ability to switch out
of the app at a deeper level -- it seems impossible to have another app up
front while Myth is in the background. This is a fairly subtle difference
from what you wrote, but I thought you might like to know about it."
Shift (or some user set key) plus camera controls makes camera move faster. Pretty explanatory really... sometimes you want to move the camera fast smoothly in a direction, and not want to jump over in an indeterminate way with the 'click on map view to move camera' option. Shift seems most logical since it's right there by the default key setup.
Remember last entered IP# would help out a bit when you join a specific more than one time over and over. Plus it would prevent retyping one in that someone gave you to join. (wouldn't have to worry about this one actually, if COPY AND PASTE WORKED!)
NEW IDEA - Also on a more user interactibility note, it would be nice to gesture aim a custom formation of selected troops. For instence, if you had setup a group of troops in a personally placed formation, and you wanted to move that whole group and have them end up somewhere facing a different direction than what they are at now; you could implement a simple action exactly like that of putting them into a basic formation (basic formation: you select units, select a formation, then click and gesture in the direction that group will form). This would be so great for making and moving custom setup groups of troops, and not having them stuck being in that same directions wherever you move them too. Just a suggestion that I think would really greatly help out people (in net and solo). Right now when you gesture click, they form the same position spacially, but they LOOK in the direction you gestured.
NEW IDEA - A back log key to press so you can see all that was said after a message fades out. MANY MANY times have I missed a message because I was typing, or in the middle of a fight... and it fades away before I can read it. And we all know how hard and cumbersome it is to RETYPE a message during the heat of battle. Just a key you press and HOLD to show the last five or six said messages... and it should not be a f-key... too far away from the main keyboard, and k-keys bite.
FIXED in 1.1 - Ability to play solo on the netmaps. Like the above, but more of letting you do that on the netmaps so you can learn where you can walk, and at what you can do where. Plus it would be really fun solo to place dummies all around and then attack them with your style to see how well and effectively you could do that. Never in my history studies have I read about an army that never went out into a practice field to practice!
BUNGIE.NET:
RANT ABOUT PLAYERS: Idiots: Why are there idiots wherever you go public to play a netgame? Most of the idiots I run across on bungie.net are people who like to hurt others, and not treat the game for what it is... A GAME! It's for fun, why must you take away the fun by being a complete moron? I watched a good lot of films from netgames on bungie.net and I always seem to notice this wuss schmuck who just sits there with his army, doesn't even move a troop, till like when 1 or two minutes remain, and all the other armies are already dead and mortally wounded because they were trying to have fun. Some people call these dips, campers... I just call them wusses, because they fear battle like cowards. Ah well, can't stop idiots in the world (that's another 2 cents writing to do). Losers/Assholes: These people piss many people off (I don't know anyone who they don't piss off). And it seems to be the PC player is the most common player to do this sort of stupid heartless act against their fellow Myth lovers. What is it? It's ditching the game when you know you are going to lose your men (and the netgame itself), so that you don't get points marked against you. It is also climbing the rank scale, by picking on Newbies in 1 vs 1. Many many friends have been robbed of their valid wins by wusses like those who quit the game before it's over. I don't play high ranked people who host games anymore because once i start winning and they know it, they quit the game (thus cutting me off since they wee server), and then they don't get hurt and I lose all score I would have gotten. I don't care about score that much, but what I am saying is that they don't just do this with me, but others who do care about scoring. It's stupid and makes you out to be a dumbass. I will start a list of these repeat offenders soon. I suggest that if anyone is caught DOING this, gets their serial number account revoked off bungie.net and they will not be allowed to play there for a month (or longer, since this is a complete abuse of the system). So ya better not be doing that, or you will pay for it by not playing at all.
FIXED in 1.1b2 - Seems many things have now been fixed on bungie.net, thank GOD! I am pleased to see Unranked rooms to play game in now. This is great for those who play the game for fun, and do not get all serious or bent about it. Rankings have been fixed up aswell: you get penalized for quitting out of a game because you are losing (YES!). Scoring works better, and the such if you are into that. bungie.net also now has many more rooms to move about in, reducing the clutter and crowded situations. Body Count now works right too... if you had the most percentage of kills, and you lost your whole army due to some camper, then you will win eventhough that camper was the last man alive. This is great, so that those of us who actually go to battle in Body Count, will win. Time has been increased for starting times for those who are hosting or loading the game from CD instead of HD... this will reduce the mass ammounts of timeouts. These few changes are a great improvement, so bungie.net is now a 'good' place to go (just ignore the lame dorks who dwell there).
WARNINGS/WORK-AROUNDS:
Film and Saved Game naming. This is mainly for Mac people, since the Mac people don't have to live with the problems of file names (well now they do, with Myth). Seems if you put ANY funny character in a file name other than the basics, the file will not be recognized by Myth. If it's a film, it will not show up in the film viewer. If its a saved game, it won't show up. Make sure not to put things like periods, or quotes, or other non simple chars in a file name. You can use ( ) and [ ] however, but that's it. How stupid is that?
Want an easy way into your films folder without digging through ugly dos-ized folder names? Then make an alias to the 'reco' folder and put it next to the Myth app. :-)
On the notion of Alias's, you can make an alias to the artsound.gor file on the CD to make it load quicker from CD. You might notice some jumpiness during play if you have a real slow CD drive though... so it's a tossup.
Make sure that when you do a net game, that the Person hosting is respectable. Too many times have I joined a host to just have them quit the game 10 seconds till it ends (all because they were going to lose). Bungie.net is a breeding ground for this, so the best bet, is to either host one of your own, or join only hosted games you know are of people you can trust. Start upa list of people you can trust, so you can remember them (thats what I do).
Don't get me wrong by the long list of ranting wants or desires for the game, I still think the game is great, and many will like it aswell. It's worth the cash to get it.
The reason I post all these fixes or changes and additions, is because I was deprived of being a major beta tester. Even though I fully tested Infinity, Forge, Anvil (actually I kept testing Forge and Anvil after everyone else stopped), and Abuse for Bungie... AND made levels for Bungie, which they paid for, to put into Infinity itself... AND made Evil that helped sell Infinity... it apparently didn't help them decide to include me when it came to Myth. An incredibly rude email from tuncer when I politly asked if I could be a beta tester for Myth, made me realize that Bungie really didn't want my support anymore (what happened to "it never hurts to ask"?).
Myth is a good game, and IF Bungie decides to make further updates for it (which they should if they made this 1.1 update already), then the game will absolutly rock the world. But right now... it's got too many 'little annoyances'. But still... buy it, it's worth it, then come to bungie.net and beat on me.
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