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Bungie's Marathon Infinity on Linux

Posted by Hemos on Sun Feb 11, 2001 06:45 PM
from the fun-stuff-to-play dept.
Entertainment Games
Derek Moeller writes "Remember those late nights playing through Bungie's Marathon series? It looks as if right before Microsoft acquired one of the top gaming companies of the time, Bungie shot off an escape module in the form of the Marathon source, under the full GPL. Now, with the help of Christian Bauer and the SDL libraries, it is running with full OpenGL beauty under Linux! Play Bungie's extensive classic game under our favorite operating system--check out the screenshots here. Mark one up for great 3D gaming on Linux. Download the binary, or grab the source."
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  • I tend to agree. Coders are often thoughful and intelligent people (at least, the good ones are). Artists are greedy and stupid... particularly the talented ones.

    We can forget about free contributions from that particular group of people.

  • As someone else noted (with relevant examples, even), it is fairly common today to have to reload.

    Today, yes. It wasn't common at the time, which was the point.

    Not sure if it predates Marathon, but ROTT had dual pistols mode...

    Been a long time since I played either, but I think Marathon was first. Might be wrong.

    I was playing on 6100s at the time and I thought it was sluggish.

    Were you using a PowerPC-native version? If you were playing a 68k version of Marathon on a 6100, it would have been running entirely in emulation, which would have been considerably slower than a 40MHz Quadra.

    --

  • Ahem. As one of the core developers of the QuakeForge [quakeforge.net] project, I take deep insult at the suggestion that Quake will be forgotten. I've been working on the Quake source since shortly after it was released GPL Christmas '99. It's been a package in contrib in debian since last January. We're releasing a new stable version as soon as we have win32 bins. I don't think Quake will be forgotten "long before Marathon". I'm not dissing Marathon's GPL release (I think it's great), just your lack of research :P.

    Bill - aka taniwha
    --

  • Diablo, Planescape, those "Whatever his name is" Gate games are all nothing but cute graphical interfaces to a tiny subset of Nethack's gameplay.

    As a Nethack fan of many years, and as someone currently heavily embroiled in Baldur's Gate II, I think you're off target. Diablo might be "lame Nethack ripoff + graphics" (I don't know, I haven't played it), but BG2 is all about NPC interaction, which there is truly bugger-all of in Nethack. How much conversation is there in Nethack? You talk to the guy that sends you on your class quest, and that's about it.

    BG2 put you in charge of up to 5 NPCs who are constantly talking amongst themselves, some get on well together, others fight. Having different people in your party will lead you into different quests. And so on.

    The gameplay is the ONLY thing. Yes, the interface is ASCII, but it's still around, still being enhanced and still more complex and detailed than any of the pretenders with glitz and glamor.

    I wouldn't dare flat-out say that one was superior and one was a pretender. They're both excellent games, trying to do very different things. To me, Nethack is like chess. Even if you've been reading the newsgroups for years and know EVERY little trick and spoiler - it's still a real challenge (I've only ascended 4 or 5 times). No matter how careful you are, there can always be some damn gnome early in the game who stumbles onto a polymorph trap and turns into a black dragon. It has this real feeling of every game being different, despite the board having the same pieces set up on it.

    But this is nothing to do with Marathon, so I'll click the "No Score +1 Bonus" button, and hope the moderators don't hit me with the Staff of Offtopic -1.

  • You believe OSS will work for games

    Nothing to really counter here...

    You consider HL-CS to be the most popular action game on the net

    You offer no data to bolster your belief of a certain game's popularity


    It is, check Gamespys' stats: www.gamespy.com.


    Half Life was made by Sierra

    Sierra has a long history of selling proprietary software

    A group of individuals decided to make a mod/mission pack to Half Life

    Sierra gave these individuals permissionto do so


    The whole point was that lone, non-corporate groups could make engines, but not gameplay, which Counter-Strike obviously proves is false, since the only thing in it that's Sierras' is the engine.


    The individuals sold their creation for profit

    Sierra also profited from the sales


    Actually it's Sierra who sell the retail version of Counterstrike. So, well, yeah they sold their creation for money, but not until Sierra looked at it and said "woah, this is good, we can sell it". And if the poor volunteers get money, that's fine by me.
  • The point was, as I understand it, not that counter-strike is OSS, but that it is apparently written by a small, ragtag group of programmers rather than the main Valve team. OSS programmers tend to be small, ragtag groups as well. :-)
  • It's offtopic but I misread the title and I thought of people doing reliability test throwing IBM's Infinity servers running Linux int bungee jumping just to see if they went on running.
    __
  • I got really freaked when playing a downloaded Descent level - there was a big cave with a tunnel running right through it (according to the map) but there was no tunnel there. I think it stores the tunnels as a kind of linked list of explicitly joined-up sections.
  • As no money changes hands with a GPL licence grant, it can be revoked by the copyright holder. That would be interesting.
  • the GPL specifically protects against the license being revoked
    Are you sure? Bear in mind that the law always takes precedence over a contract, no matter what the contract may say.
  • Hi all,

    I thought I'd share my experiences.

    I compiled this beast on a Debian unstable machine.
    Had to install xlibmesa-dev and make sure that libsdl-image1.1, libsdl1.1 and libsdl1.1-dev are installed.
    As the configure that is being talked about in INSTALL.Unix is missing (doh !), you have to run something like

    aclocal; autoheader; automake; autoconf

    And to top it, I got a gluSomething() linking error in Source_Files/Misc/.
    Add a -lGLU to the LIBS statement in that Makefile.

    Compilation could really have been much easier.
    Nothing for bloody newbies, it seems...
  • Bungie merely GPL'd the game engine. They still retain the copyrights to all game art
    And, as they (and now Microsoft) still own the copyright on the game engine, they could revoke the GPL licence.
  • Discover the true story behind the Microsoft takeover, thanks to the Bungie Webmaster [bungie.com].

    ...

    "So," I began, "not to display a sudden collapse of faith in your business acumen or anything, but is there any particular reason we've hopped in bed with a company that might as well use "Squeal like a pig" as their corporate motto?"

    "I figured you would be skeptical," said The Man, "and I have prepared a short educational video which explains what we hope to achieve with this decision." He pushed a button on his desk and the office lights dimmed while a projection screen descended from the ceiling.

    We watched the video. It was both entertaining and spiritually fulfilling. Afterwards I had only one question.

    "So are we represented by the Alien, or by John Hurt?"

    "Oh, we're definitely the Alien."

    "Good."


    Microsoft haven't assimilated Bungie - Bungie have assimilated Microsoft. Just remember that... ;-)

    Ford Prefect
  • While Counter-Strike isn't open source, it is pretty open. For example, if you want to design a map for it, just download the relevant .FGD for WorldCraft, look at the mapping specs, and get mapping. Use existing textures and ambient sounds, or add your own. Modify existing textures if you like - but remember to give credit to the original creators.

    If the map's considered good enough, and you're lucky, there's a chance that the completed map will be included in the next official version of Counter-Strike. If it isn't, then there's absolutely nothing stopping you playing it with friends, or putting it up for download.

    Every single map in Counter-Strike (apart from the debatable exception of the two Barking Dog ones) is a third-party map, designed by someone who enjoyed the game.

    You can make other modifications as well - there's a thriving community making replacement player and weapon models. I think some of the official detail models (helicopters, wine bottles, etc) were made by third parties too.

    For a closed source game based on a commercial engine, it's remarkably open, and a real testament to what people can create in their free time.

    Ford Prefect
  • The tru7h behind Bungie's real plans was revealed last year - on a t-shirt [bungie.org]...

    Bungie's 7 [bungie.org]-Step World Domination Plan

    [X] Start independent gaming company [bungie.com].

    [X] Dominate Mac platform; launch assault on Windows platform.

    [X] Announce killer gaming title [bungie.com].

    [X] Acquire strangely addictive Chinese food company.

    [X] Recover Ling-ling's head [bungie.org].

    [ ] Stage bloody coup of new parent company [microsoft.com].

    [ ] Take over world, shoot enemies into the sun with giant slingshot.

    Ford Prefect

  • While the technology behind the Marathon games is strictly in the "Slightly better than Doom" department, I have played all 3 on the Mac, and think they kick total ass because of the depth of the storyline.
    That alone is reason to play them. Heck, it's gotta be more interesting than regular ol' Quake. OK, at least to me because I prefer games like Deus Ex and Marathon for the single player experience. The net-play in Marathon is also fast and furious. Enjoy!

    Pope

    Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
  • I don't think there's much value to MS in the marathon engine, being about 2 generations out of date now. There may still be value in the Marathon franchise (artwork, plot, etc. etc.), but they still retain copyright on that.

  • *ring ring* clue phone...Marathon was released six years before all the games you mentioned (with the exception of System Shock 1). Since you stay away from Macs, you obviously don't have the vaguest clue what you're talking about. Or what your missing.

    Multiplayer Marathon is a thing of beauty. Playing King of the Hill in the big open arena where the hill was a strip down the middle...holy frag fest. That game was AWESOME. I've never had a more immersive 1 player game, or more fun in a LAN game. I can't put my finger on it, but the entire series just flat owned. Bungie was the coolest company EVER (until they started sucking hind teat at Microsoft, for which I'm never going to forgive them...)
  • I've never even heard of bungie's Marathon before this. What I do remember was staying up really late and playing Ultima's. Ah, was there anything better than exploring lord british's castle that first time you played an Ultima? (U6 for me). Anything better than making up all these complex robbery schemes to rob the bank in Britain, and then running from the guards (you'd think the avatar could get away with anything, but no, damn holier-than-thou guards). Battling Batlin in U7 Pt1 and 2 was awesome, and although 8 was really strange, and 9 kinda crappy, I'm sorry to see them go. You out there Origin? Release the engines under the GPL! You certainly won't be releasing anymore Ultima's without Lord British himself, but let us see the source!
  • I don't know about anyone else, but I have spent more sleepless nights playing nethack then any other 3d rendered, first person shooter. A close runner up would be TinyMush.

    Games under OSS will never rival the commercial offerings

    As my Logic and Rhetoric prof used to say, always beware of encompassing statements where the restrictions are implied.

    Implied premises (as I read it):

    Games: defined as a subset limited to high artwork games, such as first person shooters, rather then high concept games such as Civilization, Nethack, ethier one of which I'd give higher replayability scores then 99% of games to come on the market in the last 5 years. Both of which (Nethack was) could have easily come out of a small programming group in an OSS environment.

    Never: Well I won't even bother here. Unbound timeframes are obvious hyperbole.

    Commercial: Defined as games released by big names, such as EA? No, many of these 'commercial quality' games are produced by small shops which are aquired by large companies when they produce something promising looking. Companies that charge for their software? No, that would include all shareware companies, obviously leading to refutment of your argument...

    Hrm. Argument seems to have broken down.

    Could it be that the observations you cite could be explained by another premise?

    Let's try one:

    "99% of games are initially produced by small software houses. Of that 98% fail to produce something exciting enough to attract the attention of a distributor and therefore fail to make the shelves of EB. The lack of 'Comercial quality' OSS games is due to statistical factors rather then failure of the development model, as there are simply fewer OSS game projects."

    Seems to cover the observed evidence. Of course the whole argument is specious, as 'work' is basicly defined as "appearing on the shelves of EB" which of course an OSS game is unlikely to do, not being distributed by EA or the like.


    --
    Remove the rocks to send email
  • In addition, why is the editorial on this topic so biased? 'Escape module'? This leads me to suspect that the AC's who flame the editors may be right after all. I find it very disappointing. One would not find that phrase in a professional publication. I suspect the integrity of the editors, when their words appear a few centimetres below an ad for Red Hat.
    I'm risking sounding like a troll, but I'm going to say this anyway. Did you, Urban Existentialist, bother to examine what was being said and by whom? Let's break it down for you:

    1. "'Escape module'?" ... "One would not find that phrase in a professional publication"

    Except in the letters section written by people who read the publication. God forbid someone be bound with a little emotion by Microsoft's purchase of Bungie. In case you haven't figured it out yet, Slashdot is made up almost entirely of other peoples submissions and comments. If you'd pay attention to the post, you'd see that the entire thing is quoted from something that Derek Moeller submitted. No Slashdot editors made any comments after the post. When you submit a story that makes it to the front page, then you can say what you damn well please in as professional a manner as you'd like.

    2. I suspect the integrity of the editors, when their words appear a few centimetres below an ad for Red Hat.
    Just in case you missed this too, there aren't ANY words from any editors anywhere in the article.

    Slashdot has had an editorial policy since day one of posting whatever is submitted to them. You want to see more accurate articles? Then submit something that you've researched and that is interesting. Slashdot isn't CNET. It's isn't ZDNet or CNN, either. Slashdot is Slashdot. If you don't like it, you don't have to be here.

  • True, Counter-Strike is not OSS, but it was created by hobbiests, and is completely free (as in beer). Currently, it is *the* most-played game on the net. Yes, it is dependent on Half-Life, but that could easily change if a good open source 3D engine were written.

    ------
  • I see your point there. To be honest, I can't remember why I put up with learning NetHack. But it came fairly quickly - I think maybe it was becuase I was really curious about how to play and win. And you know what? I don't know if I can go back. I love the complexity.

    As to a use key... yeah, when I was toying with writing my own roguelike, I thought, "Damn, I'll make life easier for myself and the user if I have a generic use key." Although, strictly speaking, I'd have to write code to identify what kind of object it was and how to use it... but I digress.

    Anyway, I guess Nethack is for some and not for others. Though it seems to be for less than it is not for. Wow, that's a complicated and poorly constructed sentence. You know what I mean.

    -J
  • Yes, the interface is ASCII, but it's still around

    Good news for you: there is now a very pretty GUI version of Nethack called GnomeHack [gnome.org]. If you love Nethack, you will want this!

    This has been folded [openresources.com] into the official Nethack [nethack.org] distribution, so it no longer exists as a separate project.

    If you use RPMs, do a Google search for "GnomeHack" and you will find lots of sites that have them. If you are a Debian user, you can get this with apt-get.

    Here's a review [linuxorbit.com] of GnomeHack.

    steveha

  • Perhaps your memory is a bit foggy...Dark Forces wasn't nearly the tour-de-force that Marathon was. Marathon did in fact, run full screen on the original powermac, the 6100/60. There was a console that was non-retractable, but it had the inventory screen, and more importantly, the motion radar. Besides, Dark Forces had crap for plot, and didn't spawn a pair of now-fully-cross-platform, sequels.

    Long Live Marathon.

  • Please dude, you're making me ill. Marathon was far and away one of the BEST shooters in the early days. It had a plot, it had AMAZING network play, it had good sequels (M2:Durandal I think was the first game to do jumping and swimming, IIRC) and was just a damn fine series. Your just jealous because only M2 was ported to the PC.
  • Wow. That really is hard. I lost all the games I played. :(

    Although to be honest, I think the computer cheats. He has a more sensitive keyboard than me. :)

    --------
    Carmack is an elitist, pseudonerd bastard.

  • However, stating that Linux is a good game machine because it plays games of more than 5 years ago, instead of today, is a faulty statement.

    --------
    Carmack is an elitist, pseudonerd bastard.

  • Funny how a bunch of "rag tagle programmers" can make the most popular online action game on the net ( Counter-Strike for Half-Life). granted CS is not Open Source, but it does show just what a group of motivated amateur game developers can do.
  • Marathon was cool because the maps could be "4D." Eg, two hallways could pass through the same point without intersecting. So using the radar it would appear that you were right on top of someone else, yet in reality you were just at the same point in the XYZ plane, but your origins were different (you were actually in different hallways).

    Cool stuff, I think my explanation was a bit lacking however.
  • actually we have had this working for months now. its become a very mature branch of the marathon source tree, and with some of the sdl networking code, may even beat the native mac version to having real tcp/ip networking working.
  • Interesting point. I played Origin games for quite a while, because I loved the Ultima series, and I trusted that other games would be interesting. I didn't know about Looking Glass Studios until they were gone, and now I seek them out. Why can't Sid Meyer make a bad game?

    At the same time, my current favorite is CounterStrike. No plot to speak of, just pure action, strategy, and teamplay. It's a free add-on to Half-Life, which you can pick up for fairly cheap. If there was a open-source engine as good as Half-Life's (the Quake II engine, perhaps with some extras), then we may see a truly excellent open-source game.

    One problem is that all the clients and servers have to be on the same page. Even though it would be open-source, it would follow the example of the Linux Kernel and some open-source games - one main effort, possibly a few variations, but all development focused on the kernel. Maybe there would be faster fixes to eliminate f**king cheaters, as a side benefit.

    Bottom line? For an experience you remember for years, you almost can't beat closed source, billion dollar development games. But there is space out there for some kick-ass, no suprise plot open source games. You listening, Gooseman?

  • You'll likely need to download more than what's linked to above.

    Try here instead (unless it gets slashdotted):
    http://www.uni-mainz.de/~bauec002/A1Main.html [uni-mainz.de]

    K45

  • Just because it's old doesn't mean it's obsolete.

    Even in games!

    When Linux got started, it was a cheesy hacked-up version of Minix, an already feature-complete operating system. But look at linux now! Everyone's heard of it, and companies are bending over backwards to bring new software to it like never before.

    Now we see Marathon Infinity running on Linux. This is great news, not just because Marathon was one of the greatest series of its time for its game play, but specifically because Marathon had one of the best story lines of any first-person shooter ever released. Whereas Carmack kept pushing Quake3's release month after month, cramming in those extra framerates and goofy graphics, Bungie developed an elaborate story of the kind you rarely see in most movies these days.

    And now it's been GPLed. This is perfect, because games are one of the most successful implementations of the Gnu philosophy: anyone can now redesign the storyline, inserting new endings where only old ones previously existed. Developers can now freely incorporate graphics from even closed-source software, under the GPL: its viralness is precisely what gives it its power.

    Long after Descent and Quake have been forgotten, Marathon will live on via its source code. That's the future I'd like to see.
  • In reference to the prior comment: The Hardest Game of Tron You'll Ever See [brandeis.edu]
  • I suspect the integrity of the editors, when their words appear a few centimetres below an ad for Red Hat.

    I have proof that the editors have been getting Red Hat's distributions for FREE!.

    I think the escape pod analogy is right on track. Did you ever stop to think that maybe they planned on releasing the marathon engine later on under the gpl anyways because they believed in the open source movement? And would you think for one second that microsoft would have allowed that?

    Games under OSS will never rival the commercial offerings

    Does the word DUH mean anything to you? <SARCASM>I thought for sure I'd be better than Carmack at programming a 3D engine, but you just broke all of my hopes.</SARCASM>

    It is evident that people that are paid to do something and have all the time they need to do it will be better than others that do it on their spare time for free. That doesn't mean that the games can't be good. And why do you assume that artists and designers are ignorant of the whole open source movement? Is it so improbable that someone with artistic talent would contribute to a project just because they're interested?
  • The issue with making a good game does have a lot to do with the music and graphics etc. Musicians and graphic artists however are not ignorant to the OSS philosophy, and you will probably find plenty may be willing to contribute towards good open source games. But there is still a major hurdle to be overcome.

    Coders have ready access to high quality tools for coding (compilers etc). Also coders don't necessarily need high end systems to actually do the coding. The costs are therefore not too excessive for a coder to get started and contribute to a GPL game.

    Now I don't know about graphics but as a musician there is a lot more involved in getting started than a computer and a linux distro.

    First - If a musician is going to record music with all live instruments (real drums etc) and produce high quality sound you are going to have to buy high quality microphones. A couple of SM58's might be great for a live gig, but for high quality recorded music you are going to be paying AUD$1000 plus per microphone easily.

    Two - If the musician is going to record all live musicians then realistically you need a room to set up as a recording room. While this need not be expensive, it is going to take up a lot more space than the kind of room a coder can set up for programming in. If you want good accoustics in that room - that's going to be more time, effort and probably money.

    Three - a musician needs a good computer. I know coders do too, though I presume you can code on a low end machine and get some work done. Doing any serious music recording on a low end machine is going to be a lot harder.
    Four- If the musician is not going to record all live instrumentation, then there is going to be some MIDI sequencing involved. The costs involved in getting MIDI equipment will depend on the individual muso. It is possible to use some of the better soundcards - but there is a catch.

    Five - TOOLS
    Yes there are multitrack recorders, midi sequencers available for free, for Linux. While these tools are very powerful the products don't (yet) compare to the commercial offerings. The main areas that need work are user interfaces - a bad interface really does get in the way of productive work - and interoperability. I haven't yet found a package that integrates multi-track audio recording with MIDI sequencing in the same way some commercial products do. If you know of one please tell me about it!

    Linux provides all the software development tools a coder could hope for. It doesn't however provide all the development tools a musician could hope for. When this is addressed (and I do mean when not if) the entry barrier will be reduced significantly for musicians and there are many I am sure that will be more than happy to compose and record music for use in GPL games. Get some good music, then you are part of the way towards creating that immersive experience of a commercial offering.

    You need to remember that many of the principles that motivate open source programmers motivate various artists. As a musician I am happy to make music for the pleasure of making music just like coders are happy to code for the pleasure of coding.

  • Amen. But... (Score:3)

    by Ravagin (100668) on Sunday February 11 2001, @05:05PM (#439329)
    I don't know about anyone else, but I have spent more sleepless nights playing nethack then any other 3d rendered, first person shooter
    Heh, me too. What a great game that is. I still haven't ascended (not even when i cheat!), but I'm working on it.

    You're definitely right that NetHack is an example of OSS succeeding. On the other hand... Diablo seems to be much more popular, even though it's basically "shiny nethack" with animations and such, and even though Nethack is free. I'm not sure I could enjoy Diablo nearly as much as I enjoy NetHack, but that's just me. Now, why is Diablo more popular? I'm not sure. Maye it's that it's simpler; some people I try to introduce to nethack complain that they have to learn too many keys (uh...). Maybe it's the graphics; I geuss text mode or tile mode just isn't enough for the average short attention span. Maybe it's the advertising campaign. But do you think it's possible that whatever it is, it's a result of the big company behind the game?

    I'm honestly not sure. I personally think that Nethack is a lot better than may other games out there. But it's clearly not as popular.

    PS: yeah, "popular" is defined loosely here. sorry.

    -J

  • Favorite OS? (Score:3)

    by Ravagin (100668) on Sunday February 11 2001, @02:09PM (#439330)
    under our favorite operating system

    Palm OS ports?! Where? Excellent, lead me to 'em!

    </sarcasm>

    -J

  • Data Files (Score:3)

    by fosh (106184) on Sunday February 11 2001, @01:55PM (#439331) Journal
    The RPM posted won't work without this RPM:
    [sourceforge.net]
    http://download.sourceforge.net/marathon/AlephOne- minf-demo-1.0-1.noarch.rpm

    Geez I am Karma Whore.

    --ALex the FIshman

  • One word: Nethack (Score:3)

    by doublem (118724) on Sunday February 11 2001, @03:31PM (#439332) Homepage Journal
    Diablo, Planescape, those "Whatever his name is" Gate games are all nothing but cute graphical interfaces to a tiny subset of Nethack's gamely. The gameplay is the ONLY thing. Yes, the interface is ASCII, but it's still around, still being enhanced and still more complex and detailed than any of the pretenders with glitz and glamor.

    Nethack is proof positive that Open Source workes for the game core. Sadly, the same has yet to be proven true for graphics and 3D engines.....

    Besides, you gotta love a game with instructions written by Eric S. Raymond. [nethack.org]

    http://www.nethack.org/ [nethack.org]

    http://www.matthewmiller.net [matthewmiller.net]

  • Long after Descent and Quake have been forgotten, Marathon will live on via its source code.

    Except a quick Google search tells me that Quake is released under GNU GPL [idsoftware.com] and so are Descent [descent2.com], Descent 2 [descent2.com], and a Tetris clone that gives you motion sickness like Descent [8m.com]. But the mission pack in many games (required for the game to run) is written by artists and level designers and is not GPL'd. This is why open source is thought not to be able to produce professional quality games: how do the artists and level designers eat?


    Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them? [pineight.com]
  • The thing I used to love about these games was the depth and quality of the story that you pieced together as you played the game. It really felt like it was worth playing on, something that can't be said for today's crop of blast-em-ups.

    For more on the story in the Marathon games, look here [bungie.org].

    On a vaguely-related matter, have a look at this [bovinia.net]... some lunatic is porting Bungie's Marathon to the HalfLife engine! Now if only I had that sort of free time... I might get that Linux MIDI sequencer finished... :-)
  • You can also get Aleph One from the Author's mainsite [uni-mainz.de]. There are some screenshots there as well. Also included are datafiles that are necessary to get the game running.

    Enjoy

  • A noble goal. (Score:3)

    by derf77 (265283) on Sunday February 11 2001, @04:55PM (#439336) Homepage
    All though the mission of Aleph One is a noble one, I find that it is slightly misguided. Sure, Marathon IS a great game, but the engine does have limitations.

    The 2D format in which levels are designed is very limiting. Bridges ARE impossible (believe me, I've tried). Personally I think that the Marathon: Resurrection [bungie.org] project will have a more fruitful outcome.

    As a former member of the M:R team (I hate you, school) I've seen the goods, and Aleph One, though exciting, pales in comparison.

    I love Marathon as much as the next Bugie acoly.. erm fan, but at some point, it needs to become clear that the engine does have its limitations.

    Hopefully we can port the content of Marathon to HALO (without getting sued) when it launches.

  • GPL games don't really make sense (Score:3)

    by snoop_chili_dog (314897) on Sunday February 11 2001, @03:30PM (#439337)

    Ok this is my first post to slashdot. Be tender, be gentle, be rough.

    Games just don't fit in with the open development, because their whole appeal is suprise. How interested would you have been in the plot of American Pie if everyone had sat around for 6 months discussing how it should end. The key point of entertainment is to be original. GPL is about taking someone elses ideas and improving them. No one would watch Armageddon again just to see the really cool new ending someone thought up. (Guess I forgot Meteor, or was it Asteroid) The point is that games, like all forms of entertainment are about creative flashes. Their not about a plot that everyone knows five weeks in advance. Unfounded rumors are part of the excitement about a new game.

    I'm not against the GPL as far as the core game engine goes. A GPLed game engine with encryption for the data sets would be a great thing because it would allow for game programmers to build their games in secret, hiding those cool little easter eggs. A few people might hack the data sets, but it would stop the vast majority from having the plots, levels, secret codes, etc. from being spoiled for them.

  • IIRC: (Score:4)

    by Xzzy (111297) <sether@tru[ ]org ['7h.' in gap]> on Sunday February 11 2001, @02:02PM (#439338) Homepage
    Bungie merely GPL'd the game engine. They still retain the copyrights to all game art, content, yadda yadda yadda. I think to legally play the full version of Marathon, you have to actually own a copy of the game.

    I believe it works like Quake does; you pull the content files off your CD and dump them in a relevent directory. Do Bungie a favor and plop down the fifteen bucks it costs to get Marathon.. let 'em know we still love the game. :)

    AlephOne is tres cool. They've completely updated the engine, and have been hacking at it for over a year now.. the source was released last January. I believe they distribute "demo" data files, so you can still play the game while not owning a full copy.

    I'd verify the info, if b.org wasn't already hosed beyond accessibility. ;)
  • Ok...to clarify a few points in your post:

    1. Bungie no longer owns Oni. Oni is owned by Take 2/GoD. This was part of the deal of the MS buyout. In exchange for Take 2's shares of Bungie, they got Oni and the Myth games. Take 2 is currently developing Myth 3.

    2. Microsoft bought Bungie because they (MS) needed a killer app for the xBox when it comes out. That killer app is Halo, which IMNSHO will be one of the best games ever created, and will probably ship with the xBox. However, it will be followed later by the Mac/PC version(after the initial xBox sales)...sorry, a linux version if HIGHLY unlikely to come out of MS. :(

    BTW, the opening of the source of Marathon 2 is pretty old news, but still very good news. The aptly named Aleph One project is awesome and doing a great job keeping the Marathon universe alive. Here's a few sites of interest:

    Marathon.bungie.org [bungie.org] - Tons of Marathon info including links to the story page, the Aleph One project, and many many user created maps and scenarios.

    HBO [bungie.org] - Lots of Halo information. This game is going to ROCK!!!

    Rampancy.net [rampancy.net] - A Bungie community site that primarily focuses on Halo but covers all things Bungie.

    Hope this info is useful to some of you. :) I hold Bungie in very high esteem because they have always made quality games with excellent plots (well, since PiD at least...)

    out.

  • This is something I really doubt. Games require a lot more than just a bunch of raggle taggle coders these days - they need graphics artists, musicians, actors. It is akin to a Hollywood production. The OSS model may be good for the core code of the game - the 3D engine and such (even then I am not sure, there are not any OSS 3D engines to rivals Id's latest work) - but it cannot compete when it comse to the actual gameplay, and all the elements of a game that impress themselves on peoples minds whilst playing them. The atmosphere of the game, if you will, is not produced by programmers, but by artists and designers, who are ignorant of the OSS philosophy and unlikely to contribute to it.

    Games under OSS will never rival the commercial offerings.

    In addition, why is the editorial on this topic so biased? 'Escape module'? This leads me to suspect that the AC's who flame the editors may be right after all. I find it very disappointing. One would not find that phrase in a professional publication. I suspect the integrity of the editors, when their words appear a few centimetres below an ad for Red Hat.

    You know exactly what to do-
    Your kiss, your fingers on my thigh-

  • This is a must grab (Score:5)

    by MagnusDredd (160488) on Sunday February 11 2001, @02:08PM (#439341)
    I remember playing Marathon 1 and 2 in an all Mac computer lab in the early 90s. I still prefer some things about it to any of th new shooters.

    #1)It actually had a plot. And not only did it have a plot, it ws one worthy of a great SF novel. Also unlike the Highlander series the followups to the first one actually built apon the plot instead of going off in an alien direction.

    #2)When you emptied your clip, you had to reload which took a bit of time depending on what you were firing. Not too common in the FPS of today. Also reloading the rocket launcher took longer than reloading a pistol.

    #3)This is the first FPS I ever saw that seemed to realize hey 2 hands means that I can hold two pistols... or for that matter two combat shotguns, a personal favorite.

    #4)The Marathon Infinity (not Open GL of course) would run on a 40 Mhz 68040 and not suck.

    #5)The audio system was awesome for it's time, the closer you were to water the louder it was. There were many things that were like this. Also incorporated into the game was stereo panning of sound.

    #6)First FPS I ever saw to do 16 bit color.

    #7)It also had many other the type of things for multiplayer that Quake II needed a lithium server for. Example ring of shadows, invicibility, etc.

    All in all I am glad to see a resurgence in it. Was a great game and am very much looking into dl and compiling it on the various linux boxen I have.

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