Myth III Preview

An Anonymous Coward sent in: "A nice new preview of Myth III: The Wolf Age has been posted at InsideMacGames after a visit the author made to MumboJumbo Studios. There's no word yet if Loki will port this 3D-enhanced sequel to Myth II as well, but there's always hope..."

No point for 3D in RTS

[Anonymous Coward]

While playing those new RTS with their enhaced engines, I really only see one point of them going 3D. This is the ability to view the terrain from different angles, when some of your units are hidden etc. However, a lot of development costs shurely is spent on the ability to zoom in and see the items with great detail. This feature is shurely nice, but when really playing you always try to see the maximum terrain available, so you zoom out as much as you can. The decision to go 3D is dictated from a purely marketing standpoint, and not from the perspective of a player.

Re:Looks pretty good

[Have Blue]

There was no storyline information because Mumbo Jumbo is apparently following in Bungie's footsteps by making the game's storyline very complex, very detailed, and a very important part of the game, and keeping it secret until you can actually play the game and be surprised by it. This approach is much better than the "reveal more reveal sooner" marketing of most other game companies. Sometimes there's nothing left in a game for me to find once I finally get it (Unreal 1, I'm looking in your direction...)

Uh... when did Bungie sell Myth?

[gr]

Wow. I've really fallen completely out of the gaming circle.

I know Bungie's off at M'soft developing Xbox stuff, but I was unaware they'd sold the rights to Myth. When'd that happen?

--

Insidious Myrkridia?

[Sloppy]

Of all the adjectives I've heard attributed to Myrkridia, "insideous" is a new one. Every time I've run into these fellas, they've been head-on attackers, never stealthy, never subtle. They just run up to you and stare at your face as their claws disembowel.

I guess things were different 1000 years ago.

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Shame real picture is real

[Midnight Thunder]

Its a shame the first picture in the article at imgmagazine.com is real photo, as opposed to a screen shot from the game - oh, well maybe it will be in 4 years time?

Ah, Myth...

[BadmanX]

One of the best video game series ever created, but sadly underrated from day one. Myth was a phenomenal game, a karate chop to the tired world of crappy first-person shooters and lame sim games (Pizza Tycoon, anyone?) Superbly written, with excellent graphics (and 3D acceleration with a 3DFX card), and realistic missions (even the first mission could be tough) this was a MAN'S game. A GAMER'S game.

Then Myth II came out and really raised the stakes, with interior missions, large 3D objects that could be manipulated, better graphics, more secrets, and development tools included in the box. Also released simultaneously for PC and Mac, the way games should be. A bit easier than Myth, with superb multiplayer support.

But Myth and Myth II both had graphical problems that stemmed from the combination of 3D rendered landscapes and objects and billboarded sprites for the actual characters. Myth III is going to resolve this issue and add even greater levels of detail, and it appears that they'll do it while keeping the strong storyline and level design of Myth and Myth II intact. This is the first game I've seen this year that I feel I MUST purchase. Can't wait.

Re:Does it fix Myth II's problems?

[Remus Shepherd]

Eh. Depends on how they put the demo together. If it's a small force mission with only a few units, you'll never see the collision bug. That only takes effect when you have large masses of units coming together (and then passing through one another :p).

The demo may illuminate some of the problems and/or solutions, but probably not all of them.

Does it fix Myth II's problems?

[Remus Shepherd]

Myth I was a groundbreaking game, with realistic troop movements and tactics. Loved it.

Myth II ruined the franchise, by allowing unrealistic encounters -- among other things, they removed the collision radius between units. Why they took a great engine and concept and screwed it up, I'll never understand.

I'm going to want some assurances that Myth III is faithful to the original, with some realism and thought in its design, before I try anything in that franchise again.

Re:Microsoft

[mughi]

Yes, Microsoft bought Bungie, but the Myth franchise made it to the escape pods.

Try reading the article...

[Racher]

I read through this review this morning, as I have been an avid fan of the Myth series since the begining. It was way ahead of it's time with it's unique style of gameplay.

Myth III will be available for OS X, as noted in this quote, "Yes, the Mac version will be fully carbonized for those who want to run it under Mac OS X.".

Don't worry about speed either. The reason the last four Mac OS X updates(10.0.1/2/3/4) have not gotten much fanfare is because version 10.1(Codename Puma) is coming out relatively soon. (See MacWorld [macworld.com]) It will deal with a lot of the speed issues along with DVD playback also.

...and I'm not sure we should trust this Kyle Sagan either.

Dungeon Master

[chrysalis]

Myth III looks beautiful. But I've never had fun with these games. I had much fun on Atari playing Dungeon Master, Bombjack, Maupiti Island, Double Dragon, Shinobi, Wings of death, Bubble Bobble, Rainbow Islands, IK+, Ultima 3, R-Type, etc, etc.

-- Pure FTP server [pureftpd.org] - Upgrade your FTP server to something simple and secure.

Re:yummy

[whm]

Far too many developers now are satisifed with releasing crap, and even if they do fix the issues eventually, the game does not do nearly so well as if they just did it right in the first place.

Nobody wants to put out crap. A lot of pressure is put on the developer by the publisher to get the game OUT. There are often deadlines that threaten funding. It sucks that its so common to have such buggy games, and of course its the developer's fault, but its usually not because of laziness.

Re:If you want the port...

[kdgarris]

Loki set up a special newsgroup for port requests: loki.requests on news.lokigames.com. Please don't mention Diablo or Half-Life, however; those have been mentioned far too often. :-)

-Karl

Re:Dungeon Master

[don_carnage]

Yes! Bubble Bobble was one of my favorite Nintendo (8bit) games despite it's cutesy graphics and music.

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If you want the port...

[TheOutlawTorn]

Now is the time to send a polite email to Loki stating your desire for a Linux version and your willingness to pay for it. The more groundswell now, the sooner they will consider the port, right?

Re:Looks pretty good

[grammar nazi]

There's not much to that preview besides the screenshots! I was hoping for more of a storyline preview.

Did anyone else notice that all of the Pictures were taken with Mac OS 9.n? Does this mean that the game will run slow as it is being emulated on my new laptop (OS X)?

umm

[Magius_AR]

Is it just me or do those screenshots exist like on the same "graphical" level as Myth 1?

It doesn't look like they changed much (at a glance), they might as well just had made an expansion pack plugin.

Magius_AR

Re:Uh... when did Bungie sell Myth?

[gagganator]

a while ago

also sold the rights to oni [godgames.com], which is now out and kicks ass (not multiplayer unfortunately)

yummy

[Proud Geek]

I loved Myth II; paid $80 or whatever for Loki's port, and it was worth every cent.

I hope that GoD and company can live up the the same high standards as Bungie. From the screenshots, there are obviously still a lot of issues with the game. I hope they will put in the effort to fix them and make it a wonderful game before they release. Far too many developers now are satisifed with releasing crap, and even if they do fix the issues eventually, the game does not do nearly so well as if they just did it right in the first place.

Re:If you want the port...

[dhamsaic]

Sending an email to Loki is great and all, and it probably will do *some* good, but they are not the people that make these decisions.

Whoever wrote the game decides if Loki gets to port it. Period.

Now, Loki could approach MumboJumbo and say "hey, look, we've got 80,000 rabid linux fans that want to buy your software - we'll port it for $XXXXX" and then they'd either enter negotiations and start or they wouldn't. Loki doesn't consider ports - they take what work they can get.

Please folks, do me a favor - Along with emailing Loki, get in touch with MumboJumbo or GodGames and tell them how much you want the port to Linux. That's the only way to be sure they get the message.

Re:Dungeon Master

[baumanj]

I find that I also tend to spend most of my computer gaming time in console emulators (mainly SNES). Do you think that it's just nostalgia, or was there something fundamentally more enjoyable about games in those days? I'm guessing that since there was less power available in the way of graphics and sound, more care was put into the crafting of the story and gameplay. I tend to play the older Final Fantasy games a lot, but I think that's true of many games for the SNES.

What do other people think? Were they better games, or are we just misty for our youth?

Yes, this is getting a little off topic. Sue me.

OMG

[PixiStixPrincess]

JOY!!!!!! MIST III!!!!!!!

oh yeah and i am getting sick and tired of people complaining constantly about blah blah blah i want more linux games blah blah blah stop complaining and do something about it...compiling will get you no where, contribute to WINE or go and complain to the right people, not on slashdot, and get VALID reasons, I'm not saying that "well windows blows and I want to play kick ass games under linux" isn't a valid reason, but companies want MONEY, and simply cause one person wants something to them doesn't mean money, it means a person wants something.

Re:No point for 3D in RTS

[nsagall]

You're wrong. The 3D terrain in myth and myth II wsa an important gameplay element. For example, archers can shoot farther if they are up on a hill, dwarf exploding cocktails will roll down hills, some cliffs are high enough that archers and such can fire off of the edge, while ground troops can't climb up it...

Sequels

[midimastah]

With Myth III expanding the graphics capabilities, let's hope that this also does something for expanding the gameplay. So often have sequels taken a great concept and not realised its potential. Riven comes to mind... it lacked the elegance of Myst. Let's hope this is not merely another attempt to suck the remaining life out of this great concept, realtime tactical medieval combat.

test

[xXgeneric nicknameXx]

mind if i test here? thanks