Myth (video game series)

• Myth: The Fallen Lords was developed by Bungie for Microsoft Windows and the Classic Mac OS. Published by Bungie in North America and by Eidos Interactive in Europe, it was released in North America for both Windows and Mac on November 25, 1997. • Myth II: Soulblighter was also developed by Bungie for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS. Published by Bungie in North America and by GT Interactive in Europe, it was released in North America for both Windows and Mac on December 28, 1998. It was later ported to Linux by Loki Entertainment. On November 15, 1999, Bungie released a special edition called Myth: The Total Codex, which included The Fallen Lords, Soulblighter, the Soulblighter expansion pack Myth II: Chimera, and official Strategies and Secrets guides for both of the main games. In 2001, Soulblighter was also re-released twice by Take-Two Interactive. Firstly, included with Green Berets: Powered by Myth II, a fan made total conversion set in the Vietnam War, which was released on July 31, and secondly as Myth II: Worlds, a three-disk set published by Take-Two subsidiary Gathering of Developers, containing Soulblighter and two disks of fan-created single-player campaigns, multiplayer maps, and gameplay mods, which was released on October 2. • Myth III: The Wolf Age was developed by MumboJumbo for Windows, Classic Mac OS and Mac OS X. Co-published by Take-Two and Gathering of Developers for Windows, and by Take-Two and MacSoft for Mac, the Windows version was released in North America on November 2, 2001. ==Gameplay==

All three Myth games are real-time tactics games. Unlike in real-time strategy gameplay, the player does not engage in resource micromanagement or economic macromanagement, does not construct a base or buildings, and does not gradually build up their army by acquiring resources and researching new technologies. Instead, each level begins with the player's army already assembled and ready for combat. During the game, the player controls forces of various sizes made up of different units, each possessing their own strengths and weaknesses. In single-player mode, only Light units are playable, but in online multiplayer mode, the player can control both Light and Dark units. in The Fallen Lords, showing the selection of multiple units. The player has selected five Berserks (units on the left surrounded by yellow rectangles). The image also shows unselected archers and dwarfs. At the top of the screen is the Status Bar. The mini-map of the battlefield is just below on the right. Basic gameplay in all three games consists of the player selecting and commanding units. The player clicks a unit to select it. A selected unit is marked by a surrounding yellow rectangle, beside which is a health meter, which diminishes as the unit takes damage. In Soulblighter and The Wolf Age, units capable of using magic also have a mana meter, which diminishes through magic use and slowly regenerates over time. Units do not regenerate health, and there is no way to construct new units (although in some single-player missions, reinforcements are automatically received at predetermined points). When the player double-clicks on any unit, all nearby units of the same type are also selected. To select multiple units of different types, the player can either "shift click" (hold down the shift key while clicking individual units) or use "band-selection" (click and drag the cursor across the screen, selecting all units within the inscribed rectangle). All units on screen, irrespective of type, can be selected by pressing the enter key. The player can also assign manually selected groups of units to a specific key on the keyboard; pressing that key then instantly selects the units in the desired group. In The Wolf Age, the HUD also includes a "Unit Grouping Bar" which allows the player to select their group by clicking on the corresponding number rather than using the keyboard. Units with projectile weapons, such as archers and dwarves can also be ordered to attack a specific spot on the ground, rather than an enemy. It is also important that the player have their units facing in the correct direction. In The Fallen Lords, this is accomplished by "gesture clicking": using the mouse to indicate which way the units will face when they reach their destination. Facing the correct direction is especially relevant when using formations. After selecting a group of units, the player must press the corresponding formation button on the keyboard, and then click on the ground where they want the units to form. The player can also order all selected units to scatter and to retreat. In Soulblighter and The Wolf Age, all formations—as well as commands such as stopping, guarding, scattering, retreating, and reversing direction—are also available via a single click in the Control Bar at the bottom of the screen. When a single unit is selected, information about that unit appears in the "Status Bar" at the top of the HUD: the unit's name, biography, number of kills, number of battles survived, and (if he is capable of carrying items) inventory. When multiple units are selected, only the names, types, and quantity of units appear. The HUD also features a transparent overhead mini-map, which displays information about the current battlefield—the player's field of vision is indicated by a yellow trapezoid, enemy units appear as red dots, friendly non-playable units as blue dots, and the player's army as green dots. The player can click anywhere on the mini-map to instantly jump to that location. However, the mini-map does not initially display the entire battlefield; the player must explore the area for it to become fully mapped. In Soulblighter, the player can also order troops to move to any location on the mapped area of the battlefield by right-clicking on that area in the mini-map. The player has full control over the camera throughout the game, and can move, orbit, pan, and zoom the camera via the keyboard. In The Fallen Lords, the mouse can be used to move the camera forwards, backwards, left, and right by moving the cursor to the top, bottom, left, or right of the screen, respectively. In Soulblighter and The Wolf Age, the player can also select preferences to enable rotation and orbiting via the mouse by moving the cursor to the top and bottom corners of the screen, respectively. Selecting and commanding units only forms the basic interactions of the Myth games. Battles are more complex than simply commanding units to attack the enemy—strategy, battlefield conditions, and even weather all play important roles. For example, due to the game's physics engine, objects collide with each another and the terrain. This can manifest itself simply in a severed head bouncing off one of the player's units and changing direction, but it can also have more serious consequences, such as friendly fire. For instance, archers firing at enemies engaged in melee combat risk hitting allied units, causing the same amount of damage. Also, projectiles are not guaranteed to hit; they are merely propelled in the direction instructed by the physics engine. Arrows may miss their intended target due to a small degree of simulated aiming error that becomes more significant at long range, or the target may move out of the way or behind cover. and in The Wolf Age, strong wind can cause problems for archers in hitting their targets. It is also much easier for projectile units to hit enemies below them rather than above them, and as such, positioning of the player's units is an important aspect of the game. Single-player In each of the three games' single-player campaigns, the player starts each mission with a group of soldiers and must use that group to accomplish a specific goal or set of goals. These goals can involve killing a certain number of enemies, defending a location, reaching a certain point on the map, escorting a unit safely to a certain area, or destroying a specific object or enemy. The focus of the single-player campaign is on a smaller force defeating a much larger enemy force; in every mission, the Light units are outnumbered by enemies, often vastly, and so the player must use the terrain, employ the specific skills of their individual units, and gradually decrease the enemy force, or attempt to avoid it altogether. Units in the single-player campaign acquire experience with each kill. Experience increases attack rate, accuracy, and defence, and any unit that survives a battle will carry over to the next battle with their accumulated experience (assuming the next battle features units of that type). whilst The Wolf Age could be played on GameSpy, or via a LAN on PC or AppleTalk on Mac. In multiplayer, the player starts with an army, and can customize it by trading units with other players, using point values that approximate the value of the units being traded. All three games have similar, but not identical, multiplayer modes. The following modes are common to each of the three games: • "King of the Hill" – A hill on the map is marked with a flag. The hill becomes "captured" when one or more of a team's units move within a certain range of the flag and eliminate any enemy units in the same area. The winner is the team who controls the hill for the longest amount of time. • "Steal the Bacon" – Somewhere on the battlefield is a ball; the objective is to get the ball and keep it away from the opponents, with the winner being the last team to touch the ball. • "Balls on Parade" – Each team has a ball; the objective is to capture as many of the opponents' balls as possible, with winner being the team in possession of the most balls at the end of the game. • "Flag Rally" – Multiple flags are on the battlefield, with the winner being the first player to touch them all. • "Capture the Flag" – Each team begins the game with one flag, with the winner being the first team to capture the other team's flag. • "Scavenger Hunt" – Multiple balls are on the battlefield, with the winner being the first player to touch them all. • "Captures" – Multiple balls are on the battlefield, with the winner being the player who is in possession of the most balls at the end of the match. • "Body Count" – Team deathmatch. • "Last Man on the Hill" – Whichever player "owns" the hill when time runs out is the winner. Unique to Soulblighter and The Wolf Age are the following modes: • "Assassin" – Each team has a "target unit", with the winner being the team who kills the opponents' target first. • "Hunting" – Each team must kill as much wildlife as possible; each animal has a point value, and the winner is the team with the most points at the end of the game. • "Stampede!" – Each team starts with a herd of animals and a number of flags; the object is to shepherd the herd to the enemy flags, with each successfully herded animal earning the team one point. The winner is the team with the most points at the end of the game. Unique to Soulblighter is "Choke the Chicken" (identical to Assassin, except the target unit assigned to each team is a non-playable chicken). Unique to The Wolf Age is "Assault" (teams alternative defending a flag from their opponent; the attacking team scores a point if they touch the flag, the defending team score a point if they prevent the flag being touched. The winner is the team with the most points after both teams have attacked and defended). ==History==

Development The Fallen Lords conceived of Myth as an alternative to Bungie developing another first-person shooter. Myth: The Fallen Lords was originally conceived by Jason Jones as Bungie was nearing the end of development of Marathon Infinity in late 1995. They had planned to do another first-person shooter as their next game. However, when Jones saw the first screenshots from id Software's Quake, he became concerned that Bungie's new game would be too similar. As such, he approached his colleagues with the question: "What do you think about having this world with 100 guys fighting 100 other guys in 3D?" The team agreed their new shooter was developing along lines too similar to Quake, and, as such, they abandoned the project, and switched focus to what ultimately became Myth. He was also eager to differentiate the game from standard RTS games: Once they had decided on the basic game mechanics, which ultimately became known as "real-time tactics", they drew up a list of elements they wanted to avoid (RTS clichés, references to Middle-earth, allusions to the Arthurian legend, any narrative involving "little boys coming of age and saving the world") and those they wanted to incorporate ("any ideas that contributed to the visual realism of the game", such as a 3D landscape, polygonal buildings, particle-based weather, and battlefields littered with body parts). They were also determined to include a robust online multiplayer mode as a key gameplay feature. with which they had been unhappy, and they were determined The Fallen Lords be a genuine cross-platform release. As such, 90% of the game's source code was platform-independent, with 5% written for Windows subroutines and 5% for Mac-specific functionality. All of the game's data was stored in platform-independent data files called "tags", which were automatically byte-swapped when necessary and accessed via a cross-platform file manager. To bring the 3D environment and the 2D characters together, the team developed four separate programming tools: "Tag Editor" (edited the constants in the cross-platform data files), "Extractor" (handled the 2D sprites and the sequencing of their animations), "Loathing" (the map editor), and "Fear" (dealt with the 3D polygonal models such as houses, pillars, and walls). Soon after it was released, Bungie released a v1.1 upgrade patch, which added support for Rendition's Redline, and 3dfx's Voodoo Rush. One of Bungie's main goals with the sequel was to include gameplay aspects and game mechanics which they had wanted to feature in The Fallen Lords, but had been unable to implement due to time constraints. In terms of the game's graphics, as with The Fallen Lords, each level in Soulblighter is constructed on a polygonal mesh. However, the mesh used in the sequel is four times finer than in the original, and hence the graphics are more detailed and smoother. Like the first game, although the game world itself is fully 3D, the characters populating each level are 2D sprites. The sprites in Soulblighter have many more frames of animation than those in The Fallen Lords, and so move more smoothly. Explaining why the team stuck with the concept of using 2D sprites in a 3D terrain, producer Tuncer Deniz stated: Soulblighter originally supported software rendering, all 3dfx and Rendition GPUs, and any graphics cards that supported Direct3D for Windows and QuickDraw 3D for Mac. The game also supported 3D audio, specifically Aureal Semiconductor's A3D and Creative Labs' EAX. set total conversion of Soulblighter, created by the community using the Fear and Loathing tools. When Soulblighter was released, Bungie included the "Fear" and "Loathing" programming tools, which allowed players to create new units and maps. Bungie themselves strongly encouraged the creativity of their fan base in using these tools. For example, in April 1999, they issued a press release regarding the World War II total conversion, Myth II: Recon, saying: "This kind of plug-in was exactly what the Myth II tools were intended to inspire, and is an excellent sign that Myth mapmakers are taking this game world in fascinating new directions." The Wolf Age In 1999, Bungie sold 19.9% of their shares to Take-Two Interactive. In June 2000, Bungie was purchased outright by Microsoft, with Take-Two acquiring the Oni and Myth intellectual properties. Myth III: The Wolf Age was announced by Take-Two subsidiary Gathering of Developers in January 2001, when they revealed MumboJumbo were developing the game for Windows and Mac OS. The Wolf Age would be MumboJumbo's first game. Addressing the issue of remaining faithful to the two previous games whilst still introducing new elements to the franchise, MumboJumbo president Mark Dochtermann explained the developers did not intend to reinvent the series' basic gameplay, although they were keen to try out new things: "There's a lot left to explore in the Myth franchise even before we go in a somewhat different route. Although, we are taking a [new] route in terms of adding 3D acceleration, 3D models, and doing stuff with the terrain engine and physics that are still way beyond what the other RTS games are doing right now." Similarly, producer and lead designer Scott Campbell stated: "We intend to pay respect to Myth and its fans. We don't care to change the whole appeal of the game just so we can call it ours." With this in mind, MumboJumbo hired three members of Soulblighters modding community to work on the game. character models in a 3D terrain. In contrast, the previous games in the series used 2D sprites in 3D terrains. Although The Wolf Age was built using Soulblighter source code, the developers made significant changes, the single biggest of which was that everything in The Wolf Age is rendered in OpenGL 3D, including the characters and all environmental objects. The Wolf Age was the first Myth game to feature fully 3D characters, rather than 2D sprites in a 3D environment. completing a development cycle of only ten months, a relatively fast time to develop a major video game. On November 16, lead programmer Andrew Meggs posted on Mythvillage.org that the entire Myth III PC team had been laid off by MumboJumbo the same day the game had been released, November 2. In a post titled "Some ugly, but honest truths", Meggs wrote: Meggs explained the team knew there were problems with the Windows version of the game that needed addressing, but, as they had been fired, they were unable to do so. He stated they had been working on a patch to fix many of these problems when they were let go, and he was unsure if this patch would be released. He also acknowledged that many of the criticisms regarding bugs in the game would be addressed by the patch. Three days later, MumboJumbo denied the Myth III team had been laid off, saying all staff members had been invited to work in the Dallas office. They also announced the patch Meggs had spoken of would be released within the week. On December 19, Mark Dochtermann promised the patch would be released before Christmas, along with Vengeance, which had not been shipped with the game. The patch was never officially released by MumboJumbo. End-of-support After Bungie released the Total Codex bundle in 1999, which contained The Fallen Lords v1.3, Soulblighter v1.3, and the Soulblighter expansion pack, Myth II: Chimera, they ceased working to develop the game's source code, as Microsoft wanted them to concentrate on Halo. The official Bungie Myth servers were closed in February 2002. Community-driven development Despite the official end-of-life, the Myth series continued to have an active online fanbase, particularly Soulblighter. The first organised group of programmers, artists, and coders from the game's community was known as MythDevelopers, who requested and were granted access to the source code so as to continue its development. With the permission of Take-Two, Bungie released their entire archive of Myth-related materials to MythDevelopers, including the source code, artwork, all creative files (such as maps, 3D models, scripts, etc.), and documentation, over 80 gigabytes of material. and FlyingFlip Studios for The Wolf Age. Magma's final patch for The Fallen Lords was v1.5, released in 2005, which added support for OpenGL 1.3 for both PC and Mac. FlyingFlip's final patch for The Wolf Age was v1.3, released in 2004, which introduced multiple gameplay and stability improvements, as well as bug fixes, and performance enhancements. FlyingFlip disbanded in 2007. Soulblighter received considerably more attention from the modding community than either The Fallen Lords or The Wolf Age. Between 2003 and 2013, Project Magma released multiple major patches, each of which included fixes for bugs, graphical problems, gameplay problems, and interface issues, as well as improve the Fear and Loathing tools and the online multiplayer mode. However, each patch also tended to feature one or more "major" enhancement. For example, v1.3.2, developed in association with MythDevelopers in 2003, allowed Soulblighter to run natively under OS X. Also developed in association with MythDevelopers in 2003 was v1.4, which introduced OpenGL support for the OS X version and allowed the player to play Soulblighter with Fallen Lords style gameplay (dubbed vTFL). In 2004, Magma released their first standalone patch, v1.5, which was originally intended as a minor clean-up patch for some of the problems introduced in v1.4. and added several new game modes to multiplayer gaming, improved the usage of CPU resources, added a new texture decompression code which loads sprite frames twice as fast as before, enhanced both the texture mapping and the pixel shader, and included (for the first time in a Magma patch) Linux-specific improvements. In May 2023, an archive said to be the largest historic collection of Myth items was placed on the Internet Archive. At well over 1,200 Myth maps, the source centers on 3rd party versions of solo, network, and scenario entries between the initial November 1997 Myth release through early 2023. Community servers Prior to disbanding, MythDevelopers created and operated PlayMyth.net, the most popular online Myth server after the official servers were taken offline. Although built using the Soulblighter server, PlayMyth could also run both The Fallen Lords and The Wolf Age, which was developed by MumboJumbo using a network gameplay system designed to run on GameSpy rather than Bungie. MariusNet had been online since just prior to Bungie's Myth servers going offline, and was officially approved by Bungie. The original impetus behind the project was as a temporary replacement for Myth players in case the original servers were shut down, which had been rumored for some time. The Bungie servers had not supported The Fallen Lords since November 2001, and the community believed the servers would soon close for Soulblighter as well. GateofStorms, which was created by Project Magma ==Reception==

All three main games in the Myth series received positive reviews, especially The Fallen Lords and Soulblighter, which were universally acclaimed. Although The Wolf Age was generally well reviewed, it was seen as considerably inferior to the two previous games. GameSpot's Michael E. Ryan wrote of The Fallen Lords that it "can claim its place among the best strategy games on the market", calling it "one of the most impressive games you'll see this year", and "a truly remarkable real-time strategy game". Sales and awards According to Bungie co-founder Alex Seropian, The Fallen Lords cost roughly $2 million to produce and market, by far Bungie's most expensive game up to that time, and as such, they needed it to be financially successful, especially as it was their first original PC game. The game did prove to be a commercial success, selling over 350,000 units worldwide at roughly $40 per unit, earning the company $14 million, The Fallen Lords also won numerous awards, including "Real-Time Strategy Game of the Year" from PC Gamer, and "Game of the Year" from both Computer Games Strategy Plus and Macworld. Online Game Review named it one of the fifty greatest games ever made. Soulblighter considerably outsold The Fallen Lords. In North America, pre-orders for the game reached 140,000 units. When v1.1 was released on January 7, day one sales reached roughly the same number of units the original sold worldwide. ==References==