» xbox Marathoners vs the OG mac Marathoners Options

[riserobotrise]

well this is the question

is there in fact 2 marathon communities, an xbox one and a Aleph one community?

if so, is there a way to reconcile both communities, make them into one stronger community, or would that be a bad idea?

Half of the videos I see out on youtube about marathon are the xbox live screencasts. Although it shouldn't, it kinda makes me ill to the stomach. I guess my real problem with the 'new' xbl marathon are the 60 fps and texture sets which I think looks quite awful. Some people comment that the old texture sets look 'ugly' but there's always the texture set enhancement pack which pretties them up without taking away from the original element.

but I went off on a tangent there.

Based on many of the comments I have read on the youtube videos, it seems that many xbox marathon players play it just to see halo's roots, whist aleph one players play marathon for the full glory and love of the game.

any thoughts?

[sgraff]

I will have to agree that a lot of the textures look bad, but mostly for the characters and monsters in the game. The only one that I can think of that resulted in an improvement was the F'lickta. I thought the wall textures, weapons, etc looked pretty nice though. It was a bit of a letdown to see the Pfhor's stiff necks and muffin heads. As for a community, these people have only played the midsection of a trilogy and the story that comes along with it. We think their textures for the aliens look bad, they think our alien textures look too dated. If they are so anal about graphics, the only way for them to "merge" with the aleph one community is if someone made some nice high resolution textures for the aliens that both sides like. I do not see that happening. I have a feeling that the generation who grew up with Halo sees Marathon as not a game series of it's own but more like an experiment that Bungie did before they were hugely successful with Halo. It's a thought process that would need to be changed in order to appreciate what Marathon is.

I am going to have to reread this post of mine in the morning.

[riserobotrise]

I will have to agree that a lot of the textures look bad, but mostly for the characters and monsters in the game. The only one that I can think of that resulted in an improvement was the F'lickta. I thought the wall textures, weapons, etc looked pretty nice though. It was a bit of a letdown to see the Pfhor's stiff necks and muffin heads. As for a community, these people have only played the midsection of a trilogy and the story that comes along with it. We think their textures for the aliens look bad, they think our alien textures look too dated. If they are so anal about graphics, the only way for them to "merge" with the aleph one community is if someone made some nice high resolution textures for the aliens that both sides like. I do not see that happening. I have a feeling that the generation who grew up with Halo sees Marathon as not a game series of it's own but more like an experiment that Bungie did before they were hugely successful with Halo. It's a thought process that would need to be changed in order to appreciate what Marathon is.

I am going to have to reread this post of mine in the morning.

so a) there is a texture enhancement pack which makes the textures look really nice, shouldn't they like the new texture set in theory?

and b) yes, I agree with what you said about how they would see marathon, nicely worded acutally. To see it in their eyes, I would have to say think about the way I saw Pathways into Darkness when I played it on the Marathon Trilogy Box Set.

its a shame that a lot of people who see marathon in that way won't view Doom in the same way, considering that they at least heard about doom quite frequently.

[Shadowbreaker]

Well Aleph One is certainly capable of just having 3d monsters (as in, 3d models that walk around, not bitmaps) and stuff, with color table-specific skins too. I think some people already have done some, but I remember them not being very, uh, good looking.

Keep in mind Marathon doesn't have magical 3d light sources, so 3d models would need the lighting pre-applied on to their skins.

[Crater Creator]

I enjoy the strides Aleph One has made in graphics. I'd still encourage people trying to make Aleph One look better, or people trying to bring Marathon to a newer engine.

But with that said, to set out with a goal to win over Halo players with updated graphics for Marathon is to set one's self up for failure. Even if you had the artist and programmer manpower, 'Halo-quality graphics' are a moving target.

To oversimplify, the Marathon codebase diverged into a branch that became Halo and a branch that became Aleph One. Except Bungie worked on the former continuously, most of the time backed by the richest man on the planet, and the latter stagnated for 5 years or so before being released to the open source community. You'd have to beat Bungie at their own game, so to speak, and the cards would be stacked against you.

[Pfhorrest]

the only way for them to "merge" with the aleph one community is if someone made some nice high resolution textures for the aliens that both sides like.

We're working on it.

[riserobotrise]

We're working on it.

whats wrong with the texture enhancement pack?

[Treellama]

whats wrong with the texture enhancement pack?

The colors are different from the originals, so none of the maps look like they should. It is also full of procedural effects like the Photoshop cloud and noise filters, which makes many textures look pretty cheesy. There is no stylistic consistency among the M2 and Infinity sets.

Back to the original question, it was my impression that there aren't really any Marathon: Durandal players anyway. It doesn't seem like the game has been a great success on the Xbox. Also, if graphics on the PC are the problem: http://www.pfhorums.com/index.php?showtopic=4875

[Hueqort]

I will admittedly say that initally as I played M1A1 I had viewed it as an experiment conducted by bungie. However as I neared the first games end and was starting on durandal, I realised this was at one point a major breakthrough in its own right. The story and gameplay being relatively unique in comparison to its advanced cousin.


Actually I found it very interesting how the player was forced to find the terminals so that they could recieve orders and story, instead of being told over the intercomm after passing an invisible line, while still fighting bad guys.



I support the goal of further advancement in the Marathon graphics, and know several people who would happily lend their services to such an end. One of them even plays the game.



However I personnally have minor prejudice against KBL users as in my experience they are usually small foul-mouthed children who would be happier TK'ing instead of playing for fun. So I would say be cautious before moving to combine the two communities, less you find yourself wishing for the former seperation.

[VikingBoyBilly]

However I personnally have minor prejudice against KBL users as in my experience they are usually small foul-mouthed children who would be happier TK'ing instead of playing for fun. So I would say be cautious before moving to combine the two communities, less you find yourself wishing for the former seperation.

Completely agree here. People who appreciate Marathon for it's own merits will join this community without any pushing from anyone outside. I don't think anyone here is interested in people hanging around here who just played Marathon because they felt like they had to.

[G.S.10]

I support the goal of further advancement in the Marathon graphics, and know several people who would happily lend their services to such an end.

Marathon high res textures with bump maps would rock. The highres textures we have now are good I suppose, but some of em are a bit cheesy.

[riserobotrise]

I will admittedly say that initally as I played M1A1 I had viewed it as an experiment conducted by bungie. However as I neared the first games end and was starting on durandal, I realised this was at one point a major breakthrough in its own right.

Right on! I started playing marathon back in '94, '95. Around that time it was the most advanced FPS engine on any computer, so I thought it was the end-all-be-all. Like you however, I went ahead and played their previous game, Pathways Into Darkness (also I played a little bit of gnop!) and kinda thought of it the same way, but knowing it was the prequel to Marathon while taking place in the same universe. I did notice that the game fairly stood up for itself in its own right, and there are various different elements that Marathon didn't have (most notably the various RPG elements such as inventory, weapons upgrade, dialogue between player and characters which gives the player information, magic items etc.)

However I personnally have minor prejudice against KBL users as in my experience they are usually small foul-mouthed children who would be happier TK'ing instead of playing for fun. So I would say be cautious before moving to combine the two communities, less you find yourself wishing for the former seperation.

good point there, my idea was to encourage XBL marathon players to try out aleph one, but as more than one user has pointed out, they wouldn't really be able to appreciate the game. I prefer the old school texture sets myself because that is what I grew up with, but I understand if the older texture sets look unappealing to newer and/or younger players.

** edit
hmmm, and I'm a cyborg now, interesting ...

This post has been edited by riserobotrise: Feb 8 2010, 10:06 PM

[thermoplyae]

hmmm, i post too frequently

[Hueqort]

What about the textures from Marathon: Rubicon? I find those to be very pleasing asthetically speaking, though It is dissapointing that the Hunters, and normal bugs are still of the same textures as they were in Durandal.


It doesn't coencide; the differences in texture of the weapons and those who they are slaying.







I think it would be wise to simply focus on an older audience of gamers, as they are more likely to appreciate, or at the very least understand the amount of work that has gone into the games. Not only by the original creators, but the fans as well.

[EwoudCP]

I'm a late Marathoner.

Yes, I have played Halo before I played Marathon.
I had been playing Halo a lot, I got hooked since the first game. I was really into the single player, and the story tidbits I looked around for, I was, and still am to some extent, a walking Halo encyclopaedia. I knew the story inside out, read the books, glitched myself out of almost every H1 and H2 level, most of them without guides.

I did not play the XBLA version first. I got myself the trilogy with Aleph One. After a while, I got a bit obsessed with Marathon, right up to reading the Marathon Story Page and just reading terminal texts to examine the story. Then along came the XBLA version.

I love the XBLA graphics. The wall textures are good, and the enemies look very good IMO. Though I have to admit, I usually set my graphics to classic mode.
I guess there's always gonna be some kind of extra criticism when it's a commercial game for a console. It really seems like a typical case of trying to get some money off of Bungie's past.
Freeverse did a better job than just mapping keys to controllers and insert a split screen though. I think that deserves some respect.


The problem is that there is no real XBLA Marathon Community.
Face it, Marathon is a difficult game to grasp. It's pretty lengthy, features lots of frustrating moments and tests your patience. You have to read a lot of text, something that even players of modern RPGs find difficult (seeing how nearly all dialogue is backed up with a voice these days).

If people do find the XBLA version interesting, and they get hooked up, they'll find these Pfhorums, and I don't see why they wouldn't download the rest of the trilogy. I think that for most people finishing Marathon 2 will be more than enough to convince them that this wasn't just some game they did before they broke through with Halo.

This post has been edited by EwoudCP: Feb 20 2010, 07:45 AM

[MasterYo1]

There IS a 360 community! It's just that I can count the people on my hands... ._. There are a few people that are stuck to the XBLA version. No idea why. :P Also FCAW if anyone knows about that. Like twice a month... But that's about it. Other than that, Marathon on 360 was a failure.

Also, new textures suck on 360. Everyone admits it. Hell, the devs admitted it at one point. Soyah.

[CryoS]

they did? hmm, can i has link or refference?

[gmanyo]

I have a feeling that the generation who grew up with Halo sees Marathon as not a game series of it's own but more like an experiment that Bungie did before they were hugely successful with Halo. It's a thought process that would need to be changed in order to appreciate what Marathon is.

and b) yes, I agree with what you said about how they would see marathon, nicely worded acutally. To see it in their eyes, I would have to say think about the way I saw Pathways into Darkness when I played it on the Marathon Trilogy Box Set.

I actually don't necessarily agree. I grew up playing Halo and got into Marathon later, but I love Marathon.

Face it, Marathon is a difficult game to grasp. It's pretty lengthy, features lots of frustrating moments and tests your patience. You have to read a lot of text, something that even players of modern RPGs find difficult (seeing how nearly all dialogue is backed up with a voice these days).

I have to disagree here as well. Marathon is a game where you shoot aliens with zappo guns in large numbers. It is in no way unaccessible by modern standards except in graphics (and some people don't really want to read the terminals, but I have friends who have beaten the games without them anyway). Games like Myst and Riven are hard to 'grasp'. Text adventures are hard to grasp. Nethack is hard to grasp. Marathon is not. The only real exception to this, in my opinion, is Eternal, which I don't think would be that amazing if it weren't for the great story.

[Lh'owon]

I actually don't necessarily agree. I grew up playing Halo and got into Marathon later, but I love Marathon.
I have to disagree here as well. Marathon is a game where you shoot aliens with zappo guns in large numbers. It is in no way unaccessible by modern standards except in graphics (and some people don't really want to read the terminals, but I have friends who have beaten the games without them anyway). Games like Myst and Riven are hard to 'grasp'. Text adventures are hard to grasp. Nethack is hard to grasp. Marathon is not. The only real exception to this, in my opinion, is Eternal, which I don't think would be that amazing if it weren't for the great story.

All Halo nonsense and game classification spats aside, I think that the dual nature of Marathon is what makes it great. You can either immerse yourself in the story and make the terminals your goal, with all the aliens as obstacles that make the story more immersive and challenging. By the same token, you can also not care about the terminals and just go around shooting things for the hell of it (KTA).

I don't know if Marathon's style would perform decently in a modern format, and honestly don't care. People around here try to hang their little individual visions of what's good on Marathon, when really it doesn't matter anymore except to them. Each person makes of Marathon what they want to, but don't go trying to impose your vision on mine.