WMaiD

[PerseusSpartacus]

Awesome work! Between this, the updates for Eternal, and Marathon Redux, we may be witnessing the beginning of a Marathon renaissance!

[RyokoTK]

Does that make Phoenix the Marathon fall of Rome or the Marathon dark age? I'm fine either way.

[RyokoTK]

Full disclosure though, those screenshots do look nice.

[The Man]

This looks amazing. Will there be a need for alpha/beta testers, or have you all pretty much gotten that taken care of already?

Thanks, I'll let you know when we hit the closed Beta phase.

Cool, I’ll be looking forward to it.

Awesome work! Between this, the updates for Eternal, and Marathon Redux, we may be witnessing the beginning of a Marathon renaissance!

I also released a ≈30-level scenario a couple weeks back, which surely has to count for something, even if it’s a relatively unpolished alpha with little original artwork

Does that make Phoenix the Marathon fall of Rome or the Marathon dark age? I'm fine either way.

Fall of Rome, I think, unless you’re using “dark age” as an analogue to the Dark Age of Comic Books rather than the historical Dark Ages, and I could kinda see it fitting the former – though Red or Evil fit even better. (Of the four major TCs that are mostly in line with the main trilogy’s continuity, though, Phoenix is probably the darkest. And hardest.) On the other hand, it also depends which event you’re using “Fall of Rome” to refer to, since there are several plausible ones.

(I don’t want to derail this too much with a historical tangent, but I could also point to the House of Wisdom in Baghdad as one of several reasons the historical Dark Ages weren’t as dark as commonly believed. Maybe Phoenix is best described as the Marathon House of Wisdom.)

[thedoctor45]

We also gave the mines a major redesign btw:

[PerseusSpartacus]

Does that make Phoenix the Marathon fall of Rome or the Marathon dark age? I'm fine either way.

Oh no, it's most definitely the height of the Roman Empire, just before the collapse.

I also released a ≈30-level scenario a couple weeks back, which surely has to count for something, even if it’s a relatively unpolished alpha with little original artwork

Oops. Sorry, I haven't paid nearly as much attention to that as I should - and I really should pay attention, because the little bits of info that I picked up on by glancing at the thread for it made it sound pretty cool. Apparently I have a lot of catching up to do, but first I need to finish up a Tour of Duty writeup and some concept art for the Redux Hound frames (been really slow on that last one, sorry).

[The Man]

It's fine, and thanks. (I may have more to say after work; I'm getting tired of typing words on a phone screen. Typing 20-ish wpm rather than >100 really sucks.)

[thedoctor45]

CryoS and I did some tweaking on the Nebulon Rifle today and it turned out really neat so I thought I'd share this with y'all:

[Dugit]

Great to hear this is still going strong. I'll find my way out of retirement to play this. If you need an extra beta tester, I'd be glad to throw my hat into the ring.

[RyokoTK]

You couldn't find the time to play Yuge? What kind of 4getter do you think you are???

[CryoS]

Continuing in Lolnovian tradition, some generic renders of the gunmodels.

How would an intermediary pistol between infinity and rubicon look?

Rubicon inspired AR, this time with a magazine that fits the round!

Nebgun

These 3 are already more or less implemented atleast sprite wise.

[Destiny]

It’s great to see that this project is still being worked on. Keep up the hard work.

[The Man]

We're keeping this thread to the pace of one big update per year, it seems.

This project isn't dead; I joined the development team last month, and while I'm still taking stock of its status, I'd estimate it's about 70% complete. Finishing it by the end of next year might actually be a realistic goal, though I can't promise anything. Somewhere around 50% of the levels in the map folder are probably 70-90% complete, with many probably needing only some minor bug fixes or polishing of textures, ambient sounds, etc., to really be considered finished maps. The other half are very obviously works in progress or simply need to be constructed from scratch.

That's a bit misleading, though, because there's also a giant folder of work in progress maps in various states of completion as well; there's probably as much in that folder as there is in the game proper. I've played through most of them, and they vary from tiny fragments to complete levels that only need terminals and mission parameters set (or at worst, retexturing). There are probably about four or five of the latter that are already quite good (though a few need their combat balanced better). Can some of them be repurposed for WMAiD in its current form? Who knows? I'm currently taking stock of the story of this game, which is probably somewhere between Rubicon and Eternal levels of complexity. It's likely to be a couple of weeks further before I have everything in my head on that front.

Of course, a Marathon scenario should tell a good story, but at the same time, the story also should serve the gameplay. In some circumstances, it's probably easier to rewrite the story around already existing maps than it is to create new maps for a pre-written outline. It remains to be seen how practical that is in this case; there's a pretty massive folder of story information for this game, and I've still read through very little of it.

But most of you don't care about all of that, do you? You just want to see a video of me shooting (or at least punching) things.

#03 The Haunted Beacon (fists only)

#14 The Air Out There

Bear in mind that Windbreaker plans to change "The Haunted Beacon" substantially for the final release, and "The Air Out There" is liable to change somewhat, too. (We're aware that the sounds in the latter are glitchy on Windows, on which this video was rendered. This is the first thing we're planning to fix in it. Level numbers of both levels are also subject to change in the final release, BTW.) They're already great maps the way they are, though, I think. (And I'm aware I could've completed "The Haunted Beacon" much faster if I'd shot the mines, but I'm stubborn.)

And yes, the latter's similarity to a certain infamous Infinity level is in fact explained in the story (as is the fact that the player is fighting the UESC). Fortunately, this one is nowhere near as gratuitously difficult as the original.

We're currently discussing the possibility of releasing a (second) playable demo before the final game release. These two levels are candidates for inclusion; "You Can't Go Home Again", the level briefly seen after "The Air Out There", might also be used. Nothing's set in stone yet, though.

(Note that it is taking all of my self-restraint not to also show a video of the prologue level, but we want to save the surprise for when people finally play the complete game. It's easily the coolest level of its kind I've ever seen for a Marathon game.)

[Pfhorrest]

Looking cool! Is The Haunted Beacon using the Nebulon environment? (I was hoping to maybe see some Nebulons in there. Are they still planned to make an appearance in person?) It's even more purple and glowy than my Pfhor environment in Eternal, and now I'm wishing I'd done some more effects like that in both that environment and the "Forerunner" (Sphere/water/set1) environment. I'm loving the tropical ambient sounds too.

[thedoctor45]

Those red-ish corpses lying around on the floor are what's left of the Nebulons - there are currently no plans for adding live Nebulons to the game tbh.

[The Man]

Thanks. Not that I had anything to do with the appearance of the scenario as of yet – I’m currently retexturing and finishing off one of Drictelt’s unfinished old levels (after which I’ll do item and enemy placement), which will be my first concrete contribution to the scenario.

Here’s a third level, “You Can’t Go Home Again”. This level is also pretty close to being complete and is likely to be the third real level of the demo, should we release one. (There will probably also be a brief expo level, “The Master Awaits”, which is not the prologue level I alluded to above.)

It would be cool to see live Nebulons, but someone with actual graphical talent would have to make the sprites for them. I believe one of our contributors is planning to redo the drones for the final release of the game, though.

[Pfhorrest]

Oh, I thought I remembered there having been at least partially completed Nebulon sprites some time way back over a decade ago when Blayne was running the project.

[thedoctor45]

Not that I can remember - the source files Blayne sent me did not include any enemy sprites for the Nebulons and I think he sent me everything - I didn`t see any posted in the WmaiD Yahoo group either.

[The Man]

To answer a question that I didn't notice before, BTW, "The Haunted Beacon" is indeed using the Nebulon environment.

We have recently been kindly given a treasure trove of additional maps that were intended for use in a now abandoned scenario. I'm not sure how much I should be discussing about them at the present, but I'm in awe of how good some of them are. I think it's safe to say that that the WIP maps folder, when added to the content already to be found in WMAiD and Chronicles, now probably has enough complete content for at least one and possibly two excellent scenarios of typical length. (Thedoctor45 had the a similar reaction upon looking at them.) It is now up to us to develop coherent narratives and games out of this content, and add some more if needed. I do have a few ideas to that extent, but I'm exhausted and this will all have to wait.

[Dugit]

This makes me so happy, great to see this is still going. Still up for beta testing, can’t wait for release.

[The Man]

Cool. It’ll probably be a while before we reach the beta phase still, but I’ll let you know when we get there. I’m hoping within a year, but I can’t promise anything yet.

It’s also going to be a while before I can post videos of some of the new levels we’ve gotten, as their creator has requested that we retexture everything due to the usage of other people’s textures in the levels. This is understandable, and I’ll create a retexture script at some point. At present, we’re still working out which levels will end up in WMAiD and which ones will end up in Chronicles; I’m waiting for further discussion on this point, since otherwise I’d end up making redundant retexture scripts. At least a dozen are likely to end up in one scenario or the other; they range from reasonably good but needing a fair amount of work (the older ones) to spectacular and needing very little work apart from retexturing and altering the monsters and weapons for WMAiD or Chronicles (the more recent, complete ones), with several incomplete fragments that could also be made spectacular with a reasonable amount of work.

I’m also working on piecing together the final level of the scenario. I can’t talk about it too much – both story and design spoilers would abound, obviously – but it will bookend the scenario nicely with the aforementioned first level, and I’m quite pleased with how it’s coming together. There are a couple of happy accidents that I didn’t even notice until I got further along the planning stage, both involving recurring motifs that I hadn’t noticed when I began planning the form of the level. I suspect it’ll take another week or two of work before the level is mostly finished.

[The Man]

I’ve gotten a first draft of the final level complete. There are a few things that I will still need to do before it’s in a finished state, but I’m quite pleased with how it’s turning out.

[Wrkncacnter]

We probably don't need a log of every single update. Especially if you can't show screenshots or talk about it much. Not every project thread needs to be 50 pages.

[The Man]

Yeah, you're probably right. I'm just really happy with how this one's shaped up, and not being able to talk about it is... trying.

I think it is a sign of progress that I'm basically finished constructing it after only about three or four days of work, though, and that's why I've been posting about it - it's actually gone faster than I expected it to. Counterexamples to Hofstadter's Law ("It always takes longer than you think it will, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law") are rare.

The level also was fairly painless to make. There were two crashes I had to resolve, and I had to re-texture a few areas multiple times because I kept working from the wrong version (I need to come up with a more consistent naming system for this stuff), but those were relatively minor difficulties.

Anyway, I'll shut up about it now, but you can at least add one more level to the "mostly complete" list. I think an early 2020 release of this game may be doable, especially if the rest of development goes this quickly and smoothly. (ETA: I should make it clear this isn't a promise or guarantee and I'm not speaking officially for the whole development team on this count - it's just a personal hope.)

[The Man]

We haven’t posted anything in a while, but rest assured this project absolutely is not dead. In fact, there’s probably been more development for this project in the past couple of weeks than there had been in the several months preceding it. A few screenshots of work-in-progress levels (monster placement, textures, architecture, and level names all subject to further change):

“Thou Shalt Not Be Pfhorgiven”, mainly by CryoS; a level originally for created the abandoned Rubicon expansion Marathon Syndicate (more on which shortly). I went through and cleared out a lot of extraneous polygons so I could place ambient sound objects, along with various other subtle revisions. It had more than 2,450 polygons when I started and somehow still ran without crashing. (That is definitely the largest polygon count I have ever seen in a functional map.) I got it down to 2,304. CryoS has revised the geometry a bit further; his current revision has fewer than that, but he may add more to it.

This level is in the process of being remastered, and what you see above is running in Rubicon. The WMAiD version will have different textures. Not drastically different – we’re using the Nebulon set, which is heavily inspired by the Pfhor sets in Rubicon. So basically, imagine these screenshots in mostly pink and purple instead.

Syndicate was one of those ambitious mods that died due to people's lack of time to contribute to it - which I'm fully aware could happen to WMAiD as well, but our large backlog of unfinished maps like this one gives us more of a cushion. CryoS has another Syndicate level that may end up showing up in Chronicles, since it probably wouldn't fit in WMAiD. I think one of the other mapmakers may have used their contributions for other projects. No idea what happened to the others.

“Thrudnesday”: architecture and shading by Drictelt; textures, monster placement, and sounds by me. (Monster placement is nowhere near finished.) This is one of the most C Lund-like levels I’ve come across that wasn’t actually made by C Lund, so I chose to give it the UESG textures, which are the Chimera textures from Rubicon with a few modifications. I’m fairly sure I won’t keep this monster placement, which may not even fit the story, depending upon where we slot this level in. This is on the lower end of the polygon count by WMAiD standards with only 970 polygons, though I may add some more later on in development. Credit to Drictelt for some spectacular shading on this level.

This map was, to my understanding, intended for an abandoned project variously entitled Marathon Shadow and Marathon Afterlife, more on which later. We have most of the assets from Afterlife, and they will see the light of day in some form at some point; however, the primary creator has asked that we retexture them all before showing them to the public, and we’re honouring that request. Since I’m not actually sure what texture sets to use for most of them, that’s a project that will have to wait, which is part of the reason I’ve chosen these two maps to showcase.

(Also, no disrespect to Drictelt, but there’s probably no way we’re keeping this level title. If nothing else, I suspect we’ll want something you can easily pronounce.)

You’ll hopefully see a bigger update with a couple of actual videos within the next couple of weeks. I’ll also see about us releasing a playable demo, hopefully at some point this year (before the full game is done, hopefully, next year).