Aleph One 1.0

Dec 1st '11, 04:12

We're proud (and relieved) to announce the 1.0 release of Aleph One. Nearly 12 years since Bungie released the source code for Marathon 2, it's finally feature-complete with the original engine and polished enough to deserve the 1.0 label. New features include full Marathon 2 and Infinity film support, including drag-and-drop; numerous improvements to the interface; OpenGL (Shader) fixes; new Lua features, and of course, bug fixes.

Accompanying this release we have a new set of data files for each of the games. Marathon has been completely updated to make it as true to the original as possible in the engine in its current state, removing M1A1's weird opening, extra secret levels, and changes to puzzles; and emulating the behavior of Marathon's triggered battles are closely as we can in Aleph One. Marathon 2 includes the full HD graphics upgrades featured in the Xbox LIVE Arcade game Marathon: Durandal, which Bungie and Freeverse have generously allowed us to distribute. Marathon Infinity includes goran's HD wall textures and landscapes, and the XBLA weapons graphics.

Each of the the three games also comes with its own theme, a widescreen HUD, and a new icon. We've changed the way they're distributed, too: they're now available as all-in-one apps for the Mac, and all-in-one zip files for Windows. Just download, unzip/mount, and double click.

http://marathon.sourceforge.net/ is up to date and should help you get the files you need. If you want to read detailed release notes for the 1.0 release, they are available at http://marathon.sourceforge.net/release-notes/20111201.html

We will have a press release available tomorrow for a more general audience, but we wanted to send this note tonight to give you an early start on re-experiencing the Marathon Trilogy. Our thanks go out to everyone who has helped Aleph One and the Marathon trilogy get to this point!

cxmb · Dec 1st '11, 04:20

Downloading right now! Let's see about this new stuff O: I'm intrigued

Now that i remember on some previous versions A1 wouldn't run M1 and some other scenarios on my X.6.4 I will try again (:

I'm still waiting those gradients TL!!!! *shakes fist*

Chocolateer · Dec 1st '11, 05:03

That's awesome. Excellent work!

Dec 1st '11, 05:09

Hey look! This is fucking awesome!

President People · Dec 1st '11, 05:25

This is truly a glorious day in Marathon history. Both congratulations and thanks to Treellama, the rest of the Aleph One team and all who have made this release possible.

XBLA HD Graphics, I can't stop smiling. Can't wait to try 'em out. Now all we need is true M1 support. But we can waitâ?¦ At least for today. ;)

All over the ship, dancing through the wreckage
of the Pfhor computer core,

DURANDAL WAS LAUGHING

We have victory.

Long live Aleph One! Reverof Nohtaram!

PS: NnNnWwNnWWnNnWnNwNWnNnWnNwNWnWnNnNwN NnWnNnWwNWwNnNnNnWWnWnNwNnNWnNnNnNwWNnWnNnWwN

interion · Dec 1st '11, 05:39

Incredible effort by everyone involved. I especially like how everything comes packaged in a single download, along with the HD textures, HUD, and other plugins. I know it wasn't difficult to assemble things by hand, but this makes it much easier to recommend the game to people I think otherwise wouldn't have the patience to try it.

However, I think my favorite new feature must be...

Aleph One can now play sound resources assigned to each intro screen

if that's the thing which restored the proper startup screens to M1A1.

I hate to mention this, but the intro and menu screens are being offset to the left and up by about 50 pixels, cropping off part of the image. This is with the default preferences with both automatic and my native resolution. In game screen doesn't appear to have a problem. I'll file a bug report tomorrow if no one else gets to it first.

herecomethej2000 · Dec 1st '11, 06:22

Friggin fantastic!

A huge congratulations are in order!
Great job TL and everyone else! Absolutely love the new distributions. I can't believe you got freeverse to agree to the distribution of their textures. That is fantastic in of itself.

brilliant · Dec 1st '11, 06:27

I am so happy! Thank you Treellama, Hopper, and Aleph One Team!

Sharkie Lino · Dec 1st '11, 06:57

Totally awesome, guys! Great work, and thanks a lot!

Dec 1st '11, 13:49

Tim wrote:I hate to mention this, but the intro and menu screens are being offset to the left and up by about 50 pixels, cropping off part of the image. This is with the default preferences with both automatic and my native resolution. In game screen doesn't appear to have a problem. I'll file a bug report tomorrow if no one else gets to it first.

Does it show up in screenshots? If so, posting one would be helpful.

ukimalefu · Dec 1st '11, 14:28

Treellama wrote:Does it show up in screenshots? If so, posting one would be helpful.

You can see it here, the whole thing is off-center, just like intro/chapter screens, but the game looks fine.

http://i.imgur.com/xxIcT.jpg

Same thing happens with M2 and Infinity.

PLEASE NOTE:

The problem is only there in a Mac (OS X 10.6.8, GMA 950) using 1280x1024 resolution.

The problem does NOT seem to be there in a Mac (OS X 10.7.2, HD 3000) using 1366x768 resolution. Only tried M1 with this one.

interion · Dec 1st '11, 15:07

Treellama wrote:Does it show up in screenshots? If so, posting one would be helpful.

Here you can see the button being cut off on the left and the black column on the right.

Ares Ex Machina · Dec 1st '11, 16:01

Nice work! -- to everyone involved. Lots of great new features and ideas. It appears to be the most polished version yet. Thank you for your tireless efforts to keep Marathon alive!

Dec 1st '11, 17:06

Looks like a 5:4 aspect ratio display problem. Fortunately those are rare and becoming rarer.

Not Invented Here · Dec 1st '11, 22:33

New Lua features are cool. With the io access for solo scripting, there's a lot to look forward to. Maybe MPDX or something like PID will be easier now?

Hippieman · Dec 1st '11, 23:26

Asylum wrote:When did you get permission to distribute the XBLA upgrades?

We got final permission before Thanksgiving. But probably worked out the initial agreements in July/August timeframe.

Paul · Dec 2nd '11, 00:19

Excellent.

listener · Dec 2nd '11, 00:50

Great work! Thank you Aleph One Team. Many happy memories are still around thanks to you guys!

P.S...Press Release? Where?

Dec 2nd '11, 00:56

listener wrote:Great work! Thank you Aleph One Team. Many happy memories are still around thanks to you guys!

P.S...Press Release? Where?

http://www.bungie.net/News/content.aspx?ty...s&cid=31991

herecomethej2000 · Dec 2nd '11, 01:28

Any reason why the High Res Monsters weren't included with Infinity? Apparently there are highres Vacbobs in the M2 patch. What other monsters are suppose to be Inf only?

Dec 2nd '11, 02:06

herecomethej2000 wrote:Any reason why the High Res Monsters weren't included with Infinity? Apparently there are highres Vacbobs in the M2 patch. What other monsters are suppose to be Inf only?

It's missing vacbobs, SMG player sprites, and all the elite Pfhor. It should be easy to make the elites with a color table swap like we did with the compilers, but without the other two things it's too inconsistent to be in by default.

Well, also mothrids, potatoanuses, and grendelbeasts...but those look fine low-res!

Wrkncacnter · Dec 2nd '11, 02:10

Thank you thermoplyae and the rest of the development team!

I did notice one problem with the bundled version of Marathon though.

In this version, you start off halfway into the level. You can't even turn around and go to the original starting point that looks oddly like Pathways into darkness. If there is a way to fix this so it starts tha player at the Original starting point in Arival, please do so.
The coordinance should be as follows:
x= 5.477
y= -21.828
z= 0.600
Polygon= 316
yaw= 177.891

herecomethej2000 · Dec 2nd '11, 03:13

Hmm wonder if it is possible to photoshop an SMG into the player's hands, rather then say an assault rifle. I think the vacbobs hold up next to the new textures, because, unlike the other original sprites, they also were stemmed from 3d models. The other problems as you say are more manageable.
Hmm worth a thought. I may just go have at it.

Stealth · Dec 2nd '11, 11:39

Congrats on 1.0 and great release!

Too bad the Mac App Store and GPL don't cooperate, would get some additional downloads.

It'd be awesome to get an SMG player sprite because HD player models in Infinity would be great in multiplayer.

listener · Dec 2nd '11, 22:07

W wrote:Thank you thermoplyae and the rest of the development team!

I did notice one problem with the bundled version of Marathon though.

In this version, you start off halfway into the level. You can't even turn around and go to the original starting point that looks oddly like Pathways into darkness. If there is a way to fix this so it starts tha player at the Original starting point in Arival, please do so.

Are you talking about where you start off looking at a terminal?
That's where you're supposed to start. The pathways into darkness opening is just M1A1.

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Aleph One 1.0