New Player, Have Questions

[Sammy]

Hello,
I've never played the Marathon series and I thought I'd give it a try. I started playing today and there's a few things I noticed and though I'd ask about:
- Is there any way to change the FOV?
- The environment textures seem surprisingly high-res for 90's games, are they new textures made by modders? I would prefer playing with the original textures if possible for a vanilla experience.
- The guns seem to take up a huge amount of the screen, is this normal/can it be changed?

Thanks.

[patrick]

I would prefer playing with the original textures

we all would

[treellama]

To answer your other questions:

There is sort of a way to change the FOV, but it involves writing some XML and putting it in the right place. Are you using an extra-widescreen display? Or just getting motion sick?

The guns will take up a little less of the screen once you turn the enhancement plugins off. This is normal:

[Sammy]

I would prefer playing with the original textures

we all would

I'm sorry but that thread is confusing and doesn't really answer the question, is it possible to play Marthon trilogy in Aleph One with original textures but using widescreen resolutions and other enhancements?

To answer your other questions:
There is sort of a way to change the FOV, but it involves writing some XML and putting it in the right place. Are you using an extra-widescreen display? Or just getting motion sick?

I just prefer playing FPS in higher FOV, 115 is good for me. Is there any reason it using an option in the game, you guys have the source code right?

[ravenshining]

While I totally get why people turn off the horrid XBLA sprites, I don't understand the sentiment for low-resolution wall textures when the high res ones are so faithful, and yet still wanting to run with all the fancy OpenGL. The wall textures were done to such perfection, in my opinion, that they go hand-in-hand with the improvements to the code.

One large reason FOV settings are not implemented besides people simply not having the time or interest, is because in-game there is a very rare "powerup" item that increases your field of view from 80° to 130°. I'm honestly not sure of where to find one in the entire trilogy, but they are an item that is in the original game and is used for 3rd-part scenarios.

Since your wanting a "vanilla experience" of low-resolution textures doesn't exactly jibe with the extremely non-vanilla messing with of FOV, the old guard may not want to help you. It certainly doesn't help when you insist it ought to be an option just because we have the source. But, my intent to enhance the architecture and recreate cut material also turns them off from wanting to help me, so, while I disagree with your ideas, I certainly sympathise, and this community certainly could use new players! But, to mess with field of view, you need to read up on MML, here:
htmlpreview.github.io/?https://github.com/Aleph-One-Marathon/alephone/blob/master/docs/MML.html

Or, if you're okay with 130° FOV, download a cheat script from Simplici7y and give yourself extravision.

Settings for what it sounds like you are aiming for as far as vanilliaishness goes:

• Environment: disable ALL plugins EXCEPT "Default HUD"

• Graphics:

• tick "Limit Vertical View"
• tick "Camera Bobbing"
• untick "Overlay Map"

• Rendering Options submenu:

• untick "Bloom Effects," they make stars and terminals look really bad
• If your're playing M1A1, definitely untick Fog
• do tick Static Effect and Colour Effects
• untick Transparent Liquids
• Bump mapping is not implemented for M1 yet and only lives in plugins for M2 and M∞ so don't worry
• 3-D models live in plugins that you'll have disabled already

• Controls:

• UNtick "Always Run"
• UNtick "Always Swim"
• tick "Auto-recenter view"
• tick "Auto switch weapons"

But, if you're going to go so far as to disable high-res textures, you may as well set the renderer to Software and forget about all those rendering options except turning off transparent liquids.

If you're hardcore:
• Play with a keyboard that limits the number of simultaneous keystrokes
• Set your screen resolution to 640x480

And if you really, truly want to be "vanilla" and "authentic:"
• Forget Aleph One and play the original code on an M68k running MacOS 7.1. Personally, I played through it all on a Performa 630CD.

[treellama]

I'm sorry but that thread is confusing and doesn't really answer the question, is it possible to play Marthon trilogy in Aleph One with original textures but using widescreen resolutions and other enhancements?

Yes, the high resolution textures are plugins. If you select "Preferences" then "Plugins" there is a list of the plugins installed. Just select any of the hi-res plugins you don't want to use to disable them. You need to keep one HUD plugin enabled, either the new widescreen or original.

I just prefer playing FPS in higher FOV, 115 is good for me. Is there any reason it using an option in the game, you guys have the source code right?

Yes there is a reason: there's a power-up in the game that changes the FOV (officially called extravision, but also known as walleye vision). Also, other third party scenarios (our name for mods) change the FOV for special effects like dream levels.

Try putting this in a file called view.mml in your Scripts folder:

Code: Select all

<marathon>
    <view>
        <fov normal="115"/>
    </view>
</marathon>


[treellama]

Play with a keyboard that limits the number of simultaneous keystrokes

No way, AEKII had n-key rollover

[Wrkncacnter]

Yeah, I never had problems with playing on keyboards until the mid 2000s when regular keyboards suddenly became worthless.

[Flowers]

While I totally get why people turn off the horrid XBLA sprites, I don't understand the sentiment for low-resolution wall textures when the high res ones are so faithful, and yet still wanting to run with all the fancy OpenGL. The wall textures were done to such perfection, in my opinion, that they go hand-in-hand with the improvements to the code.

I believe there's a middle ground. If you're using high-res textures while the monsters are low-res, it all looks very strange. I prefer to have high-res textures enabled but rendered at 256x256.

[General Tacticus]

Also if you want to have the sharp pixelated look of the original game: go into Graphics>Rendering options>Advanced and set texture filtering to none.

[ravenshining]

Play with a keyboard that limits the number of simultaneous keystrokes

No way, AEKII had n-key rollover

Huh. I distinctly remember being unable to, say, run, move forward, strafe, shoot, and look at the same time. But maybe those ancient memories are from Infinity, which I played mostly on a PowerComputing clone I got when I turned 18 rather than my old Performa.

[Sammy]

Thanks for the replies guys. But what exactly do you mean by XBLA sprites? Are the sprites in Aleph One different from those in the original game?

[ravenshining]

There are some 3D-rendered, not-even-HD sprites Freeverse made for M2. Some new players like them, but they are generally hated by older players as they have a completely different character to the originals. I'm not sure whether they get included with downloads, just trash anything you have that says "Freeverse" or "XBLA" and you should be good.

On the other hand, a lot of people who aren't me like their HUD.

[Sammy]

Thanks for the the help guys.

BTW, is there a reason why all the plugins are on by default? If a source port like GZdoom or Eduke32 included high-res textures and turned them on by default, there would be a shitstorm like no other.

[treellama]

BTW, is there a reason why all the plugins are on by default?

Yep!