Marine Recon Tournament

Mystiç Eye Visits New Myth Server

Playmyth.net officially opened it's doors to the public on the 25th of april.

I am a firm believer that one does not have a valid opinion on an issue or item unless one has had first hand experience with same said matter. So...in order to be able to form, and announce, an opinion on Playmyth.net I decided to pay a visit to test it's features and playability.

It had been said that the new server would be lagless, in fact in a recent interview between Mordia (b.net) and the staff at Playmyth it was said that lag would not even be an issue due to the servers placement on and proximity to the largest pipline of internet traffic. As well, it was boasted that the server would be exactly like it was on bungie ...with improvements (ie stats tab ,buddy tab, order tab working) and some "surprise features". As i recall it had been mentioned on the Mariusnet.com forums that the use of these "tabs" was a source of lag in the lobby due to the constant updating of the information contained herin. This notion was sumarrily dismissed by advocates of the new server.

I journeyed to playmyth.net's official web site to set up an account, and after divulging the necessary information and supplying them with a username I eagerly submitted the form and headed straight to my e-mail application. To my delight "recieving incoming message" was flashing along with the obligatory rotating arrows at the bottom of my screen...and with a 'ding' I was notified that Playmyth had received my request and my username and password were neatly placed in the document, ready for my use. I made my way back to the site in order to download the necessities (plugs/patches) and instructions for each. I am fortunate to have a fast cable internet connection and so anticipated a rather short wait for the download to complete. Alas I was mistaken. After a grueling 15 minutes wait for 3 megs (should have taken 3 mins) I figured there was something wrong. I exited my browser, restarted my comp and made a second attempt at the download. Ten minutes later the download was complete..whew...I chalked it up to many people attempting the same download....at 11pm est? In the list of downloadable items were 3 curious things in the list ...a blue , green and red plugin?? O.K I'll bite. I chose the red and waited for the completion.

After installing the needed item...and the mysterious plugin, I made note of the good set of instructions, as well as the seemingly idiot proof "just in case" items.(KUDOS to whomever was responsible for that...I salute you).

Time to connect...flawless...seems I wasnt going to have problems "getting on". AHA! sais I...the mystery "red plugin" was a coloured interface! Nice touch! And hey..if I get bored of lookin at red...I can change it to blue or green by downloading the other plugins! (again KUDOS to whomever was responsible) Suggestion:: Perhaps the people at Platmyth.net could create instructions on how to make our own interfaces as well as a place to "trade" our own creations??I'd love to have a go at that!

May the gaming commence! I noticed the overwealming number of ranked rooms to the number of unranked rooms and shrug, and head for the "populated areas". The first room I enter has a myriad of regular myth games in different stages of completion....the side of my mind that wants to play WWII goes "bleh , move on" and so I did. Many familliar "faces' adorned the next room...this was where I was going to find a game! My salivating eagerness slowly went flacid as I noticed a lack of variety in the listed possibilities.......four games all recon (::yawn::) and B.C. and elim. Recon--------the plague of rank--------hospice to the syphilidic whoor. Seems I was going to have to choose a game by ping.........or popularity......which go hand in hand. There were my old friends and some gamers I was aquainted with..Garamond , Pudusplat , a hand full of bastards.....and the always present mystery guests. Nobody recognised me in my "chooch" disguise .

Alright and ready to start shooting I hit the ready button. "ooh!" it's yellow! very easy to see...this must have been one of the "surprises". I was way at the bottom of the room, with a dagger above me and a dagger below me...and a variety of rank icons going up to emp, when it hit me. "bet I get the boot" I wispered under my breath. I relaxed as I saw the obligatory "gl hf"...and as I remembered the playmyth rules stating that one cannot be booted because of rank, when suddenly CRASH BOOM POW! I felt an uncurtious nudge in my behind and found myself...along with my two single daggered book ends sitting in the lobby looking at the game, we were once welcomed with a "hey" into, begin without us. To spare great length and detail, this occurred in each of the four games hosted....nor would anyone remain in my host after seeing my lack of OMFG POINTS.

"OK that sucks" I sputtered.
I went afk for a drink and a wee snack and decided to check on things in mariusnet. Not to many souls there but I found my ordermates and some friends (Dark Falcon and sliptip). We played a few had some gg's and a couple o' laughs before they had to sign off for the nite.

I'm not known as a quitter, so I returned to Playmyth.net for further invesigation and attempt at a game. I notced that it takes more time to change between rooms on Playmyth than it does on Mariusnet.....perhaps the first evidence of that supposed non-existant lag? Yup...and complaints in the next room I arrive in of severe chat lag! I made 4 more attempts to get a game in, but am denied because of my lone dagger. I was about to give up and stamp Playmyth as an inhospitable whoor zone when I noticed another host. -mori- in the title..hmmm. I join up and to my relief am allowed to stay and THE GAME BEGINS!!!! OMFG I'm in a game finally! The host----Whisky jack of mori (you sir are a good sport and a gentleman).Jack regails me with the info that all I have to do is play some games...win or lose and my rank will go up. He was correct. I lost every game and found myself with three dagger rank. Interesting scoring system. Seems I will be credted with 2nd and 3rd place finishes as well..whoot!

I am allowed into a previously "offlimits" host and play a few more games (most of which were laggy as hell) but whatever. I leave the host after gaining some well earned points and sit in the lobby having a chat with an order mate who has seen through my disguise (good job Sir Werder) . The room became plagued with a sudden chat lag so I decided to switch rooms. Unfortunately the room switching froze during the process, and after waiting it out for a minute I found myself in a completely different room to the one I chose. Seems the destination room "went down". These things happen.

I thought I should take the time to check out the site a bit more. there seemed to be a whole lot of "clickables' that i had not explored on my last few visits. I made my way arount the site untill finding the "orderlist" and filled and submitted the form there beginning a new place for THE PACKAGE to exist.

Here's my critique::

PRO'S
-fantastic instructions...simple, concise, well written idiot-proof (KUDOS GJ and THANK YOU)
-A place for those who like rank to play rank.
-instant update of game results.
-a plethora of ranked rooms to choose from.
-an excellent web site to support it's users, complete with forums and lists of users, and other very well thought out items (supreme KUDOS to the web gurus)
- a return of working tabs for the simpleminded folk who couldnt type .help to figure out how to use the .dot commands on mariusnet heheheh j/k
-changable interface comes in red blue and green (again KUDOS...I like this)
-a non closing accounts department for those who are new to the game/will be new to the game.
-revision of bungie.net rules to include some good ones like "no free e-mail accounts"(hampers those who only have free e-mail..........and cheaters...unless of course they have more than one "payed e-mail")
- some mystery system, I do not understand, that somehow makes it harder to cheat?

CON'S

-not lag free ( as if it could be...someone's always gonna lag somewhere )
-lag causing tabs??I dunno that one's for the philosophers
-lack of gameing variety.....perhaps the folks at Playmyth could make it so that Recon would not be included as a "counted map"...or make a recon only rank.....I dunno.....mb make it so that you can only get so many points on a single map hence forcing variety..probably not possible but worth me mentioning.
-discrimination of rank......in this respect yes....this server is EXACTLY like bungie even though such discrimination is against the written rule.
-not an admin to be found...we had several droppers in the games I played and had nobody to report them to. I play between the hours of 12 am est and 5 am est...and so do my ordermates....perhaps Playmyth.net needs to recruit some admins to "observe and enforce" during these hours?? I volunteer my services. I can be reached for interview at grumpymonkey@rogers.com :-)

I see a bright future for this server , and a future home to Myth TFL, Soulblighter and Myth III Wolfage players, so long as the problematic issues are addressed and the staff continues to work out the bumps and bugs inherant with anything new. Good luck to Playmyth in it's future endeavors.

New Server Accounts
For those who might be intrested, Mythmaps has started to process new accounts for their server. The needed patch can be downloaded from:
www.mythmaps.com

Reinstall the mythII v1.3 patch. You need the patch. Probably already have it if your on Marius
Remove the MARIUSNET DNS and MARIUSNET PATCH from the "Plugins" folder.
Download the new BUNGIENET files from the MythMaps server
Extract the BUNGIENET file and add it to your "PREFERENCES" folder
Apply for an account at: accounts@mythmaps.com
This is just for those who want to get an early start.

Congratulations Orion

As I was checking over THE PACKAGE website, for dead links or things to be improved, I found myself looking over our "Top 25's" listings on our downloads page. To my surprise , and delight, I noticed that WWII : EXODUS has surpassed WWII : zOOkville for the NUMBER ONE WWII RECENT DOWNLOAD .Our numbers indicate zOOkville with 136 downloads and EXODUS with a staggering 234 downloads. We Packages would like to congratulate ORION of [ r ] for this accomplishment, and hope he continues to make maps that are both pretty to look at and enjoyable to play.

Some of The Package had the honor of playtesting EXODUS with orion prior to it's release and gave it a firm thumbs up!. We hope to playtest more of ORION's maps and would like to extend an invitation to all you mapmakers....feel free to use us as a sounding board for your creations...all you need do is ask.

Again, congrats to ORION and all who keep MYTH II alive and fresh for us "addicts". :-)

New Myth Server!

Only sixteen(April 25) days until the launching of the new Myth II server. Since Bungie released the source code the folks at MythWolfAge.com, Mythmaps.com and Evil, Inc., have been working toward the creation of a server that will support Myth II and Myth III. The new server will be in the bungie style- that being that it will support orders, rank, website stat veiws and order/buddy tabs. Noble endeavor! For more information take a look-see towards--
www.mythmaps.com

WEDNESDAY APRIL 3

Ragged Takes Over the News!!

Greetings! Thanks for taking a look at our new News page. I have never run a news page for anything so this is all new to me. We're hoping that this news page wont just be more ramblings about the Great and the Small of our order. Hopefully this will be a place where one can find some information about New Games, recent happenings in the Myth SB community, Evil doings and Good and some personal views on the many twists and turns that take place in the plane of experience we call Living. Sometimes I can be quite verbose and at other times almost completely silent- I think it depends on the amount of caffeine and other substances in my blood at the time. So ahead of time I humbly ask your forgiveness on any inconsistencies with the news.

I believe that most us us who may be reading this had our subtle beginnings on the bungie server with Myth TFL. Bungie had lots to offer and was a good vehicle for all those games-Yet all good(and bad) things come to an end eventually and so it was with Bungie. With a bit of trepidation a lot of us made the move to Marius and LO! It has been all good. (got to love that .wank) Thank you Marius and Conner and all those who play for making the game what it is.

The only 'real' news that I have for this first page is that TFL now has rank and ,so I hear ,soon will SB. Got to say its been nice playing without the continual bitching and moaning(I should call it what it is- whining)-Yet I feel that rank has many things to offer, so I for one welcome it and look forward to the added competition and the use of .wank :-)

Saving the best for last-I would to extend a heartfelt, knife in belt, gun in hoslter, RPG over shoulder, nade in hand kind of welcome to our newest members: MONKEY and KELNIC Good to have ya on board. }:-)

We're extending space in the "news" to any who have something to say (within reason) so let me know and send it my way. Got news? new map? community questions? interesting perspectives? We're interested in hearing it. Send anything of that nature to: Ragged@Raggedfeather.com
or leave us (The Package) a message on our forum .

 
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SATURDAY MARCH 16th

SITE 'LITE' goes online!

After a LONG nite looking at this computer screen the 'lite' and NETSCAPE friendly portion of THE PACKAGE web site was thrust into existance with the powerful click of my most glorious mouse! ::CLICK:: The site is rather bland , but I hope to be able to "beef it up" a bit a little at a time.

 
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The Package Uses Blogger.com
This is just simply a test of the Blogger system...I hope it satisfies all our future news application needs from now on.