Rampancy

In the long, strange ride that's been the experience of the Myth community since the sale of Bungie to Microsoft, there's rarely been a dull-- or peaceful-- moment.

Acrimony sprung up again this past week, as problems with the Marius.net metaserver prompted an IP address change. Due to changes in Myth 1.4 as produced by the MythDev group, which used to contain members of the Project Magma group, associated with the Marius.net metaserver, but does no longer, this IP address change would have required MythDev to produce a new EEL file in order for Myth 1.4 users to play on Marius.net. The reason hinges on the latter group's insistence on using the encrypted-traffic network model of Myth 3 even in the Myth 2 engine, and the former's refusal to do so on grounds that it would make it difficult for other metaserver admins to keep pace with changes. The use of encryption is seen by MythDev as being good security against cheaters, while Marius.net sees it mainly as a way of giving the PlayMyth metaserver an advantage against competitors by controlling who can connect, and who has access to the file and protocol formats needed to connect to PlayMyth. At least one recent build of Myth 1.4 was hardcoded to connect only to PlayMyth and conflicted with the Marius.net plugin. This problem later was fixed, although it was widely speculated that this was done intentionally, and not in error.

Within days, however, MythDev had not produced a new EEL file; they claim they were not asked to, while Marius.net claims they made such a request. A third party reverse-engineered the file, and posted details on how to do so on the Marius.net forum, apparently unaware that Marius.net and Project Magma members that had previously been part of MythDev had agreed not to disclose such details, in order to protect PlayMyth's metaserver security model.

Accusations and countercharges have flown in both directions, with Marius.net charging that PlayMyth / MythDev is intentionally creating incompatibilities in order to give their own metaserver an advantage, while MythDev counters that it isn't their responsibility to maintain the Marius.net server's compatibility. The Marius.net server was written from scratch by reverse-engineering the way the original Bungie.net server works; the PlayMyth server is a modified version of the original Bungie source code, released after the Microsoft purchase.

Now, the key figure in the MythDev / PlayMyth group, and the lightning rod for many of the criticisms of the group, Michael "Blades" Bagnall, is resigning his position as a PMA (PlayMyth Administrator) on the metaserver, although he says he will remain as part of the MythDev group.

Kyle "Doobie" McLean, an administrator at Marius.net, states that in fact the majority of the work that brought Myth 1.4 to its current state was done by members of Project Magma, with Blades' consent. But eventually, conflicts with Blades forced out another founding member of MythDev, Some Loser, who originally received the Myth 3 source from Take Two Games, and eventually the Project Magma team was coerced into signing NDAs with Blades to continue developing; despite Marius.net's assertion that Blades himself has no working agreement with the owners of the Myth 3 and Myth 2 engine code.

The base of many of the arguments between operators of the two Myth servers, as well as between the MythDev development group and the Project Magma mapmaking group, is the status of the code involved. While Marius.net has its own homegrown metaserver code, MythDev has a modified version of Bungie's original code-- which they say they will now open source on SourceForge, minus some of their additions such as ranked play. However, the key to this is not the code for the metaserver, but rather the source code to the Myth 2 and Myth 3 engines. These have not, and apparently cannot be, open sourced. The details of the license are not available, and Blades has so far not responded to questions regarding this topic. But posts in various forums indicate that the MythDev group is obligated to return the Myth code in a "commercially viable form", obviating the group from open sourcing the project outright, and even causing arguments about the use of open source code in previous Myth patches by members of Project Magma.

However, it is unclear if this move to open source the metaserver code will accomplish anything. Blades claims that this will remove the requirement for the EEL file-- the file that allows the Myth 1.4 to connect to certain metaservers without using encryption. However, for further builds of Myth 1.4 produced by MythDev to continue to function with the Marius.net metaserver, Marius.net it seems would need to switch to using the open-sourced, feature-crippled version of the PlayMyth server code, which some say is little different than the version already released by Microsoft.

Another member of the MythDev group is Rick "Clem" Stufflebean, also an administrator at The Mill, the Myth hyperarchive originally created by Randall "Frigidman" Shaw, and famously shut down in protest of Bungie's sale to Microsoft and later re-opened. However, it now appears as if the Mill will shutter its doors again, although it seems as if this is related more to costs incurred than to the current state of Myth development, according to the news post by Ed Monkey.

The latest developments in the Myth community, while they certainly add to the infamy of the game, do little to enhance the reputation of a game that was once the best in its class, the original developers who created it, or a community that while always raucous, had never quite reached this level before.