Aug 16, 2011 (Tuesday)   492:1:47:30

Craig Hardgrove <craig.hardgrove@stonybrook.edu> has updated his Marathon Music repository
with more Marathon Music remakes and music inspired by Marathon.

Marathon and Bungie wallpaper for your iPhone.

Want to know more about Bungie's Operation: Desert Storm then check this Story forum thread.
Will Saddam Hussein's head been found?

Aug 11, 2011 (Thursday)   497:0:43:26

On the Story forum:

Old IMG video of Bungie's headquarters in 1996 (pre-Infinity release) with Doug Zartman and Tuncer Deniz.
Marathon-inspired music
More Marathon Music remakes
Marathon for $100 ?!!!
Mac Action Sack brand new, sack and all.

Aug 8, 2011 (Monday)   500:3:26:54

Bungie's Magical Mystery Tour of Chicago. Stop 7:  The Man Who Leaked The Marathon Beta

Other stops in the tour:

Stop 1:  Bungie's 1st Headquarters
Stop 2:  Bungie's 2nd Headquarters
Stop 3:  The Ming Choy
Stop 4:  American Science & Surplus (The Tale of Soffish)
Stop 5:  La Cocina
Stop 6:  The Home of the Bungie Webmaster

Aug 6, 2011 (Saturday)   502:3:41:47

Bungie's Magical Mystery Tour - Stop 5,  see also Stop 4,  Stop 3,  Stop 2, and  Stop 1.

And another clue to another box acronym.

Aug 5, 2011 (Friday)   503:5:44:12

Watch a celebration of Bungie's two decade legacy... and the future. O Brave New World.

poenadare <mstorysclm@mlcsmith.com> came across an old article on Bungie in the
Chicago Reader dating from Mar 23, 2000. Entitled "Monsters in a Box" it is ckoke full of insights
and candid remarks from Bungie staff from the very early days right up to Myth II: Soulblighter.
Well worth a read.

Blast from the past, mnemesis <mnemesis@bungie.org> popped into the Story forum to tell us
that he was chatting to Max Hoberman at E3 this year and that he had some interesting things to say
about a couple of the old, unsolved box acronyms. In partcular, SPMLOAS and MRTEFCFY
As luck would have it our resident acronym solver (poendare) has come very close to solving both
in very quick time. Unlucky for us that he has had to leave this universe. Who will help us now?

Bungie's Magical Mystery Tour - Stop 4,  see also Stop 3,  Stop 2, and  Stop 1.

Aug 4, 2011 (Thursday)   504:5:44:12

Bungie's Magical Mystery Tour - Stop 3, see also Stop 2, and Stop 1.

ncsuDuncan <ncsuDuncan@gmail.com> stopped by the Story forum to tell us that he has collected
all known information on Bungie's next major project - Destiny. Some interesting speculation
and analysis. In particular, the piecing together of the nebula background images which recently
appeared on Bungie's website. There is also information on the mysterious Seven Golden Tickets
(shades of Willy Wonka perhaps) and a new job posting of Economy Designer at Bungie.
Well worth a visit.

Marathoner325 <rkelly325@hotmail.com> points us to another video of Marathon 1 on the iPad .
This one shows you the HD mode and the Master Chief mode in action.

Those Marathon Music remakes keep on coming.

Aug 3, 2011 (Wednesday)   505:4:57:33

Bungie's Magical Mystery Tour - Stop 2, and yesterday's Stop 1.

Want to know what Marathon 1 on the iPad looks like? Well now you can in this video.

Bungie updates their web site with a new section for the Marathon Universe.
Also check out those interesting background images. Clues to their next game or just doodles?
The images are entitled 'upper_neb.png' and 'lower_neb.png', according to the HTML source
'neb' stands for nebula.

Bungie has also put up a Projects page for all their games. There you will find a new piece of
reinvisioned Minotaur artwork by David Candland.

Looks like more Marathon Music remakes have been rediscovered. Only time will tell.

Aug 2, 2011 (Tuesday)   506:4:35:57

Prompted by a request for a comprehensive Bungie Tour of Chicago, I have begun the Magical Mystery Tour.
Stop by the Story forum and learn the tru7h behind Bungie's top secret locations in the Windy City.
What next... a Bungie2Go app for iPhone and iPad?

More Marathon Music remakes. On the Story forum, Dugit <cams.royle@hotmail.co.uk> points out
that there is a more recent version (v0.47) of CubicCircle's Marathon Freedom. This version includes
more music tracks. Once again, Hopper <hopper@whpress.com> has kindly extracted these so that
you can listen to them directly.

Aug 1, 2011 (Monday)   507:4:22:12

Merovingians on the Story forum? Now before you go running off screaming... Da Vinci Code,
Holy Blood Tides of Lh'owon and try, once again, to decipher that cryptic terminal in the Marathon
Demo about the Seven Riders of the Apocalypse, let me be quite clear... the Merovingians
are never explicitly mentioned in Marathon... nor indeed on the Story page (until today).

Thanks to Hopper <hopper@whpress.com> on the Story forum you can now hear three more
Marathon Music remakes. These are from CubicCircle's Marathon Freedom. Now while you
could hear these by playing his stand-alone RPG game, Hopper has kindly extracted the three tracks
so that you can play them directly. They are actaully very good and well worth a listen.
Craig Hardgrove has added these to his Marathon Music repository.

July 29, 2011 (Friday)   510:2:2:52

And the answer to the Craig Mullins pic quiz is... Craig Mullins.
Hats off to Evil Otto <davidcan@bungie.com> for remembering that far back.

Also on the Story forum, curiousity in the Vylae continues...

July 28, 2011 (Thursday)   511:4:33:49

Just when you thought you were all music'd out... a whole bunch of Marathon Music remakes have been
rediscovered (or is that re-rediscovered?). Anyway, Craig Hardgrove has added these to his Marathon Music
page. His quest is a complete Marathon music repository. Now it seems that there are quite a few Marathon
Music remakes out there... more than you probably want to know about.

So if you so happen to know of any remakes let Craig know by posting them to the Story forum.

July 27, 2011 (Wednesday)   512:6:7:53

Craig Hardgrove has made his Marathon Music remakes M1A1 ready. And according to this Story
forum post he will be making his remakes available in a high quality lossless format.

Confused by all the different versions of the Marathon Music? Well here is a crash course:

Marathon Music under QuickTime 2.0 (released Feb '94): the original music sound;
Marathon Music under QuickTime 2.1 (released Aug '95): no change to the music sound;
Marathon Music under QuickTime 2.5 (released July '96): sound changes due to changes in the instruments;
Marathon Music under QuickTime 3.0 (released Mar '98): further sound changes due to changes in the instruments.

Depending on when you started to play Marathon 1 (or more correctly the version of QuickTime
installed on your computer) your view of the music will be different.

Marathon 1 for the iPad uses the music tracks that come with M1A1 which is the Marathon Music under
QuickTime 2.5. While you cannot change the music in the iPad version of Marathon you can change the
M1A1 music, replacing it with the original QuickTime 2.0 sound. There are actually two versions available:
a quieter and a louder version. The choice is yours.

Equally you could change the music altogether using either Craig's remakes (above), Chibi-Usa's remakes,
or indeed your very own MP3 selection.

On the Story forum:

Old Breach (Phoenix) pics lost and found.
A Craig Mullins spot quiz... what is the origin of that pic?
Marcus Lehto leaving Bungie? Another Grizzled Ancient on the move.
But wait... who are his Myth development buddies?

</everytimeicometothestorypagethereisalwaysafreakintest>

July 26, 2011 (Tuesday)   513:8:31:35

On the Story forum, fracai <arno@alum.wpi.edu> provides some 'louder' versions of the Marathon
Music tracks recorded under Quicktime 2.0. The volume adjustment was achieved through the process
of audio normalization. You can get these 'louder' tracks in Apple Lossless or M1A1 ready MP3s.

fracai also uses the Wayback Machine to uncover some old artwork by Craig Mullins. One piece in
particular is interesting, not because it is new but rather because of its name. The piece is entitled
POSTER.jpg and was in Craig's old sub-directory for commerical Bungie projects, namely
commercial_projects/bungie/POSTER.jpg. This might suggest that this old Marine pic was originally
destined to become a Bungie poster.

July 22, 2011 (Friday)   517:2:10:5

Well it may be hard to believe but there has probably been more discussion about Bungie's first
game Gnop! on the Story forum over the last couple of days than in the last 20 years combined.
Oh and we even have some informaton on Bungie's second game Operation: Desert Storm.
With it's detailed missions and Middle East intel it is probably still being used today to train tank
commanders. Check out this video of the game in actiom.

Added Bob-B-Q's unboxing of the Marathon Trilogy Box Set. Well it maybe the last one... ever.
Oh and Gnop! is in there too. :)

July 21, 2011 (Thursday)   518:5:21:21

GrimCleaver digs deep into the Gnop! resource fork in the hope of uncovering the tru7h behind
Bungie's mysterious begnnings. Of course, since this is Bungie nothing is straight forward and the
Scrapbook doesn't help at all. Hey what's new. Blame Matt. ;)

On the subject of Gnop! you can get Gnop for iOS at the iTunes App Store or Gnop Gnop for
Mac OS X at the Mac App Store. But do they have the original soundtrack?

According to Macintosh Garden, Gnop! is "a Pong clone with volleyball rules."
Hmmm... summertime and volleyball. ;)

On the subject of naughty bits and bytes... is the Marathon Infinity source code really full of
rude words about people?   Of course Bungie and nasty words are nothing new.

</anothernonrelevantmarathonstorypagesummertimeupdate>

July 20, 2011 (Wednesday)   519:7:0:4

Added a .zip download option for the films in the Battle of Brooklyn series.
Apologies to those who couldn't open the original (1997) .sit files.
Yes the Story page is being dragged 'kicking and screaming' into the 21th century. ;-)

Updated the Marathon Music section with the main highlights from our recent 'mad experiment'.
You can also download the QT2.0 tracks direct from the Story page now. Thanks again to Hopper.

And if you thought the last Project was 'easy', wait to you see the next one. ;-)

On the subject of music here is an interesting post by GrimCleaver on the Story forum about the
differences between the Marathon 2 and Infinity themes in the game's Music files compared to
the versions on CD. Here are the main points:

...the M2 music file is AIFF, 8-bit, 22.050 kHz (I checked both the M2 CD and Trilogy CD versions).

The Marathon 2 Theme on the audio CD is also AIFF, but it's 16-bit, 44.100 kHz. Additionally, it's
not the same version version as the one used in the game -- It's actually a minute and a half longer
(With noticeably less compression and much larger in file size -- 3.9MB (game version) vs 31.4MB (CD version).

July 19, 2011 (Tuesday)   520:13:20:1

Added the full story behind the Battle of Brooklyn. Learn the tru7h behind those one-on-one pavement
chewing Brooklyn brawls. The IRC smack talk, the put downs, the cheat codes, the sniping, the crushing
defeats, the stats, the urban myths - like Randy Reddig taking out a running opponent with a single pistol
shot to the head through a window from a distance. Did you see?

Now you can thanks to Aleph One 1.0b4.

July 18, 2011 (Monday)   521:13:25:50

They say good things come in threes... and today is no exception.

Firstly, we have the Marathon Music tracks digitally recorded under QuickTime 2.0 by Jeremiah Morris
(aka Hopper). Not only is this the authentic Marathon Music sound but it's as close to audiophile quality
as we've ever had it. Another piece of Marathon preserved for future generations. You can grab the music
in Apple Lossless, WAV or M1A1 ready MP3s. :)

Secondly, the fourth beta build of Aleph One has been released. The big addition to this beta is full
Marathon Infinity film playback support, thanks to Bungie's release of the source code. Now you can
watch those Infinity films from the Marathon Vidmasters' page. All you need is some popcorn. :)

Thirdly, after seven (yes, seven) years Craig Hardgrove has released the last of his Marathon Music remakes.
And what a remake... Fat man is packed full of sounds, themes and coded messages. And if the Pfhor
fleet should happen to arrive in orbit over the next couple of weeks you know who to blame. ;)

Today is a good day. :)

July 15, 2011 (Friday)   524:14:45:13

The Marathon MIDI Music to AIFF under QuickTime 2.0 project.
When the going gets tough... the tough hand over to the experts. ;)

Yes, we will have original high quality Marathon Music soon.
Check the Story forum for the audiophile wars!

Please ignore the music links below.

July 14, 2011 (Thursday)   525:1:54:12

More Marathon Music track conversions to QuickTime 2.0 on the Story forum:

Chomber
AliensAgain
Swirls
What About Bob?
Flowers In Heaven
Rapture
New Pacific (Reprise)
Guardians
Leela

But the Universe may come to an end making all the above obsolete. And I for one will be very glad. :-)

July 13, 2011 (Wednesday)   526:1:1:8

Craig Hardgrove <craig.hardgrove@stonybrook.edu> has released two more Marathon Music Remakes.
New Pacific and Freedom are now available for download at his site themarathonmusic.com.
This leaves only one remake left - Fat Man.

The process of converting the Marathon MIDI Music to AIFF format under QuickTime 2.0 continues.
Due to an issue of dropped instruments in the playback of some of the QuickTime version of the MIDI
tracks it has been necessary to use the non-QuickTime version played through Arnold's MIDI Player.
The music is played on a G4 (Digital Audio) and recorded on one of the latest iMacs. Tracks converted
so far are:

Flippant
Freedom
New Pacific
Fat Man
Rushing

Preserving Marathon... one file at a time.

July 12, 2011 (Tuesday)   527:3:38:52

The Marathon MIDI Music to AIFF under QuickTime 2.0 project. When the going gets tough... the tough get a cable. ;)

If you yearn for the original Marathon Music sound or are just curious to know what the Marathon MIDI
Music originally sounded like under QuickTime 2.0 (the version available when the game was released)
then you are in luck.

Here is a test comparison of the track Flippant (used on Defend THIS! and Neither High nor Low) recorded
under QuickTime 2.0 (released Feb '94) and QuickTime 2.5 (released July '96). Both are in AIFF format
which can be played by most audio software.

Judge the difference in the sound for yourself.

July 10, 2011 (Sunday)   529:0:01:10

The Marathon MIDI Music to AIFF under QuickTime 2.0 project. Tougher than you think...

It is quite clear now that to get the authentic Marathon Music sound you must play the music with
Quicktime 2.0 installed. But finding software that will convert the Marathon Music MIDIs to AIFF
with QuickTime 2.0 installed is proving very difficult.

If you want to help in the Marathon MIDI Music to AIFF under QuickTime 2.0 project drop by
the Story forum.

The authentic Marathon Music deserves to be heard by everyone.

July 8, 2011 (Friday)   531:11:23:57

To celebrate Bungie Day, Bob-B-Q <pwrofs7n@roadrunner.com> opened his shrinkwrapped copy of the
Marathon Trilogy Box Set. Now the MTBS is 14 years old so finding a copy still shrinkwrapped is not
easy. And as of yesterday there is now one less in the world. Fortunately he documented the whole experience
for all to see.

If you are yearning to see more of the Marathon Scrapbook from the MTBS you can see it here in PDF format.

If you want to see the Marathon Home Video that was hidden away in the Gnop folder then you can
see it on YouTube here or you can download it in H.264 format here. This will allow you to play the
video on your iOS mobile device. Another piece of Marathon history preserved for the future.

Remember Bungie's Disembodied Soul?   Well Duardo has resurrected the poor guy. You can see him here.
This version (Disembodied Soul simulator) was created by Matthew Smith (poena.dare) and Gholsbane
following the loss of Bungie's own soul many years ago. If you want to know the tru7h then ask the Soul.

Question: Matt Soell The soul says: Why does everyone ask about Matt. He's dead. I killed him.

Finally, those sevens just never go away... do they? ;-)

July 7, 2011 (Thursday)   532:14:19:59

Happy Bungie Day!

To celebrate their 20 years, Bungie are selling (today only) a special poster which they claim contains
"nearly every aspect of Bungie's culture, community, and kick ass games".

And if you like Blasts from the Past... here is the one they did 10 years ago. :-)

Marathon for the iPad is out. It's free but you can get a HD version through an in-app purchase.

First thing I noticed was that there is no Total Carnage difficulty level... only something called Nightmare. :-(

Oh and for the Spazeroids out there... you can buy a "Master Chief Mode" which gives you all weapons,
infinite ammo, instant recharge, invulnerability, instant save and ability to start any level.

If you have an iPad give it a go and report your experiences on the Story forum.

July 6, 2011 (Wednesday)   533:0:52:56

Tomorrow is Bungie Day and Bungie are celebrating their 20th anniversary. It's not exactly clear if Bungie
were actually establised on July 7, 1991 but they are nontheless using this date to mark the event.

Twenty years is a long time and Bungie have produced a wide range of games on numerous platforms
over this period. It is interesting to reflect on Bungie's Marathon period. From first release at the end
of Dec 1994 to the shipping of the Marathon Trilogy Box Set at the beginning of May 1997. A period
of only 28 months or 11.66667% of Bungie's 20 years. A relatively short period of time in the scheme
of things.

"The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long - and you have burned so very, very brightly... Marathon."

July 5, 2011 (Tuesday)   534:6:6:43

Concerning the original Marathon Songs posted yesterday, treellama <wolfy@treellama.org>
correctly points out that QuickTime 2.5 didn't come out until 1996. And that Quicktime 2.0
(released Feb 1994) would give the true original 1994 listening experience.

QuickTime 2.0 was in fact the first version to add support for music tracks in the form of MIDI data.
But it didn't come free which meant that many people didn't have it when the Marathon Demo was
released in Nov 1994. Without it you couldn't play the background music which lead some people to
go to extraordinary lengths to get the necessary files to play the music.

Realising that their game was turning people to the Dark Lord, Bungie eventually bundled QuickTime 2.0
on the Marathon CD and the Marathon 4L Demo CD. What happened to Kazem Edmond nobody knows. ;-)

Although finding QuickTime 2.0 was easy, getting conversion software to work with QT 2.0 installed is
proving challenging. Time to don those boxers once more...

On the Story forum, Craig Hardgrove <craig.hardgrove@stonybrook.edu> announces the release
of another Marathon Music remake. This time 'What About Bob?' gets the Hardgrove treatment.

Also on the Story forum, there has been some discussion about the Original Level Notes for Marathon 2
This has been added to the Discussion section. Your observations, views, theories are welcome.

July 4, 2011 (Monday)   535:7:54:45

Happy Pfhorth of July.

Marathon Music Sucks!... was a common complaint following the release of Quicktime 3.0 in March 1998.
The search for an acceptable solution for playing Marathon's MIDI files was a frequent endeavour in the years
that followed but without any satisfactory long term solution. A whole generation of Marathoner's have grown
up not knowing the original Marathon Music sound.

But what if... you could go back to 1995 and listen to that original sound and somehow capture it in
AIFF format, burn it to CD and bring it back to the future for everyone to hear.

But what if... you could go back even further, to say November 1994, before the release of Marathon
and listen to the original Marathon Songs by Alexander Seropian. Those same songs that mysteriously
appeared on the net around the time of the Marathon gamma leak. And what if you captured that sound
in AIFF format, burnt it to CD and brought it back to the future for everyone to hear.

But what if... you accidentally burnt Alex's Marathon Sounds folder (containing the original named
tracks before they were released) to CD and also brought that back to the future.

Great Scott!... if opened that could create a time paradox, the results of which could cause a
chain reaction that would unravel the very fabric of the space time continuum, and destroy the
entire Marathon universe! Granted, that's a worse case scenario. The destruction might in fact be
very localized, limited to merely the Story page.

You have been warned.

Original Marathon Songs in Apple Lossless format (iTunes ready with original 1994 cover artwork) (125MBs .zip)

Original Marathon Songs in AAC format 256 kbps (VBR) (iTunes ready with original 1994 cover artwork) (77MBs .zip)

Original Marathon Songs folder (Absolutely Do Not Open This... and definitely not iTunes ready) (original unopened .sit)

Happy listening.

July 3, 2011 (Sunday)   536:6:31:19

On the Story forum James Burke <james@doubleguitars.com> kindly formatted the original level
notes for Marathon 2 found in the Marathon Infinity source code. I have added these to the Story page
in a special section here. A permanent link can be found in the 'Facts and puzzling things about...'
section (see left frame). Observations, comments, and theories welcome.

Bob-B-Q <pwrofs7n@roadrunner.com> announced he will open his shrinkwrapped copy of the Marathon Trilogy
Box Set on Bungie Day (7th of the 7th). If you had the last ever shrinkwrapped copy of the MTBS would you open it?

July 2, 2011 (Saturday)   537:4:58:57

Marathon 2: Durandal's Gambit

GrimCleaver on the Story forum points out that bundled with the Marathon Infinity source code are
some notes on the Marathon 2 story. These notes include an early version of the terminal text and a
plot outline, which is similar to but not the same as the Marathon 2 Story Outline we got from
Matt Soell many years ago.

The process of making sense of these won't be easy due to formatting problems. However, Bob-B-Q
has already posted a list of the level names found in the notes. As you would expect a number of them
are quite amusing.

July 1, 2011 (Friday)   538:5:9:39

Quick update Marathon Infinity source code is now available. :-)

Bungie are selling two Marathon-related items as part of their 20th Anniversary celebrations.
A new Marathon poster (see below).

And what I would describe as a retro look piece by artist David Candland, though the
Bungie Store describes it as a piece 'stylized for our modern era'. Perhaps I am getting too old. ;-)

Both are limited edition runs of 100 prints each. So if you fancy one you better order it quick.

Remember the Scout is a Simulacrum parody? Yes, you probably still haven't fully recovered.
Well Bob-B-Q <pwrofs7n@roadrunner.com> on the Story forum points out that the creator
ManualMonaro, has another video which this time uses Marathon music, including an excellent
remake by Craig Hardgrove. The video is bizarre stuff... but then again maybe I am too old. ;-)

Last month in review.

Quite a number of important things happened last month. Bungie announced the forthcoming
release of the Marathon Infinity source code and Marathon for the iPad. They also released a
Bungie Mobile app for iOS and revealed what Bungie Aerospace was all about.

We solved the mystery of the Blake chapter screen thanks to Craig Mullins and Craig passed on a
new piece of Marathon artwork. We also uncovered an enormous version of 'VicOnARealBadDay',
so enormous (2500 x 2250) that you would need a serious piece of screen real estate to display
it in full size.

The truth behind the Spoiler Guide's missing secret on Eat It Vid Boi was revealed and
John Sumner showed us what was really on that secret terminal on Fatum Iustum Stultorum.

GrimCleaver kindly created high quality PDF versions of the Pathways Into Darkness and
Minotaur manuals. The third beta for the 1.0 release of Aleph One was released. And Craig
Hardgrove returned with his Marathon music remakes.

And we got a glimpse of Jason Jones' thoughts on the future of Marathon... 36 years from now.

Oh... and did Bob-B-Q ever open his shrinkwrapped copy of the Marathon Trilogy Box Set? ;-)