Myth II 1.8.1 Public Beta released by ProjectMagma.net

A single berserk reached us yesterday, after having come all the way over the mountains from the city of Willow, fourteen hundred miles away. He delivered to Alric a single package the size of a man's fist, wrapped in rags, and refuses to talk with anyone about events in the West.
par73
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Myth II 1.8.1 Public Beta released by ProjectMagma.net

Post by par73 »

http://www.projectmagma.net wrote:Magma News

Myth II 1.8.1 Public Beta
Project Magma is proud to announce that the official public beta of Myth II version 1.8.1 is now available.

Myth II 1.8.1 is an incremental update over Myth II 1.8, providing improved support for modern operating systems (e.g. HiDPI/Retina display support) and various bug fixes and improvements.

Download it here: http://tain.totalcodex.net/items/show/m ... ublic-beta

To see the detailed list of changes, consult the ReadMe here: Readme_1.8.1_beta.pdf

Everyone is encouraged to install the beta, and help test the next version of Myth II. We need your help to find any bugs, so that we can fix them before the final version.

Please post all bug reports regarding Myth II 1.8.1 in this thread.

09 Jun 2016 by Myrd

5. Changes in Version 1.8.1
5.1 Notable Changes
a) Ability to host games even when firewalled through a new metaserver proxy.
b) Player pings will now be shown in the multiplayer game lobby (toggled by typing “.ping”).
c) Support for Hi-DPI / Retina displays on Mac OS X and Windows.
d) On Mac OS X, an improved full-screen menu experience that doesn't switch resolutions.

5.2 Stability Improvements
a) Fixed several crash bugs that would happen when part of an explosion radius went past the east or
west edge of the map.
b) Fixed some buffer overflow bugs in the map actions code; Improved error message for running out
of MA params memory.
c) Fixed a crash bug in the plugin cache when the game is launched first with the Myth CD in, and later
with the CD removed.
d) Fixed a buffer overflow in dialog list lookahead code.
e) Fix some potential buffer overflows in network failure reason code.

5.3 Gameplay and Game UI Changes
a) When picking up additional charges from an artifact, do not destroy the remaining charges if not all
charges can be loaded into an existing inventory item. Instead, allow the artifact to retain the
remaining charges, and either be placed into the inventory (if there is room), or remain on the
ground otherwise.
b) Fixed "teleporting bottle/pus" bug - where a projectile may instantly teleport to ground level when it
collides with multiple monsters at the same time.
c) Fixed bouncing warlock fireball bug (mirror image of the detonating netgame ball bug which was
fixed in 1.8.0).
d) Permanent damage now affects health bar height proportionally to the original height. e.g. after
receiving 50% permanent damage, the health bar will be half as tall.
e) Made 'switch formations in place' properly keep the reference point when switching between
formations with different reference point locations.
f) Clicking on a projectile to pick it up while you have inventory open will now work as expected,
instead of giving a more order.
g) You can now band-deselect while holding alt / command.
h) Disabled tilde/deselect interaction with inventory and made the inventory menu hide immediately
after an item is chosen.
i) The UT dialog will no longer overlap the game time with interface transparency enabled.

5.4 User Interface Changes
a) Plugins that use the same internal tag ids for their maps as the base game will now display the
correct map name on the net pregame screen.
b) If you've shift-selected a non-visited coop level in the network game setup dialog, re-opening that
dialog without holding shift will no longer reset your selected level.
c) Prologue (journal) text will now correctly fade out with the rest of journal.
d) The mouse cursor will now be properly hidden during the cutscene after completing The Forge.
e) Fixed display of game prolog/epilog texts which are taller than 1536 pixels.
f) Fixed incorrect text wrapping in some mission objective lists.
g) When the game is already at minimum speed (1/4th) and the reduce speed button is pressed again,
pause the game.
h) Display the epilogue dialog even on maps with no next level (e.g. The Forge), allowing you to see
the stats and save the film.
i) The "Plugins" tab in netgame lobby can now be shown even for the host, if its position doesn't
overlap with the positions of the various buttons in the interface.
j) Added a new control option, "Right Click Through UI" to re-enable the old behavior that allowed right
clicks to affect things underneath dialogs and the control/status bar.
k) Increased the input priority of "system key combos" alt+tab, ctrl+g, cmd+f10, cmd+f11 so they can't
be accidentally handled by a lower priority system like the game UI.
l) Made the "Pause Game" configurable control actually work.
m) For "custom" scoring games, show the map's first objective (from the description string list) in the
game rules space on the status bar.

5.5 Metasever-related Changes
a) The default metaserver has now been changed to the GateofStormsNet metaserver plugin.
b) Myth will now remain connected to the metaserver while in game and continue to receive lobby chat.
After exiting a game, all the backchat will be visible.
c) When the metaserver connection is lost, a blue-bar notification will be shown in the game lobby and
the Restart and Rehost buttons will be greyed out.
d) The metaserver lobby chat will no longer freeze after 1023 lines of chat.
e) Increased the client's metaserver receive buffer to handle larger numbers of players.
f) Room banners will now correctly display the number of players in a room when above 99.
g) An in-game warning will now be shown when the metaserver connection has been lost.
h) Added a dimmed placeholder string "<guest>" in the metaserver password box, to make it clear that
leaving the password blank will result in logging in as a guest.
i) Added .clear command to the metaserver lobby - to clear old chat.
j) Fixed an issue where the metaserver lobby room graphic player/game count would not be updated if
the player/room list messages were received in an unexpected order.
k) Metaserver buddy/order list tabs and "buddy" button will now be hidden until (and unless) the
metaserver sends the buddy/order list packets.
l) The metaserver networking code will no longer use 100% of the CPU in certain cases (e.g. trying to
connect to an unreachable server.)
m) Added a new error message for failed metaserver guest logins, e.g. if someone tries to login as a
guest, but the name already exists.
n) Added a new metaserver room flag "user not allowed", which allows the metaserver to indicate that
a user is not allowed in a room - for example, to tell guests users some rooms are not available.
o) Fixed buddy/order lists not being immediately populated when re-logging into a metaserver. (Not
relevant to GoS since it doesn't support this.)
p) The metaserver host string (inside metaserver plugins) now supports a port number to be specified.

5.6 Miscellaneous Other Fixes and Improvements
a) A replay file can now be directly opened in Myth II – either through the command line or by double
clicking it (if Myth is not open or is on the main menu screen).
b) OpenAL now supports non-22050Hz sounds, which exist on some 3rd party maps.
c) (OpenGL) Fixed a bug where glDepthMask could get into an incorrect state in some situations,
causing bad sprite/mesh clipping.
d) New translation dialog string list (ditl:!trn) allows altering many previously hard-coded strings.
e) Error messages from failing to join a game (e.g. password doesn't match) will now use the text from
the user's tags (e.g. localized). Also fixes an issue with simply being unable to join passworded
games if local vs. remote strings don't match.
f) The "cutscenes" folder will now be created on startup.
g) When someone tries to use the .vets command as a client, print a message indicating that the
command only works when you are the game host.
h) Added a cross-platform screenshot sound (tagid '!scr'); removed "screenshot saved" text.
i) Support png and jpg formats for saving screenshots. Added [Screenshots] section to poweruser.txt
to configure several screenshot related settings.
j) Fixed saving of odd-width 16 bit .bmp screenshots.

5.7 Platform Specific Changes
Windows Specific Changes:
a) Added support for arbitrary scaling of the display (i.e. for HiDPI) for OpenGL, DX11, and Software.
This is controlled through window menu, which now supports specifying a scaling mode / DPI. This
setting is remembered in prefs.
b) Moved to POSIX network code, which fixed a hang in the net code with “Use Multicore”.
c) Permanently enabled "Use Multicore" and removed the option from the preferences screen.
d) Custom window sizes are now remembered within a game session.
e) Made window centering relative to the "work area" instead of the whole monitor.
f) When transitioning modes, only center the cursor in the game window (client area) if the cursor
would otherwise be outside of the game window.
g) Under DirectSound, made sounds audible even when the Myth window is not in focus.
h) Fixed some obscure issues in the windowing code, such as what happens when the window is
moved or resized while the cursor is grabbed, or what happens if the window switches from sizable
to fixed-size while the user is dragging the border.
i) Improved "render while resizing" code by: tightening synchronization with the render thread,
eliminating redundant resize messages, using WM_WINDOWPOSCHANGING instead of
WM_SIZING (avoids glitching with aero snap).

Mac OS X Specific Changes:
a) Support for HiDPI / Retina displays and resolutions.
b) Reworked resolution switching code. Now, if you want your menu UI to be fullscreen, Myth will not
switch resolution to 640x480 but instead keep your native resolution and scale the menu UI. The
"Switch resolutions" and "Windowed" checkboxes in the options dialog have been replaced with a
three-option drop down: "Windowed, "Fullscreen" and "Letterbox".
c) Myth will no longer show game resolutions not supported by your monitor in the list. However, you
can now specify a custom resolution using UI.GameWidth and UI.GameHeight options in
poweruser.txt.
d) Fixed positioning of the window when exiting from full screen on a Retina display Mac.
e) Fixed issue where black corners may appear after transitioning from the fullscreen game to
windowed menu UI on newer versions of OS X (e.g. on 10.11).
f) When using a higher-resolution interface (e.g. where the main menu is at 800x600), the journal
entry prologue and game epilogue will now be full screen rather than letter-boxed.
a) Made “[Renderer.OpenGL] UseAppleClientStorage” apply to most textures again.
b) When crashing, Myth will now copy the myth_log.txt file, rather than move it, so that its custom icon
remains on previous myth_log.txt file.

Linux Specific Changes:
a) Fixed a bug that caused the OpenGL context to be created without a depth buffer on the first run on
some configurations.
punkUser
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Re: Myth II 1.8.1 Public Beta released by ProjectMagma.net

Post by punkUser »

Yeah the big thing here IMHO is that with this client anyone can host games regardless of firewall situation. It's still better to not be fire-walled (and the game will now inform you if that is the case automatically when you host a game) as the host proxy adds latency, but it at least will work now for everyone, always.

I'll be writing up an FAQ about this in the near term but for now it just needs more testing and bug reports as it's a fairly significant new feature across both the client and metaserver. Note that for now all of the rooms (and thus the host proxies) are hosted on the US west coast so if you're in Europe playing with other European folks, expect that using the host proxy will add significant latency vs. direct connectivity.

It's possible to create region-specific rooms that will have lower latency host proxies for the various folks, but it'll be about $5/month per region and I'm not sure how necessary it is yet at this point. We'll see how things evolve and how many games end up using the host proxy fallback... note that it still should be considered a fallback and people should still port forward whenever possible for now.

Larger changes to Myth's networking code are possible in the future which could significant reduce the additional latency added by host proxying, but they are significantly more effort and testing as well, so it'll all depend on how things go with this implementation and the player base, etc. Hopefully at the very least this eliminates one of the main impediments to playing Myth multiplayer these days though, and checks off one of the last few remaining items on the original GoS long term TODO list :)

One final note: only the host needs to have 1.8.1 to be able to use the host proxy support - clients on 1.8.0 can still join host proxied games transparently. You can tell if a game is proxied by using ".games"; proxied games will be marked as such. Thus if you're someone who has issues hosting, or just want to test out the new stuff, definitely download the public beta and give it a try. Unlike past betas, this beta is fully compatible so that you can play with 1.8.0 folks since there are almost no gameplay-related changes.

More info to come in the upcoming FAQ about it.
Gekko
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Re: Myth II 1.8.1 Public Beta released by ProjectMagma.net

Post by Gekko »

Nice! I tried hosting today and it worked! Which is grreat!

I can't see how much time is remaining on on-going games now though
punkUser
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Re: Myth II 1.8.1 Public Beta released by ProjectMagma.net

Post by punkUser »

Gekko wrote: I can't see how much time is remaining on on-going games now though
Do you mean in the .games output or somewhere else? This is games hosted by other players where you used to be able to see it but now can't?
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BIG KROK V8 SS
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Re: Myth II 1.8.1 Public Beta released by ProjectMagma.net

Post by BIG KROK V8 SS »

Lots of good takeaways here like the permanent damage actually working, and inventory not defaulting to 0 when tilde is pressed.

Not sure what these new "band select" and what not consist of. Guess I'll have to play around with it.

I have noticed though, for me, Myth takes a decent while to load up these days. Maybe 20 seconds. Then once it is loaded, even if it is selected as running priority (and not in background) it takes maybe 10-15 seconds longer until the menu music plays and anything is clickable. Didn't know if it was just the amount of plugs and storage I have or if this is just normal?
Melekor
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Re: Myth II 1.8.1 Public Beta released by ProjectMagma.net

Post by Melekor »

Lord---Scary Owl wrote:5.3D is crap, gonna screw me up so badly
The health bar height? Can you elaborate more on what the problem is?
BIG KROK V8 SS wrote:I have noticed though, for me, Myth takes a decent while to load up these days.
Most common cause of long load times is if you have 1000s of films in your recordings folder. Myth reads the header out of every single film at startup.
Gekko
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Re: Myth II 1.8.1 Public Beta released by ProjectMagma.net

Post by Gekko »

As you said it... on other hosted games, after the gametype and map name, where the remaining time was to be seen, is now gone. Also the ping line, which mostly shows -- anyway, is not there.
punkUser
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Re: Myth II 1.8.1 Public Beta released by ProjectMagma.net

Post by punkUser »

Gekko wrote:As you said it... on other hosted games, after the gametype and map name, where the remaining time was to be seen, is now gone. Also the ping line, which mostly shows -- anyway, is not there.
Ok so it still shows up if you type ".games" but doesn't show up in the main UI? Will have to check with the other folks - not sure if that was an unintentional change or a bug or what.
Ratking
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Re: Myth II 1.8.1 Public Beta released by ProjectMagma.net

Post by Ratking »

Much thanks to the Dev team and testers!
Gekko
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Re: Myth II 1.8.1 Public Beta released by ProjectMagma.net

Post by Gekko »

yea, when typing .games it shows how long time the match has been running. Would be more handy if it stated how much time is remaining. Main UI doesn't show it.
punkUser
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Re: Myth II 1.8.1 Public Beta released by ProjectMagma.net

Post by punkUser »

It shows how much time it has been going mainly for coop stuff, since otherwise there is zero indication.

Not sure why the time remaining (guess) is missing but will note it for the project magma folks.
Gekko
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Re: Myth II 1.8.1 Public Beta released by ProjectMagma.net

Post by Gekko »

Cool.

Also, sometimes units lose their health status indicator... would be kind of interesting (and mb frustrating/stupid also) to not have them visible at all for enemy team or for either team for that matter. The suspense!
Lord---Scary Owl
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Re: Myth II 1.8.1 Public Beta released by ProjectMagma.net

Post by Lord---Scary Owl »

They lose their health indicator boxes when their health drops really low

Where it would be crimson indicator with almost no bar left, it just disappears
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