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In a case of singularly unfortunate timing for online fans of Myth II: Soulblighter, the administrators of marius net have lost interest in the Myth multiplayer service just ten days after Bungie.net's closure.

Marius posted the following announcement yesterday:

It's time for a new hobby. Conner and I have been putting in countless hours supporting marius net for a number of months now, and it's time to move on to other things.

So, we've set up the server and web site to eliminate all support work. As a result, we will no longer be accepting new login requests. New users can sign on using the "guest" account, but will not be allowed to chat. They can, however host and join games and chat in game. We will also be turning off the game stats since that requires a lot of effort to maintain.

The server will remain on as long as we have a free pipe, and the rules still apply, but Conner and I have no desire to spend our time on this anymore.

In a post to the marius net Forum, Conner provides more detail about the limitations on new users:

...we will not be accepting any new registrations for marius net effective immediately. It was just too much work to maintain - and a few people were making that work even worse by submitting bogus/duplicate requests.

So, starting now, you can log in as guest. Yep. Just enter in guest as your username, any password you want for your password - and you'll be on marius net.

As a guest you will not be able to chat in the rooms and your screen name will show up as "Guest XXXX".

A new command .wankguest will make it so if you don't want guests in your game, they will not show up in the lists.

Also, because any data tracking system with random guests in the mix will be flawed any way you look at it, all game tracking has been turned off.

These changes had to be made because quite frankly marius net was simply eating up far too much time. It can now more or less run itself.

Fortunately, Bungie recently made the source code to Bungie.net available, leaving open the possibility that some enterprising fans could launch a new multiplayer service for Myth I and II. Such an effort would probably require less work to set up than marius net, since Marius and Conner did not have access to the source code when they painstakingly deciphered Bungie.net's multiplayer protocol.

For Myth II players who don't care to be indiscriminately "wanked" simply because they're not members of an old guard, GameRanger remains an option, and Scott Kevill's free online multiplayer gaming service is still accepting registrations.

IMG Review: Myth: The Total Codex

Myth: The Total Codex (add to watch list)

GameRanger (add to watch list)

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marius net: What comes around...

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