M|R ReadMe

Thank you for downloading Marathon|Rampancy alpha 1.5. It has taken a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get to this point. M|R is a realization of the dream of two hardcore Marathon fans who want others to experience the incredible gameplay that Marathon offered using an all new engine and look. When it's deemed ready, this mod will be announced to as many news sites as possible. In the meantime, we are enlisting the support of all Marathon vets to help us "break it in" by announcing it mainly to Mac sites. If you are new to Marathon, however, we welcome you to the fold. This gameplay style of this mod (and Marathon before it) is refreshingly unique and we hope you enjoy it.

This release is called an alpha because it is not feature complete yet and there are a lot of kinks that still need to be worked out. It is far from perfect. There are additional game types, features and weapons which we intend to include before this game goes into beta stages. It is, however, relatively stable and fun to play, so here it is.

We enjoy getting feedback, so please feel free to contact us about this mod. Nic "Rhyn" Munroe is the programmer, Greg "Gra" Reinmuth is the artist, and Kim "Leela" Nickelson is the website designer. We've set it up so that each AI handles an e-mail address for us, just in case you were wondering.

First make sure you have the latest version of UT installed. Then run the packaged UMOD. You should be able to select Rampancy as a category (see the picture below). Please read the "Noted Weirdness" section below, however, or you will be confused as to why it doesn't work.

Installation warning: In the latest versions (we found this on v436) of UT, the dialogue screws up when changing the category of game. You will know that it has screwed up if Auto Change Levels disappears.

Simply hit close and start the practice or multiplayer session again. Everything should work fine now. If you don't close and start the session again, it will default to a normal UT game. If this bothers you, replace the Rampancy.int file (found in your UT/System folder) with the "Alternate Rampancy.int" file. Rename this alternate file to "Rampancy.int" and replace the original Rampancy.int with the renamed one. This will put all the Rampancy gametypes in the Unreal Tournament category's Game Type menu.

Some maps such as CTF Lava Giant were built with Jump Boots and/or Translocator in mind, and the bots for some wacky reason don't realize that they can't use those. Therefore you'll occasionally find a bot running around in one spot. He thinks he can get somewhere he can't. Just give him some orders or send a rocket up his rear to get him headed in the right direction.

To fully enjoy the M|R experience, we heartily recommend FrogBlast: The Ventcore Project maps. Our mod and their maps go together like beer and pretzels.

We just put in browser tabs, so be sure to look for them.

There are three critical things that you should do if you plan on hosting a server:

1st: Given the way that M|R tabulates the score of Free For All, setting time limits is almost certainly a must. Otherwise a game between evenly matched opponents could go on for a long, long time.

2nd: Turn Weapon Stay off. This will help frame rates by reducing the number of weapons left behind by dead players.

3rd: Obvious, but easy to miss, make sure that this dialogue box is checked:

Otherwise, how can we come and SPNKR you?

This effort is one of many across multiple engines to bring Marathon to the masses. One of these projects for HalfLife shares our name. We apologize for any confusion this may have caused, as it is entirely our fault. (We picked our name before we knew about them. What can we say, great minds think alike?) Visit their website here.

This is a three person project. Rhyn brews the code, Gra brews the graphics, and Leela brews the website. Leela is a chick! A chick! So don't call her a guy by accident, or she will order a tactical nuke on your house. =)

If you want to find out more about Marathon|Rampancy, stop by our site. We welcome your opinion, so drop us a line or pop by the forums.

Alpha 1.5:
-Bot weapon handling AI improved significantly. Bots now close to a comfortable medium-close range since Marathon weapons are close range weapons and strafe around there shooting at the enemy. They're absolutely deadly with the SPNKR, often sandwiching a player between two rockets, and if a bot is too close to his enemy he'll shoot to the side and behind the opponent to prevent a suicide but still get the kill. <evil grin>
-Custom ammo boxes added.
-Low poly and easier to see pickup and hold weapons implemented.
-Flamethrower causes unfortunate victims to scream horribly as per Marathon.
-Dead bodies no longer block players.
-Recoiling is fixed. Players won't get stuck in the air with no forward/back momentum and no way to remedy the situation.
-No more "slope launching," as fun as it was. ;-)
-Slope hugging bug fixed.
-Weapon fire error fixed so that it's circular instead of square. This tightens up fire a little and makes it exactly equal to Marathon's theta error as far as we can tell.
-Player can't set weapon hand to center. This caused the SPNKR to completely obscure vision.
-Rocket lifespan increased so that it won't disappear on long maps such as CTF Face.
-Players no longer fire in random directions when pointing at something in the far distance.
-Deathmatch has been renamed Free For All as per Marathon.
-Jump pads don't shoot players straight up anymore causing you to bounce forever in one spot.
-Players can switch off the SPNKR during the first half of its reload now.
-Dual pistols has been added.
-New gametype: Stash!
-Dead players drop all their weapons.
-When dropped, empty weapons are refilled with one clip.
-Picked up assault rifles no longer refuse to fire grenades.
-Shotguns are no longer a default weapon.
-No more semi-see through pickup weapons.
-Flamethrower flame length increased.
-Unreal 1 invisibilities replaced with UT invisibilities.
-Picking up extra assault rifles gives players more grenade ammo.
-Bots run at the same speed no matter what their skill level is set.
-Incessant bot jumping-in-place significantly reduced.
-Bots are now able to shoot up/down at you with all the weapons
-Players no longer lose forward momentum before bouncing when jumping and falling a long distance.
-Multiplayer gamefinder tabs implemented.
-Traditional UT Assault added.
-Scoring system changed to reflect Marathon. Dying makes players lose a point no matter how the death occurred.
-Player acceleration reduced.
-In multiplayer games, clients HUDs show pending weapons like the host's HUD.
-In multiplayer games, client grenade arc is shown correctly.
-I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff, but this is the bulk of the changes/fixes.

Alpha 1.0:
-Initial release. Bugs and gameplay problems galore!