DELETION//NOISE v11
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//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////v11 REBOOT SEQUENCE: Will I come back this time?
12:00AM UESC TIME - I met a traveler from an antique land...
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I along with many, participated in the Marathon Server Slam over the weekend. I came out the other side. I fell hard for Marathon, and I wasn't alone it seems. If there was one thing the Marathon Server Slam did it was pique the interest of many in many different ways. We're all in the same pool but wanting to use it differently, and none of those ways are wrong. The same deep end. Yet the worry sinks in. More. Keep it going. Keep it up. It was announced this week that Highguard a game still in its infancy would be shutting down for good March 12. Weeks to live. Weeks. I'm not going to tread ground that others are far better equipped too. I will talk about Marathon and how worried I am that it won't survive long, even if they show me a roadmap seasons out.
When I think about Marathon I think about their Reveal Cinematic a lot. For me it perfectly captured the tone of what Marathon is. It gave context to an otherwise mysterious world. And it helped set the pace for how I would play the game over the weekend. Quite differently apparently than most, this also might have something to do with how many other games in the extraction space I play. And that's with consideration to games like GTFO, Deep Rock Galactic and the like. Yes, I believe fully those are extraction games even if their is not some PvP like element in them. You are still going in for resources or objectives and high tailing it out of there with whatever nasty is bearing down on you and your crew. And I do wish that maybe one day a PvE Marathon will be possible because aside from the other Shells out there the UESC is happy to take your latest hardware as quickly as the caterpillars can spin up a new body.
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The pace of this trailer is slow. Our narrator reads the entirety of Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley. We follow an Assassin's Shell through this short, they find a piece of media putting it to the back side of their neck to find out just what it contains. The soft piano of J.S. Bach: Concerto in D Minor, BWV 974: II. Adagio plays. They close their eyes taking a deep artificial breath in. A moment of peace, in an otherwise hostile world. That tranquility along with hostility begins to seesaw back and forth for the rest of the short. It's dynamic, brutal and sad. The world of Marathon is not your friend but maybe you can find small comforts, even friends in an otherwise hostile place and time. ???/////////PLACE AND TIME
THE TIME IS NOW :::::
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FILES CORRUPT
Video games are not in a good place. Things have gone way off. We are spinning out of control. Reading recently that 1/3 of the games industry has been laid off does not make one feel good. It makes one feel equally as confused when good games continue to be funded, made, find an audience — because there is always some one — and then the studio gets shut down anyway. A certain meme has become common ground with the gist being no matter what type of game you make whether its the most successful thing on earth or the biggest flop ever, you will be shut down by some creeps at the top who only care about the bottom line. Watching these major publishers chase after their own tail is infuriating to say the least. Which is why games like Marathon, which has been in development for some time now and not having the best development history has everyone's eyes glued to it. This is make or break for Bungie in peoples eyes. And if I was anyone at Bungie I would be worried as hell, that's not counting all the layoffs the company has already been through, through Marathons development. The other feeling Bungie must be experiencing though? They made a banger game and I would be even prouder for what we've accomplished and what's ahead. If there is ahead, to look forward to. It seems this is the coin that hangs in the air for every developer now.
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???CRESCENDO CRESCENDO CRESCENDO + ROOK UNIT + PIANISSIMO PIAN... /// FILE NOT FOUND ///
Much like Tau Ceti IV we are watching as companies devour themselves for infinite growth. Infinite profit. Infinite reach. They want you. They always want you. They need you. I stand on a beach some ancient buried vessel next to me, listening to the crescendo and pianissimo of waves playing over the colors in my mind. Is that Bach? These companies offer nothing. They don't show patience for beauty. They offer connection for profit. Marathon in a way is the biggest middle finger to it all whether it succeeds or fails. It's commenting on the very things eating us alive. The companies that vey for our attention promising riches beyond imagining. We want to explore these wonderous spaces but much like Tau Ceti IV video games feel more and more like haunted dead thing. People used to be here but now only ghost. Maybe that Shell you're chasing down isn't trying to kill you, just survive... like you.
I wish for Marathon to not only succeed but in today's games world, be given the chance to live. To not have investors and CEOs shudder at the slightest stench of empty coffers. They've already been paid anyways. They're making off like bandits every day, while we fight for scraps below them out of the reach, out of their orbit. We might as well be on a different world. I hear Tau Ceti IV is nice this time of year.
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/// IT WILL BE 2 TO 4 YEARS WAIT TIME/// WOULD YOU LIKE TO PROCEED Y/N???
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CANCLE///WIPE SHELL///v13 REBOOT PROGRAM///
CLEAN SLATE RUNNER
I enjoyed Marathon as it is. And while I'm sure some things have already been tweaked ahead of launch and after the Server Slam, I'm still looking forward to it. Sure, I could nit pick over this or that, but it feels like Marathon is going through enough of that already. Instead I wish for Marathon to be a game that finds a loving community that will play it for many years to come. I know I will be one of those Runners whether Marathon lives or dies. Here's hoping for one more run and another and another and another.
