Dec 20, 2002

Olle Strandman <macuser@home.se> writes concerning the Stalker Death Dialog: You wake up weeks, perhaps months later, staring at the stars and wondering "Where the Hell's my roof?" and refers us to a page of Steven Wright jokes. At the bottom of the page you can read the following: The other night I was lying in bed, looking up at the stars, and I wondered, "Where the hell is my roof?"

Oct 10, 2002

Jeff Draney <ddraney@mac.com> writes concerning the Sentinel and the number seven: ...there are guys that sit in your way and make a force field. There are exactly seven of these guys in the game. Also, while it is impossible to be killed by one, in the resource fork, the string says "Seven men in trench coats jump out from the shadows and drag you away. You are never heard from again."

Sept 24, 2002

Graham Cull <darth_giles@yahoo.com> writes concerning the Wraiths on "A Plague of Demons" Interesting note on the Wraiths. There is a way to see them in their native color. If I remember right, if you push M to call up the map. IIRC, the red tint from the goggles will vanish, and any bits of Wraith will appear. BTW, they're grey. Thanks to poena.dare #CP# <mstroy@mlcsmith.removethis.com> on the Story Forum you can now see a picture of the PID floppy disks... all three of them. And as everyone knows Marathon originally came on 4 floppy disks. 3 + 4 = 7. ;-)

May 16, 2002

Thomas Resnick <tommyr@darkforces.com> writes: Petrified Banshees As the subject points out, I was dealing with the Black Crystal's powers (I love that thing). After reading about it on the site, you pointed out that Nightmares don't fall when petrified, and you can walk through them. I thought I'd further the mystery of what exactly the Black Crystal does: When I entered the third wave of "OK, Who Else Wants Some?", I loaded up the Black Crystal and started dischargin' away. Yes, you can petrify Banshees / Phantasms / etc. However, when you put on the Infrared Goggles, YOU STILL CAN'T SEE 'EM! Ha! (*See attached JPEG*) Same with the Wraiths - You can see them petrified with goggles on, but not without them on! WEIRD!!! I might try some other things soon...

Apr 27, 2002

Alfred Mordeir <Sonofhydra@aol.com> made this interesting observation on the Story forum: Has Max Payne been to the "PID" Pyrimid? Posted By: Alfred Mordeir <Sonofhydra@aol.com> Date: 4/26/02 11:51 p.m. Something that just came to me a couple minutes ago. I don't know if anyone else has made this same connection, but here it goes. Max Payne was a revolutionary game for its use of "Bullet Time" In which you slow down the action of the game for some wicked gun play. But anyway I just realized that this concept isn't completely new. We all remember the vials of red liquid we found in "Pathways into Darkness" which had a similar effect. Now I'm not exactly sure whether the player maintained normal speed, or if he slowed down too. But never the less, it is interesting to note bvungies previous pioneering efforts. You can see the original thread and discussion here. Thomas Resnick <tommyr@darkforces.com> writes: I was just playing PiD, and on "Happy Happy, Carnage Carnage," I got a funny message. I was scrolling through my inventory and noticed that I had an empty pistol I didn't need. I tried to drop it, and I got a message that went something like, "Sorry, you can't drop any more weapons on this level (So much for "Virtual Reality," huh?)." Nothing strange about this right? The warning dialog has been discussed on The Red Velvet Bag section. You get it if you try to drop too many items on a level. However Thomas explains further: You asked "Did you drop many items before you got this error message?" The answer is: no. I'd just gotten past "See In The Dark," and had just stepped off the crystal ladder down when I spotted the empty P4. Very odd indeed. There's a rare boxed copy of PID on eBay currently at US $9.00. Auction ends soon so someone might snap up this bargain. Best be quick though. Past PID items have fetch quite high prices. See below: Item   Description   Auction End Date   # Bids   Opening Bid Price Closing Bid Price PID Disks + Manual only 02 Apr 02 11 US $4.95 US $37.00 PID + Hintbook Disks + manuals + box 10 Feb 02 7 US $3.00 US $19.25

Apr 24, 2002

Colin Brent, former Bungie artist, returned to the Story forum to post a very interesting piece on his work on Marathon and PID. I've reprinted the full post below: Pathways and Marathon Trivia Posted By: Colin Brent <csbrent@hotmail.com> Date: 4/24/02 10:00 a.m. In Response To: Re: Drawing Skillz and bungie history (Hamish Sinclair) In the inital Marathon, Jason had been knocking around a couple of different ideas about having a space oriented adventure. I'm the one who came up with the idea for using Deimos ("Panic"), the smaller of Mars' two moons as a ship. In fact, I had pushed hard to get Marathon renamed Deimos, but Alex had just finished his first marathon race and was very gungho about keeping the name. I had also plotted out a sequence of events that would take you to the surface of Mars and then to the other moon Phobos in a sequel game. You were suppose to start off coming out of a deep freeze, naked, unarmed and clueless to try to deal with the problems on the ship. A lot of the elements that I contributed, such as the artwork, were in the Beta version that got scrapped. I had moved to Boston around this time (wife and grad school) and was mailing diskettes of artwork and storyline back to Chicago every couple of weeks. This eventually became untenable for Jason and Alex who decided that they needed to act like a real business by hiring real full time employees. After the semi-failure of the Mac convention they decided to bring in an in-house artist with a very different drawing style than mine. That particular Manga style was really coming into vogue then. And as I mentioned earlier, my aliens were looking a bit too alien (cross between an ugly bird and a predatory bug) for Jason and Alex. If I remember right, they eventually had to fire Reg and bar him from the office. Something about drugs and/or stealing. I'm not sure exactly what, but the relationship soured. Now, about the artwork I did in PID. First, you will note that there are a number of floating things in the depths. They almost all use missile attacks. We found that because of the limited number of animation frames that we could run with the engine Jason had worked up, it was very difficult to get realistic walking movement. Pretty much the same thing with attacks. We couldn't just have something claw or bite you. For animation sake, it had to throw something at you. This was solved with the new engine for Marathon, but for PID we ended up designing a lot of floating monsters. I would usually just start by throwing down a few random lines on paper and then seeing what I could make of them. Then I'd go through several incarnations of a critter until I was happy. Inspiration came from several sources. I played a lot of D&D, read a lot of scifi and comics, looked at the work of numerous artists. But mostly, I just have an overactive imagination. Jason would give me some input, but was generally supportive of whatever I came up with. Alex was very hands off in this process. He handled the business end of things more than anything else (you wouldn't believe how hard it was to get people to distribute Bungie's games originally), but he did make an inspirational chili. By the way, when we were working on Marathon, I figured Bungie wouldn't last that long (boy was I wrong and my bank account shows it), and Jason had also thought about doing something else with his life. I don't think he fully committed to a career in making games until Marathon was a hit. He is also responsible for the whacky convoluted story in PID. I desperatley tried to get him to change things around so that it would be more intelligible, but he had this idea fixed in his head. So rather than waste my time, I just stuck to the artwork. And I am not responsible for the cover artwork. A painter was commissioned to do that based on a drawing I had come up with. We were all pretty upset with the end result, but Alex was out of money and time so we had to go with what we were handed. Hope you enjoyed my trip down memory lane.

Apr 23, 2002

Colin Brent, former Bungie artist who worked on Pathways Into Darkness and the early version of Marathon, dropped into the Story forum to pass on some words of wisdom about being an artist and also some insights into his early work on Marathon. I've reposted the full post below: Re: Drawing Skillz and bungie history Posted By: Colin Brent <csbrent@hotmail.com> Date: 4/23/02 1:42 p.m. In Response To: Drawing Skillz (Johannes Gunnar) I did the art work for Bungie's first biggish hit Pathways before deciding to go off and get a Ph.D. My artwork at the onset wasn't great but got progressively better with each successive series of animation frames I drew (and redrew). I spent a lot of my time getting people to pose for me, looking at how animals moved (being a biologist with access to numerous species helped), and trying lots of different combinations of features before deciding on a finished product. Be prepared to go through a lot of paper, and try to think like an artist all the time, studying the world around you for ideas. Also, steal liberally from other artists. They have all done the same. By the way, for anyone interested and who read the Bungie history recently posted, here's a slight addendum. I did the original artwork for the aliens that appeared in the beta version of Marathon (and mine were MUCH more alien looking- actually criticized by Alex and Jason as being too alien). But because it had a certain sameness about it (similar artistic style), everyone just thought of it as a sequel to Pathways. So a new artist was brought in to give it a new flavor. They also scrapped my idea of having the whole thing occur in a spherical ship with interlocking layers, thinking that might be to challenging for the more linear minded players. Cheers. p.s. By the way, I am quite amazed that anyone is actually interested in this stuff still, but more power to you.

Mar 29, 2002

On the subject the Colt .45 Darksbane <darksbane@paxnimbus.com> posted the following to the Story forum. I've reprinted it here: The Colt .45 in PID Posted By: Darksbane <darksbane@paxnimbus.com> Date: 3/28/02 10:57 p.m. Hey, I noticed that you said the Colt .45 was phased out in 1984. Well, that may have been officially true, but when I recall a conversation I had with my cousin, assigned to a tank unit during the Persian Gulf. We were shooting around with a fancy little semi-automatic with a laser sight that he had bought recently. I asked, "So, did you use something like this in the gulf?" "Heck no," he replied; "we only wished for them. We were using WWI issue Colt .45's, and lucky to have them." So, regardless what the official word was, those ancient colts were still in use in Desert Storm, the war which the US loves to praise as the triumph of superior technology, a date not that far from pathways. Darks Similarly Arsonperbuilding <arsonperbuilding@twgclan.org> writes: Re: The Colt .45 in PID Posted By: Arsonperbuilding <arsonperbuilding@twgclan.org> Date: 3/28/02 11:07 p.m. In Response To: The Colt .45 in PID (Darksbane) The PID page states that the Colt .45 was phased out of *standard* issue in 1984. My opinion is that Special Ops would have access to whatever choice of sidearm they perfer for the job at hand...here requiring some serious firepower for serious baddies. Think in the Fall of Reach, when the Spartans have their choice of weapons for the job, similar situation here. Interesting to note that Ed, Sean, Jason and Greg were also carrying discontinued Colt .45s.

Mar 28, 2002

Jamie White <jamie@avalon.pascal-central.com> writes concerning that elusive Colt .45 ammo: I don't think this has been mentioned before, but the colt pistol (.45) that you can't use in Pathways Into Darkness has a seven bullet magazine clip. Coincidence? Or Bungie hiding yet more of the tru7h from us? check http://www.marauder.org/weapons.htm But it doesn't end there. Here's the info on the Colt .45 Pistol from the above site: Colt .45 - Model 1911 Semiautomatic Caliber: .45 (11.4mm) Magazine load: 7 round magazine Velocity: 830fps (253mps) Effective Range:32yds (30m) Weight: 2.43pds (1.1kg) Length: 8.62in (21.9cm) Invented by: John M. Browning First produced: 1911 The Colt .45, was regarded as a weapon of last resort, ideal for close hand to hand type of fighting. Although this weapon was standard issue for officers and squad leaders, many found their way into the hands of front line soldiers. It remained the standard issued sidearm for U.S. forces until it was replaced in 1984 Replaced in 1984? And you and the rest of your Special Forces team were sent to the pyramid in 1994!

Mar 17, 2002

Pathways Into Darkness T-shirt? Aye. Wrock <wrock@madrigalcc.net> writes: Well, when I bought my copy of PID, there was this neat little sticker on the box saying there was a T-shirt inside. When I opened it, sure enough there was a nice white (size-large) shirt with the picture from the box on the front, and a ComputerCity logo on the back. You can see a picture of it here. Based on the Bungie logo used on this shirt this is probably the first ever Bungie produced T-shirt. A collector's item if ever there was one. :-)

Mar 9, 2002

The Official Hint Book: Raw and Uncensored! by Matt Soell. Matt kindly sent in the text of the main changes made to the Hint Book before the final version. Find out about: Expectorus Decapitus, what happens when you snort Zombie dust, Sequel Justification, Jason's home phone number, what Bungie really get off on, Greed, Malice, and Deceit. See the new Official Hint Book: Raw and Uncensored! section. Thanks to Matt Soell.

Feb 6, 2002

I know a number of people have been looking for this so it's worth pointing out that there is an auction on eBay for a boxed copy of Pathways Into Darkness which includes... the very rare Official Hint Guide. A little piece PID memorabilia for you.

Feb 2, 2002

Following up on yesterday's comment from Max "Yeroen" Hoberman <max@bungie.com> that the whole point of Bungie's Seventh Column is to promote LAN play Andrew Nagy rightly pointed out that Oni didn't have LAN play yet it had a Chapter Theme. Max provided this defence: Oni featured our groundbreaking Wait Your Turn multiplayer technology. Double standards then at Bungie? In an obvious attempt to avoid the tru7h Bungie now have a poll asking you Which theme would you like to see next? on their site. Pathways Into Darkness is presently getting hammered by the Halo crowd. So Bungie are off the hook (i.e. no PID theme) unless you make it #1 in the poll. Aye that's democracy for you.

Feb 1, 2002

Well it's official Bungie will NOT be developing a Pathways Into Darkness LAN patch. So there will NOT be a PID Chapter Theme for their Seventh Column site. Sad but true! Max "Yeroen" Hoberman <max@bungie.com> in a Story forum post passed on the bad news. But he went to say that he has an "Internet playable version of Minotaur".

Jan 31, 2002

Mentioned on the Story forum earlier today: No Pathways Into Darkness Chapter Theme for Bungie's Seventh Column site?!!! That's right folks Bungie snubs PID. Air your displeasure by writing to <7thcol@bungie.com> and ask Yeroen and the Candyman to make this wrong right.

Jan 29, 2002

Inspiration or... ? Raul "REB" Bonilla <biomeca@hotmail.com> received an interesting communication the other day about a 1982 arcade game called "Lost Tomb". Here's part of the description he posted to the Story forum: The shot is nighttime, in a jungle. From twinkling stars, a parachutist lands atop an ancient South American pyramid. "You have just landed on a pyramid in the darkest Amazon....lock & load, mate." The above is from a 1982 arcade game called "Lost Tomb," which was developed and distributed by Stern, You can find out more info about this early game including a pic of the cabinet marquee on the Story forum here. All strangely familiar to you... as if it were from an old dream, but you can't exactly remember...

Jan 28, 2002

"It's 1942... An alien creature has crash landed on Earth. If the Allies don't find it, the Germans will!" Sound familiar? Well the text is taken from the cover of a book called "The Alien Factor" by Stan "Mr Marvel Comics" Lee. It was published in 2001. You can find out more about this book on Amazon.com here. Granted the story is not PID but the idea of Germans during World War II looking for an alien creature which has crash landed on Earth is somewhat similar to Muller's mission in the Yucatan Peninsula. Muller had a lot of information about the pyramid and its contents before he arrived. Even the fact that it contained alien artifacts. Javier remarked on "Where Only Fools Dare Tread": The German's notes said that the only way to open the exit at the base of the pyramid was with an alien gemstone. So where did all this info come from?

Jan 21, 2002

Well Mark Levin was quick to spot on the Story forum that yesterday's little logic puzzle was first posed by Dave Mayer back in Feb '94 (some 8 years ago). Compare the solution given back then with the ones given today. See The Sentinel for details.

Jan 20, 2002

On Watch Your Step we find Greg, the last of your Special Forces team and the guy with the bomb, dead behind a Sentinel's forcefield. Greg has no Green Crystal. So how did he get past the Sentinel? A case of VR beer for the person with the most logical answer and extra kudos on the side for the person who finds out who originally posed this little logic puzzle.

Jan 19, 2002

Two versions of the end animation are now available for download in .mov format thanks to Raul "REB" Bonilla <biomeca@hotmail.com>: Pathways Into Darkness end animation movie 256x136 (301K .mov format) Pathways Into Darkness end animation movie 512x272 (1843K .mov format) Thanks to Jacke <jacob_aberg@excite.com> on the Story Forum we now have two working links to the Pathways Into Darkness demo vA1 and v2.0. The first is from David Coufal's Pathways Into Darkness Home Page the second is from Bungie's Support page. Here are the direct links: Demo vA1 Demo v2.0

Jan 18, 2002

Doug Zartman reveals the tru7h behind The Stalker... or something. See The Stalker section for details. Activated two new pages: Alan Earhart's PID Maps Colin Law's Pathways Guide v1.1 For historical PID buffs only.

Jan 17, 2002

Why it's always good to say "probably". Back in Oct 20, 2000 Graham Cull and mizark316 found a secret area in the Pathways Into Darkness demo v2.0. At the time I wrote: Hard to believe but this is probably the first time that this secret has actually been documented Not so. The secret was in fact discovered (with a little help from Alain Roy) shortly after the release of the demo in April 1994. Find out more on Demo v2.0 section.

Jan 16, 2002

Left or right-handed? Now you can choose... on the fly. See the Undocumented Features section for details.

Jan 15, 2002

Wung Chien Kai <kunichiwa77@hotmail.com> writes: More on the weapons. 1st, another possible error. The picture of the M-16 clip depicts an AK-47 curved clip. I believe the M-16 uses a straight clip. In addition, since neither the M16 or the Colt 45 are never usable weapons in the entire game, is the 'weapon skill' listing for them purely cosmetic? Or is there some way (cheat) to get those weapons into play and operational? In the absence of a Weapons page it is worth noting that back in Aug 13, 2001 John "Doombat" Rychlik <iamtheone89@go.com> wrote: I was poking my nose around in the Pathways resource and found that in the description of an M16 magazine, it states that it is 7.62mm. Of course, everyone knows that the M16 is 5.56mm! Staying on the subject of weapons it also worth noting this comp.sys.mac.games post dating from Oct 1994: Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.games From: qsh@osuunx.ucc.okstate.edu (Quanah S. Harjo) Subject: PID Weapons Message-ID: <CxqEz6.4L9@osuunx.ucc.okstate.edu> Keywords: PID Organization: Oklahoma State University, Stillwater OK Date: Sat, 15 Oct 1994 20:45:06 GMT Lines: 16 The question about PID grenades made me think of another question: Why are the weapons that the special forces troops sent in with so outdated? Has there ever been an explanation of this? The M-79 Grenade launcher is an example of this. When Bungie made the game, the M-79 wasn't standard issue anymore, the M-203 launcher/M-16 combo was standard. THe main character is carrying a .45. The standard issue is a 9mm Beretta, although I guess special forces could carry whatever sidearm they considered better. And the M-16s all seem to have bent barrels, a problem with older M-16s but one that was (supposedly) cleared up in the M-16A2. Is there a reason, or was it just done for dramatic purpose? | /\|/\ Exquad Fett | It Flies It Dies | | --$-- Flight Leader | Loyalty Beyond All | | \/|\/ Merc Squadron | Where's my Check? | Quanah S. Harjo--qsh@osuunx.ucc.okstate.edu So why were the Americans running around with old weapons?

Jan 14, 2002

Thanks to Raul Bonilla <biomeca@hotmail.com> we now have a movie (.mpg with sound 2710K) of the end animation.

Jan 13, 2002

Added Pou Lee's Superdude Saved Game Files for both the demo and full game. Just two pieces of PID nostalgia from August 1993... the month Pathways Into Darkness was released. These are BinHexed files if you don't know how to extract these drop a note into the Story forum requesting help.

Jan 12, 2002

Dave Loffredo <loffredo@steptools.com> writes: On your PID "What's in a Name" page, regarding the level named "Feel the Power" ... I've always thought it was a pretty clear reference to the movie "The Dark Crystal". At one point, one of the Skeksis says "Now gelfling, you will feel the power of the Dark Crystal!" Perhaps this refers to the crystal ladder, or just to your weapon crystals. Wung Chien Kai <kunichiwa77@hotmail.com> writes: concerning the MP-41 submachinegun. The manual states that the German expedition was in the 30s. the MP-41, as its name indicates, was issued in 1941. So what's going on? Aye. The weapons issue has been raised a number of times in the past. So apologies to all those who have been waiting for the Weapons section on the PID page. It'll go up... soon. Back in April 2001 Allen Thomas <BillyBob3d@aol.com> also wrote: I believe I found a small inaccuracy in PiD. While one of the dead Germans (I can't remember which) said that it was 1938 when they entered the pyramid, they were carrying MP-41's which were machine pistols accepted in the German military in 1941. It's right there in the name. Quite handy, yes? According to Friedrich on "Happy Happy, Carnage Carnage" the Germans arrived in Mexico in 1938. While we don't know exactly when they entered the pyramid it's unlikely given their mission that they hung around Mexico for a few years. So how did they get hold of MP-41s? We might even asked the same question about the Walther P4s they carried. Added a long forgotten submission to The Cuban Conundrum page. Yup more evidence that something isn't quite right with those Cubans. ;-)

Jan 11, 2002

Raul Bonilla <biomeca@hotmail.com> writes concerning the ending animation: I recently re-played PID for the first time after years and noticed that in 9.2.2 and Quicktime 5.0.2 the end animation displays correctly (on former versions of Mac OS/QuickTime the game freezes before displaying the animation - at least on my machine.) I recorded the animation with snapz pro and turned it into an animated gif. I know you already got an animation of the pyramid exploding, but it's not exaclty the same as the one seen at the end of the game and it's not at the end of the walkthrough. Is there a reason for this? Reason? You want reasons on the Pathways Into Darkness page? ;-) You can see Raul's animated gifs of the PID ending animation here: 512 x 272 - actual size (513K) Warning may take some time to load. 256 x 136 - half size (111K) Warning may take some time to load. Now where did I put that opening movie of the large extra-terrestrial object striking the Earth? Hmmm...

Jan 10, 2002

Calandra "Callie21V" Witter <callie21v@hotmail.com> writes concerning the original level name of "Need a Light": The original title for "Need a Light?" seems to be - Need a Light?Slices! It Dices! It Slices! ...which constitutes an apt description of the Big Blue Meanie. Like "But Wait!- That's Not All!," this phrase is most often heard in infomercials. Perhaps it was replaced due to the similarity. The strange part is that the much more common variant is "It slices! It dices!" But then, Bungie always did have a hang-up when it comes to quoting obscure languages. :)

Jan 8, 2002

What's wrong with being called Cuban? Some may find this a moot point but back in 1993 Jason Jones did confirm that the third group of dead people in the pyramid were Cubans. In the game we have Germans, Americans and... a Spanish speaking group. When you step over their bodies you are simply told "You see a dead person". But were they Cuban? See The Cuban Conundrum for more details surrounding this apparent mystery.

Jan 5, 2002

Blast from the past! Below is an interesting post from Jason Jones regarding his (early) views on game saving. As you know in Pathways Into Darkness and in the Marathon series it is only possible to save at certain spots on any given level. Not everyone was happy with this method but in a comp.sys.mac.games post dating from 1993 Jason defends the method. Worth a read for this early insight into Bungie gaming. Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.games From: jon3@quads.uchicago.edu (Jason Jones) Subject: Re: PiD gripes Message-ID: <1993Sep3.193614.22907@midway.uchicago.edu> Sender: news@uchinews.uchicago.edu (News System) Reply-To: jon3@midway.uchicago.edu Organization: University of Chicago References: <265aan$6qh@phakt.usc.edu> Date: Fri, 3 Sep 1993 19:36:14 GMT Lines: 41 In article <265aan$6qh@phakt.usc.edu> edju@phakt.usc.edu (Chilvarous and Confused) writes: >root@spss.com (SuperUser) wrote: > >> So, where exactly is the challenge in this? Any moron could make it through the >> game by just fighting a monster over and over again, with no real fear of dying. >> Because he can always easily fight the monster again. Where is the fear of >> death with such a game? > > According to your line of reasoning, there should be NO option to save >the game at all! I'm interested in feedback on this, but here are the reasons Bungie changed the saved game system for Pathways between the demo and the release version: It is too easy to save in the demo. Nobody thinks about saving-- they just do it. If you could save like this in the release version, it would be too easy to brick yourself in a corner: "Uh, I don't know why I saved with 0.2 vitality with that bone four inches from my nose." (trust me, it's been done). Or even worse, "Yea, sure I saved after I drank that Red Potion-- but it didn't seem to do anything, what do you mean I need it?!" The save dialog forces people to THINK about what they are doing, and better yet it easily supports (and even encourages) players to keep multiple saved games around without having to resort to the Finder. The save runes (as someone previously said) allow an additional level of difficulty to be added to the game, but more importantly they make dying mean something in the release version. In the demo, dying was meaningless: if you died, you just reverted to the game you had saved a few minutes (or seconds) previously. In the release version, dying sets you back. So you don't want to die. IMHO, this makes game is more exciting when you're in a dangerous situation. jason.