History Trivia / MarathonExpandedUniverse

** D. Scott Phoenix (credited as D. Scott Brown in the credits to ''Rubicon'' and ''Rubicon X'') has been... [[https://dscottphoenix.com quite busy]] since finishing ''Rubicon X'', to say the least.

* HeAlsoDid: ''Tempus Irae''[='=]s Courtney Evans (head writer and designer of "You Got Me in a Vendetta Kinda Mood", "...evil so singularly personified...", and "I Haven't Killed Anyone Since 1485") and Frank Rooke (designer of "Polygonum opus", "Towel Boy", and "You Gotta Sin to Get Saved") were hired by Creator/MonolithProductions, which (at least in Courtney's case) was partly due to the strength of their work on ''Tempus''. One or both of them are credited on ''VideoGame/AliensVsPredator2'', ''VideoGame/Tron20'', ''VideoGame/TheMatrixOnline'', the sequels to ''VideoGame/{{FEAR}}'', ''VideoGame/CondemnedCriminalOrigins'', ''VideoGame/Condemned2Bloodshot'', ''VideoGame/WatchmenTheEndIsNigh'', ''VideoGame/MiddleEarthShadowOfMordor'', and more.

* DoingItForTheArt: Since most of these mods contain Creator/{{Bungie}} artwork and other assets, they can't be sold; thus, the primary motivation of their creators is likely nothing more than the desire to create video games. Beyond AttentionDeficitCreatorDisorder and their creators' other commitments, this also seems to be the primary reason many projects' release dates have to be taken with a grain of salt: the creators often appear to be uncompromising perfectionists. (Perhaps tellingly, ''Phoenix'' 1.4 was released some twelve years after version 1.0, and a 1.5 version is under development; and, as of 2022, ''Eternal'' 1.3 is under development roughly eighteen years after ''its'' first release.)

* CreatorBreakdown: One of the reasons that ''Eternal'' 1.2 was delayed a few months past its original planned release date is that one of its developers suffered one of these in early 2019, which also meant that several planned features were ultimately held for future updates. ''Eternal'' 1.2.1 was released in November 2021; at the moment, the creators are hoping to release it in 2024 (however, it has suffered several {{Schedule Slip}}s, primarily due to repeated expansions in feature scope and the creators' AttentionDeficitCreatorDisorder). Further releases of the game beyond 1.3 have not been ruled out, though it is highly unlikely that they will expand the game as much as 1.2 and 1.3 each did.

* CreatorBreakdown: One of the reasons that ''Eternal'' 1.2 was delayed a few months past its original planned release date is that one of its developers suffered one of these in early 2019, which also meant that several planned features were ultimately held for future updates. ''Eternal'' 1.2.1 was released in November 2021; the creators hope to release 1.3 in 2022 (however, it has suffered several {{Schedule Slip}}s, primarily due to repeated expansions in feature scope). Further releases of the game beyond 1.3 are still tentatively planned.

** "Wiping Away the Dirt & Glue" was known as "Sistine Chapel"

** There's also a [[spoiler:secret invincibility and 3x]] on the level "Lost Behind the Stars" that seems to be there entirely for this reason. It ''is'' possible to get them with a well-executed grenade jump or rocket jump, though (the [[spoiler:secret nailgun]] is placed on the level seemingly to encourage players to jump up to [[a location from which they are visible]]). Be warned, though; there's a trap hole in version 1.0. (Version 1.1 fixes this.)

** There's also a [[spoiler:secret invincibility and 3x]] on the level "Lost Behind the Stars" that seems to be there entirely for this reason. It ''is'' possible to get with a well-executed grenade jump, though (the [[spoiler:secret nailgun]] is placed on the level seemingly to encourage players to jump up there). Be warned, though; there's currently a trap hole (at least until the next release).

* DoingItForTheArt: Since most of these mods contain Creator/{{Bungie}} artwork and other assets, they can't be sold; thus, the primary motivation of their creators is likely nothing more than the desire to create video games. Beyond AttentionDeficitCreatorDisorder and their creators' other commitments, this also seems to be the primary reason many projects' release dates have to be taken with a grain of salt: the creators often appear to be uncompromising perfectionists. (Perhaps tellingly, ''Phoenix'' 1.4 was released some twelve years after version 1.0; and, as of 2022, ''Eternal'' 1.3 is under development roughly eighteen years after ''its'' first release.)

** ''Eternal''[='=]s director had [[http://pfhorums.com/viewtopic.php?p=186913#p186913 quite a few things he'd have done differently in hindsight]]. The forthcoming 1.3 version is planned to implement a few of these ideas (and more may be included in a subsequent - and probably final - 1.4 release), but several others would require a complete redesign of the game from the ground up. Ultimately, ''Eternal'' could still be considered part of a loose trilogy with ''Phoenix'' and ''Rubicon'' as parts two and three (''Kindred Spirits'' actually links the latter two, though it's only four levels long). However, this still leaves several major plot branches unresolved, potentially to be explored in future games. (One of the main developers of the current 1.2 release is in fact working on a game that plans to do this entitled ''Marathon Chronicles''; info can be found on [[http://pfhorums.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=53553 the Pfhorums]] or [[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoysJW6pXQ6k1ExcIEZMIOWc9wfgIkYmL&disable_polymer=true YouTube]]. It is available as a currently roughly half-finished game, although very little of the planned story is yet implemented in the game itself.)
** A less substantial case for ''Eternal'' is that version 1.2 was initially planned to incorporate rain, snow, and various other effects on some levels, but this lagged some older machines. The engine didn't provide a practical way to make these effects optional at the time of release, so they were instead released separately as a "precipitation branch". Old releases of this branch can be found [[https://github.com/ravenshining/Eternal/raw/precipitation/Eternal-Maps-wPrecip.sceA on Github]] or [[http://simplici7y.com/items/precipitation-for-eternal-1-2-0 on Simplici7y]] (despite the URL, the latter is an old beta of what ultimately became 1.2.1, but the official release of 1.2.1 in 2021 ultimately omitted precipitation as well). The "ephemera" data type added to Aleph One 1.4 provided a more practical way to make precipitation optional, and ''Eternal'' 1.3 [[http://eternal.bungie.org/development will include it]].
** At one point, the creators of ''Eternal'' and ''Rubicon'' considered merging their projects. In a way, it's probably good that they didn't, though, because it's unlikely the combined result would've been longer (or better) than either game was by itself.

** Mod developers sometimes take player feedback into consideration when revising mods. Thus, ''Eternal'' 1.3's first few previews emphasised that [[spoiler:one reason Hathor found existence without a physical body so distasteful is that it left her with lusts that she no longer had any way to satiate. At the start of the game, she'd already spent nine years this way; by chapter four, she's spent ''over seven hundred''. This has been toned down, however, after it became clear that players were reading this as being intended either to present her sexuality as a negative character trait or to suggest that all she needed to fix her problems was to get laid - neither of which, per WordOfGod, were the case: the authors intended no reading more negative than that it's inadvisable to cope with trauma purely with SexForSolace and without [[ThereAreNoTherapists seeing a therapist]].]] Likewise, after preview 3, the developers replaced the infinitely respawning Bobs in several chapter two levels with infinitely respawning Defenders, since players felt the massive cache of fusion batteries players could build up in those levels trivialised the rest of the game's combat. (Players can still build up decent-sized caches of fusion ammo in the first two chapters, but they can no longer pick up hundreds of fusion batteries just from running around "Unlucky Pfhor Some" for a few minutes.)

** This can also apply to story elements. None of the original authors had read Creator/KurtVonnegut at the time they wrote the original story; however, developers later noted parallels between ''Literature/SlaughterhouseFive''[='=]s Tralfamadorians and [[spoiler:the ascended Jjaro]], and it's now possible to find a few [[ShoutOut Shout-Outs]] to ''Slaughterhouse-Five'' in the map writing for "Where Giants Have Fallen" (viewable by opening the map in the editor Weland) and also (subtly) in the same level's mournful bird song, which persists even after everything else in the level (besides the player) is dead, [[spoiler:just as "Poo-tee-weet?" is the final phrase of ''Slaughterhouse-Five'', which states earlier, "There is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again. Everything is supposed to be very quiet after a massacre, and it always is, except for the birds. And what do the birds say? All there is to say about a massacre, things like 'Poo-tee-weet?'"]]. The developers have suggested that existing parallels between ''Eternal''[='=]s story and the works of authors such as Vonnegut and Creator/MichaelMoorcock may be played up further in future releases; indeed, 1.3 already does this somewhat, with [[ShoutOut Shout-Outs]] to the philosophers Heraclitus and Creator/FriedrichNietzsche (both of whose works have themes at times similar to ''Eternal''[='=]s) and the graphic novel ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'' being added to 1.3.

** This can also apply to story elements. None of the original authors had read Creator/KurtVonnegut at the time they wrote the original story; however, developers later noted parallels between ''Literature/SlaughterhouseFive''[='=]s Tralfamadorians and [[spoiler:the ascended Jjaro]], and it's now possible to find a few [[ShoutOut Shout-Outs]] to ''Slaughterhouse-Five'' in the map writing for "Where Giants Have Fallen" (viewable by opening the map in the editor Weland) and also (subtly) in the same level's mournful bird song, which persists even after everything else in the level (besides the player) is dead, [[spoiler:just as "Poo-tee-weet?" is the final phrase of ''Slaughterhouse-Five'', which states earlier, "There is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again. Everything is supposed to be very quiet after a massacre, and it always is, except for the birds. And what do the birds say? All there is to say about a massacre, things like 'Poo-tee-weet?'"]]. The developers have suggested that existing parallels between ''Eternal''[='=]s story and the works of authors such as Vonnegut and Literature/MichaelMoorcock may be played up further in future releases; indeed, 1.3 already does this somewhat, with [[ShoutOut Shout-Outs]] to the philosophers Heraclitus and Creator/FriedrichNietzsche (both of whose works have themes at times similar to ''Eternal''[='=]s) and the graphic novel ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'' being added to 1.3.

** Not so much one for ''Eternal'' on its own, but for ''Halo'': ''Eternal''[='=]s implementation of the Jjaro was originally meant to tie in with the story of ''Halo'', before the latter was rewritten to remove most of its connections to the ''Marathon'' universe. It would have been interesting to see how they'd have interlocked had that plan not been abandoned.

** A less substantial case for ''Eternal'' is that version 1.2 was initially planned to incorporate rain, snow, and various other effects on some levels, but this lagged some older machines. The engine didn't provide a practical way to make these effects optional at the time of release, so they were instead released separately as a "precipitation branch". Old releases of this branch can be found [[https://github.com/ravenshining/Eternal/raw/precipitation/Eternal-Maps-wPrecip.sceA on Github]] or [[http://simplici7y.com/items/precipitation-for-eternal-1-2-0 on Simplici7y]] (despite the URL, the latter is an old beta of what ultimately became 1.2.1; however, the official release of 1.2.1 in 2021 ultimately omitted precipitation as well). The "ephemera" data type added to Aleph One 1.4 provided a more practical way to make precipitation optional, and ''Eternal'' 1.3 [[http://eternal.bungie.org/development includes it]].

** There are six bonus levels at the end of ''Phoenix'' 1.3 that represent what was to be the first chapter of an abandoned project entitled ''Thunderstorm'', based around the idea of shorter levels that would mostly have focused on exploration and combat. Ryoko abandoned this idea and placed them as secret levels that can be accessed from the secret terminal of "Swan Song"; he has since worked on a ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime''-inspired mod entitled ''Echoes of the Ashen'' instead, although it's not clear if he will complete it.

* SavedFromDevelopmentHell: ''Eternal'' has had a lengthy development cycle that has lasted for more than sixteen years as of this writing and is still not complete, as seen on its [[http://eternal.bungie.org/development.php development page]], which lists all the release dates. The first version of the game appeared in late 2004. Version 1.0 came out in 2008, 1.1 in 2015, 1.2 in 2019, and 1.2.1 in 2021. Several of these suffered {{Schedule Slip}}s for various reasons. Version 1.3 is currently in development, with hopes for an official release in 2022, and version 1.4, likely to be the final major update of the game, planned for release after that.

** The old ''Rubicon'' site, as well as some of the game's secret levels, [[https://web.archive.org/web/20021009211213/http://www.marathonrubicon.com/history.html detailed the history of the scenario]] and what was intended for the smaller ones that became part of it. "Chimera" (which became the final's Chimera Plank) would've involved the eponymous ship crashing on Pfhor Prime as it does at the start of ''Rubicon'', except this time it was seemingly part of an ancient Pfhoric prophecy, and in the chaos the player would've found themselves teaming up with a Pfhor AI, Usyrus. Another scenario, from which some plot elements in ''Rubicon'''s Salinger Plank originate, wasn't meant to be part of the ''Marathon'' universe.
** There are six bonus levels at the end of ''Phoenix'' 1.3 that represent what was to be the first chapter of an abandoned project entitled ''Thunderstorm'', based around the idea of shorter levels that would mostly have been focused around exploration and combat. Ryoko abandoned this idea and placed them as secret levels that can be accessed from the secret terminal of "Swan Song"; he has since worked on a ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime''-inspired mod entitled ''Echoes of the Ashen'' instead, although it's not clear if he will complete it.

** A less substantial case for ''Eternal'' is that version 1.2 was initially planned to incorporate rain, snow, and various other effects on some levels, but this wound up causing lag on some older machines. The engine didn't provide any way to make these effects optional at the time of release, so instead they were released separately as the "precipitation branch" of the game. It can be found [[https://github.com/ravenshining/Eternal/raw/precipitation/Eternal-Maps-wPrecip.sceA on Github]] or [[http://simplici7y.com/items/precipitation-for-eternal-1-2-0 on Simplici7y]] (note that, despite the URL, the latter is actually an old beta of what wound up being renumbered to 1.3). With the inclusion of the "ephemera" data type in Aleph One 1.4, there is now a more practical way to make these effects optional, and they are being restored into ''Eternal'' 1.3.

* CreatorBacklash: The creator of ''Phoenix'', although not too critical of the game overall, has been rather dismissive of the game's story. He also doesn't much care for the level "Escape Two Thousand", owing in large part to the mixture of combat and precise jumps the level requires to complete successfully.