Excalibur: Morgana's Revenge
Version 1.4

by the Marathon Map Makers Guild


Contents

What's Included
To Install Excalibur
Requirements
Known Problems


Instructions

What's Included

This package contains all the files and installers needed for playing Excalibur providing you already own a copy of the original Marathon.

To play Excalibur, you need the following (which comes with the Excalibur package):


Also included with this package:


Not in this package, but available as a separate download are:


NOTE: More Merlin Extras takes up 2.7 meg, so we kept it separate to give you the choice to download it. We strongly recommend it. Pfhorte 1.0d31 and the physics menu will allow you to build your own Excalibur worlds!


To install Excalibur:

1. Create a folder for the scenario where you will be placing the Excalibur application and the support files.

2. Copy the following files into your Excalibur folder:

Graphics, Sounds, Morgana Map, Minstrel, Merlin Physics, Merlin's Extras, and all the Read Me files

3. Now run the Excalibur Installer application. This will create a new application called Excalibur from your existing Marathon application (be sure it's being saved into your new Excalibur folder).

NOTE: You must patch Marathon 1.2 (this is the original Marathon, not Marathon Infinity).

You are now ready to launch the application. Your Excalibur folder should look similar to the following:  


If you have any technical difficulties, feel free to contact the MMMG at merlin@excaliburworld.com.

NOTE: The Excalibur application uses a different name for the Preference file, so if you want to save yourself the trouble of re-entering your serial number and setting up your keys again, simply go into your Preferences folder (located in your System folder) and copy Marathon Preferences to Excalibur Preferences.


Requirements:

Software: Marathon v1.2 (original Marathon, not Marathon Infinity)
Computer: '040 Macintosh (preferably a PowerMac to play Excalibur with reasonable speed)
Total RAM: 16 to 18 meg (10 meg for the application, 6 to 8 meg for Sound Manager and QuickTime)
Disk Space: 20 meg


Known Problems (aka, Curse of Morgana):

In order to provide many of the exciting new features in Excalibur: Morgana's Revenge, we had to seriously push the limits of the Marathon engine. This scenario taxes the Marathon engine to its breaking point, and sometimes beyond. We feel that the sacrifices we made are greatly overshadowed by the great things that we were able to accomplish. That is not to say that we did not do everything in our power to remedy any problem we found. In the end, however, we found that a couple of our problems could not be fixed without seriously comprimising the game itself. Since we did not write the engine, there is not much more we can do about it other than to provide workarounds for you. So, in that spirit, here is a list of known problems and workarounds for Excalibur: Morgana's Revenge.

Problem #1:

While playing for long periods of time, or when there is a lot of action on the screen at once, the sounds can start to trade places. For example, all of a sudden the crossbow might sound like an archer screaming, or a raptor might sound like a dachron shotgun blast.

Word has it that Morgana's powers have made its way out of the game into our reality. Understanding that your mission is to stop her, she has cleverly devised the "Sound Disorientation" spell. You must not give in to her evil! Here's what you can do to combat this annoying spell of hers...

Work Around:

Keep playing until you can reach a save terminal. Save your game and quit the application. Restart the application and all will be well.

She does not normally inflict this spell too frequently, and it never seems to be the same sounds in the same places. However, the Sorceror's Guild has observed that the frequency of the spell seems to decrease the bigger your memory partition for Excalibur is set to. If you have enough RAM, try increasing it. Keep in mind, though, that you need to leave the system enough RAM to run the Sound Manager and QuickTime.

Problem #2:

When playing in 256 colors, a few of the sprites in the game have stray white pixels. Although not visually appealing, this does not affect gameplay. This inconveniance has been dubbed the "Spotted Owl" spell. It is one of Morgana's weaker spells, only able to affect certain creatures, and only if playing in 256 colors.

Work Around:

If possible, play in thousands of colors or more. If you are stuck with 256 colors, then you might want to put on your Spotted Owl visors to help you adjust to the occasional white pixels.

If you do happen to play in thousands of colors or more, you really ought to go grab yourself the 16-bit Dark Knight. The knight suffered the most from Morgana's spell; so much so that we completely replaced the original knight with a lighter colored knight. The stand-in knight eliminates the Spotted Owl affect on the knight, but if you are playing in thousands or millions, it would be well worth your time to download the 16 bit compatible version. You can find it here (it is also included with the v1.4 scenario).