So, about the BoBs...
Where are all the women? We only ever see male BoBs in the Marathon games. Are the BoBs all gay? Are they coming out of the booth to frog blast each others' vent cores? Are they just asexual? Genetically engineered in any way? Grown artificially in lab settings and not a human uterus? Is this even worth asking about?
The Marathon is canonically a generational ships, which suggests that there is some, erm, "generation" going on there.
I guess that could involve artificial pod babies, but presumably the women-folk were all safely off hiding in their quarters while the men-folk were out and about working and getting attacked by aliens because, you know, gender roles of the future!
Or it's just an engine limitation.
I guess that could involve artificial pod babies, but presumably the women-folk were all safely off hiding in their quarters while the men-folk were out and about working and getting attacked by aliens because, you know, gender roles of the future!
Or it's just an engine limitation.
I always assumed they just didn’t have the system resources to represent two different genders, so they left Bobs’ gender ambiguous and didn’t bother representing secondary sex characteristics. Doug Zartman reads their lines with a wide enough vocal range that some of the lines could plausibly be interpreted as coming from either gender, though obviously there’s no consistency about this for a given Bob (again, system resources).
Or else it was 1995, and no one at Bungie (or really, much of anywhere) gave gender in video games much thought. (The company’s employees were largely [entirely?] male at the time.)
Or else it was 1995, and no one at Bungie (or really, much of anywhere) gave gender in video games much thought. (The company’s employees were largely [entirely?] male at the time.)
“People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.” —V, V for Vendetta (Alan Moore)
“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.” —Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”
“If others had not been foolish, we should be so.” —William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
“The law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone; and it cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone.” —Frank Wilhoit
Last.fm · Marathon Chronicles · Marathon Eternal 1.2 · Where Monsters Are in Dreams · YouTube Vidmaster’s Challenge
“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.” —Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”
“If others had not been foolish, we should be so.” —William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
“The law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone; and it cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone.” —Frank Wilhoit
Last.fm · Marathon Chronicles · Marathon Eternal 1.2 · Where Monsters Are in Dreams · YouTube Vidmaster’s Challenge
the women are in 3rd party scenarios, or, marathon being marathon, in our dreams
also, it doesn't matter, I'm loyal to leela
also, it doesn't matter, I'm loyal to leela
If it was a limitation, it was probably more to do with memory than the number of monster slots. The game only loads the collections it needs, so the existence of the Tiny Bob wasn’t using any extra memory – it only loads Bob graphics on levels that have Bobs. (In fact, since the Tiny Bob is never actually used anywhere in Marathon 2, its contribution to the game’s memory usage is effectively zero on every level.) Adding more graphics to the Bob collection, however, would’ve resulted in loading more graphics every time the Bob collection loaded. Alternatively, adding another monster collection would’ve required loading that collection each time the collection is used. If you pay attention, you’ll notice Marathon 2 never uses more than three monster collections per level (except for the Windows 95 version, one level of which which uses… four). I even made a list a while back – I’m prone to doing odd things out of boredom.
My guess is Bungie didn’t want to use the RAM it would’ve required to load twice the amount of graphics for every level that included Bobs (not to mention an extra set of sounds as well). Memory was at a premium in those days.
I should note that I kind of like how the levels restricted themselves to using a small number of collections; it helped give levels more distinct flavours, and it’s something I kind of miss about the vanilla games in the major total conversions, which often are quite promiscuous about their usage of monster collections. As a result, I’ve tried to make some maps that use fewer collections. If I’m not mistaken, the final level of WMAiD (which hasn’t been shown yet) only uses two monster collections right now, though it’s admittedly something of an outlier amongst my maps, but I have several others that only use four or so.
(I’m also aware that the above comment may have been at least partially in jest. As I said, I was bored.![[MTongue]](./images/smilies/4.png "marathon")
)
Spoiler:
I should note that I kind of like how the levels restricted themselves to using a small number of collections; it helped give levels more distinct flavours, and it’s something I kind of miss about the vanilla games in the major total conversions, which often are quite promiscuous about their usage of monster collections. As a result, I’ve tried to make some maps that use fewer collections. If I’m not mistaken, the final level of WMAiD (which hasn’t been shown yet) only uses two monster collections right now, though it’s admittedly something of an outlier amongst my maps, but I have several others that only use four or so.
(I’m also aware that the above comment may have been at least partially in jest. As I said, I was bored.
)“People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.” —V, V for Vendetta (Alan Moore)
“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.” —Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”
“If others had not been foolish, we should be so.” —William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
“The law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone; and it cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone.” —Frank Wilhoit
Last.fm · Marathon Chronicles · Marathon Eternal 1.2 · Where Monsters Are in Dreams · YouTube Vidmaster’s Challenge
“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.” —Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”
“If others had not been foolish, we should be so.” —William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
“The law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone; and it cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone.” —Frank Wilhoit
Last.fm · Marathon Chronicles · Marathon Eternal 1.2 · Where Monsters Are in Dreams · YouTube Vidmaster’s Challenge