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Myth Done Quick - a Quick Explanation

Also known as MDQ, Myth Done Quick was a contest to beat the solo maps of Bungie's Myth I and Myth II as fast as possible. The contest ended a couple years ago, but people still try to improve the times. This is also sometimes called Myth Speed Running.

Basic rules:

A note on "winning" - the game still contines for a few seconds after "GAME OVER" flashes. It is possible to lose, then satisfy the win condition in the few seconds after "GAME OVER." When this happens, even though the map ended as a loss, Myth will advance to the next map when game is restarted, and this was considered a win under the original MDQ contest rules.

However, when the game advances on restart in this situation, the "Perm" results may not reflect a win. Most tournaments use the "Perm" results, so arguably this should also apply to MDQ. Mariusnet, for instance, one of the two main Myth metaservers, tracks coop wins and losses from the game packet which contains the "Perm" results. In practice this means that the win condition must be met to trigger GAME OVER, and overtime wins are (usually) not counted.

Players see overtime wins in regular play occasionally on maps with time limits, like Landing. In MDQ, an overtime win happens most often when a dream spell branches to kill all friendly units, but continues and eventually kills all remaining enemy units. This can happen with two Myth2 maps - Gate of Storms, and Muirthemne. Under the original MDQ rules, this was good - as it resulted in a faster "GAME OVER." However, if you go by the "Perm" results, Alric must survive at end of Gate of Storms (or at least be the last unit to blow up), and similar with Muirthemne. Note that the trick for Murder of Crows does return a winning game packet to Mariusnet, so there is no difference there. Just something to be aware of.

Also, some people care about the fastest solo MDQ time. Most of the maps can be done faster with a team, so best solo time is an accomplishment.

Unfortunately, there is no longer a single person who verifies films and maintains a database of best times, so nobody knows for sure what are the best times now. The best times, as far as Savanarola knows, are linked above. If you have a film to contribute, email it here.

Check out other MDQ related sites in the links page.

Among those links, Mariusnet in particular tracks the best Myth II times for legendary games on its server. These times are server-based, and include the load time and post-game time. This adds 15 to 20 seconds for a solo game, typically more for multiplayer. Mariusnet also doesn't track the secret maps, and these games must satisfy the "strict win" condition to register as a win, so it has its limitations. Still, it's another reference. Mariusnet also tracks the best Myth I times on its server, and since it is the main TFL server (and for a long time it was the only TFL server), these DO represent the fastest games for those maps, with one major exception. On the TFL five heroes best time, the soulless at the end advance, which many people have tried to repeat unsuccessfully. One theory is that this film was done with version 1.0 or 1.1 of the TFL application and something changed with 1.3 that affects the enemy AI. If that is the case, a better time will never occur on Mariusnet since Mariusnet only supports TFL version 1.3 and later.

Some of the maps have scripting issues which inappropriately limit the minimum possible time. Even if you eliminate an enemy group very fast, the script will not kick in until some time later, probably having to do with script processing. This is most noticeable for Myth II Redemption (until v.1.4), in everything could be cleared in about 8 minutes or so, but it would take 3 minutes for the script to recognize you've won. Similar issues exist with Breach, and to some extent also Wall.