Savage Land Demo Released

[mister__prophet]

Hey everyone! Team Red Nemesis has recently released a demo of a Single Player project currently in development for Unreal and Unreal Gold 227i and Unreal Tournament players using patch 436 with Oldskool. It should also work with UT 469, but the patch is very new and may vary by user. The demo and eventual campaign is designed to be cross compatible between both oldengine Unreal games.

This is a short Demo of the first two levels of the campaign and features two new weapons and modifications to some old ones. The Red Nemesis public forums have been reopened for official discussion but I'll help with any questions here if anyone has problems with the demo. Links are as follows:

Mediafire: https://www.mediafire.com/file/bebbvxaa ... o.zip/file

The Moddb page has another mirror as well as other info: https://www.moddb.com/mods/savage-land

[[UDHQ]Jackrabbit]

Just got through the demo on Unreal difficulty I will play again on Nightmare shortly. Thank you for a nice action teaser of what's hopefully still to come. In summary, I felt the ammo and armor were scattered in ways which felt more dynamic in how they impacted the outcome of most combat encounters. You could choose to explore more and gain a clear advantage or go against high odds and most likely die.... something that in my mind goes beyond what I remember from 7B or Xidia and really is missing in nearly all Unreal campaigns including the mother game. I do feel that JazzyB was able to achieve some level of this in his part 2 campaign, but I honestly need to compare and contrast the two cause my instinct says this demo does go a level above that. I had one bug occur which was not featured in the readme during the Krall boss encounter. After my first reload when I got exploded, I realized I could trick him into immediately dodging off the ledge to his death. Unfortunately, I had a hard time grabbing his arm after that point but somehow managed to do so? Still not sure how or when I eventually grabbed it and was able to get through the doors. The arsenal obviously provides for more dynamic combat encounters, but I did feel that the crossbow didn't really shine like it could have if utilized in some long range open outdoor sniper situations. Light-bringer a very welcome addition to the arsenal but I imagine should be reserved for massive horde fights. I was able to breeze though some late game individual enemies with the weapon which felt like I was cheating a bit. Obvious solution would be to force the player to use all Light-Bringer ammo during a big horde boss encounter and then only resupply ammo before the next one.

Anyway, I hope to play more of the larger campaign and can already see massive potential for an experience which goes a level above all others while still maintaining that Nostalgia "Unreal" feel.

Godspeed!

[mister__prophet]

Hey Jackrabbit! How are you?

Just got through the demo on Unreal difficulty I will play again on Nightmare shortly. Thank you for a nice action teaser of what's hopefully still to come. In summary, I felt the ammo and armor were scattered in ways which felt more dynamic in how they impacted the outcome of most combat encounters. You could choose to explore more and gain a clear advantage or go against high odds and most likely die.... something that in my mind goes beyond what I remember from 7B or Xidia and really is missing in nearly all Unreal campaigns including the mother game. I do feel that JazzyB was able to achieve some level of this in his part 2 campaign, but I honestly need to compare and contrast the two cause my instinct says this demo does go a level above that.

I've been trying to get better at noniinear thinking when it comes to layout. With the two maps in the demo I really wanted players to sort of "forget" where the level beginning was at some point. There are clears paths once you get to know the maps of course, but I feel as if it's nicer as a player when you are given a little more leeway to search around and find stuff. It also makes it feel more fair when you gotta get to the fighting since if people die, maybe their first thought is, "okay what did I miss that would have made this easier?"

I had one bug occur which was not featured in the readme during the Krall boss encounter. After my first reload when I got exploded, I realized I could trick him into immediately dodging off the ledge to his death. Unfortunately, I had a hard time grabbing his arm after that point but somehow managed to do so? Still not sure how or when I eventually grabbed it and was able to get through the doors. The arsenal obviously provides for more dynamic combat encounters, but I did feel that the crossbow didn't really shine like it could have if utilized in some long range open outdoor sniper situations. Light-bringer a very welcome addition to the arsenal but I imagine should be reserved for massive horde fights. I was able to breeze though some late game individual enemies with the weapon which felt like I was cheating a bit. Obvious solution would be to force the player to use all Light-Bringer ammo during a big horde boss encounter and then only resupply ammo before the next one.

It wasn't a bug, it's actually not the Krall Captain's arm you acquire but the dead woman's.

The Crossbow needs some testing, but it's potentially a very overpowered weapon if you know what it actually does. There are a few hidden debuffs and damage boosts that it has by default that are not immediately apparent. For instance, shot enemies suffer a movement penalty for a few seconds where their groundspeed is lowered. There are also high headshot modifiers that effects all pawns who are headshot capable so long as they don't have bBoss=True. More than this, there is a hidden modifier that makes the weapon more effective on "dumber" enemies. For instance, try fighting brutes and titans with it and going for headshots. On higher difficulties this may be less apparent though.

There are more guns in the two levels than there are meant to be in the full campaign (only guns 1-4 will be used here in the final version). This meant that some enemy numbers were increased and some subclasses show up earlier than they are supposed to, but with all the guns it is possible to feel like you can run out of enemies to shoot in the demo. This is another reason why NG+ was included. The Lightbringer in particular was added mainly to let people get used to it, for it normally appears much later on in the campaign.

Anyway, I hope to play more of the larger campaign and can already see massive potential for an experience which goes a level above all others while still maintaining that Nostalgia "Unreal" feel.

Thank you very much for playing it! The feedback I've received lately has given me the vindication that I'm on the right track.

[[UDHQ]Jackrabbit]

Taken from USP.org forums:

"Hello my fellow savages.

In a effort to keep myself on point with information (and general transparency), I've thought it best to start a Development Diary thread in the spirit of the ones Hellscrag, our site founder, used to do. Even if this gets updated only once a month, it will be a way for me to provide consistent updates on exactly what's happening on the project as well as nagging myself not to slack off.

For the sake of the first post, much of the early work that's been done post Demo release is to address issues and comments brought up during the try outs. Most adjustments have already been incorporated. Map 2, in particular, has generated the most amount of feedback.

Map 2 Changes wrote:

-Closets before Nibo/Fans have been opened and feature rooms.
-Big lift by the Nibo/Fans section has an additional switch on the bottom level.
-Glass Door into the steam section no longer lacks player/projectile collision.
-Vinzor's spawn is now more dynamic and not exploitable by fleeing players.
-The unpopular jumpboot puzzle to reach the upper steam area node has been updated to focus on unlocking the hallway side door instead of requiring the player to find boots and make a jump.
-Nibo the Sage is being adjusted to have more dangerous attacks. Conversely, Azagor the Blind from Map 1 will be reduced in difficulty by a substantial margin.

Some updates

Development Diary wrote:


-Forcefields now stackable, up to 5 can be carried at a time.
-Kinetic Accelerator added. Boosts damage to non-energy weapons.
-Flares updated. They last three times longer and no longer explode when spent.
-Pathfinder Seeds added. Glow where tossed, used as minimal light source and as breadcrumbs.
-Rifle now has increased Stagger on enemies.
-New Razorjack in early testing, guidable alt firing enabled similar to redeemer cam.
-Guerilla Vest and Sash added to inventory, pending new models/skins/icons"

Thought I'd forward this for anyone else who is interested. These additions are solid Prophet, I'll delay replaying now although I did start a replay but stopped after I got upstairs with the jumpboots. These changes are definitely what I never knew I was looking for but I see you figured it out. Major props.

The breadcrumbs are a very unique concept and completely original idea for Unreal. I can't imagine I'll remember the layout by heart the next time I play this.

Look forward to replaying this at some point in the future.

[mister__prophet]

The feedback from the demo has been helpful, but a lot of the new stuff is also reactionary to things I've observed watching people stream the two levels and from listening to statements people have made.

For instance, the Pathfinder seeds, the flare changes, and the new flashlights sort of came together from watching people get lost in the vents. In other cases I just really wanted to preserve as much of the Unreal inventory possible but also making necessary quality of life changes. There's just some stuff that I know nobody ever touches or used, even back in 1998 when all of this was new. There will be more to come of course, and naturally we will tweak the current new additions as we go along too.

[mister__prophet]

Just a quick update. It was come to our attention that one of the new ammo types (there are several, but for some reason only one of them does this) is invisible for some users testing on 227j. Because we don't know quite what is causing it yet, if it happens to you be aware that we know about it. For clarity, it seems to only effect the Red Tarydium shard ammo type for the Stinger. It's a bit perplexing to us atm because we have new modelled guns with new modelled ammo pickups that do not have this problem. No reports yet from 227i users or our players on UT versions. What's odd is that it is visual only, for the ammo can still be found and interacted with in the levels.

[Pitbull]

Just a quick update. It was come to our attention that one of the new ammo types (there are several, but for some reason only one of them does this) is invisible for some users testing on 227j. Because we don't know quite what is causing it yet, if it happens to you be aware that we know about it. For clarity, it seems to only effect the Red Tarydium shard ammo type for the Stinger. It's a bit perplexing to us atm because we have new modelled guns with new modelled ammo pickups that do not have this problem. No reports yet from 227i users or our players on UT versions. What's odd is that it is visual only, for the ammo can still be found and interacted with in the levels.

I recently had this problem with regular weapons. As stupid as it sounds it was a missing package issue on the server that I somehow missed. The missing package had nothing to do with the game type or maps i was running btw. If this was being tested on a server it's something to look into. Just a thought.

[mister__prophet]

I recently had this problem with regular weapons. As stupid as it sounds it was a missing package issue on the server that I somehow missed. The missing package had nothing to do with the game type or maps i was running btw. If this was being tested on a server it's something to look into. Just a thought.

Hey Pitbull.

So we looked into the issue. We first thought it was something we did (that the ammo type in question was not added as a normal subclass of an existing parent ammo was our culprit, or so we thought). Turns out it was an issue with how 227j uses Mesh and LodMesh compared to 227i and the UT versions. So for testers playing the demo on 227j (online or offline) the Red Tarydium alternate ammo pickup was invisible.

[Pitbull]

Glad ya got it sorted.

[Kajgue]

Congratulations on the release Proph

I'll basicly echo my feedback that I shared on discord: Really love the atmosphere and the way the aesthetic was pulled off with mostly stock assets/textures (which I think is what's impressive the most). I've been slightly tempted to help out if it were not for the fact that I'm pre-occupied with various things

Too bad that's the last we'll see for now of the Porcelain express, looking forward to what other environments appear in later releases of Savage Lands.

[mister__prophet]

Congratulations on the release Proph

I'll basicly echo my feedback that I shared on discord: Really love the atmosphere and the way the aesthetic was pulled off with mostly stock assets/textures (which I think is what's impressive the most). I've been slightly tempted to help out if it were not for the fact that I'm pre-occupied with various things

Too bad that's the last we'll see for now of the Porcelain express, looking forward to what other environments appear in later releases of Savage Lands.

Thanks again for all the testing help too, as well as being a part of the COOP testing for RLcoopE. A lot of solid help there!

No worries, I've been lucky with the feedback so far for recruitment help. I have a growing list on the Recruitment thread on the UnrealSP public forum about the folks that have contacted me. Suffice it to say, I'm more than happy with the turnouts so far!

And don't feel bad about leaving the ship! We've got some cool levels to follow it.