The April - May beta (unknown build) detailed discussion

[Leo T_C_K]

So...since it was suggested to me by someone that there should be a separate thread, why not start one now? JackHonda found that there is this room in EndGame instead of QueenEnd.



So....this is an unfinished version of the escape room. I wonder then, this was made by Inoxx then instead of Jeremy, this part.

But why does it have the auxillary power stuff? unless that was not meant to be at ExtremeDark. Is the backup power there at ExtremeDark in this version or not?

Maybe there was supposed to be one to be turned on after queen's death or maybe there was meant to be self destruct metroid-style escape sequence. There's also that room to the right.

[Leo T_C_K]

I'm sorry for the mistake about the "auxillary" or emergency power generator stuff. That was just something zeur told me and I kind of trusted his word. I don't have the game to compare for me to run it and its really not helping me trying to do this kind of research "blind". We took a laptop that can run windows but it needs additional memory to be bought first...and I don't have it and I don't even have anything resembling stable roof above my head...I've been fighting illness/virus at the same time and its just brining me down now.

[Leo T_C_K]

Anyways this version of QueenEnd by Jeremy sounds like such a mess...that Gordon Ramsey would call....RAW

I mean it looks fine in concept but its falling apart in execution completely.

But perhaps it should be backported for the 99 version. I mean yrex or someone else made a converter (or even masterkent did iirc)...
to convert maps back to the beta.

anyway as I told gh privately:
It does seem to be the same map as found in the pc gamer supplement then...but that egg-like casing is from another version of those movers which is in the void and which parts are in the builder room as well...

[Leo T_C_K]

You know what I find really disappointing?

That the early may versions of maps are already too much like the released version it seems. Even Vortex2, the extra mover doors and monitor (like seen in votlan) are gone here. So votlan must have been based on a slightly earlier version than this. Huh.

And no fan blades in the tunnels in skybase as well. DANG IT

[Gamesharder]

I reply here now, not in PM.

Some things I've noticed (partily):

SkyBase: no fans like in the strategy guides. As you can see no fans, no triggers, no anything.


VeloraEnd: the Titan got a weird stone-like skin which is this texture: NaliCast.Base.Wmcsb (it weirdly matches its eye!)



Also, the ending area where the healing fountains are, there's nali fruits


But on Bluff, they aren't there anymore lol


NaliBoat: I'm glad the Nali ghost was in there, though he isn't waiting you on the shore as I expected. He starts at his tombstone, then wanders around the map.


Harobed: as it was mentioned in the GW Press guide, there was once a crossbeam in the well with a SuperHp on it. Well it's still there... kinda. On Unreal diffuculty it's a flak ammo, but on easy, normal and hard it's a SuperHp. The crossbeam weirdly disappears when you start the map, I only noticed the crossbeam in the editor. Dunno why yet.




SpireVillage & TheSunSpire: both got a seemingly static skybox, though if you type slomo 3 or higher it moves, just noticed this why playing. Maybe it's a render thing. Either way both got weird lights in the sky... X-Files theme intensifies



It's like more and more shows up every time lol a bit scary
Also, no additional brush here




To be continued...

[Leo T_C_K]

I was told already that the level titles are also unfortunately not the old ones anymore either. So yea spotting level differences is gonna be difficult I guess. But it all looks genuine. Just the other stuff must have been older, the guides ones and the votlan stuff too.

[Leo T_C_K]

Do you keep opening the maps in coop too? In default Return to Na Pali some of the difficulty filtered movers get destroyed on netplay also....which is technically a bug. It got fixed by fixed maps/mutators.

Perhaps that's why the Harobed stuff works that way. Also...many of those maps should be inspected for undeleted actors (with unrtot3d or maybe it won't work on the old format, he should be asked then to adapt it to that)....

I mean in regular maps we already found a lot including buttonmarker or something for the harobed well...who knows what these will reveal.

edit:

I don't have explanation for those lights except some ship got possible removed (maybe they added the mercenary ship from one of the hubs flying over the sky when they cut the hubs)

[Gamesharder]

Do you keep opening the maps in coop too? In default Return to Na Pali some of the difficulty filtered movers get destroyed on netplay also....which is technically a bug. It got fixed by fixed maps/mutators.

I'm not, so that's out of the question...
The problem was the bump type it looks, so there's that, actually.

[Gamesharder]

That was my first thought of "fixing" it, but I was rushing through the maps to make screenshots etc.

[Leo T_C_K]

Wow, well at least you know now how it happens lol.

[Gamesharder]

I suppose, yeah!
I'm not used to the old editor.

[Leo T_C_K]

I suppose, yeah!
I'm not used to the old editor.

Its all there was for Unreal for more than a decade initially though. Well except stuff like newed.exe which was a rarity (and now that works less reliably than the visual basic version lol). At least this is not the even older version of the editor, it looks basically the same as the released one. But not the true beta one anymore. So that helps, that means I could have run it too without problem. Or anyone really as long as they install the proper libraries.

Remember, there are seemingly a lot of functions missing but in the old days people knew tricks by commands in the log window instead. Like that's the only way to properly align some stuff like the skewed stuff on dark arena for example in the stilted corridor. That kind of "skew" aligment is only possible via a command etc. It used to be posted on unrealsp how to do it back in the days. I don't know the entire thing from memory though, but it gives the same results.

Also...if you end up leaving properties window of something open and then you deselect it and try to click on the window, it will crash the whole editor. So its better to select something again before touching/closing properties window. It has bugs like that that people got used to over time LOL.

Btw does ceremony have the acerak lava room already or not?

[Leo T_C_K]

Wait wasn't there a post between your double one? I'd swear there was. But I might be confused now as I went outside and back in the meantime multiple times.

[Gamesharder]

Wait wasn't there a post between your double one? I'd swear there was. But I might be confused now as I went outside and back in the meantime multiple times.

There wasn't.

Btw does ceremony have the acerak lava room already or not?

Yeah it does. Looks the same.

[Leo T_C_K]

Wait wasn't there a post between your double one? I'd swear there was. But I might be confused now as I went outside and back in the meantime multiple times.

There wasn't.

Btw does ceremony have the acerak lava room already or not?

Yeah it does. Looks the same.

That's strange as the prima strategy guide also didn't have it and it was slightly newer version than the gw press one too. Again the prima one was probably very late april beta or something then. Its a mess really it seems, what even ended up and not in many of those versions shipped to people.

What about extremelab, I hope it still has the forcefield instead of the door? or not even that?

I thought you implied there was something different about the bridge in veloraend or did you mean just the end room?

I suppose the titan was changed in this version because they thought that this way it looks like a real statue/stone piece and thus will be ignored by the player so he will be more surprised when the titan awakens....

edit: do you need help with the ktc stuff? cowshrine was iirc under homebase or something

Also try to export all scripts too and upload them. I mean just do export all, for all the uc code...we did that with every other beta build before for comparisons.

[TigerTheGreat]

I would wager that the beta was compiled on May 7th, coz the latest of the maps were made on that date. Maps from April seem either still unfixed or just leftovers, like the unified Kran.

It may be superfluous to state but just to get it out there: level separations were needed because many computers couldn't handle levels of that size yet.

[Leo T_C_K]

I would wager that the beta was compiled on May 7th, coz the latest of the maps were made on that date. Maps from April seem either still unfixed or just leftovers, like the unified Kran.

It may be superfluous to state but just to get it out there: level separations were needed because many computers couldn't handle levels of that size yet.

Someone told me that Kran has invisible bodies also but that's probably because they originally used the generic deadmale carcasses before any specific ones were made thus they assigned the mesh names themselves (the mappers) and then at some point they changed the mesh names. The same reason why foundry had invisible chests in rtnp which used to have box meshes.

Either way so may 7 appears to be three maps, spirevillage and thesunspire and dasapass?

Also....all the extreme maps are from april 30 except....extremebeg and
4988593 May 5 1998 ExtremeLab.unr

Oh no...that means it probably has the DAMN DOOR now doesn't it? WHY???!!!!

[Leo T_C_K]

I would wager that the beta was compiled on May 7th, coz the latest of the maps were made on that date. Maps from April seem either still unfixed or just leftovers, like the unified Kran.

It may be superfluous to state but just to get it out there: level separations were needed because many computers couldn't handle levels of that size yet.

And actually in most builds the size of Entry.unr is the date of the original compilation. Look at the big beta leak from february...it got worked on until february but Entry was from the time it got compiled at first.

And in this case its May 6 so I think we should look for that...do we have any tim's log like from xcom alliance that describes what version number is on that date?

This is a May 6 version that got its last maps worked on a day later.

[Gamesharder]

Oh no...that means it probably has the DAMN DOOR now doesn't it? WHY???!!!!

I'm sorry you had to found out this way.

[Leo T_C_K]

Oh no...that means it probably has the DAMN DOOR now doesn't it? WHY???!!!!

I'm sorry you had to found out this way.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[Leo T_C_K]

I'm afraid we might not be able to determine the engine version number. Tim's log ends on 6th april or something instead and even there things got more sloppy. There might be some info in other documentation but maybe only Tim or someone can verify what the engine number was for this. I think it was stupid to make it like this at the end of developement not to report the engine number. The initial version 200 also suffers from this then it started to get printed into the ini files later since like version 205....

Backlink for the other thread also:

viewtopic.php?p=103243#p103243

[Gamesharder]

Has anyone checked if the songs differ in any way?

[Leo T_C_K]

Has anyone checked if the songs differ in any way?

Not me, but I'm not in a position to check that. I'd like to think someone like yrex would like to check out any differences there? But I suspect there might not be...

[Leo T_C_K]

turns out there was more complete tim's log elsewhere stilll.
22th April was this version, this is the last time Tim made any version of a build.

This was a "test master" version before the Gold Master which was most like version 200...but we can calculate the version number elsewhere...let me do that...but yea 22th April was this.

====167
+ Test master 167

[Leo T_C_K]

Okay guys I figured it out. This is version 180/181.

181 was on 6th of april but its possible they went with the round number and it was ready before that version (181) was finished. What is the exact date of Unreal.exe? I mean the time included, I know its may 6th but I dunno the hour/minute etc.

So my best bet that this was a test copy of 180 as that seemed to be a more stable build and was the latest on may 6th until 181 was compiled.