[MrFlibble]

MYHOUSE.MAP, those sure are awesome findings!

BTW, I've always liked the design of SW from the pre-release stage that had more medieval Japan themed areas, and Lo Wang's design in the black suit, with weapons such as the wrist-mounted blade and the crossbow.

[t800]

Player Lin, on 30 August 2013 - 09:09 AM, said:

According the background story in this game, the train you take is a mystery train that take you to the game world, but it's weird when if you're not leave the train after it arrived the entrance of game world, it will just move and send you back to the train station for no reason...and yeah, it just go forward and then go backward in between two "stations"...

I find this gameplay aspect of 7 Paladins as actually the most original and memorable thing about it. For me it is very intriguing way of starting game, where you begin in "real world" and then have to enter "game world". (If so bit immersion breaking, but I dont mind.) Imagine if Duke3D began with player in room with computer, and he/she would have to come to computer and then "launch game" on it with space key, then on computer screen would appear logo of game and then it would zoom in to fill whole screen (like loading saved games in ROTT does) and game itself would truly start. Starting "real world" room (or even whole flat with multiple rooms) could also hide some extras (e.g. radio for listening to game music), easter eggs or cleverly inmplemented credits, or original ways to adjust options by using its enviroment in various ways.

Quote

7. I didn't completed the whole game because the 9/26 version is so hard and I sucked at it...even I were tried to use a memory scanning and hacking tool and cheating the game by locked my health value, but feel boring after completed some levels... I checked someone's Lot7P Extracter, it extracted 35 maps from LMART000.DAT... the level didn't had actual name, instead it named "Chapter X, Section Y, Round Z", like the first level is "Chapter 1, Section 1, Round 1" , and next one is "Chapter 1, Section 1, Round 2", I don't have enough time to check the whole game to finger it out what's the rules about the naming, maybe later...

Is it possible to somehow skip trough levels? I am very interested in seeing some later/boss levels, because every video of it I have ever seen so far included only starting level at train station and first game level. Also could I ask you to upload ripped sprites from it? I found only two sprite resources (>first< & >second<) for it and I strongly suspect that both of them are significantly incomplete (no sprites for any boss character - I presume this game features some boss/bosses, right?).

[Player Lin]

t800, on 01 September 2013 - 08:41 AM, said:

I find this gameplay aspect of 7 Paladins as actually the most original and memorable thing about it. For me it is very intriguing way of starting game, where you begin in "real world" and then have to enter "game world". (If so bit immersion breaking, but I dont mind.) ...... Starting "real world" room (or even whole flat with multiple rooms) could also hide some extras (e.g. radio for listening to game music), easter eggs or cleverly inmplemented credits, or original ways to adjust options by using its enviroment in various ways.

That's some(not so many) of Chinese novels/games/dramas tend to do such things, starting from real world(modern) and then go into the game world(ancient time) with whatever reasons, sometimes it maybe a reversed one(ancient -> modern)...some kind of time travel......

t800, on 01 September 2013 - 08:41 AM, said:

Is it possible to somehow skip trough levels? I am very interested in seeing some later/boss levels, because every video of it I have ever seen so far included only starting level at train station and first game level. Also could I ask you to upload ripped sprites from it? I found only two sprite resources (>first< & >second<) for it and I strongly suspect that both of them are significantly incomplete (no sprites for any boss character - I presume this game features some boss/bosses, right?).

Not known any built-in cheats in this game...sadly...even I hope it had...

I guess they just get those data from the L0ART000.DAT & L1ART000.DAT because they're just pure Tiles000.ART files with different name(the author of LOTSPE said that), use EDITART with the game's palette file should be work I guess...

I guess all sprite works should be on those two files, because other L?ART000.DATs just looks like not sprite files at all, the M is map data and V is music, sound and pictures for stuffs like loading screen, copyright declaration screen(LOL) and those upcoming games screens.

A and T are just executable files, check them in WinHex and found the executable file header...
C, F and G... I don't know what they're at all...too bad I'm not good at trace things like those unknown things...

I just still wait until I found the "Enhanced" version of the game.....

[Kathy]

t800, on 01 September 2013 - 08:41 AM, said:

Imagine if Duke3D began with player in room with computer, and he/she would have to come to computer and then "launch game" on it with space key, then on computer screen would appear logo of game and then it would zoom in to fill whole screen (like loading saved games in ROTT does) and game itself would truly start.

[Marphy Black]

Player Lin, on 31 August 2013 - 09:46 AM, said:

MARS, it's a game made by a Taiwan company that never did any FPS game, never sold in public so no one really know this game...it used DooM 1 engine but illegally hacked it with their custom gamedata

I'd really love to hear more about this. Not many third party developers used the Doom engine, so an entire unlicensed game built on it would be a pretty obscure gem. What was the theme of the game? Fantasy/magic like Legend of the Seven Paladins?

[MrFlibble]

RinyRed, on 01 September 2013 - 11:01 AM, said:

I'd really love to hear more about this. Not many third party developers used the Doom engine, so an entire unlicensed game built on it would be a pretty obscure gem. What was the theme of the game? Fantasy/magic like Legend of the Seven Paladins?

Seconded, this is not the first time MARS is mentioned in this thread (or on the forums), and I'm kind of intrigued by it. Googling did not produce any results so far, so any screenshots/video records or whatever would be more than welcome

[Fox]

That monkey is using the ripper heart as a weapon?

[DavoX]

And well, the guardian uses a sword? didn't pay much attention to that when I played

[t800]

Fox, on 01 September 2013 - 03:03 PM, said:

That monkey is using the ripper heart as a weapon?

It is winning pose of Baby Ripper, which it also shares with its adult counterpart. After it kills Lo Wang, it will rip his heart out in front of him in its "victory pose" like some kind of trophy, (think of it as something like Predator does in its films with human skulls ). Ripper heart weapon was meant as irony, because Rippers are known for ripping hearts out of their prey (hence their name "Rippers"), so player can do the same to them (but only to adult normal version and only in full registered version, usually by killing them with some explosive weapons) and use it against them in twist.




What is strange about that screenshot is that normally Ripper/Baby Ripper does it only to player after killing him/her. So maybe that is just some sprite mock-up, or they behaved differently in old betas - maybe monster-in-fighting was included in it (so if it for example killed Evil Ninja, it would rip his heart out)? hmmm....

EDIT: It makes sense after thinking more about it: Rippers are just very agressive wild beasts, so it would be natural for them to lose temper if some strayed bullet from Evil Ninjas Uzi hit them.
-----------------------------
BTW I am interested in knowing any other FPS games where monsters can interact with players corpse.

[MYHOUSE.MAP]

More!

Take a look at this screenshot taken in the beta version of Shanghai Shipwreck:



It's the Eel enemy! Turns out they did enough work on it that the developers actually put it in levels. However, the Eel does nothing and cannot be killed. He'll just use that one frame forever.

Shanghai Shipwreck in the beta also has something interesting. Normally, the map uses the final ninjas, as seen below.



However, if you dive underwater in the area you spawn in, you'll find this:



A tall Lo Wang! Looks like someone forgot to remove all of the old ninjas in this map. Just more proof that the old and new ninjas are two separate objects for some reason.



Here's an interesting little thing I noticed about the end level switches. If you play the beta normally, you'll find a rough draft of the final's end switch at the end of the first level.



However, when you get to the end of level 2, Zilla Construction, you'll find that the end level swtich is completely different!



Now, if you go into the old levels buried in the beta, you'll find that some of the levels have end switches. Interestingly enough, these end switches use the same one that was used in Zilla Construction! Take a look at Boat.map's end level switch:



Same thing. You can also see this switch used in beta levels from SW's “crypts and palaces” era and the more recent, Duke3D-like levels, such as Unfriendly Skies.

The end of Shanghai Shipwreck somewhat bucks the trend by using the rough version of the final's end of level swtich in Shipwreck's end puzzle.


The thing is that using the correct one does not lead to the end of the level. Perhaps they were already considering the final end of switch design when they were working on Shipwreck, but didn't really start implanting the final end switch until they did a lot of work on Level 1.

Basically, the conclusion of all this seems that the developers kept the same design for the end switch for the vast majority of the game's development. When they swapped it for the final's design, they repurposed the old design as a regular switch, which you can see in some levels in the final game.






There's something really cool in the beta's Unfriendly Skies that wasn't in the final game. The level's architecture is mostly the same as the final's. However, when you get to the end of the level, you'll notice something is a bit..off.




Unfriendly Skies had a completely different ending at one point! Instead of facing off mini-Sumos, you'd be stuck in a large outdoors area with a lot of enemies and have to use the giant APC to take them down. The APC has plenty of cover and two machine guns, making it perfect for taking down large groups of enemies with no problem.




It's a really cool idea, but was probably cut for performance sake. However, this area does have something more significant which will be shown very soon.





In an earlier post, I noted that some of the unused levels in the beta are earlier versions of levels that appeared in the final game. What's strange about it is that the levels have the tall Lo Wangs, meaning they were using the old ninja enemies when these levels were last worked on.

Here's the start of Floating Fortress:



...and the lobby near the end of Unfriendly Skies:



Now here's where things start getting weird. Here's a picture of Floating Fortress' start area that was posted on the Shadow Warrior site on December 1996:



It's clearly the map layout seen in the beta and shown a few pictures up, but if you look on the right, you can see the final ninja on the boxes at the top. That's unusual. That picture was posted in December 1996, but the beta was compiled on April 1997 and still has the old ninjas in Floating Fortress.

Look at this frame extracted from an animated .gif that was on the official Shadow Warrior site at one point.



It matches the old Unfriendly Skies ending shown earlier, but notice that there's a final ninja attacking the player on the right side of the screen. The Unfriendly Skies in the beta has the APC arena, but uses the old ninjas. See below for a very rough recreation of the location shown in the .gif to see the old ninjas:



Isn't it weird that, despite being compiled on April 1997, the beta has levels that used the old ninja enemies, but pre-release screenshots uploaded earlier than when the beta was made use the final ninjas?

Looking at it, the most likely conclusion is that the SW beta is based on an earlier version of Shadow Warrior than was being worked on when the beta was made. Based on what I've seen of game development, it's likely that the developers split the shareware branch as we know it from the main build around the time the new ninja enemies were developed and were slowly replacing the old ninjas in maps. I would've dated it earlier, but some non-shareware maps, such as a beta version of Rising Son, use the new ninja enemies. The shareware branch was updated with things like voxels and new art for the shareware levels, but the old maps and art resources that were in the game when the shareware/retail split happened were not removed until it came time to actually make the final shareware game. As a result, the beta has lots of resources that were long obsolete in the same time period the beta was compiled, such as the old temple and shrine levels, rough versions of some of the final's levels, art for removed enemies like the Skeleton Priest and Eel, and other stuff.

Basically, the beta is significantly more valuable than it looks at first glance because it's basically a 1996-era build with 1997-era shareware resources and coding laid on top of it. I don't think we really need a SW beta from mid to late 1996 because we essentially already have it. The currently-released beta provides an opportunity to see how far along the game was back in mid to late 1996 and how incompatible and different it is with the changes that were made in 1997.

[t800]

MYHOUSE.MAP, on 02 September 2013 - 03:13 AM, said:

Look at this frame extracted from an animated .gif that was on the official Shadow Warrior site at one point.



It matches the old Unfriendly Skies ending shown earlier, but notice that there's a final ninja attacking the player on the right side of the screen. The Unfriendly Skies in the beta has the APC arena, but uses the old ninjas

I think that single frame extracted from GIF was made from combined two different shots. Left and right halves are two diffrent shots with bit blurred/partially transparent border area between them in upper half of picture
(sorry for very quick and crude enlarged visual explanation of it):



First thing that I noticed as wrong is ammount of rounds in ammo counter (I think we can with confidence say that beta versions we know never ever had higher ammo limit for missile launcher than 50 rounds). That launcher is not related with ammo counter, ergo it is definitely from some other captured shot. Also that ceiling struck me as odd, because vehicles in SW cant enter indoor areas. So I think that ninja is in no way connected with APC, thus this picture is not contradicting your theory and could be made from shots depicting two different develpment versions.

P.S: That APC is way too cool, great finding! I played many SW user maps and mods, but I never encoutered any driveable vehicles with roof.

[Player Lin]

MrFlibble, on 01 September 2013 - 02:48 PM, said:

Seconded, this is not the first time MARS is mentioned in this thread (or on the forums), and I'm kind of intrigued by it. Googling did not produce any results so far, so any screenshots/video records or whatever would be more than welcome

The problem about this bad shit is "super ridiculously rare", and like I was said, it never sold in public, not like NS:Lot7P had sold in public, or even got JF's notice and put the Lot7P Demo on his site...

I just so lucky to got a copy of image file from someone had a copy because he lucky brought this game from a sales man from the company of developer in Taipei computer exhibition about many years old(around 1996-1997), and said they secretly sold this game for some reasons...

The other problem is the installer, I use DOSBox 0.72, 0.73 and 0.74 with official one or ykhwong's SVN build. Both give me the same problem -- the "install" button in the installer didn't work at all, it thought I already installed the game and disable the option...copy the files from the CD didn't work neither, because the maindata file just invalid unless you "install" the game.

Then I tried use Virtual PC with a DOS 6.22 installation, and it works and let me installing the damn game...but then due some reasons, it can't run with EMM386 and smartdrv at all, or it will crash or damaged the maindata file, cause memory error when starting the game. Still taken many works to get the game out and copy it to my local hard drive...

After all, I finally get this shit started with DOSBox, except bad things in whole game(also like Lot7P, it had many Chinese characters in whole game, but at least it had cheat code! Just needed use our common input method to triggered it...like "j62u6" -> ["無(ㄨˊ)敵(ㄉㄧˊ)", means "invincible"] = god mode.)

The game just keep crashing with memory error messages when I try to load my savegame...made me totally pissed off after completed level 1, then rage-quit and killed it...

If I want to run it again then I had to find a way to get that ****ing shit works again...

Hey, this game used DooM 1 engine, doesn't it looks so weird if I post things related about that on DN3D/Build-related topic?

EDIT : I found I still had that completed installation in one of my Virtual PC HDD...and I just try to run it and then...f***...



Well, I knew it's not that easy...


EDIT 2 : Screw all I said in "EDIT", I got that works with my ykhwong's DOSBox SVN-Daum build 20130506(yeah, not the latest one, but whatever) after I copied files from the VPC HDD to my local HDD...and seems working better than last time I checked in 2010/2011...

I will finding some time to record the footage about this game, maybe I will start new thread in the General Gaming forum when I done...

The game's files list...


Title screen, full title is "3D Action Arcade - Mars (3D), Its Chinese name translate to English is "The Ultimate(/Final) Fighter".

[MYHOUSE.MAP]

Player Lin, on 02 September 2013 - 07:22 AM, said:

MARS stuff

You should send MARS over to someone at Doomworld, like myk, fraggle or Quasar. They love messing with the Doom engine, and what's basically a Doom hack would be perfect for them to mess with and analyze. Heck, they could probably get it working.

t800, on 02 September 2013 - 04:24 AM, said:

APC stuff

I thought you were right at first, but I took at look at an archived version of the official Shadow Warrior site from December 1996 and I found something very interesting: the full-sized version of that image.



Looks like it is real. The only suspicious thing is the ammo counter, but that could've been them tweaking things.

And, for reference, here's the site I found it at.

http://web.archive.o...com/catalog/sw/

This site also has some interesting screenshots of maps located in the beta. What's interesting is that, like before, the screenshots that were released on December 1996 1996 show a more up-to-date version of a level than the actual 1997 beta does! See below (upper image is pre-release, lower image is from 1997 beta):










The December 1996 screenshots show the new ninjas, but the versions of the maps in 1997 still have the old ninjas/large Lo Wangs. Unfriendly Skies' lobby also looks slightly less detailed in the 1997 beta than it does in the December 1996 screenshot.

[TerminX]

Each developer probably had their own directory full of development stuff that they didn't necessarily send updates to other team members for. I know the code released for SW's version of the Build editor had some stuff in it that alluded to very strict time management, where the editor would log how much time you spent actually pressing keys and doing stuff versus just having it open and doing nothing, etc, so the manager of the product could have been anal about everything going through him too. I wouldn't be surprised if the beta is an archive of one developer's directory of stuff, kinda how LameDuke was full of old maps that hadn't been worked on in months.

[Jimmy]

That APC is badass!

Good detective work, man.

[MYHOUSE.MAP]

Been dong more research.

One of the maps unused in the Shadow Warrior beta is Garden.map. At first, it looks like nothing from it appeared in the final game, but a closer look reveals that it's actually a prototype version of Zilla's Villa! All of the rooms are arranged differently and the level has a completely different flow from Zilla's Villa, but a good chunk of Villa's rooms are in Garden.map, but in different locations and connected in different ways. As usual, final version image is on top, beta image is bottom.




























The rooms are basically the same, but they completely redid the room's textures.

[MrFlibble]

Player Lin, on 02 September 2013 - 07:22 AM, said:

EDIT 2 : Screw all I said in "EDIT", I got that works with my ykhwong's DOSBox SVN-Daum build 20130506(yeah, not the latest one, but whatever) after I copied files from the VPC HDD to my local HDD...and seems working better than last time I checked in 2010/2011...

I will finding some time to record the footage about this game, maybe I will start new thread in the General Gaming forum when I done...

So you were able to make it run after all? Cool BTW, does the game's IWAD work with any modern source port?

(Sorry for the off-topic guys! )

[Fox]

The heck is with that blue cinema sign?

[NNC]

That APC is so awesome, I want to drive it now.

[Hendricks266]

This photo reminds me of the LA skybox.

http://twistedsifter...-lapse-over-la/

[Player Lin]

MrFlibble, on 03 September 2013 - 07:18 AM, said:

So you were able to make it run after all? Cool BTW, does the game's IWAD work with any modern source port?

(Sorry for the off-topic guys! )

No, it is custom format and needed hacks to load with original DooM engine....

[Fox]

Hendricks266, on 04 September 2013 - 07:41 PM, said:

This photo reminds me of the LA skybox.

http://twistedsifter...-lapse-over-la/

The style is similar, but the angle the photo was taken is very different. I have compared enough photos of LA to tell.

[leilei]

The blue cinema sign i'm guessing is texture cache debugging. It was a tall texture.

[Fox]

So I was looking at the map of Gates Motel, and I noticed there was a flipped section of the level on the other side of the mirror:



So I went and checked it using no-clipping cheat:



The door leads to an unfinished room with a Enforcer that does nothing:



Has anyone ever reported before that it is impossible to kill 100% of the enemies on this level?

[MrFlibble]

Am I right that the level map scans you're posting (here and some pages ago) are from a strategy guide?

[Lunick]

MrFlibble, on 06 September 2013 - 03:42 AM, said:

Am I right that the level map scans you're posting (here and some pages ago) are from a strategy guide?

Posted the other day by a super cool dude: http://forums.duke4....post__p__170563

[LAW]

t800, on 02 September 2013 - 01:47 AM, said:

BTW I am interested in knowing any other FPS games where monsters can interact with players corpse.

Rides Again: biker is pissing over yer corpse

[tdoccc]

I'll just leave this here

http://forums.duke4....ritish-tv-show/

Later build of 'Lameduke' on British TV show - GamesMaster!

[Mikko Pekkola]

Interesting, I've managed to check that video out. Does anyone have anymore of these footages, like later build of Lameduke?

[Marphy Black]

I was playing around with the Shadow Warrior beta and wrote up a few things that I don't think have been documented yet.

One of the "DELETE ME" items can be picked up. It looks like an animated red orb and, when collected, gives you "6 Deathcoils". This is ammo for the Ripper Heart, but it doesn't actually give you the Ripper Heart if you don't already have it.



If you kill yourself in the beta, even just by fall damage, you get this message:


I also found the old Sumo boss. Rather than reside in his Sumo Sky Palace level, his boss arena is located at the end of Dark Woods of the Serpent after the magic carpet ride where the Serpent boss is normally first encountered.


For the most part, he just walks around aimlessly, but he does occasionally perform two attacks: the leg stomp and bending over to fart at you. Both of these attacks play their appropriate sounds, but neither do direct damage. However, the fart attack occasionally spawns the gas grenade effect in the room which harms you if you walk into it.



The Sumo doesn't perform his thunder clap attack although he has the art for it. He can be killed, but it doesn't end the level and he doesn't do a death fart like his finished counterpart.

There's also one other unique detail here I found amusing. The Sumo's lair is decorated with his steaming turds:


In the beta version of Floating Fortress, the biohazard chamber in the ship housing the Serpent Apprentice was originally a chamber filled with a bunch of Baby Rippers:


I think it's quite a bit creepier than a mini-Serpent seeing all of those guys clinging to the glass and looking at you from inside there, but there's also a button nearby that activates a crusher which kills them all, so they're not much of a threat. However, I point this out because these Baby Rippers combined with the original Sumo boss placement in the woods provide evidence for my upcoming point.

In the beta version of Stone Rain, the final map of the game taking place on and in the volcano, the interior of the volcano is bereft of machinery and much more cavernous. In the final game, the caverns were heavily cut down to just hold the Ninja Turtles secret. However, here in the beta, these caverns are the setting for the final boss fight. And who's the boss waiting for you here? Take a look:


(Screenshot taken in Redux because I couldn't noclip to this part in the original executable)

As you can see, it's the Serpent boss. Since no other Serpents or mini-Serpents appear in the other beta levels up to this point, I offer this hypothesis for your consideration: The Serpent was originally intended to be the final boss of Shadow Warrior.