[Lunick]

MrFlibble, on 16 March 2014 - 06:33 AM, said:

when exactly was this version of the level used?

The level in that plan hasn't been publicly released but we did see footage of it a while ago thanks to some VHS rips or something that was posted in the Supreme Knowledge thread (I think)

[Fox]

It's interesting to note that in v0.99 they already decided on what would be or not in the final version, even if they changed the shape of a lot of stuff.

[Micky C]

That early version of hollywood holocaust looks interesting.

I was aware of the early bigger plan, but I never knew how much of it they actually built.

[MrFlibble]

Thanks to Hallfiry's cover CD index found a demo of Powerslave on this cover CD. I've uploaded it here:
http://www2.zippysha...49930/file.html

It seems to be identical to the demo found here (the one that is split into three parts), as PS.EXE and most of the data files (as far as I can tell) are the same. However, the readme files are different: the three-part one has a file called PSREAD.TXT (1 531 bytes, Jan 20, 1996), and the one on the CD contains README.TXT (964 bytes, Dec 13, 1995). Even though the three-part demo is full of external junk, the readme file seems to be official. Here are both readme files for comparison:

README.TXT

Quote

Thank you for downloading Powerslave!

Here are the requisite disclaimers:

This is an updated demo of the game, and there are still some bugs.
If you feel so inclined as to tell us what you find, go for it. We
are working hard to get this game out and all feedback is welcome and
encouraged.

In this demo are the first two levels of the game essentially as they
will be in the release version. We are very interested in feedback
regarding play balance, survivability, and level solving difficulty.
If you have any comments please forward them to the address below and
to Playmates Interactive.

The final release of Powerslave will include 20 levels of increasing
difficulty with a total of 12 different enemies and 7 weapons.

The F1 key will show what the control keys are. Mouse support is in the
demo, but is not yet adjustable.

Enjoy...

Have fun with it and let us know what you think!

Lobotomy_Software@msn.com

PSREAD.TXT

Quote

Powerslave updated info:

This is a revised and updated version of the Powerslave freeware demo.
Many bugs have been fixed and we are putting finishing touches on the
product, but bugs are inevitably going to show up at this stage of
development.

Quite a few of you responded with comments about the last version which
was very helpful. We are especially interested in feedback on the
difficulty of Powerslave in all aspects of play (fighting monsters,
solving levels, finding secrets, etc).

In this version of the demo you will experience the first two levels of
the game essentially as they will be in the final release. Ultimately
there are 20 levels of increasing difficulty with 7 weapons and 12
different enemies.

The F1 key will show what the control keys are, and mouse control is
always available. Running setup implies the controllers and display
modes are configurable, but this is not fully implimented.

Midi music tracks are not supported in the demo, and being a CD-ROM
product, we are using redbook audio. If you have a music CD in your
CD-ROM drive, the game will play track one for level one and track two
for level two.

Have fun with it and let us know what you think!

Developers:
Lobotomy Software, Inc.
Lobotomy_Software@msn.com

North American Publisher:
Playmates Interactive Entertainment
pie@playmatestoys.com

European Publishers:
BMG Interactive
Product Development Department
Bedford House
69-79 Fulham High Street
London SW6 3JW

[MetHy]

Heh, I like how they tell that mouse support is there.

It totally proves how any so called 'purist' who goes on claiming that old FPS are meant to be played default-keyboard only controls is just bullshit.

[MrFlibble]

Frankly though, the mouse controls in Powerslave aren't exactly one of its stronger points. IIRC you can't turn and strafe at the same time, and proper mouselook isn't implemented either.

BTW, you can play Wolfenstein 3-D with the mouse already (not sure about the Catacomb series games), except that the Y axis is used for forward/backward movement, which isn't very useful.

[Jimmy]

Good sleuthing, Fox. I didn't know that's where that screenshot took place.

It also seems that day time levels and the flamethrower were taken out very late. Probably shortly before 0.99.

[MetHy]

Yeah, press betas had the flamethrower and said it sucked, maybe that's why they removed it.

[Jimmy]

In fact, the .99 beta has the flamethrower still coded and it totally does suck.

[Hendricks266]

^Yeah. Set the max ammo amount of all the shareware weapons to 1 and after you deplete them, v0.99 will autoswitch you to the registered weapons. The Shrinker and Tripbomb behave as expected; the Devastator did not exist yet.

[Corvin]

@MrFlibble: I re-archived the 3 files into one and removed the BBS exes that where just taking up space, and included the new(old) README.TXT.
Did a file compare and they seem all identical so I choose to only have the one archive.

See: http://dukertcm.com/...lave-shareware/ The 2nd File.

[MrFlibble]

Corvin, on 28 March 2014 - 03:55 PM, said:

@MrFlibble: I re-archived the 3 files into one and removed the BBS exes that where just taking up space, and included the new(old) README.TXT.
Did a file compare and they seem all identical so I choose to only have the one archive.

Thanks!

However, it should be noted that apparently the German CD where the "older readme version" is found includes unmodified files that were downloaded from official sources (in this case, I guess it was Playmates Interactive FTP), so the zip file itself is probably authentic. Perhaps you would keep this original file and just add the newer readme as a separate download?

[Corvin]

Well I compromised a little. But ultimately I had to include all files in one zip, separated tho.

I see FATE preview demo is on the same CD. Interesting.

[MrFlibble]

Corvin, on 29 March 2014 - 01:22 PM, said:

I see FATE preview demo is on the same CD. Interesting.

I haven't checked if it's the same thing as the one found at JonoF's site (it seems to be), but anyway, here it is:
http://www.sockshare...AA3D3071B838888

JIC, the full CD (and others indexed by Hallfiry) can be downloaded here:
http://kultcds.com/i...areplay&lang=en

Some of the CDs are available at archive.org too (usually they are provided with a link from the index).

[Corvin]

Yeah FATE.ZIP is the same as JF's site. Actually I got it off the internet way-back when on the only site that had it. I don't have the URL anymore, I think it was an FTP site.

[MrFlibble]

PC Gamer's FTP perhaps?

[Corvin]

Oh man, been so long, but since they do have it listed in their downloads, I'd have to say yes. I know I didn't get it from Intracorp.


Fate
A new first-person shooter from Intracorp, using the Build engine.
No system requirements listed in the file, or on their website.
Download the Fate demo; 7.5 megabytes.

[Corvin]

Found out through a old Google group posting that Duke it out in DC is fully available/complete version on PC Gamer CD June 1997 3.3 CD

I was looking for dkout.zip which is the 1 level demo of DC on Gambler CD (08) 08/97:/Utils/3d/Duke/
This is the same demo that's been around for years, just different file name.

[MrFlibble]

Just in case, here's a clean version of Powerslave public beta: pwrslave.zip

There are no external files (like FILE_ID.DIZ) or archive comments.

As for the updated two-level demo, the original file from that CD can be downloaded separately here.

[DNSkill]

I hope we get to see that version of E1M1 mentioned earlier someday

Also, I hope this is on topic, but can someone explain to me the whole retail shareware/internet shareware thing with Blood? Both have differences in them, and I'm wondering why this is? The retail shareware seems like an older version of the shareware.

[TerminX]

Probably just a matter of the disc image sent off for duplication for the retail shareware already being out of date by the time it made it to shelves. That kind of thing definitely happens. If you have a shareware disc, you can usually view when it was mastered in the sector view in IsoBuster IIRC.

[MrFlibble]

gerolf, on 04 November 2014 - 01:37 AM, said:

Also, I hope this is on topic, but can someone explain to me the whole retail shareware/internet shareware thing with Blood? Both have differences in them, and I'm wondering why this is? The retail shareware seems like an older version of the shareware.

I haven't played it but t is my understanding that the retail shareware release took advantage of the size of the CD and put some extras. Judging by the size of the CD image, there might be CD Audio tracks and more video sequences.

On top of that, there have been numerous shareware releases of the game (a complete or nearly-complete list, with some downloads, can be found here). IIRC, the CD retail shareware version is v0.99b - notice that it is a lot larger in size that the other versions.

A while ago I tried to just amke a list of Blood patches (in this thread). There are several patches specifically for the retail shareware CD version which consecutively update it from v0.99b to v1.11.

Some discussion about the shareware CD version can be found here. There I mistakenly state there are two different CD releases, but Litude corrects me:

MrFlibble said:

According to this, there have been at least two shareware CD editions of Blood, v0.99b and v1.02. Also, but the RTCM website offers the CD v1.0 release (haven't checked it, could be v1.02). Are there any other known CD releases? Do they all differ from their respective counterparts by the presence of videos and CDA music?

And also, is the v0.99b from the site originally a CD version or an electronic distribution version? It's much larger than the other downloadable shareware versions that are available.

Litude said:

There's just one CD shareware version of Blood afaik, 0.99b which is a CD only version as well. If you read the text carefully on that website, you'll notice that it says as much:

Quote

Blood Shareware CD Version 1.02
Only get this patch if you bought Blood shareware from a software store and subsequently applied patched up to 1.02.

So the patch is only to be used if you bought the 0.99b shareware CD and then patched that version up to 1.02 previously by using another patch.

Also the shareware CD offered at RTCM is also 0.99b (I've checked). No idea why it's called 1.0 there.

[Corvin]

I noted that's its actually v0.99b.(The installer is 1.00) I forget where the text is but it was an oversight by Monolith. The Retail Shareware CD was suppose to be 1.00 but Monolith sent the wrong version to GT.

If I'm missing something please let me know.

Edit: I should note Monolith distributed their own shareware files. GT did indeed distribute the Retail Shareware CD.

[DNSkill]

The most notable differences on the retail Blood shareware is that the gargoyles that transform from stone to come to life display a morphing animation (like in the Blood alpha), some minor level design differences, and the intro cutscene had different dialogue for Tchernobog (which sounded slightly different, and didn't really fit well with the animation and it also gave away most of the game's plot). There's probably other differences too, but I don't know myself.

[MrFlibble]

Wow, I never realised that the actual differences were this extensive!

On a slightly related note, not sure if this could be interesting, but Litude mentioned a possibly leaked v0.91 beta demo which includes three levels.

[DNSkill]

Yes, that beta exist. It's on rtcm. There's not many differences except that there's only 3 levels, the exits are slightly different in these 3 levels, the Cultist have a death scream not found in the final, there's a few unused Caleb quotes, and in the sound files themselves there's some strange sounds that were probably old versions of the hellhound sounds. Level 2, if you go into the tunnel at the end of the level, where the train is, messages pop up telling you how you should turn around (and they get more hysterical as you go further, then you are killed). In level 3 (the train) there is a large mirror in the caboose that was removed for whatever reason. Also there's some enemy placement differences in the difficulties, like level 1 had a cultist on top of the crypt that leads to the guns akimbo pickup. Also, there's different music in this beta, many of which are rerecordings of the alpha midis, but you only can hear 1 track, that starts at the menu, and doesn't loop so once it ends, you no longer hear it. The coolest thing I found were animated HUD faces for those 2 beast you see on the HUD.

Other than that, there wasn't many differences that I noticed.

I wrote about the Blood beta on here.

[MrFlibble]

On a somewhat related note (and hopefully not very off-topic!), I remember some bug being mentioned a while ago in one of the shareware versions which changed monster stats to lower (?) difficulty levels when a saved game was loaded. Which version(s) is this in? What version is the most stable?

[m96]

gerolf, on 06 November 2014 - 12:26 AM, said:

Also, there's different music in this beta, many of which are rerecordings of the alpha midis, but you only can hear 1 track, that starts at the menu, and doesn't loop so once it ends, you no longer hear it.

Try starting the game with the command line -nocd.

[DNSkill]

Thanks! That worked! Level 3 had a great track that reminds me of that NIN song "Ruiner"

[MrFlibble]

MrFlibble, on 07 November 2014 - 12:52 PM, said:

I remember some bug being mentioned a while ago in one of the shareware versions which changed monster stats to lower (?) difficulty levels when a saved game was loaded.

Here's this thread that mentions the bug:
http://forums.duke4....8-blood-issues/

I think I might have read about it elsewhere but I'm not sure. The Blood Wiki does not mention it on the bugs page.