[oasiz]

The pistol isn't meant to shoot that fast. If you have a slower machine from the times then you will notice that a lot of things run at a more proper speed.
It was actually quite hard to find videos of the game running at a more reasonable speed while showing most of the content so I did one seen in here.

As for the plot, It's very disconnected but I am pretty confident that EP1 and EP2 got mixed together at some point.
My theory based on what is out there:
Duke2 ends, Duke finds this evil space station and puts an end to it, Teleports to L.A., goes trough a lot of sewer stuff and takes a subway to the downtown, ends with a big "helicopter boss" showdown at the U.S. bank tower rooftop (possibly non-alien forces).
The first bit is something that can be kind of verified from this combined intermission screen but the 3rd episode is somewhat disconnected.
He ends up getting captured and escapes the prison to a huge boat that takes him to an underwater rocky base, presumably the final showdown with a boss that has yet to be implemented would have happened somewhere in here.
Also one of the later maps in the 3rd EP has a section that is single only area in LD where I managed to spot actual alien texturing, pointing to a possible source of all the trouble in earth.

[FTW23065]

oasiz, on 09 September 2014 - 01:05 PM, said:

Duke2 ends, Duke finds this evil space station and puts an end to it, Teleports to L.A., goes trough a lot of sewer stuff and takes a subway to the downtown, ends with a big "helicopter boss" showdown at the U.S. bank tower rooftop (possibly non-alien forces).
The first bit is something that can be kind of verified from this combined intermission screen but the 3rd episode is somewhat disconnected.
He ends up getting captured and escapes the prison to a huge boat that takes him to an underwater rocky base, presumably the final showdown with a boss that has yet to be implemented would have happened somewhere in here.
Also one of the later maps in the 3rd EP has a section that is single only area in LD where I managed to spot actual alien texturing, pointing to a possible source of all the trouble in earth.

I wonder if they have a proper build following that storyline.

[oasiz]

Judging from the video that TX posted a while ago:
Downtown L.A. -> Some enhancements, Seems like it developed to a test map for effects and enemy tests. This was chopped up and ended up being split in to city maps such like E1L1 in the retail. Storyline-wise, I think this was a dead-end.
Subway station -> Has some enhancements and bug fixes (like the floor in the subway). Nothing else is really seen.
Dark side -> Actual moon base, either later in the E1 chain instead of L.A. or they decided to scrap the space station as it was back then. What can be concluded from this is that they added up the idea of being in the surface of the moon after LD.

It seems that the "storyline" gradually changed towards the retail build as the concepts evolved, maps got changed, etc..

Final retail duke still has the helicopter boss (SE6 I believe) that behaves very much like the helicopter in LD with simply a very tiny change in it's behaviour.
I'm pretty confident that this boss was scrapped around the same period as the "video build" due to this.

Since the "lame L.A." was getting replaced bit by bit at this point, it's safe to say that the old maps and progression got changed at this point.
If you take the last 4 levels from EP1 and first 4 from EP2 then you have the whole "L.A. saga". Stuff in EP2 is especially old as it uses the white wall texure quite a lot, my theory is that it was the default texture in build around that time. Maps generally have a small texture set and utilize things like bats that are never seen elsewhere in the game. Also most of the enemies are humanoids instead of the robotic troopers you have elsewhere. Also the build editor's changelog mentions the gas station seen in E2L4.

Early parts of L.A. and concepts largely got scrapped, seems that the "video build" enhanced this a bit but not much.
E3 had tons of potential but it was a lot of work as well, Most of the cave sections are just generic copypastes with a few more interesting areas, prison concept was improved and moved to E1L3, ship became derelict.

I would say that LD is probably the closest you can get to this alternate universe with some mix&match from the "video build" as it was already gradually evolving towards retail style at this point but still hasn't removed the forgotten bits. Later builds seem to be a hybrid of both styles with the direction heading towards final style.

Guess I have rambled enough about LD, I will shut up for now..

[Fulsy]

oasiz, on 10 September 2014 - 05:49 AM, said:

Guess I have rambled enough about LD, I will shut up for now..

No such thing as too much rambling and speculating about the betas, IMO.

It helps with the wait.

[PikaCommando]

oasiz, on 09 September 2014 - 01:05 PM, said:

The pistol isn't meant to shoot that fast. If you have a slower machine from the times then you will notice that a lot of things run at a more proper speed.
It was actually quite hard to find videos of the game running at a more reasonable speed while showing most of the content so I did one seen in here.

As for the plot, It's very disconnected but I am pretty confident that EP1 and EP2 got mixed together at some point.
My theory based on what is out there:
Duke2 ends, Duke finds this evil space station and puts an end to it, Teleports to L.A., goes trough a lot of sewer stuff and takes a subway to the downtown, ends with a big "helicopter boss" showdown at the U.S. bank tower rooftop (possibly non-alien forces).
The first bit is something that can be kind of verified from this combined intermission screen but the 3rd episode is somewhat disconnected.
He ends up getting captured and escapes the prison to a huge boat that takes him to an underwater rocky base, presumably the final showdown with a boss that has yet to be implemented would have happened somewhere in here.
Also one of the later maps in the 3rd EP has a section that is single only area in LD where I managed to spot actual alien texturing, pointing to a possible source of all the trouble in earth.

Very informative, can you post a screenshot of the alien textures? From the sounds of it it looks like the government has turned on Duke or something in the original LD storyline. Also, evil space station? I always thought like maybe the starship at the end of DN2 ran out of fuel or something and he has to do some space station hopping to reach Earth. The roaming spaceship in the first level reminds me of the attacking roaming spaceship in E2L1. Still doesn't explain the presence of "alien" enemies like Octabrain, DN2 Slimes and later the old Pigcops though. Do you have a picture of anything from Lameduke/retail that shows the old enemies' internal names like the helicopter boss you mentioned in the next post? Also, any idea on the full weapon list of old storyline?

Also, damn it when games have a gradual change instead of sudden ones. It makes it all the more harder to detect what things is from which time period. Makes me feel like some sort of internet video game historian/archaeologist.

EDIT: Noticed something here:

Could this be enemy infighting, like the Soldiers vs Aliens in Half-Life?

EDIT 2: Also the video you posted seems to show that the normally indestructible Toxic Slimes can be killed using the Plasma Gun.

[High Treason]

According to the CON files, the enemies have names like FEMANOID for the punk women, MANDROID for the commando guys that have no code, TROOP/TROOP1 (As in Trooper?) For the generic robot dude, CAPTAIN is the larger robot I guess, JELLYFISH for the Octabrain, DRONE1 for the Descent-like annoying things.

Lol, the drunk guy has an entry... DRUNKGUY.

I can't get to the textures with Editart right now, but here's a couple of screenshots;
 CAPT0000.png (49.39K)
Number of downloads: 486  CAPT0001.png (68.5K)
Number of downloads: 462

How the hell anybody gets by running this with DOSBox I'll never know. Never attempted it before trying to take those as I couldn't be bothered to get up and wire the 486 up.

[oasiz]

Guess I can paste this in here as well as It's related, if it's any help.

Screenshots & some analysis per shot Starts from the said map.
You can get the game running rather ok with dosbox by manually limiting the cycles and being careful on what CPU optimizations to go with.
For the video and these shots seen in here I just used an old 133Mhz P1 computer.
A lot of my analysis is based on what I learned about HL2 development while going trough the leaked files, Duke's development seems to have tons of similarities with it as both underwent a huge change in style and plot.
The maps and concepts got simply cherry picked and re-implemented in a better and more subtle way. Not to mention that features got added in gradually as the engine was still very much in development.

Anyway,

Screenshot with the infighting is obviously fabricated as Duke is never displayed from that kind of an angle.

Helicopter boss was referred to such in the source from what I remember, in LD it's already used in E1L8 as a sector that very much resembles a crude helicopter.
First clip shows retail behaviour but in this video I demoted to an "ufo beam", one potential way to use it as it's kinda buggy.

Yeah, toxic slimes can be killed with the plasma gun, just makes em fizzle.

[Fox]

PikaCommando, on 11 September 2014 - 12:11 AM, said:

EDIT: Noticed something here:

That's just a mock-up.

[Marphy Black]

I'd like to bring up a point here I first mentioned in this post regarding the cut Sweeney level. Levelord released what we most commonly associate with the level, but I've collected a few screenshots that appear to exhibit the same map in a decidedly different (and better?) state:




I theorize these images to be from Sweeney as this is seen in the Sweeney map Levelord released:


There's the same building corner, sign, and dumpsters in a slightly different arrangement, thus I think it's fair to conclude these are all from some form of Sweeney. However, what can explain why there are what appears to be two very distinct versions of the same map? I've always just assumed Levelord released the last build of the map he had, but the above screenshots sure look a ton better than what he posted for the public. I know the detail in some maps had to be cut down due to performance concerns, but would optimization really change the level as dramatically as shown?

I suppose the main point I'm getting at here is this: Is the Sweeney map that Levelord released to the public incredibly outdated and not reflective of the final stage of the level before it was finally cut? In its current state, the map as Levelord released it, while playable, certainly isn't ready for inclusion in the retail game, and some of the mapping quirks (incorrect ambient sounds, oddly overabundant enemy placement) indicate it was from a much older stage of the game's development. The question is, how old? And do the above screenshots illustrate some later phase of its development that was not released?

Searching for any hints of dates, the pre-release Sweeney image above with the HUD and lacking the posed Fat Commander is dated August 10, 1995. Unfortunately, we can't precisely date Levelord's map file as he made a few bug fixes at the time of its release in 1998. The leaked 0.99 beta which includes a mention of Sweeney in Episode 3's map list is dated January 4, 1996. That could mean Sweeney (along with Sewer) was cut extremely late into development, or it could just be a red herring. However, if Sweeney was indeed cut at nearly the last moment, it would provide an explanation as to why the map was developed so much further beyond the old build that Levelord released, assuming it is an old build.

[MrFlibble]

Could it have been the other way around? Maybe they made a mock-up map with a detailed area specifically to take screenshots of, and then re-used this idea for an actual level?

I think TerminX mentioned somewhere in this thread (or in the STOMK) that the mock-up maps which were created for screenshot purposes are still there in the 3DR archives.

[Ahcruna]

I've always loved the look of that level in that screenshot. I really do hope that the actual map is somehow larger than that staged area.

[oasiz]

I always thought that screenshot as Sweeney..

Judging from the spray paints on the wall (repetition and changing per shot) it really looks like they just added a bunch of stuff in there to make it look busy.

I'd say that the left shot and the 3rd shot below are from the same era due to the white wall not having black stains on the top.
Texture repeat also changes between every revision on the trash dumpster along with the texture on top of the dumpster's walls.
Shot on the right already has mostly final content aside from the sky texture.

At least some work was done on this "pose shot" between version if nothing else, while it could mainly be for the shots themselves, it doesn't still drop the possibility that the map was being worked in the back and they just forked re-did the scene a few times by manually adding those extra spray tags and objects.

Sewer / sweeney still have some assets in the 1.3D ART files, maps being unfinished so late on is just a matter of some focusing and crunch time

Also what time did LL join 3DR anyway? There is always the possibility that some other guy started this area seen on the shot and LL just either copied it re-implemented that in another map.

Man, so much content out there in the end, I should take a look at the rest of the shots some day.

[Salvation]

First time it was "mid-july" when these assets were promised to be released. Now it's mid-september and i haven't seen anything?

Yeah, "when it's ready" is a very good quote but if i understand correct, these release dates has been delayed two times and it's not good...

[Frederik Schreiber]

We have a few more things we want to package up and bring to the table with the re-reveal of 3DR.
We're working around the clock at the moment, but what we are trying to do is a huge undertaking.

Bringing back 3D Realms has to be done right. There's a lot of legacy to cover, and we want to make the fans of almost 30 years proud of what we're going to bring to the table with the re-launch.
We could have launched a few months ago, but we decided to put way more effort into re-launching 3DR. The way it deserves.

We are wrapping everything up, and testing atm. It's getting there!

[MusicallyInspired]

Take your time. We're not going anywhere.

[Dr_Proton]

Frederik Schreiber, on 17 September 2014 - 06:15 AM, said:

We are wrapping everything up, and testing atm. It's getting there!

Okay, If you say so Mr. Schreiber But don't you let us wait for Christmas ... Seriously, please don't :/

[FTW23065]

Yes, please do whatever is needed. Relaunching 3DR must be a hit!

[icecoldduke]

It would be nice though to get a ETA .

[Hendricks266]

icecoldduke, on 18 September 2014 - 07:50 AM, said:

It would be nice though to get a ETA .

[FTW23065]

Hendricks266, on 18 September 2014 - 07:58 AM, said:

...

[Frederik Schreiber]

I'd love to tease, but I think it's better waiting for the final product

[Robman]

Don't poke the bear Fred...

[Frenkel]

Hendricks266, on 16 April 2014 - 09:05 PM, said:

There are three versions of Legend of Seven Paladins 3D in the wild:
The demo version with a creation date of 22-Sep-1994,
the full version with a creation date of 26-Sep-1994 and
the updated full version with a creation date of 1-Nov-1994.
Are there any other versions on that CD?

There's a screenshot from an early beta of Crystal Caves at the end of the Apogee Legacy Frank Maddin interview.
Has that beta been found?

Is there a beta of Secret Agent where his hands are red instead of grey?

[Hendricks266]

Legend of the Seven Paladins is the 22-Sep-1994 demo that is already publicly available from JonoF's site and RTCM.

There are 18 Crystal Caves betas, including the one from that page. (Protip: If Joe Siegler was the one posting the screenshot, we have it. This was his disc, after all.)

I did not find any Secret Agent betas.

[gibfrag]

Cybertank 3D and Fantasy 3D, anything about those?

They were both cancelled games and I think there are 2 or 3 screenshots of Cybertank.

[Lunick]

18 CRYSTAL CAVES BETAS?

[MrFlibble]

Hopefully this is not entirely off-topic. I've just realized that the Rise of the Triad title theme kind of sounds like a slower version of the Wolfenstein 3-D main menu theme - which would actually be unsurprising with the composer being the same and ROTT having been planned as a sequel to Wolf3D.

[MusicallyInspired]

Didn't Lee Jackson do all of ROTT while Wolf3D was solely Bobby Prince?

[Frenkel]

Frenkel, on 20 September 2014 - 03:42 AM, said:

Is there a beta of Secret Agent where his hands are red instead of grey?

Hendricks266, on 20 September 2014 - 10:47 AM, said:

I did not find any Secret Agent betas.

I asked that question because I think I found a picture of agent 006 with red hands.


More info on how I found that image is on the 3D Realms forum.

[The Ultimate Doomer]

MrFlibble, on 21 September 2014 - 07:37 AM, said:

Hopefully this is not entirely off-topic. I've just realized that the Rise of the Triad title theme kind of sounds like a slower version of the Wolfenstein 3-D main menu theme - which would actually be unsurprising with the composer being the same and ROTT having been planned as a sequel to Wolf3D.

MusicallyInspired, on 21 September 2014 - 09:24 AM, said:

Didn't Lee Jackson do all of ROTT while Wolf3D was solely Bobby Prince?

The Wolf3D soundtrack was made only by Robert Prince, and the ROTT soundtrack was made mostly by Lee Jackson. Prince did do a few tracks for ROTT, such as the title theme.