[icecoldduke]

sirlemonhead, on 06 June 2017 - 06:50 AM, said:

I've seen it used in parallax sky code.

Makes sense. I'm just curious if it was a bigger concept that got dropped during development. I can't imagine what it would be though.

[stumppy84]

Wow! Those Dragons look pretty cool! You have to incorporate them into DK.

[PikaCommando]

What's in PLAX2 and PLAX3, then? Also, looks like the battleship ($BTLSHIP) and rollercoaster ($ROLLER) level mentioned in the dev diaries is in the first '96 build. Can anyone check em out?

[LeoTCK]

Of course! I checked all of them out. Rollercoaster level is Ripper Valley / Coolie Mines, part of it, the rest of Coolie Mines is in $mine.map

The rollercoaster level also starts with the sky palace stuff, proving once more that Eric Reuter did originally make these levels just as he did original whirl but was uncredited.

Plax2 and 3 they don't work all that right in the early 96 build, it should be however much more playable in the 95 one since the map didn't get updated since obviously.

The parallxing sky is used in Plax2 btw, so that's another thing. Plax2 looks really like some of those early Eric's levels from Unreal, when there was the white stone texture set like I mentioned. Only a couple of these textures survived with a test map though but this is something for the beta freaks.

Plax3 is...it's not good imo. The most broken on them all and most enjoyable in the middle 96 version surprisingly enough as that makes you fall down. Plax3 is...well it's when Eric is really low on ideas.

The battleship level is just early version of yamato...

[PikaCommando]

LeoTCK, on 06 June 2017 - 07:35 AM, said:

Of course! I checked all of them out. Rollercoaster level is Ripper Valley / Coolie Mines, part of it, the rest of Coolie Mines is in $mine.map

The rollercoaster level also starts with the sky palace stuff, proving once more that Eric Reuter did originally make these levels just as he did original whirl but was uncredited.

Plax2 and 3 they don't work all that right in the early 96 build, it should be however much more playable in the 95 one since the map didn't get updated since obviously.

The parallxing sky is used in Plax2 btw, so that's another thing. Plax2 looks really like some of those early Eric's levels from Unreal, when there was the white stone texture set like I mentioned. Only a couple of these textures survived with a test map though but this is something for the beta freaks.

Plax3 is...it's not good imo. The most broken on them all and most enjoyable in the middle 96 version surprisingly enough as that makes you fall down. Plax3 is...well it's when Eric is really low on ideas.

The battleship level is just early version of yamato...

Could you post some comparison shots between the PLAX levels and screenshots of that Unreal level?

[LeoTCK]

PikaCommando, on 06 June 2017 - 07:59 AM, said:

Could you post some comparison shots between the PLAX levels and screenshots of that Unreal level?

That's a bit difficult since the computer I play the games on is not connected and I'd have to take screenshots of plax levels, search for the unreal screenshots since I don't have those levels(they only exist in prerelease screenshot threads and archives, okay you can look up "Unreal Alpha/beta shots" on unrealsp.org, I believe it was called that way, Darkon posted that way back. It doesn't have everything from the old Unreal times and certainly not the best stuff, the rest is from magazines/cds/archives where it gets a little better, but still you will be able to see some of that there. Whiteish/gray stones similar to the screenshot you posted out of SW.

Besides why don't you try yourself using dosbox? Just run sw -map $plax2.map for example.

[Svanis]

LeoTCK, on 05 June 2017 - 09:45 PM, said:

I think that idea was never implemented and instead they turned it into the RC cars. Sounds consistent and then they forgot later they had that idea in the first place.

That level, it's the $plax1.map basically and it exists in all of the later builds.

As for the crossbow, I feel like it does belong in shadow warrior, perhaps less in the release version but that late 95 version must be so GOAT so I wish the efforts are resumed. God, those "Hydra Monsters" and all, forgot all about them.

To play that level, fire up the first '96 beta and type SWWARP 15

SWWARP 16 is super cool, level 1-6. Go into the main room and immediately jump onto the flying carpet and hold Z.

I'm using a soundfont player to play the music in the game, 1mgm.sf2 sounds amazing, like the music was made for it.

[LeoTCK]

I know how it looks like, played it many times. level 1-6 is roller instead of rollercoaster you get the magic carpet, but it does follow the rollercoaster pattern pretty much. And the level doesn't have the hydras anymore.

As for music, I use the gravis ultrasound there.

[Svanis]

Sorry, was meant as a reply for PikaCommando. Could anyone help me on how to open up the files to look at textures, etc?

I managed to get the August '95 beta up and running by using the exe from the first 96 beta and turning sound off in the setup and putting the Yamato demo file and map file in the folder because it looks for Demo1 which doesn't exist. Then it wants $SHADOW, so I took that one from one of the other builds and presto, it works! There is no sound though and the graphics are messed up beyond belief. Sadly, it seems most weapon sprites are broken, as only the Katana, Shuriken and Guardian Head shows because of my Franken-solution... This version has a unique model for the third Guardian Head alt-fire.

You have to replace the assets, can get the sound working but it'll be the sound from the '96 version. However the claw weapon is in there as #6, it has the katana sound and seems to explode enemies sending you flying as you hit them. Probably because of the replaced assets...

There is a SW950115.EXE in the folder, but if you try to rename that to SW.exe you'll get an IPX error.. If only you could tell the game not to look for the IPX protocol. I am clueless on these things.

Also, TEST.MID wow... Demented.


On a side note, if you press F1 in the '96 builds and remove the HUD (+ key), it seems to reference this HUD:

 SW HUD.png (1.08MB)
Number of downloads: 27

 3DRattach03.gif (40.49K)
Number of downloads: 33

Hoping for real spells and not just Inventory items á la DOOM/Duke 3D like in the later '96 builds.

I also noticed punching in the '97 beta includes the Mighty Foot from Duke 3D!!!

[LeoTCK]

I experimented the same btw, but got a little further. Yes the exe from 1996 expects sw.cfg as default for example and other things it expects too so dont expect the same behavior since the game code is suddenly different. Either way...in the previous prototype there's that bit with SP01 something and the blankspace and its missing in the cracked version. Now this version doesn't use aegis but there's this about same part in it that I theorize if replaced with something else, could work.

[icecoldduke]

Svanis, on 06 June 2017 - 01:09 PM, said:

I managed to get the August '95 beta up and running by using the exe from the first 96 beta

Nice work!

[LeoTCK]

That's no "work", basically all of the game magic is in the other exe.

And this way it can't even run the maps that are with it, with the late 95 version. It can't open any of them at all. So its useless in practice. It will just give you the behavior of the 96 beta trying to load resources from this one and getting it wrong.

[icecoldduke]

LeoTCK, on 06 June 2017 - 02:10 PM, said:

That's no "work", basically all of the game magic is in the other exe.

And this way it can't even run the maps that are with it, with the late 95 version. It can't open any of them at all. So its useless in practice. It will just give you the behavior of the 96 beta trying to load resources from this one and getting it wrong.

I disagree, every little bit of progress helps. As far as the replaced exe not being able to load the maps, whats the issue? Does the game crash when you try and load the maps in that build?

[TerminX]

Yeah, that's about as useful as copying random shit out of WINDOWS\System32 and overwriting the files in another version of Windows with them.

icecoldduke, on 06 June 2017 - 02:15 PM, said:

I disagree, every little bit of progress helps. As far as the replaced exe not being able to load the maps, whats the issue? Does the game crash when you try and load the maps in that build?

It's not progress, it's literally hooking up incompatible data and commenting on how poorly it works.

[icecoldduke]

TerminX, on 06 June 2017 - 02:16 PM, said:

Yeah, that's about as useful as copying random shit out of WINDOWS\System32 and overwriting the files in another version of Windows with them.

It's not progress, it's literally hooking up incompatible data and commenting on how poorly it works.

Meh I still disagree. The best thing is to get those builds cracked, but having more people trying other rando things is not a bad thing. I will personally be offering encouragement to people that try different things even if its just replacing the exe. Unless you have a list of changelists between the two builds, we have no idea what code changes there actually was between the two builds. For all we know the only shit that got changed was art.

[LeoTCK]

I have no clue what he meant with claw weapon as weapon 6 because when I do that with the 96 exe it doesn't show up for me at all. Not even in the same slot, first he said only katana/shuriken/guardian head show up and now something about the claw weapon. I dont see the sprite showing im sorry. And if you mean weapon behavior only then no its weapon 6 from the other build...really this is not a windows program, everything's coded into the damn exe...

[TerminX]

Did you miss the part about the difference in time between the two builds representing 5 months of work on what was an AAA game at the time? You know damn well that art was not the only thing that changed.

[LeoTCK]

icecoldduke, on 06 June 2017 - 02:22 PM, said:

Meh I still disagree. The best thing is to get those builds cracked, but having more people trying other rando things is not a bad thing. I will personally be offering encouragement to people that try different things even if its just replacing the exe. Unless you have a list of changelists between the two builds, we have no idea what code changes there actually was between the two builds. For all we know the only shit that got changed was art.

That's a very ignorant attitude given there were different weapons AND more ENEMIES AND...GRAH whatever. You don't get it do you? You can see some code references if you examine strings. There are differences...

And now I forgot what else I wanted to explain.
Oh yes the 5 months gap for starters but TerminX beat me to it already.

[icecoldduke]

TerminX, on 06 June 2017 - 02:25 PM, said:

Did you miss the part about the difference in time between the two builds representing 5 months of work on what was an AAA game at the time? You know damn well that art was not the only thing that changed.

I've actually been hired to fix projects that were unfire because the studio that got the project neglected it for months and worked on something else. Nothing surprises me anymore, and I always assume nothing . My point is, hes doing it for free let him do it and report back and see what happens. Do I think the game will actually run well? Probably not but it might be interesting to some people to see what works and what doesn't, then we might be able to deduce what things were getting worked on the engineering side.

[LeoTCK]

You're a complete git, go back to git hub.

Where are you from? Belgium?

[icecoldduke]

LeoTCK, on 06 June 2017 - 02:34 PM, said:

Where are you from? Belgium?

California actually, the most terrible state in the union .

[Svanis]

It honestly saddens me to see people arguing over such small things. I never took credit for anything, I'm just a gamer excited to dig things out of these old beta builds without any background in programming/coding. I really don't want to be a thorn in anyone's side by posting a few replies to this topic. The weapon 6 thing is just the railgun using the sound of the katana. It's just mucking around with files messing the game up and it doesn't really work.

[LeoTCK]

Again, this is a messdoss, you hack. It's really literally putting the gamecode from other build into another and it WILL NOT run the goddamn maps it came with, and that's a fucking problem. The reason it expects all that data is because surprise the other version has it/references it...

BUT GREAT WE ENJOY THIS TUTTI FRUTTI MESS RUNNING ON THE 96 ENGINE TRYING TO BANANANANANANANAAN

There's no point trying to explain

EDIT: Arguing with icecoldduke. It's fine you tried what you tried for an experiment, but ice just took it to another level.

Do you want to really know what it says? Nothing, because the format is so different it complains about it being not found at all. The 96 version can't load it...and this is now the 96 version if you use that.

EDIT2: California? Well, Belgium is the most terrible state in the other union, so...

[LeoTCK]

Svanis, on 06 June 2017 - 02:42 PM, said:

It honestly saddens me to see people arguing over such small things. I never took credit for anything, I'm just a gamer excited to dig things out of these old beta builds without any background in programming/coding. I really don't want to be a thorn in anyone's side by posting a few replies to this topic. The weapon 6 thing is just the railgun using the sound of the katana. It's just mucking around with files messing the game up and it doesn't really work.

Yea I sympathize. But you at least get it or try to get it. That's a difference.

[icecoldduke]

LeoTCK, on 06 June 2017 - 02:42 PM, said:

...

I get what your saying, and I usually don't like making arguments from authority, but so you know I work in the video game industry and have shipped quite few AAA games as a engineer(graphics, networking, and lead positions), and I disagree with you. Swapping out the exe should not crash on face value(unless the file formats changed between builds). The builds might crash based on what content is in there, and new weapons/ai may not work at all, but new content might turn on hidden features in the old exe that weren't present in that build(because the data wasn't there). I stand by what I said, swapping out the exe's is imo a valid thing to try.

[LeoTCK]

Then you're a complete idiot and it's no wonder that the gaming industry is in shambles when people like you come into the business.

You have no idea how it works. At all. How could anyone pay you is beyond me.

[icecoldduke]

LeoTCK, on 06 June 2017 - 02:54 PM, said:

Then you're a complete idiot and it's no wonder that the gaming industry is in shambles when people like you come into the business.

You have no idea how it works. At all. How could anyone pay you is beyond me.

Agree to disagree then .

[Hendricks266]

Come on Leo, lay off. Swapping out the exe definitely won't be the same, but it does at least allow exploration of some of the assets. It's not nothing. My betas.bat has an option to run the January 95 exe with the February 95 data. It was originally there because I forgot I cracked the February one, but I kept it because it's still interesting. For example, it looks for TITLE.MAP even though that file is not present in the January data.

[LeoTCK]

You start to remind me the hack that sabotaged my project. Most of it was due to his stupidity though malice came to play at the very end.

Putting up with him all the time and him smiling back at me until he wipped the proverbial knife out.

To compare this with someone who has been sleeping on a project and AAA these days mean shit like AAA Taxi in Prague organized by mafia.

I really don't get this. You're only getting away with it because of today's companies extremely low standards. And because everything these days is an extreme mess when it comes to coding and projects just hang in the air forever...

Not even mentioning that the way these programs have been coded is ENTIRELY DIFFERENT thing. All the "data" is in the exe, the rest are just ....and it wont get the correct references as evidenced by the damn sprites being present only for a couple of weapons because the numbers etc have changed....so it no longer matches with IT!

EDIT: Hendricks, that beta you mention was much more close to that other one. It wasn't unplayable tutti frutti mess and all maps could be opened with that exe. In this case, its just beyond ridiculous. Not what Svanis did, but the way icd thinks it really helped anything or that it's "work".

[icecoldduke]

Svanis, on 06 June 2017 - 02:42 PM, said:

It honestly saddens me to see people arguing over such small things. I never took credit for anything, I'm just a gamer excited to dig things out of these old beta builds without any background in programming/coding. I really don't want to be a thorn in anyone's side by posting a few replies to this topic. The weapon 6 thing is just the railgun using the sound of the katana. It's just mucking around with files messing the game up and it doesn't really work.

Welcome to Duke4! , and don't stop what your doing.