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U1 Trivia Thread (Clear)

For gameplay advice and broader discussion of single-player Unreal including custom maps, mods and mutations that alter the game.

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UB_
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Subject: Re: Unreal 1 TRIVIA THREAD

Post Posted: 10 Jan 2015, 01:21

Fixed the cubes trivia; Jet mentioned me they had MoverSounds and they're used for crystal event sounds.
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UB_
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Subject: Re: Unreal 1 TRIVIA THREAD

Post Posted: 14 Jan 2015, 16:14

Amethyst (Amethyst.unr or SkyCity.unr)
  • Amethyst is a map developed by Eric Reuter, one of the level designers whose maps never made it to the final version of the game. In his 3+ years of working at Epic, he helped in all aspects of design of gameplay for Unreal, including working closely with texture and modeling artists for creation of level textures, weaponry, items and NPC actors and enemies. He was involved in other non-Unreal games, see this and this.
  • Eric Reuter's main focus in Unreal was the SkyCity theme. Other than Amethyst and SP maps, he did DM maps (see the pictures for one) and he was also heavily involved in Unreal PSX and in the Unreal's cancelled expansion pack made by Epic which most probably featured Sky Islands. This expansion pack (or maybe two packs) HAD NOTHING to do with RTNP and was shelved when it was pretty much ready, as Epic decided to focus on UT while totally leaving Legend to do another different mappack in the shortest time possible. Much. Thanks.
  • Amethyst is visible in Unreal's cover arts (in the picture, it's the map on the center-right). The map was finished and appeared in a beta build of the game.
  • It's not exactly confirmed if Amethyst came before or after War's Sky maps but it's most probably the former, as Sspirmu1 in the SkyCity.utx package suggests. The texture (which was only used in DM maps) shows four occurences: the first one (from the top right) shows the player using a button to call the Sky Elevator, the second one shows the Crystal's electric beams, the third one shows the Sky Elevator next to the Sunspire and the fourth one shows the Sky Eleveator next to a Sky fortress. That is the Sky City.
  • While this is sort of unrelated to the map, the Mac version of Unreal has a package with Sky Island and Sky textures used for daytime.
  • Amethyst's music theme was most likely SkyCity.umx.
  • As explained in the UNBIBLE, the original way to reach the SkyCity (there was just the SkyCity at first) was to transform into a Hawk and fly on there.


Last edited by UB_ on 17 Jan 2015, 17:31, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar Hellscrag
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Subject: Re: Unreal 1 TRIVIA THREAD

Post Posted: 16 Jan 2015, 00:46

Just trying to see how this would relate to Na Pali Haven and I'm struggling. Are you sure they were ever planned to coexist, or did one replace the other?

Maybe your next update will reveal all!
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User avatar StalwartUK
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Subject: Re: Unreal 1 TRIVIA THREAD

Post Posted: 16 Jan 2015, 04:37

UBerserker wrote:Eric Reuter's main focus in Unreal was the SkyCity theme. Other than Amethyst and SP maps, he did DM maps (see the pictures for one) and he was also heavily involved in Unreal PSX and in the Unreal's cancelled expansion pack made by Epic which most probably featured Sky Islands. This expansion pack (or maybe two packs) HAD NOTHING to do with RTNP and was shelved when it was pretty much ready, as Epic decided to focus on UT while totally leaving Legend to do another different mappack in the shortest time possible. Much. Thanks.


Any other info on this "pretty much ready" expansion pack? Would seem rather odd of them to work on such a thing only to abandon it at the last minute.
StalwartUK

UB_
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Subject: Re: Unreal 1 TRIVIA THREAD

Post Posted: 17 Jan 2015, 17:23

Gateway To Na Pali (SkyCaves.unr)
  • Development of SkyCaves started already in 1997, with a screenshot of the second terrace being shown (with the DM-Ariza rock texture used for the island) and a special video showing the river area where the player is attacked by a Manta. This was all ready before the the 1998 Unreal beta - and it did only appear in another previous small beta but it was semi-finished until up the large river cave. The ending of SkyCaves was attached to SkyTown at first, also.
  • War's Sky maps co-existed with Amethyst but it isn't 100% known yet if they were to come before or after Amethyst itself (before is much more probable). The Sky section was just planned to be much longer and you were supposed to visit more islands.
  • The Krall first appear in this map... as in the final game only.
  • The Rifle first appears in this map.
  • It is impossible to save the first Nali from falling down; he's thrown into the clouds by a ThrowStuff actor that the Nali himself activates. The only possible way to save him is to shoot him from afar and hope he decides to run somewhere instead of being stuck near the balcony (and being consequently killed by the Krall).
  • A breakdown about how the whole process of falling down in the sky kills you:
    • 1. falling in the sky teleports you in a special zone which has a TriggeredDeath actor. TriggeredDeath actor drains totally all your health and activates a scream sound (Female scream if you play as a female character, Male scream if you play as a male character or non-human ones). Also, in 5 seconds, the screen becomes brighter and brighter and you eventually die. Once you are "death triggered" you cannot survive in any possible way;
    • 2. flying "to the planet" gives out the same results as 1, however you can stop before you reach the TriggeredDeath actor's radius;
    • 3. ghosting "to the planet" insta-kills you the second you touch the teleporter to the death zone;
    • 4. nothing happens if you ghost in the death zone area. You can go anywhere you wish there.
  • It appears that the first door was supposed to be locked until the first two Krall were killed, as a Counter for their deaths activates the trigger for said door. However, the trigger itself is already activated and ready for use.
  • Similar thing happens with the door guarded by the Skaarj Officer duo. The counter doesn't even link to the already-usable trigger eventname-wise.
  • Unlike what's mentioned above, the final door of the level is indeed locked until you kill the two Skaarj Warriors in the last section.
  • The two Skaarj Officers have their AI properties set to "Threaten". They'll stalk you around until you annoy them off for real.
  • Due to technical issues with the geometry, various brushes appear invisible in the editor's wireframe mode.
  • Early in development, the original starting point of the map was the first balcony; judging from the architecture of the balcony itself, the Sky Pod was definitely going to arrive there.
  • The cave river originally had a Squid.
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Na Pali Haven (SkyTown.unr)
  • SkyTown was being built very late in the development cycle (by 1998 it was barely even started yet) and quickly. Various buildings appear to be just decorations with no entrance or other forms of access (most notably the buildings around the town square) and there are a lot of questionable details (or lack thereof).
  • The door behind you as you begin the map is a mover. Probably a leftover of when SkyCaves was still attached to SkyTown as one map (being SkyTown as in the 1998 beta version).
  • As read in one of the ISV KRAN messages, the Obelisks emanate some kind of power. The power capable of making the Islands float in the sky derives from the psyonic powers of the Prophet that the Nali managed to operate over generations.
  • It's absolutely unknown where the water comes from (mountain waterfall).
  • The Krall Elites first appear in this map. They are a bit weaker than the original Krall Elites with the dark skins - those had 240 points of health.
  • In the farm area, at the beginning of the level, there's an empty, unreachable small terrace with a lantern on the wall. Beyond the wall there's the secret room of the barn, which might suggest you could access the terrace from that room; another thing to note is that the secret barn room is not placed in the exact center in correspondence of the barn itself.
  • The Dispatcher used for the strange (and unfinished) cart mover found in the 1998 beta version of the map is left unused; it's still located in the farm area, just slightly moved next to a wall.
  • In the farm area, on the wooden staircase that leads to the back entrance of the bar, there's a trigger, right on the platform after the first staircase step, which causes the Krall inside the bar to begin patrolling outside. You can avoid said trigger by moving onto the staircase by staying on the extreme right side or by jumping directly on the second set of stairs - you'll skip the trigger. This only happens when the bar doors are unlocked.
  • The doors on the upper floor of the barn are "unlocked" by a trigger located in the shortcut corridor between the bar and the upper floor of the barn (which has a Skaarj Scout hiding in a corner).
  • The opening on the roof of the barn is actually blocked. The wall texture from the exterior is visible, while on the interior it has the Fake Backdrop flag in order to show the skybox like in Dark Arena's Titan arena. This also true for the chimney hole in the lounge bar.
  • You can lure an enemy inside the barn in order to scare off the Nali, so he moves out of the way and is not crushed by the load - and the other Nali in the map won't fear you as a result.
  • The wooden window doors in the basement of the barn are movers and they are animated. However there's no way to open them in-game. They were openable in the 1998 beta version though, by just touching the windows.
  • As you enter the pathway to the town square, you'll likely spot a sewer hole with a sign next to it. This sign comes with no translator message and it's placed there with no context whatsoever. Beyond the wall there's the first floor of the library.
  • In the basement of the lounge bar, the barrel kegs are movers and instantly move below the floor once you destroy the barrels, in order to simulate the destruction of the kegs.
  • In the basement of the lounge bar, the doors to the corridors leading to the floor above are set on Key animation 1; on Key animation 0, they're closed. However there's no evidence that these doors were, at first, supposed to be locked.
  • The chandelier in the lounge bar is a mover. It doesn't have animations though.
  • For the underwater grate to the SkyBase, there's an unused Dispatcher actor that is supposed to close it, next to the activation panel.
  • You can actually climb your way to the church, by side-dodging on the mountain next to the wall located near the dock (the one you see after going through the first door to the dock itself). There's not much to see: the church has no interior whatsoever and the exterior part lacks (unnecessary) details. However you can still go through the "entrance" wall due a semisolid brush bug; funnily there are light actors there. As a reminder, the full church was, at first, part of SkyTown.


Outpost 3J (SkyBase.unr)
  • If for some reason you manage to side-dodge on the mountain in the church courtyard and return to what there's of SkyTown (a lot of doors and windows are still movers), you can actually go back to the Outpost 3J as the player character can open the underwater gate by himself (only from the entrance side though).
  • Outpost 3J is notable for having Isotoxin as its music track, made by Necros aka Andrew Sega. The full version of the song contains a minute-long intro; it appeared in "Pursuit of Greed" and as a remixed form in the Crusader series.
  • The locked door at the entrance bay of the Outpost is actually a mover with its own triggers; the triggers aren't initially active and must be toggled on from another event which doesn't exist. There's nothing behind the door - just a metal wall. Area cut or not done for lack of time? Strangely, the Coop PlayerStarts are all placed in front of this door.
  • The command panel which opens the big door in the entrance bay of the Outpost is non-solid. BlockAll actors are used instead. This is true for the similar panels found in the church as well.
  • The shuttle starts out immovable. It begins to float thanks to a trigger which is activated as soon as you set foot near the shuttle bay.
  • The shuttle bay forcefield can be turned off but you can't still go through the opening because of BlockAll actors being placed there. Speaking about shuttles, one cut map in Unreal had the player seeing a shuttle flying away from a similarly designed bay.
  • The corridor which connects the shuttle bay to the generator area caused the game to randomly crash after reaching a certain point. This happened in the vanilla version of the game and on weaker rigs (I had this, several times).
  • The Skaarj Snipers first appear in this map. However, they use the GES Bio Rifle and not their default weapon, the Rifle (which doesn't happen anywhere in the original Unreal).
  • The reason why the exit forcefield is so hard to deactivate is because the trigger which unlocks it can be triggered always and not once, which can greatly screw you up.
  • The map contains the only monk statues in the entire game that drop items.
  • The church had several changes throughout development. There was a carpet to the altar at first and the two golden lamps were placed right next to it (which means they were moved a bit to the center); before the 1998 beta version of SkyTown, the golden lamps were placed on the altar and the lighting of the church was more bright and colorful. The front yellow window was also visible from inside the church (being more than a random exterior decoration) but it was then replaced by the painting of the Prophet.
  • The church cross originally had a circular brush going throughout all the arms (similar to the Celtic cross). However, both before and now, the cross has been always a mover. It has an animation: instantly disappearing above the sky border. Most probably War planned to make the cross destructible somehow.
  • The Nali Prophet was fully canon to the Unreal story, alongside the first conflict between Nali and Skaarj and the purpose of the crypts. One of the Sky Islands was supposed to house the tomb of the Prophet. Which Island is unknown; could have been either SkyCity or the tomb of Na Pali Haven's church (which also houses an allusion to the Prophet himself).
  • The map houses the only carcasses in the game that drop Pupae upon gibbing; these are the Nali carcasses in the catacombs. They can drop Seeds too.
  • SkyBase ends with the teleport pad, which most probably was added very late into development. As most people know, right after SkyBase there was going to be a huge chunk of maps that would ultimately lead to Velora and continue the game from there. The way you would have ended this map was to use a Sky Elevator that would have taken you to the balcony at the beginning of FHub4. Most likely the teleport pad room housed the Sky Elevator, with the area itself being designed like the beginning of SkyCaves.
Last edited by UB_ on 13 Mar 2016, 15:28, edited 4 times in total.
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UB_
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Subject: Re: Unreal 1 TRIVIA THREAD

Post Posted: 17 Jan 2015, 18:05

Added one last trivia point to Amethyst.
And there you go, the cool part can now begin! :D

As for the expansion pack, Epic did announce it after Unreal was released but everything went to hell when they switched focus to the Botpack/UT side of things. Before the SP addon's release was completely cancelled, it was supposed to be sold in an OEM deal wth Intel though. The expansion pack featured Sky Islands and the Crypts and the levels were probably fully complete.

A document containing early plans for this expansion pack was described by Leo there http://forums.beyondunreal.com/showpost ... ostcount=1
Obviously the plans changed during development.
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UB_
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Subject: Re: Unreal 1 TRIVIA THREAD

Post Posted: 16 Feb 2015, 16:24

Lack of updates will end after the last Wednesday of February.
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iLikeTheUDK
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Subject: Re: Unreal 1 TRIVIA THREAD

Post Posted: 09 Apr 2015, 23:19

February, in general, has long passed. How's it going? Why hasn't there been an update since?
:^3

UB_
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Subject: Re: Unreal 1 TRIVIA THREAD

Post Posted: 09 Apr 2015, 23:21

On hold in favor of G59 and other non-Unreal things.
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iLikeTheUDK
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Subject: Re: Unreal 1 TRIVIA THREAD

Post Posted: 10 Apr 2015, 00:01

Those details about the cancelled expansion pack...IMO, at least when UT4 nears completion, some of the contributors and the team at Epic should start planning a good sequel for Unreal, based on the cancelled expansion pack and maybe also including or at least mentioning the Human-Skaarj War in some way, and maybe even the 7-Day Siege.
It would be so awesome...
:^3

User avatar Legendslayer222
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Subject: Re: Unreal 1 TRIVIA THREAD

Post Posted: 16 Apr 2015, 21:29

This thread has a wealth of interesting information. Like the beginning area of the Ceremonial Chambers starting as a Deathmatch map; I can easily see that now from the interconnectivity of the layout, but it's something I'd never considered. Also the background information on the ISV Kran is some cool stuff. Looking forward to future instalments!

iLikeTheUDK
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Subject: Re: Unreal 1 TRIVIA THREAD

Post Posted: 21 Jun 2015, 14:59

Hope you post again soon, UBerserker. What you posted here so far is really interesting.
:^3

User avatar YappieChappie
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Subject: Re: Unreal 1 TRIVIA THREAD

Post Posted: 02 Aug 2015, 22:01

Are those images of The Underflow and Amethyst all that's left of the maps or do you have the actual map files? I'd love to see them playable one day.

UB_
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Subject: Re: Unreal 1 TRIVIA THREAD

Post Posted: 02 Aug 2015, 22:11

Nope, it's just uncovered information. No maps.

Underflow could have been never started (perhaps aside few pieces that were eventually used in Serpent Canyon and Harobed or really nothing ever got made) while Amethyst got lost but it 100% existed and was fully playable.
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UB_
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Subject: Re: Unreal 1 TRIVIA THREAD

Post Posted: 11 Mar 2016, 14:39

Resistance Lake (FHub4.unr)
  • The map name is not official. While the Zora conversion had this title, the original version didn't (just "FHub4"). However the given name is not too far away from the truth. In the novels, there was a location with a lake used as a hidden place by a resistance Nali group, with Crypts located nearby. This may be probably it.
  • FHub4 is a cut Unreal map by Juan Pancho Eekels; it was eventually used and heavily revamped for RTNP as "Spire Valley". Note that FHub4 has absolutely nothing to do with anything Sunspire but you were supposed to arrive there with a SkyPod.
  • FHub4 marks the beginning of a long Unreal section between the Sky Islands and Velora End that was completely removed from the final game. Some of its maps were in the Unreal 1998 beta, with few of them being recycled for RTNP, while the rest of the levels were never leaked; some of the removals were going to be added to the game in single player expansions made by Epic itself. That said, there aren't enough information about how the whole cut section was planned and how far it went into development. Unlikely we'll ever know unless new betas manage to get leaked.
  • The "Hub" maps of this removed Unreal section have all a desert theme. All of them were made by Pancho.
  • FHub4's music track is Newmca5.umx - the original name of Fourth.umx, song of Noork's Elbow in the final game. "Fourth" is a reference to the 4 in FHub4's map title. Only the ambient songsection is used here.
  • While not implemented in the leaked version of the map, FHub4 was reached with a SkyPod, arriving on the small balcony where the PlayerStart is placed. It's sort of funny how the map's RTNP revamp had to do with Sunspire and SkyPods - FHub4's full beginning was probably implemented and Nivlek got inspired by it.
  • FHub4 is the first Hub map since FHub1/Nyleve's one to have exit points to two different levels, with one of them returning to the Hub itself (unless the previous Hubs were supposed to have multiple maps in them but probably unlikely).
  • FHub4 has access points to two Crypt maps: Soledad and Morose, both cut maps made by CliffyB. Soledad returns to FHub4 at the end, while Morose leads to FHub5. In the Unreal 1998 beta, Soledad was completely optional but you could get the Rifle and the Minigun in it; you could also play it multiple times. Whether the map was required to be completed in order to access Morose it's still unknown but very likely planned.
  • FHub4 also contains a landed Mercenary starship and an ancient temple.
    • The landed Mercenary starship appears to be operational, with two Mercenaries seemingly scouting or guarding outside. The starship itself has literally nothing of interest besides lamps but considering FHub4 is far from being finished it could have had more, if not being a whole map. It's known that there were two Myscha cut maps about Mercenary ships (Alfa62 and HAL), plus there's a second landed Merc ship in FHub6. Since FHub4's ship is much bigger, it could have been an entry point to Alfa62 (or not).
    • The temple has its entrance unfinished (a brick wall, and all there's next to it is three Flares and three Flashlights). This is heavily implied (and 100% likely) to be the access point to another cut Myscha map named Acerack (temple of the Nali Fire God), which was shown in some of the Unreal trailers. It's also assumed that Acerack could have led to another cut Myscha map named Tonatiuh, to then probably leading back to FHub4.
  • The whole lake has two aggressive BiterFishSchools - one near the beginning area and another next to Soledad's exit.
  • Two one-way, triggered Bird flights are in this map.
  • In front of Acerack's entrance there's a Mercenary ship crashed underwater, which is a unique sight in the Unreal retail maps. While you can explore its detailed interior, there's absolutely nothing inside and there are no messages either.
  • It's worth mentioning that FHub4 and other maps of this cut section contain Mercenary designed ships that you would never see in the final version of Unreal. The removal of this section also explains the lack of post-Noork Mercenaries in the game.
  • The lava of the volcano (the only one to appear in Epic-made Unreal maps - and it got removed in the Nivlek's remake) seems to go nowhere in the rocks. It's harmless as well but it's likely the cause of the earthquake that occurs when you reach Morose's entrance. Spire Valley doesn't have this earthquake (and there's no gate blocking the exit).
  • The most recent leaked Unreal beta (a small one, and it was made before the bigger 1998 beta) has FHub4 being Demon Crater for some reason (FHub7 in the bigger beta); possibly, the current FHub4, FHub5 and FHub6 weren't created yet.

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