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18/01/2025 - "Xerania's Fall" by Simon "EZkeel" West-Bulford

Each week a single map is discussed here in detail.

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User avatar Sat42
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Subject: 18/01/2025 - "Xerania's Fall" by Simon "EZkeel" West-Bulford

Post Posted: 18 Jan 2025, 22:15

Map Title: Xerania's Fall
Author: Simon "EZkeel" West-Bulford
From: Xerania's Fall
Filename: Xerania.unr




Video Playthrough:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fk7O1vSAgkY

Synopsis: An invincible creature created by the Skaarj, "Xerania" has laid waste to many worlds. Your only hope is to use a temporal warp field to go back in time and destroy the abomination while it is still weak. A blast from the past - literally!

Discuss!
Nali: Magic or Telekinesis
Waffnuffly wrote:It's tarydium-doped smoothies. Drunk by the player, I mean. The player is tripping balls. The whole game actually takes place in a large city and the player thinks he's on an alien world.

UB_
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Subject: Re: 18/01/2025 - "Xerania's Fall" by Simon "EZkeel" West-Bulford

Post Posted: 19 Jan 2025, 00:05

The fourth custom map I have ever played (first three being Skaarjcity, Liberation of Na Pali and Expertvisuals) and the first time I got to hear Newmca16, which at the time I thought it was a custom track but had no clue it was unused retail music instead - and to this day it's unknown for which Unreal map it was made for, it only appeared in DM-Villa.

And for this reason, when I hear Newmca16 the image of Jesus Christ immediately pops in my head...

Another thing is that I have no clue when each version of the map was released. The first time I played it was an old version, arguably the first one? Then I found a second version shortly later and much later I found the third and last one. So I kinda got to know this map very closely over time.

It's a relic from the past that makes me think of the good old days, truly. I think this might be the feeling of most people who have played the map in the early 2000s like me and get to see it again. What I remember the most, other than the main outdoor hub area with the elevator tower (I recall everything about that elevator being very annoying, not sure why) is the boss battle, it made clever use of increased melee range; something that I was never able to forget - and I believe it was exclusive to the final version of the map.
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Subject: Re: 18/01/2025 - "Xerania's Fall" by Simon "EZkeel" West-Bulford

Post Posted: 20 Jan 2025, 16:46

For an ancient map the visuals are okay; the tower in both it's "present" and "past" forms is one of the most iconic views in Unreal maps, and, despite the small size it does a decent job feeling like it's in some sort of wasteland as the premise implies (although it would fit the past version to be a little more lush as a contrast). The interior is basic but fits well enough. Given things like the random platform that just exists to do a mini-flyby of the outside it's clear it was intended as somewhat of a visual showcase. Stuff like the giant mouth at the entrance to Krallous is a cool concept too, and the Ghost Lands at least uses custom houses despite flat walled-in areas. The comparative letdown is Aquane, which is just Sphere caves and some basic rooms.

The start is a little strange as it's framed as a defence sequence, but you never really get attacked, so you just look around and get some backstory while you wait for the time portal to open, at least the machine you're facing at the starts works as a way to gauge the time left. I think the old versions required using the elevator for the whole tower, which made navigation much more irritating, but the teleport room in the final version means you only need it for the first floor, even if there are no effects or labels so the teleports can be quite disorienting. Overall though I feel the flow would be smoother if each floor, except the prison, led to a "world" (with some potential theming to the floors) and the stuff you had to do to initially unlock the portals was mostly gone. I guess the gated start is partly for supply pacing, but weapons could be moved around a little to fix that. The choice of areas does mean you can get equipment in a slightly difference order, but the combat isn't intense enough for it to matter much, although the Ghost Lands are probably the optimal first choice for both the Eightball and Flak Cannon, but the Razorjack in Krallous does also devastate the mostly low-tier enemies in this level (and I feel Krallous to Ghost Lands is smoothest from a perspective of the story reveals).

Krallous is probably the most interesting of the three worlds in design, with the giant mouth entrance and vertical area, but the start having a death pool in front of the actual entrance you need to solve a small puzzle to open (with messages imply you need to go down) feels like a bit of a random death trap. I think you're supposed to fall in the lava pool and climb out, as it only does minor damage, but you can just drop to the higher floor and skip most of the area; I'm guessing it's unintentional, but it's sort of interesting as it makes the lore here feel like an optional secret. The Nali Ghost Lands are basic in structure, but, as said, the new houses are something at least, and there's some build up to the Titan fight that's the one bit of danger here. Aquane doesn't have too much to it, as there's no lore there and it's just some sphere rooms with vaguely aquatic enemies and an underwater elevator that might be a reference to something similar in Quake? I guess the lack of Scuba gear does at least give the elevator sequence a little teeth when you see the airhole out of reach. The meteor storm after coming back from Aquane is kind of cool though, and I guess a sign of Xerania beginning his assault?

On the way to the final battle, I actually don't remember meeting a Warlord before this play-through, and I never saw him in a test run, so it was kind of a surprise, but I guess he just flies off most of the time, or something about his spawning is bugged? Xerania itself is kind of a letdown after all the build-up, as you just step on four panels and it dies right away. It can get a little disorienting if you get slapped around, but there's plenty of health here too and it's not like you need ammo. There's a decent amount of story here, even if the context for the tower is pretty vague. Of course this is also the first Ezkeel christian "lore"; if you just follow the Krallous and Nali Town lore it's vague enough to not be totally obvious (even if the Krallous paintings make it pretty clear) but the "Jesus room" secret gets rids of any ambiguity (also I think a message there isn't completed?). This all adds up to some amusingly bat-shit lore that the reason the Krall want to kill humans is because the Skaarj (who in the Ezkeel "canon" it seems hard not to see as just literal demons?) fed them an incomplete view of Christianity. Xerania is built up well in the story as a threat though, which makes lead-up to the boss quite intimating despite it being really easy. Pre-Legacy this is probably the biggest Ezkeel SP map, which sticks out when it's the first, but I guess that explains it, especially with the multiple patches this map has; this was probably a technical nightmare, and ambition was kept more in check for later releases, at least until experience/tools caught up to make bigger maps more practical.
Formerly Mman

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Subject: Re: 18/01/2025 - "Xerania's Fall" by Simon "EZkeel" West-Bulford

Post Posted: 24 Jan 2025, 17:13

I had a lot of fun playing this one again - it was one of the early community SP maps I played, and it managed to leave a lasting impression despite the build being generally below the standards of Unreal. It's epic in scope and was probably the first to have multiple themes in one map in a way that works with the narrative! In this way it feels like a short mappack instead of a single map. It's one of EZkeel's best maps - and incredibly the first version was released on 16th November 1998 (just half a year after Unreal!) but the version I played is the third and last version released on 18th November 2001 (that year also saw the release of EZkeel's magnum opus - Legacy, and Xerania's Fall can be seen as a proto-Legacy as Aspide once said).
Of course, one of the author's signature oddities (and usually a negative - I think it really only works in Zombie Dawn where it actually fits the theme/narrative) is present in Xerania's Fall too: a bit of ostentatious religious proselytism (not on the main path in this case). It's unfortunate (more so in Legacy, where the immersion breaking stuff can be mandatory) but easy to ignore.
In spite of the sometimes ugly build and other issues (for example, the way some movers were set can be frustrating) which give an amateurish feel, I think the sheer generosity of the map and the originality of the concept shine through. The mapper provides a lot of ideas that differ from the typical Unreal experience and considering the map's age there is a lot of custom content here as well (e.g.: new voiced lines!).

UB_ wrote:The fourth custom map I have ever played (first three being Skaarj City, Liberation of Na Pali and Expert Visuals) and the first time I got to hear Newmca16, which at the time I thought it was a custom track but had no clue it was unused retail music instead [...].

I know I already said this on Discord but for posterity I'm adding it here too: I came late to these games, and when I started looking into community SP maps, I relied on the USP reviews to determine a starting point (ratings of around 40%) and when I got to Xerania's Fall (I read the reviews carefully enough to avoid spoilers while also figuring out that I needed to play this before the lower rated Invasion), I too discovered Newmca16.umx and I didn't realise it was an unused Unreal track (I had only played Unreal once at the time [only recently did a second full playthrough] so I didn't know everything off by heart and naturally this track fits the game's OST so well I assumed it must have been used somewhere) - the UnrealSP forums (and you specifically!) revealed this fact to me :)

Semfry wrote:On the way to the final battle, I actually don't remember meeting a Warlord before this play-through, and I never saw him in a test run, so it was kind of a surprise, but I guess he just flies off most of the time, or something about his spawning is bugged?

Funny, I always did encounter the Warlord myself (I'm talking about just 2 full playthroughs), maybe he flies off sometimes... fun fact: the first time I faced Xerania, I was so stressed, I didn't realise there is an easy way to defeat it and had to fight with my guns the old-fashioned way :)
Nali: Magic or Telekinesis
Waffnuffly wrote:It's tarydium-doped smoothies. Drunk by the player, I mean. The player is tripping balls. The whole game actually takes place in a large city and the player thinks he's on an alien world.

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Subject: Re: 18/01/2025 - "Xerania's Fall" by Simon "EZkeel" West-Bulford

Post Posted: 25 Jan 2025, 11:22

Xerania's Fall is the first chapter of the "Xerania Trilogy" made by EZkeel (Xerania, Invasion and Legacy). EZkeel is one of the older and classic custom mappers from the Unreal/UT99 community, he has a long history of making custom maps for both games (and he even made some maps for UT2003), his multiplayer levels are very entertaining and interesting, I remember he made an Assault map for UT99 and it's pretty cool. However his SP maps are more controversial, because making a SP map is not only much more difficult than making a DM map, but also because the gameplay needs to be designed in a completely different way compared to DM. This is as far as I know the first SP map that EZkeel ever made and for being someone's first SP map, it isn't that bad at all.

Level geometry is very basic, but considering that this map was made in 1998 it's pretty good (this era of custom maps didn't had levels with the best geometry). This map is one of the oldest custom SP maps for Unreal and because of that I have a lot of respect for it, because mappers back then didn't had all the tutorials that you can find today in the internet, also mappers haven't perfected their skills at this point, so being a custom mapper was way more difficult back then. One type of brush that leaves much to be desired is the terrain, it's made of cubes and strange cones/pyramids , but again I don't blame EZkeel for this since the terrain of the original Unreal was made in a different application than the Unreal Editor and also the community had no idea how to make terrain back then until UT99 came along. Lighting is decent with some interesting colors from time to time, but there are many areas that are either too dark or they lack variety when it comes to color. The skybox steals the show in my opinion, the contrast of colors is really nice.

Sound design is ok, ambient sounds are used frequently in the map (but the map could have used more dynamic ambient sounds), this map uses new sounds like the ones used by the final boss and of course the new voice lines, which by the way were recorded by EZkeel's wife, this is a recurring thing that EZkeel does. Music is a mixed bag, while the choice of songs is good, the execution of them is quite poor because of how the music transitions were made. However this map gets a lot of points for using Newmca16, a song that was left unused in the original Unreal, a song that is associated with old classic SP maps.

Gameplay is sloppy, the basics of going from place to place killing enemies and activating buttons is still there but the problem is the level design. The map doesn't do a good job at telling you what to do and sometimes the things you have to do are more complicated than they should. There are many moments were you enter a room with a locked door/teleporter and you have to find a way to open it, however the map isn't design so the sequence of events have a nice flow, so even if you know what to do, going from point A to B feels unnatural. One of the gimmicks of this map is the elevator at the center of the tower, however EZkeel probably wanted to make an elevator that goes to different floors depending on what button you push, something that the original movers can't do, therefore EZkeel replaced the majority of the elevator's functions with teleporters, unfortunately the teleporters can cause a lot of gameplay problems when you fight enemies. The section where you have to enter different portals to destroy the green diamond cores is a nice change of pace, the different settings and challenges are great, I wish that all this areas had different skyboxes, but that can only be achieved with a custom script. The final boss is weird, I like the gimmick of the fight but the problem is that the fight can be very unfair depending on the amount of armor and health you have when you start the fight, you are forced to take damage and this can be a big problem if you don't have enough health to protect you, this problem is even worse if you play this map with the new difficulties from the 227 patch. However you can kill the final boss by shooting him, so there's that :D .

Issues I found :

- If you don't get the translator at the beginning of the map, the sequence of events won't start, which means you are stuck until you grab this item.
- A little nitpick : the player starts are floating.
- Some of the Alarm Points at the start of the map are floating, which breaks pathnodes.
- This level has extra player starts for Coop but besides that there isn't any Coop filtering, there isn't difficulty filtering either.
- There's a funny texture misalignment in the button that activates the crusher at the start of the map.
- When you go to the past that area still has a Lava Zone even though it's never used.
- If you take the lift that takes you in a ride to see the entire tower from outside, you can jump to the top of the tower, but if you do this you can't come back.
- The floor that has the Nali imprisoned has gates that can be destroyed, however you need to use a powerful attack to destroy them, so if you use a weak attack this can mislead you into thinking that the gate cannot be destroyed.
- Some translator messages don't deactivate after completing an objective.
- During the section where you have to go to different portals, the game doesn't give you a visual clue to tell you what portal you already visited.
- After destroying one of the green cores asteroids start to fall from the sky, however this asteroids can only hurt human players, which doesn't make sense.
- The Exploding Wall actors have collision turned on. The same goes for the Creature Factories.
- There are some movers that activate once that use Return When Encroached.
- You can take the exit before destroying the green core in the area with the caves and water.
- There are fan decorations in this map, this actor can be destroyed if you shoot it, but the map did not take that into account.
- In the area where you have to open the door with the shape of a head there's an area with a slime zone, a little brutal for an area you can easily fall into.
- There are translator messages coming from books, but those books can be pushed.
- You can avoid fighting the Titan and go straight to the exit, I don't think this was intended.
- Some lights are out of bounds.
- The Warlord spawns with state Attacking, which means he will most likely move away and there's a chance you won't even fight him.
- The final teleporter takes you to the final cutscene of Unreal, which was very common back in the day but it still doesn't make sense.
- This map has more than one LevelInfo, which is not normal since each level should have only one.
- This map has multiple SkyZoneInfos in the same spot.
- There are multiple LavaZones in the same zone.
Somewhere in Nevada...

yrex
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Subject: Re: 18/01/2025 - "Xerania's Fall" by Simon "EZkeel" West-Bulford

Post Posted: 25 Jan 2025, 17:56

A very charming map in a certain way, showing real creativity hiding behind the slightly noobish execution. Probably one of my influences.

- I kinda wish there was more contrast, e.g. in time of day, between the current and the past versions of the environment.
- As for the inability of the lift to reach other floors, didn't Unreal already have ElevatorMover back then?
- The text above doors is placed in a way that makes it hard to see.
- The religious undertones make me wonder, how religion (and passion in general) could affect one's creativity.
e-mail: ampoyrex at wp dot pl

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Subject: Re: 18/01/2025 - "Xerania's Fall" by Simon "EZkeel" West-Bulford

Post Posted: 25 Jan 2025, 19:54

Hi Yrex, nice that you made a comment about this classic, I've noticed that you and EZkeel really like puzzles in your levels, I wonder if there was some inspiration there :wink:

Anyway the original Unreal did had Elevator Movers from the start but that actor is buggy, because the move time to get to every floor is the same, so the more floors you have to move, the more time it takes for the elevator to reach its destination, which is annoying. Also you need a specific trigger to tell the elevator to go to a specific floor, which is also a bad thing because you will need a separate button for each floor. I think EZkeel wanted to make an elevator where there's a button where you can choose any floor without the issues with the move time. I remember there was a custom DM map for Unreal that had an elevator that EZkeel would have loved to use in this map, it's called DMGotliebsRetreat.

The religious undertones are a common thing for EZkeel's work, there are no issues with adding religious elements in an Unreal map (even the original Unreal had some religious themes with the Nali) but you have to implement this themes in a natural way in the context of the Unreal universe, and unfortunately this is where EZkeel becomes clumsy, his implementations of the religious themes feel very unnatural and in the worst case scenario they can feel like pandering, something that becomes very apparent in Xerania's second sequel Legacy.

I also agree with the other comments, the past and future version could have used more different lighting to contrast each other better. The signs also need some work like you said.

Even with all its flaws this map still has a special place in Unreal custom mapping history \o/
Somewhere in Nevada...


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