13/07/2024 - "The Vale: Evelyn" by Paul "fashahhh" Frechette

[Sat42]

Map Title: The Vale: Evelyn
Author: Paul "fashahhh" Frechette
From: The Vale: Evelyn
Filename: SP-Vale_Evelyn.unr




Video Playthroughs:


Synopsis: The search for your kidnapped partner leads you to this vale...

Discuss!

[Semfry]

One of the best single maps around. It's pretty huge while also having a lot of variety in the settings, with the terrain being very organic and the interiors being quite detailed (the snowy mountaintops also work as a call-back to the original BFNP vision of this map). There's a variety of gameplay situations and the messages do a good job guiding you through the map despite it's size. There's a nice ramping up of challenge as you go, along with some surprises like the cloaking Skaarj and the minor gameplay tweaks like giving the Minigun a separate ammo pool gives it some use in the endgame section. The scale can result in a lot of walking at times, but there's enough going on that it's rarely an issue, and the ending feels a bit abrupt, given the layout with the labs is already implied to loop back towards the start and the generator destruction implies some sort of escape, but I guess the question of how to handle the NPC rescue kind of held up doing more.

The BFNP aspect also leads to this being one of the first levels to preview parts of it, with the music and various new textures, plus the story touches on various bits of BFNP lore (on that note I am using the new HD textures now, but since a lot of this level is custom textures anyway I guess it doesn't stand out too much here).

[Sat42]

Indeed, The Vale: Evelyn is one of the best single player levels I've played for the games covered here. I still haven't played everything so things can change, that said, right now for me this one ranks up there with just three other maps (all made by the community of course, which has long surpassed the best official efforts, a logical outcome after all this time).

However, my other favourites - which I played before this one - are really quite different from the original Unreal experience. The Vale: Evelyn is, simply put, like Unreal only better. It's not the first time we see a more conceptually grand map than Bluff Eversmoking (plenty of great stuff was made over the years), however compared to, e.g., Skaarj Tower, here you get the greater scale AND improved graphics! Not saying this map is the only one to accomplish that feat - I just want to stress that technically this is one of the best looking maps in our scene (barring the absolute best 227-exclusive stuff)...

... and on top of that the art direction is superb: from the organic terrain to the artificial structures and the sky, everything fits so well - with a good introduction to the high-tech stuff later on. The star of the show is the natural terrain but you have multiple places here, not least the castle which is perched on a mountainous cliff (bottom-left screenshot). I fuckin' love mountains.
And the new ambient track is really fitting too, with an excellent segment when the flute kicks in.
In fact, for what felt like the first time ever, the art direction (both the visuals and the soundscape) reminded of Shadow of the Beast: The Vale: Evelyn feels like what a 3D Shadow of the Beast game could have looked like! (I know there's a PS4 remake, I just mean that this is the first time I was reminded of this series when playing an Unreal/UT map.)

The gameplay is fitting, you explore another world with its ecosystem and intrigues, meeting peaceful beings and fighting enemies - exactly the sort of thing people associate with Unreal. That element of the sublime is present, you even start on a boat which provides a moment of contemplation as it slowly gets you to shore. The buildup to the boss fight is good, I'll just say that it's overall on the easy side - a minor complaint (perhaps I just need to stop playing on my baseline Medium difficulty). It's a really big level so a first playthrough will last way over an hour (over 2 and a half hours for me!) unless you're completely unmoved by what you see (and then why would you play this?)!

The story is good - nothing more nothing less, the only thing that isn't better than the original Unreal. I liked being rewarded with an unexpectedly high conclusion! There's a lot of nice little details (the way the Krall express themselves, the lab-grown Brutes, the Stalker team, a reference to Pan'Thali...) which could be expanded on in a fully-fledged campaign and allow the narrative to truly soar.

Overall, it's a triumph.

@Semfry: I behaved as you did vis-à-vis the Nali Elder

Ah yes, one more thing: the title refers to "the vale" - is that a specific place? there's at least two separate valleys here! I suppose the map evolved organically over time

[fashahhh]

Cheers Guys! And thanks for the playthrough Semfry, it's nice seeing someone else actually play though it. @ Sat42 it was a bit more open originally with a snaking single Vale. I suppose as the filename was BfNP-IcyVale the name just stuck.

Thought I'd take this opportunity to give you a bit more background on this. As you all know it started out as a BfNP map entitled 'The Errand'. In honesty, the original version is a buggy mess, how I got the final version in a playable state I really don't know!

Kindly Mr Prophet asked to use the map in the upcoming Savage lands which takes place approx. 25 years later which now makes The Vale: Evelyn part of SL cannon and sort of spinoff/prequel to Savage Lands as some of the story elements will be brought to a conclusion as a side story in SL's campaign. Having the player return to the Vale gave me the opportunity to go back to its original icy vale routes.

There are a few Easter eggs as the Unreal fans will be aware and people who followed BfNP's development.
Evelyn was obviously named as a call back to Nyleve's falls where place names were backwards names.
The UMS-Deucalion is a bit of a joke how ships keep being sent to rescue others.
I still wanted to pay homage to BfNP so White Tusk & Pan'thali were mentioned in the messages.
The Xan action figure linking it to UT.

There are 4 versions of this map:
- 2007: The original BfNP icy vale version
- 2011: A Residual Decay version using stock assets
- 2020-2022: The Final released standalone version (after a long hiatus from Unreal I decided to get back to mapping sometime in early 2018, I really can't remember what brought me back!).
- 2021 - date: The Savage Land 25 years later version

The original had a completely different start in reverse, you exit the previous hometown map via the aqueduct into this cave area which exits to the waterfall. Originally this had the distance fog working but I lost the OGL renderer file years ago so the lighting looks shitty without it. The gated path is locked and used for the return leg to the hometown later. Textures are completely misaligned (I didn't know of texture lock back then!).

Original Version 2007:















RD Version 2011:

















As a bonus (I hope Mr Prophet doesn't mind me leaking these. These are the WIP of the vale in SL)

[Sat42]

Holy smokes! thank you for all the background info and all those screenies man I'm amazed that at the end of the day we'll also get to enjoy your original vision of an icy vale, very cool! (pun intended )

Just for the sake of posterity (in case someone new checks this thread out): BfNP stands for Battle for Na Pali: https://unrealsp.fandom.com/wiki/Battle_for_Na_Pali

Funny how this map will have ended up traversing 3 different giant modding projects before settling! Of course I'm grateful for the standalone version - too good to ignore

[Mister_Prophet]

First off I want to say that I'm happy to see The Vale getting its dues for discussion. I was hoping to have my super late review of this release version printed and uploaded to the site by the time it was up for this (Sat warned me about six weeks ago) but to my shame I couldn't ration the time. This MOTW is helping to light a fire under me to get on that (sorry Paul).

I'm also pleased to see Paul's historical run down of the Vale's history. Naturally, I'm super excited to have The Vale revisited in Savage Land and also to have it linked as originally intended to Pan'thali (Both icy versions of Hellscrag's village and this level will feature in Savage Land).

As for this standalone, I'll say some words:

It is easily one of the great single level behemoths and from my point of view always has been. To finally see it released in this form was a real treat coming out of the covid fun times we all went through. I will try not to mirror what Sat and Semfry have said too much, but the charm of the Vale is in the scope of it. Looking off into the distance and going to places was something Unreal sold very well back in the day and is the sort of thing people expect in well made open world games nowadays. The Vale has that vibe, impressive as it is for the old engine. As I wrote in my currently unpublished review, the first time you play this you will overcome the long hike into a world without boundary and find at the end of said path that more level is there to be had.

The Vale sells a promise of what Battle For Na Pali might have been. Grander Unreal travels for the initiated. I grinned the whole time I played this release, even though I had been privy to its older versions, and I'm humbled as hell to let Paul blow you away with the Savage Land version all over again.

[Aspide]

Now this map is the real deal, this map shows wonderful craftsmanship from one of the best mappers around. Great use of all assets: textures, sounds, enemies, pickup locations (including the secret ones which are very well hidden and demand you to look at every corner). Music is great especially the first track, shame that BFNP was never completed so I could listen to its awesome soundtrack over and over again, oh well...

Brush work is excellent, Paul is a master when it comes to terrain, I think he uses the original terrain brush builder, I can't believe that it's possible to make terrain that complex with that builder, how many segments that brush must have had? , Paul's trademark of using meshes as decorations everywhere is intact. Good luck trying to find Xan .

The gameplay is great from start to finish, exploration is this map's greatest strength were you can find soo many secrets including pickups, messages and easter eggs. However there are some areas that can be reached that don't reward you at all which is disappointing, the best example is the Nali statue at the beginning of the map. If there's a section that you think players cannot reach then someone will prove you wrong, don't underestimate players . This map has difficulty filtering but I have mixed feelings about the execution.

However as much as I think this map is a masterpiece there are some issues I have with The Vale:

-The terrain's textures look a little off to me, I don't know if it's the alignment or the scaling.

-This level isn't that hard in Unreal difficulty but there's an insane difficulty spike when you are ambushed when you get the Eightball, the rest of the map is super easy compared to that section.

-The FPS are terrible at the beginning especially when you look at the tower with the Krall at the top. I don't know what's causing the problem but changing the water to non-translucent improves the situation. I wish I could experiment more but I can't rebuild geometry because the map reaches the node limit.

-Difficulty filtering is very annoying because enemies are replaced with enemies with more health, so this means enemies become bullet sponges to an unhealthy degree. Also secret pickups have less charge in higher difficulties, this is a bad idea since in these difficulties you really need more protection because you receive more damage. I would have prefer if this map didn't had filtering.

-No use of OddsOfAppearing, it would have added more replay value.

-The music is good however I don't like how songs are used more than once, I would have prefer if the The_Vale song was replaced with another song the second time it plays and Icy-1 was used only in the final boss.

-The lift to reach the castle is ReturnWhenEncroach which can cause the lift to return halfway through its journey.

-The invisible Skaarj's carcasses don't have the same effect as when they are alive, this could have been fixed with some scripting.

-The Minigun uses different ammunition but in my opinion it doesn't affect the game that much, by the time you get the minigun you will most likely have plenty of ammunition so the new Minigun feels redundant, also this new weapon uses ammunition in the wrong ammo slot.

-Also I haven't tested the map in Coop but I get the feeling that this map wouldn't work very well there, the map has almost no Coop filtering and there are no checkpoints so that means if you die you have to respawn at the beginning of the map.

[fashahhh]

Thanks again for the comments. I must say it was initially thanks to Hellscrag for recruiting me when all he had was a few images of Amnesiac to go off. It was a massive departure for me working on a cityscape to going to terrain and I must admit I doubted myself on many occasions.

As mentioned before, using the terrain brushes was at first incredibly buggy. I frequently had many massive bsp issues where I at one point wondered if it was worth carrying on and I'd just chosen the wrong method to create terrain. My stubbornness carried me through and now I have 2 other maps using the same method with limited issues.

-The terrain's textures look a little off to me, I don't know if it's the alignment or the scaling.

It was a bit of a mare trying to get it all aligned, I had to do numerous lengthy rebuilds rotating the terrain and aligning to floor. In the end I was in fact really pleased with the results. I thought Mcfarrells textures really take to the sunlight well as they are brighter than the stock Unreal ones.

-This level isn't that hard in Unreal difficulty but there's an insane difficulty spike when you are ambushed when you get the Eightball, the rest of the map is super easy compared to that section.

I agree, as the map is essentially meant to be a mini campaign in one map I really wanted a challenge in this section. I initially had the Boss fight much more difficult on Unreal difficulty as he could move whilst firing the alt Razorjack ammo and I found him impossible (with my skills) to kill. Maybe I should have kept him like that .

-The FPS are terrible at the beginning especially when you look at the tower with the Krall at the top. I don't know what's causing the problem but changing the water to non-translucent improves the situation. I wish I could experiment more but I can't rebuild geometry because the map reaches the node limit.

It's a mixture of the water lighting effect & transparent water. As it isn't noticeable as such on the initial boat ride I let it slide. I know that when you swim back out to the invisible barrier and look back it can get choppy. I really wanted the visuals in this area so had to sacrifice a framerate drop in this instance.
An interesting thing I noticed was that a transparent waterzone portal will secretly render the whole map even the non-visible areas through it. On the whole of the river I had to use an invisible waterzone portal sheet and a separate sheet above for the water itself. Without this there was even bigger framerate drops in multiple areas when in the river.

-Difficulty filtering is very annoying because enemies are replaced with enemies with more health, so this means enemies become bullet sponges to an unhealthy degree. Also secret pickups have less charge in higher difficulties, this is a bad idea since in these difficulties you really need more protection because you receive more damage. I would have prefer if this map didn't had filtering.

The difficulty that I always intended and envisaged was Hard difficulty. I always found Brutes super easy so wanted them to pose much more of a danger and have the player in some parts have a bit more of a cautious tactical approach particularly in confined areas. The enemies on hard don't have increased health other than the Boss.
With Unreal difficulty, I always found it a bit easy in the base game so wanted it to pose more of a challenge hence the lowered item pick ups & secretly elite enemies.

-No use of OddsOfAppearing, it would have added more replay value.

I agree, in honesty I haven't really used this before. I'll look into on my other maps.

-The music is good however I don't like how songs are used more than once, I would have prefer if the The_Vale song was replaced with another song the second time it plays and Icy-1 was used only in the final boss.

I made alterations to the original Frieza Vale track which originally had 2 sections. The first I toned down a bit as it was much more upbeat and didn't quite fit. I probably should have used the second section of the track for when you leave the fort but thought it worked well enough. I just didn't want too many different tracks in case it all seemed incoherent.

-The lift to reach the castle is ReturnWhenEncroach which can cause the lift to return halfway through its journey.

Ha yes it was a pain sorting this. My skills on activating / triggering movers is still not great. I think it worked ok in the end but wasn't ideal.

-The invisible Skaarj's carcasses don't have the same effect as when they are alive, this could have been fixed with some scripting.

Yes UT doesn't keep the transparent state when they die. Unfortunately I've never dealt with scripting but I think the 227 version retains the transparent state.

-The Minigun uses different ammunition but in my opinion it doesn't affect the game that much, by the time you get the minigun you will most likely have plenty of ammunition so the new Minigun feels redundant, also this new weapon uses ammunition in the wrong ammo slot.

There is a secret minigun earlier on if anyone has found it? (no cheating)

-Also I haven't tested the map in Coop but I get the feeling that this map wouldn't work very well there, the map has almost no Coop filtering and there are no checkpoints so that means if you die you have to respawn at the beginning of the map.

I agree co-op is rather rough around the edges. It wasn't at all supported in the 1.0 version however in 1.1 onwards it is but very limited. I simply added a few more pickups, player starts, an invisible activatable trigger to the cable car and teleport into the final arena. I was never really my intension to have co-op but it was requested from a few people so I added it with my limited co-op skills.


Just something I've noticed with the 227 version but not the original UT version. The one shot sounds seem to have a weird beep sound with them, I assume this is to do with broadcast to player being checked or something. It's a small annoyance but something I may remove one day.

[Aspide]

thanks fashahhh for the comments, if you want to release a new patch for this map I could help you, I have plenty of experience with custom scripting and fixing issues in Coop.

[ebd]

Gorgeous map that I think well captures "conceptual grandness" in its design, and certainly it's length! The terrain is honestly really impressive, and I quite liked the look of some of the castles about halfway through the map. It did feel like there wasn't nearly enough ammo for the amount of enemies, and it seemed better to run past enemies whenever possible, which I think is a really tough problem to solve with Unreal's stock enemies in general without making closed-off combat arenas.

Video will come later, maybe in the morning. It's nearly an hour of raw footage and I don't want to edit it tonight.

[Kajgue]

Really have to play this map, i've procrastinated with playing alot of new releases including The One since they've been released. The scale looks really impressive

[fashahhh]

thanks fashahhh for the comments, if you want to release a new patch for this map I could help you, I have plenty of experience with custom scripting and fixing issues in Coop.

Cheers Aspide I may take you up on that once my SL maps are done. A final final patch ha ha.

It did feel like there wasn't nearly enough ammo for the amount of enemies, and it seemed better to run past enemies whenever possible, which I think is a really tough problem to solve with Unreal's stock enemies in general without making closed-off combat arenas.

Thanks ebd. There should be enough ammo, you just have to search for it . I suppose it's difficult when it's your own map because you assume everyone knows where everything is as I've worked on it for so damn long! A chest in the first sea area may help (I know semfry missed the stinger twice before the fort though I'll put it down to his speedrun).

Video will come later, maybe in the morning. It's nearly an hour of raw footage and I don't want to edit it tonight.

Look forward to seeing this.

[ebd]

Look forward to seeing this.

just barely in time, here it is: