[Unreal 227J] The One

[AlCapowned]

As nice as a custom soundtrack would have been, I thought the Unreal music was used well. The use of WarGate for the intro was particularly inspired, it fit perfectly.

Seriously I'm afraid all the mappacks I've seen so far will bleak in comparison, and what's more worrying, Firestorm might not live up to the years-long hype, even if I've got nothing against classic Unreal megapack experience.

Personally, I would rather see Firestorm released than retooled, especially if the goal of the latter would be to reach the standards set by The One. It would be virtually impossible to get the same density of scripted sequences in a larger campaign unless a ton of maps were cut.

[Turboman]

It's really good to see new enemies and friendly NPCs alike. The beasts are really terryfing, like Pack Hunters on steroids, but amplified ASMD and flare arrows can quickly take care of them... If you're not mauled by them first. Also the new variants of Krall and bigger numbers of these foes made them formidable opponents rather than walking Rifle target practice they were in the original game. Still I wish there would be more Skaarj encounters. And thank God there are no Spinners within the underground ruins, I hate these buggers.

There could have been more Skaarj, I agree. I decided to focus largely on the Krall as the main antagonists early on, as they're the ones invading the island.
There are still some Skaarj and Brutes present as I absolutely had to break the monotony of facing only Krall. Lore wise I've just put these down as independent observers/specialists ensuring that their Krall minions do their jobs. And nice to hear that you (everyone so far) liked the new enemy additions, I'm happy that they break the monotony of applying the usual tactics facing the regular unreal opponents.
Also there are no spinners because I've kind of grown tired of them after having them in about every FS map Alternatively I could have put down pupae, but lore wise I felt that wouldn't have made much sense with the lackluster Skaarj presence on the island let alone the underground.

As for the music, yep, the mod is in dire need of new tracks, but not quite new tracks. Remember Nali Chronicles, right? Original tracks for this add-on were composed in a tracker and heavily used samples from Unreal OST. It's new music, but thanks to these samples it still holds that unique atmosphere of Unreal. Toxeen did the same when he scored songs for Operation: Na Pali. The problem is that not many musicians these days use trackers to compose music and with the 227 patch you don't really need to use module files anymore, but I would prefer to have a soundtrack composed in a tracker anyway.

New music is something I would have loved for The One. But exactly for the reasons you mentioned I decided not to focus on that. It would have been very difficult to do/find someone who had time to spend creating pieces that exactly replicates that unreal atmosphere, even more so when we're talking about tracker musicians in the modern age of DAW musicians.

► Show Spoiler

First of all - the boss fight against the ship at the end is ABSOLUTELY BRUTAL!! I mean... what the hell, Turboman? I couldn't run away from those bombs most of the time, are these homing onto your position or what? Can you destroy them with your guns before they reach and wreck you? I tried finding answers to these questions in scripts of both the ship and bombs. This is definitely the weakest, most frustrating part of otherwise a marvellous experience. Also it's funny you can set a ship on fire with flares or damage it with Razorjack blades.

► Show Spoiler

And yet again I need to apologize for the "unfair" ship bombs! Their difficulty is the result of a really-last minute bugfix.
It IS possible to shoot them and they will often go in a chain reaction that way. The thing is, I think they only become armed (and vulnerable) a few seconds after being released. I did not expect it to turn out so hard on Unreal difficulty. But during my run I usually run far away to the opposite side of the arena once the ship decided to pull its bombing run move. As I mentioned before it will never bomb the entire arena and it will only bomb one side at once.

BIG SPOILER!! Do NOT open before finishing the game! You've been warned! I just had to share this with Turboman (though it would be better to PM him about this).

I'm fine with discussing the plot in this thread rather than a PM as long as we keep it spoiler-tagged, it might provide insight for other people wondering about the same thing.

Once you've seen all the flashbacks, spoke to all the "mandatory" NPC's, such as the ones that appear to you in the dreams, you should have enough information to tie the plot together. Most of the exposition is tucked into the main sequences after all.

Something we already know from the non-spoiler synopsis from the thread main post: The One is a powerful malevolent Deity that was imprisoned in the underground beneath the island. Yet even from its prison it's powers still seep through the island. Those who linger about too close to its domain are afflicted by a curse.

The story could have a lot of interpretations and my own thoughts on it are just another person trying to interpret a mishmash of these strange random imagery. I'll just explain some things that we can discern a little from the events that occured during your journey.

Spoiler territory ahead, don't read if you haven't finished it:

► Show Spoiler

Many of the NPC's you meet are victims to The One, not all seem to be aware of this at the time you meet them. The Skaarj mentioned he's been around quite some time and he made sense out of it. The Nali Acolytes understood their fate. But Solo seems to be oblivious at the beginning, only once you find him at the end he mentions the Sisyphean loop he's stuck in, having to relive these experiences over and over again.

Those who are afflicted by The One suffer a fate far worse than just hallucinations. It controls the entire reality of those it takes ahold of, essentially imprisoning those in a personal hell which defies reality.

For you this manifests itself in weird visions, which play out as a sort of Deja-Vu, but it also seeps through the reality you perceived to be. Na Pali days suddenly flash by in mere hours on the island. You washed upon the same shore again, twice. And the underground that you visit seemingly extends infinitely below the island.

All it's victims tried to reach The One in the hopes to end this curse, but they all failed, instead they relive the cycle over and over until someone manages to wake up and break free...

Then the ending shows that it's over, everyone seems to be free to go about their regular lives, except the player who hasn't survived?
There's actually several interpretations to what actually happened there, all of them are more a less equally valid.

Is this all a dying man's dream?

Among those your ending explanation is definitely one of the valid conclusions to what could have actually happened.

As far as the incomprehensibility of the story goes, when building this I've been influenced a little bit too much by David Lynch movies and games such as Silent Hill or Cry of Fear. Hence why it gets pretty bizarre out there with the "visions" and the NPC dialogue getting quite cryptic near the end.

[Preki]

Personally, I would rather see Firestorm released than retooled, especially if the goal of the latter would be to reach the standards set by The One. It would be virtually impossible to get the same density of scripted sequences in a larger campaign unless a ton of maps were cut.

Now I'm not saying to rework the entire megapack, I just hope Firestorm will be worth the wait after all these years.

I apologize to everyone who plays on unreal difficulty

I played on Hard difficulty, and it was a random choice if anything else. I just had Hard selected and rolled with it.

Speaking once again about music - did you consider using the beta tracks like "Dark Presence", "Unreal #12", "Solitary Shilouette" or "Unreal Suspense"? I think the latter could work in the hub areas for daytime, while "Solitary Shilouette" would be great for night time instead of "Unreal #7" from the retail game.

[Turboman]

Speaking once again about music - did you consider using the beta tracks like "Dark Presence", "Unreal #12", "Solitary Shilouette" or "Unreal Suspense"? I think the latter could work in the hub areas for daytime, while "Solitary Shilouette" would be great for night time instead of "Unreal #7" from the retail game.

I didn't really consider that, although I've heard it before that beta or RTNP tracks might have fit well in The One. But since it all kind of began as an homage to certain classic custom maps, I've actually took my musical inspiration from those map packs. I've literally taken cues from Nali Cove, One Day, Shrakitha and Tashara's Cove.

[BIr4]

Great job. Simply perfect.

[evilgrins]

Dear Turboman,

May I have your permission to take textures used for your Nali to make skins for bots and players?

Team Colors shouldn't be an issue.

[Turboman]

Dear Turboman,

May I have your permission to take textures used for your Nali to make skins for bots and players?

Team Colors shouldn't be an issue.

Sure, you have my approval!

[evilgrins]

Thankees!!

[BIr4]

Can someone tell me how to get these tidbits?

[~Athena~]

Hello there,

Sorry I can not answer to the question above.

I have myself a problem with this campaign : it's OK in solo mod, but when my friends want to join my server for playing The One with me, they crash.
Though, they are all in 227j like me.
It's OK with other maps from other campaigns.

I read the readme.txt, it says it's possible to play in coop.

Is it really possible to play this campaign in coop mod ? Did someone have the same problem ?
How can I solve it please ?

Thanks.
PS : This is their error message :
Log: LoadMap: EntryII.unr
Log: Bound to Fire.dll
Log: Failed import: Struct Struct Core.Object.Pointer (file ..\System\Core.u)
Warning: Failed to load EntryII: Can't find Struct in file Struct Core.Object.Pointer..

They have EntryII for sure, it's the same as mine.

[Turboman]

That's a strange error you have there, One that I'm completely not familiar with.
It sounds like something went wrong loading the map EntryII.unr, which is part of the 227 patch. I'm clueless why this would show up only with The One and not other maps. The error regarding Core.u sounds like something else may be wrong. Are you sure all of you are updated to the exact same version of 227J?

[Turboman]

Can someone tell me how to get these tidbits?

Hey there,

► Show Spoiler

There should be a snake wall ornament with a clue nearby, lighting up the snake head with a weapon (a Dispersionpistol projectile should suffice) should open the grates behind this area, which is at the hallway with the dropped floor-tiles.

[BIr4]

Found. Thank's

Edit.: The One can be played in Oldskool Mod of UT99?

[~Athena~]

Thanks for your answers, I finally solved the problem (but I don't remember how ^^).

As I promised this is my opnion :

My friends and I were impressed by this campaign: we found it beautiful and original, we appreciated the hard work that was put in, whether in terms of architecture, graphics, originality, storyline.
If we have to give an area for improvement: we would have liked more indications to know where to go, we would need, for example, a marker to mark the path traveled. I was a little tired at times, having to run around trying to figure out how to get out, and also having to remember what I had done between games (I'm getting old I think ).
I think it's more complicated for non-English speaking people to find their way around (*).
I also found that there were a few too many mandatory events before being able to progress: this sometimes caused blockages.

Despite these small points, I place this campaign among the best I have played (my favorites : Project Xenome, Nali Chronicles, The Descent, Resurgence (Alpha)... etc.).
I can’t wait to discover your next adventure

I have a technical question: I wanted to replay the campaign from the beginning, however I cannot reset it. Let me explain: I start the adventure with the grappling crossbow, which is not normal and distorts progression. How do I reset everything and make the campaign blank? Maybe install a new Unreal then TheOne package?


* : if someone needs some french translation of the log in his map, I'm available. It would be great to choose the language de l'aventure <3

[BIr4]

What a beautiful project, truly wonderful. I loved it.