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<EXU2> "G59 - EXPANDED ROUTE Phase 2" v6.01 OUT

For public discussion of all things EXU2.

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UB_
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Subject: Re: [UT] <EXU2> "G59 - EXPANDED ROUTE Phase 2" v2.03 OUT [not-released]

Post Posted: 07 Nov 2014, 16:54

The Limbo is like, the map. That G59 map. It's definitely the level that I'm most satisfied with, apparently, though it's sort of a bias because this is where all started.

How it went though.
Oh yeah.
I had no idea what to do with EXU2 v4 anymore and decided to use the Goretest gun to fill the Vortex Rikers full of gibs and blood. I sent a screenshot of the mess I did to Waffnuffly and he replied like "lol what the hell you're doing". I think right after that line I decided to start up my own EXU2 conversion. I was well aware that I barely had any knowledge with the Unreal editor but of course of help there was a lot around me.
My goal was doing a really hard EXU2-style conversion that I would release to EXU2 players for an additional challenge.

Ok actually what I had REALLY in mind was trying to make a contribution to Batshit Insane, and since Edge of Na Pali was the last BI converted map at the moment I chose Neve's Crossing; named it Nebiros' Crossing because that was the closest Demon name to Neve that I could think of (Nebiros = Cerberus = the hell's guardian = the first think you meet before Hell itself). A direct sequel to Highlands of Despair in about everything: looks, gameplay, story style, etc... To be honest though I was just so embarrassed to say something like that to Waffnuffly, to the point that I decided to make it a standalone map after he shouted at me how the Nebiros' intro was a direct copy of Highlands' one (with all those candles and bodies on the floor). Then Map2 and Map3 were to follow and the G59 campaign idea came to my mind. Jetv435 was also going to do an EXU2 conversion of The Gateway and I asked him if we could combine our forces but Jetv declined because I think he didn't have much time or something.

This map was modified a goddamned fucking high amount of times. The visuals, especially. The skybox initally sucked ass. It was just a standard cloudy sky and in the meteor storm side there were just all those little hell glyphs and an extremely awkward-looking light cone. It was so damn bad. The lighting of the level was also red as well, very desaturated. Just lazy and boring.
The skybox was progressively changed until what it is today. Figuring out the hellcircle effect which was amazing, putting additional large glyphs, light actors with flame effects in the distance, little meteors flying around and thunderbolts. With some inspiration from Deus Ex Human Revolution's smokey gray/orange sky, the skybox of FIRE CLOUDS was finally done (and the lighting became this barren evil gray).
I think it was Gagarin itself which pushed me to make The Limbo much unfriendly looking. The original track was Volcanic from Tribe 2, which was my drive to make Nebiros alongside Waff's Chef Fucker avatar and Highlands of Despair. If you don't know, BI before OPEN BETA did use songs from other games, like Frostclaw using Tribes 2's Ice theme.

The buildings were textured differently with EXU2's Nali Castle variants, then changed to gray citadel ones because "FRESH, DIFFERENT, etc.." and everything looked much better. Though lots of things can be improved. The mine "exit" was added just for an additional corridor to put items and for some sort of cover against the final boss. And also because I really hated how Neve was a dead end; that's something that really annoyed me from Nivlek's maps and RTNP maps in general, the fact that places are unrealistically impossible to travel across. Makes no sense.
I was also working on more: had the idea of that corridor to connect Neve to an arena situated over the mountains of Highlands where you would fight the final boss there and not on the bridge. Skybox would be also much different because by that moment the meteor storm would be gone. Everything scrapped though because: 1. killing the boss on the bridge in a time race before he could reach you was much more fun and thrilling and 2. it didn't make sense why the meteor storm would have been disappeared, it simply passed nearby (as you see it from the bridge, the meteor storm is going from left to right, not from Highlands to Nebiros).
Also ok, yeah, I went on and officially declared Nebiros to be located right next to Highlands. It's far off in the EXU2 timeline so it's not like it'd be an issue.

I really liked though how Nebiros looked, I didn't realize how the skybox turned the whole map as a buildup to the meteor storm. It was really cool when the Loathsome's website page shown a picture of the map with Gagarin playing.
It ended up as my vision of EXU2's hell where shit was really going the fuck down in this desolated limbo where monsters were fighting together for survival against everything. Nobody is safe.
The meteor storm event could have looked better I guess. I was planning to use the real meteor orbs but they were too overkill (enormous splash damage as well) and lagged too much. From what I know Waffnuffly is planning to add in some kind of hellstorms or perhaps there's already enough new classes in V6 which can help me improve everything about the meteor storm.
Mind you though, the skybox of Yaksha (the castle conversion) is massively insane compared to what you saw on Nebiros.

Translator messages were, of course, absurd, very close to BI style with Morax calling the place and everyone a piece of shit or something plus other insane things. He was initially called LaserLord, which was the name of an unused (now deleted) pawn in the main EXU package. The name was quickly changed to Morax - pretty sure I did that because one of the latest Shin Megami Tensei games had that fallen angel as the first real boss which would become important later on. The "to stop" etymology is true; Morax's main mission ended up being stopping and killing the main character like a recurring nemesis - Morax himself was still based upon the LaserLord pawn, forever. Even though I had to cut much of the humor I still wanted Morax to be a really pissed-off guy; I mean, this is EXU2 with its same package content, it's not like G59 was 100% different in comparison to BI.
The log number string was relevant for something. Waffnuffly was going to release a bunch of documents with lots of classified story materials inside passworded zips, and you had to find said passwords in BI (I think). I was basically going to do the same and that string number was the password but the whole idea was cut and killed, so did Waffnuffly who, as far as I remember, told to me it was going to be a huge waste of time and probably unnecessary.

The whole gameplay department didn't actually change THAT much since the beginning. Map had once Flying Squids but they were all removed; most of the less serious pawns were also removed but the rest was left in. Over the time I added the Jigoku exclusive pawns for higher difficulties and added various other things that weren't seen in BI yet. The bosses were the same, however the Juggernaut was the actual final boss (it had much more health) before the Gatekeeper was added. The Gatekeeper turned out cool after days of rebalancing; I wanted something explosive to end Nebiros and I chose a massive UltraBag edit so at the end the player could go like "I BEAT FUCKING EVERYTHING and conquered this place".
The foreshadowing statue was added later, much like the whole Sin Princes series of secrets.

The Gasbags flying in the area next to the ending area is caused by an AI bug. They're all supposed to search and fight you instead of weirdly retreat next to the meteor storm. From what I know v6 should have this AI bug fixed by now so I shouldn't worry about that anymore! I also have to make the Armor glyphs turn completely off (light actor too) when they're beamed, alongside some extra sparkling effect.

I guess this is a really completed level but since early in development there have been editor drafts for an optional underground section accessible from the bridge's interior. I don't have much ideas what to do with it, except for the survivor finding more unidentified enemies inside some sort of enormous, abandoned cathedral. Should be cool though if I could add that.

Can't wait for next week! :D

User avatar Sat42
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Subject: Re: [UT] <EXU2> "G59 - EXPANDED ROUTE Phase 2" v2.03 OUT [not-released]

Post Posted: 16 Nov 2014, 16:24

I'm back!

Nice to hear about the creative process in detail, sounds like a lengthy endeavour but the result is totally worth it. That's one advantage of this whole on-going phase of the development of EXU2: it allows you to make something, then take a step back, before changing and revamping things - the beta status imposes this but usually helps to attain a higher quality product, although I guess it gets tough to achieve a sense of closure after a number of years (when do you consider it good enough to leave it to rest for good and make it reviewable?). IMO, though, Nebiros' Crossing is really awesome as it is and I don't see any need to change anything - just adapt it for v6. Perhaps, yes, make the fireballs from the storm actually deal some damage - I didn't notice the first time round as I was impressed and stayed "out of harm's way" but going back to it I tested the effects and realised the meteors were only there for "make-believe" :)

Well then, let's move on!
Last edited by Sat42 on 16 Nov 2014, 16:28, edited 1 time in total.
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.

User avatar Sat42
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Subject: Re: [UT] <EXU2> "G59 - EXPANDED ROUTE Phase 2" v2.03 OUT [not-released]

Post Posted: 16 Nov 2014, 16:28

After Nebiros' Crossing, I was expecting something great but not necessarily remarkable in any particular way - a bit like The Cursed Passage, you know. But VOIDNESS manages to be just as fuckin' memorable as the level preceding it!
I still remember my very first impressions: it was just after coming out from that exhausting previous map, and I was in no mood to begin another fucked up journey in hell without a break IRL, first! So, I decided I'd only look around the first main area, before saving and calling it a day. However, just by reading the map's title I knew this was going to be similar to Darkness and Blackness from BI: I was telling myself "yeah, yeah, creepy shit going down, I know this, I'm cool" and perhaps due to fatigue, at first I didn't feel anything apart from slight annoyance due to the pitch-black environment surrounding me. But the soundscape is creepy as hell and it's hard to ignore the weird mixture of sounds emanating from your surroundings. Then I saw the Shadows, like figurines, immobile. "Huh, yeah, yeah, whatever" then the Shadow Warlord moving out of sight - OK, now it had my attention - and the corpse, the same as before, with ammo and items (old searchlight FTW) scattered around it - and a communicator message, written in a somewhat cryptic manner but clearly advising me about what I am to d- *shrieks* "WHAT THE FUCK" and I pressed the Escape button!! Haha, really, scared me real good, I was tired and couldn't take more of this now, so I went back to my save from just before jumping into the well, decided to read UBerserker's tips for that previous level, thanks to which I went ahead and got the secrets, then made the jump and saved at the start of VOIDNESS, from which I was to begin my next playing session! :P
And what a play it turned out to be. This level is scary, man, and more so than Darkness, too. It is exhausting, on top of that, because it's a long play: it took me roughly two and a half hours to complete, like the previous level, and you do everything in near complete darkness, which strains the eyes, even with the (naturally indispensable) use of the searchlight. It's very hard, overall.
Ah, yes, I did recognise the base level (after I got on top of the hydro tank): Foundry Tarydium Plant! Great level, I remember the mashing jaws, freaking me out, the way The Great Wall frightened me in Tomb Raider 2 back in the day!
But yes, VOIDNESS made me very cautious, a bit like a wuss, but heck - thus I lived long! Thanks to this approach, my first encounter with the Shadow Warlord turned out to be easy! OK, technically I got lucky, and this is a bug you can correct: he got stuck under one of those ceiling lamps! Thus I got to beat him without taking any damage.
The skybox had an awesome feature that really added to the whole "I'm so unsafe in this deep shit" vibe, rest assured!
The first really interesting message about the destiny of the Hell Survivor is found here. It sheds light on a really intriguing and cool possibility: "One thing I always thought of between me and me, is why I should be scared of taking the next step. [...] My other selves can do anything beyond my mistakes. [...]" Hang on a sec... and that corpse, again...
Well, it still took me a few tries to realise there were other options to continue this level beyond hopelessly fighting in that new section!
It's a linear map at the end of the day, but it often gives the impression of non-linearity due to all the side areas and twists and turns. That's an added difficulty, but it's really enjoyable.
During the final stretch I was beginning to get restless - I wanted to get out of there, but nasty stuff just kept popping up. Due to general discomfort, the "growling" panel didn't sharpen my senses and it didn't even dawn on me that there'd be something associated to that event, other then the sound. But even earlier on, I was having enough trouble making progress through the mandatory parts of the level (despite the mashing jaws being no longer operational) that I didn't really pay attention to the "blood trail" secret. But where I feel I failed miserably is with respect to the Asmodeus/Lust Sin Pillar: I actually activated all three hydraulic panels located on each floor (except the last one) of the tower area and knew that something was opened - but due to the desire to continue towards the exit, wishful thinking told me I'd simply opened the way ahead - and it was just around that boss fight and final encounter with the Shadow Warlord - Tsathoggua, as it is revealed. Consequently, I never found the Sin Pillar and upon getting to the next level, I saved immediately, so I couldn't just go back immediately after reading the tips for VOIDNESS, and I felt screwed! I sure will play this level all over again in the future, especially as the sequence associated to that particular secret sounds crazy!
The boss fight was medium in terms of difficulty: the first surprise made me reload (more out of fright than anything, I suddenly heard evil laughter, took damage and lost my sense of orientation), but afterwards, I provoked the fight then decided to immediately descend and stay on the lower floor, and threw a Munitions Party Mix Flare which, to my surprise, was actually enough to eliminate Tsathoggua on the floor above!
Good ending, by the way: it keeps the pressure on the player, which is what this map is all about. Another great touch is all the "creep" slowly expanding throughout the facility: there were traces of that in the analogous BI maps (I remember seeing the reskinned Bloblets in Darkness), but in G59 this eventually becomes much more present.
I really need to get into the Cthulhu Mythos, I haven't read any of Lovecraft's novels and given the amount of influence they've had on modern productions of all kinds (novels, films, video games), I am extremely interested in plunging into them.
As for VOIDNESS: a really scary, awesome map, which - in my view - is just as good as Nebiros' Crossing, although each in their own way.
Last edited by Sat42 on 01 Dec 2014, 16:20, edited 2 times in total.
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: [UT] <EXU2> "G59 - EXPANDED ROUTE Phase 2" v2.03 OUT [not-released]

Post Posted: 16 Nov 2014, 20:15

Welcome back!

Yeah I think VOIDNESS owns. When making Nebiros I did quickly plan to make a Shadow map after it (same for Map 3 after Map 2); when it comes to the campaign it was probably the best decision in early development. It's this map that kickstarted G59.

I had several complaints about the level title being weird ("Darkness and Blackness make sense while Voidness doesn't") but it's an actual existing word.
As for Cthulhu Mythos, the Hastur thing is perfectly correct; Tsathoggua a bit less as the one described in the stories is a ugly fatass sloth, though it had bat-like features and his servants were semi-infinite, could take any shape and form and attack in any way possible (kind of like the Shadows... yeah, even if Tsathoggua is just one of them in G59). Waffnuffly said that it's possible to remove the wings from the Warlord - one thing that the boss is not supposed to have is wings, he doesn't fly already.

During development and patches this map never changed that much aside from technical and balance fixes. Random encounters were available on easier difficulties as well and some fights were incredibly harder due to lack of Firestorm Generators. Obviously the Asmodeus secret was added later, same for that new room I added in the optional area. Kinda like Unreal maps, Foundry still had a huge empty cube room used for mover making; I looked at it and got the idea of making a new strange-ass area. I think I have to make it more obvious that the hole is a death trap, and probably I have to make the area look a bit better. It's pretty weird right now lol.
Ok the map definitely still contain the weird, senseless layout of the original Foundry (it's 0% realistic as I see it) but since I designed this conversion to be a nightmare I don't think I'll touch it. Silent Hill did the same and it worked perfectly.

Of course this conversion is based on Darkness and Blackness but I felt those two levels were like "this shouldn't have happened" fillers and were way too much obscured from the rest of BI; I enjoyed those two maps a lot though so I gave the Shadow theme a look and see if it was possible to make a Shadow map in the same scope of Nebiros/Corruption/Frostclaw etc... You know a Shadow map 100% important to the story and to the mappack's gameplay style.
Dark stuff are some of my favorite things and I enjoy making them, so I tried my best on what I could improve upon Darkness and Blackness - pretty much everything. Especially the sounds.
I'm extremely satisfied with what I did with sounds in G59. I'm totally proud of that. Pretty creepy all around and a lot of people enjoyed the soundscape.

VOIDNESS is better replayed on Hard/Unreal difficulty because it adds random encounters against Tsathoggua and Big Shadow Skaarj. Ironically Tsathoggua's random appearances are much less scary because it's very hard to get killed by him as he's slow but he eats Tachyon Driver ammo which is pretty trollish on his part. The Big Shadow Skaarj give exactly no warning and can easily kill you but their appearances are much more rare. There are also a bunch of hidden items to be found!
I actually plan to add more Shadow waves but with the catch that many of them won't be mandatory. The secret Tachyon Ammo are hard to get already, though. Maybe I'll actually add more Squid waves than Manta waves because Squids are MUCH LESS powerful (no instant attack; actually Squids were in earlier versions of VOIDNESS but I replaced them with Mantas because they were just too weak to be mandatory enemies).

I would totally add a proper ending area with Tsathoggua in it but I like how you climb the "tower" and finally meeting him for one last time.
Map needs more overall polish but I don't feel like adding anything else new to it other than enemy waves.

The G59 campaign idea craze started while developing this map, from what I remember. Nebiros and VOIDNESS are the big faces of the mappack but I definitely think there are better G59 maps than VOIDNESS :)
The translator messages are generally random garbage, except for 24/09 which is my birth month/day, plus other obscure hints about how many seconds it takes for the first Shadow ambush to appears when you get the SearchLight or the red square activating a trap upon touch.
ImageImage

User avatar Sat42
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Subject: Re: [UT] <EXU2> "G59 - EXPANDED ROUTE Phase 2" v2.03 OUT [not-released]

Post Posted: 16 Nov 2014, 20:34

The Hyper Boundary Gate is so welcome. This is an excellent redux of Bounds of Foundry, which is the best of the two "Foundry" maps in my opinion. After VOIDNESS, the player may be starving for something akin to, err, LIGHT, yeah that's the word! Well, The Hyper Boundary Gate is flashy, with all kinds of colours craving your attention. The "radiation storm" in the sky is original, again the skybox gets the thumbs up from me! Plus, the soundscape is equally bombastic: "Security units move to sector A-16" (System Shock 2 voiced lines - and with some pitch modification here, too - FTW!) while we have Cybernetika's Devoid of Gravity playing makes for some really epic shit!
And yeah, about that: never before did I believe that a "Shit-Biological" base could be so attractive :P Still, the contained slime seems to be almost purified, as "The Scanner of Elohim" says.
The industrial EXU2 theme is great overall, and an improvement over the original texture theme of this map.
But there's more than the reskin job: UBerserker added new rooms, new elevators, new shortcuts to add connectivity to the map and it's a substantial improvement; I actually recall thinking "dang, I remember Bounds of Foundry had a good layout, just not this good". I didn't remember the original by heart so it was the tips thread that, again, enlightened me after my playthrough.
Gameplay harkens back to traditional EXU2 fair, mostly. It's never a grind, it's just massive fun. The epic action, visuals (both geometry and lighting) and soundscape pumped me up! I am proud to say I survived the landing pad ambush on my first try! :)
The level is very hard overall, though, and not least due to the boss fight: you finally understand that Morax, after sending his best troops after you (this is evidenced by some rather funny messages, too, BI style), is going to make a stand and try to stop you for good. The build-up is well executed, silence takes the place of music as you descend towards the arena, before you trigger the battle and the lights become brighter as the boss emerges to the sound of Cybernetika's Conquest (which has a really suitable start for the battle). I died a lot here, kind of like when fighting the Red Nemesis in Xidia!
Still, after some perseverance (and making saves in the middle of the battle whenever the situation turned out in my favour, so as not to start over from the beginning), I made it in good condition. Morax is an awesome boss. The exit then becomes more of a formality, although those modified tentacles can be a nasty surprise!
Now, as per usual, I kept my save at the end of the level, and went to read about potential secrets I could have missed.
That's how I got the third Sin Pillar, the Mammon/Greed one. Yay! But I managed to fuck up with respect to the locked door whose message explicity states which demon keeps it closed: I read the message early on, then completely forgot about it, but of course, after reading the tips, I had to go in there - and saved inside that place! So when I understood I had signed my death sentence (yeah the Void must have been surprised to see me sacrifice myself willingly!), I was forced to reload another save from just before the boss fight, battle Morax again, then get the Sin Pillar again and because I still wanted to be able to say "I have been there" I made my way back to that forbidden area and left my XLoc beacon outside before entering. Thus I was able to get the Void's message before translocating back out and exiting the level :P
Fuckin' awesome, on a par with the two previous levels.

EDIT: that's another two and a half hours of gametime for me! but over three hours if you count the hassle with the bonus stuff I did after completing the level formally but reloading the last save in order to do the bonus stuff with the benefit of having read the tips thread!
Last edited by Sat42 on 01 Dec 2014, 16:21, edited 6 times in total.
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.

User avatar Sat42
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Subject: Re: [UT] <EXU2> "G59 - EXPANDED ROUTE Phase 2" v2.03 OUT [not-released]

Post Posted: 16 Nov 2014, 20:52

UBerserker wrote:Kinda like Unreal maps, Foundry still had a huge empty cube room used for mover making; I looked at it and got the idea of making a new strange-ass area. I think I have to make it more obvious that the hole is a death trap, and probably I have to make the area look a bit better. It's pretty weird right now lol.


Nah, let them sweat it! :P Honestly, the message is pretty clear, it makes you save, at least, then you try, and die, and reload, and maybe try again and eventually you'll be on the right path! :)

UBerserker wrote:Dark stuff are some of my favorite things and I enjoy making them, so I tried my best on what I could improve upon Darkness and Blackness - pretty much everything. Especially the sounds.
I'm extremely satisfied with what I did with sounds in G59. I'm totally proud of that. Pretty creepy all around and a lot of people enjoyed the soundscape.


Yeah, I certainly felt your enthusiasm with that theme! A lot of care went into it, and the Void and the Magatsu really do become the main threat in G59.

The title is suitable, we're talking about the Void after all.

UBerserker wrote:When making Nebiros I did quickly plan to make a Shadow map after it (same for Map 3 after Map 2); when it comes to the campaign it was probably the best decision in early development. It's this map that kickstarted G59.
[...]
Ok the map definitely still contain the weird, senseless layout of the original Foundry (it's 0% realistic as I see it) but since I designed this conversion to be a nightmare I don't think I'll touch it. Silent Hill did the same and it worked perfectly.


Map 2 after Map 1 is a great idea, and so is Map 3 after Map 2.
I understand the issue about the original layout but it never really bothered me (nostalgic 90s shooter level, as Mister_Prophet puts it) and yes, in any case, it makes "sense" here as we're in the middle of a nightmare anyway!
People only have good things to tell me about Silent Hill and I know I'll have to play it someday.

Good to read about all the various trivia as usual, one feels the mapper's passion that 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.

User avatar Sat42
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Subject: Re: [UT] <EXU2> "G59 - EXPANDED ROUTE Phase 2" v2.03 OUT [not-released]

Post Posted: 16 Nov 2014, 20:59

OK the rest will follow later next week - just so you know, I've finished G59 v2.03 and, and, and I'll resist talking about the rest now but if you want to mention some story element that is already in v2.03 then don't be afraid of spoiling anything for me now :)

EDIT: by the way I hadn't realise back then that Morax is, in fact, the asshole you escape from in LIMIT BURST!! I realised this later, upon reading what's available and playing the intro map again! :o
EDIT2: Time is a seriously fucked up coordinate in G59!!! :twisted:
Last edited by Sat42 on 01 Dec 2014, 16:22, edited 1 time in total.
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: [UT] <EXU2> "G59 - EXPANDED ROUTE Phase 2" v2.03 OUT [not-released]

Post Posted: 17 Nov 2014, 00:37

Oooh so you're finally figuring out how the G59 story works ;)
Yeah, Morax is the biggest asshole and he's the only one in the story who knows what's seriously going on and Hell Survivor never managed to beat Exusia until he obtained external player support. Morax is against the Shadows/Magatsu though.
Most of the backstory is written in the final maps; haven't checked those in a LONG TIME but they had some extensive translator messages about Morax and his accidents.

VOIDNESS did use Silent Hill 2 songs once. G59 also had its exclusive Game Over track, always from SH2. I couldn't use the original BI Game Over track because it was too cheesy for this pack unlike the current one.
I heavily suggest playing Silent Hill 2, definitely the best psychological horror game I've played.


Now for Map 3. It's called Hyper Boundary Gate because for the "bound" word and because a song by that title had very similar acid siren soundbites like Boundary.umx did.
Changed the filename to something simple (Neonlights) as the visual upgrade of the conversion contained a lot of neon lights there and there.

This map looked kind of REALLY ugly before. It was basically the original version being completely retextured in Crypt.utx only with extremely glowy green lighting. Brown x Green = the color of shit. Though I enjoyed somewhat the demon faces with the green eyes but it simply looked worse than the original Toxic (as I said, there weren't any layout modifications before).
The slime pools originally caused 1 damage per second, only if you were submerged. Waffnuffly suggested to turn the damage off, and I did. It's actually more badass when you can swim throughout acid harmless.
The skybox was originally very bright and used different textures. Took many tries until I got a more post-apocalyptic looking polluted sky - much more industrialized, less bright and very stormy.

Actually talking about the skybox, I don't know who made the joke (I think it was Waffnuffly) but it was about making a pink skybox with large bloblets on it for a super dumb EXU2 map.
Well I took that joke literally and this is how I ended up with a skybox with pulsating acid blobs. A sky mod in Fallout New Vegas which made the environment look toxic green was another inspiration (mostly for the visual upgrade, however).
Confirming that Frostclaw's remake pushed me to upgrade Toxic's visuals. Once again, I truly realized how the original layout of Toxic made no sense like Foundry's and I decided to make it more realistic by connecting areas with corridors or elevators. The job actually isn't done yet as I have to add elevators to the top towers in the first area and likely something else. At least you don't have to do crap anymore like getting Jumpboots and float to an impossible corridor on the wall :) I'm actually not much of a fan anymore of the original Toxic.
The first thing I remade was the boss arena. That was like my first very original room in the editor, no kidding. I made that one first because the Morax battle was extremely bland according to people; I remade it to remind people of Skaarj battles in Xenome/Xidia. I like it. Then I proceeded to remake each area of the map, one by one. Took me two weeks I think. I used SGTech1 because it was the most fitting for my industrial place vision and as a texture pack it is rather challenging and fun to use.

The level originally used a Descent 2 track, Crush, which did fit the industrial theme. Then I changed it to Fallout's City of Lost Angels (which is nothing more than a pitched down version of a Aphex Twin track, goddammit Mark Morgan) but it was too boring for the level of action in this level. Devoid of Gravity was the ultimate choice and proved amazing.
Morax started without a boss theme though. Cybernetika did mention that Conquest was pretty much made for a duel theme.

The gameplay started as one major gimmick: no Skaarj enemies. Except Morax himself.
I think I did this because I considered the BioShit theme as a third-party one in EXU2 so I decided to go with third-party enemies only. Ironically the Skaarj Warriors in EXU2 aren't definitely the strongest enemies you meet.
Shit pawns are less numerous but generally deal more damage; they're mostly guests to this level. Bio pawns are much more numerous and most of their strength lies in their capability of healing themselves. Tried to use them at their highest potential possible: it's either necessary a bit of patience to take them down (don't run over all the blobs lol, wait till they explode) or you have to be fast as fuck when you're cornered or they'll corrode you in seconds.
The "Slime" pawns are strongest, of course. Maybe a bit too insane sometimes. Had to remove a group of Slime Queens on Unreal difficulty because their bio missiles lagged the game too damn much.

Since Bio/Shit pawns aren't exactly strong enough to stop the player, I had to mix in laser pawns, robots and Demon ambushes sent by Morax. There were once storms of Mantas but I removed them because they were simply useless. Also given the more modern theme I added cameras as well which spawn many nasty individuals.
I really fucking love playing this map. Definitely not the one I'm satisfied the most due to how derivative it is but it's fun as heck to play; everything is so dynamic and flows so beautifully, a lot like top-tier Japanese action games a bit. Of all EXU2 maps between G59 and BI this is the one I enjoy playing the most, no doubt.

Morax was supposed to have an attack where he would spin and scatter laser beams all over the place but I had no idea how to make it work so it was removed. I think he still has the random Tachyon beam attack though. EXU2 v6 has however a new pawn which has this same scattered laser beam attack I wanted to have on Morax, thanksfully. It's a more hyper Skaarj Warrior battle, I like when one of his lunges throw you metres away but he isn't that hard to kill honestly. Just keep pummeling him of fire orbs before he kills you. If you started with low health oh well but there are enough items around the arena to sustain you!

Got to say something: the geometry of CliffyB's maps proved very stable.

There wasn't much space for secrets in this map. The Mammon location was chosen after myself trying to fit in Pupae tunnel with the Translocator. It actually worked so I thought it was a pretty clever place to put the Pillar in.
That, "other", thing instead was inspired by a dream I had. A tunnel located in the first area of Toxic, just like the one you see in the game now (the one I dreamed about started with a long pipe tunnel first but ok). It did lead into an abandoned section in the facility and behind the long shutter door you could go outside to see part of Fhub6 (Map 4). The trap was an original thing I put up though. You're not really supposed to get in now but I actually plan to add that exterior part I dreamed of behind the shutter door so you have a way to legit exit that section, directly to the next map :)
A lot of G59 things were inspired by dreams. Dreams are goddamn useful.

In the next version I'll add some new visual details beyond all those metallic grates, pretty lazy seeing just a black background. Maybe I'll add some new optional room too. This map is playable and nice enough and I don't feel like spending additional time for a second visual overhaul.
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Subject: Re: [UT] <EXU2> "G59 - EXPANDED ROUTE Phase 2" v2.03 OUT [not-released]

Post Posted: 17 Nov 2014, 17:42

Perditus Paradisus concludes a first chapter, so to speak: it is the last map of G59's Default Route release.
As far as I'm concerned, this is an entirely new map! It's based on the beta map FHub6, by Juan Pancho Eekels, which was heavily unfinished. After completing Perditus Paradisus, I went to read the relevant page in the Unreal Beta guide found in UnrealSP.org's Legacy site (I hope all that stuff will be brought over in due time!).
Using reduxed beta maps is one of the cool features about G59. UBerserker did a great job in transforming the place to bring it to G59 standards. The atmosphere is excellent, and starts rather adequately in a peaceful manner (only a bunch of damn flies - Cazadors - to take care of), with Mark Morgan's Metallic Monks soothing your senses (I really must play the Fallout games, too!). The lighting is great - and once again, we are treated to a gorgeous sky (beautiful sunset, and in another direction toward the horizon, you can see the pollution emanating from The Hyper Boundary Gate)! That makes me happy :)
Given the chaos from the previous map and the inevitable mayhem that eventually ensues in this level, the quiet beginning is truly a blessing! I usually enjoy immersing myself into a game's atmosphere, and this level is perfectly suited to that, therefore I spent roughly 45 minutes slowly exploring the entirety of the map before triggering the fight with the Archdemon and the Lava Titans in the middle of the main valley.
The same dead man who looks like your own self left a message where he explicitely addresses you, a nod to the bizarre destiny of the Hell Survivor (by then players will have caught up with the endless cycle of life and death of the main protagonist - but I didn't make too much out of it at this point, because clear revelations only appear later).
The general theme might be an invitation to rest, but those ominous Hell Portals say otherwise. The alien ship encased in the last adjacent valley also has a great foreboding effect.
And then, of course, this would have been a short play if it weren't for the sudden invasion of this Demon resort by lesser devils led by the Sun God Tonatiuh. Oh my! that was completely bananas. And my usual cautious approach didn't help me here! I ended up fighting like crazy for what seemed like ages :o The Clusterfucker is a great baby in this situation, and I made good use of it!
It's amazing to think that what is essentially one massive battle can drag on for an hour or so, but this was very hard for me (I wasn't surprised, though! and it wasn't what I'd consider to be extremely hard, either - I never once thought I could not make it) and I had to reload a lot to do better (or simply to be alive again). After a while, and despite the continued heavy presence of multiple Skaarj variants, I decided to crackdown on Tonatiuh (who until then had been quietly left in a corner) with the most powerful stuff I had: battle flares. Careful study of the effects told me which type worked best and indeed Fusion Flares worked really nicely!
Still, in hindsight I could have done much better if I had been more aggressive from the start: I didn't immediately realise that the Sun God actually summoned all kinds of creatures but holy shit at its most intense the battle must've displayed a hundred combattants or something - with all the projectiles and effects playing at the same time, it's really a testimony to my new hardware's capability (no slowdowns)!
I sure was happy to see that boss go down in the end! It was the hardest boss fight in G59, for me...
Then I was playing the "catch the treasure" minigame and couldn't find the darkest corner of the big valley because I was after something more obvious so -> tips thread, and got all the secrets in the end :P
JUST FUCK :twisted:
Actually that Belphegor character would fit in well with the Batshit Insane cast!
Another amazing (and completely fresh) level, which managed to hold me for over two hours in the end, and a great new theme to add to the list!
Also, I got my Serious Sam vibe with this map! (another game series I've never played)

I will have to say it again, later, but one extremely positive aspect about G59 is the consistency of successive levels in providing renewed fun of high calibre. Difficult to say which map is better than the other!

EDIT: I might add that the great track Bio-Magnetic Tunnel Transport (which is so typical of Cybernetika) is an excellent fit for the apocalypse that represents the battle with Tonatiuh and his minions!
Last edited by Sat42 on 17 Nov 2014, 19:56, edited 4 times in total.
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: [UT] <EXU2> "G59 - EXPANDED ROUTE Phase 2" v2.03 OUT [not-released]

Post Posted: 17 Nov 2014, 17:45

UBerserker wrote:A lot of G59 things were inspired by dreams. Dreams are goddamn useful.


Yeah man! They have proven their worth for me as well many times!
Keep on dreaming 8)
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: [UT] <EXU2> "G59 - EXPANDED ROUTE Phase 2" v2.03 OUT [not-released]

Post Posted: 17 Nov 2014, 20:05

Hahaha holy shit, Tonatiuh is such a beast. By far my favorite G59 boss. It's utterly crazy when you play the map on Unreal difficulty and dealing with all the shit coming from the portals plus all the things created by the boss himself, AND the boss himself. I'm not sure how much it takes for things to heat up to the point of making the engine totally shit itself but it's pretty impossible for that to happen if you keep killing things.

Perditus is one map that changed a lot during development. The skybox was changed several times. It first started as clear Fallout-style yellow, then I made it less bright, then I totally changed it to a photorealistic tropical sunset, then night, then this orange alien-y sunset. With that I had to modify the sky textures and the level's general lighting as well.
The EMD ship started with no red lights at all (obvious at first because the map was already bright and ALSO because it actually started out with the default DecayedS textures) but I think next time I'll decorate it a bit to make it look more menacing and tank-like.
The terrain/water textures were different as well before.

Literally everything was different before.

There were less vegetation around overall (and default green too, not yellow), there were no big rocks in the bigass valley, that empty Merc ship was still there and you could climb on it (it had a saint cross symbol too and was used for the treasure hunt) or use it as a cover (the map version with the ship was never released as far as I know); then this ship was totally removed and was replaced with a dense group of palms and plants with all the valley items and powerups, and all was defended by an invisible shield coming from a blue hell symbol on the floor which protected the vegetation from Archdemons' meteors; it didn't work that good so I removed that vegetation, put one big hell symbol on the floor (the one there's now) and those three big rocks you see around.

There was also one portal, in the direction of the sun, and it used two PALMS as energy support instead of obelisks (no kidding it was hilarious). It was also bad because enemies came from that portal only and you could just stand in one spot bombarding everyone in a single direction with the ClusterFucker + PentaPower (yeah there was a lot of PentaPower before).
Also instead of the current Lava Titans + Archdemon combo, there were either a lot of super Lava Titans mixed with groups of weakened Archdemons. You had to use the Invisibility to get the PentaPower in the middle of the valley, go back at the entrance and kill everyone with it. It was pretty tiring and way too forced. The battle was always triggered after killing all the Archdemons though (or it was about killing only the big one who defended the portal).

Portal fight worked absolutely the same but in the earlier versions there was NO battle on Easy difficulty. Medium still had Skaarj, Hard still had Gasbags+Skaarj and Unreal still had Warlord+Gasbags+Skaarj. On Easy nothing. Also the battle was totally optional and you could escape your way to the exit.
The new final room at the end for Cryox/EMD wasn't there either, so you could translocate into the hole and end this map. Tonatiuh wasn't even a thing (he was actually added much later). Honestly I forgot about all the modifications I did in this since the beginning but I'm 100% safe to say it was impossible to end Perditus in Coop because the big battle was just insane there.
Aside the Sin Pillar, the secrets worked in the same way (messages were much more cryptic though) but I keep FORGETTING to remove that DAMN Hyper Helm during updates.
Belphegor is definitely a BI-type character but mind you Silent Hill 2 had a random part with a funnyass quiz dude during a elevator ride. So yeah. He's the only Sin demon you have any interaction with, aside Leviathan in Nebiros.

Tonatiuh is nothing more than a EXU2 version of Mordecai, the last boss of Serious Sam TSE; this guy couldn't do anything other than teleport around and spawn enemies. He's still really badass though because I enjoy that one super boss' only method of attack is using servants and not direct attacking.
Of course I had to give some firepower to Tonatiuh, otherwise he'd be too boring for a god in EXU2. Other than being the Aztec god of sun, Tonatiuh might as well be the same "god" related to a cut Unreal map by Myscha. Speaking about Unreal, I've just decided that in G59, Hyper Boundary Gate is NOT the same Bounds of Foundry - it's just a perfect, upgraded replica. Canonically Bounds of Foundry doesn't end up in this valley in Unreal/RTNP (even if it had to fucking should because descending =/= ascending mountains) which gives me an incentive to set this decision. The real Bounds of Foundry in G59 is just next to VOIDNESS - meaning it's dark and full of Shadows.

The music choices for Perditus were different as well. Hayashis Journey was always the battle theme until the very last update, though Tonatiuh had Close Your Eyes. But BAM, Bio Magnetic Tunnel Transport is released, time to put that one in and kill Hayashis and Close Your Eyes out. Nothing fits this map more than BMTT at the moment.
Metallic Monks can perfectly stay - when playing Fallout New Vegas, this song would play very frequently in the southeast river area of the map, which was the only resort-like place of the game.

This map was like made, alongside the first three, after Summer, next to year's end. After is where I started to run out of ideas for a while and got a bit sidetracked.
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Subject: Re: [UT] <EXU2> "G59 - EXPANDED ROUTE Phase 2" v2.03 OUT [not-released]

Post Posted: 22 Nov 2014, 15:09

"Your head will burn." Holy shit, welcome to The Electric Massive Diver -Rad2032- and enjoy the ride!
After Default Route, G59 is prolonged with Phase 1: Claustrophobia, and it is safe to say that the mood gets ever more dark and... desperate. Damn, even the Demons seem to be resigned to the worst. And in case you doubted it, even Demons need to rest from time to time, Perditus Paradisus made that amply clear. But here, they are getting a run for their money. Not least because of you. But it's fair game, really: as always and perhaps even more so this time, you'll come out sweating... if you ever come out at all.

This redux of Cryox from Unreal Beta amounts to a completely new map for me. (Yes, I haven't yet played RTNP:UE and yes, I intend to play it sometime.) As per usual, I went to read about the beta map made by Eenocks after finishing this one, and it turns out it was already mostly done, with an incredibly complex layout going for it. UBerserker made another brilliant conversion here, with a most hellish reskin and lighting and even some new rooms to ease you in the map (not sure "ease" is the right word here but you get what I mean :P ). Honestly, this map is maybe where UB's mention of G59 being a "niche" project is most relevant: it is long, very hard, with textures, lighting, effects and music (and heck, enemies too) that do in fact kind of "fry" your mind, and it is uncompromising. Even in previous maps of G59, things weren't as personal/original (for lack of a better word) as this. One thing that struck me when reading about people's impressions on the forums regarding this or that particular theme is how much a feel can polarise players. I usually take the best of what there is in every theme, and while a theme certainly tends to carry a particular set of moods with it, I always regard those moods as interesting in themselves, and all relevant depending on what the designer(s) set to achieve. The EMD theme and experience is strong and highly specific. Not everyone will enjoy it. I fucking well did, though.

For one thing, you have never seen anything like it. Most of the ship is textured with the DecayedS set but I didn't even realise that - the author privileged underused textures from the package and it works really well here. Of course there's the heavy presence of Hyper demons which really add to the decor. And then there's this layout which, unless you have actually played RTNP:UE or shown more commitment to the game than your average player by playing the beta maps, will appear completely new... and intimidating. I was glad I was able to finish the map without looking up the tips thread but damn, I did struggle towards the end and I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of players get stuck and resort to outside help to get through.
By the way, please don't make it easier, UB: on medium (I keep specifying this, kind of useless but just in case there are outside readers who haven't been following since the beginning), it took me over two and a half hours to get through and I found this map to be very hard overall but the difficulty went up progressively (I admit I had the Blast Helm - but in my view it doesn't spoil the challenge of this map, given what I already said), and together with the story which unfolds here, it brought about a climax and it is very satisfying when you manage to exit the EMD!!

First you venture through the Hyper Core rooms and already there are signs that something is very, very wrong. Then you fight waves of Demon pawns and frankly, you are so over equipped at this point that I didn't find this passage to be hard, just tense and... better not be someone with epilepsy!
Then it's a mess. There are several options and exploration is really going to kick in now. Frankly, I'd have to play again to remember all the details but prepare to swim in tunnels a lot. And, on your first passage at least, you are going to fight numerous Nuclear Slith and Pupae variants. I made good use of the Hyper-Water-Speed-Booster! Thank God the Hyper SCUBA Gear is infinite. I took the tunnel which goes straight to the Main Commander room. I threw a BioHazard Flare into the room and stayed in the tunnel while the Hyper pawns all died one by one. The Commander (Moowis :) ) alone was still standing, but I was then able to quickly finish him off.

Again, a great aspect of this map is the story progression: at first, I wasn't expecting to get much of a tale out of this level but there's some serious stuff to look forward to. The Hyper beings are kind of a tragicomedy race, but the best tidbits of info may be missed by players because of the complex layout: I, for one, completely missed a room which I found in the editor, where a Hyper demon message refers to a red pentagram and how they are "fucked from every direction now" :) importantly, it refers to the Magatsu, and how they are demons turned heretic. I finished G59 without that knowledge :( (OK, whether they were demons or just a different type of monster doesn't really matter!)
Might as well mention that, as ever, I kept a save before the last stretch of the level, finished the level, then read the tips thread to understand what I missed, came back to try and get the Beelzebub/Gluttony Sin Pillar, but despite having activated the main Commander panel, the door to the Sin Pillar never opened. What a shame.
I did find the teleporter to the Penta Power, however. I once tried to take on a HyperNuclear Slith but, heh, suffice to say, I went looking for other options!

I did not get any frights per se in this level, but the atmsophere is so ominous that eventually I did feel a couple of chills go down my spine!
When I finally took the tunnel that leads to the exit (Tunnel 3), the first actual passage I did was a big WTF moment: it was dark, suddenly there were Shadow Fish ambushing me and then a fast current took me to the engine room where I was able to frantically make it to the teleporter...
In order to avoid getting any damage from those bastards, I reloaded and this time I used the Envy Sin Pillar (the Hyper-Water-Speed-Booster had already been drained) to make my way through that last stretch without giving enough time for any pawns to strike. It worked!
But I know I haven't completely understood how this level works.
In the tips thread, you mention that if you backtrack to the Hyper Core chamber by the ground way after pressing the main panel to unlock Tunnel 3, you'll face the "assassin". But to the best of my knowledge I never did encounter the assassin directly, which actually made things creepy because I never was sure of where the creature (who later turns out to be the Shadow God named Ghatanothoa) was meant to appear!

If my head hadn't been burned by the experience, this level would surely have been scary! But I was in an "exhausted" state of mind after this map!

Exhausting, but fantastic. It won't be to everyone's taste, but I am glad there are still some truly unique takes on one theme or the other, where the author doesn't bother with more "consensual" approaches.
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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: [UT] <EXU2> "G59 - EXPANDED ROUTE Phase 2" v2.03 OUT [not-released]

Post Posted: 22 Nov 2014, 15:28

UBerserker wrote:Speaking about Unreal, I've just decided that in G59, Hyper Boundary Gate is NOT the same Bounds of Foundry - it's just a perfect, upgraded replica. Canonically Bounds of Foundry doesn't end up in this valley in Unreal/RTNP (even if it had to fucking should because descending =/= ascending mountains) which gives me an incentive to set this decision. The real Bounds of Foundry in G59 is just next to VOIDNESS - meaning it's dark and full of Shadows.


The information is acknowledged :) but to tell you the truth, when I played G59 I didn't even think of The Hyper Boundary Gate as the same Bounds of Foundry - only in a hellish future: in fact, I even completely forgot about this being nominally Na Pali. In BI, there are a few messages that actually allude to the planet being Na Pali - only in hell. In G59, there's just the ReadMe that says that we're centuries in the future and Na Pali looks completely different. I don't think it matters much, but it may be that you didn't consider G59 to be in another dimension at all, as you say "They like to be called Demons. And they like to call their planet Hell. Nobody knows how this possibly happened, but going to the past is impossible; so, who cares?" which is a bit different from the feeling I got in BI, where it was clear that we were in Hellscape (not so much "in the future" as in a parallel dimension).
Admittedly, all this doesn't really matter, but I can understand your desire to "define" the universe of G59, given that the story is actually serious and has more to it than initially meets the eye.
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: [UT] <EXU2> "G59 - EXPANDED ROUTE Phase 2" v2.03 OUT [not-released]

Post Posted: 22 Nov 2014, 16:00

Well yeah actually I don't know if BI is essentially set in Na Pali but in the v4 thread's background it is said "Vortex Rikers, that prison ship who crashed centuries ago?", so yeah I supposed it was Na Pali. G59 should happen like 3000+ years after Unreal 1 and if anything I'd put it as the final event of the complete Unreal universe, meaning that after G59 nothing else has happened - it's the end of time.
Of course Na Pali should really look A LOT DIFFERENT geographically-wise after so many years unlike how it's shown in G59 but who knows how entropy works on other planets that isn't Earth.

About EMD:
-Made a mistake on the Sin Pillar requirement tip. Actually you don't have to only open Tunnel 3, you have to kill at least one of the two Nuclear Reactor Slith. Killing both Slith and NOT opening Tunnel 3 also works.
-There were supposed to be info signs for each Tunnel entrance, showing the numbers 1, 2 and 3, but apparently the EXU2 textures used for those were purged (in v5 I think) and I never fixed that, strangely.
-Ghatanothoa in Titan form appears if you open the Tunnel 3 and then make your way back to the entrance of the Hyper Core rooms by using the elevators. You'll likely meet him. I set the thing to not appear if you go back to that same position by using the underwater tunnels though.
-There's no current in the exit chamber, it was likely Ghatanothoa's fish form biting you and sending you away.
-Hmm the Hyper-Water-Speed-Booster has a very high charge, pretty surprised you fully consumed it up. Actually you can combine it with the Envy pillar to move even faster.


This map isn't exactly fully finished. I added the whole section before the infamous hole but it's supposed to have a lab with a lot of information on items and pawns.
Also I have to add proper alarms when the Demon fight begins and at least some form of indication on where to go when one Demon wave is fully over.

Gotta say though, this is where G59 starts being its kind of thing.
This map was shit at the beginning (this was before the change of atmosphere) because it was just a random filler: no Demon waves, no assassin, barely no story, etc... It also used the original map texturing and the lighting was 10 times much more full of flickering.
The Hypers themselves were very hard to see (like the default EXU2 ones) and were a bunch of extreme proud assholes.
My main tester was extremely critical of this conversion in the earliest version, he realized that I was literally clueless with this map other than making it a standard show for an elemental race. The Steel pawns were still part of the map, always on Unreal difficulty. There were many enemy placement changes and removals (the number of underwater Nuclear Slith caused random crashes), balance fixes and many other things.
Things were just becoming harder to do in G59 because there were no BI maps that could give me some basic ideas for what I was going to do, so I had to be as original as possible. Fallout's darker vaults (the map originally used the home vault theme of the first Fallout game: Vault Of The Future) were the main inspirations for when I went back to work on this map and adding all the things you see now - texturing, subplots, the "missions", the thing that's the cause of the inhabitants' deaths. It has been a major pain in the ass to get to this point; the hardest one, not the most time-consuming though.

The Sin Pillar was originally found inside the map's classic exit room - behind one of those hangar doors at the end of EMD. You had to open it progressively (the doors moved slowly) and at the same time trying to avoid Ghatanothoa. Then you could enter and get the Sin Pillar. This was removed once that big corridor at the beginning was added.

When it comes to interiors, Inoxx maps have just the best potential for EXU2 gameplay, no contest.
I would really like to expand this map more but the geometry is really fucked up (this map gave me huge issues when editing, which was the main reason why Map5 to Map8 were released much later) but if anything I'll just add that lab and be done with it.
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Subject: Re: [UT] <EXU2> "G59 - EXPANDED ROUTE Phase 2" v2.03 OUT [not-released]

Post Posted: 30 Nov 2014, 18:35

UBerserker wrote:Well yeah actually I don't know if BI is essentially set in Na Pali but in the v4 thread's background it is said "Vortex Rikers, that prison ship who crashed centuries ago?", so yeah I supposed it was Na Pali. G59 should happen like 3000+ years after Unreal 1 and if anything I'd put it as the final event of the complete Unreal universe, meaning that after G59 nothing else has happened - it's the end of time.
Of course Na Pali should really look A LOT DIFFERENT geographically-wise after so many years unlike how it's shown in G59 but who knows how entropy works on other planets that isn't Earth.

About EMD:
-Made a mistake on the Sin Pillar requirement tip. Actually you don't have to only open Tunnel 3, you have to kill at least one of the two Nuclear Reactor Slith. Killing both Slith and NOT opening Tunnel 3 also works.
[...]
-Hmm the Hyper-Water-Speed-Booster has a very high charge, pretty surprised you fully consumed it up. Actually you can combine it with the Envy pillar to move even faster.

Gotta say though, this is where G59 starts being its kind of thing.
[...]
I would really like to expand this map more but the geometry is really fucked up (this map gave me huge issues when editing, which was the main reason why Map5 to Map8 were released much later) but if anything I'll just add that lab and be done with it.


Don't worry about entropy, this is Unreal after all :)
Interesting to have G59 at the end of time - I wonder what the campaign's ending will be like? :)

Ah! so that's how I may get my hands on the Sin Pillar! Will do that next time!
The Hyper-Water-Speed-Booster may have a very high charge but remember, I'm not a fast player and if I remember correctly, I ended up using it also for exploration - when I was trying to figure out where to go. I thought it didn't last long, but that was just the impression while playing... not an issue though, it's just the way it is.

Yep, I totally felt G59 became more "its own thing" with this map.

The lab with lore could be good, but no need to expand the map more, especially if geometry is fucked up: it's already an extremely accomplished map, in my view. But I'll just reiterate that IMHO the exploration that arises from the map's complexity is a great thing.
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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