06/30/2014 - "The Black Raven Inn" by Tim "Kew" Jervis

[Jigoku]

Map Title: The Black Raven Inn
Author: Tim "Kew" Jervis
From: Illhaven Saga
Filename: Illhaven_3.unr
Music Files: Unreal4.umx




Video Playthrough

Youtube Video

Synopsis: The player enters some kind of an inn.

Discuss!

[Mister_Prophet]

No takers yet? Okay I'll start. This may incite some debate, but I mean well.

I've often defended my stance on Illhaven on the basis of this level alone. People have debated with me on this, in some rare cases over the years I have had to defend the review present on the site (posted close to a decade ago by my count). While I still to this day believe the first level to be a truly great Unreal experience, I've been somewhat critical of the rest of the pack for various odds and ends. The Black Raven Inn is a level that is perhaps the lynchpin of my view of the last half of the pack, in terms of execution. Read that again, execution. The idea itself, cool. Real cool idea. Poor execution.

You have a level that requires the player, who previously was able to explore and traverse the immersive first level unrestrained, to suddenly play so cautiously as to not disturb the level's concepts that they are literally forced to do as little as possible for during the expected play time needed to complete the level. This clever subterfuge detailed in the story arc falls apart because the player has guns. While levels like those seen in Shrakitha and other examples I could mention handled complicated ideas with care that rarely, if ever, contradicted any of the player's actions, The Black Raven Inn's interesting concept of a Krall besieged township frozen in suspended animation is dismantled simply because the player can choose to shoot at, jump on, or otherwise befoul enemies and Nali that are bound to their frozen positions by properties that might have convinced if limitations were also applied to the player's ability to disturb the scene. But because they weren't, the immersion of Illhaven is effectively broken by the time the player gets to this map. Simply shooting at and around enemies and Nali has hilarious results.

You can see it in the video's youtube link, with a train of Krall patrolling the streets. The player is intended to be shrouded in an illusive barrier so the Krall cannot detect them. The sequence seen in the video is hysterical. Not only are the Krall walking so close along the same pathpoint that they are practically hugging each other, shooting at the head of the train forces them all to pause/walk in place, oblivious to the violence as the player headshot kills the first, second, third, ect. in line before getting to the last. The level is a stew of AI exploitations that take the player out of what should be an intriguing mystical experience, which is a disservice to Kew's elaborate story concoction, to say nothing about the exemplary level design.

Other tidbits of laziness and oddities abound. I never found the giant Skaarj the least bit convincing. They are just...too big. Much too big. Comically big. They use the environment poorly (their collision boundary is overlooked when taking into account the traversable layout) and their other properties are not adjusted to scale. Knocking the many book decorations away from their translator message sources was a lesson to me as a mapper, early on, and taught me to lock important location sensitive decorations into place. Lot of Queen battles are messed up in community maps so I can't get too nitpicky about that being done wrong here as well, but on top of everything else it just adds up to a tedious, unfortunate gameplay experience. This is perhaps Illhaven's weakest link in this regard.

Quality control is a thing.

[Semfry]

Well, Mr Prophet's summed up every issue with this level. It's basically an atmospheric lead in to a boss rush, but the unconvincing giant Skaarj mean it's not an especially intense one (even taking into account when this set was made) and a lot of the set-ups work kind of oddly or are buggy. The fact that some of the issues weren't fixed in the re-release doesn't help. The level is basically entirely held up by the atmospheric environments and story (which, replaying now, I realise is actually sort of similar to my Carpathus one...)

[ividyon]

I sadly can't remember anything about this level, as I haven't played Illhaven very far, but the level begs the question as to whence Na Pali has "black ravens".

[SteadZ]

I never understood what was going on with the "frozen" guys - are these Nali your friends, and if so why are they frozen and you aren't?

Also funny glitch with if you kill the Krall the Nali all "wake up"

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SZ
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[UB_]

Pretty sure it was written somewhere they were frozen "in time".
This is a really good map.

[Semfry]

I never understood what was going on with the "frozen" guys - are these Nali your friends, and if so why are they frozen and you aren't?

Because you come into the area potentially centuries later?

[Sat42]

Yep the guys were frozen in time ("the Spell of Living Doom").

I agree with the main gripes which have already been voiced, this level is not professional, but damn I liked it a lot! I do realise that it requires the player to play the way the author intends it, and that is somewhat artificial. But I'm pretty laid-back here and so I did exactly that, and honestly, I enjoyed the mystical atmosphere here enough that I view this as a great map (as always with Illhaven). Yes, exemplary level design. I felt like I was in another game for good with this pack!
Shame about the Queen's screwed up setup, but oh well (the following level has the same problem, but the fight is memorable, if easy). On medium, this was average in difficulty (again, because I played it the way I was supposed to play it). Not long, but only the first level of this pack was "long" for me (over an hour the first time round). Loved the story throughout the pack, and I believe this is the level where you start "communicating" with the Sorcerer and learn about the benevolent Titans which will help you later on.
Say, if the revised and expanded version of Illhaven really adds new stuff to the original experience, then I'll have to get around to playing it one day!

[SteadZ]

Yeah, the spell was conducted centuries earlier on the Queen and minions, but why are "Kew"'s friends frozen in time too if they arrived at pretty much the same time as him, centuries after the spell has happened, and if they have been frozen then why hasn't "Kew"?

@Sat42: I would absolutely and whole-heartedly recommend playing Illhaven 2012; It's a great ride
The new maps added are awesome too, though remember to copy the needed UT texture files across before playing!

Just a shame the desert maps were never released...

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SZ
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[Semfry]

Those are apparently just random civilians who were caught in the spell. The pack kind of completely loses track of the "find your friends" plot at this point.

Edit: Actually now I think about I do recall that you were supposed to be heading for the Black Raven Inn because your friends are there, but apparently the pack doesn't follow up on that.

Edit 2: Yeah, looking through the messages it seems the pack just sort of forgets about it, and none of Kew's thoughts suggest that the victims in the Inn are your friends.

[Sat42]

@SteadZ: well then, I'll play it soon for sure!

Desert maps for Illhaven? wow... heh, I guess we'll still get to see some nice desert maps when Firestorm comes out!

[Mister_Prophet]

Those are apparently just random civilians who were caught in the spell. The pack kind of completely loses track of the "find your friends" plot at this point.

Edit: Actually now I think about I do recall that you were supposed to be heading for the Black Raven Inn because your friends are there, but apparently the pack doesn't follow up on that.

Edit 2: Yeah, looking through the messages it seems the pack just sort of forgets about it, and none of Kew's thoughts suggest that the victims in the Inn are your friends.

Let's not forget the pack's ending either. Illhaven starts with one idea and ends with another. Are we supposed to read more into the last map or not?

[Sat42]

Here's my take on the story, as concise as possible while potentially solving the blurry bits:

-You're a Nali named Kew: you say you haven't been to Illhaven in many moons, but for all I know a Nali lives for several human centuries and the author (Kew, yes) didn't bother to specify how Nali measure time, while at the same time leaving open to interpretation exactly how much time "many moons" represents (we're on an alien planet - how long is a day? how many moons are there? which moon(s) is he referring too? what are their orbital periods? etc.)...
-You fought bastards all over the surrounding areas, and these demons aren't necessarily new as such (within Illhaven, they are new, but in the first map the protagonist mentions some place else where many a demon were slain...); you're back for some well deserved rest, too bad you aren't getting any.
-You're looking for your friends "on the morning tide": the Krall - who aren't considered to be demons as such - stop you. (Note: in the second level, the demons are actually referred to as Skaarj experimenting on the Krall - it's a bit out of style here, to be honest. The only moment of the pack where traditional Unreal kicks back in, sort of.)
-Now Kew reckons he can find his companions at the Black Raven Inn. OK this is a bit fishy - maybe Kew refers to some of his old time comrades who stayed behind in Illhaven, Nali whom he was hoping to see again. If he had left for a comparatively long amount of time, then that means it is possible for his old friends to have been caught in the spell.
But it's true that the whole thing sounds more like: this sorcerer is from way back in time, the spell has been in effect for longer than people care to remember (apparently several other "heroes" attempted to defeat the horde before you), and you are stumbling across this part of town for the first time in your life. How else do you explain the fact that not one message hints at the idea that you should be aware of this mage's existence, if you really knew about upper Illhaven and its castle? This is where logic falls apart, although frankly I was too gripped by the adventure to notice this the first time I played the pack. Another possibility would be that the spell can still "lock down" living beings entering this part of Illhaven: thus your comrades, upon reaching the RDV point before you, would have frozen in time before you made it to the inn, and one message in the inn does give off the impression that an acquaintance of yours was trying to warn you of something before being overcome by the spell. (Fun fact: Nali Rabbits are unaffected.) Naturally, you're the hero, so you're not affected by the spell.
The Sorcerer and the whole plot surrounding him really give off the impression of a discovery for the player; again, this fails to hold up to close scrutiny of the overall story's cohesion, since presumably you should have known all along about this very real "legend" if you were from Illhaven, unless you actually had been away for centuries and in anycase had left before the horde's invasion (which remains the only possible explanation if you consider the demonic presence throughout the first map to be down to the horde's invasion of Illhaven - and for the protagonist that presence was unexpected). This problem of passing time can also be found if you consider the Brothers' tale in the last map: Kew does say spontaneously "legend says" but what is that supposed to mean? For one thing, it means you knew about this tale before your return to Illhaven, so this is something you knew from your past time in your town. That would entail that the Brothers' ordeal occurred centuries before you were born - and your birth itself would have had to occur centuries before present to account for the "surprise" of the Sorcerer's tale, a tale which itself runs through several centuries if we are to believe what is presented to us.

So really, it's a problem of exposition. We didn't mind much, because at the time, the storytelling here was already to a much higher standard than what we were typically used to when it comes to Unreal custom content. I won't say it's better than the mother game's storytelling, but it was refreshing in comparison as it did try a very different type of storytelling.

One last thing: the presence of human corpses. Totally out of place here, if you ask me. The last one in particular, the captain: it's like the author momentarily forgot he was dealing with a Nali civilisation. Of course, you could imagine humans and Nali lived together on the same world. But it isn't hinted at: more like, it stands out like a bug.

Still, I loved the story. It sent shivers down my spine on more than one occasion, something that cannot be said for the majority of the custom maps out there.

[Tarydax]

Kew has stated that the playable Kew isn't a Nali, or rather, could be whoever the player wants him to be. Given that the playable Kew has a personality of his own, making him whoever the player wants him to be adds nothing to the experience but makes the plot more confusing. If he's not a Nali, what's he doing in a Nali town?

[Sat42]

Kew has stated that the playable Kew isn't a Nali, or rather, could be whoever the player wants him to be. Given that the playable Kew has a personality of his own, making him whoever the player wants him to be adds nothing to the experience but makes the plot more confusing. If he's not a Nali, what's he doing in a Nali town?

Hey Teridax, you're right! I only just finished reading some stuff in the Illhaven 2012 release thread... I see where info on the desert maps came from, too.
Well hey, to me, the playable Kew will always be a Nali!