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The longest-playing SP map...?

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Nali Priest Nali Priest
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Subject: Re: The longest-playing SP map...?

Post Posted: 28 Apr 2014, 20:58

Yeah I think this thread was active before UMS Solaris was reviewed, let alone discovered. Really big and cool map but still not much of a challenge on Unreal difficulty (aside the Skaarj Gunner ambushes).

Wouldn't say it's the longest though.
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User avatar Sat42
Skaarj Warlord Skaarj Warlord
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Subject: Re: The longest-playing SP map...?

Post Posted: 28 Apr 2014, 21:15

Well I guess depending on whether it's a first play or not things will vary.

Like I totally agree Skaarj Tower - Shadow and Fire is gonna take a long time regardless of how many times you play it.

Then again, the same goes for UMS Solaris, but I'd certainly beat it faster now than on my first playthrough, if only because I'd probably do less sightseeing.

It just happens to be my longest play so far. The main reasons for that were the size of the map and the puzzle-like progression.
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 Delacroix
Skaarj Warlord Skaarj Warlord
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Subject: Re: The longest-playing SP map...?

Post Posted: 28 Apr 2014, 21:50

Try Csejte Castle pack. Ouch. That takes looong. Each map on its own and as an all-in-one, it's a record.
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I am the Unreal archivist and historian. If you have something from the past of Unreal that I don't have, do tell.

User avatar Sat42
Skaarj Warlord Skaarj Warlord
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Subject: Re: The longest-playing SP map...?

Post Posted: 28 Apr 2014, 23:40

Wow, yeah, I just checked the HerdCoop Csejte Map pack release page, it sounds crazy! Apparently still in beta phase, maybe I'll check it out later - when I have more time! :P
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 salsaSkaarj
Gilded Claw Gilded Claw
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Subject: Re: The longest-playing SP map...?

Post Posted: 12 May 2014, 21:53

I downloaded the Herdcoop Csejte mappack and started playing.
From the readme : you need to understand that it was made with JCoop/XCoop or similar gametypes in mind and those gametypes spawn the players fully stocked up with weapons and ammo.

So started with summon a, b, c up to z and summoned a searchlight for good measure because I could see (or better I couldn't) that it was going to be dark.
At first everything was going well, no real danger of dying and lots of exploration to do (read squintring to try and find out which direction to take). After about half an hour I was stone bored with the lack of danger (after all you are fully loaded - which is necessary since there are hardly any pickups, actually there's more health than ammo) and decided to run through looking for an exit. By that time I had probably summoned 3 searchlights. Eventually, after running around a massive, really massive 3D collection of large areas, long caves and oversized castle-like structures, I resorted to ghostmode, found an exit, blanked my mind and started the second map.

More of the same, possibly even darker and the best part of it that the mountain walls and the ceilings are so high that the searchlight (or the flashlight for that matter) fails to help much.
..... and so on , and so on ....

So I quit, and started 3 or 4 random maps ... and quit (finally) (I have to say that I was really proud of my endurance and resolution to get a really good and objective idea of these maps \o/ )

Conclusion (personal): Read the JCoop/XCoop note and realise that this is no single player campaign. I cannot judge the Coop gameplay but as an SP it's lacking quite a lot. Even if normal weapon acquisition and ammo/health provisons were present : there is no tension, no surprises, no danger, nothing worth calling combat. Also (but you might have gathered this already) there's no story (which I could find) and the translator told me nothing worthwhile (in the 2 or 3 messages I found).

In a couple of the random maps there was a possibility of a kind of interesting battle scenario but again, the sheer size and scale of the areas make it more diificult to die than to stay alive (unless you include falling of a ledge thanks to the almost absolute darkness).

On a positive note: the build of the areas looks quite OK, the castle(s) look impressive, I didn't experience any slowdowns (and my rig is really low end) and I'm sure a lot of work went into the design of the areas. Textures fit the theme well (for me) (notwithstanding some misalignments which even I noticed).

But (for an SP) the negative points kill the pleasure:
  • combat? naaah, not really
  • progression? erm?, due to the darkness it's damn difficult to find a point of reference and without a story I didn't know what to do, where to go to nor how to get out of the circles I was running in
  • darkness, did I mention that already? (actually due to the darkness there's even no sightseeing :/ )
  • and not in the least : repetition, repetition and rep.. you get my point, almost all of the castle maps (at least the ones I played) contain the same caves, rooms, stairways, corridors, basically every (oversized) structure.

In terms of the longest-playing SP-map - no.. The cave-maze in Skaarj Tower is smaller than the caves this pack and resistance in this pack is inexistant (as compared to Skaarj Castle) so, notwithstanding the sheer size of the largest map (bitwise) Skaarj Tower still stands strong.

Still, I want to end on a high note concernng this Herdpack; it is still after all an unfinished pack and as such it contains a lot of material which could be put to good use to produce some settings with real WOW-factor; All it needs it some culling, more lighting and some decently set up combat (preferably in touch with a story of some kind).

User avatar Sat42
Skaarj Warlord Skaarj Warlord
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Subject: Re: The longest-playing SP map...?

Post Posted: 14 May 2014, 22:04

Hey salsaSkaarj, thanks for the detailed feedback on the Herdcoop Csejte mappack! :)

Yeah I had guessed there was a chance this might not be suited for SP gaming - and the fact that it's not finished decided me to wait. After what you said, I think I'll leave it - maybe they'll make an SP version of it one day, indeed just by looking at some of the screenshots I'd say there's massive potential.

Cheers!
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 Delacroix
Skaarj Warlord Skaarj Warlord
Posts: 873
Joined: 21 Dec 2007, 17:22
Location: Poland.ut3

Subject: Re: The longest-playing SP map...?

Post Posted: 25 Nov 2023, 12:44

I decided to perform some thread necromancy seeing as the majority of the second page concerns the Csejte pack.

Work is being done to polish it and bring it up to snuff, seeing as the pack has a lot of potential even as it is. However, there's further news on this front, namely seven more maps were recovered from the author himself, the glorious Vividy! Previously titled "Odyssey", just like Sarevok's three-map outing, eventually retitled "Csejte EP2", the finding expands the pack to a whooping 40 levels of mayhem.

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The starting village.

The levels mostly tell the story of travel to a large sunspire-like structure called "Babel Tower". Each level is every bit as massive as those that preceded it. The players start in a small town and proceed through a variety of areas before reaching the goal.

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The massive aqueduct.

Even after climbing the superstructure of Babel, the players' adventure doesn't end, as there's so much more to discover. There's even an opportunity to do some classic tomb raiding. All levels are designed for coop, so teamwork and brainstorming is recommended. However, SP compatibility is planned for the remaster.

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The Babel tower in its full glory.

Currently Aspide and Rubie are bearing the brunt of the necessary fixes. I'm in talks with more personnel to assist in finalization, however. Given the scope of the project, it is unlikely to be released quickly, but there's a chance that the EP2 mappage hits Newbies servers fairly soon. If/when that happens, an announcement will be made.

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A nice tomb to raid.

Overall, this marks another milestone in content recovery. Japanese Unreal mapping scene is still a terra incognita, what's worse, it's largely lost to time, with the demise of Geocities and Yahoo pages of mappers. For SP/Coop, I know of only TA20 (Crazy For Fight), Boom-Boy (Skaarj Graveyard) and the gentleman whose work is described in this very topic, Vividy. I am of course open to recovering more maps, for any gametypes, but let's be frank, this is like fumbling in the dark.

EDIT:

Csejte_EP2 is currently in NewbiesPlayground server rotation. Naturally, this is aside from the finalization effort that is underway. However, this is important because it gives coop players opportunity to play these seven wonders.
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I am the Unreal archivist and historian. If you have something from the past of Unreal that I don't have, do tell.

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