Rundown

POST TOPICS GENERAL IN NATURE RELATED TO UNREAL
Forum rules
Remember our site rules for decency and language. Do not use racial, gender or other unacceptable undertones.
Post Reply
User avatar
Leo(T.C.K.)
FOD
FOD
Posts: 676
Joined: Wed May 27, 2009 7:50 pm

Rundown

Post by Leo(T.C.K.) »

I want to make a rundown/explanation of all additional content that has had something to do with original Unreal.

We all know Unreal and RtNP, but do you know the story behind the rest and what could have been?

First, we have the french edition of Unreal that shipped with an additional mysterious level. This was done on the behalf of the french division of GT Interactive and they pointed to a site to download more levels sp and dm, many of which were original contest entries from the first serious level design contest.

Then we have Unreal Level Pack/Unreal Developer Levels which was promised since the start and also the Unreal Level Editor with additional content (what became the newed/unrealed2 in the end).
And they also managed to announce Mega Pack. All of this was avaiable via shops through pre-order. (there is an extensive proof in form of scanned magazine entries)

Time went and the first to be released entry in August 1998 failed...never to be shipped and the disapointment continued with the mega pack and unreal editor...

Now this is a story that most people didn't hear. But the reason Unreality came to be, the shovelware pack...was because people were angry in some countries for having preordered those packs and wanted something in its place instead.

Thus, the legal status of Unreality, the only international shovelware pack, is explained.... it was called Unreality extreme extensions for Unreal and of course it was rather a ripoff but at least some people got something instead of nothing!

Moving on:
Next there are special editions of Unreal, the almost shareware version, the OEM version called Unreal Special Editions in its multiple forms.

Most were released bundled with creative cards, some were released with 3dfx cards instead. (hence the 3dfx pack).

It included all the current localizations too including the german vortex rikers map vortex2det, which contained censorship and the execution room was not accesible.

And it also included three deathmatch maps that had roughly the themes up to Dark Arena and given that regular Unreal maps weren't in those themes, new maps were made by Epic for this purpose.

Those are DmKrazy, BayC and Creek, Krazy and BayC are playrshp themed and have weapons up to Flak Cannon in them, and Creek is a temple similar to Chizra and Ceremony...

Some editions also shipped with an extra installer by creative and their own patch which enabled those stencil shadows.

And some new maps by creative, which could not match Epic's quality but some of them like hall1a were fun enough to play in deathmatch and some were half sp/half dm or presentation only.

There was also some s3tc thing, that hyper has on his site, those levels were in practice not playable and all and just demonstrate the textures.

Unless you like playing deathmatch with dispersionpistols only.

Meanwhile, Botpack was also being developed as unreal multiplayer addon until it was decided that it will be game on its own but still containing most of unreal content minus music and maps...

Speaking of planned things of course the real shareware version went nowhere and originally the shareware version ws meant to have the maps ranging from FHub4 to I think FHub6.

So it was actually planned as a separate chapter featuring exclusively the Male player character whereas the main game you'd play as Female.

There was also a pitched expansion pack by Cyberlore and this would have happened if Emissary, their flagship game on Unreal Engine wasn't canned together with many others and it was decided by gti that they only want to keep Wheel of Time.

This expansion pack would have featured a civil war on Na Pali, and more of an RPG approach to the game.

There would be battling Skaarj clans (after their Queen's death) and Mercenaries would sell weapons and you wouldn't need to fight them if you chose not to.

There would be also two bosses depending on a path you'd take.

Instead of all this, Legend as the surviving member of the unreal engine developer alliance (not a real name), they decided to step in and make Return To Na Pali as a side project, hiring mostly members of Unreal and Quake community.

The coder on Return To Na Pali, Jess Crable, worked previously on early unreal mods AND on the ambitious project Steele Dawn, by Level Infinity, which ended up being cancelled too.

This was an expansion pack for Unreal, but to be released as a freeware despite the company making some commercial ones before or trying to...

Then there was the very complex case of Alien Legion, an expansion pack originally called Alien Savior for original Quake that then switched engines and went to Unreal, soon to be turned into a separate game that ended up using a hybrid unreal engine before being cancelled.

One of the members of the team had early on a mention on his page of "Invasion of Na Pali" although claims to have nothing to do with AL.

Though thinking about it, Invasion of Na Pali would sound great together with Return to Na Pali.

After all, even in Alien Legion or Helix Alien Legion as it was later called, the story prominently featured an invasion force from insect like-being that actually turned out to be somehow humanity's future and were travelling back in time to wipe out entire worlds....

So...even if it was a personal project, I wonder who the invading force would be.

It's also strange that the site of that linked to the official unreal 2 site out of all things, but no time to speculate further...

So, that's all, except for minor stuff like that there was official content in form of the Fusion mappack and also the levels except the last one, were featured in the rare 223m version of Unreal.

And that when you had the official strategy guide by gw press, and the Unreal official soundtrack CD, you could download three additional DM maps, DmLocke, Scruular and Villa2.

Scruular being Alan Wilard's debut map, before he'd go and make many other maps including dm cybrosis in fusion pack and other many maps in Botpack/UT.

This is meant as an extensive informative post, I'm in pain so bear with the wall of text please.
I'm in grave IRL trouble, please donate:

https://ko-fi.com/supportleotck41959
User avatar
PMX-(DOG)-
GameServer Admin
GameServer Admin
Posts: 42
Joined: Fri Mar 30, 2018 9:29 pm
Contact:

Re: Rundown

Post by PMX-(DOG)- »

Wicked!
I never knew the Unreal's story, thanks for sharing.
User avatar
Dark Wolf
FOD
FOD
Posts: 18
Joined: Tue Aug 14, 2018 8:03 pm

Re: Rundown

Post by Dark Wolf »

WOW that's a heck of a history lesson. I had no real clue about any of that, thank you for sharing it :D
Post Reply