A Review/Diary of Eternal X

For topics about the story, help in a certain level, game discussion, or finding/discussing content.
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Da Spadger
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Pfhorrest wrote:Hmm... I think you're thinking of an old Craig Mullins picture.
You don't happen to have it somewhere? :P (Unless it's this one you were referring to. I could have sworn I saw the original picture here a while ago, but I can't find it again.)
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Xam
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Perhaps I'm just lazy or something (har har), but I think
it would be nice if there was a tree diagram of levels and where they
lead, as I'm finding it somewhat difficult to decide what I'm actually supposed to do
on a given level as not to end up with "failure", I can't figure out how far back I
have to go and take the path as not to be sent back to the beginning.
I mean, I want to play both (all?) the branches eventually, but in essence
I am finding navigating them difficult.
my .02$
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Pfhorrest
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Xam wrote:Perhaps I'm just lazy or something (har har), but I think
it would be nice if there was a tree diagram of levels and where they
lead, as I'm finding it somewhat difficult to decide what I'm actually supposed to do
on a given level as not to end up with "failure", I can't figure out how far back I
have to go and take the path as not to be sent back to the beginning.
I mean, I want to play both (all?) the branches eventually, but in essence
I am finding navigating them difficult.
my .02$
The branch levels are always the fourth level of each chapter.

The obvious route through those levels usually lead to the failure branch for that chapter.

Each failure branch is two levels long plus a dream level that sends you back.

The level you get sent back to is always the one you have to do differently (the branch level).


For a more detailed answer:

Chapter 1 branches on "Sakhmet Rising".
- Going with Hathor on "Sakhmet Rising" takes you to "Unwired" which leads eventually to "The Tangent Universe", which sends you back to "Sakhmet Rising".
- Going with Tycho on "Sakhmet Rising" instead takes you to "Core Done Blew" which leads eventually to "To Sleep Perchance To Dream", which sends you on to "Hysterical Womb" and the rest of Chapter 2.

Chapter 2 branches on "Unpfhorseen".
- Going with Tycho on "Unpfhorseen" takes you to "May the Pfharce Be With You" which leads eventually to "The Living Receiver", which sends you back to "Unpfhorseen".
- Going with Leela on "Unpfhorseen" instead takes you to "My Kingdom Pfhor A Horse" which leads eventually to "The World is Hollow", which sends you on to "S'pht'ia" and the rest of Chapter 3.

Chapter 3 branches on "S'pht Happens".
- Going with the S'pht on "S'pht Happens" takes you to "Eat S'pht And Die" which leads eventually to "The Manipulated Dead", which sends you back to "S'pht Happens".
- Going with Leela/S'bhuth on "S'pht Happens" instead takes you to "Seconds To Last Of The Mohicans" which leads eventually to "The Land in the Sky", which sends you on to "Pfhor Far Lamm" and the rest of Chapter 4.

Chapter 4 branches on "Dread Not".
- Just accomplishing the mission objectives on "Dread Not" and nothing else takes you to "Bug-Eyed In Space" which leads eventually to "The Ensurance Trap", which sends you back to "Dread Not".
- Also smashing the Cybernetic Junction on "Dread Not" instead takes you to "Once More Unto The Breach" which leads eventually to "Floating In The Void", which sends you on to "Echoes of Eden" and the rest of Chapter 5.

Chapter 5 branches on "Deep Into The Grotto".
- Going with Hathor on "Deep Into The Grotto" takes you to "Frog Blast The Vent Core" which leads eventually to "The Philosophy of Time Travel", which sends you back to "Deep Into The Grotto".
- Killing Hathor on "Deep Into The Grotto" instead takes you to "This Message Will Self-Destruct" which leads eventually to "Where Giants Have Fallen", which sends you on to the epilogue level "The Near Side Of Everywhere".
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of All Trades
Director of the Xeventh Project, the team behind Eternal
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
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Da Spadger
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One more thing.
Spoiler:
Isn't the on Far Side Of Nowhere and Near Side Of Everywhere located on K'lia? Isn't that the moon that belonged to L'howon? If so, how comes it's revolving Earth on Near Side Of Everywhere? There never were any humans around after the trix heem went off. And if there weren't any humans around, then where does that whole base come from?
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screamingfool
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i know the terminals are long and have big words but you could read them and find out


this goes for you too xam
Last edited by screamingfool on Jun 17th '08, 17:33, edited 1 time in total.
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Odie
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Wow! I just finished Eternal yesterday. It was fun, but the ending seemed pretty sad :( I also REALLY wish I had been able to obtain more human or Jjaro weapons. Another thing. THERE WERE SO MANY SWITCHES!!!!! Boy it drove me crazy trying to find the one elusive switch I missed early on in the level. The only real glitch I found was that on the level Dread Not in polygon 775, if you killed an enemy there, they hang in mid death sequence in mid-air forever. I did this with a hunter and a trooper.
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I'm having an issue with Eternal. I'm fairly new to it, and it seems no matter how many times I download and extract Eternal, something goes wrong with the image files. I don't know if this is something I'm doing wrong or not, but I can describe the problem. Certain textures, namely unactivated switches, regens, and terminals don't show up, or if they do, parts of the HUD are plastered over what the image ought to be. When a switch is flipped or regen is in use, the activated textures show up as they should. As far as I can tell, the problem is only with the Marathon set (I'm guessing this falls under 'Human' in Eternal_Data). It's not a damning issue, but it does hamper my enjoyment of the game.

The problem vanished on its own.
Last edited by localwarming on Aug 7th '08, 15:38, edited 1 time in total.
President Evil

Ugh. In Deep Into the Grotto, I have no idea how to make the last room flood. Lower right. there's only two switches. One shuts the thing off, one opens a door into the vent network...

I've been through the failure branch, so I know it floods... I just cannot for the life of me remember how to do it again.
Last edited by President Evil on Aug 14th '08, 20:54, edited 1 time in total.
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Drictelt
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If I'm right about what room you mean (one that has the shutoffable thing in the mainroom with a lift to the switch, and another switch to the south of it in a three-part chamber), then you don't need to flood it at all. The door to the center of the map won't open, you gotta leave again through the vents.
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I think if your gonna have a bad end, that it should be a bad ASS ending.
Like where in which the Player says screw all of this and everyone and destroys EVERYTHING.
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chinkeeyong
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MoppyPuppy wrote:I think if your gonna have a bad end, that it should be a bad ASS ending.
Like where in which the Player says screw all of this and everyone and destroys EVERYTHING.
Did that add anything to the discussion at hand? No.

Seriously, if you want that so much, why not make your own Eternal level which is like that? It's not too hard to find out via trial and error what the different monster correspondences are, and to see what the Eternal weapon slots are you only need to use F6 to see the original player sprite.
Embrace imagination.
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Odie
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Make a horror ending? Why bother? And destroy EVERYTHING!?!?!? In all timelines??? I like happy endings better:)





(for the most part)
Last edited by Odie on Aug 15th '08, 03:28, edited 1 time in total.
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The Man
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MoppyPuppy wrote:I think if your gonna have a bad end, that it should be a bad ASS ending.
Like where in which the Player says screw all of this and everyone and destroys EVERYTHING.
That already happens in Red. It would be kind of pointless to have a second scenario that does the same thing.

Besides, Eternal's ending isn't "bad," it's just ambiguous. It's fully implied that the player has the power to go back and correct everything - in other words, wide open for a sequel.
Last edited by The Man on Aug 15th '08, 05:27, edited 1 time in total.
“People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.” —V, V for Vendetta (Alan Moore)

“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.” —Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”

“If others had not been foolish, we should be so.” —William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

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Pfhorrest
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Technically, since you're on your way with Durandal back to the end of the Last Battle of Lh'owon, anything that's a sequel to Infinity can also be considered a sequel to Eternal.

I intended the ending to be similar in style to the end of M2, just much bigger in scale: everything here is exploding (Lh'owon / the whole galaxy), but we've accomplished what we came to do (free the S'pht / kill Hathor) and we're off to somewhere else now (a rogue star / a different timeline) so it doesn't matter to us what explodes here or not.
Last edited by Pfhorrest on Aug 15th '08, 06:09, edited 1 time in total.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of All Trades
Director of the Xeventh Project, the team behind Eternal
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
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Odie
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Pfhorrest wrote:Technically, since you're on your way with Durandal back to the end of the Last Battle of Lh'owon, anything that's a sequel to Infinity can also be considered a sequel to Eternal.

I intended the ending to be similar in style to the end of M2, just much bigger in scale: everything here is exploding (Lh'owon / the whole galaxy), but we've accomplished what we came to do (free the S'pht / kill Hathor) and we're off to somewhere else now (a rogue star / a different timeline) so it doesn't matter to us what explodes here or not.

Wait a second! In M2 didn't we only blow up the system? And mabye i'm missing something, but in Eternal, didn't EVERYTHING in that timeline/universe die/blow up? Did the sph't survive somehow?
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Pfhorrest
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Odie wrote:Wait a second! In M2 didn't we only blow up the system? And mabye i'm missing something, but in Eternal, didn't EVERYTHING in that timeline/universe die/blow up? Did the sph't survive somehow?
No... the "foo / bar" was "in M2 / in Eternal".

At the end of Marathon 2, Lh'owon is exploding, but we've saved the S'pht and we're on our way to a distant Rogue Star, so it's ok. To be continued...

At the end of Eternal, the whole galaxy is exploding, but we've killed Hathor and we're on our way to a different timeline, so it's ok. To be continued...

In both games, everything around us is exploding, but we've accomplished our mission and we're on our way elsewhere, so it's ok. To be continued...
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of All Trades
Director of the Xeventh Project, the team behind Eternal
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
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Crater Creator
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Okay, I finished the game some time ago, and finally got around to preparing my notes for posting.

Chapter 5: Antiquity

Echoes of Eden

Here we see the last shiny new texture set. New parts of it, anyway. It looks very futuristic.

The gameplay of this level feels 'new age' all around. The WMC always seems to lag my computer, so it's hard to see what exactly it's doing (unless it's slowing down time itself ). Then when I think I've seen all of Eternal's weapons, I get not one but two lightsa-I mean, gravitronic blades [MSmile] . They hold a ton of charge, and still do an area effect of damage. Because they too kill the...black ghostly things, I can tell that it's the WMC's projectile that's bogging down my computer.

So there's this big platform that raises slowly, and as it rises you find...enemies from Pathways Into Darkness. It's too challenging an area to really contemplate what they're doing there, but you can bet I'm going to contemplate what the heck is going-gah, died again!

Once at the top of the platform, you may be interested to know I got blasted up onto where the PiD monsters spawn, without even trying. I don't think there's anything you can do about it, though.

The Dead Live In The Catacombs

Ah, I see you give the player 1 gravitronic blade, in case they followed orders, took the platform first, and then read through the terminal without grabbing the blades. However, it looks like it's worth going back to get the second one, so I'll reload my saved game.
...and it looks like the platform won't lower again. So if you do take the lift first, you can't grab your weapons later. That's too bad.

Polygon 315 is missing a waterfall sound that's on adjacent polygons.

This level is indeed reminiscent of PiD with all the regular, rectangular geometry, yet its design is more sophisticated as well.

Once you get to the guardian, there's a door leading back to the start of the level, but it's broken and stops halfway. It's really too long a distance to run all the way back the way you came, and the monsters in this level quickly dish out quite a beating. So please give us some shields or at least a save terminal near the guardian's terminal.

Since the guardian and the watcher are in agreement, my assumption is that there's no treachery going on with either of them.

Not A Natural Formation

Say, the gravitronic blade looks mighty neat when you teleport with it out. I wonder if you could give it a static effect when you fire it or something. There's something lacking about the way it doesn't make an impact sound.

Oh good, you gave me a second blade for this level. But why did you put an uplink chip right underneath the player too? Unlike the gravitronic blades, you can't enter this level without picking up the chip.

On your long trip down what amounts to a spiral staircase, it is possible to jump out in one spot and walk back up what would otherwise be the bannister of the staircase. I consider this an easter egg/secret though, and it only gives you some breathing room, so I wouldn't change it.

That south platform that takes you up to a switch was very easy to miss.

Deep Into The Grotto

'The enemy are rapidly encroaching on this facility as we speak.' You can say that again, seeing as I barely have time to read the terminal before they reach me.

The water that floods much of this level makes it very difficult to activate some rechargers, since you can't use them while in motion. Although, in other places I see the surface of the water move, yet I don't move, on polygon 348 for instance. How did you pull that off?

If the respawning enemies weren't so annoying, I would marvel at the liquid dynamic in this level, where water is the safe area and air is the dangerous area.

I was stuck for weeks on this level. The problem was opening platform 871, which shuts off a section of the ventilation ducts. Whatever switch finally raises that door, you can hit it more than once. So, not knowing which switch does what (I was hoping I'd missed a switch that would bring down the force field), I'd ran around hitting every switch I could, multiple times, until I happened to check that door after hitting the switch an odd number of times. I strongly recommend setting the 'activates only once' flag for every switch possible, and perhaps tying in lighting effects on the switch polygons, so that it's clear what you've already hit.

I can't express the relief I felt when I walked through that force field and didn't smack back onto the opposite wall.

"too many other lives now rest on the choice the hangs here before you." This terminal doesn't have capitalization, which was probably on purpose, but in this sentence, "the" should be "that." Also in this terminal, coherent is misspelled as coherant. Also, "you do not understand what it is that you trying to do here," should be "you are trying," or "you're trying."

Hathor calls herself the dark one, and her dreams make clear references to the unformatted KYT terminal from M2, which cast her and the player as 'Lethe' and her lover, respectively. See the separate thread I made for more detail on that particular plot point.

Hathor says the Jjaro woke the W'rkncacnter in the first place. No comment on that, I just want to keep track of what new plot points Eternal adds to the original story. Hathor also claims her destruction will trigger a sort of galactic-scale mass extinction, which is orders of magnitude more destructive than Marathon's superweapon, the trih xeem.

So, decision time. Hathor claims a galactic doomsday if I destroy her. It's not clear why destroying her will trigger the device, but I admit I'm not reading every terminal for total comprehension. This is my chance to finally destroy her...she's dreamed of a retelling from Marathon 2, so she's not just making something up to save herself. In the end, I'm going to break that circuit in the corner, under the assumption it will lead to a failure branch, and I'll take satisfaction in destroying Hathor once and for all. Oh, and I would make it clear that just running through the terminal means going with Hathor.

Wouldn't it make sense for the gravitronic blades to destroy circuitry?

A word about ammo usage on this level. I played the level on Normal, and since I didn't know where things were, I had to kill a lot more aliens than strictly necessary. I ended the level having used a little over half a clip of one gravitronic blade. I used the blade almost exclusively, since nothing else will kill the 'nightmare' monsters.

"...one of the operators has been corrupted by the Hathor entity just prior to her destruction." No satisfaction, huh? So I'll be sent into a Jjaro ship, or at least one "broadcasting a Jjaro genome sequence." I still can't swallow that I'm not only on par with real, full-fledged Jjaro, but also powerful enough to take on multiple Jjaro, so I hope these will be...a Jjaro-derived species or something.

This Message Will Self Destruct

First reaction: Oh...the terminal meant Pfhor, not Jjaro. That could only mean Pfhor have a Jjaro genome sequence. But why weren't the Pfhor destroyed like it said humans were? Unless the Pfhor are the 'seed' species Hathor mentioned to start the galaxy over. But that can't be right. I'd better find a terminal...

Darn, more nightmares, and this time the level is dark. Whenever these guys are in a level, I'm really tempted to use nothing but gravitronic blades rather than risk getting hit by them. So far the charge on the blades is holding up, but I hope I don't run out.

So this level is another gauntlet of infinite PiD enemies and finding switches. This time the switches only activate once, which is good, but there's no real terminal text to string the player along. The best way to get through it is to play entirely in map mode with the gravitronic blades, and I have to say that's not terribly fun.

Ahhh. Getting up and out of that dingy cave, to the outside where it's light and I can see the sky was an effective way of generating a sense of relief.

The nightmares seem to be set to spawn at random locations. However, that means they're spawning under some pillars that come down from the ceiling, and hence they can't move. You should run through the map checking for polygons that need to be monster impassable.

Well, I'd say the final run through the alien goo at the end is at least as hard as What About Bob or All Roads Lead To Sol. The way it works, if you're submerged before you're more than halfway up the stairs, you can't run anymore, which slows you down enough that you can't make it in time. Between the purple flash of the goo, and the white flashes of the nuclear hard deaths, it's very easy to get hung up on a nightmare that you can't see. I don't know as there's anything worth changing about that. But what's amusing is I made it to the automatic exit teleporter, and died just before teleporting. So my corpse made it to the next level, for all the good that does me [MTongue] . I hope there aren't people that are so furiously sprinting for the terminal at the top, that they don't stop and realize there is an automatic exit. That would get pretty frustrating.

Ammo check: I had less than 10% left on my first gravitronic blade at the end of this level, which is the only weapon I used.

We Met Once in the Garden

typo: "airborn" should be "airborne."

"as the sole surviving member of your biological species, it is imperative that you evacuate the installation immediately." I guess I'm to be the Adam of the next Genesis, then.

What's this, a level where you can actually kill everything? I wondered if I'd ever see one of those again! If I weren't so sick of these guys by now, I'd run back and gun down every last bug out of spite.

Where Giants Have Fallen

Ah, interesting. Now you run through this level backwards. The climax must be upon us.

One side of polygon 453 uses a door texture, which must be an error. Then there's another side with no texture at all, for which I took a screenshot because there was no way I was jumping back down there to find the polygon number:
[attachment=1940:WGHF_mistexture_2.jpg]

I assume there's a way up the cliffs without grenade jumping, but I couldn't find a path that worked before I got too frustrated, so I bit the bullet and grenade jumped out of the southeast pool of water. And onto polygon 599, which was even trickier.

"The power of the Junction is too tempting, and I am not strong enough to tackle with such responsibility." I think you need an object in that sentence: tackle what? Or else, remove "with."

Okay, one last leap of faith down the big hole...

Epilogue: Eternity

The Near Side Of Everywhere

Nifty, the landscape would have me believe I made it back to Earth orbit. And the sun isn't going nova; that's usually a good sign [MSmile] .

Well, this is familiar. I'm pretty sure your intention was to make this return to the first level all bright and colorful as a means of resolution, making it feel like a bright, bright, bright sun-shiny day. Now that I've seen both, I have to stick with my original assessment; that the first level needs color like this version has, because people have to want to continue playing the game.

just a note: July 25th 2905 - That's after everything in all 3 Marathon games, except Durandal's return to Earth and the closure of the universe.

I would describe the final terminal as a cliffhanger ending. The author of the terminal describes an upcoming battle, which sounds enticing and meaningful, which we never actually fight. I was surprised there was no final chapter screen. So surprised, I split open the map file to check the terminal PICTs file, where it seems the final chapter screen (which I never saw, running the 6/22/08 build of A1) contains only credits.

I could guess, but I'm not sure who's speaking in the final terminal. It's not a Jjaro, W'rkncacnter, S'pht, Pfhor, human, S'bhuth, Leela, nor Hathor.
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Pfhorrest
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Oh awesome, I love these :-)
Crater Creator wrote:The gameplay of this level feels 'new age' all around. The WMC always seems to lag my computer, so it's hard to see what exactly it's doing (unless it's slowing down time itself ).
I'm still not certain what could be causing this slowdown. It shoots a zero-error burst of large projectiles with the Evil "nuke explosion" effect for a contrail, giving the impression of a persistent-and-virulent "shockwave" (a cone of concentric rings). It also makes a lot of thunder sounds as it flies. I'm not aware of anything about any of that that should cause any considerable slowdown.
The Dead Live In The Catacombs

Ah, I see you give the player 1 gravitronic blade, in case they followed orders, took the platform first, and then read through the terminal without grabbing the blades. However, it looks like it's worth going back to get the second one, so I'll reload my saved game.
...and it looks like the platform won't lower again. So if you do take the lift first, you can't grab your weapons later. That's too bad.
Hmm methinks you misread the orders. They say that because the platform lowers slowly, you should activate it first and then go grab some weapons while waiting for it to lower.

And that new blade is for people vidding the level, since it's almost impossible to do anything in Chapter 5 without Jjaro weaponry.
This level is indeed reminiscent of PiD with all the regular, rectangular geometry, yet its design is more sophisticated as well.
Some of the textures were actually loosely based off of PiD textures, the stone patterns in particular.
Oh good, you gave me a second blade for this level. But why did you put an uplink chip right underneath the player too? Unlike the gravitronic blades, you can't enter this level without picking up the chip.
The gravitic blade is there for the same reason as the previous level, and the uplink chip likewise - if you vid this level, it'd be impossible to beat without an uplink chip from the previous level, so I gave players a chip just in case.
The water that floods much of this level makes it very difficult to activate some rechargers, since you can't use them while in motion. Although, in other places I see the surface of the water move, yet I don't move, on polygon 348 for instance. How did you pull that off?
Hmm I hadn't noticed that, or really much of any current down in there. Andreas made this level, maybe he can explain what's up..
So, decision time. Hathor claims a galactic doomsday if I destroy her. It's not clear why destroying her will trigger the device, but I admit I'm not reading every terminal for total comprehension.
The Watcher is sending you to destroy Hathor so that the digital key program she intercepted will be released into the computer core of the Sphere, activating the super weapon of the Jjaro. Hathor is just pointing out that that super weapon is a doomsday device, and the Jjaro are only using it as a weapon of last resort, and that she has a better alternative that can prevent that.
Oh, and I would make it clear that just running through the terminal means going with Hathor.
I actually modified the "frame" text around every terminal because this issue comes up several times. The bottom of every terminal screen says "Enter to Proceed" in one corner and "Escape to Abort" in another.

Oh, and apparently you missed the failure branch, because going with Hathor leads to failure, while killing her leads to success. So since you killed her first, you went straight to the succes branch. I'm really interested in hearing which path people took first and why - I really tried to make Hathor a sympathetic villain through most of the game, and then redeemed by this point, so that players would give her that one last chance, at least knowing by now that they'll have a second chance to withhold from her later if they're wrong.

To be continued in another post, too many quotes for one...
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of All Trades
Director of the Xeventh Project, the team behind Eternal
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
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Pfhorrest
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Wouldn't it make sense for the gravitronic blades to destroy circuitry?
It would, but then they would affect switched weirdly, since they fire a burst of projectiles each swing.
A word about ammo usage on this level. I played the level on Normal, and since I didn't know where things were, I had to kill a lot more aliens than strictly necessary. I ended the level having used a little over half a clip of one gravitronic blade. I used the blade almost exclusively, since nothing else will kill the 'nightmare' monsters.
In Eternal X I've fiddled with the ammo usage of the gravitic blades a bit. In the new scheme, if you run straight where you're supposed to and don't wander too much, a single clip of a grav blade will let you get through "This Message Will Self-Destruct" without just a little charge left, which I think is a good test of ammo capacity since that level is brutal. If you grabbed all that ammo around the upper levels of Echoes of Eden, plus the couple clips you get from the free grav blades at the start of every level, you should never run out of ammo for them, which is good because you absolutely need them against the W'rkncacnter nightmares.
So I'll be sent into a Jjaro ship, or at least one "broadcasting a Jjaro genome sequence." I still can't swallow that I'm not only on par with real, full-fledged Jjaro, but also powerful enough to take on multiple Jjaro, so I hope these will be...a Jjaro-derived species or something.

This Message Will Self Destruct

First reaction: Oh...the terminal meant Pfhor, not Jjaro. That could only mean Pfhor have a Jjaro genome sequence. But why weren't the Pfhor destroyed like it said humans were? Unless the Pfhor are the 'seed' species Hathor mentioned to start the galaxy over. But that can't be right. I'd better find a terminal...
This plot connection takes a bit of memory. Remember that Leela, at the end of Chapter 4, told you she was heading off to some sort of Jjaro superweapon, and that she will be able to unlock it because the Jjaro were Human and the key is the Jjaro genome sequence. So while she went there in the future, you were diverted to the same place in the distant past, then trapped in stasis inside the Sphere for over 65 million years, and only released from stasis when Leela arrived and unlocked the place.

The Pfhor followed Leela because the Sphere is located deep in what is now Pfhor space, and she is an enemy, so they pursued, and then when this giant inert ball of mystery that's been sitting here in space forever finally opened its doors, the Pfhor went in to investigate.
The nightmares seem to be set to spawn at random locations. However, that means they're spawning under some pillars that come down from the ceiling, and hence they can't move. You should run through the map checking for polygons that need to be monster impassable.
Hmm... can't set a platform to be impassible, as those are both set as poly types. May have a problem here then.
Well, I'd say the final run through the alien goo at the end is at least as hard as What About Bob or All Roads Lead To Sol. The way it works, if you're submerged before you're more than halfway up the stairs, you can't run anymore, which slows you down enough that you can't make it in time. Between the purple flash of the goo, and the white flashes of the nuclear hard deaths, it's very easy to get hung up on a nightmare that you can't see. I don't know as there's anything worth changing about that. But what's amusing is I made it to the automatic exit teleporter, and died just before teleporting. So my corpse made it to the next level, for all the good that does me [MTongue] . I hope there aren't people that are so furiously sprinting for the terminal at the top, that they don't stop and realize there is an automatic exit. That would get pretty frustrating.
Ah yeah, I was inspired by What About Bob (obviously) and wanted the end of this level to be a "oh holy shit wtf" moment where people would probably die the first time through (hence the pattern buffer at the top of the stairs). If you get 3x shields in the engine room just before blasting the wires, and then run fast and straight while swinging both grav blades, you can actually make it to the terminal before dying (though you can't read it due to lava at your feet, and will just auto-teleport as you stand still).
Where Giants Have Fallen
Ah, interesting. Now you run through this level backwards. The climax must be upon us.
I actually think of all the other variants of this level as backwards, as this one was designed first and the other ones reversed because playing this same long level five times forward would suck.
I assume there's a way up the cliffs without grenade jumping, but I couldn't find a path that worked before I got too frustrated, so I bit the bullet and grenade jumped out of the southeast pool of water. And onto polygon 599, which was even trickier.
It is possible to make it up the mountain with no grenade jumping or diagonal running.
"The power of the Junction is too tempting, and I am not strong enough to tackle with such responsibility." I think you need an object in that sentence: tackle what? Or else, remove "with."
"Such responsibility" is the object with which Leela is not strong enough to tackle. "Tackle with" is the verb (like "play with" or "mess with") and "such responsibility" the object.

Argh, to be continued again. Quote limits are stupid.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of All Trades
Director of the Xeventh Project, the team behind Eternal
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
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Pfhorrest
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Well, this is familiar. I'm pretty sure your intention was to make this return to the first level all bright and colorful as a means of resolution, making it feel like a bright, bright, bright sun-shiny day. Now that I've seen both, I have to stick with my original assessment; that the first level needs color like this version has, because people have to want to continue playing the game.
Hunh? The prologue and epilogue are identical except for monster and player placement, terminals, and lens angle.
I would describe the final terminal as a cliffhanger ending. The author of the terminal describes an upcoming battle, which sounds enticing and meaningful, which we never actually fight. I was surprised there was no final chapter screen. So surprised, I split open the map file to check the terminal PICTs file, where it seems the final chapter screen (which I never saw, running the 6/22/08 build of A1) contains only credits.
Hmm! You didn't see the credits screen? Which version are you playing? That was one of the bugs that necessitated the couple of +0.0.1 releases immediately after the 1.0 release, and it should be fixed in the current version (1.0.3).
I could guess, but I'm not sure who's speaking in the final terminal. It's not a Jjaro, W'rkncacnter, S'pht, Pfhor, human, S'bhuth, Leela, nor Hathor.
It's the same person who speaks to you at the end of every failure branch and between every chapter. The logos and styling are all the same, anyway. And you've figured out who that is, haven't you?

Thanks for all the bug reports, you can assume I will fix everything I haven't commented on to the contrary.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of All Trades
Director of the Xeventh Project, the team behind Eternal
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Lork
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So "To Sleep Perchance to Dream" is extremely tedious. I got all the way up to the top of the mountain, then accidentally fell off and quit. My last savegame is only halfway through "Heart of Fusion", so I'm just going to skip to the next level. I didn't skip any important terminals, did I?
Last edited by Lork on Aug 23rd '08, 20:43, edited 1 time in total.
Marathoner325
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Lork wrote:So "To Sleep Perchance to Dream" is extremely tedious. I got all the way up to the top of the mountain, then accidentally fell off and quit. My last savegame is only halfway through "Heart of Fusion", so I'm just going to skip to the next level. I didn't skip any important terminals, did I?
You aren't supposed to climb to the top of the mountain. You have to jump into this hole here.
[attachment=1944:Picture_1.png]
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Lork
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I tried it again. This time I found a door high up on a ledge on the opposite side of the canyon, but it was a dead end, and I was forced to drop to the river at the beginning of the level. again. My patience is wearing thin.
Marathoner325 wrote:You aren't supposed to climb to the top of the mountain. You have to jump into this hole here.
[attachment=1944:Picture_1.png]
Do you have a screenshot of the map from that location? I haven't seen anything like that.

Edit: Found it.

How does Tycho know about the S'pht'Kr? Hell, even the fact that the Pfhor are slavers should be a surprise to him, but he just glosses over it like he knew everything all along.
Last edited by Lork on Aug 23rd '08, 21:43, edited 1 time in total.
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I'm stuck on S'pht Happens. I took the wrong path and ended up in a failure level, but I'm not sure what I did wrong. The failure terminal seems to say that i should have stuck to my original mission with Leela, and that my blood-lust lead me to the failure. I read all the terminals on the level and none of them appear to lead me on any other path.
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pfhore
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Dodopod wrote:I'm stuck on S'pht Happens. I took the wrong path and ended up in a failure level, but I'm not sure what I did wrong. The failure terminal seems to say that i should have stuck to my original mission with Leela, and that my blood-lust lead me to the failure. I read all the terminals on the level and none of them appear to lead me on any other path.
Go South instead of north.

[attachment=1946:L24Map6.png]

blue line is to failure, Red line is to sucess.
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