Eternal

Discuss and unveil current Marathon projects.
Post Reply
doctorbenjiphd
Cyborg
Posts: 78
Joined: Jun 27th '13, 22:36

I just started playing this scenario, and I am blown away! It *looks* so good. The weapons are totally awesome. The textures are amazing. The story is meh (I don't usually pay attention to this) and the mapmaking is decent...but WOW it just looks and feels great. Apparently there are diverging points in the game--"success" or "failure" levels--but I haven't found this moments. There was a point in an early level (one that reminded me of G4 Sunbathing) where it seemed I was about to run off with Hathor, but when the terminal ended, the game crashed. Either way, wow you can tell some talent went into this one. I particularly love the Pfhor textures.
User avatar
Pfhorrest
Vidmaster
Posts: 1847
Joined: Oct 12th '07, 22:08
Location: California
Contact:

On first reading of this post I thought this was some weird kind of sarcasm, because it sounds like you're complimenting some of the exact things most criticized about it (the textures, especially the Pfhor textures; and while I don't think many people have commented on it, the appearance of the weapons is kind of obviously the least graphically developed part of it all), and "meh" on the one thing almost universally complimented about it (the story).

But looking over your posts, you don't sound like the kind of person to make such a comment, so I guess thanks are in order! (I'm the main guy behind Eternal, if you didn't know already). And yes, there are diverging points in the game, and "Sahkmet Rising" (the one that looks like G4 Sunbathing) is the first of them, and that Hathor terminal is the first branch exit; not sure why it would crash on you.
doctorbenjiphd
Cyborg
Posts: 78
Joined: Jun 27th '13, 22:36

Hey Pfhorrest--
Zero sarcasm. I am greatly enjoying your scenario. Yes, the weapons appearance is subpar in relation to the rest of the impressive graphical designs. But that doesn't really matter. The weapons are so much fun to use. I always loved the M1 alien weapon, so it's great to have it back. I don't know why people would complain about the Pfhor textures, I think they look amazing. It's nice to see some bright colors. Haters gonna hate, I guess.

I tried the "Sahkmet Rising" terminal three times, and each time the game crashed. I probably would have gone on the "failure" fork if it hadn't, and honestly I just browse through terminals so I wasn't even aware it was trying to take me away without completing Tycho's mission.

When we have scenarios like Phoenix, which features impressive level design, I actually appreciate the more simplistic map making found in Eternal. For instance, I find the fun factor much higher in these Eternal levels than in Phoenix. Sure, its missing the meticulous attention to detail and large, sprawling design, but I find this actually to be a blessing. It's so much more true to Marathon than in most scenarios I've played.

I also want to add that the HUD is totally, completely awesome. One of the many reasons why Eternal looks as good as it does. And it's fun seeing M1 era aliens again. Even though the graphical quality of the S'pht, for example, is much better in M2/Infinity, it's still cool to see the old types again. And their projectiles look great. Again, this is just a great looking scenario, and the most fun I've had playing third-party scenarios in a long time.
User avatar
Pfhorrest
Vidmaster
Posts: 1847
Joined: Oct 12th '07, 22:08
Location: California
Contact:

Well I'm really glad that you like it so much! :-)

About your crashing on Sahkmet Rising, can you tell me what version of Eternal you're using and what version of Aleph One? Maybe you could post a crash log or something attached here, and the AO devs might be able to help sort out the cause of the problem, if it's happening with up-to-date versions of everything.

Most of the timeline branches are designed so that you will most probably end up just going down them automatically if you don't have the specific foreknowledge from the future to know how to avoid them. You'll find that you'll probably need to pay attention to terminals, at least on the branch levels, or else you'll end up stuck in loops if you keep doing the same obvious thing. At the very least, you'll need to know to not take the same exit terminal from the branch level you're sent back to; you can probably find an alternate exit just by blind searching without paying attention to the story, so long as you remember not to take that same exit again.
User avatar
Crater Creator
Vidmaster
Posts: 943
Joined: Feb 29th '08, 03:54
Contact:

Okay, be honest. How much did it pain you to explain how one can play Eternal while ignoring the story? [MGrin]
doctorbenjiphd
Cyborg
Posts: 78
Joined: Jun 27th '13, 22:36

So I just finished the remade Eat It, Vid Boi level (again, can't stress enough--the textures look GREAT! pretty sure this is the first time I've seen the lava set in the game so far) And the last terminal (at least the final terminal in the original M2 level where Durandal teleports you up the citadel) again crashes the game on me. This is the second time I've encountered this problem in Eternal. The first one was (ironically) in the G4 Sunbathing type level.

I'm not sure if this term is another diverging point in the game or not (the first thing I did when the game quit was came here and wrote this post) as I have yet to go back and try the level again. I also couldn't raise the platform at the beginning of the level to read the term. But I'm guessing once I reach the citadel, I go back to this term for the correct "success" exit.

Anyway, just wanted to point this out. Still loving the game so far.
User avatar
Pfhorrest
Vidmaster
Posts: 1847
Joined: Oct 12th '07, 22:08
Location: California
Contact:

The level you're on now is not a branch level, and that terminal that's crashing isn't even an exit terminal. I have no idea why just these few random terminals would be crashing you.

Can you tell me what version of Eternal and Aleph One (on what platform) you're running?
doctorbenjiphd
Cyborg
Posts: 78
Joined: Jun 27th '13, 22:36

"EternalXv110b4Full"...
I ended up just option-command'ing and skipped the level. The following level was a remade Six Thousand Feet Under. No further terminal problems
User avatar
HelviusRufus
Cyborg
Posts: 257
Joined: Apr 15th '15, 03:37

Re Crashing:
On my exit from "Sahkmet Rising", it crashes if I'm using Windows XP but not when using Windows 7; it takes me to Core Done Blew. So far, I've been able to last about 10 seconds there. I'm using v110b4 at TC level.

Re opinions:
I really liked it when I was playing it about a year ago and put it aside for some reason. I've only seriously done about 5 levels. I've recently taken it back up again but I'm starting over.

I scratch started and played 25 S'pht Happens both 1.0.3 and 1.1.0b4 in response to another thread. 103 had a sepia tone about it that I really liked.

I also liked the basically monochrome (with a little green here and there) huge first room and music. Very eerie.
User avatar
PerseusSpartacus
Mjolnir Mark IV
Posts: 334
Joined: Apr 30th '12, 05:03
Location: Somewhere in the 19th Century...

On a related note, playing the latest (beta) version of Eternal with the latest version of Aleph One, none of the enemies in here seem to want to move - they just sit in place once activated, and never seem to move at all. They'll sometimes shoot, but they never move. It's really weird, and I have no idea why that would happen. Maybe a problem with transitioning from the old AI (unlimited monster activations) to the new/vanilla AI (limited monster activations), but that doesn't quite make sense, considering that it happens even with the very first enemies on every map, which doesn't suggest a problem with number of active monsters.

Anyways, I have absolutely no clue what's up with that, so maybe someone else can make head or tails of what I'm seeing.
User avatar
HelviusRufus
Cyborg
Posts: 257
Joined: Apr 15th '15, 03:37

Some data but probably of little use. Still, a man's life may depend upon a mere scrap of information.

On my system, Windows XP, level TC, they all are quite mobile from the start on the lower levels. When I drop into Core Done Blew, I have about a half second before everyone starts shooting at me. With Windows 7 too.

When I did the 25 S'pht Happens (vide supra), I did notice that a few of the enemies were motionless so I ignored them. The fighter in the second room down evidently didn't like that and when my back was turned, zapped me. Ow. I think it's just a ruse. Though not a good one.

During the above experiment I explored the two levels that 25 leads to (well, I was there testing the exits so why not?), all the enemies were quite immediate in their response to my presence.

My Aleph One exe properties says file version 0.2014.1.4; the Xv110b4 map has 8-30-2013 date.
doctorbenjiphd
Cyborg
Posts: 78
Joined: Jun 27th '13, 22:36

Yes. Totally. It's funny because I kept noting this, but I was more concerned with the game crashing at particular terminals, so I kept forgetting to add this. Way more often than not, enemies just stand there. A couple of them shoot at me. Most of them do not. Considering how some areas of the map are overflowing with monsters, this can actually be a good thing, haha. I barely ever die. In the level where you start outside of that giant tower thing with all the liquid cannons shooting you around, when you reach the bottom level of the core, there are SOOOO MANY MONSTERS that if they were actually all (or even more than just a couple of them) active, it would be like impossible to kill them all.
User avatar
philtron
Mjolnir Mark IV
Posts: 356
Joined: Apr 20th '12, 05:27
Contact:

Re monsters not moving.

This is probably because of how Aleph One now uses the classic monster activation. You should download the "Aleph One Previous AI" plugin from simplici7y and that should probably fix it.
User avatar
PerseusSpartacus
Mjolnir Mark IV
Posts: 334
Joined: Apr 30th '12, 05:03
Location: Somewhere in the 19th Century...

philtron wrote:Re monsters not moving.

This is probably because of how Aleph One now uses the classic monster activation. You should download the "Aleph One Previous AI" plugin from simplici7y and that should probably fix it.
Yeah, that fixed it. Weird - I didn't think it would have quite that effect, but I guess it does. Thanks.
User avatar
philtron
Mjolnir Mark IV
Posts: 356
Joined: Apr 20th '12, 05:27
Contact:

I replayed Eternal recently and had that problem so I downloaded the plugin to fix it. Then in the later levels with the PiD monsters I was sick of dealing with swarms of infinitely spawning enemies so I turned off the plugin.
User avatar
Hopper
Mjolnir Mark IV
Posts: 585
Joined: May 10th '09, 17:02
Contact:

HelviusRufus wrote:My Aleph One exe properties says file version 0.2014.1.4
There's a known bug involving terminals in that version of Aleph One. Download the latest release and you might have more success.
Post Reply