Discussion of the PH Level from the 'PCGamer Build'

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Discussion of the PH Level from the 'PCGamer Build'

Post by masterchiefoo7 »

I hope we can use this thread to discuss thoughts on the long lost "Plantation House."

Please see the attached map for reference.

http://imgur.com/c1LF9g0

I always thought that the level did not make it far into development, but it's quite playable! We know that Plantation house was to be level 3, and the first level to feature dinosaurs. I want to compare how this level plays to that "plantation House Walkthrough" that we received in 2010-11. I cannot find a copy of that walkthrough to compare to.

As JR ends, you are walking on the monorail, and jump off into the area below to end the level. {RED} This area seems to match up with that. There is even construction and a monorail beam where you start. You are on a cliff in a small valley, and have to find your way out into the larger valley. This first area seems well made, but the valley is a little strange. Was the monorail really supposed to twist through here?

once you leave the first valley, you head west and see more of the monorail posts {PINK}. Following the post leads to an ambush by 2 raptors, and eventually you arrive at a construction area, and a dead end. I am not good with photoshop, but If you compare this path to Zandor's map, I would guess that the town is located on the other side of the construction. This could mean that no second monorail station was ever considered, and that the player needed to find an alternate route to the town.

Once the player learns to take their own route, they head south through "the stables" and then into the riverbed area. You are ambushed by a raptor, and then we meet the Green T Rex, something all fans have wanted to see since '98. This area is actually shown in an old screenshot!

after evading the T-rex, you come to some small ravine/stream obstacle {BLUE}. this forces you to head a bit further south, and once you do, you will see the plantation house {GREEN}. You can immediately head west down this valley, and it will lead you to the start of IJ {PURPLE}. Matching up almost perfectly!

if you head east instead of west, you will come across a much better made "cathy's beach" {YELLOW}. It's out of the way along a long meandering path.


My personal theory was that PH was scrapped early on, and that the JR/IJ gap was an error. It turns out I was way wrong, and PH was supposed to fill the gap. It makes the flow much better, and is a very open level.

Things I hope we can discuss:
  • Where are the copies of the beta walkthroughs? I feel like they could shed light on this?
  • What voice overs are relevant to any of this? how does the player know to stop following the monorail, which guided them all throughout JR?
  • Is this a better lead-in to IJ?
  • What do you think of the Green Rex? how would you defeat or escape?
  • What point do the stables serve? were they part of the plantation house?
  • This level seems much less linear than the retail game. Do you think this would have confused players?
  • Why do you think the level was cut?
  • What objects carried over into other levels, or what ideas were carried over?
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Re: Discussion of the PH Level from the 'PCGamer Build'

Post by tatu »

What voice overs are relevant to any of this?
There is a few voiceover that I personally believe fits into this level, based on the order they come in Anne's and Hammond's VO script. They are as follow:

Code: Select all

Anne:
VA55 - This is where they died.
VA56 - All those men.
VA57 - Some kind of broadcast setup. No use now.
VA58 - Hammond never mentioned a fire. I wonder how it started.
VA59 - Technical. Must have had a cel modem.
VA60 - They certainly were serious about their monorail.
VA61 - …a radio, a phone. A can with a string.
VH30 -> VA62 - I was in high school then. (Played after VH30)
AnneUseGun001 - So that’s what that feels like!
VA63 - Now that is an incredible smell.
VC H29 – A64 - HAMMOND: I began to have my first inkling of the seriousness of our work. How deep the well was. This was life from 65 or 100 million years before mankind.
ANNE: I’ve really done it. This is not a normal situation.
VA65 - Beautiful. Spanish colonial.
VA66 - It’s like the Learning Channel.
VA67 - It’s coffee gold. Slaver gold.
VA68 - What’s that?
VA69 - I can smell the ocean.
AnneGet003 - Must have been that little girl’s.

Hammond's:
VH27 - I spared no expense, permitted no failures.
VH30 - November 1985. Test fertilization of an artificial ovum. My hands shook as I held the tiny eye dropper. One drop, two drops. There! The genie was out of the bottle.
VH38 - The raptor padded in towards sundown. It drank nervously, careful of the dangers of the Jurassic waterhole.
VH41 - 1988. Workers from the mainland were pouring concrete supports, for a rail system running north to the settlement.
VH54 - The hunters landed on May 13th, 1997, deep in the island’s southwest. Most of them had worked at my African parks for years. They never stood a chance.
VH55 - The InGen hunting party carried the passcodes for our perimeter fences.
VH56 - The hunters scattered, their prearranged hunting routes forgotten. Only a third of their number appeared at the rendezvous.
VH58 - As I journeyed south along the coast, the air grew moist and heavy. Metal and concrete lay rotting in the sun and the rain.
VH81 - A failed coffee plantation of the 1860′s. Fields were marked out by stone walls. To the west, the ruins of the plantation house still stand.
VH82 - We took a shortcut south to reach the site – west along the stream, until a tall tree shows itself, with a cluster of boulders at its base.
VH83 - Then walk northward, until the path appears.
VH119 - Tyrannosaurus Rex. Tyrant lizard, they reigned for 25 million years. We grew 7 of them, the 7 rulers of the island.
VH220 - Despite what we had been led to believe, the T-rex was not a scavenger at all. We clocked one at 50 kilometers an hour.
These are the ones I believe went into the level based on what is there and what info Hammond's and Anne's VO script say, also what happens in the walkthrough. Since they walkthrough actually don't tell us exactly when she see the first type of the various dinosaurs, it's some guess. However, Anne's VO is in the correct order there were to appear in-game.
Is this a better lead-in to IJ?
Yes, however, the end of PH is not correctly edited to fit the start of IJ (IJ start is actually just before the PH building in the level if you place the terrains correctly).
What point do the stables serve? were they part of the plantation house?
I believe these might have been part of the area where the slaves might have lived. If you select all the parts of the gate and other items for it, it looks a bit like a square area:
PHGateArea.png
PHGateArea.png (1.74 MiB) Viewed 18143 times
As you can also see, the remains of some kind of wooden cart is placed in it. First I thought it might be part of the monorail cart, but it can't be. I bet it is part of the old PH time. The building on the right might have been used either by the slaves or some guard.
This level seems much less linear than the retail game. Do you think this would have confused players?
If you take a look at both JR (PCGamer and Max files) and IJ (E3 and PCGamer), both these are much less linear too. I believe most level used to be like this. I think they might have made the levels more linear to force players onto the puzzles or they tried to reduce objects in the level by making it smaller = more FPS. Since most computer couldn't handle it back in the days. If you take a look like the Town, it is much less linear in some kind of way than other levels.
Why do you think the level was cut?
What objects carried over into other levels, or what ideas were carried over?
The devs have actually always told us that the level was cut early. I believe this might have been the case (early for them), but it was still a long way in development. I think they might have cut the level because of lack of puzzles, it didn't give the player anything special. So they moved the building into JR because JR was lacking stuff. I would say this is the only thing I can see being carried over. Cathy's beach also of course.

Personally, I believe they could just have cut JR instead, cause PH looks much better. I really love the colors seen on the terrain in this level. The retail levels are much darker. If you take JR for example, you can see the lack of almost any terrain objects. I believe JR was not completed at all when the game was released.
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Re: Discussion of the PH Level from the 'PCGamer Build'

Post by machf »

Th attached image was my theory - I'm glad to see I wasn't off by much...

As for hose decayed walls... I think they were the actual plantation, where they grew the coffee. There's a mention of Anne coming across the remains of the walls in some place.
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Re: Discussion of the PH Level from the 'PCGamer Build'

Post by masterchiefoo7 »

Machf, can you post a link to your theory? I want to see how you came up with each of those locations and their (almost) accurate placements.

Yes, however, the end of PH is not correctly edited to fit the start of IJ (IJ start is actually just before the PH building in the level if you place the terrains correctly).
Tatu, can you help me understand this better? Do you mean that the start of the riverbed would be the end of PH, instead of traveling down the valley a little ways?
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Re: Discussion of the PH Level from the 'PCGamer Build'

Post by machf »

masterchiefoo7 wrote:Machf, can you post a link to your theory? I want to see how you came up with each of those locations and their (almost) accurate placements.
Unfortunately, it's lost somewhere amidst the depths of the forum. That's why some weeks ago (back then when Drac started the PH contest) I decided it would be easier to just re-upload the picture again...

The first thing was lining up the coastline with the rest of the map (I've got a map in .PSD format which I made by overlapping the heightmaps from the levels on top of Zandor's map). Since Trespasser's levels tend to be aligned to multiples of 256, it wasn't difficult to finish locating it. (This was later confirmed by those coordinates in the terrain MAXscripts found with the source.)

Next was locating the coordinates for the end of JR and marking them on top of the PH terrain image. I also noticed how the dry riverbed matched the one at the beginning of IJ (and that's why I marked it over). Mount Crick was easy to idnetify since it corresponds to a real mountain on Isla del Coco (which I've also included in that .PSD map - BTW, I need to update it with the PH terrain now). Similarly for the location of the Town and the mountains that delimit the Beach level.

Then from the walkthrough and the voiceovers, I tried to follow a possible path from the starting point ("down the hill"). The "clearing" reference was suggested by the color of the terrain there. Same with the Landslide (which would block access to the Town following that route). The construction site would be nearby as it followed the monorail path, too.

I thought Cathy's beach might be the one at the end of the path, but it turned out to be the other one further away, which I had labeled "shore" because we didn't know yet that "Shore" had actually been meant as a complete level and there was a reference that if you walked from the beach following the coastline you might arrive back at JR or something like that...

I chose the location of the Plantation House thinking it should be close to the end of the level, and since you were meant to go "up" initially only to turn around at the landslide, it was logical that you would have to go "down" to reach it. In the end, it tuende out to be even further "down"...

The biggest miss was the Hunters' Camp. I thought the color of the terrain at that place in the map indicated something important may be located there, but alas, no. It turned out to be more or less where I located the Plantation House instead...

Regarding the second monorail station... no, we wouldn't find it in PH, as it would be further past the Landslide, and access was blocked by it. It's only logical it would be somewhere ouside the Town but on the side we haven't access to...
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Re: Discussion of the PH Level from the 'PCGamer Build'

Post by tatu »

masterchiefoo7 wrote:Machf, can you post a link to your theory? I want to see how you came up with each of those locations and their (almost) accurate placements.

Yes, however, the end of PH is not correctly edited to fit the start of IJ (IJ start is actually just before the PH building in the level if you place the terrains correctly).
Tatu, can you help me understand this better? Do you mean that the start of the riverbed would be the end of PH, instead of traveling down the valley a little ways?
I took the terrain of BE, JR (PCGamer), PH (PCGamer), IJ (E3) and IT (Max File) and imported them into 3ds Max. With the use of the Terrain Exporter found in the source, which contain the correct coordinates for all the terrains, I placed them at their coordinates. This actually work pretty well as they align almost perfectly (only the IT terrain needs to be moved a bit). After that I edited the overlapping terrain so I could export it and then I exported it. Then I imported all terrain textures from all these levels too to give an overview of them, and this is how it would look in PH at the start of IJ:
PHIJ.png
PHIJ.png (2.92 MiB) Viewed 18113 times
This should be pretty accurate since all other levels align up. As you also can see, the stream in IJ seems to split from the stream in PH.
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Re: Discussion of the PH Level from the 'PCGamer Build'

Post by hppav »

I'm poking around in the levels basement...

Image
Ooo, Shiny. Somebody tell Draco :P Only one piece is used in the level itself

Image
Camp stove in the basement. This is used near where the Green T-Rex is up against a boulder by the crashed jeep.

Image
And here's a cluster of 5 burnt crates. Only a couple are used in the wreck site.

I get the feeling that either the Hunter's Camp was already cut by this point in time or they hadn't started implementing it yet and just used the pieces to make the area a bit more interesting for E3/PC Gamer.

Also I noticed both JR and PH have the PV base terrain texture in their SWP files.. Must have been a temp texture used in every level early on...
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Re: Discussion of the PH Level from the 'PCGamer Build'

Post by tatu »

I don't think they had implementing the Hunter's Camp yet.

As for the PV base terrain. For some reason we always assumed it is the PV base terrain right? I think it was used for most levels. Also, the "PV" base terrain was and is usually used as a texture on the TrnPlacement objects.
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Re: Discussion of the PH Level from the 'PCGamer Build'

Post by Draconisaurus »

I, for one, find it fantastic that we finally have an original version of PH in our hands. Seems the PH contest was well-timed! The last chance for people to attempt to recreate the lost level before, like PV, an official version comes to light. Too bad more entries weren't submitted.

Was pleasantly surprised that the odd crate-stack/climb puzzel near the start works ingame..
Once the player learns to take their own route, they head south through "the stables" and then into the riverbed area. You are ambushed by a raptor, and then we meet the Green T Rex, something all fans have wanted to see since '98. This area is actually shown in an old screenshot!
Well, what do you frakin know? Not only an unknown PH screen from ancient times, but one which showcases both the green rex and the hunters camp! Who knew?!
hppav wrote:Image
Ooo, Shiny. Somebody tell Draco :P Only one piece is used in the level itself
Well isn't that interesting... Seems they decided 1 year was enough to relieve the tents of their canvas. I still prefer the JPDS ones :P

I want to point out - the PH contest template shows which VOs, in my estimation, belong in PH, starting with VA42 (the triggers are all stuffed behind the starting location). I have actually begun to upgrade the official PH with these.

I should eventually do a comparison of the trnobj placement to see how far off I was in what I released...

One thing - this level seems to be missing the tree "with a cluster of boulders at its base." Surely we should add that, too.
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Re: Discussion of the PH Level from the 'PCGamer Build'

Post by Slugger »

For those who have managed to install the E3 version with the PH house, does the rex actually manage to toss the car in the screenshot? Or was that just another staged image?
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Re: Discussion of the PH Level from the 'PCGamer Build'

Post by machf »

Hmmm... I don't know. When I've played it, the Rex and the Raptor engaged in a battle and both apparently ended up contorting horribly on the floor about to die but never actually quite doing it...
The Rex does have the strenth to throw the car around, though.
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Re: Discussion of the PH Level from the 'PCGamer Build'

Post by tatu »

I'm pretty sure the images is staged. Knowing how much the T-rex actually moves its head and body in the engine, it would look that "straight". It looks to me like it's default mesh position.
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Re: Discussion of the PH Level from the 'PCGamer Build'

Post by Blapeuh »

machf wrote: Unfortunately, it's lost somewhere amidst the depths of the forum.
viewtopic.php?f=120&t=8002

By any chance this one, since it is full of reasoning?
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Re: Discussion of the PH Level from the 'PCGamer Build'

Post by machf »

Yes, that was it, I found it again later, as you can see by my post from November over there...
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Re: Discussion of the PH Level from the 'PCGamer Build'

Post by Draconisaurus »

*hunts down suitable thread*

Was hunting through PH this past evening... No relation to current mod projects, of course... I happened to have "C" on while looking for things in the basement, and found an older version of the hunter bones assortment. Different arrangement from the standard which emerged later; the inclusion of the additional bones (with "hunter" in the name) found in the Mystery Model smuggler's bones; and...
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