Nostalgia

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Ray Arnold
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Nostalgia

Post by Ray Arnold »

I remember the first time I read about Trespasser, it was a small note in a Norwegian magazine, and when we got Internet at home, I must have been around 13 or 14 years old; I found the Trespasser development team site. Following the development was one of my main occupations at that time, as a huge fan of science, technology, artistry, film and Jurassic Park, the uncompromising vision of the game intrigued me.

The reaction from the critics when the game got released was just as baffling as the game's half-finished state. The reviewers were complaining about everything from poor art direction (too much rust, I remember an inbisile writing) to more relevant issues, but almost every reviewer failed to comprehend any of the potenential in the technology and the strength (and also weaknesses) of an uncompromising vision. I later understood that the majority of the game reviewers at the time both lacked technical skills and cultural capital, and a lot of reviews where just quite juvenile and bad written. Often it seemed like they always reacted with scepticism with new gameplay elements, rather than embracing innovation examples of this I find in two of my favourite games Hitman 1 and Kane&Lynch 1. The poor quality of game reviews became a theme of discussion with some of my more resourceful friends in high school, where one of them actually ended up with becoming an editor and improving both the cultural capital and skills of the reviewers in a quite well known magazine, impacting the industry. As games grow up, they need just as good reviewers and journalists as film, art and literature. End of anecdote.

From time to time, I've been reading on these pages (nostalgia - a sickness). I found the interview with Seamus Blackley particularly interesting.

The last few days I've been reading on what the community has been up to, and I'm severely impressed (i was once a member of THS -:p ). Yesterday I installed both the beta build 96 and retail version with the ATX-patch. The ATX-patch is really interesting!

Okay, I need to get to my point, heading for a dinner:

Trespasser is really based on an uncompromised vision, it's still a great take on the Jurrasic Park universe. It's quite obvious that the biggest problem with the game is lack of time. Other games developed at the same time i.e. Max Payne, shipped in 2001. A game I'm replaying now, L.A. Noir took seven years (also technincally and gameplay-vise ambitious). Trespasser had been in development for well under three years when it shipped, and the changes from beta 96 seems like they were made in panic. I wonder how the game would have been if DWI let the team have a year extra, from the summer of 98. To figure out the narrative, dinosaur animation and a.i. - as well as the gameplay. There are moments in Trespasser when gameplay starts to take place, i.e. at the plantation house yesterday, I ran out of ammo, needed to hide inside the house from the Velicoraptor then took a run for it, managed barely to escape some meters, ran over to the Triceratops and tried to lure it into a fight with it. Unfortunatly the raptor froze due to the activation radius, and gameplay was over. A bit later in the next level a pack of aggressive raptors following me could be out-runned by running and jumping at the same time. The dinos in the game are stupid, slow and activate and deactivate at visible distances, making them easy to beat and not very frightening, as well as ruining an illusion of being on SiteB. You have to be so well-intentioned towards the games mechanics to get any kind of tension, that it's almost pathetic, and even when you really try, the game mechanics just **** up before giving you a real challenge, making the game into a nice walking and exploring simulator.

So here comes my first question to the community, is it possible to make the activation radius of the dinos larger? And is it possible to make the dinos not just stopping an attack and walking in circles (this happens 80% of the time when they attack, they just give up).

I think that would actually make the game quite fun. I wonder why they made the game this easy in the first place?

Thank you all for making a community around this 15+ year old archaic game, it's quite amazing!
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Re: Nostalgia

Post by machf »

Ray Arnold wrote: So here comes my first question to the community, is it possible to make the activation radius of the dinos larger?
Sure, you just need to edit their scripts in the corresponding level(s)...
And is it possible to make the dinos not just stopping an attack and walking in circles (this happens 80% of the time when they attack, they just give up).
Hmmm... that depends on a good balance of the possible activities assigned to each dinosaur (yes, more script editing). And maybe reactivating the ones that were deactivated, too.
I think that would actually make the game quite fun. I wonder why they made the game this easy in the first place?
Lack of time to meet the deadline, the quick way to "solve" some problems was to remove the situations in which they would happen...
Thank you all for making a community around this 15+ year old archaic game, it's quite amazing!
Visit The Carnivores Saga - a forum devoted to modding Action Forms' Carnivores, Carnivores 2 and Carnivores: Ice Age games
Tres WIP: updated T-Script Reference and File Formats documents
Sound name listings for the Demo (build 117), Retail (build 116), Beta 103, Beta 99, Beta 97, Beta 96, Build 55, PC Gamer Alpha (build 32) and E3 1998 Alpha (build 22) TPA files
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Re: Nostalgia

Post by Ray Arnold »

machf wrote: Sure, you just need to edit their scripts in the corresponding level(s)...
Interesting, has anyone done such as a patch?

BTW: In this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3YbPpzi ... 51EB882B48 a raptor is seeing walking indoors, and this is not the beta build I guess. Is this a 'bug', or is it possible to enable it in the retail version?
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Re: Nostalgia

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Ray Arnold wrote:
machf wrote: Sure, you just need to edit their scripts in the corresponding level(s)...
Interesting, has anyone done such as a patch?
Noooo, it would be a re-release of every single level...
BTW: In this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3YbPpzi ... 51EB882B48 a raptor is seeing walking indoors, and this is not the beta build I guess. Is this a 'bug', or is it possible to enable it in the retail version?
The whole "raptors can't go indoors" thing is just a myth, in a manner of speaking...

Certain places just will have a script preventing raptors from entering, but that's all.
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Tres WIP: updated T-Script Reference and File Formats documents
Sound name listings for the Demo (build 117), Retail (build 116), Beta 103, Beta 99, Beta 97, Beta 96, Build 55, PC Gamer Alpha (build 32) and E3 1998 Alpha (build 22) TPA files
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Re: Nostalgia

Post by SpyroGuy »

Even if you manage to get them to enter buildings like the shack at the bottom of the dam.....they can do pretty interesting things.
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Re: Nostalgia

Post by hppav »

Ray Arnold wrote:The last few days I've been reading on what the community has been up to, and I'm severely impressed (i was once a member of THS -:p ). Yesterday I installed both the beta build 96 and retail version with the ATX-patch. The ATX-patch is really interesting!
Yeah, TresCom is kind a descendant of THSII, which formed while THS was still around. Then TSOrd ended up continuing after both THS teams quit and he started Trespasser Secrets. Then when TSOrd died, everyone kinda congregated to Madppiper's board and after a while we all decided to start a website. A lot of work done by a lot of people over the years managed to get things done.
Ray Arnold wrote:Trespasser is really based on an uncompromised vision, it's still a great take on the Jurrasic Park universe. It's quite obvious that the biggest problem with the game is lack of time. Other games developed at the same time i.e. Max Payne, shipped in 2001. A game I'm replaying now, L.A. Noir took seven years (also technincally and gameplay-vise ambitious). Trespasser had been in development for well under three years when it shipped, and the changes from beta 96 seems like they were made in panic. I wonder how the game would have been if DWI let the team have a year extra, from the summer of 98. To figure out the narrative, dinosaur animation and a.i. - as well as the gameplay. There are moments in Trespasser when gameplay starts to take place, i.e. at the plantation house yesterday, I ran out of ammo, needed to hide inside the house from the Velicoraptor then took a run for it, managed barely to escape some meters, ran over to the Triceratops and tried to lure it into a fight with it. Unfortunatly the raptor froze due to the activation radius, and gameplay was over. A bit later in the next level a pack of aggressive raptors following me could be out-runned by running and jumping at the same time. The dinos in the game are stupid, slow and activate and deactivate at visible distances, making them easy to beat and not very frightening, as well as ruining an illusion of being on SiteB. You have to be so well-intentioned towards the games mechanics to get any kind of tension, that it's almost pathetic, and even when you really try, the game mechanics just **** up before giving you a real challenge, making the game into a nice walking and exploring simulator.
Yeah, the only level I found difficult was Ascent 1 and that's mainly because of that collapsing Mayan bridge after the T-Rex and Pyramid section. With the broken jump mechanics of the vanilla game it was almost impossible to pass the level without falling there the first time.

In my opinion, the scariest parts are where you are in a small area and you can't see much around you and you can hear the dinosaurs and not know where they are. Too bad the game only has a couple of those moments and most of those are back in the third level. The sequence at the dam can get pretty tense, especially if you run out of ammo and there's still 2 raptors left...

I like the first two Max Payne games as well. Haven't played the third one yet (Not made by Sam Lake so I'm kinda afraid to see how it is). But I did like Alan Wake, which was Sam Lake's latest game. Have you played that one?
Ray Arnold wrote:So here comes my first question to the community, is it possible to make the activation radius of the dinos larger? And is it possible to make the dinos not just stopping an attack and walking in circles (this happens 80% of the time when they attack, they just give up).

I think that would actually make the game quite fun. I wonder why they made the game this easy in the first place?
Yeah, all that's defined in the dinosaur's T-Script values, which can be edited with TresEd, you would also have to make sure there aren't any triggers which prevent the dinosaur from leaving one area and going into the next one as well, which can also be dealt with in TresEd.
Ray Arnold wrote:Thank you all for making a community around this 15+ year old archaic game, it's quite amazing!
When we made this place in 2002 it wasn't that old then... I remember when we all got hyped for the original FarCry tech demo :lol: That was some good times.
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Re: Nostalgia

Post by SpyroGuy »

Speaking of that tech demo, the Carnivores series got it's own HD polish/re-release/reboot-something just recently.
Is there anyone here who already had the chance to try it out?
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Re: Nostalgia

Post by Ray Arnold »

hppav wrote: In my opinion, the scariest parts are where you are in a small area and you can't see much around you and you can hear the dinosaurs and not know where they are. Too bad the game only has a couple of those moments and most of those are back in the third level.
I agree that there are tensions when you hear dinosaurs, but can't see them. Imagine if they had time to implement a realistic way for the raptors to go indoors, that would make the game almost unplayable due to the shear terror level ;)
hppav wrote: The sequence at the dam can get pretty tense, especially if you run out of ammo and there's still 2 raptors left...
Yes, the dam sequence was pretty intense. A childhood friend and I played trough level 4 and 5 yesterday, at ATX hard setting, and we had no chance of even beating the first pack of raptors (when the music starts). However, we managed to climb to the side of the valley, and walked right to level five. Too bad that nothing forced us down to the dam. It should have been some gameplay and puzzle elements to get to the next level. Maybe a moveable bridge controlled from the bunker by the dam?

After leaving Burroughs, the game is picking up pace and the situations and gameplay becomes more enjoyable. Too bad that they made nothing out of the dam.

Playing through level 5, I realized something... The Lab level is pretty damn good. The gameplay, puzzles and atmosphere is well balanced and seems polished. There are no long boring walks, no issues with frozen dinos in the distance, pacing is good and there is always something interesting going on. Only thing that could have been better would have been a pack of raptors following you into the warehouses, and some gameplay/puzzle elements there. Maybe looking for a battery to get the gate to open?

Although not necessary, it would be interesting for something scary to happen when visiting the lab itself. Maybe not a raptor pack, as variation and the silence in the lab is nice and atmospheric. A hint of something going on, birds leaving? Later sounds of something moving around in the corridors, maybe a dilophosaurus?

However, I found the Lab-level really enjoyable, well balanced and fun to play. Anyone know who was the person in charge for this level, and it's development history? If it had been representative for the rest of the game, I can't help to think Trespasser would have been considered a rather good game. With some more tweaking to the dinosaur behaviour, animation and arm/weapon interface, maybe even great!
hppav wrote: But I did like Alan Wake, which was Sam Lake's latest game. Have you played that one?
I got rather pissed of by the decision to cancel the PC-version, however, I just noticed that a PC version was released last year, maybe I should give it a try!
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Re: Nostalgia

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SpyroGuy wrote:Speaking of that tech demo, the Carnivores series got it's own HD polish/re-release/reboot-something just recently.
Is there anyone here who already had the chance to try it out?
Probably RexHunter99 and myself...
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Sound name listings for the Demo (build 117), Retail (build 116), Beta 103, Beta 99, Beta 97, Beta 96, Build 55, PC Gamer Alpha (build 32) and E3 1998 Alpha (build 22) TPA files
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Re: Nostalgia

Post by machf »

Ray Arnold wrote:Only thing that could have been better would have been a pack of raptors following you into the warehouses,
And it looks that originally, that was intended... one of the mini-walkthroughs from the TresTeam site featured that, IIRC.
Visit The Carnivores Saga - a forum devoted to modding Action Forms' Carnivores, Carnivores 2 and Carnivores: Ice Age games
Tres WIP: updated T-Script Reference and File Formats documents
Sound name listings for the Demo (build 117), Retail (build 116), Beta 103, Beta 99, Beta 97, Beta 96, Build 55, PC Gamer Alpha (build 32) and E3 1998 Alpha (build 22) TPA files
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Re: Nostalgia

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What are your impressions of it? Is it as enjoyable and immersive as the original titles?
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Re: Nostalgia

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SpyroGuy wrote:What are your impressions of it? Is it as enjoyable and immersive as the original titles?
C:HD? No. It's a poor addition to the existing game, breaks lore and all that. Basically, with all modern AAA titles, the game is 90% eye candy, 10% game.
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Re: Nostalgia

Post by machf »

Oh, it's a new game? I thought it meant your patch providing HD resolutions to C2 among other things...
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Tres WIP: updated T-Script Reference and File Formats documents
Sound name listings for the Demo (build 117), Retail (build 116), Beta 103, Beta 99, Beta 97, Beta 96, Build 55, PC Gamer Alpha (build 32) and E3 1998 Alpha (build 22) TPA files
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Re: Nostalgia

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Re: Nostalgia

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RexHunter99 wrote: C:HD? No. It's a poor addition to the existing game, breaks lore and all that. Basically, with all modern AAA titles, the game is 90% eye candy, 10% game.
I see...well the trial version is worth a try anyway IF the game gets a 360 release.
I'm almost overwhelmed with instant "nostalgia attacks" anyway because of the remastered HD versions of the Serious Sam Encounters and the upcoming Wolfenstein game. =)
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