Re: MH-Andromeda

EvilGrins · Post by **EvilGrins** » Sun Jan 05, 2014 9:52 pm

Trying a download of these. On the offchance the author of these maps might also have made the co-op ones, there may be a read me in there that can direct me to the rest of his work.

Worth a shot.

Post by **Hermskii** » Sun Jan 05, 2014 10:05 pm

Do you know 3? I have sent him an email requesting permission to give you copies of these files. I have not heard back from him yet. Also, I read an old email between him and I and he said you had to install oldskool to be able to see the coop browser tab. The last IP I had for his sever was 86.30.232.7 and that was as of 04/17/2012.

If you know NR2000 or Chico you may want to reach out to them as well to see if they can reach him for you too. Chico had a forum and game servers but I'm told her turned off all of the UT stuff and has been doing other gaming of late.

I'm also interested in your interest in the coop mod. Are you playing it somewhere already like on a server someone has? Is there a following at all for this game type? I almost started a coop section on my forum way back 3 and he suggested that I do but I never did. I don't recall why i passed on it.

Delacroix · Post by **Delacroix** » Mon Jan 06, 2014 1:15 am

I do not know either of the men, but I know of 'em. I PMed Nr.2000, maybe he'll receive the PM and give me the files himself - but I thought they were public. After all the server was public. And thus no permission should be required. Still, if you opt out to obtain this permission, I hope people able to give it to you are still reachable. While common courtesy is always appreciated by everyone, I wouldn't like to find out that I came too late and it's politeness out of all things that denies Nr.2000's work much needed recognition. I hope I didn't come across as rude - certainly not aiming to. I'm just constantly looking for new SP and Coop maps to play and review - and Andromeda seem to be real QUALITY work.

IDK how UT scene looks like in coop terms, but for Unreal for example, the gametype is THE go-to gametype if you want to kill monsters with style, kicking ass and taking names. And with the Botpack port by .:..: many UT maps are found running on Unreal quite well.

EvilGrins · Post by **EvilGrins** » Mon Jan 06, 2014 1:55 pm

Decided to Plan-B it · http://www.ut99.org/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=5402

When in doubt, hit up the busiest forum with the most active members. Sometimes the people you seek are on other forums but using different names, or random people already know where what you seek is.

Just my .25¢ on the matter.

Post by **Hermskii** » Mon Jan 06, 2014 3:20 pm

I have spoken with "3" and he agreed the files were from NR2000 and were for everyone. I think I'll load them up and send them over tonight. Now the question becomes do I need a coop section here?

Delacroix · Post by **Delacroix** » Mon Jan 06, 2014 3:35 pm

Thanks a lot, Hermskii!

Honestly, I do not know. If you do think you need it, I offer assistance when it comes to expertise on SP/COOP maps.

Waiting for your, erm, delivery of wonders

Post by **Hermskii** » Mon Jan 06, 2014 8:37 pm

Behold:

http://hermskii.com/Files/Andromeda-Coop-Version.zip

3 was totally cool about handing this over to you. Enjoy. I also want to know where and how this will be used. Will it go onto a server? Three (3) ran a Co-op server for a very long time. He just turned it off recently in fact I'm told. I'd love to give a bunch of "Coopers" a place to come to for their co-op needs.

I think you and 3 might need to have a discussion some time and then let me know how I might be able to help.

Delacroix · Post by **Delacroix** » Mon Jan 06, 2014 8:58 pm

If 3 has a Steam-ID (in fact if any of you have and wish to add me), my id: swordofheavens
Just pass it along, I don't mind.

I am planning to get Nr.2000 some publicity by reviewing this on UnrealSP.Org if I see that it's applicable for a review there. Given that Nr.2000 in his forum post from 2012 confirmed this as a valid and public release, I don't see why it wouldn't be reviewed - and from what I've seen in the MH version, it might get a really high score.

Also, I plan to get my pal Bob to host these maps on his server. Like I said, these need to be more widely known and more often played. The author definitely deserves more recognition and that's what I plan to give him, even if there is a chance he's inactive in the community now, I'm sure he'll appreciate kind words from other players.

I am an UnrealSP.Org map reviewer, an Unreal archivist and historian of sorts and a fan of Unreal and its SP/COOP/MH custom mappage offerings. In other words, it's what I do.

EvilGrins · Post by **EvilGrins** » Tue Jan 07, 2014 7:54 pm

Took a look at them today:

MH-Andromeda - Part1 Beta14 (6.48MB)
Amazing good. Remarkably intuitive bot pathing, bots will play the map but it's almost as though they're designed to let real player handle the heavy stuff... so they don't win the map for a real person.
MH-Andromeda - Part2 Beta14 (9.04MB)
Meh. No bot pathing to speak of.

Post by **Hermskii** » Tue Jan 07, 2014 8:48 pm

Delacroix wrote:I plan to get my pal Bob to host these maps on his server. Like I said, these need to be more widely known and more often played.

Tell me more about Bob. Does he have a place like this one to have his players show up and discuss things related to his server? I presume you approve of him oryou would not go through this effort for him right?

Delacroix wrote:I am an UnrealSP.Org map reviewer, an Unreal archivist and historian of sorts and a fan of Unreal and its SP/COOP/MH custom mappage offerings. In other words, it's what I do.

I actually failed to give you the standard warm welcome but I have been real busy. i hope you will take a little time to post in the viewforum.php?f=15 section as per my directions in the first topic there being my introduction.

Either way, I'm glad to have you registeredhere and I'm hope you hang around every once in a while. I too am a member of that UnrealSP.Org forum and recognize it as the greatest Single player UT forum ever created. I like to surround myself with UT enthusiast and you walk and talk just like one. I again want to welcome you to the show and I hope you visit often and express yourself often! Peace!

PS I'm still hoping You and Three and Bob might have a discussion and let me know about what the future of Co-op looks like. I too feel certain aspects of UT need to be maintained. I love having the diverse selection of gametypes I serve by myself and love even more all of the other ones people associated to the House of Hermskii have. I can't see how any long term UT player could ever be bored with what the House of Hermskii family of servers offers. mine aren't even the good ones but everyone knows they can come here to find the other ones!

Delacroix · Post by **Delacroix** » Wed Jan 08, 2014 5:51 am

Hermskii wrote:Tell me more about Bob. Does he have a place like this one to have his players show up and discuss things related to his server? I presume you approve of him or you would not go through this effort for him right?

- Bob's a notorious Unreal server admin that focuses primarily on cooperative-type stuff. He has an extensive array of maps on his server and multiple mods, fixes and mutators. Basically he's the go-to guy if you're looking for a file: 99% chance Bob will have it. IDK if he hosts UT99 servers. His server is the ah! Monsters one in the Cooperative tab in your Unreal server browser. It has a Facebook group and Bob himself often shows up in the semi-public Unreal 1 FB group. He also has a blog. I approve of him mostly because people like him are true assets to this community. With more and more Unreal-related websites and related content slipping into oblivion nowadays, guys like him, content collector extraordinaires are our only hope in uncovering and preserving Unreal content. He's the one who got me interested into the work of the Japanese mapper Vividy (Herdcoop Csejte Castle Map Pack author) and it is he who released RedElectroPlasmaBall's The Aquaducts on his blog, where I got my hands on it and gave it a very favorable review over at UnrealSP forums, much to the surprise of REPB himself who, as he said himself, never expected his work to get a review. And that's just two examples of how helpful Bob can be.
But I didn't ask about the map with only him in mind. My main focus is to unearth lost SP/Coop maps and present them to the community so that they are played, which is why the authors made them in the first place. So you could say that I didn't show up here in Bob's interest, more like in the community's collective interest instead.

Hermskii wrote:I actually failed to give you the standard warm welcome but I have been real busy. i hope you will take a little time to post in the viewforum.php?f=15 section as per my directions in the first topic there being my introduction.

I'll be happy to post there, Hermskii, but one thing: you did not fail to give me a warm welcome, in fact, quite the opposite. I feel the reaction to my appearance here was very positive and I'm very happy about that.

Hermskii wrote:I too am a member of that UnrealSP.Org forum and recognize it as the greatest Single player UT forum ever created.

We can agree about that, man

It sure is the best resource for that sort of stuff. Hellscrag did an amazing work with the site and Sana (or should I say: Ividyon as he calls himself now) is just as good in continuing this fine work. I am happy to be a part of that community and a member of their staff as news poster and map reviewer. I am no mapper myself - my role in my single player projects is limited to storyline/screenplay/dialogues and some concepts as well as overall project management - so by reviewing the works of talented individuals like REPB, Nr.2000 or TA20 I feel like I'm being actually useful to the community.

Hermskii wrote:PS I'm still hoping You and Three and Bob might have a discussion and let me know about what the future of Co-op looks like. I too feel certain aspects of UT need to be maintained.

Well, IMO the best way to provide a good CO-OP experience is A. running both an Unreal (227 patch recommended) cooperative server with the most extensive array of custom maps possible as well as an Unreal Tournament cooperative server; and B. keep things fairly clean. IMO even Bob doesn't come through for my cooping needs. IMO the best server would be a clean one, so without hundreds and thousands of monsters never placed by the mapper showing up out of nowhere or custom weapons that ain't even there. IMO a good coop server should spawn you with weapons you're supposed to have on that level, a translator, a rechargeable scubagear and searchlight and respawn monsters / items placed on map every 10-15 minutes to ensure the experience as close to the original as possible without hindrances related to other players almost clearing the map and suddenly leaving, lack of proper balance and jazz like that. Something... clean. That doesn't happen these days

As far as Three and me talking, you could get us in touch with each other via either Steam, Skype, Facebook or IRC, I'm using these four comm channels on a daily basis so it's easiest to reach me that way. Like I said, my Steam id is: swordofheavens and I'm giving here my Skype id: bruno.glening as well as a link to my FB profile. As for IRC, I'm available over at QuakeNet / #oldunreal and SynIRC / #unrealsp under the handles: Delacroix, VD or Legion. Feel free to pass this to Three with my kind regards.

Now, in order to AVOID making this a purely off-topic post, I'll say a few words about Andromeda. This is not a full-blown review, mainly the gist of my remarks, so here goes.

- Visuals are cream of the crop as far as it comes to the construction and texturing. I've seen that the map was updated by Nr.2000 a ludicrous amount of times but it sure paid off: there are no bugs in that regard to speak of. Lighting seems a bit too bright, a bit bland and moodless, but it doesn't come across as that much problematic. The portal sequences, surreal as they were, reminded me of Alice (American McGee's game). Ingenious. All things considered I'd consider the visuals as 8/10.
- The audio layer is a tad worse. While I encountered ambience here and there, there's simply not enough of it. The new music does come across as moody and fun. 6/10.
- The gameplay is very SeriousSamic - most of the time when I was fighting enemies, I ran around in circles, avoiding enemy shots like a Matrix Agent while shooting down bazillions of enemies. Never thought this'd work in Unreal with non-EXU weapons but guess what: IT DID. And it was very enjoyable. I didn't like the keyhunting aspect though: I found it a real daunting task to find the last key in the sequence. The pointer arrows kinda broke the mood for me at first, but when I saw how extensive the level is, I applauded the idea of having them in. Overall, the levels were long and varied - it took me over two hours to complete Andromeda and I don't regret a single second. 7/10.

I'll of course write a proper review of Andromeda in the near future, but as you can see from my initial findings, the score will be high. Congratulations to Nr.2000 for his awesome mapping endeavor and many thanks to Hermskii and Three for letting me obtain this.