Map "fixing" - TTLG Forums

AxTng1 on 21/8/2005 at 04:15

I'm almost certain this is Old Hat, but that's why I'm asking. Shortly after IW was released, I heard something about the maps being rebuilt into their full versions, from the broken shards of X-Box crap. Was this an actual mod in progress, or just speculation? Does the release of t3ed change matters at all? How drastically would the minimum requirements change?

The jigsaw maps are about 60% of my reasons for not replaying IW, and I know that some others feel the same way. So: What's going on?

moop on 21/8/2005 at 11:44

I believe I remember reading that the maps are small because of engine limitations... i.e. making them "normal" size would have too many polygons or something otherwise graphics-intensive, to be playable with the same system requirements.

Ziemanskye on 21/8/2005 at 11:57

If the Thief:DS stuff is anything to go by, then it would A) massively increase the loading times, B) horredously slow performance C) not work anyway because the actual maps aren't built to fit together D) completely screw up the game because all the scripts and timings wouldn't work E) would probably make a huge mess of the lighting F) would also probably break the FleshBSP layer into all sorts of horrid hole-filled bits (it's a little sensitive), and perhaps most importantly G) wouldn't make that much of a difference to the game even if it did all work - two (or more) too small areas bodged together is never going to be as good as one area designed to be medium-large to start with.

AxTng1 on 21/8/2005 at 17:01

I feared as much :(

Oh why did they choose parallel development? I thought that LGS people and Ion Storm (Good Version) were not ruled by $$$.

There goes another 5% of my faith in humanity. CURSE YOU INTARWEB!!!

moop on 21/8/2005 at 20:17

As soon as they switched their engine to accomodate a console, they sold out. Warren gave the project to Harvey, if my memory is right. This was Harvey's big chance to make a splash as the #1 guy, and putting dollar signs on the project tends to get developers noticed. If anyone has more specific knowledge of Ion Storm's pre-collapse situation, I'd be interested.

voodoo47 on 21/8/2005 at 21:33

..not forgetting H) the game is dead and buried (and yet it still stinks).no reason for making mods for it.

ilweran on 21/8/2005 at 21:52

Quote Posted by moop

I posted this in DX general discussion a while ago:

There was an article on the demise of Ion Storm in the June issue of PC Zone & apparently the small levels & a lot of other problems were caused by the decision to abandon the Unreal engine & Eidos wouldn't let them have enough extra time to make the game properly. Bill Money does admit though that 'the PC version was put on the backburner and the end result definitely shows'.

belboz on 22/8/2005 at 13:15

Its more like eidos sold out to microsoft, and ion storm had to follow what eidos said else they would pull the plug, then microsoft didn't like the game so eidos pulled the plug.

AxTng1 on 23/8/2005 at 00:45

Quote Posted by ilweran

abandon the Unreal engine

Quote Posted by Deus Ex 2 Data File

[DefaultPlayer]
Name=Player
Class=DX2Game.DX2Player
team=255
skin=SoldierSkins.blkt
Face=SoldierSkins.Othello

Seems pretty unreal to me. There is even a file in the DX2 system dir called UnreadEd.int, containing:

[General]
FrameWindow=Unreal Level Editor

So is this some horrific franken-engine?

ilweran on 23/8/2005 at 12:41

Quote Posted by AxTng1

Seems pretty unreal to me. There is even a file in the DX2 system dir called UnreadEd.int, containing:

[General]
FrameWindow=Unreal Level Editor

So is this some horrific franken-engine?

Maybe PC Zone lied.

Just did a search and it appears they used a heavily modified version of the Unreal 2 engine.