eye spy new places

http://www.darkslayers.com/deep6/thumbs/

[Sazerac]

making the link interactive . . .

http://www.darkslayers.com/deep6/thumbs/

-Sazerac

[carg]

Nice!
Are these all locations that haven't made the final release of the game?
Frustrating too, to see there is so much more in the game than we can see, and being unsure there will be a sequel.
But I'm afraid that begging mr Bradley to e.g. enable multi-player again won't do any good.

I totally re-did the Crypt and the Snake Temple.

The Crypt I made, well, look like a crypt. It was much tighter, more eye-catching. There were some cool places, like instead of the "elevator" to the mummy, it had a spiral staircase that dropped down from the floor in pieces. The whole complex was set up so that it hinted at a much larger burial ground, but several cave-ins prevent passage way there. The Urns/Two Pathways is totally different now. It was even set up to have the secret 3rd path, which was for only the thief class to find (this was removed from the level that is in the official game). The "Asylum" area is no longer in there. While the mad scientist is there, the asylum was originally made as a test deathmatch level way back when. If this new crypt was going to be in the game, that asylum area was going to be made into sewer network which was going to be under one of the towns (sorta the way Bard's Tale did it).

The Temple overhaul was again more precise like the Crypt. It actually had sleeping quarters, both for the Acolytes and nice ones for the Priests. The Priestess even had a master bedroom, with a small bath/waterfall (which has a secret door behind it). The official way to enter was by placing a gold coin into the snake idol which is now in the front room, next to the front door. The secret area that had Kerah's Statue was more elaborate -- it hinted at the idea that the snake temple was once a temple to Aneaphas, with sandstone walls and hieroglyphics. There was even a cool overlook, where once the priests threw their victims into the snake's mouth, they could over look the Naga eat'em up

The Town was a thing I did for kicks, b/c I had so much fun playing Thief. It combined parts of the new crypt with the all of the new temple, plus a new facade/front gate into a small slice of medeival urban-ia

I got the impression no one bothered to even look at these levels until a whole year had passed and Activision was about to publish WW, which is too bad; it would have made those first few levels more exciting and look less dated (well, I'm tired of square hallways, that's all I have to say).

Funny thing is, maybe it didn't matter, b/c everytime I suggest showing some things off from the game that didn't make it or discussing some of the background, almost no one seems interested. So, perhaps it wasn't a big deal that the game came out late and looked dated.

alz

[Sazerac]

What a pity! What a sad pity they never made it in there. However, this does clear up some confusion as to why there's an asylum in a crypt. It's great having insider "scuttlebutt" on what was going on during development.

Any chance those designs could be worked into an add-in?

-Sazerac

Not sure if they'd make it into an add-on (if there will even be an add-on). The levels fine-tuned to match all the same puzzles in the previous versions, so you'd either have to radically change the levels, or have the exact same puzzle set up (or more noticeably, same pace and relatively same layout and relationship of rooms).

While it wouldn't be considered new material, I would love to see a W&W gold box set that swaps out the old levels for these levels, with multiplayer turned on If there was enough interest and the process of swapping out all the trigger/activation/event points were not too tedious, I'd change the levels myself. But I'm not sure what's going on at HPI right now, so I'm not going to try asking at this point.

[Sazerac]

Well, regardless of whether they make it into a re-release or not, I for one would love to hear more about the inside "dope" on what was going on with HPI and Wizards and Warriors. The game is still great, IMO, but it would be really nice to see what it could have been. So please, do continue posting information her, Alzagor! I know I'm interested, and quite a few others probably are too, but are just lurking.

If there's not enough interest, e-mail me at bignord@lycos.com and we can talk about it offlist.

Thanks,
Sazerac

[meow]

Actually I am interested too! And more than from a gamers standpoint.

I have done testing, project management, and product management for sfotware utilities companies and a few others but I have never had the opportunity to work with a gaming company so it would be great to hear what it is like to develop a game like this.

Also, working with Activision can be frustrating at times. One company I was with did kind of a preview/OEM thing with them for a release and while some of the people there were great others were under so much pressure that they kind of took it out on other people.

Anyway, you can post a general list here, or if you want I can give you my private e-mail and you can contact me directly.

[Scronan]

Alz

Thank you for sharing! Please show more stuff if you have it!

Scronan

Heyo,

Yeah, game development and an awful place to work *laughs*
Very stressful with long hours (I work 50-80 hrs a week), with little monetary reward (most people are lured in with promises of bags of money from royalties, enough to purchase a car or a down payment on a house). But on the flip side, it can be a very creative environment. I'm working on Aliens vs. Predator 2 right now and had to just scrap all of my past years work in favor of a new direction, which is good for the game, but damn... why'd I spend all those weekends working, when I didn't really have to?

Hey here's a tidbit -- I was trying to slip in some Highlander references into Wizards. I was going to make a Scottish Highlander and a Ramirez-type character, but never had the time (or programming assistance) to take it that far. There is a Ramirez model in the game, however. If you can look past the character skin and animation on the Pirate, you'll find it matches Ramirez's outfit!

Most of the levels were designed by 3 guys (me included). DWB laid out the crypt and the mines, but not sure what else. I did the top half the first snake temple -- there was a lot more in there that didn't make it, like a second story above the torture room which had sleeping quarters and the priestess' chamber. The top and lower half of the temple were originally going to be 2 levels, but since they had to be incorporated into one level, all the trim and fancy detail on the upper half was dropped. That "monster slot machine" room next to the "monkey vending machine" room was going to be this elaborate laboratory (now it looks like a storage room).

Most of the secret rooms I put in my levels were wired up to be required ares to explore. Which (to me atleast) defeated the purpose of them being bonus areas. The whole attic of the temple as well as the lower sand tunnels under the Shrine (beneath the falling tile room) were designed to be freebees for those that took the time to explore the area.

The main levels I built up were the Mines, the Caves and the Shrine. I'm sure I've got the original layout specs somewhere around here! Be interesting to see how different they are now. I rushed through the mines and caves to get to the shrine, then unfortunately lost interest just before getting inside the shrine. The various interfaces me and another fellow did are interesting; probably have some screenshots of those somewhere.