AR: City - FlashCart / Stage 2

[Xebec's Demise]

danwinslow, come on!

 

There is no "rule" that says I cannot be flexible and must vote straight down the line on everything. I have given logical reasons to support what I believe would be best for the conversion and I am free to express and expand upon my thoughts just as you are.

 

So, instead of complaining that I am inconsistent or poking fun that I must be in direct contact with Philip Price, why not post what you support and the reasons why - that is all I have done. You are free to do the same. Complaining that you think I don't know what I am talking about without posting the reasons why contributes very little to the discussion.

 

If you want to complain that I am inconsistent or that you feel I am only supporting what I like, why don't you PM me.

 

Otherwise, how about posting your ideas on what I have presented and offer logical reasons as to why, rather than harping on about what I like or that you feel my thinking is flawed.

 

Do you want access to the blocked-off guilds and missing weapon's trainers included? Why?

 

Do you think that endless and nearly instant character back-ups would be good for the success of the Alternate Reality cartridge? Why?

 

Do you think the original AR game interface needs to be changed graphically to indicate Cartridge Activity? Why?

 

Do you think that COTP establishments should remain unaccessible and unused? Why?

 

Do you think that the Death Traps should be changed after they have become a unique aspect of the game, even if they are bugs? Why?

Edited July 9, 2005 by Xebec's Demise

[+kheller2]

In other questions: It is true that one's alignment in the City cannot be changed for the better, at least not in the Atari version. Is this a bug or intentional?

888676[/snapback]

 

6.5 HOW DO YOU RAISE YOUR ALIGNMENT IN THE CITY?

------------------------------------------------

 

Simple answer: You can't. The philosophy behind the decision was that you shouldn't be able to

balance out bad acts with good. If you have done something bad, then, just as in real life,

it can't be undone. Though admittedly, the pherhaps more catholic view of alignment (chance

of redemption and so on) adopted in The Dungeon, might be a more playable solution from a

gaming point of view (see section 3.2 for details).

-INFORMATION COURTESY OF PHILIP PRICE

Edited July 9, 2005 by kheller2

[Xebec's Demise]

Go to www.webarchive.org and type in www.alternatereality.com.

 

As for contacting Price thry this.. (this is public information.. so don't go yelling at me)

 

Price, Philip

   11735 Sterling Panorama Terrace

   Austin, TX 78738

888631[/snapback]

 

You're awesome! Thanks for the facts!

 

I had been trying to access the ARO website and doing searches for it every so often. Strange that archived pages do not come up in google searches, but I should have thought of checking archives.

 

Thank you! A letter to Philip is in the works!

Edited July 9, 2005 by Xebec's Demise

[Xebec's Demise]

6.5 HOW DO YOU RAISE YOUR ALIGNMENT IN THE CITY?

------------------------------------------------

 

Simple answer: You can't. The philosophy behind the decision was that you shouldn't be able to

balance out bad acts with good. If you have done something bad, then, just as in real life,

it can't be undone. Though admittedly, the pherhaps more catholic view of alignment (chance

of redemption and so on) adopted in The Dungeon, might be a more playable solution from a

gaming point of view (see section 3.2 for details).

-INFORMATION COURTESY OF PHILIP PRICE

888979[/snapback]

I tend to agree with this thinking, you cannot undo a murder by buying lots of Girl Scout cookies. And in the game, you should not be able to undo the killing of good beings by being nice to them the next day.

Edited July 9, 2005 by Xebec's Demise

[+kheller2]

In case anyone is interested, my brothers and I made a Doom wad of AR the City complete with some classic (although not AR) Atari sound effects. We never finished populating it but there are a few monsters.

 

It was, shall we say, a very challenging thing to do considering all the hack jobs that had to be done to DOS and the doom DEU(?) editor to get it to work with such a large grid... back in the 486SX days.

 

We had some big plans for it, including changing textures etc. to match AR. But, it is still fun to run around the old watering hole.

[analmux]

From the AR FAQ http://www.eobet.com/alternate-reality/alt-reality_FAQ.txt

 

........OK, thanks.

 

Now let's quote some other useful stuff from this page: (it's like quoting passages from the Bible )

 

3.1 GENERAL TIPS FOR THE CITY

-----------------------------

 

The City is a very hard game. You should back up your character disk as described in

the manuals and cluebooks very often, (in the beginning, backing up after each succesful

combat is a very good and safe thing to do), so you don't loose your character. Let's start

from the very beginning:

 

When you are at the portal with the spinning stats, there are some things you should know

in order to figure out what stats you want to keep an eye on. Naturally, Hit Points should

always be a priority, even though these increases alot with levels, since you tend to take

alot of damage on early levels too. Anything (and this goes for all stats) under 10 is not

very good. Strength increases with combat, and you will do alot of that, so if you want,

you can chance skipping a few points there. If you want to buy a dagger or something, you

should try to keep you money above about 150 coppers too.

 

Finally, the scrolling stats go faster the longer you wait (you might say it's an incentive

to avoid procrastination).

-INFORMATION COURTESY OF PHILIP PRICE

 

It seems like Philip Price himself did support the making of backups: I think we should respect his point of view on this just the same way as we should respect his original intentions.

 

.....I found some more:

 

.....After your first level or two, you should backup your character and go potion hunting.....

 

.....(So make backups regularly.).....

 

 

I once (4 years ago) did a hacking job on Mercenary to get access to the master key: then you can enter a kind of warpzone-room from which you can jump/teleport very fast from different areas of the game: I didn't remember that this 'master key' was to be found in a normal way. This shows that there are many games which have unaccesible areas.

 

But I still don't understand this:

From the AR FAQ it seems that indeed the deathtraps are a bug, but there may be several other bugs that are still unknown. When it's simple to make mistakes in the design then I can imagine that there are plenty more, which might not be very noticable but they ARE there.......could be: I'm not claiming they're certainly there.

 

f.e. Super Mario Bros 3 on the Nintendo 8bit also has hidden levels, where it's impossible to go from the game itself, but only when you do a little 2 byte patch you can have access to them. In fact there's about 8% of levels missing in the SMB3 game.

 

If you were releasing a new version, wouldn't you want to include the missing levels and fix any bugs? Otherwise, what would be the point?

 

In the case of SMB3 the hidden levels seem to be unfinished levels, and I didn't find the enemy-tables yet, so they are left out because they didn't contribute anything to the total gameplay anyway....and because they're extra levels, I even don't have any idea WHERE to include them (there's no extra space on the world-map screens, without redesigning them). Off course this is a different case with AR, but I hope this argument makes clear that in general unaccessible areas of a game are meant to be left out, and a design bug caused them to be still existent in the code images: they could as well be taken out of the code data completely.

Edited July 9, 2005 by analmux

[Xebec's Demise]

It seems like Philip Price himself did support the making of backups...

889015[/snapback]

Lets get your quotes/facts straight. For your information, the FAQ was not written by Philip Price, nor was the Guidebook or Manual.

 

"Finally, the scrolling stats go faster the longer you wait (you might say it's an incentive

to avoid procrastination).

-INFORMATION COURTESY OF PHILIP PRICE"

 

And the above statement was not written by Philip Price either, however this one bit of information at the end of your quote was the part provided courtesy of Philip, not the other paragraphs.

 

Nice how you conveniently concluded that Philip wrote the FAQ, quoting several other lines from it.

Edited July 9, 2005 by Xebec's Demise

[Wrathchild]

SMTP error from remote mailer after RCPT TO:<pwprice@IX.NETCOM.COM>:

host mxe.earthlink.net [209.86.93.239]: 554 This mailbox is full.

Please try again later. for pwprice@ix.netcom.com

See:

http://www.avatardesign.net/alternatereali...04/00000619.htm

 

Anyway... guys - please try not to get this thread closed a second time.

 

20th Anniversary release? It is still not known at this time if a cart-port is

actually technically realizable, hopefully I'll know more by next weekend.

 

One question about this 'opening up' of previously unavailable areas.

I take it that this has already been tried and tested and can be reliably

confirmed that it wouldn't not introduce a bug of any kind - has there

been evidence that PP had this code tested/working up to the point of

release where it was pulled? If not then there's significant risk in just

enabling them.

 

Regards,

Mark

Edited July 9, 2005 by Wrathchild

[Xebec's Demise]

In case anyone is interested, my brothers and I made a Doom wad of AR the City complete with some classic (although not AR) Atari sound effects.  We never finished populating it but there are a few monsters.

888997[/snapback]

Any screenshots or files?

[Gunstar]

Go to www.webarchive.org and type in www.alternatereality.com.

 

As for contacting Price thry this.. (this is public information.. so don't go yelling at me)

 

Price, Philip

   11735 Sterling Panorama Terrace

   Austin, TX 78738

888631[/snapback]

 

You're awesome! Thanks for the facts!

 

I had been trying to access the ARO website and doing searches for it every so often. Strange that archived pages do not come up in google searches, but I should have thought of checking archives.

 

Thank you! A letter to Philip is in the works!

888990[/snapback]

 

Holy shit!!! If that is a current address, then he lives about 40 min. away from me!!! I'll have to write him a letter and see if he responds. It would be cool to meet him in person and aske him some things. Maybe, if luck be a lady, he might even have some goodies (like source code to HIS version of the dungeon engine and other stuff) that he may be willing to share, especially with me, his biggest fan of all time. (and no matter what Xebic's Demise or anyone else says, I AM HIS BIGGEST FAN no if's, and's or but's about that... ) Who else is willing to spend 10 hours playing AR: The City on an 800 where it takes several minutes just to complete one encounter due to extra load times on EVERYTHING? Who else has not just come back to AR, but has been playing it continually, off and on through all three decades it's been around? Who else bought 4 disk drives JUST FOR AR? Who else added labels to their keyboard JUST FOR AR? Who else is upgrading their memory in the 8-bit JUST FOR AR? Who else has 12 character disks loaded with characters on both sides of the disk? Who else knows EVERY SINGLE SONG from both AR the city and dungeon by heart? Who else could play the game by ONLY sounds alone and find his way ANYWHERE in the city or dungeon without a monitor, becuase I know it all by heart? OK, maybe that's going a bit too far (that last bit) but...Who else...?

Edited July 9, 2005 by Gunstar

[Xebec's Demise]

20th Anniversary release? It is still not known at this time if a cart-port is

actually technically realizable, hopefully I'll know more by next weekend.

 

One question about this 'opening up' of previously unavailable areas.

I take it that this has already been tried and tested and can be reliably

confirmed that it wouldn't not introduce a bug of any kind - has there

been evidence that PP had this code tested/working up to the point of

release where it was pulled? If not then there's significant risk in just

enabling them.

889020[/snapback]

Yes, there are programs out there that already "open" up the blocked off guilds. I have tested them and they function just as all the other guilds do, using the same guild code. All these programs do is add a door to the map to allow access to the blocked off guilds.

 

As far as the COTP content, I have not heard from anyone if the content even exists. I was hoping that you would be able to locate it (or not) while doing the disk conversions.

 

I'll start poking around on the AR disks to see if I can find anything, but I figured you could find it and understand how it works much quicker and easier than I.

Edited July 9, 2005 by Xebec's Demise

[Wrathchild]

Thanks, I should be able to produce a mapping of what loads from where.

[Xebec's Demise]

Holy shit!!! If that is a current address, then he lives about 40 min. away from me!!! I'll have to write him a letter and see if he responds. It would be cool to meet him in person and aske him some things. Maybe, if luck be a lady, he might even have some goodies (like source code to HIS version of the dungeon engine and other stuff) that he may be willing to share, especially with me, his biggest fan of all time. (and no matter what Xebic's Demise or anyone else says, I AM HIS BIGGEST FAN   no if's, and's or but's about that...   ) Who else is willing to spend 10 hours playing AR: The City on an 800 where it takes several minutes just to complete one encounter due to extra load times on EVERYTHING? Who else has not just come back to AR, but has been playing it continually, off and on through all three decades it's been around? Who else bought 4 disk drives JUST FOR AR? Who else added labels to their keyboard JUST FOR AR? Who else is upgrading their memory in the 8-bit JUST FOR AR? Who else...?

889024[/snapback]

Wow! I wish you would have told me how much of an AR fan you really are! You have said that you are a big fan, but special keyboard labels? You've got me beat there. But you should know your trivia, it's two decades not three. When I was a kid, I also played AR on an Atari 800 with a single 1050 drive - it was worth it!

 

40 Miles! I would drive that any day. I used to have an hour and a half commute to Mexico everyday from San Diego when I had a twin plant business down there. 40 miles is nothing.

 

If he writes back, ask him if he would give you an interview and take a video camera, tape recorder or large pad of paper!

 

That would be so awesome!

 

I did read somewhere that someone was keeping the source for his version of The Dungeon in his garage on floppy disks.

Edited July 9, 2005 by Xebec's Demise

[analmux]

....And the above statement was not written by Philip Price either

 

How am I gonna know that it's only the last line and not the whole paragraph that's PP's writings??? So maybe I'm wrong this time (I see I must have misunderstood the FAQ), but how do you know that you're in general right and others not. You may have good arguments, and maybe I can even agree with you, but I don't see how you seem to have some supernatural connection to Philip Price's brain, such that you exactly know what he intended to. (don't take this as sarcasm, just think about it)

 

.....quoting several other lines from it.

....of which I didn't claim they were written by Philip.

 

Nice how you conveniently concluded that Philip wrote the FAQ

I did not. In the contrary: First I doubted that PP had written the FAQ, so what's your point in telling me what my conclusions are?....I just don't see what you want.

 

...and you still didn't take notice of this. Can you answer this simple question?:

Another thing: many games are designed by several people, where a producer has the final word, and why should we NOT respect the choices of the producer? He too had a hand in the creation of AR and without the producer maybe AR didn't even see the light of day. Even if PP did have other ideas in the first place, maybe he later agreed with the producer.

 

..to add another question: Does anyone have decent evidence that PP himself didn't intend to have backups in the game.

[+kheller2]

SMTP error from remote mailer after RCPT TO:<pwprice@IX.NETCOM.COM>:

host mxe.earthlink.net [209.86.93.239]: 554 This mailbox is full.

Please try again later. for pwprice@ix.netcom.com

See:

http://www.avatardesign.net/alternatereali...04/00000619.htm

 

One question about this 'opening up' of previously unavailable areas.

I take it that this has already been tried and tested and can be reliably

confirmed that it wouldn't not introduce a bug of any kind - has there

been evidence that PP had this code tested/working up to the point of

release where it was pulled? If not then there's significant risk in just

enabling them.

 

Regards,

Mark

889020[/snapback]

 

There is a "patch" utility that I have on a floppy along with "Resurect" (?) or something like that to restore you characters and patch the floppies to allow access to a few things. I would hope that once the cart is working completely that adding a switch of some sort to turn these areas on or off could be easy. Just guessing. If I recall it was only a few sectors on one disk.

 

And even if you never get the cart finished it has still been an enjoyable ride and I thank you for that.

Edited July 10, 2005 by kheller2

[Xebec's Demise]

Whether he originally intended to have backups in the disk based game or not, it would not be a good idea to add them into the cartridge without limitations.

 

Backups really are a crutch or form of cheating the game experience. If you always rely on backups to play Alternate Reality, then you will never really learn to play or appreciate Alternate Reality for the true challenge, complexity and game that it is.

 

If you don't know how to play, then read the FAQs, ask questions and practice with the disk based version where you can already make backups with a disk copier, edit your stats and possessions instantly, make emulator save states and resurrect your character with hex editors and other character editor programs.

 

Then, when you know how to play, you will see that you will be able to survive without backups and the other hacks.

 

After playing the game for a few months now recently, I can consistently survive on almost every new character, without any of the cheats.

 

If a game takes some people a few months to master, that is a decent balance of difficulty, others may take a year or longer depending on the amount played, but the longer the game offers a challenge, the longer people will play it. When using backups and cheats, the fun and challenge of playing Alternate Reality: The City does not last for more than a couple of weeks, if that.

 

One reason AR: The City is still being discussed today is that many people played the game without cheats and hacks for a long time and as a result developed a great appreciation for the game. Many people used backups, but they were very inconvenient and time consuming to make.

 

It would not be a good idea to make the cartridge version easier by adding in a backup system, especially now. For one thing, most of us are older and more experienced at playing games in general. And another reason is that a version that provides easy backups already exists on disk images, which can be easily downloaded and played on any computer in a matter of minutes if cheating and making backups is your thing.

Edited July 10, 2005 by Xebec's Demise

[Gunstar]

Holy shit!!! If that is a current address, then he lives about 40 min. away from me!!! I'll have to write him a letter and see if he responds. It would be cool to meet him in person and aske him some things. Maybe, if luck be a lady, he might even have some goodies (like source code to HIS version of the dungeon engine and other stuff) that he may be willing to share, especially with me, his biggest fan of all time. (and no matter what Xebic's Demise or anyone else says, I AM HIS BIGGEST FAN   no if's, and's or but's about that...   ) Who else is willing to spend 10 hours playing AR: The City on an 800 where it takes several minutes just to complete one encounter due to extra load times on EVERYTHING? Who else has not just come back to AR, but has been playing it continually, off and on through all three decades it's been around? Who else bought 4 disk drives JUST FOR AR? Who else added labels to their keyboard JUST FOR AR? Who else is upgrading their memory in the 8-bit JUST FOR AR? Who else...?

889024[/snapback]

Wow! I wish you would have told me how much of an AR fan you really are! You have said that you are a big fan, but special keyboard labels? You've got me beat there. But you should know your trivia, it's two decades not three. When I was a kid, I also played AR on an Atari 800 with a single 1050 drive - it was worth it!

 

40 Miles! I would drive that any day. I used to have an hour and a half commute to Mexico everyday from San Diego when I had a twin plant business down there. 40 miles is nothing.

 

If he writes back, ask him if he would give you an interview and take a video camera, tape recorder or large pad of paper!

 

That would be so awesome!

 

I did read somewhere that someone was keeping the source for his version of The Dungeon in his garage on floppy disks.

889032[/snapback]

I said "through all three decades"; 80's, 90's, 00's I have indeed been playing it THROUGH three decades. It will be THROUGH four decades once 2010 hits, which is totally different concept than "playing for last 20 years" which is also true. Maybe I should have used the word "covering" instead of "through" so you could understand better, but either way is correct.

 

I let you know, I will do an interview, but I don't have a video camera of any type, but I could take still pictures to go with the Q&A.

[Xebec's Demise]

Sorry, my error.

 

Your post was so exciting I must have read it too fast!

 

Oh man, that would be so great!

 

For me, 8-bit wise, this is on par with the 2600 landfill legend!

 

Maybe I'll have to buy a video camera and send it to ya for the Philip Price/AR interview. I don't think one has ever been done? Are there even any pictures of PP out there? I ran into an interview here:

 

http://www.dadgum.com/halcyon/BOOK/PRICE.HTM

 

(I guess many of these posts belong in one of the AR threads, sorry Wrathchild, I'll try to post this other stuff there from now on)

Edited July 10, 2005 by Xebec's Demise

[analmux]

Backups really are a crutch or form of cheating the game experience. If you always rely on backups to play Alternate Reality, then you will never really learn to play or appreciate Alternate Reality for the true challenge, complexity and game that it is.

 

Yes I will. If that is the thing that should happen to me, then let it be. I will at some point, when I feel strong enough for playing AR, stop making backups to see if I can survive in the 'real world'. I think there are many people playing AR, and a big part of them finds it really hard. So that's why many people don't agree with you....but to give them a chance to let them become strong and enjoy, I think you should allow backups.

 

And another reason is that a version that provides easy backups already exists on disk images, which can be easily downloaded and played on any computer.

 

I know. I even have the original disks at home of AR the city, and I could indeed do that, but I lost interest in the game (despite that fact that it has the most incredible graphics an a8bit game could have at that time) just because the disk swapping. I really think that making backups helps me like a trainer. And I think when people might in the near future enjoy a much faster play without disk swapping, then it would be nice when they can also enjoy making the backups; be it with a backup counter in the corner of the screen or something.

 

It just happens that when you choose your stats (on the game entrance) you risk having destructive stats i.e. stats that make you survive relatively short. From another point of view: with destructive stats you have a so called 'hard character': it's hard to survive with those stats. Then instead of restarting and creating a new character that's easier, you make a backup and play again with a hard character: this may give you more training than you might think.

 

But just admitting that I'm not that experienced in playing AR I don't really know other advantages of making backups, as you can always start over again with a new character if you like. The only reason for making backups then is that you have a really good/strong character that you don't want anything bad happening to it.

 

....but we're now still denying the other points I coughed up.

 

f.e. I'm still not convicted that the hidden parts should be included:

6.4 WHAT IS THIS 'SECRET AREA' IN THE CITY?

-------------------------------------------

 

The secret area is the area immideately east of the Arena, which isn't normally accessible

through the game, and has only been revealed by dumping the raw map data from the disk images

of the game. It contains three additional trainers (see section 4.3.8 for locations, but all

are, naturally, closed) and two additional guilds (see section 4.3.4 for details) which are

fully operational (making the total amount of guilds 14).

 

The trainers were most likely meant to be used in the Arena expanision disk, and the secret

area was probably going to be opened with it, or pherhaps accessible through it.

 

It is also interesting to note that there are yet additionally two trainers stored in the data

on the disks of The City which can't be found anywhere on the map.

-INFORMATION COURTESY OF JIM NORRIS

 

Getting ALL quotes straight (not only just MY quotes):

Then the first 2 paragraphs of this quote are written by the writer of the AR FAQ too, and is no decent evidence that it really was PP's (or companion's) intention to make them accessible in the future. According to the writer of the FAQ it's just 'likely'

 

But let's suppose so, then I could even continue this reasoning and claim that it was indeed intended to be accessible in future games like the Arena. But then we should play AR 'the Arena' instead, and NOT 'the city'.

Edited July 10, 2005 by analmux

[Xebec's Demise]

Well, once again, I would ask you, why would they be added into the game and fully functioning, if they were never intended to be used?

 

If only we could play The Arena, battling against other players characters or going through a gauntlet of increasingly difficult gladiators!

 

So do you agree or disagree with the cartridge version offering something new and allowing normal access to the two extra guilds that exist?

Edited July 10, 2005 by Xebec's Demise

[analmux]

Well, once again, I would ask you, why would they be added into the game and fully functioning, if they were never intended to be used?

 

If only we could play The Arena, battling against other players characters or going through a gauntlet of increasingly difficult gladiators!

 

So do you agree or disagree with the cartridge version offering something new and allowing normal access to the two extra guilds that exist?

889057[/snapback]

 

Answer is simple: I don't know why they are there, whereas you act as if you know. You just made up a reason for the existence. I explained that games like SMB3 and Mercenary also had hidden areas, only accessible by a patch or a hack, so it's a common thing. You know, some artists themselves think they made a mistake and take an eraser (or similar thing) or throw things away. Until now it still isn't sure if PP himself or the producer decided that certain parts should not be included in the game. Maybe PP himself didn't feel totally right about the extras he made, and disabled them on purpose. And the fact that it's still inside the game data doesn't say anything. Look at my previous posts. I've explained it all there....really. To add another weird fact: The header of the NES Super Mario Bros 2 ROM says that in fact it is 'Zelda'. Now what is THAT good for? ......because it was first supposed to be called Zelda? That's just ridiculous reasoning.

 

So until it's not 100% sure why there's hidden stuff in the AR code, I disagree with adding the extra guilds. If you manage to get into contact with PP one of these days (which I really would love to hear about), and he says that his real intention was to include the extras then I'd agree.

Edited July 10, 2005 by analmux

[RamonetB]

In case anyone is interested, my brothers and I made a Doom wad of AR the City complete with some classic (although not AR) Atari sound effects.  We never finished populating it but there are a few monsters.

888997[/snapback]

Any screenshots or files?

889021[/snapback]

 

 

Ask and ye shall receive:

 

The map!

 

Complete with toasty squares!

 

Took about two months to put together for the map alone. And yes, there are things that Philip's "engine" could do that the Doom engine can't. AR really pushes it to the limit. Some .... tricks were needed to get it all together. Some interesting tails if anyone is interested. It'd make a great multiplayer map, too bad Doom is limited to four players. We thought about porting it to Serious Sam engine (which can handle up to 32 players) but at the moment that idea is dead (mostly due to lack of a good Sam engine tutorial).

 

A few more if you want to see them. Let me know. I can upload the wad too if there's enough interest.

Edited July 10, 2005 by RamonetB

[+kheller2]

Alternate Reality CO The City and The Dungeon -- Transcript held in the CompuServe Gamers' Forum on September 16, 1987.... Guests from Intellicreations/Datasoft were John Butrovich, Dan Pinal, and Ken Jordan.

 

Begin Quote:

 

(Sean Kelly) [THE Sean Kelly?] : To anyone, today I just got a program that modifies my Atari City disk and opens up doors beyond those 8 or so doors on the N Main St. There's a mercenary guild back there! Why was this locked out before?

 

(John Butrovich) Phill had designed it to be unlocked by the Arena and Palace scenarios. The Palace scenario was envisioned to allow the player to modify the city-scape -- sort of a city commissioner or something. So he half-filled in those vacant lots with "shops" to be opened later.

 

End Quote.

 

 

Off topic but those people playing the Dungeon, make sure you have atleast version 2.1.

 

Also, taken from the AMP notes where Price talks about his history...

 

"....

 

Alternate Reality the City is created.

AMP 11.4 comes out with redefined character sets and fonts and full screen lyrics.

AR - the dungeon is half finished

AR - the dungeon is lost by Datasoft

I leave the game business, Take job as software analyst with Computer Sciences Corporation

 

...."

Edited July 13, 2005 by kheller2

[Xebec's Demise]

I am not claiming to know why they are there (if you must, make another quote, but I don't think you will be able to). I am only offering likely suggestions as to why they are there or blocked off. The most likely is that they were intended to be accessed with The Arena expansion since they are on the side of The Arena. But another good explanation is that it was a matter of leaving out a door, similar to the death traps, which are confirmed errors of creating extra doors or leaving an exit door out. Would you not agree?

 

Because the two extra guilds and extra map areas do not function any differently than any of the others, the gameplay would not be affected much other than offering the ability to raise your Strength and Stamina one point each. This is not much of a benefit to your character overall, but is something exciting to announce with the release of the cartridge - that is the purpose.

 

Adding them to the cartridge conversion would be as simle as changing a single wall tile on the map.

 

The reason I recommend this change is because it would not change gameplay other than two bonus stats and so that the cartridge has more to offer.

 

Try the new Alternate Reality: The City Cartridge conversion:

 

Access to two extra guilds; the Mercenary Guild and the Power Wizard Institute!

 

Access to Closed by Order of The Palace establishments such as:

 

House of Ill-Repute

Acrinimirils Gate

Maximum Casino

Jacks Fitness Academy

Davids Weapons Trainers

Armstrong Builders

Apollo Trainers

Grogs Weapons Trainers

Flash Weapons Trainers

 

Save your character to cartridge instantly to play another day!

 

No more disk loading and swapping, get into and out of the game in an instant!

Edited July 10, 2005 by Xebec's Demise

[+kheller2]

In case anyone is interested, my brothers and I made a Doom wad of AR the City complete with some classic (although not AR) Atari sound effects.  We never finished populating it but there are a few monsters.

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Any screenshots or files?

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Took about two months to put together for the map alone. And yes, there are things that Philip's "engine" could do that the Doom engine can't. AR really pushes it to the limit. Some .... tricks were needed to get it all together. Some interesting tails if anyone is interested. It'd make a great multiplayer map, too bad Doom is limited to four players. We thought about porting it to Serious Sam engine (which can handle up to 32 players) but at the moment that idea is dead (mostly due to lack of a good Sam engine tutorial).

 

A few more if you want to see them. Let me know. I can upload the wad too if there's enough interest.

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Oh yeah.. for example, we had to tie some actions together. For example, there is a limited number of doors, etc, in the Doom editors that can be operated independently of others. So, what we did was tie a few together. If you are in the NE corner of the city and open a door, another one somewhere else far away would open too.

 

It was also a pain to get the audio timing right. There seemed to be new doom engines and patches every few months that set timings off on occasion.

 

But I digress.. this is about the AR Cart.. not AR Doom. AR was such a big part of my youth and apparently influeced the rest of the family as well.

 

Oh.. in the Doom map above, just SE of the Arena you can see the unlocked areas that we included in the AR Doom wad.

Edited July 10, 2005 by kheller2