Just finished playing the pack. Even though I've already played the expansion three times before, this felt like a new experience thanks to the polished up beta maps and the added stuff all around.

Out of the ten maps that come from the beta, I liked Soledad most - although Merc Shipping Lane coupled with Cryox is a close follower. The expanded Velora Temple is greatly appreciated too.

Thanks for the all the hard work, Lightning_Hunter. 

I'm glad you guys are enjoying it so far. DaZ, I agree that the RTNP Grenade Launcher and Rocket Launcher are not as good looking as Unreal weapons, but they are official expansion weapons and I didn't want to remove them. The quality is the same as the original RTNP game. However, I do disagree about the quality of the CAR! It is my absolute favorite weapon in RTNP. What skill are you playing on, btw? 

The issue I have with the CAR is that while you are hosing something down with bullets it seems to be stunned or something and very rarely fights back, so what ends up happening is that you stand there and spray bullets at something until it dies, its just less fun than the other weapons for me at least.

Just after I made my above post I played some more of the game and got my 8ball launcher so it's all good now :) Is the Unreal minigun in this pack? 

Yes, all the Unreal weapons are in the pack, including the Minigun. The RTNP weapons are just extra. The CAR is definitely powerful, but the monsters aren't as stupid in 'Unreal' skill when you hose them down with bullets as they are in medium. If you really want a challenge, try playing in 'Unreal' skill with the Limbo Difficulty Mutator added to the mutator list (found in the new game window). This mutator is included with the conversion, and is recommended for veteran players. It is basically one skill above 'Unreal'. Personally, I feel that even the Unreal skill is too easy, which is why I included the mutator. For me, it is the perfect challenge. 

Btw DaZ, I noticed in the video playthrough you always browse through the item list to select the translator to read messages. Just so you know, you can bind a key to the translator in Options->Preferences->Controls, under the "useful" section (might be near the bottom of the list). That way, you don't have to select it in the list every time to read messages (gets annoying after a while.) 

DaZ, now that I'm watching more of your videos, I definitely think Medium is far too easy for you. The reason the CAR is cheating for someone like you is that you are an accurate shot, which means you can pretty much use the CAR the whole game with the reduced number of enemies and the extra ammo in medium skill. In Unreal skill, you should have much less CAR ammo to use. In fact, when I use the Limbo Mutator, I'm often forced to use the Dispersion pistol against the weaker enemies, so that weapons like the CAR can be used against tougher foe. 

my copy of unreal gold on win7, and it runs like hell , everything is so fast , what the heck??? 

First of all, this conversion will not work in Unreal Gold. It will only work in Unreal Tournament. Second, if you are experiencing the "super speed" bug in Unreal Tournament, visit this thread here:
http://www.unrealsp.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=339

This is a problem many people have with the game, but it can be fixed. 

sorry, the problem is not with your mod , but with the game itself

i fix it right now, just turn on vsync via NV control panel

______

atm i dont have UT , but i have to check this mod definitely later anyway

thanks 

Yeah you could be on to something there, I figured I would go through on medium as I haven't played Unreal for years. I remembered it being fairly tough back in the day but I guess not :)

Just got done with the nexus level, I think it was nexus, with all the nali prisoners getting owned... That place was a maze, got lost a few times. Good fights though! 

is making me nostalgic for HEXEPHET
my fav 

didnt you have another mappack in the works? Or was that abandoned? 

Not for Unreal. I was making a 32-map megawad for Doom2 (finished 14 maps), but that one may never be completed. I did also create the Frikbot waypoint pack for Quake, in case that is what you saw. 

I'm enjoying the video playthroughs, DaZ. Even though you are too skilled for Medium, I think it's more practical to show a video playthrough that way. Otherwise, you would have to search around for more ammo and health in the harder skills, taking up more video time. You would also die more often, making it more difficult to record a video. I cracked up at the way part 2 ended, lol. 

15 enemies per 15 minute of running trough a giant map. Unreal. 

Indeed, Unreal is definitely not a spam-fest game. It's more about the atmosphere and the build up before each battle. However, the AI is smart enough and difficult enough that the action is a-plenty, at least for me. Try playing with the Limbo difficulty mutator to make the game a super challenge. The first time you see the enemy run faster than you is quite a scare. Of course, the first level is merely a mood-setter and does not have many battles. You have to get to the later levels. There are times when you have multiple monsters attacking from different directions strategically.

I'm a fan of all the old games for different reasons. Doom is fun for the non-stop hordes of monsters. Quake has fewer monsters than Doom, but slightly better AI and more atmosphere. Unreal has the least amount of monsters, but the best AI, and the best atmosphere and story. Each game is on my top list. 

Whoops. That last post was made by me. Heh. 

Just watched part 5 of your video playthroughs, DaZ. Thanks again for these. I noticed you are missing almost all of the secrets, but I'm guessing you are just running through the pack for the video playthrough. It's fun to see how someone goes about exploring this for the first time. I would love to see you playing this in Unreal skill, but I don't expect you to upload another video playthrough of it. Hehe. 

are the bane of my existence :)

I cant find the secrets in my own levels, never mind other peoples! 

We don't need no stinking secrets. 

It's almost cute how he tenaciously keeps walking past half of everything. 

I haven't watched the videos. If an average player can't complete a SP FPS game on a medium skill setting without relying upon secrets then the game has a serious design flaw (or you just really, really, suck at playing the game but that's a whole different ball of wax).

Don't get me wrong. I liked Unreal and this Na Pali pack, and the game is well balanced for the average player but honestly, secrets are supposed to be an "Extra" for exploring but should never ever be a requirement for completing the game.

One thing that I liked about Quake, and to a lesser extent Doom 1 & 2, (and that gave them more replay value in my opinion) was that while finding the secrets was never required, the level transitions taunted you into exploring the level again to find them even when the eventual reward might not be worth the risk in finding them in some cases.

Games like Unreal don't do that. Today's games have brought that back in the form of achievements. Like them or not the secret areas (and letting you know when you missed them) were the forerunners of what we see today. 

Quaketree, I understand some of what you said, but secrets are NOT required to complete any level in this pack, or the original Unreal (otherwise, DaZ would be in trouble for his playthroughs). Hexen is the only game I know of that requires you to find secrets to progress. Unreal has no such thing.

You are correct about Unreal not labeling the secrets. They merely give you an extra sense of satisfaction once you find them. In fact, I was still finding secrets in the original Unreal years after playing it for the first time. It�s a huge sense of satisfaction discovering a secret for the first time, after not knowing about its existence after so long. I like that Doom and Quake label the secrets, but I also like that Unreal does NOT label them. Unreal really isn't an arcade-style game like Doom and Quake. It would make no sense for the game to tell you when a secret has been discovered; you just know when you've found one, and you get some sort of reward. It would be a slap in the face for a game like Unreal, which gives you a sense of loneliness and seclusion on an alien world, to tell you that �you�ve found a secret area!�.

DaZ only got lost once in all the video playthroughs. I don't understand why you think the secrets are mandatory; they are absolutely optional. In fact, the secrets sometimes give you less than they do in Doom and Quake... 

DaZ, just watched part 6. Do you ever use the save game feature? I just noticed I've never seen you save the game. Does this mean you always start the level over again when you die?

For some reason the sound was a little distorted in part 6. I've also noticed a few other strange bugs in your game, like a few black masked textures. You should open the console, and type "preferences". This will open a small window outside the game. Go down to "rendering", and select the driver you are using. Look for an option called "MaskedTextureHack", and set it to True. If the option is not there, then you are using an old driver for the game. you can download an awesome OpenGL driver here, which makes the game look much better:
http://www.cwdohnal.com/utglr/utglr37.zip
Also in the rendering options, make sure "VolumetricLighting" is set to true. This enables fog effects.

Looking forward to part 7!

One really odd bug I saw twice in your videos is the seeds not growing Nali Fruit plants. They just sat there, and you couldn't pick them up or anything. How strange. 

Yeah I noticed the sound issue after uploading :( Part 7 is fine however (I double checked).

I try not to bring up game related UI during a playthrough as it breaks the flow a bit I feel, when I die I simply stop recording and replay the level up until where I was, and then save before starting up the recorder again.

As for rendering, I'm using the dx10 renderer that some dude released (I can't remember when) but I'll have a look through the advanced settings and check for that switch. The volumetric effects are on, they are my favourite part of the Uengine, even by today's standards they look fantastic.

No idea about the fruit seeds, I just assumed you could only grow one at a time :)

Got to say, I'm loving the area I'm in at the moment in the game, lots of natural rocks and huge valleys, with that classic Unreal rock texture that must have been used in countless custom maps and games for years. I'm still not seeing any obvious transitions between RtN/Unreal beta maps, they still flow really nicely together. I've experienced some annoying areas where I got lost (mostly in the temple styled maps) but for the most part everything is good. Solid Unreal fun.