Forgotten Dungeons [EN]

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Mattanja
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Part 8: "Brave Old World, Part I"

Today we are going to look back at the very beginning of the order: A time where "The Holy Order" was still called "The Paladin Order" and didn't reside in the suntemple but the paladin fortress. The first concept arts of the suntemple were posted in 2013, so one can assume that the fortress was already discarded at that point, as the fortress is obviously the previous residence of the Order.
But I should probably present the fortress first, so you know what I'm talking about: The Palading Fortress is a huge stronghold, that is not only inaccessible ingame but not even in the game files anymore. At Enderals release though, it was still there and saved in a cell as a backup. That of course means that the fortress is no longer part of the landscape it was once surrounded by, but is floating on a few big rocks and cliffs.
[+] Fortress
BildBildBildBildBildBild
Despite its impressing size, the fortress seems a little depressing and not very welcoming, which fits the theme of a military organisation like the paladin order much better than the suntemple. Some of the assets that were used for the walls and towers have been recycled for the fortifications of Ark, like the corridors inside the walls.

The inside of the fortress reminds a lot more of the suntemple and the structure and naming of the rooms offers some parallels as well.
[+] The Main Hall
BildBildA place for important meetingsBildSneaking below the ceilingBild
[+] The Chronicum
BildBildBildPretty conspicuous: The Holy Order's symbol (eye and sword) in stone, that can be found at different locations throughout the fortress but not anywhere in the game as far as I know. Bild
[+] The Emporium
The emporium apparently serves as a place to train combat skills Bild
[+] The Classrooms
Intact: BildAnd one after Yero went nuts: Bild
[+] The Silencium
Bild
[+] The Dining Room
BildBild
Here the prophet has actually got a room for himself:
[+] Prophets Room
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Besides there are a few more simple rooms that are not furnished and a castle keep, that mainly consists of a lot of stairs that probably lead on top of the large central tower.

Definitely interesting to see what the residence of the Order was before the suntemple was created, even though I'm glad that they chose the suntemple, which is in my opinion a lot more interesting and fits the order better. Besides that I wondered where the Paladinfortress would have been located, but I am not really sure about it. The mountains next to Ark would fit more or less, but looking at old screenshots I couldn't find anything that looked like such a big fortress to me.
Talking about old screenshots of Ark, I have a little bonus for you: There is a cell, where an old version of Ark was stored, that I find very reminiscent of Solitude (probably because of the assets). Despite all buildings floating, you can see the structure of the city pretty well.
[+] Ark
BildBildBild
And while I'm at it: There also is a very old and beautiful version of the undercity as well ;)
[+] Undercity
BildBild
[+] Cell-IDs
Only the old Undercity is accessible in the current version of the game:
  • LowerCityStart
Buccaneer
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Very nice. You asked the same question I had, speculation on where the Paladin Forest and its fortress might have been located.
Mattanja
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I actually did find something, but forgot to add it: The cell to the northwest of Old Uskasarak is called 'PaladinCastle' so that would probably be the former location of the castle. On the screenshot it would be somewhere in these dense clouds above Ark, which could explain why it is not visible.
Buccaneer
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Thanks, probably in the vicinity of the back door out of Grel's Grave?
badgesareus
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I just had a stray thought; I wonder how much space on my hard drive is being taken up by all these cells that were never used but are still there. I know absolutely nothing about the technical side of all this, but is there some reason all these unused cells weren't purged?
Stefanie
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The hard disk space required is very small (usually in the kb range), the main part of the gamesize needs textures, meshes and audio. Of these, however, nothing is extra in these cells, but mainly skyrim content
(Compare pure house mods)
And in some patches, some of those cells were deleted, I suppose.
(Even Skyrim has some unused cells)
Buccaneer
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Yeah, it looks like about 85% of the space are just the textures, meshes and audio files in vanilla Enderal (mostly in .bsa). With all of the replacer mods I have (meshes and textures), it can reach 90%.
dyslexicfaser
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10.05.2018 09:21Mattanja hat geschrieben:
Part 3: "Red fragments of the past"
The Rock Mist Mine
A large convoluted mining complex including a tavern and a loading dock:
[+] Mine and loading dock
BildBildBildBildBild
[+] Tavern The Thirsty Miner
BildBild
The interesting thing about the Rock Mist Mine ist that the entrance to the mine is actually still in the game: The Miner Cabin at the Scout Tower you visit with Jespar on your way to Ark was meant to be the entrance to the mine and the minute book you can find there inside reports of the mine and its collapse. Entering the mine is impossible as the door leading down is blocked by rubble, though it seems you were once supposed to be able to enter and explore it.

As you can see on the pictures, all three dungeons share these red crystals and I was wondering if there was a meaning to them. Maybe there was a connection to the red madness or they are just assets that were discarded early in the development and I'm reading a little too much into them :dumb:
Neat! I haven't found any correlation between crystal colors yet, beyond the thing all crystals share as indicators of Pyrean ruins.
05.06.2018 08:51Mattanja hat geschrieben:
Part 6: "The Fist From The Water"
But where does the strange name of the oasis come from? Right in its center there is a huge rock in the water, that doesn't really fit the surrounding landscape and that has a lot of crystals growing on its surface. The form could be interpreted as some kind of fist and the 'glass' is presumably caused by the crystals, so the locals probably gave it this name. On one side of the rock there is a hole that you can reach via a footbridge and that lets you see inside of the rock where some kind of small shrine was built.
[+] The Glass Fist
BildBildBild
That looks rad!

Was the giant rock one of those weird-ass small gods that keep turning humans into brainwashed followers? Like the crazy mage hiding in the grotto in the Powder Desert down the beach from the fruit ship, or Kor.
Eledwen
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Wow, all of these are amazing and fascinating! :D
Mattanja
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Welcome back! As I was pretty occupied with my bachelor thesis lately and was on vacation afterwards, I did not find the time to continue the series. But after almost two months, the next chapter is finally here :D

Part 9: "Manual of Trailers and Visions"
Spoilers for the story of Enderal!

Remember the first videos and teasers for Enderal? The older they get, the more often you see landscapes and dungeons that cannot be found in the game. Especially for landscapes it is mostly impossible to find their remains, as the world space was most likely just altered and thus there are no backups of them. For some dungeons it is possible though...

The as far as I know first video, that was ever released about Enderal showed a few places that can be identified as older versions of still existing locations. But there are also two rather distinctive ones that cannot be found in the game: A cave and directly afterwards a large room containing a magic fire, where a scripted scene takes place. As it turns out, both belong to the same temple complex, that seems to have played a central role in the intro of Enderal:

We enter the temple via an entrance in the water an end up in a small cave. From there a circular shaft leads upwards to a larger room, that we already know from the video. There are more shafts ending here that feed a small creek, which flows through the small cavern and disappears on the other side.
[+] Entrance And First Room
BildBildBildBildBildBild
Jumping on platforms, boards, ledges and pillars, we reach the highest shaft right beneath the ceiling, leading to a small hall deeper in the temple. There we meet some spiders and stumble upon a tabled with an old inscription.
[+] Second Room
BildBild
"There is still hope. We have done everything and hope that it will suffice. Nevertheless, this is part of our message to everything that is yet to come.
The pattern was never broken. The society grew, civilization consolidated, surpassing even its gods and vain rulers, and passed without leaving anybody behind, or even a message where whole nations disappeared."

I just used Google Translator for the Inscriptions, so they may sound a little odd, but if anyone wants to provide me with the screenshots of the english version, I'll be happy to include them :)
Apparently a message from an old civilization, that is just trying to understand the cycle. In the following corridors we find to more tablets, that analyse the events surrounding the cycle and speculate on its causes and consequences:
[+] Inscriptions
BildBildBildBild
Inscription 1:
"There do not seem to be any global signs of war, disease or annihilation. They were just ... gone. It is the shadow of existence. A dominant constant. Always the same pattern. The patterns are too similar to be coincidental. Hope is part of the pattern. Where there are high hopes are always great fears. Hope is an ideal reflective surface for the fears of a whole nation. This fear inevitably leads to the power struggles typical of our society. For gods or against them. For rulers or against them. To be able to endure the fear ... control is needed."
Inscription 2:
"This is the reason for the recurring power struggles of our world, which must draw in the old patterns. Using, manipulating and controlling people to maintain their own hopes. The pattern is passed on to societies, religions or whole nations. The restrictive behavior under which one civilization has suffered is passed on to others. Breaking this pattern could change everything, creating a whole new society. There is still hope..."
We finally reach the large hall we saw in the video: In the middle of the room surrounded by columns there are four golden chairs arranged around a blue fire.
[+] Hall
BildBildBild
Unlike in the video, nothing happens when we approach the fire. Even though the triggers and characters still seem to exist, the necessary scripts probably vanished together with the quest that took place here.
According to the Creation Kit, the two characters you were supposed to meet are called 'the emissary' and 'the leader'. Those names remind me quite a lot of the roles, that are created shortly before the cleansing, even though 'emissary' doesn't seem to describe all those people, but rather appears to be an old term for the prophet. Whereas the leader exists in the cycle of Enderal and is embodied by Tealor Arantheal. The non-existing quest here has the name 'MQ00', which suggests that it was the very first of the game. It is of course impossible to say if something was supposed to happen before that point and it would e.g. take place after the scene on the ship, but I find it remarkable that the player apparently was provided with a lot of information about the cycle right at the beginning of the game and was supposed to meet two protagonists of a past (?) cycle (probably in a vision).
Another question I was asking myself is, if the fire in the centre of the room was maybe even a beacon, that still looked very different in this version, because in the intro of the final game you find one in the first temple as well... But I haven't found anything to support this theory, so it is pure speculation.

I'm getting lost in details though, we haven't even reached the end of the temple :D
We continue at the other end of the room: We roam through a few halls, find the sword "Klassenwahl" (german for class choice) and end up in a part of the temple that is completetly overrun by spiders.
Walking is hardly possible due to all the cobwebs and besides a few smaller spiders we also meet a huge spider with no name. As it turns out, the spider is more or less immortal because it is revived every time it dies :shock:
[+] Spiders
BildBildBild
We leave the monstrosity behind and flee further into the spider infested cave, until we reach a dead end at a raging underground river.
[+] The River
BildBild
As we jump into the cold water though, the dead end turns into our way out, because we end up in some kind of sewer system of the temple, which actually leads us back to the room that marked our entrance to the temple. This time we follow the creek to the other side of the small cavern and reach an underground lake, where the exit takes us back to the surface.
[+] To The Exit
BildBildBildBild
This is actually a very interesting and in some parts beautiful dungeon, it is almost a pity that it is not in the game anymore, even though I do quite like the temple of the intro right now. The inscriptions give some interesting insights as well, despite the phrasing being a little stiff in some parts, which is probably due to the dungeon being cut out at some point and the text not being revised.

A little later in the development of the game (2014) the story teaser "Ashes" was released. It was meant to transport the mood and theme of the story and shows gloomy scenes in caves filled with victims of the cleansing. All those apparently cannot be found in the game any more, although the corpses are reminiscent of those in the city of a thousand floods. In the release version of Enderal, the dungeon was still there, despite being in an earlier stadium than shown in the teaser, because some of the places look either different, unfinished or are not findable at all:
[+] Victims of the Cleansing
BildBildBild
[+] Entrance
BildBild
[+] The Old City
BildBildBild
Another interesting detail I came across here is this SureAI logo:
[+] Logo
Bild
I really think I have seen it somewhere before, but I could not find the logo in any trailer or video... The style reminded me of the logo that you see in the intro of the nehrim's menu, so maybe there was a similar ingame intro planned for Enderal.
[+] Cell-IDs
Only for the temple, the old city only exists in the release version.
  • 00temple
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