SI bad ending...

[Chris Schumacher]

A very long time ago, someone on the Prodigy Ultima bulletin board posted the
text from what they claimed was the "bad ending" of Serpent Isle, in which the
Avatar was unable to fix the imbalance. I remember that the last words of it were
"until not ever dreams remain" (or something to that effect).
Over the course of the years, I've taken apart every file in SI and looked for this
ending, but it doesn't seem to exist. And even if it did, how were you supposed to
get it? It isn't like U7 where there's a moment where you can go one way or the
other.
The only place where this COULD exist would be in the original SI files, before the
Silver Seed add-on... Does anyone have these files, and if so, could you pop into
the Usecode and look for this? It might even be in another file, since it was an
Endgame...

Also... Did anyone ever scan in the pictures from the back of the Serpent Isle box;
you know the ones that had the party with Cantra and Kalista in it (and the character icons were actually carrying SHIELDS?!)

[Max aka Moscow Dragon]

Kalista?

Priestess from Fawn?

[Chris Schumacher]

Yeah, that's why I think it's a mockup, probably made with a graphics program.
Back on the Prodigy Hex Guild (in 1993) someone (it may have even been Troy
Forrest) pointed out that the screenshot had to have been faked because the
game was incapable of having a building like the one we see (with the glass windows
on the second floor). However, I remember reading an interview with Warren Spector, and the part about being able to see the shields was planned. In fact, you were
even supposed to be able to see their armor, but I think that probably got dropped
because of lack of space/memory.

[Max aka Moscow Dragon]

LB's castle in U7BG has transparent windows on the third floor.
Surely the engine can handle this.

[Chris Schumacher]

Hmm... I wonder what it was then, there was something wrong with the building
that lead this person to believe that it was a fake... Does anyone have a scan of
this picture?

[Paulon]

http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~paulryan/Misc/SIOld.jpg

Looking at it as an amateur, the only thing which might suggest a fake to me is the direction of the turtle, but even that could be explained by removal of excess unused graphics from the final release of the game.

(I also included the shot of the old paperdoll stuff for the curious. It lacks the decoration of the final release.)

[Chris Schumacher]

Hey, thanks! Good job too, I can magnify it without distortion...
Some observations:

The party seems to consist of:
Avatar
Dupre
Cantra
Shazzana
Kalista
Petra

I can't figure out who the woman with the Serpent Staff is.

The armors they are fighting seem to be wielding Glass Swords. Ouch!
Also, the two-handed sword is floating above the Avatar's hand, suggesting it's
pasted on.
Also, what are the swords that Petra/Dupre are using, as well as Shazanna's?
They don't look familar.

[Andy]

I remember one of the developers saying that the screenshot were just composit art.

I'm pretty sure the woman with the staff is an unproduced character. Given the garb, I'd say she (or maybe even he) was supposed to be a dark monk leader of some sort. There had to be more of a story to the dark monks considering the Avatar would periodically get zapped by them in SI. Yet another unproduced plot point.... Yes, I do whine about that, and I will continue to do so :0)

They kept the "false" screenshots on the backs of the boxes until the releases of the collections. The "actual screens may vary" saved them from false advertising.

The screenshots do put a more adventurous tone to the game. Shame they couldn't put out (ahem).

[Darksheer]

yeah, when i got that game a long time ago, i was wondering where that scene came in.

[RMajere]

when you hold a haliberd doesn't it go the other way in the paperdoll image?

[Dominus]

nope, this way. but the paperdoll image on that picture is not the same as in the game.

btw, anyone has an idea where that second picture is taking place on SI?

[Darksheer]

it would be cool if the exult team would put that in the game where the shields and armour u're wearing show.

[Oblivious]

It might not be incredibly hard to do. As you can see, those shields are just the wall decoration shields. THe trick would be getting a backwards one. And I haven't paid attention, does U7 have separate left and right sprites?

BTW, if you put the crystal ball in your character's hand in SI, it will appear in their sprite's hand, more or less.

BTW#2, I could swap the color palette to make a blue chest to implement for the ice chest.....

[Max aka Moscow Dragon]

>does U7 have separate left and right sprites?

No, it flips and rotates them in runtime.

BTW - you will need to define hotspots for shields in WIHH.DAT to allow drawing them on sprites.

[Oblivious]

Hey, I leave the programming to the programming literate. I just do the art.

[drcode]

You'd need to use ExultStudio to add that information, but it doesn't even support that yet.

Actually, shield-in-hand info. should probably go in a new file, and a simple script-driven tool could do the job. Shields, and even more, armour, would probably need a lot more frames added so they display right as you move.

[Darksheer]

yeah, that would require some kind of UO-style programming, which is different from U7's. but it can be done....