Exult Forum

I tend to have pretty decent recall about many of the book/scroll locations (not so much the Ophidian ones, though), if you need any help, let me know.

Keep an eye on this thread and I'll post more findings. Thanks!

Looks like that Ophidian room in the north of Claw is where other NPCs are teleported if you cheat-move near them during the opening lightning storm in the release.

hmm, what do you mean?

Start a new game.
Wait for the teleport storm to start and take away a companion.
Use F3 to teleport to the Goblin King's hut.
The storm will hit him in his bed, and move him to this Claw room.
He will teleport back if you teleport to that room.

Not sure what part of the Usecode does this. I think it also can hit the rabbit on the mainland strip of the Western coast as well, but it doesn't appear in the ruins because its a temp. creature or there is room for him 80 tiles East?

never did that, odd

I remember the dirty Dupre songs!! I was looking at the usecode stuff with a hex editor YEARS ago and somehow came across that and then I never could find it again, wondering if I had really seen it haha.

Excellent work man, so much interesting stuff uncovered about that game!

Some stuff worth noting about Claw...

The staircase on Claw that goes to the dream realm in the final links up properly to the Moonshade catacombs near the overrun ranger station, though only the one way (going back leads to furnace).

For the most part the remnants under the mountains are the same as the final, but there are a few extra wall pieces here and there and what looks to be part of a copy of the gunpowder lab's main ground floor room (objects and eggs only), and an extra egg spawning cats.

The beach is also lined with test triggers for the various serpent voice clips.


If only we could get a build a few months earlier.. this and other stuff around the game world honestly feels like its just after when they realized they had to cut back and stuff is in the process of being deleted or retooled.

Hi Crysta, I sent you an email.

I'd love to make Claw reachable in a mod, perhaps by powering on the Catacombs pumps. But I'm not sure how to make the water pull back.

I wonder what Programmers' Island was.

Here's a neat little bit of code


void LEOPARD_02F2 shape#(0x2F2) ()
{
// Function: &LEOPARD 0009;
if (!(event == 0x0007)) goto labelLEOPARD_02F2_00A6;
if (!(UI_get_npc_id(item) == 0x000F)) goto labelLEOPARD_02F2_003A;
gflags[marstendead] = true;
UI_clear_item_flag(item, 0x001D);
labelLEOPARD_02F2_003A:
if (!(UI_get_npc_id(item) == 0x0010)) goto labelLEOPARD_02F2_005E;
gflags[standarrdead] = true;
UI_clear_item_flag(item, 0x001D);
labelLEOPARD_02F2_005E:
if (!(UI_get_npc_id(item) == 0x0011)) goto labelLEOPARD_02F2_0082;
gflags[shazzanadead] = true;
UI_clear_item_flag(item, 0x001D);
labelLEOPARD_02F2_0082:
if (!(UI_get_npc_id(item) == 0x0012)) goto labelLEOPARD_02F2_00A6;
gflags[harnnadead] = true;
UI_clear_item_flag(item, 0x001D);
labelLEOPARD_02F2_00A6:
return;
}

i.e, if you kill a leopard with an id number on this list it sets a (character)dead global flag and clears the Tournament flag on the leopard. There are matching scripts for the bear and wolf objects as well.

Of course, there aren't any scripts that check if these flags are set, aside from the Caladin gets turned into bear cutscene.

Okay, not even going to try to remember image tags, so sorry about the links. This is all just for the sake of documenting what shreds of Claw are left.

Right, years back I posted this elsewhere on the board;



Claw with roofing removed and the chunks replaced, for visibility, with comments for a sign and for teleporter destinations. I couldn't find a copy of the earlier version back then.

So now;



Claw from the early build, with same, minus teleporter quotes. Its worth noting that the lone complete passage has teleporters in this build, and some teleporter pads that I expect were temporary. The egg on the south pad is completely undefined with 0 coordinates, but the other two have specific locations and heights set. Also, the unused tower section with a hallway lined with cat heads and a roof with a telescope on the north end of the SI map links to just next to the corner piece to the right of the powderkegs, though only one-way in this build.

And also;



This time, also Claw with the roofs intact (for the most part.. the northernmost and southernmost mountain roofs are still deleted here because I was pasting over the other image). Why do this? Because with the more extensive (and not cut off for the cheat room) remnants in this build, this gives an at least general idea of what sections of the mountain were used at some point, or were planned to be used depending on how you view how things were done. Apologies for all the weather effects and clouds but its a pain to get them to stop.

Worth noting that what looks like the gunpowder lab ruins.. I dunno, it might be that it was intended to be here at some point in the past, given the proximity to the Claw gunpowder kegs, and was just copied at some point prior to this build. The sign is all that remains of it in the final.

There's also some similar code in the releas for the other clan animals. Cool finds, both of you!

Huh, strange... the leopard and bear scripts aren't there at all in the base game without Silver Seed installed, I wonder why that snuck back in?

Perhaps from the loss of the final source code in the Origin server crash?

I'll have to find a copy.

Not too much in the Beta about the glowing dead cat:

labelJENDON_0434_19F8:
case "dead cat" (remove):
if (!UTIL_0962(PARTY, 1, 892, ANY, 30))
say("@Errrgh! Take that foul thing out of my inn!@");
say("@Business is bad enough without thee driving away the few customers I have with that stench!@");
abort;

labelJENDON_0434_1A3D:
say("@It glowed, didst thou say?@");
say("@It sounds as if thou hast been listening to Olon's wild tales!@");
gflags[331] = true;

labelHARNNA_0443_1ADF:
case "dead cat" (remove):
if (!UTIL_0962(PARTY, 1, 892, ANY, 30))
say("@The poor little thing! I do not recognize it as the cat of anyone I know, thank goodness!@");

labelHARNNA_0443_1B19:
say("@How would I know where thy dead cat has come from?@");

labelBUCIA_040D_17B6:
case "dead cat" (remove):
if (!UTIL_0962(PARTY, 1, 892, ANY, 30))
UI_error_", "has dead cat");
say("@Thou hast what...?@");
say("@Get out of here with that thing! Oh!@");
gflags[215] = true;
abort;

labelBUCIA_040D_180C:
say("@Poor thing! I wonder how it died. Peacefully, I hope.@");
say("@To learn about strange animals, thou mightest inquire of the Magister. Fedabiblio is the master of much knowledge.@");
gflags[223] = true;

labelSCROLL_031D_108E:
if (!(gflags[514] && (!gflags[532])))
", "A sorry-looking dead cat that glows.");
labelSCROLL_031D_10A9:
if (!gflags[532])
", "A dead cat from a mysterious dungeon called Claw.");

Does the code give any clues as to which person would end up with it? Like.. is that last chunk of scroll text near other text for items a specific character gets from the storm?

Iolo has a dead cat's corpse in his backpack after he's hit by the storm. I wonder if it was somehow related to him being an "enchanter"?

In the release, there's some variables but no other code for Frigidazzi's goblin messenger. So I looked into the Beta's code and found she barks "Lok Trafo!" and was apparently supposed to create a scroll then set a gflag, but it's not clear which scroll since the quality is never set.

In the release, both books of DRINKING SONGS DUPRE TAUGHT ME should be on Olon's corpse if he has been met, which also adds two additional bottles of Fawnish Ale:

if (UI_get_item_flag(OLON, MET))
{
new_gear = UI_add_cont_items(OLON, 1, SHAPE_BOTTLE, 5, FRAME_FAWNISH_ALE, 0);
new_gear = UI_add_cont_items(OLON, 1, SHAPE_BOTTLE, 5, FRAME_FAWNISH_ALE, 0);
new_gear = UI_add_cont_items(OLON, 1, SHAPE_BOOK, 124, 4, 0);
new_gear = UI_add_cont_items(OLON, 1, SHAPE_BOOK, 125, 19, 0);
}

If someone can confirm this was in the DOS game, it's a valid bug. Sadly, one that was just closed for a related issue. :/

Nope, tested it thoroughly, and it only spawns the two extra bottles of ale in the original.

If he's given a bag first, will those items go into it?

Yes! I gave him a bag and the books showed up in it.

Maybe we can get that into SIfixes with a simple map edit of Olon?

The troll drum frame and regular drum frame are reversed between the beta and the release. Didn't check the Usecode yet.

As part of analyzing the shapes, I found that the six naked Avatar shapes were complete in the earlier assigned numbers, but for some reason re-added as the last six shapes, and the earlier ones somewhat truncated (missing frames). None of these have bodies, so in the release the last six revert to the clothed but dead female blonde Avatar.

It might be nice to complete the six by created new corpse shapes for them. Then they could be used a bit.

Hazard has different death speech:

say("@Argh! Thou thinkist thou can save thy precious Gwani by slaying me? Fool ! Thou hast the brain of a headless ! *There will always be those who want Gwani pelts. And where there is gold, there will be trappers. Even thou recognized that fact. *I laugh at thee, even as I lie here dying in mine own blood. The Gwani are doomed I tell thee, doomed like a little rabbit in my trap...@");

Capitalism, indeed.

Just to list out some of the Beta's Sprites that did not make it to the release:
Beta's Sprite 20 is a red version of the release's Sprite 56.
Sprite 35 looks like a cold attack, semi-replaced in the release with orphaned sections of other sprites.
Sprite 46, the turtle rising bubbles, is not all-blue but mostly clear.
Sprite 47, the Blink effect, does not have the same blue/white ring but a thin golden one.
Sprite 48 is an increasing size serpent head, replaced in the release with a serpent on a pedestal.

Hmm, some of the shapes in the Beta were in the pre-expansion release. So I hope to dig a bit and find more differences between the Beta, the English-language release, Spanish-language release, and English-language expansion.

The "Keep Out" weapons lab on the Beta version of Claw has burst arrows in one of the barrels there, and uses key quality 123 on the locked door. That same key quality is found on the Goblin King, Pomdirgun. There is a male ghost that spawns inside, similar to the gunpowder house.

This is purely conjecture, but could this ghost be a still-working arrow maker, creating burst arrows for the Goblins? Thus the key to Pomdirgun's power is not just his intelligence, but his superior weapons that allowed him to take over the horde? All he would need to supply would be raw materials, and prevent other Goblins from interfering or stealing the cache. The forces of Chaos would likely to have hidden forges and fletchers, both before and during the war.

This idea may line up with the occasional piles of burst arrows found among the Goblins. If Shamino's burst arrows were the only ones they had access to, wouldn't the novelty factor have caused them to be used up already?

I haven't checked Beta usecode eggs 0x797 and 0x7A4 yet.

Sounds good