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Old 06-12-17, 01:51   #1
charmedangelin
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Default Why is VCI so buggy?

Did the developers not test these levels? I am replaying this game and I have experienced crash bugs and now I am experiencing the bug in red alert where the grate in the top corner of the room doesn't open. I have reloaded old saves and nada, I could download a past that point, but I don't really want to do that. All I want to know is why are these levels so buggy? There are tons of points in the walk through that are highlighted in red to mark game breaking bugs. Did Core just get lazy on this at the end because the team working on this was called to work on AOD? So buggy so bad. It's a shame because I love the VCI levels in terms of atmospher and gameplay, but man are these levels filled with bugs.
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Old 06-12-17, 03:54   #2
Boobandie
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The game was made in a very short time by very few people. It was beta tested but it's highly likely they didn't have time to fix the ones still present in the game, or they weren't discovered in time.

Honestly Chronicles should have been made by the San Francisco studio that made the gold games while the Core members worked on AOD.
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Old 06-12-17, 06:44   #3
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Experimental features without enough QA time.

Always keep a save at the start of the level when playing the classics.
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Old 06-12-17, 10:36   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Boobandie View Post
Honestly Chronicles should have been made by the San Francisco studio that made the gold games while the Core members worked on AOD.
THIS. It hurts me to this day the San Francisco team was dismantled instead of being used to produce a full-fleshed TR game. Their TR3Gold was the best TR game so far IMO and surely the best Gold game. They knew the technology and had amazing artists. Scotland is still my favourite location in the entire series, but I pretty much love every place in TR3Gold. That can't be said about TR3.
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Old 06-12-17, 14:00   #5
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@Caesum: if it's true, then it's so sad they never made full game TR3 gold is also my favorite because it's so original and stands out from all other TR classics with all the secrets, creative solutions to engine limitations, etc.

Back on topic - looking at how TOMB5 code is organized, looking at function names, comments, lots of last-minute fix-ups and workarounds - yes, I think most likely development team was fed up with classic engine and wanted to finish it ASAP, regardless how bad their code would smell.
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Old 06-12-17, 14:37   #6
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Judging by the findings of people working on TOMB5 decompilation as well as Monty's, a lot of stuff was hardcoded in Chronicles, to the point where certain scenarios would be executed based on parameters such as room number or level number. That might be were things fall apart every now and then...
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Old 06-12-17, 17:53   #7
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Considering the guys who made the Level Editor Official Manual were from the San Francisco team, I'd say their contribution more than made up for post TR3Gold.

As for VCI, I fully admit that it was the only time in the entire game I needed the strategy guide for.
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Old 06-12-17, 19:09   #8
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Seems like Richard Morton (the level designer responsible for the VCI levels, based on the names of the level files) had quite a lot of work to do!

It looks like TRC was made with a really small team and perhaps indeed rushed. It also wasn't the main focus of Core Design since they were working on Angel of Darkness, but ironically this split attention led to both games becoming buggy.

I remember the same glitches in Red Alert also stopped me from being able to finish the game which was a huge shame. The VCI level was very interesting and I praise Richard for going with such new concepts, but I guess with so many experimental features being made in limited time, something was bound to go wrong. Clearly the beta testers sped through the levels without saving the game thus never picked up on the bugs!
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Old 06-12-17, 19:52   #9
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Most of the levels in Chronicles are bug free, but....

The 'Red alert' level is well known for many bugs, especially with the Cyborg baddies area's.

One of the worst bugs, being in the location where you hide under a floor grate waiting to capture a cyborg near the gas room area, that never arrives. You wait and wait and wait, then give up

If you are playing on PC or on consoles that allow a lot of saves, then it is best to make multiple saves, by saving regularly in more than one slot. But there also seems to be a problem if you save in the wrong places you can cause the bugs (nothing easy is there, see Stella guide below)

Stella's walkthough explains all the bugs, highlighted in red, telling you to watch where you save......http://tombraiders.net/stella/walks/.../redalert.html

Last edited by The Great Chi; 06-12-17 at 20:05.
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Old 07-12-17, 20:04   #10
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There's a bug in the second level where if you dont save and reload the game crashes.
Guess the devs couldnt test the whole level without dying and realoding *facepalm*
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