The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

http://www.savefile.com/files/531927 (http://www.savefile.com/files/531927)

I have re-added the Mycon replies guiding you to their homeworld. They sound a bit dire, but they're there, at least, finally.
(They are in fact Mycon words from various replies of them which I linked together a-la-the Persuasion Overhaul mod for Oblivion.)
Text was also added for them.
The link above is to an addon you must put in your \content\packages\addons\XXX folder (replace XXX with any name) and run UQM with the following parameter in order for it to load the addon:
--addon XXX
(XXX is the name of the folder you created)
You can listen to them with Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net) or some other programs if you don't want to listen to them in-game.

Hopefully this would remove the need for the sticky "I can't get the Mycon to go to Organon!".

Has anybody listened to my addon yet? Do you think it's good enough to make it into the game?

I find this speech hard to understand; the cutting between different speech samples is quite jarring.

hihihi...
ahem...
and "source" has a different modulation and applied effects...
 ;D

But it's better than nothing.

I agree, it's definitely better than nothing. The problem is, anyone who thinks to download it doesn't need it.

Death 999: I know, I just wanted your opinions. I've told meep-eep of this add-on, wanting its inclusion in the game package, but he thinks it's not a good enough quality.
Well, it WASN'T a good enough quality!
'Cause I've updated the file:
http://rapidshare.com/files/19854406/MissingMycon.zip.html (http://rapidshare.com/files/19854406/MissingMycon.zip.html)

I'm also working at a Melnorme MetaChron speech addon, which is much better. The preview (first 2 sentences):
http://www.savefile.com/files/536323 (http://www.savefile.com/files/536323)

As I told Valaggar, I prefer text without spoken voice to some unnatural speech.

Then add the missing text without speech! Plus, the Melnorme ALREADY speaks a bit unnatural. So my addon fits well.
Anyway, something is better than nothing here. Otherwise new players will always need to visit the forum to find out how to get the Mycon to go to Organon. It spoils the game.
And a text without speech is worse than unnatural speech.

I'd like to see you approximate a Syreen then telling about their original homeworld.


I disagree. I'd rather have the text alone than a potshot at it which misses.

Well, I agree with you up to a limit: the Utwig would REALLY be better off WITHOUT that voice.

It would be the same problem. We'd better ask Paul Reiche III to record the missing lines.

A suggestion I made a while back that was disregarded, but makes by far the most sense...

Remember those text messages you get while using the lander, like when Fwiffo kills six or so crew?

Since every homeworld coordinate was removed from the game, or at least, almost every, why not replace them all with a new, different message?

Like after conversing amiably with an alien race, you get this text box from your crew:

"The [Alien Race] has sent us coordinates for a planet at [XXX, XXX].  We have reason to believe it is their homeworld!"

Far less jarring than either suddenly unspoken text OR text spoken by a different voice.  And since it would be the same for all coordinates, it would appear as a perfectly normal part of the game.

Don't you think?

Personally, I like it.

Well, it doesn't fix missing Arilou conversations or the Metachron speech, but it goes a long way to make the game playable. ;D

Actually, I never had a problem with the Mycon homeworld.  I was stumped trying to find the SUPOX homeworld.  I just knew they were in the "vicinity."  That was a lot of planets checked before I gave up.

I actually do like the stab at the Melnorme.  I'll have to listen to it side by side with an original file, but it sounds SOMEWHAT faithful.

Where did you get the idea that homeworld coordinates have been removed (apart from the Mycon homeworld)?

And imho your suggestion deviates too much from our "straight port" principle.

And an entirely new feature (starmap search) doesn't? ^_~  But again, it's to make the game playable.  I realize the 3DO was like this but...it seems a worthwhile tradeoff to slightly alter the integrity of the port to make it playable for everyone, and not just oldbies.

And Syreen do not give coordinates (as they did) The Utwig do not give coordinates (as they did).  The Slylandro Probe does not give coordinates (as they did...even if they were using an altered system from the rest of the game).

I'm pretty sure there's more than this also missing.  It's been over a year since I last played the adventure game.

The added starmap search doesn't prevent the game from being played the way it used to be.

I agree that the game should be playable to anyone, but that does not include changing the way coordinates are displayed everywhere to fix a problem in one place which could be solved differently.

The Syreen didn't give coordinates in the SC2 PC version. And the Slylandro probes give coordinates like they used to. You're right about the Utwig though. But as far as I know, that's all. Mycon, and Utwig.

Edit: actually, what did you expect from the Syreen? They don't have a SoI, so once you get to speak to one, you're already at the home world.

meep-eep posted while I was proof-reading, but since I make a few additional points I'll post this anyway.

That doesn't give the player any information he doesn't already have, and compensates for the lack of a big physical starmap. Next you'll be demanding that netplay be removed. ;)

The Syreen never did give co-ordinates, nor did the Utwig. However, they did give the names of the (original) Syreen and Supox home systems respectively (which I guess is what you're getting at).

All of these are problems with the 3DO version that UQM faithfully reproduces and have been discussed extensively back and forth several times (I'd link to the bug database entry, but the whole thing seems to be down right now, just like the forum was yesterday). Basically, UQM has changed the text to match the 3DO speech, as we can't change the speech properly without rerecording large parts of it, since we can't record new lines that sound like the original actors. I realise this is immensely annoying to people who want the PC version without speech.

I certainly can't find any co-ordinates in the Syreen dialogue, nor any useful system names.

How about looking about the centre of the Mycon sphere of influence? Works for me.

Good point; the 3DO Mycon response strongly gives the impression that the Mycon don't care about what you have to say, not that you're in the wrong place.

Meep eep: I was under the impression they gave the coordinates to their old homeworld.  Again, it's been a very long time.  *laughs*

If it really is only two instances (or three, the Slyrandro Probe doesn't SPEAK its coordinates, they merely appear briefly.  I thought this was removed in later updates; I guess not?) then you're right, it certainly doesn't warrant game-wide changes.  And as I mentioned, I never had a problem finding the Mycon homeworld...so...don't know why I'm even arguing the point!

I was very young when I watched my brother play the original SC2, and I guess I overestimated the "homeworld deletion" thing.  For two coordinates (one of which is not essential) it would be a pretty big bastardization.

Another option...The Mycon have quite a lot of random dialogue.  Has anyone attempted to paste together disparate snippets that would, somehow, indicate this is NOT the homeworld?

and Novus: Maybe I should request that!  I certainly get my rear end handed to me in netplay most of the time. ^_~

One other thing that we've talked about is to put the Mycon homeworld hint in one of the Syreen's ship's computer, to be shown when you recover the ships from the ship vault. As that is text-only anyhow, it wouldn't be out of place.

I'm jumping into this discussion way late. 

What about some parenthetical statement in the text along the lines of

"Communication being received on a secure channel -- audio is disabled"

?

I find myself perplexed by this entire discussion.

UQM has a False Knowledge Pathology (http://gamefab.blogspot.com/2006/09/game-pathologies.html) in it; it is not reasonable to expect a player to be able to complete the game. That doesn't mean that one can't; it merely means that a reasonable game designer should not expect the player to.

Put simply, your game is broken. It's not much better than putting the key to a locked door behind the locked door.

So, all these notions of, "We're trying to emulate the 3DO version," etc are really just nonsense. Gameplay is king, and the gameplay itself is broken.

One line of unspoken dialog. It's infinitely better to let a player think that the game is missing a dialog file than for the player to not be able to play the game.

You could argue against this being a False Knowledge Pathology. But that's the only reasonable argument against doing whatever it takes to fix the problem. If you believe it is a game-breaking problem, then it needs to be fixed.

I agree. I only ever played the PC version and managed to complete it after while. I did run through the UQM version but since I new the game inside out I innately new how to deal with the Mycon without having to run through the proper sequence of the game so I was unaware of the broken game play aspect of it until this thread (call me slow).

I would love to share UQM with others, but if its broken its broken. I am all for reinstating a bit of text with no dialogue if it means that newbies can play without being disappointed in the same way that I was with Star Control 3 with all its bugs.

Anything that keeps Star Control inaccessible does not help the prospects of a sequel being made. It needs main stream exposure, and good things to be said about it when discovered.

I think I already did, but I'll reiterate and clarify: from previous encounters the player should be aware that large-scale decisions are always made by leaders at a homeworld. Similarly, unless a species is at war, its homeworld will be near the centre of its sphere of influence. One problem here is that Beta Brahe and Epsilon Scorpii are both in the middle of Mycon space, and deducing from the Mycon's babble that the Sun Device planet isn't their homeworld is almost impossible without the "but it is not the Source" part.

Hmm... I seem to have changed my mind halfway through that response. You're right, we do have a problem.

Smaug: you seem to be missing the point of this discussion. It is not about that issues like this (if real) should be fixed -- I think we all can agree to that. It is about how.

meep-eep: About how we should do this - perhaps a text-only would be good TEMPORARILY until we find out another solution. I mean, when the Probe transmits its coordinates there's no speech, so why couldn't we do the same here?

However, there are other missing lines besides the Mycons' - the Melnorme and the VUX are the most important, but the Arilou lack some lines too. They can't be fixed without speech, and speech can't be added without the original actors (except the Melnorme text, I would say).
Speaking of this, WHY can't the original actors be employed to record the missing lines?

Actually...didn't Paul Reiche or Fred Ford do the Mycon lines? Or did I hallucinate that?

Also, first time I've heard about missing VUX lines.  Can anyone elaborate?

We can find out.
Their voice can't be so different, especially if we modify the pitches to match the ones they had 15 years ago.
Trial and error. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_and_error)
Let's just hope they'll want. Plus, if we manage to collect enough money from the SC2 fans, we can "bribe" them.

Clay: Paul Reiche III himself did the Mycon lines, and he did a mighty job! Only if he would have finished it...
Missing VUX lines: Somebody said it here on the forum and I believed it, but there are no missing lines.

Valaggar has a point; tracking down PR3 shouldn't be hard since we know where he works, and he's likely to be positive toward UQM. Fixing the Syreen, Melnorme, Utwig etc. in a similar way could be harder, though.

Has anyone contacted TFB about the missing Mycon dialogue, and if so, what was their response?

yaaaaaaaay, brilliant, send him an email.

It's on my list of questions. But really "just in case", because the answer is going to be "I'd like to, but we're rather busy right now here" anyhow.

As far as I know, noone else has asked them.

Why not add the additional Mycon lines with a "PC only option". It would be just text with no voice like it was in the original PC version? That way, if you wanted, you could "Choose your destiny...FIGHT!"

...wait...wrong game ;D

It's probably safe to say re-recording lines isn't going to happen.

Perhaps though, we could justify a small addition?  Say, a reproprogrammed slylandro probe encountered after you've got the sequence that will give you an information dump?  It's something a typical player is very likely to do anyway, and you can justify a change in voice by the re-programming.

Exactly. It's like being told that a building's support is fractured and having a bunch of building engineer's arguing for years about what the best way is to reinforce it. In the meantime, the support is still fractured, and the building is still in danger of collapsing.

Put in a quick temporary reinforcement to keep the building standing while you decide on how to do the real fix.

As for the real fix, as far as I'm concerned, dialog-less text is just fine. Sure, it won't be as nice as having voice dialog, but it won't sound as weird as various other solutions. It's better to hear nothing than to hear something bad/inconsistent.

I agree with Smaug.

I did. Alex Ness replied very kindly, although a bit avoidant to help:


I replied too:


I am awaiting his reply.

And as to the Utwig missing dialogue, it's not significant, plus I hate the Utwig voice. Either someone must re-record them or the voice must be completely removed, for it's completely unfit.


Moderator edit: Vallagar's real name hidden, per his request.

As far as I know, the actual programming of SC2 for the 3DO took place on a Mac. Chances are that the audio processing was done on a Mac too.

As for the Utwig voice, while it is not what I imagined them to sound like either, they are not going anywhere. The straight port is going to stay as close to TFB's intentions as possible. You can always rip out the voices in your own copy though, and if you really care that much, you can always fork the project.

What was the original mail you sent btw?

And what phrases are missing for the races that these people did the voices for?