[Download] Maps of the Ages

[Javokis]

Other than some settings in your language configurations, you have very similar specs to my own pc. I too have an Athlon 64 3200 Fenice with an ATI x-series. (x700) Interesting that yours has more vid mem than mine... 

Though I have 1gig of ram.

So I take it you had re-configured your OS? I just keep mine at default settings and run programs from there. Maybe that's why I don't have issues. My OS is a fresh install of XP Pro (Student Edition - meaning I bought it for $15 bucks and its the same as the full version, but you have to stay in school to keep the license going).

As for the Pack:

I only discovered one problem so far and that is the flint_airfield does not load because the level was typoed. I'll send a MoTA_System.zip fix for that, but I never had issues with the Tzimisce Loft. Hammond by Night uses fog effects and the game tends to make shadows look odd in fog so that's normal - it's just a graphics limiation in the engine. VVV's haven worked fine for me.

I'm thinking that the encoding of these files are causing issues with your configurations. Last I checked the chronicle files were created by notepad on default save settings (ANSI). Not sure if unicode will fix the problem... or make it worse. I'm also unsure if some of the files ended up formated differently because some of them were created by Chronicle Director and others look like they were made by notepad or wordpad.

All of them were altered by me using notepad under standard save settings. I don't know if this info will be helpful.

[Nrvnqsr Chaos]

Well, since the game is a non-unicode application that works normally under WinXP, I'd suggest not changing anything.  Chances are, re-encoding any portions of your map-pack to Unicode will break them, as Redemption may not be able to read it.

As for reconfiguring my OS, I had to.  The factory defaults had tons of crap loaded into it by default that I neither needed nor wanted, including such things as GAIN applications (adware), WildTangent games (spyware), RealPlayer (malware), and various other junk - I had to go through my control panel, registry, services, everything to get rid of it all - it's possible that I screwed something up along the way.  As for the language settings, I'm a frequent importer of foreign video games, particularly doujinshi (japanese fan-made) games, but now my system's back to its language defaults so those shouldn't be an issue anymore.

Thanks for the tips on the fog - I'll just add -nofog to the game's shortcut, to remove that problem entirely (don't like the fog effect anyway).  As for the textures and crashing, I'll keep tinkering with it.

Thanks for your time and assistance.

EDIT: OK, I'm thinking about going through and trying ALL of the MOTA maps, to see which work and which don't.  Maybe, by looking through the list of maps that don't work on my system, you'll notice something they have in common, and that might reveal what the blargh the problem is here.

EDIT: <test results removed>

UPDATE: Well, I think I may have found my problem... and it's not with your map pack at all.  By accident, I started a single-player game, and found missing geometry and textures all over the place, complete with a crash on exit with the same error message.

Curses.  This means I must've screwed up something, somewhere, and now I have to go through and fix it.  Yeesh.  I'm sorry for any inconvenience I've caused - Redemption was working fine just a week or two ago, so I never thought to check to see if the single player campaign was screwing up as well.

[Javokis]

That's the problem with those factory based operating systems - they are always shit. I bet if you get the full version of the os, you'll get a totally different experience.

[Nrvnqsr Chaos]

*sigh* You can sure say that again.  I just did a format and *cringe* factory-default reset, followed by once again stripping out all the unnecessary crap, reinstalling my favorite browser and security software, and starting again from scratch.  This time, however, I've created a restore point, so hopefully I don't have to go through all the BS to fix things if it hoses up again.  I'm also leaving the blarghed language settings alone this time.

I've reinstalled and I'm in the process of repatching Redemption.  Once that's done, I'll test the single player campaign (if it's screwy, then I'll know the exact cause, and boy will I be pissed if it happens), and then, if that goes well, redownload and reinstall MoTA, AoRMod, and the White Rabbit mod.

Come hell, high water, or heinous system issues, I will NOT be denied!

[Javokis]

Dope!!

Found another bug. It seems that after installing MoTA_System.nob, the conversation with the Bartender at the 4 Stags Inn in Prague has different dialogue with multi-choices that appears as just string values. This is caused by the Prophecy Discovery chronicle, which looks like it needs a re-script to fix the problem so that it doesn't use conversation files that already exist in the game.

I discovered this when playing AoR mod in Prague after installing MoTA. To do an immediate quick fix, you can open MoTA_System.nob with WINZIP and find all the nco files (inside the conversations sub folder) that start with numbers # and just delete them from the nob. This should fix the problem, but will cause the Prophecy Discovery Chronicle to no longer work right.

In the mean time, I'll try to fix the scripts of the Prophecy Discovery so that it uses unique nco files rather than what the game already has.

[Nrvnqsr Chaos]

Well, thanks to the complete format/reinstall/other crap, almost everything seems to be working fine.  However, I did get one crash, after about five minutes of playing around in the map "bodythief_technocracylab."  Other than that, everything seems smooth.

EDIT: Upon further testing, it would appear that the previous crash was a fluke.

FUNCTIONALITY AT LAST!

Thanks for all the help trying to get the MoTA pack to work for me, Rainmoon.  I'm sorry if you felt I was accusing you of making a nonfunctional pack.  I really should have checked my own system first before posting here.  Now that it's resolved, however, I can confidently say that you've got some awesome maps here - I've yet to try out any of the maps with Chronicles or the like attached to them, but most of the empty maps I've tried are quite well-thought-out and solidly designed.  Kudos to the original artists for making them, and to you, Rainmoon, for packing them all together and ensuring they don't conflict.

[Javokis]

No sweet. This has given me more insight as to other problems that can occur on computers. Maybe someone will see this and realize they have the same problem.

[Kulmuras]

Hey cool, my Dallas map made the cut 

Good work with the pack.  There sure are a lot of them in there.

[Javokis]

Thanks for the comments and welcome to E-Mods.net . Dallas is a well done verison of New York. Great job. 

PATCH UPLOADED:

I have uploaded a patched version of MoTA_System that fixes a few minor bugs. You do not have to download the whole thing again, just MoTA_System. The fixes are listed on the prime post of this topic.

Enjoy.

[Bloodywolf]

downloaded it, no problems at all and, rain, this is Sweeeeet.

[Javokis]

I decided to disable hotlink protection because it isn't worth a damn anyways.

[Kulmuras]

Most of the maps on it were just borrowed, I only mapped a few things in there: Yellow Jacket, Cathedral Archives/Breeding Grounds/Pack Haven, Abandon Basement, Club Zinc, and Apartment 666...maybe a few others.  But the real work was organizing the chronicle files and then stringing as much as I could find.

I must compliment you on E-Mod, certiainly a great accomplishment, many of the features (finally placing objects on tables!) would have been very nice to have back in the day when WoN was more popular.

[Javokis]

Thanks. If you look in the MoTA version of the Black Triad Dallas chronicle file located within MoTA_System.nob, you'll notice that I renamed several nil file names to start out with either a perspective author name or a project name (for those maps I don't really know the specific author). There was only one truly unknown author and that was for the fightclub.

I had to go into several chronicle files to alter things for the new naming conventions. That was most likely the hardest part of puting this bad boy together. My main objective is to get rid as many 'unknowns' as possible so if you know the specific author for each unknown chronicle file then that would be great.

I noticed you threw in my Takaina club. hehe 

Just remember that MoTA is in a world of its own and will not be compatible with the original works. This is mainly because of the massive alterations done to the naming conventions to make this HUGE pack easier to navigate as well as removing any possible conflict issues.

Thanks for all of your support. Hopefully this will be THE pack of choice for gamers seeking a huge archive of content that we can all play together without worrying about stability issues.

[Javokis]

Ok found thus more problems. The enemies from the cotd pack no longer animate properly - well I can't be sure if this is because of the transfer to MoTA or an original problem with the pack.

I'll look into the templates of MoTA to see if I can't just assign a new animation file to them to fix the problem.

[Javokis]

Ok I just realized that paine was not actually hosting the files on his website. He was creating links direct to the files on my server. So as of this moment, there is currently no place publicly available where anyone can download this sense I have removed all vampire related downloads from my site.