[0.8.0_beta-152-g5b6aa372e] Shadow Warrior Bugs

[Xtyfe]

I understand that Shadow Warrior support is in progress. However, I did just finish playing both Twin Dragon and Wanton Destruction and I wanted to report some issues I found that happen in both expansion packs and likely the original game itself.

First off, when freshly loading a map, it seems the game world is not drawn properly.
It ends up looking like the image attached to this post. Moving the camera around will clear it up.

The next problem seems to be with certain trigger lines. Once triggered for the first time, they seem to repeat themselves. A good way to reproduce this is on the first level of Twin Dragon. There is a gong on the wall at a certain point in the level that has to be hit, in Raze this is one of the trigger lines that gets repeated. The DOS version of the game DOES NOT do this. This bug can break the progression of level 8 of Twin Dragon ($bath.map) during the bank vault puzzle.

Another issue I found was that sometimes under certain conditions, midi music seems to start after saving the game and then loading that same save. This can be reproduced by completing map 1 of Twin Dragon and then saving once map 2 starts and then reloading that save. It HAS to be done this way to reproduce and won't work if you just use the console to enter the map.

When completing both mission packs, the game crashes expecting CD music.

[Graf Zahl]

I understand that Shadow Warrior support is in progress. However, I did just finish playing both Twin Dragon and Wanton Destruction and I wanted to report some issues I found that happen in both expansion packs and likely the original game itself.

First off, when freshly loading a map, it seems the game world is not drawn properly.
It ends up looking like the image attached to this post. Moving the camera around will clear it up.

It's a known issue. The big problem here is that it only happens on Windows 10 but I am still using Windows 8.1, so I cannot reproduce the glitch and narrow it down.

The next problem seems to be with certain trigger lines. Once triggered for the first time, they seem to repeat themselves. A good way to reproduce this is on the first level of Twin Dragon. There is a gong on the wall at a certain point in the level that has to be hit, in Raze this is one of the trigger lines that gets repeated. The DOS version of the game DOES NOT do this. This bug can break the progression of level 8 of Twin Dragon ($bath.map) during the bank vault puzzle.

What do the other ports say here? None of the gameplay related code was really changed, and comparing it with VoidSW or SWP the changes are very minor.

Another issue I found was that sometimes under certain conditions, midi music seems to start after saving the game and then loading that same save. This can be reproduced by completing map 1 of Twin Dragon and then saving once map 2 starts and then reloading that save. It HAS to be done this way to reproduce and won't work if you just use the console to enter the map.

No idea. Music has been working without any issues for me so far. It sounds like someone is blocking the music file - the player has a fallback so that it plays the MIDI if opening the CD track fails.

When completing both mission packs, the game crashes expecting CD music.

Need more info. This report is as good as useless. What precisely happens and what message did you get?
I played through the game and both mission packs and it never crashed, the game ended normally for me in both cases.

[sinisterseed]

Small correction, SW support is not "in progress" anymore (not in the sense you seem to imply at least), it has been promoted to "supported" quite some time ago, along with Exhumed. That being said, as with all things, if you find bugs, we always appreciate if you report them .

The corruption issue is known, but since it happens mainly on W10 (and with NVIDIA hardware) for some reason, and Graf is not on it, troubleshooting it is very difficult. That being said, there has been at least one report of it happening on 8.1 too.

Now for the trigger lines, in VoidSW the gong you mention on TD's first level seems to behave the same. If this differs from DOS, it may be a new bug introduced by ports. And the music restarting is something I can't reproduce. Did it the way you mentioned and the music continues playing as intended.

Regarding the music-related crashes, that needs more info but you may be confusing something. There is no MIDI music in SW, the full product used only CD music, the betas, prototypes, and the Shareware are the only ones to use MIDI music.

[Graf Zahl]

Correction: SW does *support* MIDI music with its existing level definitions. But there are no corresponding music files for it. What you can do is copy the shareware MIDIs into the music folder, disable CD emulation and they will be picked up. But this requires deliberate action by the user.

About the gong, if VoidSW has it, so does JFSW and probably all the other ports as well - it might be a change that happened between the DOS-EXE and the source release.

[sinisterseed]

Well, yes, it is supported but OP seemed to imply *all* SW games use MIDI music, which they do not, the full release switched to CD entirely - or my reading comprehension is just bad today, heh. I still have the shareware MIDIs, so I could do an experiment.

The trigger line issue will also need further clarification. I just checked some DOS footage and frankly I am seeing no differences, the behavior looks the same. Maybe needs a better example?

[Graf Zahl]

I also wouldn't take the mission packs as good examples. They contain their fair share of bugs and clearly have seen less testing than the base game. Seeing an error like the one being described slip through wouldn't really surprise me.

[sinisterseed]

I mean they originally got canned after all, they were finished but the publisher retracted the publishing deal after they were completed, so the final layer of polish was never applied. Then, they got a freeware release in the mid-2000s, and got included with Redux back when it first came out.

That being said, now with ports, these issues have been rectified (one-sided keys along with skill-specific anime babes + Zilla and his secretary), so it doesn't matter anymore.

[Graf Zahl]

For those parts that is correct, but since the were missing the final round of QA there's probably some other issues with them as well.

[Xtyfe]

As far as the trigger line issue, as far as I have witnessed, it happens in ALL levels of each mission pack. Always with doors, but never lifts or explosive walls and so on. In Doom, triggers for shooting a sector open and open manually were separated by different line actions. I don't know if this is different in the Build engine or Shadow Warrior but both line actions seem to trigger this bug. Once it has been triggered, I as the player can't retrigger it again. For example, I can't open a door manually myself after this issue has been triggered, I'd have to wait for the door to open or close on its own. I have not tested this in regular Shadow Warrior in either DOS or Raze, but I did very briefly test one level in Twin Dragon in DOS and could not reproduce the issue. I'll play regular Shadow Warrior in DOS and Raze and I'll see if I can find the issue again.

In all cases regarding music, I will clarify that I was NOT using CD music at any point in my playthroughs. The music I heard, I think it might be the intermission music? It seems to be selected as a default maybe under the right conditions. I'll see if I can reproduce this some more.

At the end of each mission pack, when I've completed the last level and a quick cutscene plays. Lo Wang, In his voice, says he is going to sing. I think it might intend to play the track known as Lo Wang's Rap, which is the last one on the CD. This is the point where it crashes. I quickly completed the last level of Twin Dragon, it played the cut scene and then went to intermission. At this point, I was able to get it to spit out a crash report that I have attached to this post.

I can't say whether these issues are mission pack specific, they seemed to happen in both. Both packs are made by different people so it seems unlikely

[Graf Zahl]

As far as the trigger line issue, as far as I have witnessed, it happens in ALL levels of each mission pack. Always with doors, but never lifts or explosive walls and so on. In Doom, triggers for shooting a sector open and open manually were separated by different line actions. I don't know if this is different in the Build engine or Shadow Warrior but both line actions seem to trigger this bug. Once it has been triggered, I as the player can't retrigger it again. For example, I can't open a door manually myself after this issue has been triggered, I'd have to wait for the door to open or close on its own. I have not tested this in regular Shadow Warrior in either DOS or Raze, but I did very briefly test one level in Twin Dragon in DOS and could not reproduce the issue. I'll play regular Shadow Warrior in DOS and Raze and I'll see if I can find the issue again.

The trigger system in the Build games is very different from Doom and also very different from each other. I wouldn't even know where to start with this, as the game code is virtually unchanged from the parent ports, and if there had been differences between VoidSW and SWP I probably would have noticed.

Can you please try to make a savegame in a spot where you think the game misbehaves? I do not mean the gong thing but the door thing you mention here.

[sinisterseed]

Indeed, that would be very useful. A short video would be even better to have some actual footage of it, but fair enough.

I tried to break some maps earlier today and I could not do it, so we're quite curious to see what you're experiencing.

[Graf Zahl]

A video would not help much as it cannot be debugged. A savegame right in the problem spot is always more helpful.

[Graf Zahl]

The crash on the credits screen is fixed.

[Xtyfe]

Well, this is embarrassing. I was able to reproduce the issue again in regular Shadow Warrior, on the first level even. I then went to test on the DOS version but did not experience the problem.

When I went back to Raze to make a save game, I could no longer reproduce the issue. I thought for a moment how this could be possible and I wondered if playing in DOS somehow fixed this, as absurd as it sounds. I tried a fresh install and only played the game in Raze and still could not reproduce the issue. I even reinstalled Raze fresh again and I still could not do it.

At this point, I'm not sure how I managed to manifest this but it seems like it was entirely on my end. if I see this happen again though, I will make a new post with a savegame.

[Xtyfe]

Scratch that, I do have an old save that still produces the issue. This is the first level of regular Shadow Warrior