Victor Albert Delacroix bids you welcome

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Victor Albert Delacroix bids you welcome

Post by Delacroix » Wed Jan 08, 2014 11:33 am

I was asked by Hermskii to show up here and write a few words about myself, since I am a very open man, this'll turn into a real wall of text which I don't feel like condensing so if you're not into reading A LOT, I suggest you turn back right now and browse the other threads. I'm not trying to speak from a high horse here or be rude, it's pure practical reasons I'm doing this for: if you don't like long texts and despite that stick around in this thread, you'll hate it here and you'll hate me. I'd know. I'm a chatterbox.

My history with Unreal started somewhere in 1998, when I bought a Russian distribution copy of it from a street market vendor. Luckily despite the Russian cover, it turned out to be completely in English and working just fine. At the same time I purchased several unofficial add-on CDs which were bundles with stuff from the internet and as I had no internet access at that time, it was the only source of addon levels for me. Believe it or not, I actually bought my first PC ever to play this and if it weren't for Unreal, I'd probably stick to the Amiga to this very day. Who knows.

Anyways, since then I've become quite the fanatic of the Unreal Engine overall, buying just about any game that used the engine. And then, when I bought a warez bundle CD with Klingon Honor Guard rip (didn't realize there's anything missing because I then never realized that apart from normal CD versions, there are rips deprived of movies, music or other stuff), I was surprised to see Unreal on it as well. Initially I never intended to install it, but when I did, I was shocked to discover a fully functional Unreal Beta (the famous February 1998 one) with numerous levels I never saw in retail.

So you could say I played Return to Na Pali quite early. When I got the expansion, it soon became apparent to me that many levels were reused for it. I don't think I need to mention how my jaw dropped when I realized that. I then understood that at times, a beta version of a game can be completely different and have a ton of content that never shows up in retail. In April 1999, when RTNP was still in the works, I read an article in a Polish magazine about an Unreal Tournament beta and guess what. I grabbed that immediately. The March 1999 build 222. Yes, I bought many games from those Russian guys and have obtained several betas in the process, for which I am thankful for to this day. And I've been playing any Unreal game including their betas ever since.

But my main favorites were always Unreal and UT - and their single player mappage that talented people over the world have made. I practically grew up with the works of Kew, Marty Howe, Grayson Edge and so on. In fact, my first completed playthroughs of Unreal were not of the main campaign, but of the custom maps. At that time I lacked the patience to properly play through the campaign but a single level was enough for a casual gamer like me. In fact, I have completed Unreal for the first time in 1999, when I got the beta and had fun in a level-by-level comparison.

Sometime in 2006 (iirc), or maybe a tad earlier - but I think 2006 is the first year of my actual activity on the Unreal forums and the year of my... introduction to the community, if you will... I registered on BeyondUnreal forums, and shortly thereafter on OldUnreal and UnrealSP. There were other forums too, like Hyper's, but alas - I couldn't, and still can't multitask effectively to a level allowing me to participate in all of them. I do however show up over at UT99.org from time to time and as you can see, I managed to pop up in here as well.

Over the course of my activity on the forums I attempted multiple times to spearhead a project in which I could fully utilize my storytelling skills and just as many times I've failed to do so. It turned out that the modding fraction of the community can prove very unhospitable to people who cannot do maps, textures, music or sound effects - or code, modelling or anything else that can serve as either eye- or ear candy. And in SP projects the storyline is IMO just as important. Things began to change when Dozey began his Na Pali War project. And when SteadZ started work on Operation Stealth Claw and I realized how both projects are similar in their design choices, I stepped up and offered both men assistance in merging the projects' codebase, resources and manpower in order to make the end result even better. And I got my dream part - of the guy responsible for writing screenplay and dialogue for these heavy-on-storyline mammoth projects. This is my main project as of now, this joint venture with Dozey, SteadZ and the talented individuals who have joined our cause: Z-Enzyme (Qtit), Gizzy, Bleeder91 and many, many more. This project, known as the Return to Na Pali Episodes is under development as we speak and help is always appreciated.

However that is not all, as far as my activities in the Unreal community are concerned. I take part in the alpha and beta recovery efforts that have led and continue to lead to unearthing numerous pre-release builds of Unreal and other treasures such as Unreal PSX, X-COM Alliance, Emissary and others. The main star here is Leo(T.C.K.), he recovered most of these builds alone (my help proved to be essential in only one case, that of X-COM Alliance), so I suppose some of you would stick to crediting him and him alone, however the thing remains that while he recovered those builds, he didn't actually release them to the public. I did. The reason for this was mostly to help him out, but also to shield him. If anyone would choose to pursue and persecute anyone for sharing and distribution of the alphas (which, while for a 15-year-old game and often considered abandonware, could still invoke Epic's wrath - while unlikely, such an event could be possible), I'd rather save the guy trouble. So, for clarity, Leo did nothing to share his finds, I did, so if something goes wrong, it's on me. Currently him and I have a very strained relation - I consider him a difficult man to talk to, to say the least, his opinions of me if quoted from some posts can be not so good either, but I nonetheless respect him for his achievements and applaud them.

Apart from beta hunting, I also hunt for custom SP & Co-Op levels. The goals for this are numerous: A, it's for my own collection and playing enjoyment. B, it's always good to review more maps over @ UnrealSP, which I'm particularly fond of. C, somebody worked hard to deliver those levels to us players, so we owe it to those men and women to appreciate their work, keep it from oblivion and available for more players. In that field, I feel the need to thank: Leo(T.C.K.), UBerserker, editor Dave, TA20, Hermskii, REPB, Bob, LeiLei, Leela(OTS), Smirftsch, Casey and many more (the order is random). At some point, these people helped me at least once in my goal to recover a rare single player level. It is the case that I might have either reviewed it @ UnrealSP already or am going to do so. I would also thank Ividyon for allowing me to participate in UnrealSP's continued development as a reviewer and news poster. I find it a great opportunity to help out the community this way.

>> side comment: whoah, this is already long and I've only just about covered my Unreal-related interests...

Apart from Unreal, I am... or was until recently... an avid gamer overall. My second favorite franchise is Mass Effect and third - Castlevania. There are many other games that inspire me one way or another - such as the Ys series or classics like Turrican and the like, but if I were to name them all, this post'd turn into a full-size novel. So instead I'll list other uses for my computer. And I use it for just about anything.

Movies / TV shows / Anime / Concerts / Cartoons / Porn / You Name It. If it's openable in Media Player Classic Home Cinema and fits my tastes, it means I either watched it, I'm watching it or will watch it. As far as movies or TV shows are concerned, I can view pretty much anything that interests me in a given moment: a wuxia flick (Red Cliff and Musa come to mind), a horror (Ring, Hellraiser, anything Clive Barker overall, Split Second with Rutger Hauer, anything related to Lovecraft and so on, and so on), science fiction (LOVE Godzilla flicks, Stargate, Battlestar Galactica - the new one - , Pacific Rim, Matrix and many more), urban fantasy (watching Lost Girl and Beauty & The Beast currently), drama (don't remember the title now for this one, but one movie in particular comes to mind: the Christian Bale flick where the actor plays a guy pretending to be a catholic priest and watches over a flock of Chinese girls during Japanese occupation), SyFy original movies (for the lulz, seriously, they're so bad it's more than enough fun), comedy (Mouse Hunt, Scary Movie), thriller (Saw)... Like I said, I've had an extensive exposure to various things people do with the camera as far as live action goes. With anime my experience is much more modest, I've seen Tosho Daimos, Sailor Moon, Gyo: Tokyo Fish Attack, Mardock Scramble, Vampire Hunter D (both parts), Devil May Cry and a couple more, but these ones I can remember off the top of my head and I remember them VERY well. As far as cartoons go, I love typical slapsticks: Tom & Jerry and Wile E. Coyote & the Road Runner are my two favorites. I've recently taken interest in Beavis & Butthead and Family Guy. I'd like to thank my good friend Jigoku from UnrealSP.org for exposing me to these as well as numerous other things I had a good couple laughs at.

As far as music goes, while I like to sometimes listen to vocal performances, like Anna Maria Jopek, Edyta Górniak, Lady Gaga or multiple others from both Polish and international performers, my music of choice is more often than not instrumental music. Soundtracks, neoclassical stuff, commercial underscore stuff like Two Steps From Hell or Audiomachine - as long as everyone keeps their mouth shut and sticks to instruments and it matches the style I like, I'll listen to it and I can do it quite often. In fact, I find myself unable to write anything without music playing in the background, inspiring me on how a scene should look like.

You might ask why I so often mentioned writing as my hobby of choice. Well, with the amount of books I've read, I wouldn't have it any other way anyway. And I've read a lot: horror (Guy N. Smith, Graham Masterton, Brian Lumley, H.P. Lovecraft, Stephen King, John Everson, Clive Barker and many more), drama (Vera Cowie, Hillary Norman, Deirdre Purcell) or children's literature (Lofting's Dolittle series for example) and even, believe it or not, paranormal romance. My favorites in that last genre include Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy series, P.C. & Kristin Cast works and numerous others. In fact, I began participating in a multi-author Polish-language Vampire Academy fanfiction, for which I narrate three characters at the moment and introduced several others as NPCs. It also helped me to forge new friendships with... girls, who are the major part of paranormal romance readers and I am getting the feeling that one of these friendships will most likely evolve into something deeper. After I'm done with the fanfic, I'll most likely use the experience gained to pursue a professional writing career, which while late of a choice to make (I'm 30 and unemployed since forever), I have no doubt will be a good choice.

That doesn't mean I'll abandon the Unreal community, I've tried that several times and always felt the need to come back.
What else is there. I am unemployed, unmarried, living in a small Polish village with my mom and two dogs (and an entire flock of parrots which are my mom's sole responsibility). I can show you the dogs though:

http://i.imgur.com/fKGPO.jpg (male, older)
http://i.imgur.com/SrAnb.jpg (female, younger)

Well, there's probably more I could tell you and if you're interested in knowing more after this huge wall o'text, I'll gladly fill in the blanks. All in all some of my best friends (like Z-Enzyme whom I know personally in RL as well) are in this community so it's an honor to be a part of it. I probably should've made such a post a long time ago, but I'm always late with that stuff. However, once again, my thanks go to:

Dozey, SteadZ, Z-Enzyme, Bleeder91, Leo(T.C.K.), RoninMastaFX, Gizzy, Shivaxi, Creavion, Gorthaur, TA20, Vividy, Bob, Hermskii, EvilGrins, Shadow, PaperCoffee, FeraliDragon, GoPostal, Ividyon, UBerserker, Doublez-Down, Waffnuffly, UArchitect, Mr. Prophet, Hourences, Sir Brizz, DarkPulse, GreatEmerald, AlCapowned, Hyzoran, Master_Unreal, Smirftsch, EisWiesel, Jigoku, SilenTShadow, Oz/Stanley (Justin D.), eVOLVE, Matt Kagle, Hellkeeper and many, many more. Honestly, I can't name you all off the top of my head, for which I'm sorry - but if you ever had a kind word for me or helped me otherwise, you know you did it, so my thanks go to you.

As mentioned in the Andromeda thread, here's my contact info in case you seek me out:
- SteamID: swordofheavens
- SkypeID: bruno.glening
- Facebook
- I am also present at QuakeNet / #oldunreal and SynIRC / #unrealsp as Delacroix, VD or Legion.
Last edited by Delacroix on Wed Jan 08, 2014 2:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Victor Albert Delacroix bids you welcome

Post by EvilGrins » Wed Jan 08, 2014 2:13 pm

1 question: How is it your avatar changes to something else each time I hit refresh??

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Re: Victor Albert Delacroix bids you welcome

Post by Delacroix » Wed Jan 08, 2014 2:32 pm

It's due to the avatar randomizer I was provided by ebd. It's hosted on ebd's fragment of UnrealSP.Org webspace thanks to Ividyon.
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Re: Victor Albert Delacroix bids you welcome

Post by Hook » Wed Jan 08, 2014 2:59 pm

Now that is cool!

A BIG Welcome to you Victor Albert Delacroix !!!
You are certainly NOT a stranger to most of us. :wink:
Very glad you arrived here at HOH.

PS: we have a section for Unreal over at "The UT99/UnReal Forum Site and Server Directory"
The section still needs a LOT of input.
It is Run/Moderated by Smirftsch, but he has been too busy to fill in the blanks. :(
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Re: Victor Albert Delacroix bids you welcome

Post by Delacroix » Wed Jan 08, 2014 7:47 pm

Thank you for the warm welcome, Hook. I'll try to assist in the section mentioned - if I can. I also linked Bob to the forum, however whether or not he registers and chooses to participate in it is entirely up to him.
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Re: Victor Albert Delacroix bids you welcome

Post by Hermskii » Wed Jan 08, 2014 9:19 pm

I hope you like to read as much as you write. Here I go!

The best way for me to try to give you a wall of info about me or this place is to just give you the link to the main webpage. Please don't judge me by it as I did it many years back and basically hardly ever touched it again though I do plan to fix the links and then update it. It tells a great story and is worth the read I think:

Start on page one and then click the next box over on the left and read about each of the first two servers being {CG} and {MHM}. They are really where I made my claim to fame in UT in the beginning. That is long over now but I have had the best of luck slowly getting close to UT fanatics who are willing to do more for UT than I am. I then tend to try to bring different folks together for common goals and get great results. Check out my website for lots of the story and then come back here if you want to finish reading:

http://hermskii.ipower.com/index.html

The best thing about all of this is so many of us already have the same goal: Keep playing UT and hanging out together basically. I like that the UT crowd is getting older. It makes things so much easier to deal with adults. I have aligned myself with nobody more than with HOOK. He took what I wanted to do and ran with the ball. He is a long trusted friend and an old-school old guy with honor in his bones. He lined up with me a while back and we have enjoyed the fruits of each others success ever since. After realizing there are other awesome folks out there like HOOK. I started growing my community. I almost have it as full as I want it and then I will start the backup plan which will be to have at least 2 of every gametype I like. the redeemer Only Mod will always be first for me but anything goes after that though it has been Monster Hunt to this point.

I don't read. Ever. We'll I did read Pierce Anthony "Pale Horse" and highly suggest it and the Sand Wars by Charles Ingrid. It too was an awesome series. Lastly was Elf Quest by Richard and Wendy Penny up to about comic #25 or so. I have a a comic collection that makes many people's mouths water but I'll never share or sell or tell much about and the baseball card collection going back to the 70 is a few hundred pounds in size now. i have no idea if i have anything good. LOL. I don't care. Ity is like this. I just want to have it because it makes me happy. This makes me happy. It is in my will to keep paying for this after I'm gone. I'm hoping my wife can afford it when I'm gone but I'm pretty sure she and my kids will be just fine. How morbid I just went. Sorry. Welcome! Post often!
~Peace~

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Re: Victor Albert Delacroix bids you welcome

Post by Dr.Flay » Thu Jan 09, 2014 3:35 am

I certainly agree a good SP game need a solid and immersive story.
Unfortunately as you found, certain sites can be snobby/elitist.
...That reminds me. Anyone over a certain age will remember the legendary games "Elite" and "Frontier".
The new "Elite Dangerous" is carrying-on the fine tradition of giving you a whole book to go with it.

Due to the amount of years (25), there are a huge volume of fan-made stories, and in recent times even a radio-play (now into series 2)
http://www.elite-anthology.co.uk/stories
http://laveradio.com

Maybe a radio-play style story with sound effects would capture peoples imagination more ?
You never know, we may be able to round-up enough audio-talent to put something together.

Welcome to Herms house, where we don't care what you ride, just that it is powered by an Unreal engine :mrgreen:
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Re: Victor Albert Delacroix bids you welcome

Post by Hermskii » Thu Jan 09, 2014 8:26 am

Dr.Flay wrote:Welcome to Herms house, where we don't care what you ride, just that it is powered by an Unreal engine :mrgreen:
Have you used that before? I really like it. I may have to use that sometime.
~Peace~

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Re: Victor Albert Delacroix bids you welcome

Post by Dr.Flay » Fri Jan 10, 2014 4:31 am

Nope.
First outing, and totally inspired by the amount of bikers here.
Took a minute to get the end perfect.
But yeah it put a cheesy-grin on my face when I read it back.
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Re: Victor Albert Delacroix bids you welcome

Post by Hook » Mon Jan 13, 2014 1:16 pm

Arg, I gotta "ditto" what Herms said here.
Sounds so right! :P
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