Are there any copies of the second release of Spear of Destiny Mission Pack 2?

[Wadmodder Shalton]

Disclaimer: I also posted this topic on the Lost Media Wiki's forums.

 

On the DoomWiki's article on Doom references in other games in the "Games that use Doom assets" there is mentions of Spear of Destiny's second mission pack reusing UAC computer and box textures from DOOM in Floor 21: Future Threat in the original release, but it also mentions that the references were removed in a later release of the second mission pack.

 

However, I honestly don't think it ever happened or if copies even exist. If you guys can confirm it (if you own copies digitally), the Steam and GOG versions of Spear of Destiny still likely uses the original release of the second mission pack (the former was released in 2007 when id Software joined Valve's digital storefront about 2 years before the Bethesda/ZeniMax acquisition, and the latter was released in 2015 alongside Wolfenstein 3D when a portion of Bethesda/ZeniMax's catalog was released, including a few id Software titles preconfigured with DOSBox), and there isn't any screenshots of Floor 21: Future Threat in the revised version of the second mission pack anywhere to be found online.

 

If copies do exist, then they are likely rare and hard to find. Please let me know about it.

[Gez]

Preferably, patches to change the version of the relevant data files should be provided, rather than actual copies.

[Andromeda]

I found a patch for it: http://maniacsvault.net/loosefiles/patch-sd3.zip

 

"Run it in the same directory as your sd3 files. It should toggle between the two versions each time it is run."

[ETTiNGRiNDER]

A poke through the GOG release's assets using WDC says that the UAC crates are indeed present in that version, which is consistent with what I recall from when I gave these missions a playthrough about a year ago.

 

I kind of wonder, if there are truly two versions, if whoever put that on the wiki was confused about the chronology and maybe there was a first release that lacked the UAC references and then they were added into a re-release?  That would make a lot more sense to me, to be honest.  I'm not entirely up on exactly what the history of those missions were (supposedly they were made by someone other than the id team? maybe people at FormGen? - although oddly the FormGen CD release of Spear of Destiny that I have shows screenshots of these missions on the jewel case insert but only includes the original mission on the disc...) at any rate, I think they were initially released before Doom came out?

 

Getting ahold of the original releases wouldn't be pretty if anyone here doesn't already have them though, as I recall they originally came out on floppies which are pretty pricey on eBay when they come up at all (and then there's the possibility of running into floppy decay issues if you do shell out the money for them...)

[Wadmodder Shalton]

The mission packs were released in 1994, not 1993 or 1992. And if you played Floor 21 in mission pack 2, they have the DOOM box textures, but of you played it with the patch installed, they likely got replaced. If anyone can send screenshots of Floor 21 with the patch mentioned by Andromeda installed, let me know.

Edited December 5, 2019 by Wadmodder RiderPùdu

[ETTiNGRiNDER]

Here's the crate replacement in WDC:

[Wadmodder Shalton]

I suggest id Software and Bethesda/ZeniMax likely doesn't know the existence of this patch in recent years. Such a rare finding for Floor 21: Future Threat.

 

Are there any other textures that were replaced in the patch?

[ETTiNGRiNDER]

The computer screens that were from Doom were also changed to those different computer screens that can be seen in some of the shots.  It didn't look like any of the textures for the rest of the levels were different, as far as I could tell.

[Wadmodder Shalton]

It kind of reminds me of the infamous AARDWOLF sign that said "Call Apogee Say Aardwolf" in floor 8 of episode 2 in Wolfenstein 3D,  where the prize was every registered version of Apogee's games (as they were distributing the game on the shareware model),  which sadly nobody was able to get, as the contest was already internally cancelled without an announcement date once the map editors were already being released at the same time the first episode was released. I wonder if anti-modding measures are present in later versions of Wolfenstein 3D shareware, just like how later versions of DOOM shareware has anti-modding measures, time will tell.

Edited January 4, 2020 by Wadmodder RiderPùdu

[ETTiNGRiNDER]

I don't think so.  Doom's "anti-modding features" only went as far as refusing the -file parameter as far as I know.  Wolf3D mods were always done by hacking and replacing the core data files directly since there was no mod loading function in it.

[Blzut3]

There's a thread on Die Hard Wolfers with file dates and theories.  The UAC version is dated April 1994.  The non-UAC version is dated June 1994.  It's anyone's guess what happened, but given that the one using Doom textures is older it would suggest that perhaps it was an early build sent to id.  Either the latest version with the unique textures never made it over, or they didn't care enough when making the Activision releases.  (Given how terrible the mission packs are I can't say I blame them.)  As far as we know all Formgen releases are the newer non-UAC version.

 

The final level was changed beyond a straight texture swap and a sound was changed slightly as well, but more or less the final level is the only thing that changed between the two versions.  I have no reason to believe that the non-UAC version isn't the intended canonical one.

Edited December 30, 2019 by Blzut3

[Wadmodder Shalton]

And even everybody knows that the infamous "AARDWOLF" sign was removed in later versions of Wolf 3D. As mentioned presumably in BigMacDavis's walkthrough of Floor 8 of Episode 2, with the version date of 1994, I assume GT Interactive (and possibily even Apogee through their pre-WorldWideWeb services) was the first publisher with aquired rights of commercial distribution to remove the "AARDWOLF" sign . (Activision didn't distribute id Software's games until 1997 starting with Quake II, and the release of the game predates the ZeniMax acquisition of 2009 by a decade, with Bethesda publishing id Software's titles starting with the release of DOOM II on XBLA in 2010.)

Edited December 31, 2019 by Wadmodder RiderPùdu