A Midnight Synergy Update

[tyteen4a03]

Hi Everyone!

First of all, welcome to the “new look” of the forum. I know it’s been very quiet here for some time now, and you may be wondering what this change is all about. (But don’t get too excited - it doesn’t mean there’s a Wonderland Adventures 4 or “Return to Return to Wonderland Secret Worlds” coming up.)


1. The Webserver and Forum

With Planet of the Z-Bots almost five years old, the forum has naturally quieted down a lot. There are only a handful of active users at any one period, and traffic to the main website has slowed down a lot as well. The webserver that I was using was now way too overpowered (and too expensive) for this.

As a result, I opted for a (long overdue) downgrade to a smaller and less expensive server. This will allow me to continue hosting the forums and all of the levels and adventures created herein for many more years, even if it is only for a relatively small group of users who have discovered or re-discovered Wonderland.

The upgrade to the new forum is simply a (long overdue) upgrade to the latest version of the forum software. There are a few new perks that come along with this. I have also, by request, increased the PM inbox size to 250 message (from 50) and increased the attachment size limit to
2 MB for posts and 1 MB for PMs (both originally 800kb). There may be some other minor changes along the way.

You’ll also notice a new logo at the top. This is a quick placeholder for now, I would like to invite anyone in the community to submit some possible logos that would match the existing color scheme, and we can have a little competition and vote. The logo should be 1600x200 pixels (for the HD version, which is then downscaled to 800x100 for regular screens).


2. The Midnight Synergy Collection CD

The current collection CD is now almost sold out. I don’t plan to create new copies, but instead am considering creating a new v2.0 of the CD. This would also include the three Wonderland Adventures games, and would be priced attractively for anyone new to Wonderland to get all the games for one price, or for old-timers to add a permanent version of the games to their physical collection.

I’m also toying with the idea of adding a highlight reel of both Return To Wonderland levels and Wonderland Adventures adventures, that come pre-installed with the games on the CD. Any ideas or suggestions in this direction would be most welcome.


And that's it for now. Thank you all for the continued support!

Best,
Patrick

[superhand02]

I haven't been here in what feels like THOUSANDS of years, but recently decided to pop by again, and ohhhmygosh first of all, it's great to hear you're back, at least somewhat, Patrick! Loving the facelift this site has recieved! As someone who's owned and cherished the original collection for YEARS, I swear i'll be the first to buy the version 2.0 CD on release! On top of the showcase of custom levels (which is a GREAT idea btw), i'd seriously be down to see maybe some more behind the scenes stuff! We've seen hardly ANY of it from the Wonderland Adventures serious, and in my opinion would make a GREAT addition on top of everything else to the new and improved CD! Maybe some concept art or scrapped material! Anything really you think you would cool!

[Cyndanera]

.

[Wonderland King]

Hey Patrick! It's nice to see you posting again. I've always been lurking here (I never really stopped checking in), but I haven't found as much reason to post lately - indeed, I fear the community hasn't had as much energy as it once did. Though of course, there are still plenty of users sharing their creations here, it's also nice to see some older names posting and returning as well; a nice reminder that few people truly leave this place.

[Midnight Synergy]

Funny thing... I started playing WA a little again the other day, part of me starting to look into the games again (and trying out how the work on Windows 10, thinking about custom levels for the CD, etc). It's been soooo many years since I've played it, I totally forgot parts of it (like the little "movie scenes" in the intro). And I forgot how fun it is! (seriously, when you write a game for many years, you get _really_ sick of it... so it was nice to see it with fresh eyes again).

I've also been looking through the boards a little bit. Has anyone done an updated collection of all the custom levels/content/adventures (both for classic and WA)... kinda like keeping Mette's collection up to date? If so, let me know if you'd be willing to share it. I would be interested in both hosting it for free on the main website, but also using it for the next collection CD.

[cloudrac3r]

Funny you'd mention that. I'm in the middle of putting together an archive of levels right now. It's super close to being done. I'll keep you updated.

[Lazy Loof]

I have fixed the odd sizes of RTW textures (used in custom models, houses, textures and backgrounds) that were in The Wonderland Archive, since the game won't load them in modern graphics cards. If anyone wants, I can upload it.

I had also downloaded WA3 Editor Custom Adventures as well as hubs in mid-2017 and putted them in correct folders. I was thinking to make a archive. However, after doing the clean installation of Windows 10 on my computer, that all stuff was gone. Fortunately, I made the backup of my downloaded files and also had installed those stuff into my copy of the editor (only some textures are missed). I can upload them if someone wants.

[|Cookie|]

Funny thing... I started playing WA a little again the other day, part of me starting to look into the games again (and trying out how the work on Windows 10, thinking about custom levels for the CD, etc). It's been soooo many years since I've played it, I totally forgot parts of it (like the little "movie scenes" in the intro). And I forgot how fun it is! (seriously, when you write a game for many years, you get _really_ sick of it... so it was nice to see it with fresh eyes again).

Aww, reading this heartwarming. I'm glad that your passion for the games is rekindling once again, even if a little.

Wonderland is one of those games that I always come back to. It has a special place in my heart. Thank you for making this experience for us!

[Lazy Loof]

I've almost downloaded all of the WA3 Editor Custom Stuff. But the size of the editor folder is HUGE (somewhat more than 3.50 GB ). Doing solid compression may reduce the size, but the question is: will it fit in the CD?
I think the reason for this is the music packs created in forum. The size of "Data\Musics" folder is a megabyte more than 1.90 GB (a bit more than half of the total size).

EDIT: I compressed the file using 7-zip as high as my computer's memory can compress it. The resulting actual file size is 2.83 GB (3,04,96,40,654 bytes) and size on disk is 2.83 GB (3,04,96,44,032 bytes). It is a self-extracting archive.

[Midnight Synergy]

Cloudracer and Aryan: That sounds great - I'd love to see what you have (if and when it's ready).

About the music and filesize: The new collection will be on a DVD-Rom, so about 4 Gigs of space. However, the bigger issue is that likely a lot of the custom music does not have license that would allow me to distribute the material on disk. I may not be able to use any of the custom music, unless there is a clear license info.

[cloudrac3r]

Mildly delayed by the fact that organising 37,850 levels is more complicated than it looks. Current idea:

Code: Select all

CustomLevels/
    C/
        Cookie/
            COOKIE001.LV6
            COOKIE002.LV6
        cloudrac3r/
            CLOUDRAC3R001.LV6
    K/
        kiki/
            KIKI0001.LV6
            KIKI0002.LV6
            KIKI0003.LV6

Thoughts on this?

---

Also, what causes this to happen, and how can I fix it?

[Lazy Loof]

Cloudracer and Aryan: That sounds great - I'd love to see what you have (if and when it's ready).

About the music and filesize: The new collection will be on a DVD-Rom, so about 4 Gigs of space. However, the bigger issue is that likely a lot of the custom music does not have license that would allow me to distribute the material on disk. I may not be able to use any of the custom music, unless there is a clear license info.

Nice to know you are using DVD.

Mildly delayed by the fact that organising 37,850 levels is more complicated than it looks. Current idea:

Code: Select all

CustomLevels/
    C/
        Cookie/
            COOKIE001.LV6
            COOKIE002.LV6
        cloudrac3r/
            CLOUDRAC3R001.LV6
    K/
        kiki/
            KIKI0001.LV6
            KIKI0002.LV6
            KIKI0003.LV6

Thoughts on this?

Your idea of alphabetically organizing the levels is great and you should use this only. This is because the same idea was used by mette, so we can upgrade her collection.
Will you also include other custom content like models, houses, textures etc?

Also, what causes this to happen, and how can I fix it?

I think the issue is that the size of the image (its height and width) is not a power of two. For some reason, older versions of Blitz3D (the one in which RTW is compiled) doesn't supports loading those textures from modern graphic cards. You can use free version of fotosizer (http://www.fotosizer.com) to resize all textures of a single folder into the size you specified. It also has the option of creating same sub directories that were in your original folder. You can also create a algorithm to do so.
Another fix is a software fix. As per my observations, the latest version of Blitz3D supports loading those textures from modern graphic cards. So, if Patrick can compile RTW with the latest version of Blitz3D, the issue can be fixed without resizing the textures.

[cloudrac3r]

Cloudracer

-_-

Will you also include other custom content like models, houses, textures etc?

Yes, and in the correct folders too, so all you have to do is unpack the archive, pick a level, and play.

I think the issue is that the size of the image (its height and width) is not a power of two. For some reason, older versions of Blitz3D (the one in which RTW is compiled) doesn't supports loading those textures from modern graphic cards.

Interesting. I'll play around and see if I can do anything.

[Sammy_P]

Nice to know that! About the music: I will check out the license info about these.

Yeaaaah, uh... good luck with that.
Judging how a lot of the custom WA3E music is copyrighted (and probably shouldn't even be shared on the forums... partially my fault), you're probably out of luck on that.

[Lazy Loof]

Nice to know that! About the music: I will check out the license info about these.

Yeaaaah, uh... good luck with that.
Judging how a lot of the custom WA3E music is copyrighted (and probably shouldn't even be shared on the forums... partially my fault), you're probably out of luck on that.

Well... I think that when people shared the music, they should know about their copyright status.
I am taking my words back... Instead of looking out and being crazy, its better to contact the music pack creators about this, or exclude all of the custom music from the collection.
What are you all's opinion about this?

[Timecrokba]

Well... I think that when people shared the music, they should know about their copyright status.
I am taking my words back... Instead of looking out and being crazy, its better to contact the music pack creators about this, or exclude all of the custom music from the collection.
What are you all's opinion about this?

Though the music is part of the adventures, the custom music should not be included in its entirety.
It'd be a hastle to contact all the pack makers (some of whom probably aren't active anymore) to figure out the licencing on the songs, which a majority of WILL be trademarked and so be unuseable.
Sure, the lack of music in most adventures will be jarring, but there is really no other option then going in and replacing it with fitting music from the limited original tracks, which would be possible in some cases but not others, or contending with major companies and music producers if they took notice if the trademarked music is left in, since most of us probably don't know the copyright status of our packs and a few songs would probably slip through.

[FinnThor]

Nice to know that! About the music: I will check out the license info about these.

Yeaaaah, uh... good luck with that.
Judging how a lot of the custom WA3E music is copyrighted (and probably shouldn't even be shared on the forums... partially my fault), you're probably out of luck on that.

Well... I think that when people shared the music, they should know about their copyright status.
I am taking my words back... Instead of looking out and being crazy, its better to contact the music pack creators about this, or exclude all of the custom music from the collection.
What are you all's opinion about this?

Don't include custom music. 90% of it is probably copyrighted/trademarked and takes up way too much space for the editor. Most of the music pack creators are barely active anymore anyway.

[Sammy_P]

Nice to know that! About the music: I will check out the license info about these.

Yeaaaah, uh... good luck with that.
Judging how a lot of the custom WA3E music is copyrighted (and probably shouldn't even be shared on the forums... partially my fault), you're probably out of luck on that.

Well... I think that when people shared the music, they should know about their copyright status.
I am taking my words back... Instead of looking out and being crazy, its better to contact the music pack creators about this, or exclude all of the custom music from the collection.
What are you all's opinion about this?

Easy: just don't include the custom music.

This does remove a lot of the effect on some levels but hey, what are you gonna do.
Plus it takes up a good majority of space in a WA3E archive.

[Lazy Loof]

Yeaaaah, uh... good luck with that.
Judging how a lot of the custom WA3E music is copyrighted (and probably shouldn't even be shared on the forums... partially my fault), you're probably out of luck on that.

Well... I think that when people shared the music, they should know about their copyright status.
I am taking my words back... Instead of looking out and being crazy, its better to contact the music pack creators about this, or exclude all of the custom music from the collection.
What are you all's opinion about this?

Easy: just don't include the custom music.

This does remove a lot of the effect on some levels but hey, what are you gonna do.
Plus it takes up a good majority of space in a WA3E archive.

I also had that idea.

[Muzozavr]

How much custom music is there, anyway? And how integral is it? Most could probably be replaced with the regular in-game tracks, anyway, to make sure it isn't just silent.

[Timecrokba]

How much custom music is there, anyway? And how integral is it? Most could probably be replaced with the regular in-game tracks, anyway, to make sure it isn't just silent.

I'm not sure about RTW, but the adventures levels have several music packs over 40 tracks, so its probably well over 100 custom tracks, so it would save alot of space.
It would also be annoying to replace the music of most recent adventures. For example: CvP, though unlikely to be included in this archive because it changes base shadow stinker textures, from at the latest 7 onward pretty much only uses custom music. This means you would have to find a track that fits each wlv and change it to that, for over 100 wlvs, which is only 4 adventures out of hundreds that might have to be edited. So unless someone is that patient and persistent to do it by themselves, or we have the creator of every level edit them to have only the original music, its highly unlikely to have music on every wlv.

[Lazy Loof]

There are 426-20=406 extra tracks. Anyways, I will not be including them in the archive.

[Muzozavr]

406?!?!

Yikes.

I was thinking of making some replacements myself and filling in the gaps with Kevin MacLeod and other royalty-free music... but yikes. Even with Kevin MacLeod, there's no way I can compose that much good stuff in short order. Sorry, no can do.

[Lazy Loof]

How much custom music is there, anyway? And how integral is it? Most could probably be replaced with the regular in-game tracks, anyway, to make sure it isn't just silent.

I'm not sure about RTW, but the adventures levels have several music packs over 40 tracks, so its probably well over 100 custom tracks, so it would save alot of space.
It would also be annoying to replace the music of most recent adventures. For example: CvP, though unlikely to be included in this archive because it changes base shadow stinker textures, from at the latest 7 onward pretty much only uses custom music. This means you would have to find a track that fits each wlv and change it to that, for over 100 wlvs, which is only 4 adventures out of hundreds that might have to be edited. So unless someone is that patient and persistent to do it by themselves, or we have the creator of every level edit them to have only the original music, its highly unlikely to have music on every wlv.

Well... Can you all release a digitally remastered edition of CvP series along with modified music. Some of the adventures/stuff are missing in CvP currently.
Even through Cvp will replace some textures, I will still include it in the archive. However, these textures will not be included (as they override the official textures), I am sure the levels will still be playable, that's all I want. I will include the renamed versions so if someone wants to have full effect of the series.
Also, I will be including adventures of Wonderplus mod in a seperate folder, so people who are using vanilla version (aka official release version) of the editor do not face any problems while playing. I've also put Paradise Quest in the separate folder. Finnthor's hub Clocked Chaos is excluded. There are also some other hubs that are still missing.
Here's the current editor folder:

editorfolder.png (14.18 KiB) Viewed 32922 times

406?!?!

Yikes.

I was thinking of making some replacements myself and filling in the gaps with Kevin MacLeod and other royalty-free music... but yikes. Even with Kevin MacLeod, there's no way I can compose that much good stuff in short order. Sorry, no can do.

Can't say anything.
There are only two ways: either the level makers modify music, or someone else do so (but replacing 406 tracks is not easy).

One more problem is the fair use statement (2):

2. Any levels/content created with the editor is for release on the forum only. As in (1), you may not repackage your levels or otherwise distribute material in any other way.

What I am asking is that: making the archive can violate this?
Or, I must find any other way for distributing the archive (like using my packer).

[FinnThor]

Well... Can you all release a digitally remastered edition of CvP series along with modified music. Some of the adventures/stuff are missing in CvP currently.
Even through Cvp will replace some textures, I will still include it in the archive. However, these textures will not be included (as they override the official textures), I am sure the levels will still be playable, that's all I want. I will include the renamed versions so if someone wants to have full effect of the series.
Also, I will be including adventures of Wonderplus mod in a seperate folder, so people who are using vanilla version (aka official release version) of the editor do not face any problems while playing. I've also put Paradise Quest in the separate folder. Finnthor's hub Clocked Chaos is excluded. There are also some other hubs that are still missing

Speaking of my hub, there is no way it is currently archive-worthy, I haven't even ported it over to the editor yet.

I would like to remaster the CvP series, but we're so close to the finale adventure that we're holding off on it. Hearing that CvP's additional textures and stuff with be included is pretty nice. The problem will be removing all the custom music, it's had such a large impact on CvP's enviroment.

[Midnight Synergy]

One more problem is the fair use statement (2):

2. Any levels/content created with the editor is for release on the forum only. As in (1), you may not repackage your levels or otherwise distribute material in any other way.

What I am asking is that: making the archive can violate this?
Or, I must find any other way for distributing the archive (like using my packer).

Not a problem - this is just my rule to avoid creations being put on other sites. The archive/CD is perfect.

As for music - pretty much anything by default would be removed. Then we could add a few tracks that we know have approval of the creator (e.g. those on the forum that made music and can still be contacted). But I want to play this safe - I'd hate to run into legal trouble over a custom music track.

Aryan, I'm excited to see how this archive will turn out!


On another note, I've been going through old old files to dig out some interesting bonus material. I found one version of WA so far that will blow you guys away - it's an early take with a very different gameplay mechanic. Most of my time so far has actually been spent trying to find a suitable blitz3d version that will properly compile... but I think I may have found it finally.

[Lazy Loof]

One more problem is the fair use statement (2):

2. Any levels/content created with the editor is for release on the forum only. As in (1), you may not repackage your levels or otherwise distribute material in any other way.

What I am asking is that: making the archive can violate this?
Or, I must find any other way for distributing the archive (like using my packer).

Not a problem - this is just my rule to avoid creations being put on other sites. The archive/CD is perfect.

As for music - pretty much anything by default would be removed. Then we could add a few tracks that we know have approval of the creator (e.g. those on the forum that made music and can still be contacted). But I want to play this safe - I'd hate to run into legal trouble over a custom music track.

Aryan, I'm excited to see how this archive will turn out!

Thanks for clarification,
But unfortunately, my upload bandwidth is very low (for download it could reach 2 MB/seconds, but for upload nothing to say) so I will be uploading in series (like leveltextures first, models second etc.). It will be great if someone with higher upload bandwidth can re-upload the complete archive.

[cloudrac3r]

There's always torrents for reliably transferring large files.

[Lazy Loof]

Good news: size of the Custom folder (that includes all adventures, hubs, and textures) was more than 500 MB, but when I compressed it as high as it can, its just less than 33 MB. Custom folder (in root directory) and Textures folder (for Wizard's Council) and some other data are also less in size. So, no need to worry about upload and file sizes!

But the bad news is same: no custom musics, and the wlv's are not edited.

EDIT:
Click here.

[tyteen4a03]

The size of the collections is not too important (everybody's moved to digital distribution anyway - if you need a reliable hosting platform on https://zbot.space drop me a PM). It's the copyright of the music that I'm concerned about.