Black Thorn full version works as mod

[Toby]

OK - I may well be the only person dumb enough to have tried this - hopefully not - but here goes: I bought Black Thorn and if you have Virtual PC, you can use it as a mod for the mac. Admittedly, I've only tried two of the single player levels and one of the multiplayer ones, but I'm not seeing any texture problems as yet.

The levels are OK. Nothing earth-shattering, lots of corners cut (windows can't see through, solid shower curtains pulled across baths, etc). The whole game just feels unpolished - they don't even have any voice briefings, from what I can make out, just the text.

Anyway, this post was just to say that it seems to work. I'll try Lone Wolf mode, but I don't hold any great hopes for that working...

As for instructions on how to convert, I posted a brief set in one of the threads below. Not the best of instructions, but you should get the gist...now if only I had Mauti's skill in the converting department.  I'm afraid it's a laborious business, too...

Toby

[Toby]

Sigh. I knew my conversion  skills weren't quite up to it. I've run into the same problem that happens in my Covert Ops home-grown conversion, which is that it sticks on the loading screen before a mission (3 in this case) and although the lights in the interface keep blinking, the map never loads. I'm wondering if it's because I stopped there last night - and whether perhaps that means it's a save game issue...but would anyone better at converting have any advice. I'd kind of like to play the other missions in Covert Ops besides the first one come to think of it as well...

But it still works, you'll be glad to hear. The multiplayer maps aren't bad...

Toby

[Toby]

I own this thread.

Heh.

Just adding that there are actually new briefing sounds, contrary to my earlier post - but the game's just not playing them. Hmm. Maybe that has something to do with my loading problems....I did the standard conversion of .wav's to system sound files and stripped the .wav's from all the text files - which is something I've noticed others don't do...but all the other sounds play fine.

Any ideas? And sorry to keep extending this thread - I'm just posting when there are new developments in case anyone's interested...

Toby

[*DAMN Mauti]

Well I can't help you much there because in Austria Black Thorn isn't in stores yet but maybe I can buy it next weekend and help you out. But in the demo the briefing sounds also work well maybe you forgot to wipe the control chars out of the text/briefing directory.

Bye,

Mauti

[Toby]

Thanks Mauti -

I just checked the text/briefing folder and I had already deleted all the control chars and the .wav references, so it's not that. I'll try deleting the saved game next and see if that has anything to do with it.

Toby

Incidentally, would anyone have a completed game file of covert operations they could send me with all the missions completed, just so I can try the missions I can't get to as my game sticks on mission 2?

[Toby]

OK - just an update in case anyone is even vaguely interested...Having downloaded the completed campaign files for both Black Thorn and Covert Ops from Rogue Spear Retreat and Pie's Tactics respectively, I can now play all missions in my home-made conversions. Only one mission in Black Thorn (The African Village Mission - Number 3, I think) has the dreaded blank texture bug (Only one terrain texture, though), the same bug which appears in two (I think) of the Covert Ops multiplayer maps and the congo conversion: otherwise, the maps work perfectly. Would anyone be interested in a full review, or would that be pointless?

Toby

[vanik]

Hi Toby, great effort for the tutorial to convert black thorn for mac. Is there a possibility to download the whole conversion from some place? I'm not quite sure, if I'm good enough to make this conversion myself. But as a rogue spears addict I loved the blackthorn demo mod converted by *DAMN Mauti.
.

*DAMN R6/RS World (newbie) , Mac (veteran) ?

[Toby]

I don't know if anyone else has converted this, or whether anyone else is going to bother, to be honest. And legally, I don't want to go near uploading this - especially as it's a whopping 300MB+ mod. It's not that difficult to convert, though, and I'm more than happy to give you any advice you might want on converting should you decide to buy it.

Otherwise, one could always bug MacSoft about publishing it - although I'd personally prefer to see them do something about Ghost Recon...

One of these days, I might even figure out why I can't hear the briefings...

[vanik]

Thx for the offer to help me out with the conversion of Blackthorn. As soon as I've got the time to put my hands on it, I will come back to you for some help - hopefully not too often  . I will try to put it in my carracho server by then.

Concerning Ghost Recon: I have bugged Redstorm, UbiSoft and Macsoft as often as I could. I tried the demo version on a PC last week (high sytem requirements even on a 1 GHz PIII) and it really rocks.

Have you tried Operation Flashpoint on a PC? Is it worth to bother?

[Toby]

Not having access to a PC, I have to admit I haven't tried either game...but I've watched in-game footage and they're fantastic. You've got my vote for both for the mac!

Toby

[WeaSelFlinK]

I went to this friend of mine in Holland, were we played, as you said, Operation Flashpoint. It's really a neat game.
You can pick up ammo from your ennemies, from your allies, you can ride trucks, jeeps, helicopters, heck anything goes.  I haven't tried it on VirtualPC and I'm not sure it works either. It's not like in Ghost Recon. I played that game too, I personally found it not different from it's predecessor. Graphics are slightly better, so is the AI, but : e.g. A single sniper from the ennemy forces can wipeout your whole team. A guy that is situated at more than 500ms can alert the others without YOU even seeing him!
Anyway, returning to Operation Flashpoint, the graphics are good too, depending what graphics card you have. I've got a 16mb card with 4xAGP and the graphics are pretty good. (9/10) If, however, you have a slow computer (400Mhz or less) it's gonna ram a lot.

It's a pretty tough game, even on the Trainee mode. I was playing this once and a guy shot me with an AK from 400ms or more. He shot a whole clip and I was hit in the head. It happens all the time. You haven't got that much to live for and the AI can sometimes outsmart you. I shot a guy with an HK Mp5 SD and they heard the sound of it from at least 100 metres away. They then alert the rest of the soldiers (pretty obvious) and you get the awful sound of "ABORT MISSION". A thing I like too is when you're finally dead, you can read a famous quote or proverb a ?famous "man" has said. My favourite is Albert Einstein's : I ignore what weapons we will use during World War III, but I know we will fight out World War IV with wooden sticks and tiny rocks.

One thing I hate about the game...
The Soviets are out there. Man never mentioned Soviets that fought any American forces recorded in history. Heck, they even allied together with the U.S fighting Hitler's forces. They never shot each other. NOT once. Maybe they could've got misled and shot each other on areas off the limit without knowing who they are shooting at, but it surely was by mistake. These sorta games aren't very popular. The thing I love the most about the game is the things you can all do : drive a jeep, drive a tank, pick up ennemy weapons, ennemy ammo, you can even pick up your allies's ammo and weapons. The weapons sound are made by the best of the best. They really imitated it all. The only problem, however, it never, but NEVER rains... (To were I came to in the game) :-)
You have, like in Rogue Spear, Lone Wolf options and nightime OPS with the same weapons as in Rogue Spear.
I found out a cool website that allows you to download upgrades and patches for O.F. : www.flashpoint1985.com
You've also got screenshots and others...

I recently heard another game came out. (I'm pretty slow-minded) : Command & Conquer : Red Alert 2.
I played the game in this Internet shop and I hated it.
The graphics are nice, but the gameplay is nothing but racism involment. I played as the American forces as I notice the World Trade Center is covered up with a huge swastika including the Statue of Liberty. Then the Soviets attack the United States and the World Trade Center with ?sort of zeppelins that release neutron bombs. These games were made by extremists for extremists. Never though these sorta games were any fun.

Hope it settles to where you were;
WeaSelFLinK!

[*NADS Capt. Anarchy]

eh bronto, to bring you up to speed:

a while ago, The full Black Thorn and Covert Ops mods got converted to mac and were being freely distributed online. Unfortunately, they happen to be official expansion packs, which means they're copyrighted, so free distribution of them is essentially warezing. So they got taken down, and since the companies have no plans to port the expansion packs, we have practically no way to get the mods without porting them ourselves. Or finding someone who got them before the got taken down.