Inspirations from other PCL's
Thanx to Duncan for his "Armor Test" level and
"TestCase18" which were important to the creation of
Portals. Thanx also for the contest and letting also the European designers enter.
Thanx to Lord.Stone for making me realise that dark levels CAN be
fun. See Portals3 to see what I mean. (refering to
"<ARENAS> Magic Disco")
Thanx to the one who made the Unreal armour. A little painting and it became the omega armour (Portals1)
Thanx to QuikSilver_5 for forgiving me. You ARE an artist. Also
thanks for making the Icon Index (at Drakan Fantasy Forge). It has
been a big help. Thanks to Unknown Warrior for putting that table
in HTML format.
Thanx to Sambo Jacks for making a Rynn-skinn without breasts (see
FF Duel). Otherwise the Darkness-armour would have been female and would
have been named The Darknessess;. :p
extra thanx
Thanx to MiNdfiRe (see history)
Thanx to Rynn the Frost : For testing "PortalsPreview"
and giving me some suggestions. But not for gibbing me and
kicking me out of his server. ;)
Thanx to Questing Beast for reviewing PortalsPreview
Thanx to Lìrâh for testing Portals123v3, also thanx +JAEL+
Thanx to everyone I forgot to mention.
The making of Portals (history)
First there was nothing. Then came Drakan.
And the people at Surreal knew it was good. (OK, maybe not the
ending and the MP coding could also have been perfected, but then
again perfection is not of this world, is it? Anyway, it wasn't
really their fault.)
They also released the level-editor so the power of the engine
would be known to mankind. Some players dared to use it and from
their labour arose new PCL's. And all was well.
Then a fiercefull Warrior at Surreal stood up and wanted to
organise a "level-design-contest". A young
level-designer (me) was really excited about it and decided to
perfect a certain level he had changed (to test some of the new
Rynn-skins he found on the web). And after hearing some complains
on the forums like : "Not many players want to play the new
PCL levels"; "The servers that are running don't use
the new PCL's enough" etc.
He came to a simple conclusion : Why not make some new levels
that can run all the time on a dedicated server and make it
possible for players to choose the level they wanna play. So he
started his inspired work.
Then the DRAMA came.
The young designer (and several others) found out that they were
excluded from the contest. "Why OOOH why" he cried! Why
is a sage drakan-god as Duncan stabbing me in the back like that?
Feeling really sad that someone who he admired so much had shown
too much patriotism, he trew his unborn levels in his "Map
of oblivion". They were kept in that map for about two
weeks.
But then suddenly a saint left a post on one of the forums. This
Saint known as MindFiRe gave him a simple compliment that made
him realise that not joining a contest should not be a reason to
leave that wonderfull game called Drakan.
So this young designer dragged the levels out of that dreathful
directory and began to use the Drakan-leveleditor again.
Afterwards, the sage drakan-god declared that all designers could
enter the contest, but that didn't matter anymore to the young
designer. He just wanted to create something for the
drakan-community. Why? For the hell of it.
So the fact that you read this file means that the story had an
happy ending after all. ;)
The choice of the levels
There are many PCL's that I quite enjoy but didn't include in the
leveltransitions. Here are some excuses that I will use when the
original designer of such a level asks why I didn't include his :
a) Not enough leveltransitions so I HAD to make choices!!!
b) Because the level has it's own level-transitions and confusing
the servers tooo much would be stupid. (Resurrection)
d) Because there is already a level of that kind included
(Hovertrain 1 vs. Hovertrain 2, "Abdication" &
"Hill of Ice" vs. "Hill of Fire")
e) Because the level has to much the personal scent of the clan.
(Frosty 0°, tHe faLLeN, Shrub, Chilly, Wheel of
Time, One Bloody Night, ...)
f) Because I never have seen the level on one of the servers and
therefore assume that not many people have that level.
g) Because the level has several versions so it may be possible
that not all players have the same version. So if such a level
would be chosen then not all players would be teleported.
(Yes I know, Legacy of Tibor (updated),
Dragon-Ride Night QOD 2 and Genocide 2 are exceptions to this rule
but these levels are so good that i couldn't resist. I don't
think anyone will blame me for including them. Also, MiNdfiRe is anyway known for his updates.)
h) Because the level can surrely provide lots of fun but is made
by a less experienced leveldesigner so that it could need some
adjustments.
i) Because the levels should have their own "Portals"
level. Including just one of them wouldn't give enough credit to
the rest of the pack. Or those levels already have their own website.
(Arenas of Honour)
j) Because the level can't be played in MP with more then one
player.
(Stormy Islands, The Days of Glory)
(I strongly recommend downloading "Days of Glory", just
for the fun of exploring this huge and well made MP level!)
k) Because the level just isn't good enough.
(No where to run)
l) Because the level came out after I completed Portals 2 &
3.