Proto:Blockland/Beta7

This is a sub-page of Proto:Blockland.

A beta testing copy of Blockland was recovered from a beta tester on May 19th 2024. It is dated June 1st 2006, which is only a few weeks after the first beta testers got access to the game.

Important note: The comparisons done to retail on this page and sub-pages are done specifically to version 1 of retail for simplicity's sake unless specified otherwise, as the retail game recieved a lot of updates after v1 which would heavily complicate these comparisons.

Sub-Pages

GUI Differences Differences in menus and other GUI.

Brick Differences Differences in brick models and icons.

Map Differences Differences in map files.

Player Differences Differences in the player model and textures.

Texture Differences Miscellaneous texture differences - including brick prints, UI, etc.

General Differences

• The reported engine version is "Torque Game Engine Test Application ( v1.1.2 )" in this beta. In retail v1 it is "Torque Game Engine ( v1.3 )".
• Build time is "May 17 2006 at 19:42:14", in retail v1 it is "Feb 22 2007 at 01:49:27".
• There is no "Add-Ons" folder at all, which implies that the Add-Ons system did not exist whatsoever yet.
• The screenshots folder also does not exist yet - screenshots are stored in the root directory like in v0002.
• There is no dedicated.bat or dedicatedLAN.bat in the root directory.
• Auth system was not yet implemented, so no key.dat gets generated upon running the game.
• There is a folder called "Patches" which contains a lone batch file named "patch.bat" - Upon running, it attempts to open an executable named "BL-3to4.exe" (which does not exist) before running the game itself. Presumably this was used to update the game from beta version 3 to 4. There is another batch file in the root directory called "doPatch.bat" which also calls patch.bat.
• Glu2d3d.dll and opengl2d3d.dll, which are both present in v0002, are in this beta build as well.
• There is an identical duplicate of OpenAL32.dll named "OpenAL320.dll"
• There are no help/about documentation written yet - in their place there are only Torque Game Engine docs.
• In the base folder,
  • There are no "config" or "server" folders.
  • There is no "saves" folder as there is no default save included, however the game still makes a saves folder here upon trying to save bricks.
  • There is "ipBanList.cs" which defines 0 ip bans.
  • There is a leftover prefs.cs here which the game does not appear to use.
  • main.cs is not compiled here.
• In the "base/client/scripts" folder, the compiled client scripts are split into a lot of files rather than mostly being mixed into one "allClientScripts" file in v1 retail.
• Client prefs.cs and config.cs is stored in "base/client", while in retail v1 these are saved in "base/config/client/"
• "defaults.cs" is in "base/client", while in retail v1 the default client prefs are merged into other client scripts and is compiled.
• "base/data/init.cs" is not compiled.

base/ui/cache

• There is a leftover file "clipboard.gui" - Torque Game Engine puts this here as a cache of what was last copied to the clipboard within the GUI Editor. This file only contains the "cancel" button on the "Auto Updater" UI.
• This folder contains unique font cache files:
  • Comic Sans MS 16pt and 20pt
  • Impact 14pt and 16pt
  • System 16pt
• This folder is missing font cache files:
  • Arial Bold 18pt and 26pt
  • Arial 18pt and 22pt
  • Palatino Linotype in many sizes

Item Model Differences

These item shape files are identical to v0002:

• arrow.dts
• shield.dts
• spearprojectile.dts
• sword.dts
• wrench.dts

These item shape files are missing in this beta:

• empty.dts
• printGun.dts
• spraycanLabel.png
• Some color textures for models

These item shape files are similar to v0002 models, but have some differences:

• axe.dts, hammer.dts, spear.dts, spraycan.dts - Models look to be the same geometry, but uses only the "brickSIDE" texture while in v0002 it used "black", "black", "brown" and "blank" textures respectively. These were changed so that these items are able to be dynamically recolored in-game.
• bow.dts - Model looks very similar, with minor differences and appears to be made slightly longer in size. Now uses "brickSIDE" and "megaPhoneRidge" textures while in v0002 it used a "brown" texture.

v0002	Beta v7

• wand.dts - Looks the same as v0002 except the entire wand's material is set to self-illuminating while v0002's is not, and v0002's has a second translucent "glow" layer around the wand which is entirely missing here.

v0002	Beta v7

• brickweapon - Same model as used in v0002, but using brick textures rather than blank texturing. Clearly intended for the lego-like brick texture from this point in development.

These files are different to retail:

• transspraycan.dts - Looks similar to the regular v0002 spraycan, except with slight model differences and all materials are marked as translucent.

spraycan.dts	transspraycan.dts

These files are unique to this beta:

• glow.png - May refer to the "Glow" ColorFX can? "Glow" doesnt appear as an option in the colorset selector ui, meaning this may be unused right now? Or was this used for an item model?

• 

• megaphone.dts - 5th August 2005 - Based on retail beta screenshots, this would've been the model for the "Printer" tool during this point in the beta. (Note: textures don't appear completely correct in this model viewer)

• 
• 

brickBin

In "base/data/shapes/environment" there is a completely unique model "brickBin.dts". The use of this model is completely unknown. It references two textures "brickBin" and "TTL_plastic1", both of which are not present in this beta and haven't been found anywhere else. There also appear to be collision models erroneously set as separate detail levels.

Horse

There is a folder "base/data/shapes/horse" that is completely unique to this beta - it contains data for a lego-like "horse" vehicle.

• Dated 18th February 2005, making it very early in retail development.
• There are three textures for different colors of horse - black, brown (called "red") and white. A white horse was only spotted once in a February 2005 beta screenshot, but otherwise only the "black" texture has ever been seen in-game, and is the texture defined in this one model we have.
• Animations appear to be pretty much identical to final horse animations.

• 
• 

Misc Model Differences

These model files are identical to v0002/leftovers from v0002:

• deathvehicle.dts
• emptywheel.dts
• goblet.dts
• leaf.dts
• legoTransOrange1.png, legoTransOrange2.png
• legowheel.dts
• ski.dts
• skivehicle.dts

These files are different to v0002, but aren't in retail:

• flowers.dts - 17th February 2005 - has a defined collision box in this model while v0002's didn't. Judging from a dev-log from the time, this is because this had become a real brick for some time, until the new blb brick system was made.

Sounds

There is no music in the "sounds" folder whatsoever, and all of the "notes" sounds for main menu buttons are all missing.

These sounds are missing from this beta:

• admin
• banned
• bodyRemove
• brickClear
• clickChange
• clickSuperMove
• exitWater
• hammerHit
• lightOff and lightOn
• orchhith
• playerConnect and playerLeave
• playerMount
• printFire
• processComplete
• spawn
• uploadStart and uploadEnd
• wandhit
• wrenchHit and wrenchMiss

These sounds are leftovers from v0002:

• airTankActivate
• BEEP1001
• BEEP1013
• BEEP1015
• BEEP1016
• buttonOver
• DESELECT
• footfall
• HE01FD
• HE03B1
• HE05E2
• HE035CP
• HE040B
• HE0387
• HE0393
• HE0405
• HE0407
• HE0572
• helmetActivate
• HOUS1013
• HOUS1014
• HOUS1064
• IMPA1046
• IMPACT1
• META1006
• NOTARGET
• sprayHit
• testing
• WEAP1001

These sounds are different between this beta and v1 retail:

• breakBrick - a tiny bit more silence is present at the beginning
• jump - it is louder in the beta
• splash1 - uses a completely different sound - sounds like a single droplet falling, compared to the full splash sound of the final.

Beta v7	Retail v1