Trespasser Memories

[BizRodian]

I used to post on Jurassic Park/Trespasser forums back in the late 90s/early 2000s. The original pre-release community for Trespasser was pretty big, but completely disappeared after the game's release.

The Jurassic Park community online was a lot smaller than the general gaming community. Before JP3 was in production, Trespasser was the most recent Jurassic Park thing and so we all spent a lot of time focused on that. I can remember me and a guy called BJPE preaching the greatness of Trespasser to a bunch of Star Wars fans on a Star Wars chatroom. The main reason we liked it was because we were JP fans, but at the same time, we could see things like the physics and the immersive exploration as something special. The way tech advances moved at that time, a computer made even just a couple years after Trespasser's release was able to play the game WAY better than most people had the chance to play it at release. So we got a bunch of people who had never even heard of the game before to be pretty into it.

Aside from Trespasser and (later) a bit of JP3 anticipation, I can remember that the release of JP and TLW on DVD was another big deal in our community. Once the trailers for JP3 came out (and due to the fact that the internet was becoming more popular in general) the community grew quite a bit. For whatever reason, I drifted away from JP stuff around that time.

I honestly don't remember too much about back then. I've definitely forgotten more than I remember. I was a completely different person back then, and it was a long time ago. More than anything else, I remember chatting with various other Jurassic Park fans. As I said before, the JP community was very small, so you felt like you kind of knew everyone. We were mostly all a bunch of young teenagers, and it was cool to meet people into the same stuff as you.

Is there anyone from that time still around?

Here's a screen cap of the old IngenNET forums, this was the old forums we used to visit before going to a ubb style forum. I think this was a screenshot I took just before the move over to the new forums. I wonder if I have any other screenshots from that time.

Also, if anyone wants to quickly fill me in on what's happened with Trespasser in that time... feel free. I don't think there were really any completed mods or levels done at that time, we were all just trying to figure out how that stuff worked!

[Hilwo]

Thanks again for sharing, that's pretty cool From the screenshot, I remember the Jackal and Rich (rfblasco). Rich did poke his head in here at some time, but I don't think he was around much. I met them at the TrespasserNet forum, must have been around 2000. You might want to try the Internet Archive if you haven't already, but I've had little being able to revisit forums through there.

Well, then I reckon there's a good bit you don't know about yet I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot, but I'll start.

Andres James made a program called TresView, which allowed people to view Trespasser levels. This later evolved into TresEd, the Trespasser Level Editor still used to this day. You can also visit the Homepage of Andres James for history and more information on the editor. I see some THS tools on his site as well, though I don't know if he was ever a member of THS or THS II.

The source code of the game has been uncovered, though I'm not sure if it's up for download here somewhere. Some specific things I remember people restoring were hitspangs, treesap particles (priorities, right?), dinosaur emotions, and jumping raptors.
I'm not sure if I remember this correctly, but I think user Lee Arbuco used the source code to create the Trespasser CE patch. The link will lead to the forum post, if you're interested in its origin.
To grab it (and have the easiest time ever getting the game to run), I suggest you download the Trespasser 2020: A Trespasser Modding Starter Kit by MikeTheRaptor. It has a very helpful and easy to use guide. So easy, even I could do it.

For more history, lots of different builds of the game have been unconvered. You can grab them all here. The Plantation House was its own level before it was cut and the house was moved to the Jungle Road level. The Pine Valley level was cut and later stripped and used as the demo. Both cut levels are in these builds, as well as the E3 demo.
Check out the patches to get builds 22-32-55 going, there should be some retail compatability patches available.
Aside from builds, various developer design documents have been uncovered as well, such as the scripts for Hammond and Anne.

As for levels/mods, too many to list From the top of my head I check out these:
- TresCom Ops Anthology (Act I-IV)
- Trespasser Isla Sorna
- JPDS Jurassic Park Dark Secrets
- East Dock

Welcome home

[Draconisaurus]

Additional important mods have included Nem's "Trespasser Legacy", found inside the Trespasser2020 release, and The Lagoon by chronzerg. Oh, and TheIdiot released an incomplete Isla Nublar mod called RTJP, "Return to Jurassic Park".

[Hilwo]

Also I'm not sure if you've already seen this (recently?), but TSOrd has you listed among the easter eggs on TresSecrets It says you found the Luke, Han and Chewie egg in the Lab level here:
here. He also copied your page.

EDIT: I also see your user name here. You were listed for making a bowling ball, screwdriver, broom and T-Rex jawbone for TSOrd's Pine Valley level, then still called Geothermal Plant

* Note to us: The TrespasserSecrets site is hosted/backed up, but some of the pages are missing. They are still in the 'ol Internet Archive, though.

More history here, turns out TSOrd was in THS II which was later renamed THS - The Revolution. He rewrote some of the THS tools.

[TheIdiot]

Always cool to hear the experiences of other Tres and JP fans. InGenNET sounds familiar, but it might also have been a relic by the time I was old enough to start exploring the internet for things like that (2004 or 5ish). When exactly was the peak of that site? I'm curious as I seem to recall bumping into it quite a few times and wondering whether it was some hidden chat site for JP production crew or something - I had no idea that a "fan site" could really exist outside of offically-sanctioned ones.

As for levels, there is a massive plethora of levels to check out in the Download section. The others have listed some of the greats - I always recommend the TC series (TC Prequel, TresCom Ops, TC Isle, TC Rescue), Trespasser Legacy, JPDS, Craters, and East Dock as some of my favourites, but there are so many classics at this point that you could probably spend months playing through all of them.

[BizRodian]

I remember rfblasco fairly well and used to talk to him on ICQ. Given the W. Bush and Al Gore parody accounts on the Ingennet forum there, I would guess that would have been taken in 2000. I remember that forum the most, and I think everyone kind of migrated to other forums a few times. Plus everyone would just create ezboard forums for their various fan pages and you'd just hop from one to the next.

I wasn't planning on it, but maybe I will check out the game again. Some of these fan made levels sound pretty cool. That's also cool that these other builds were recovered. Do they play pretty similar to the retail version? I remember some people thought that some of the early previews given to games journalists and the like were on some radically different engine. That trailer video with T-Rex knocking over the vending machine, plus the various positive early coverage of the game being used as evidence. I'm guessing that's not the case. But yeah, I do remember dinosaur emotions and lack of jumping being something we realized had been removed. Finding the beta versions was considered a holy grail type thing, with some people thinking they'd find a magically unbroken Trespasser that played perfectly.

Yes, I remember finding the Luke, Han, and Chewie and putting up that webpage. I don't at all remember the other thing, which I'm guessing was just from me requesting the objects in a forum post, not having anything else to do with them. I used to do a lot of game editing, but I don't think I did much with Trespasser. I recognize some of the names on that page as people who I used to know fairly well.

I think we used to call the plantation house Muldoon's Lodge or something.

I remember IngenNET as kind of being the big JP fansite at the time, but it was still a very small community. I probably only was around for a few years, 1999 - 2001 would be my guess. I don't know how long it lasted. Back then people were pretty open to there being tons of different fan sites and visiting them all and their various forums. Seems kind of like a lot of work now! But I like that better then going to reddit or facebook, honestly.

[Hilwo]

I think everyone kind of migrated to other forums a few times.

That happened to me as well. After TrespasserNet went down, I think Wajas rounded up some people and invited them over die the Diehard forums, which became TresCom.

That's also cool that these other builds were recovered. Do they play pretty similar to the retail version? I remember some people thought that some of the early previews given to games journalists and the like were on some radically different engine. That trailer video with T-Rex knocking over the vending machine, plus the various positive early coverage of the game being used as evidence. I'm guessing that's not the case. But yeah, I do remember dinosaur emotions and lack of jumping being something we realized had been removed. Finding the beta versions was considered a holy grail type thing, with some people thinking they'd find a magically unbroken Trespasser that played perfectly.

I guess you could say they play pretty similar, though people with more technical knowledge of the game might say otherwise, I'm not really sure. They are holy grail in my opinion, but they are most definitely not magically unbroken versions of Trespasser. In fact, I'm amazed at what they have been able to pull off between the earliest builds and the retail version of the game (stability and playability-wise). Except for all the things (levels, puzzles, tons of foilage, etc.) that had to be stripped out, of course. For me, they are mostly interesting to look into. It was surreal to play through areas we'd only ever seen some screenshots for. I'd say check them out if you are interested in history.

I think we used to call the plantation house Muldoon's Lodge or something.

Nice! Muldoon was supposed to have his own house or bungalow in the town level, see attached image for the sign that was supposed to be on his door or house. Not sure if it was one of the existing bungalows still in retail, though.

I remember IngenNET as kind of being the big JP fansite at the time, but it was still a very small community. I probably only was around for a few years, 1999 - 2001 would be my guess. I don't know how long it lasted. Back then people were pretty open to there being tons of different fan sites and visiting them all and their various forums. Seems kind of like a lot of work now! But I like that better then going to reddit or facebook, honestly.

I thought I remembered InGenNET, but now I'm not sure. As the forum I remembered was mostly red in color. So it might have been a different one after all.

[BizRodian]

The magic unbroken Trespasser was a believable enough myth because there were so many fake renderings in screenshots and videos that people thought were capturing real gameplay. And a lot of the Trespasser previews where journalists discussed playing the game were full of the typical hyperbole.

I think the IngenNET ezboard might have been red.