Crestfallen Studios

So, after years of playing "The Way" and being a shadow guest on these forums, I had forgotten all about this great game until recently. While over a friend's house I was reminded of Lun's awesome creation and immediately sent him to the site to download Episode 1...

I was horrified when he began the episode and it didn't begin like I remembered. I was SURE that those campers "met" the shadow-killer at the beginning of the game, but it never happened for him. That's when I realized that I had version 1.6 of The Way Ep1 (6/24/2004 I think).

So, since I see that all the episodes are last updated in 2006 does that mean that Lun made some more changes to the completed series after version 1.6? And if so...is there a thread (that I couldn't find) detailing the changes to this great classic?

Its been long enough that I could probably play through the games again and not remember everything, but I'm just curious as to how the plot/gameplay/etc. changed from my version to the latest? If Lun removed that first scene (and others) I'm sure there was a reason for it, but I'd like to know what else was changed as well.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Having played eleventy billion versions of each episode of The Way (including a pre-beta E5), I guess I have the qualifications to speak as a bit of a historian, or probably as close as you can get without being a part of Lun's secret cabal. Sadly I don't have the first version of the first episode I played, but the only thing I can honestly remember being different is who the headhunter asks Rhue about. In the earlier versions, it was Gaius, but in later ones (not sure the exact version it changed) he asks about Jeruh. It's been a long while since I've played through any of the episodes, so my memory's a little fuzzy, but I can't remember any MAJOR changes ever being made to E1. I can't spot anything that strikes me as different from a quick runthrough. Can you point out what specifically you think changed?

There's no topic in which all of this has ever been cataloged (that I remember), but one of our members wrote a comprehensive guide to all the easter eggs and secrets, available here. Spoilers ahoy. There's a small section devoted to version differences, but all that's there for E1 is what I mentioned.

And apart from the "story mode", the changes from v1.6 to v2.0 are mainly polish as far as I know. In terms of the actual events in the story there's more difference from 1.0 to 1.6 than 1.6 to 2.0, and those changes are pretty minimal to begin with.

Thanks for the quick response, its much appreciated. I recall that the version my friend downloaded recently didn't have the "shadow killer going into the tent" scene in the introduction, unless by some freak chance our linux box skipped over that part (though I doubt it).

That's only the 1st change that I recall, like I said, it's been awhile since I've played. But when I saw (or didn't see) the scene, I said "woah, woah, something's not right, let me get my version at home for you".

Anyway, I may just be totally off in la-la land here, but I'll download another "updated" 2.0 version here on my laptop (so as to not overwrite my PC version here) tomorrow and compare the two again.

Thanks again. Tis a shame there's no running (public) changelog from version to version, would be interesting to see.

The easter egg guide has all the ones I know about except (spoilers obviously) in the end of episode 5 Strata's rather out of character redemption speech is shortened to about a line in the most recent update. And the guide mentions the treasure trove in EP6 being inaccessible in that section, but its not.

KnightOfTruth wrote:Thanks for the quick response, its much appreciated. I recall that the version my friend downloaded recently didn't have the "shadow killer going into the tent" scene in the introduction, unless by some freak chance our linux box skipped over that part (though I doubt it).

Interesting. If that's right you've played an earlier version (or at least different) than I've ever played. The first Way I ever played was E1 downloaded from rpg2knet.com in... April of 2001 I'm tempted to say (I noted the exact date somewhere in 5 years of IRC logs), so it's certainly possible some modifications were made to the version submitted there, but I do remember my first playthrough very vividly. That was the only episode I didn't beta test (or play before official release), and I still have my beta versions of every other episode except 2, so maybe that'll be something for me to do some time.