RITUALISTIC || Games

Copyright:
The SiN FAQ is copyright 1999 Maarten Goldstein . If you would like to use parts of this FAQ on your homepage, please do so with full credit of author and a link to this FAQ.

Disclaimer:
This FAQ was not made by Ritual Entertainment and/or Activision and they can not be held responsible for anything that is in this FAQ. Any information in this FAQ can change at any time.

Table of contents

1. Introduction

1.1 About this FAQ
1.2 About the author
1.3 Where to get this FAQ

2. About SiN

2.1 What is SiN?
2.2 Who made SiN?
2.3 Who is Ritual Entertainment?
2.4 Who is SiN's publisher?
2.5 What's the story behind SiN?
2.6 What are SiN's features?
2.7 What are SiN's levels ? - UPDATED
2.8 When was SiN released? - UPDATED
2.9 What are SiN's weapons?
2.10 Who is that real life Elexis model?
2.11 What are SiN's cheat codes?
2.12 How can I check my Frames Per Second?
2.13 Is there going to be a mission pack?

3. SiN System Requirements

3.1 What are SiN's system requirements? - UPDATED
3.2 Under which Operating System will SiN run?
3.3 What 3D accelerators does SiN support?

4. Multiplayer

4.1 What kind of multiplayer support is there in SiN?
4.2 Can I play SiN on the internet like Quake?
4.3 What about GameSpy 3D (and other) support? - UPDATED
4.4 Where can I find servers to play on?
4.5 Can I play cooperative or Capture the Flag?
4.6 How do I start a dedicated server?

5. SiN Editing

5.1 In what ways is SiN editable? - UPDATED
5.2 Can I change Quake C like in Quake(tm) ?

6. The SiN Team

6.1 Programmers
6.2 Level/Game Designers - UPDATED
6.3 Artists - UPDATED
6.4 Music/Sound effects
6.5 Others - UPDATED

7. Support

7.1 Videocard issues
7.2 Soundcard issues
7.3 Bug reporting
7.4 Other Problems
7.5 Support for hardware
7.6 Fullgame support

8. Where to find more information about SiN

8.1 WWW - UPDATED
8.2 IRC
8.3 Public Forums - UPDATED
8.4 Online Reviews

9. FAQ Credits

10. Revision history

11, Submit Question

1. Introduction

1.1 About this FAQ

This FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) is about the game SiN. It offers you the most up-to-date info on SiN, and hopefully answers most of your questions. This FAQ may seem empty in places, but that's because Ritual is keeping a lot of the stuff a secret to surprise people more.

1.2 About the author

Maarten Goldstein is the co-webmaster of Ritualistic, located at http://www.ritualistic.com .

1.3 Where to get this FAQ

All the new versions will be posted at http://www.ritualistic.com

2. About SiN

2.1 What is SiN?

SiN is a first person 3D action game by Ritual Entertainment. The game is set in the future, where you play Colonel John R. Blade of an elite taskforce who is out to kill Elexis Sinclair, a beautiful biochemist, who is taking over the city with a new drug called U4. See 2.5 for the full story. You are being helped by your sidekick J.C, who is a computer hacker, and give s you instant updates during the game.

SiN can be played both as single and multiplayer, with support for OpenGL 3D accelerators as well as TCP/IP network support.

SiN is based on the Quake 2( tm ) engine by id Software , with Ritual's own enhancements to the engine, such as 16-bit color. More on SiN's features in part 2.6

This is what developer Ritual has to say about the game: "Boasting one of the most talented teams in the industry, SiN promises to be a mind blowing experience like no other. Exploring undiscovered territory in the 3d action gaming genre, SiN will bring your senses to new levels of immersion and entertainment"

2.2 Who made SiN?

SiN is made by Texas-based developer Ritual Entertainment .
A team of 15 people worked on the game. See the Team part (6) for all of the names.

2.3 Who is Ritual Entertainment

Ritual Entertainment was formerly named Hipnotic Interactive, but due to trademark problems they are now called Ritual Entertainment. They are relatively new to the gaming community, but have already earned their medals with the popular Quake Mission Pack #1, "The Scourge of Armagon", which was voted #1 action game by a Computer Gaming World reader poll.

2.4 Who is SiN's publisher?

SiN is published by Activision, who also published Ritual's Quake Mission Pack.

2.5 What's the story behind SiN?

Ten years ago in 2037, the city of Freeport was on the verge of collapse. The inefficient and under manned police forces were losing in the long hard battle against crime. The city needed help, but the overburdened government could no longer cope with maintaining peace on the streets. The government proposed a bill giving individual corporations the right to form their own police/security forces and they in turn would provide protection for the companies and citizens of the cities. This bill was passed and a new order of law enforcement was birthed. Several well respected sec-forces were established and one hard hitting group calling themselves HARDCORPS helped lead the way in crime prevention and elimination. The chaos slowly subsides as the sec-forces bring peace and order back to the city.

Colonel John Blade, the owner of HARDCORPS, is currently trying to track down the source of a drug distributed on the streets called "U4". This highly addictive drug has been around for some time, but lately strange things have been happening to its users. It is up to Blade to find out what is happening; figure out who or what is behind the weird problems now plaguing the streets; and put a stop to it.

This elaborate puzzle eventually leads back the mysterious Elexis Sinclair. A brilliant biochemist who is attempting to push the evolution of mankind ahead by a thousand generations and she will stop at nothing to get what she wants.

The story will unveil while playing the game, and should be really innovating.

2.6 What are SiN's features?

General Features :

- 16 bit Color graphics.

- Full rotation with collision. Don't get chopped by blades :)

- Radiosity Colored Lighting. Quake II has this too, but Ritual added it themselves to the original Quake engine.

- 3rd person view

- Cut scenes during the game. Ingame, not rendered scenes.

- Action Based Outcomes. If, for example, you shoot a water pump system in one level, the next level will be flooded. This allows for a different play experience every time. The second time you play it, you may encounter levels that you didn't play the first time.

- Interactive music system. The music changes depending on what's happening in the game.

- Vehicles. You can drive around in different vehicles during the game.

- Colored Lighting in Software & GL. You give an entity a RGB value, and it will show up in the game as that color, whether you have a 3D card or not.

- Script system. All entities are controlled by script files, which are (fairly) simple text files. Character bindings, level objects, the whole deal. Script files can be edited in any TXT editor. Levels won't have to be recompiled if your action didn't work out in the way you wanted. Just change it in the txt and reload your level. Should be very cool.

- Advanced surface control system (Ricochet, slick, opaque, reflective, etc)

- Translucency. Pretty self-explanatory.

- Blood. Get shot from the back and see your own blood on the wall in front of you. Scary stuff...

- Non player characters. Just people wandering around, or helping you.Your hacker side kick J.C. is one too.

Character Model Features

- Each monster is around 500 to 700 polygons, with bosses being up to 1500 polygons.

- Character Regional damage. Monsters react depending on the place they are hit, and take less damage in the legs than in the chest and head.

- Model Interpolation. The computer draws the animation between model positions itself. A slower computer will therefore have less animation frames than a faster computer.

- Death of monsters dependant of where you shoot them (for example, shooting the monster in the head will kill him quicker than shooting the monster in its leg). Enemies can shoot specific portions of the player in single player games and deathmatch too.

- Single mesh skeleton based hierarchical animation (This means you get a great looking skin (i.e. vertex animation)) while at the same time having the ability to do a lot more frames of animation.

- Any resolution skin size and multiple skins can have different resolutions. This means that you can have a base skin of lets say 256x128, but this can cause major slowdown on hardware (especially in network games), so for this to work you could make two "damaged" skins at a resolution of 128x64 or 32x32 or etc.

- Movement of characters is driven by the animation. For example, you fire up your copy of 3DS MAX(tm), make a monster, animate it walking, put it in SiN, and voila, the animation looks exactly the same. You can make the animation as complex as possible, but it will work. The characters will judge for themselves what to do, so if there's a wall left, and open space right, it will, for example, roll to the right, instead of rolling to the left.

- Attributes are stored in the animation file. What this means is that the animator can specify which weapon this animation is to use, on which frames it should fire, on which frames it should loop or reload etc. This makes it very easy for someone to add a new character but not have to do any custom programming.

- AI characteristics are determined by which animations the character possesses. All animations are accessed by name, so when you want a character to "run" in the DLL, you find out if he has a "run" animation and use that one. This also allows us to have random alternate animation sequences like pain1, pain2, pain3 etc. This also means that you can put a brand new monster in the game and his animations will determine his AI behavior. So if you make a monster that has shooting, walking and flying in his animation, he can't, for example, crouch or run.

- Completely arbitrary real-time scaling. The characters can be scaled and their animations and movements will be scaled accordingly.

2.7 What are SiN's levels? - UPDATED

There are 6 missions, which give you 38 levels. Thanks to Ritual's ABO system, its possible to play less than that, and when you play it again its possible to be in levels you did not see the first time. There are also 12 deathmatch only levels for your multiplayer needs. Here is an overview of the levels:

Level Name	BSP Name	Author
intro Bank Abandoned Building Construction Site Subway SinTEK Chemical Plant Sec. SinTEK Chemical Plant SinTEK Ouside Warehouse SinTEK Warehouse SinTEK Biomech Security SinTEK Biomech Factory Missle Silo Freeport Sewers A Freeport Sewers B Freeport Aqueducts Freeport Dam Freeport Water Works 1 Freeport Water Works 2 SinTEK Oilrig Underwater Passage 1 Underwater Passage 2 SinTEK Hidden Docks 1 SinTEK Hidden Docks 2 SinTEK Geothermal Plant 1 SinTEK Geothermal Plant 2 Jungle 1 Jungle 2 Gorge Area 57 Biomass Xenomorphic Lab 1 Xenomorphic Lab 2 Elexis' Mansion 1 Elexis' Mansion 2 Munt Phoenix Thrall	intro bank abandon csite subway chem1 chem2 whouse1 whouse2 biomecha biomechb silo sewera sewerb aq1 dam wworks1 wworks2 oilrig uwpass1 uwpass2 docks1 docks2 geo1 geo2 jungle1 jungle2 gorge area57 biomass xeno1 xeno2 mansion1 mansion2 phoenix thrall	Tom Mustaine Patrick Hook Patrick Hook Charlie Wiederhold Tom Mustaine Charlie Wiederhold Matthias Worch Patrick Hook Patrick Hook Tom Mustaine Tom Mustaine Charlie Wiederhold Tom Mustaine Tom Mustaine Matthias Worch Tom Mustaine Charlie Wiederhold Charlie Wiederhold Charlie Wiederhold Patrick Hook Patrick Hook Levelord Levelord Levelord Levelord Levelord Patrick Hook Levelord Levelord Levelord Levelord Levelord Levelord Levelord Patrick Hook Patrick Hook

2.8 When was SiN released? - UPDATED

SiN was released in November '98.

A demo was released on Sunday the 26th of July (aka Sinday).
The demo features 2 single player levels, which make up the bank levels. Also included are 2 deathmatch levels. The demo was 33mb in download size.

On September 25, Ritual released another demo, with many bugs fixes and more polished AI, as well as general additions to the game. The new demo also included two new deathmatch levels. You can download the demo here.

2.9 What are SiN's weapons

SiN has got 10+ weapons, which are: fists, magnum, shotgun, assault rifle, chaingun, spider mine, rocket launcher, plasma cannon, quantum distabilizer, and the sniper rifle. Plus there are some mission specific guns like the harpoon gun.

The demo includes fists, the magnum, the shotgun, the assault rifle, the rocketlauncher and the sniper rifle.

2.10 Who is that real life Elexis model?

During trade shows, there was a real Elexis model. Her name is Venessa King. For some cool pics, visit this page - http://www.megastar.co.uk/site/today/features/bigbirds/content/html/sin.html

2.11 What are SiN's cheat codes?

You can use the following cheat codes by pulling down the console with the ` key (next to the 1):

/god - god mode
/wuss - all weapons
/noclip - walk through walls

2.12 How can I check my Frames Per Second?

Although not the best way, you can measure your FPS by typing 'set fps 1' in the console. You can turn it off by typing 'set fps 0'

2.13 Is there going to be a mission pack?

Yes! For those of you who can't SiN enough, there is a mission pack in production called 'Wages of SiN' by developer 2015 . It is slated for a February '99 release.

For more information and screenshots, visit this Ritualistic page.

3. SiN System Requirements

3.1 What are SiN's system requirements? - UPDATED

(- being required, + not being required, but will be used if you have it)

- Windows 95/98 or NT 4.0 (with Service Pack 3) with 100% compatible computer system
- Pentium 166 (200 mhz recommended)
- 32 MB RAM (64 MB RAM recommended)
- Quad Speed CD-ROM Drive
- PCI or AGP video card with 2mb RAM
- Windows supported sound card
- 50 MB of uncompressed hard disk space
- DirectX 5.x
+ LAN and Internet play using the TCP/IP protocol
+ OpenGL supporting 3D accelerator

3.2 Under which Operating System will SiN run?

SiN is designed to work in Windows 95/98 and will also work under NT. There is a possibility of Linux and BeOs ports.

3.3 What 3D accelerators does SiN support?

SiN will support all 3D chipsets that can handle OpenGL, such as 3DFX 's Voodoo tm and the PowerVR PCX2 tm . If you have a 3D accelerator, capable of running OpenGL at a decent speed, you are in for a treat, with many SiN effects only available in GL, and not in software.

Chipsets currently known to work with SiN: Nvidia Riva 128/TNT, 3DFX Voodoo(2), PowerVR PCX2, Rendition as well as ATI RagePro cards.

4. Multiplayer

4.1 What kind of multiplayer support is there in SiN?

There is TCP/IP Internet and LAN support.

4.2 Can I play SiN on the internet like Quake( tm ) ?

Yep. Like Quake you can set up a server, where people can freely join and shoot the hell out of each other.

4.3 What about GameSpy 3D (and other) support?

Gamespy supports SiN; download the latest version from www.gamespy.com . Or try PingTool, another good server tool. It can be found at www.pingtool.com .

4.4 Where can I find servers to play on?

You can use GameSpy or PingTool ( see above ).

4. 5 Can I play cooperative or CTF (Capture the Flag) SiN?

SiN doesn't officialy support cooperative play because of the ABO system and other things, but due to code left over from Quake 2, it is possible. To play cooperative, you must run SiN, pull down the console (`, the key next to the 1), and type "set coop 1" (no quotes). Now you must type in the bsp name of the level. For an overview of all the level names, go here .

There is a SiN CTF mod in the works, from the folks doing Cops and Robbers Mod for SiN. Check out Cops and Robbers for more info on when it will be released. Target date is February 1999.

4.6 How do I start a dedicated server?

You can start a SiN dedicated server by starting SiN with 'sin +set dedicated 1' . This will open a dos box, which accepts all the commands of the Sin console.

5. SiN Editing

5.1 In what ways is SiN editable? - UPDATED

You can make your own levels with SiNED, which can be downloaded from here - http://www.fileshack.com/file.x?fid=4096

People wanting to modify the way SiN works, can edit the game source code, which can be downloaded from here - http://www.fileshack.com/file.x?fid=375

You can also make new skins and models. All you need for 3DS Max output of models, is the 3DSMax plugins included with the Sintools.

An overview of all the SiN entities and SiN scripting possibilities can be found at *the* SiN editing site, The Node .

5.2 Can I change Quake C like in Quake(tm) ?

Editing is different in SiN, as Ritual is using .DLL's instead of .QC files. This makes editing harder for some, but for real programmers .DLL's are heaven.

You can however, change a LOT of stuff without having to program DLL's. The script system controls the AI, sounds, music, game entities, cameras, and things like that.

6. The SiN Team

6.1 Programmers

Mark Dochtermann. Mark worked for 3D Realms as Duke 3D's network programmer, as programmer for ROTT, and is active at Ritual Entertainment since they begun.

Jim Dose. Jim is also ex-3DR employee, and has been active at Ritual since they began. Jim implemented the DLL support for SiN.

Scott Alden. Scott joined Ritual in December '97, having previously worked at 3DFX. Scott has the job of transfering the Q1 source base to Q2, and script all actions in the game, like "When weapon hits monster #4, do this and that".

6.2 Level/Game Designers - UPDATED

Richard Gray (aka Levelord). Like Jim and Mark, Richard is also ex-3DR, as one of the two Duke level designers. Like Tom Mustaine and Mike Wardwell, Richard did levels for Ritual's Quake Mission Pack.

Tom Mustaine. Didn't work at any other game company before Ritual, but did do some commercial level design (Final DOOM and Master Levels for DOOM). Also did levels for the Mission Pack.

Charlie Wiederhold. Was hired in November '97, came from Sunstorm Interactive, where he worked on Duke It Out in DC, Duke Carribean and other titles. Now works at 3D Realms.

Matthias Worch. Joined Ritual in March '98 , after an 8-month battle getting a work permit, Matthias being from Germany. Now works at Legend Entertainment.

Patrick Hook. Was hired around the same time as Charlie. No previous work background, webmaster of www.quakeworld.net .

Berenger Fish. Ex-Rogue. Brought on for FAKK2, made some Deathmatch levels.

Additional level design by Mike Wardwell.

6.3 Artists - UPDATED

Robert Atkins. Lead texture artist and like many people from Ritual, ex-3DR. Worked on Duke Nukem as well as other titles.

Beau Anderson. He does the texture art and modeling. He spent 20 years of his life building towards being an artist for a game company, he got a shot with Access Software. When he found out Ritual was looking, he got a portfolio together flew down and got hired. Pretty cool don't you think?

Joel Thomas. He does the texture art, concept sketches and graphic design. Joel has a long history of illustration in the comic book industry.

Mike Hadwin. Also ex-3DR :) graphic designer that contributed to Duke Nukem and several other major action titles. Michael organizes the Ritual Art department as well as doing textures and 3D models for SiN.

John Mueller. Brought on board for FAKK2, Ritual's next game, helped with some SiN art. Created the comic series Oink.

Murhpy Michaels. Ex-Ion Storm. Also brought on for FAKK2.

Brandon Riza. Contract worker, made the intro animation.

Additional art by Michael Washburn and Mike Werckle.

6.4 Music/Sound effects

Music and Sound effects were done by Zack Belica, outside contractor.

6.5 Other - UPDATED

Joe Selinske. He is the project manager, and keeps communication flowing with all parts of the Ritual team. Joe came from Terminal Reality, where he also worked as project manager.

Sean Dunn, producer for Activision.

Harry Miller. Business.

Don MacAskill. Support.

Additional suport by Steve Gibson

7. Support

We strongly suggest you download the patch to the full game before you attempt any fixes for your system, as the patch fixes MANY bugs and issues, speeds up loading times SIGNIFICANTLY, and also adds a sweet deathmatch map called Paradox . The patch will make your old savegames obsolete, but it will make (almost) all your problems go away as well. You can get back to where you were before the patch by using one of the level codes .

7.1 Videocard issues

If you have a Voodoo Rush based videocard, it's highly likely that you will just get a gray screen when starting SiN. To fix this, run Sin from your command prompt by typing "sin +set vid_ref soft", or if using the Windows run command: "x:\y\sin +set vid_ref soft", where x and y are the drive and dir into which you installed SiN. Dont include the quotes in either case. You can then setup your video config properly (make sure Fullscreen is YES) and your profile will be saved.

The same solution can be applied if you get a "GlideInitEnvironment" error. Make sure you set software mode as default in the video config menu.

7.2 Soundcard issues

The Ensoniq souncard has some compatibility issues with a various games. You can change your sound settings to work around this problem, however. Press tilde (~) and type "s_primary 0" followed by "snd_restart" (no quotes). Press ENTER after each command.

7.3 Bug reporting

If you think you found a bug in the Sin demo, you can go to this Activision page. http://www.activision.com/games/sin/bugs.asp

7.4 Other problems

Some people have problems going from the intro to the bank level. Here is an explanation from Don "Onethumb" MacAskill taken from his .plan:

Also, I've heard that people might be having problems changing levels from the intro to the bank... a black screen, just hanging there. I believe this might just be an error on our part by not having the loading screen come up earlier, and that it will eventually load the level, it's just not as zippy as you might want (and it's not telling you anything :).

7.5 Support for hardware

Information to get your SpaceOrb controller device working with Sin can be obtained from http://birdman.logicquest.com/sinorb.html

To get your H3D hardware working, type "cl_stereo 1" followed by "vid_restart" . Press ENTER after each command.

- Some info was obtained from the Sin Mini FAQ - http://www.ritual.com/news/SinMiniFAQ.htm

7.6 Fullgame support

The original 1.0 version of the full SiN release included quite a number of bugs, which were quickly adressed by Ritual. The final patch brings the game up to 1.11, and it also includes the terrific SinCTF along with several new multiplayer maps.. That patch can be found here - http://www.fileshack.com/browse.x?cat=259

8. Where to find more information about SiN

8.1 WWW

You can check out the following webpages:
http://www.ritual.com/
http://www4.activision.com/games/sin/
http://www.ritualistic.com

8.2 IRC

#Ritualistic on Quakenet...get mIRC at www.mirc.co.uk and select a Quakenet server. Then type /join #ritualistic and chat with other SiN fans, and Ritual employees.

8.3 Public Forums

Forums at Ritualistic - http://www.ritualistic.com/forums

8.4 Online Reviews

Ritualistic has an extensive list of online reviews. Go here

9. FAQ Credits

Harry Miller - reading the early versions and giving missing info
Tom Mustaine, Richard Gray, Mike Wardwell - various info
Mike Hadwin - Did a big part of the artist section. Thanks Mike!
Mark Dochtermann - SiN model section.
Everyone else at Ritual who contributed!

10. Revision History

Did a couple of updates with versions. I reached 2.0 before the demo was released. Revision per date now.

- January 18, 1999 -

Jesus, first update since the full version was released. Contains everything you ever wanted to know about SiN.

- September 26 -

Updated sections 2.8 and 8.1, and added Other Problems to Demo Support. Added server list (4.4)

- August 8 -

Some grammar and spelling errors removed courtesy of Kurt Adkins. Also corrected info. Thanks onethumb.

- August 7 -

Demo info, weapons info and features updated. Also updated team section.

Completely new section, Demo support. Bug fixes, and other Q&A's.

Sorry, lost the rest :(

Speakeasy

Ritualistic