"Dust Hill" meaning researched

Woohoo! *Dueling banjos plays in the background* times to get me's pitchfork and hold a good ol' fashion mobing! hyuck hyuck! :lol:

 

*Parks airboat nearby and loads shotgun* I be ready when you fellers are. :D

Seriously though, someone should go to Sega and be like "Where is Dust Hill you bitches" and hope that they answer back. Even if you were nice, they would be like "We don't have it anymore" which could be BS. People don't just build levels (IF they did) and tiles and just delete them because they weren't so great, its a waste of work and surely they would have saved them (again IF they built the levels) for a future game.

 

I doubt they would still have the tiles for a specific level but I know that I never get rid of any beta versions of games I make. I bet they have a vault with long lost betas by the boatloads there.

 

Not many computer companies delete old data unless its extremely incomplete. But I think its diffrent with video game companys so they could sorta make a scrap book

"And heres Sonic 2 v0.2, it was sooooo cute back then!" :P

 

Oh, another bit of evidence about the Desert Zone that I've just remembered, is that when you apply S2Beta Level Slot 03's palette to that Desert Zone Mag pic, it looks good. None of the other palettes on the beta work with that screenshot very well. So it's possible that Level 03 was the Desert Zone.

I'm sure SEGA still have all that development stuff from years ago, and I'd like to think that they kept all the old pre-release versions in a vault somewhere.

 

Nobody would hunt through them for us. We could go to Sega of somewhere and ask them (yes, physically go there) but I doubt it would produce anything.

 

Of course no one would help us. That's why we have to go all Mission: Impossible on them. :D

 

Seriously?! But why doesn't the Green Hill palette in the beta work with the Desert Zone pic? Or maybe it does, I've never actually tried it, I just read about it on SoSTH years ago ^^
Thanks for pointing that out anyway

 

No evidence to support claim. Evidence suggests that the desert zone was never a level, merely art, and Mystic Cave was once Dust Hill, nothing more.

 

Here's an alternate theory.

1. Brenda Ross makes some art for a desert zone as is requested ("make me some desert level art" "okay"). She makes a mockup picture from what's completed, taking some Sonic 1 level art and substituting the already available graphics (Sonic sprites, enemies, rings) to create the mockup.
2. Meanwhile, somebody conceptualises a level which is tentatively named Genocide City with whatever purpose behind it.
3. While this is happening, some other artist creates art for an approved cave zone called Dust Hill Zone.
4. At first, Brenda's desert is put on hold and the okay is given for Genocide City Zone to be added to the level select.
5. The next thing which is decided is that the desert zone is scrapped. Byebye Brenda, thanks for all the art. No desert zone.
6. Then the decision is made to scrap Genocide City Zone for whatever reason (tentative postulation: they can't find someone to do the art). The idea is scrapped before it gets off the ground.
7. Then later the decision is made to scrap the name Dust Hill Zone and rename the cave level to Mystic Cave Zone.

Our beta comes at a point when Genocide City is still an empty level on the level select menu, Mystic Cave is still Dust Hill and Brenda's desert is on hold, the mockup having been released to the media.

 

A few things I disagree with. This is actually like an improvement on your theory, a theory upon a theory....I guess?

Why would they name it Dust Hill? If it was a cave at first, wouldn't it have been named to fit a cave?

Umm, is Sega known for wasting things? And why scrap the Desert Zone for Genocide City? There is already a level that would generaly give the same feel as a level like this...

Chemical Plant. So they SHOULD have picked up Brenda's Desert once again, but it's too late...

MCZ is better than the Desert Zone. Dust Hill could have been scrapped in favor of MCZ, so it is put in the same slot for DHZ and they would change the name in the level select later in the final. My theory is MCZ was never called DHZ in the first place, it is merely a fluke of time saving in the beta. Who takes the time to change the name of a level (or slot) in a level select every time you change your mind or don't like the name? I don't. When I make a game and I change a level, I don't go back and edit the name or menu EVERY time I change it. I wait till I'm completely done and satisfied with the rest of the level's names and I change them all at once, not one at a time as I create them. It would be a waste of time to go in and edit the menu again and again, when you COULD be spending your time actually getting the levels done.

 

They thought Dust Hill described a cave. Who knows how their train of thought went other than them? We can't connect the name Dust Hill and the desert zone - random images from Google Search prove nothing other than the person who named the image decided that the name "Dust Hill" or "Hill of Dust" fitted the picture. The person who named that image is not one of the people working on Sonic 2 in 1992.

All companies are. It's called the development process. Some ideas are dropped.

I never said we were dropping one FOR another. I said we dropped one.

Mind elaborating?

You can't say they SHOULD have done anything. Brenda's desert is dropped. They're not picking it up again. If they had we'd have the desert zone today.

Opinion.

Illogical, given that MCZ was in the slot at the time. There's no evidence that the level was ever moved.

And since when were your practiced methods the industry standard?

But these are happening simultaneously. There's multiple people working on different things, it's not a one-man job.

EDIT: Clarification on a small inaccuracy.

 

I think this whole debate depends on where you draw the line and rests on whether that Level Select Text was an early level name for MCZ or not. There's no evidence to suggest that Desert Zone = Dust Hill, but there's nothing to prove it isn't either. Since there isn't anything solid to prove that the Desert Zone was called Dust Hill our safest bet is to call the Desert Zone simply "the desert zone" even if Dust Hill is potencially more accurate. It doesn't really make much difference what you call it
I have to say though I'm enjoying the thoughts being shared in this thread.

 

You said they scrapped Genocide for whatever reson, Chemical Plant could be that reason.

What I meant by that is, they probably liked the idea of the cave zone better than the desert zone, not my opinion. My actual opinion would have been the Desert Zone is better. <_<

It isn't, it is just more effecient that way and seems like any proffesional would do things the same to save time.

I'm aware of that, but again, it seems like they would be more effecient rather than have a guy or two waiting for instuctions on what to do about the menu. It is a waste of money when they could be doing somthing more usefull with their time, and please excuse me if I'm comming off as a borg drone but this is normal busness practice. If you are right and this is not how Sega is running things, it's no wonder the Dreamcast went under. And you don't just throw away bad ideas, epecially if you payed for it and the work got done. If it was a bad idea but it is done, surely you can afford to get a few floppy disks at least and save them just incase you decide to use them later. Though I realise the Desert Zone was not finished, it still progressed to the point of a mockup, which is good enough for saving. Any less and I'd agree that it was deleted and not worth the company's time and money to save.

 

Granted.

Also granted.

Sega is anything but efficient in its workings. See Sonic Xtreme for more details.

Again, Sega and efficiency only connect in a sentence where a negative is concerned somehow.

 

IceKnight, don't be such a prick. This is as good evidence as any.

There was a desert level. And a level called Dust Hill. Maybe, just maybe, Mystic Caves overwrote Dust Hill in the level select, and was not yet renamed?

As for the title cards, they could have been done externally, or maybe they simply hadn't come up with a name yet, but couldn't leave it blank.

It shows what nerds we've all become =P Things making sense and the english language have become irrelevant to the almighty TECHNICAL EVIDENCE.

Also, why would they have bothered putting GCZ in the level select if it wasn't ever made? People are just acting overly pessimistic to look Smarter looking down on the people who believe in it =P

 

It's already been proven that Dust Hill is Mystic Caves.