MK3 and UMK3 "WaveNet Edition" ?

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Kurgan

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Has anyone here actually seen or played these versions?

According to what I've read, MK3 and UMK3 both had "waveNet" editions in select arcades (I never saw or played one), that had a built in dial-up modem that somehow let you play with others elsewhere (not sure to what extent or what it was like), and this was the basis for online play in the series (IPX support was present in the DOS version of MK3, and MK Trilogy on win9X).

I've also read that Noob Saibot and Human Smoke were selectable as players in WaveNet UMK3. I don't know if you needed codes to play as them or if it used a modified character select screen for this.

These versions of MK3/UMK3 are not emulated (at least not yet, and no idea if anyone has dumped them for emulating), but it sure would be cool to see 'em! After all, otherwise we don't get to see these characters playable until MKT, which was never released in arcades...

Did a quick google image search and found this pic too:

p1007.gif


Edit: I guess Noob did require a code, found this on CCG:

Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Play as Noob Saibot
This code only works on the WaveNet edition of the game.

To play as Noob Saibot, you must be playing against another human opponent. Pick Kano and, immediately before round 1 starts, hold Back + Low Punch + Low Kick + High Punch + Block. If done correctly, Kano should explode into Noob Saibot.
Click to expand...
 
Okay, while this wiki article is rather poorly written, it has some interesting tidbits (if true):

Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wave Net
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Please wikify (format) this article as suggested in the Guide to layout and the Manual of Style.
Remove this template after wikifying. This article has been tagged since January 2006.


There was a rare network version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 called Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wave Net. That was tested only in the Chicago area and a lot of people do not know about it and no one seems to have the roms. At one place that had it the jack for it is still there. There was extra stuff in the game that you could use even in local play.

Here is some info from someone who was working at WMS: http://www.vpforums.com/forum/showt...236&highlight=Ultimate+Mortal+Kombat+Wave+Net WAVENet was never publicly released. There were tests in Chicago and the San Francisco area on UMK3 and Rush 2049. It ran over a T1 line that was directly connected back to Midway HQ in Chicago.

It's highly unlikely any of those test games were ever sold to the public after WAVENet was dismantled so it's unlikely the ROMs are out there. You would be better off playing vanilla MK3 via a MAME networking kit like Kaillera.

The T1 line was one of the reasons WAVENet didn't really take off. This was long before the age of cablemodems and DSL. T1 was the only guaranteed way to get broadband into an arcade.

Times have changed, but it still is kind of hard to get net service in a lot of places. The internet jukeboxes are starting to drive the adoptance of broadband, which is a good sign.

If I recall correctly, the game didn't use much of the T1. Midway picked up the cost of the line during the tests. You can get a T1 installed anywhere you want, as long as you pay what Ameritech wants. It's just a dedicated copper pair that's specially installed at the telco.

Categories: Wikify from January 2006 | Cancelled Arcade games | Mortal Kombat games
Click to expand...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Mortal_Kombat_3_Wave_Net

Other than Noob Saibot and Human Smoke and online play, I wonder what else it might have had?

MK3 Rides The Wave... Introducing WaveNet MK3!
(Last updated: August 9th, 1996) It's obvious in today's gaming world that people love long-distance competition. X-Band, DWANGO, and the other numerous gameing networks are evidence of this. And don't forget all the games that support net/modem play, DOOM, Descent, and basically every new game, to name just a few. Up until now, Mortal Kombat players have been confined to playing only against someone in the same room as you. Now all that will change. Now there is WaveNet MK3. WaveNet MK3 is in testing in Chicago, and allows you to play MK3 against someone else at another arcade in your area! When you start WaveNet MK3, you get a new screen, asking you whether you want to play WaveNet or Local. Select WaveNet and you'll be thrown into a whole new dimension of MK3. You type in a name you want to use, and then it looks for someone at another arcade waiting to play. It'll either find someone or put you back in Local mode while it continues to search. Once it finds someone, you'll start playing against them. Now you can really prove yourself as an MK3 warrior!

In addition to WaveNet MK3, there are also twelve WaveNet UMK3 machines in testing in Chicago. These have all the normal UMK3 fighters, plus one more hidden fighter -- Noob Saibot.
Click to expand...

From here: http://www.leedberg.com/mk/news/index.htm

Brief mention here: http://unmamed.mame.net/non_midway.html#UMK3Wavenet

Brief mention here: http://www.concentric.net/~Flarb/arcades.html
 
The only other change in the Wavenet edition I remember hearing from the Chi town players was that Kung Lao's spin infinite was removed by setting a disable point for the spin.

The only info I can add that I don't think was mentioned elsewhere was the hardware for it itself. It used a 386 processor based system to handle the networking. They maxed out the arcade hardware for the game itself so it couldn't handle the networking side. So, they added a completely separate system to handle that. The proposed price point on this machine must have been insane.
 
Thanks for that info. Another question...

You know how the SNES and Genesis versions of UMK3 are "different" than the Saturn and Arcade versions? I wonder if any of those changes made it into Wavenet Edition?

I ask this because check out that screenshot (fifth one down showing the character select screen) on http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?letter=U&game_id=10255

Now that might just be a beta shot or something (or a bad photoshop, but it's definately too high res to be from the 16 bit console versions! compare a shot in the MK3 listing that doesn't exactly match the final arcade game either http://images.webmagic.com/klov.com/images/11/1100125283.jpg ), but interesting that it looks just like the character select screen in the Genesis/SNES versions! I assume the dragon symbol in the center means you have to unlock (?!) Sheeva*, since she's the only missing character. Notice how it lists Rain (!) who was not playable in UMK3 (he was just a joke), and Noob Saibot... then again that other sight said you have to use a code to use Noob, so maybe this isn't right.

* Edit: Then again http://www.leedberg.com/mk/news/ claims that Sheeva is removed in the 16 bit versions..

The Genesis/SNES versions not only had Rain and Noob playable from the start, but also Brutalities (which would appear in MKT).

Thoughts?
 
Stryker's Riot Gun has a limit of 5 hits before it is locked, so you can do JP, HK, HP, HP, LP, gun, and thats it, or aaHPHP, gun, aaHPHP, gun, and it's turned off.

Noob Saibot has a teleport, but I don't think it throws you.

I think Sindel's scream uncomboing is fixed.

Ermac's lift counts as a hit in combos, so you can do, Lift, HPHP, JK, lift, but not, lift, HPHP, teleport, HPHP lift.

Kabal's spin was either slowed down or it has more start up, however he's still the best. Kung Lao's spin is locked after 3 hits I think, so you can get aaHPHP, JK, whiff dash (no contact) spin.

I don't remember anything else.

A lot of the unintentional changes in the 16 bit versions were terribly accidental, like Kung Lao's spin only infinite, you can just spin forever in the corner with no moves inbetween. There's no changes in these games that made it into Wavenet because the refit was done very carefully and not by Midway but by fans who told Midway what to do. Also the Saturn version is different than the arcade, it's very bad,
 
As for finding a ROM or PCB set to dump, I think there's a fat chance of that happening. PCBs were probably recycled and thrown away.
 
Well I'm only hopeful because so many other prototype, unreleased, and even hacks end up dumped by somebody (especially Midway/Williams titles)... but maybe not.

Can you elaborate on the Saturn version? Since there were only a few versions of UMK3 on the home systems, I figured it was the best of the lot...

I own a saturn so I figured I'd try to track down a copy, thinking it would be most like the arcade version.
 
Kurgan don't lose hope for dumps, for the machines still exist at Midway HQ last I heard.

I actually played both WaveNET UMK3 and MK3. It was VERY popular at first. But as time went on it lost interest due to cheapness on the network. People found ways to do infinites, and other issues. It was fun while it lasted though.

Do some searching on Google Groups to find even more info.
 
Well the thing is though, wouldn't the discouragement with infinites and such apply equally to the other versions of the game (that were similarly "broken")? Or are you saying that since people were playing ONLINE and therefore "anonymously" they could "get away" with more crap than if they were standing next to you and you could check them in the shoulder for "cheating"? ;)

I mean correct me if I'm wrong but aren't MK3, UMK3 and MKT bad for tournament play unless you agree NOT to use these infinites as a rule or something? Otherwise the match would be decided the instant somebody scores a hit, right?
 
The game was actually a bit different in a few spots, they wrote new code for the networking and wasn't a direct MK3 + Network adapter. And you also were not granted the ability to not battle someone.

When you give someone the ability to cheat in an online game, they will. See any online game for evidence of this.

With online play away went the honor system of the arcade.
 
Okay that's what I'm touching on, this "honor system." You mean you can't stand next to somebody and cheat without risking them yelling at you about it? ;)

So when you say you didn't have the ability to not play someone, that meant that you couldn't play offline? It just sat there waiting forever for someone to challenge you?

Thanks for your info btw, you seem to know a lot about this game... I wish I'd been around Chicago to see it when it came out! Since it seems people have combed over every inch of these games I also am curious about the Saturn version of UMK3 vs. the arcades. What was "bad" about it specifically?

Anyway, I agree with you about online cheating, that's just a fact of online gaming. That should have encouraged midway to fix the problems in the game. They included online play in the PC versions of MK3 and MKT.

And now with this Xbox Live! thing we'll be getting online play again there too. So theoretically you'll just have people using infinites and ruining any chance of competition. Just memorize an infinite combo or two and do it first. :(
 
A couple of things, Kurgan, the select screen images you link to are all the SNES versions. The one on KLOV is the SNES version. A pretty nasty oversight on their part.

And MKT I would say is bad for competition. Characters like Rain and Noob are too utterly broken and the honor system is required, which I don't like. I prefer everyone use every means to play. People do use every means possible to win in UMK3 arcade and the game is still fun.

And the Saturn version of UMK3 was bad for a couple of reasons. First off it was basically a direct upgrade of MK3 for PSX. It had the same title screen, the same menus, but the extra content was added in. The biggest problems I found were low gravity, meaning it was easier to juggle, kind of like buggy MKT for PSX or MKT for PC to an extent. Also, there are blatant cases of move disablings being, well, disabled. There are places where the rules that govern when moves are disabled have been tweaked, apparently with the intent to make them abuseable.
 
Yeah, thanks for that. Wow, they make the SNES graphics look good! But yeah, I've become annoyed with KLOV, with the numerous errors they post about games... and they seem to ignore corrections I send in. :(

Wow, interesting about UMK3. It's too bad it wasn't a direct port. I guess they figured they'd save time huh? :P

UMK3 was after all an upgrade of MK3, but I see what you're getting at now. You're saying it's the Sat version is more broken than the arcade version. How would you rank it compared to the other games? Maybe if you could rank them in order of "brokenness" (I mean the major versions of UMK3, MK3, MKT that you're familiar with).

So maybe somebody on the dev team WANTED to be able to cheat? Hmmm.. that doesn't sound good!

Also, I agree with you about the general feeling about honor systems, I don't like them either, so they're a necessary evil sometimes, not a good thing. :P

I'd like to have the least broken version of each game (MK3, UMK3, MKT). I have the PSX version (but I'm not sure which one it is) and the PC CD-ROM version of MKT, the PC version of MK3 (which I can't get to work on my current PC, graphics are scrambled), and of course the emulated arcade versions.
 
I can't give you a list but I can tell you that the PC ports usually are alot better than the console ports. I think PSX won it for one game though... (you guys know what I'm talking about)
 
UMK3 arcade was the best MK ever made.

MKT for PSX comes closest to reproducing the UMK3 arcade engine in a port/reworked version but MKT for PSX has some stupidly unbalanced characters, Noob, Rain, MK2 Kung Lao for instance.

UMK3 Saturn doesn't have the broken add-on characters, but does have a generally less faithful reproduction of the UMK3 arcade engine. So the problems are not limited to a few characters, they are spread throughout the whole game experience.

MK3 PSX = MK3 Win and they both share a general low quality in their production. They are both extremely similar to UMK3 Saturn, right down to having identical menu systems and all. UMK3 Saturn actually has the MK3 logo screen still which I always found funny.

MK3 DOS is an absolutely fantastic port of MK3. Probably the best MK port ever. But, MK3 is not as good as UMK3.

For the 16-bitters, in Gameplay, UMK3 Genesis > UMK3 SNES.
In everything but Gameplay, UMK3 SNES > UMK3 Genesis.
Personally, I'd go with the better graphics of SNES since, while closer, Genesis still isn't all that arcade-like anyway.
 
Right now, essentially there is no remotely close or acceptable home version of UMK3. When Xbox 360 version comes out, we'll see. If you want something close to UMK3, play MKT against people only using UMK3 characters and don't use any of the added moves.

As for Wavenet, I was informed that the romset was dumped months ago, but that could be false. No one has bothered looking at it to emulate it. I know that there are a few here and there around, but you can't play with the Wavenet altered properties unless you are hooked up to another Wavenet machine, through Midway's main server, so if you were to play UMK3 wavenet offline, it would be just like playing regular UMK3. In order for them to be allowed to do a rogue refit of UMK3 they had to leave the original game intact. Essentially wavenet UMK3 was something probably under 50 people on earth got to truly appreciate and experience.

UMK3 is essentially the SF3:3rd Strike of MK.
 
Sad news, but excellent information.

So people saying that there were differences in the game offline too are incorrect?

Was there Wavenet MK3 as well, or ONLY UMK3 Wavenet?

I wrote that I heard Smoke was playable in wavenet UMK3, but maybe it could have meant robot smoke. I assumed they meant human smoke, since Robot Smoke is enabled in "vanilla" UMK3 anyway.


Also, I've heard that the "Midway Classics Edition" of MKT on PSX is less broken than the regular version. How do I tell which version I have? I mean if I lack the original case... (but it is the original CD).

So basically UMK3 arcade is the way to go via emulation right now, even though it's broken (just not AS broken as the others!), right?

I wonder what would have happened if Midway had just taken the arcade UMK3 and made an MKT out of it. They might have needed to use a hard drive or something to get the extra stuff in without cutting material, and still maintaining the arcade quality though. It's amazing the corners they cut, like removing animation, pictures, pallete swapping, etc. (at least comparing the arcade UMK3 to PC MKT).


Well, I guess I would play DOS MK3 if I knew how to get the cd music working and some way to smooth the graphics! (since it's jaggy as hell, just like MKT)


Frankly I'm surprised if it's been dumped that nobody in Mamedev has the slightest interest in emulating this. I mean I know at least at one time there was a general disdain expressed by individual devs that MK was a "fanboy series" and not really of that great quality (they, like a lot of critics pegged the MK games as based solely on hype tied to the blood and gore controversy), and were tired of the begging (because MK worked fine in Mame, but MK2 was broken and MK3 not yet supported). However I don't know if that continues today, the begging and whining has stopped (did they support those games only to silence the whiners?), but unimportant versions of MK have been added before like the "YAWDIM" bootleg (it's just the company logo spelled backwards, otherwise gameplay is the same as far as I can tell). Other prototypes and hacks of various MK games are supported. Even if there is no discernable difference between the wavenet version and the "offline" UMK3, I would think preserving it for posterity would be enough for them, especially if it was rare.

Oh well, hopefully those dumps are preserved until somebody does decide to emulate it!

PS: I don't have an Xbox, but a person could play UMK3 with people online via kaillera (www.kaillera.com). But you'd have the same problems there as any online version of the game without an enforceable "honor system."
 
In response to DreemerNJ:
I think the Genesis UMK3 has better graphics than snes. The snes had fat lifebars, with the fighters name OUTSIDE of the bar. So when you hit danger, the characters name would go away and the danger sign would flash for a little. Actualy that's all I really noticed.
 
DAVE101 said:
In response to DreemerNJ:
I think the Genesis UMK3 has better graphics than snes. The snes had fat lifebars, with the fighters name OUTSIDE of the bar. So when you hit danger, the characters name would go away and the danger sign would flash for a little. Actualy that's all I really noticed.
Click to expand...

The graphics of the Genesis version were an order of magnitude below the quality of the SNES version. The fact the SNES had 4 times as much color on the screen was probably the number one reason. I have a couple of pictures up on a site already that compare MK3 DOS to MK3 SNES to MK3 Arcade but don't have any up that compare SNES to Genesis. The difference in quality of visuals and audio is absolutely astounding.

What you mentioned about the text under the energy bars was probably a space saving measure. I think they use text for the names in SNES instead of storing pictures of the name. Also, the text would be pretty small if it was in the energy bar and on SNES they did some enlarging to make things clearer. If you look at the select screen for MK3 SNES it is Extremely similar to the arcade or MK3 DOS, except that some of the pictures are zoomed in a bit more then usual. That might have been for clarity or it might have been to avoid what happened with say the Genesis versions where like eyes disappear and become dark blotches and stuff like that because of the sheer lack of color.

mk3compare1.jpg


Kurgan:

Yep, UMK3 arcade is the best you can get. It is a fun game even at high level play with no honor system requirements.

There must have been an MK3 wavenet, but I'm not sure if it was ever publicly tested, I would guess it was. I know it existed because work on developing MK3 wavenet began before UMK3 came out. The machines that were built initially were MK3 Wavenet. I would bet the code changes to make MK3 wavenet were not covered up by the Ultimate upgrade. It probably still worked just with some extra tweaking, since the bulk of the wavenet system sat in that secondary, 386 based computer.
 
Yeah, youre right. In the genesis select screen you can deffiniely see the limit of colors.

614513.jpg


And in UMK3 select screen scorpion and ermac look the similar.
 
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