Master Sword: Continued is dead. Is it still playable? Now what?

And what's up with the mouse bug?
And what's wrong with the screen, its all glitchy, I can't see!
Ugh, the game keeps crashing!
And I can't make a forum account to ask for help!

I'll be answering all of your questions here.

First, yes, Master Sword: Continued is dead. But not all hope is lost as dedicated members of the community have picked the game's source, creating new content, fixing bugs, and improving on existing game mechanics. I contribute by fixing bugs, writing entity logic, and managing the script repository.
The project is called, Master Sword: Rebirth.

So is "Continued" still playable?​

Good news is you can still play. After all, to play MSR you must submit a key request.
I will now explain a step by step guide to getting Master Sword Continued running on your computer in the most ideal way possible.
1. Ensure Half-Life is installed
2. Use the "steam_legacy - Pre-25th Anniversary Build"
2a. Navigate to your steam library, find and right click Half-Life
2b. Click Properties
2c. Click Betas
2d. Under "Beta Participation" there's a drop down menu. Click it and select "steam_legacy - Pre-25th Anniversary Build".
3. Go to https://www.msremake.com/resources/master-sword-classic-full-installer.22/ and click yellow "Go to Download" button at the right.
Note: Do NOT use the one on moddb, that is not the latest version of MSC!
4. Run the installer (ensure that it is installing into your Half-Life folder! Ex: .../steamapps/common/Half-Life/msc
5. Restart Steam
And boom it should be in your library. Now the hard part begins.

There are a slew of technical issues that MSC faces. I'll name off the ones that I plan to cover:

• Inaccessible content
• Screen is glitchy and can't see
• Can't look all the way around with a mouse
• Crashes
• Character corruption

Inaccessible Content​

For context, MSC is a PvE coop game, but it expects you to be actively playing with a few members at all times. Because of this expectation, some content (loot, map completion, character progression) is locked behind a player-count. As the player-count on the server increases (active players not flagged as afk), loot will drop more often, and some special loot will BEGIN to drop. That means, as a solo player, you cannot interact with half of the content the game has to offer.
There is a solution.
Two community members took it upon themselves to patch the last version of MSC to accelerate solo play and patch the loot for solo players. It also increases xp, gold, and loot drops, allows votemap to any map, as well as many other changes. The patch is called "Quirky Quornhole." It's the only way for solo players to experience all of MSC's content.
You may find the original thread here:
https://www.msremake.com/threads/the-quirky-fork-keeping-the-quornhole-vision-going.7283/
If you have a forum account and are logged in, you can download the latest version here:

If you do NOT have a forum account and cannot make one, here is a direct link:
https://winterfang.com/files/ms/sc_19-May-23.zip

To apply the patch, follow these steps:
1. Download from one of the provided links
2. Open your steam library, and find "Master Sword Classic"
3. Right click and go to "Manage" then "Browse Local Files"
4. In the newly opened window, navigate to msc/dlls
5. Open the downloaded zip file then extract and replace the sc.dll
And now you've successfully applied the Quirky Quornhole patch.

When you play, if you're a new player, its always wise to start on the map "edana." This is the designed starting point.
To play in single-player, "Establish a Kingdom", select the map then "start" it.

• Some maps just do not load in a single-player game. For the best experience, either host and join your own dedicated server, or join a publicly hosted one if available.

To play multiplayer, "Visit a Kingdom." Ensure the map is currently on "edana" if you're a new player.

Screen is Glitched and Can't See​

This is caused from a fault in the bloom shader. While in-game, you can cycle through bloom types with 'b'. Keep pushing it and eventually it'll turn off. Once its off, probably unbind the button so you don't accidentally flashbang yourself. Alternatively, in the console, you can type, "ms_bloom_level 0"

Can't Look All the Way Around with Mouse (Mouse bug)​

This is caused by the "Raw Mouse Input" option. In the game's menu, navigate to Options -> Mouse. Then UNCHECK "Raw Mouse Input." Then push ok.

Crashes​

To mitigate some crashing:

• Add "-num_edicts 1500" as a launch option. Navigate to your steam library, find and right click Master Sword Classic. It should open to the General tab. Add -num_edicts 1500 into the Launch Options text box.
• Restart the game every map transition. Memory is never properly cleared on each map transition so having the game open longer generally means its more likely to crash.
• Connect to a dedicated server. Being on a dedicated server frees enough resources to load some maps that aren't possible to load in a listen-server. Sometimes, a publicly server may stay down after a crash. If it does, let someone know in the official MSC server, you will usually get a response.
• Don't linger on the character select screen for too long. Each frame, that screen leaks some memory. Choose / create your character as fast as possible. If you have a high FPS, it will crash faster.

Most game crashes are unavoidable. Some unavoidable ones are:

• On map change
• While playing, experience severe lag for up to minutes at a time before it finally crashes
• Opening a listen server with some maps
• Lingering on the character selection screen

Character Corruption​

Yes, sadly, it happens. When it happens, your character will have no items, spells, Galat's chest contents, levels, and has 5hp. The only sure way to be unaffected is to back up your characters regularly. Simply open your steam library, and find "Master Sword Classic", Right click and go to "Manage" then "Browse Local Files", In the newly opened window, navigate to "msc," then copy the save folder elsewhere. That is your backup. Do it after every achievement / play session.

Armed with this knowledge, you now know how to run MSC from start to end, bugs inclusive. There is a lot to see in the game, some of it is hard to find. The Official Discord on the home page still has active users, and are very helpful and informative. Once again I remind you that there is a continuation effort, Master Sword Rebirth, that fixes a lot of these issues, among many other fixes and quality of life changes. Check it out here: https://discord.gg/4GsJRWnpyR