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Fan Mission: Patently Dangerous (2009/10/31)


demagogue

FM Rating  

20 members have voted

  1. 1. Story

  2. 2. Gameplay

  3. 3. Aesthetics



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I gotta ask demogogue,

 

How did you set up your volumes, did you change them at all? In the release they still seemed loud and I'm having no luck getting sounds quieterin my map. I'm using the zone technique and sades/changed work, volume just doesn't.

Dark is the sway that mows like a harvest

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@Baddcog, Edit: Sorry, I didn't see your other thread on this topic. I'll move what I was going to say there so it doesn't get this one off topic.

 

 

Nice job! I particularly like the story and how parts of it were told visually. The end was quite good.

 

Thanks. That (visual story-telling) is starting to become one of my favorite kinds of story-telling. ^_^

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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Great mission demagogue, liked the ending a lot. :)

 

Just two details:

 

 

The fumes from Soren's lab are visible from the back of the house if you go back to the ledge, Fressard-side : http://yfrog.com/3wd...09110109483659j

 

Damuddy or Dumuddy? Both spellings can be found (I went for Damuddy   :))

 

 

Just details, as said previously. Congratulations. ;)

"Lie to a liar, for lies are his coin; Steal from a thief, for that is easy; lay a trap for a trickster and catch him at first attempt, but beware of an honest man"

- Arab proverb

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Is it only me having problems with blackjacking? Those guys always notice me or just get alerted, when I try to KO them... I had to give up this mission cause it got too boring, really... Are those guards any harder to BJ than other ones?

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sweet atmosphere and horror. your map has the most fear effect compared to all other released maps. imo, new combat system has a role in it, because I can't trust my sword anymore. So that, it makes me panic in fights. Besides, ending was impressive. I was still in on guard for any booby trap or something like that:)

 

which I dont like in your map are

windows that doesn't look like can be opened.

that caused to find my way after spending half a hour.

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Yes but now you know... ;) In Thief, cheap-looking painted on doors and windows were often used where they didn't actually function. This developed a habit of not even bothering with them. With Dark Mod the overall visual quality is so much better it just isn't possible to use phony wallpaper doors and windows without them looking - just like that, and rather foolish. So non-functioning doors and windows look much the same as functioning doors. The only way of knowing if something is frobable is if it highlights. That is the acid test. Dark Mod is new. It's a learning curve.

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Yes I understand - but you will be finding a lot of FMs done this way so you may have to change your preferences. ;) I know what you mean though - a window ajar or slightly open is an extra hint. I believe on Easy these windows are open for that reason.

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Does the same thing happen when you walk around Soren's house to the same place? I'm guess here, but in the Training Mission, some people had the game crash when the column object came into view, and there are some of those columns in this FM, too, which you might see from that area. Does it also crash if you walk through the tunnel West of Soren's house (beyond the tree you see at the start)? If so, I think it's those columns, and I don't know how to fix it.

 

Now I went left to Soren's house to the tunnel and when I came to the corner (where the guard stands) then it also crashes.

 

Hm, it apparently only crahes my TDM so maybe a new installation would work. I'll go try it.

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Now I went left to Soren's house to the tunnel and when I came to the corner (where the guard stands) then it also crashes.

 

Yeah, it's almost certainly the columns in the tunnel (one of which also pokes out the back behind Soren's house), because that's been reported before.

I can't remember if there was a fix (I don't think reinstalling will do it), but it was definitely talked about in the discussions for the Training Map and Chalice of Kings, which also had these columns crashing people's game.

 

This is it: http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1919992#post1919992

 

If you really want to get rid of them and don't mind popping open the hood, one guaranteed thing you could do is rename the .pk4 file to patently_dangerous.zip, extract or open just the maps/patently_dangerous.map file inside it with notepad or wordpad (copy-paste a back up in case you mess up), Edit->Find the word "pillar01" in the .map file, there should be 10 of them, then delete the whole entry, which looks like this:

// entity 1098
{
"classname" "func_static"
"name" "func_static_687"
"model" "models/darkmod/architecture/pillars/pillar01.lwo"
"origin" "-55 699 -17"
}

Just delete everything between the { }'s, including the { }'s, and the "// entity#" 10 times, save it, put the new .map file back in the "maps/" folder in that .zip, then rename it to .pk4 and it'll work. No pillars, no crashing.

 

Sorry I don't know a better way to fix it. There probably is one, but this is all I can think of.

 

yes, but I prefer a openable window like in old thiefs den. By this way there is high chance for player to realize it a openable one thanks to vertical gap between sides of the window. So, it's geometrical matter, not textural.

 

I know what you mean. Fidcal is right, I left some windows open on Easy to see them. The thing is, when you leave a window open a little, have a gap, or have it transparent, it renders everything inside and slows performance. When I made 5 AI walking around (+extra in the buildings), I had no choice but to make some tough choices to help performance, and one of those was shutting the windows with opaque objects. I tried to either leave a note or light them in a special way, but I'll try to keep in mind how the player feels trying to find them...

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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Now I went left to Soren's house to the tunnel and when I came to the corner (where the guard stands) then it also crashes.

 

Hm, it apparently only crahes my TDM so maybe a new installation would work. I'll go try it.

 

Are you running an ATI/AMD video card? if you are - update your drivers, its a known issue with Cat 9.7 and lower with TDM, no idea what was changed but it seems to work in 9.8-9.10

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Yeah, it's almost certainly the columns in the tunnel (one of which also pokes out the back behind Soren's house), because that's been reported before.

I can't remember if there was a fix (I don't think reinstalling will do it), but it was definitely talked about in the discussions for the Training Map and Chalice of Kings, which also had these columns crashing people's game.

 

This is it: http://www.ttlg.com/...992#post1919992

 

If you really want to get rid of them and don't mind popping open the hood, one guaranteed thing you could do is rename the .pk4 file to patently_dangerous.zip, extract or open just the maps/patently_dangerous.map file inside it with notepad or wordpad (copy-paste a back up in case you mess up), Edit->Find the word "pillar01" in the .map file, there should be 10 of them, then delete the whole entry, which looks like this:

// entity 1098
{
"classname" "func_static"
"name" "func_static_687"
"model" "models/darkmod/architecture/pillars/pillar01.lwo"
"origin" "-55 699 -17"
}

Just delete everything between the { }'s, including the { }'s, and the "// entity#" 10 times, save it, put the new .map file back in the "maps/" folder in that .zip, then rename it to .pk4 and it'll work. No pillars, no crashing.

 

Sorry I don't know a better way to fix it. There probably is one, but this is all I can think of.

 

Thanks for the help. I removed all pillar01-entities and also updated my RadeOn X1950 Pro driver but it still crashes at the same place.

 

The training mission worked very well so I don't think it is the pillars which like to crash...

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Havner:

Check your map to make sure you have the right house for Benson. The window is high up you have to climb.

 

 

 

I saw the windows, but can't get up to them. Tried jumping to a roof from the little roof over the candle as well as from the barrel, but it's always a little too high to mantle.

 

 

Apart from that, I noticed that the doors all sound like metal when hitting them with the sword or blackjack.

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Very nice mission!! Many thanks!!

 

Very beautifully made and I liked the storyline and the readables a lot, the hints were just subtle enough to know where to go. Took a bit of time in some areas to pry open all the rooms but i got there in the end.

 

Im not a big fan of

all the D3 gore

personally but it made it uh quite clear something was going on in this little quarter of town. ..

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I saw the windows, but can't get up to them. Tried jumping to a roof from the little roof over the candle as well as from the barrel, but it's always a little too high to mantle.

 

 

You are on the far South end of the map, with the candle.

Benson's is the grey apartment on the far North end of the map; his name is on a note tacked to the door.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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Argh, played through but when I completed the mission, the game crashed. Corrupted save game? Tried again, same problem. Oh well. What was the total possible loot? I was at 1600 and change.

 

Anyway, I really enjoyed the slowly unfolding story. So many Thief(ish) levels are too WYSIWYG for my tastes. The map was also nicely complicated -- it took a lot more exploring than usual to figure things out. I do wish more of the locks were pickable, though. It made sense with the story and progression to have to find keys and explore rooms in a particular order, but a little unrealistic to expect that these great picks which should be able to defeat most any lock are almost useless in this neighborhood. But as I said, I'm not sure there is anything to be done about that.

 

The architecture and design were, in my opinion, a little off. The basic layout of the neighborhood worked well enough, but there were several areas which felt like awkward compromises to the overall design. The four which come to mind are:

  • The first floor of Soren's house: awkward furniture placement in the living room, blocking the bathroom; curved wall in the kitchen to accommodate the circular staircase; child's crib blocking a table (casting a great shadow, though!).
  • Neither Harlan nor Benson's house had a bathroom or kitchen. Not the biggest problem, but a little strange.
  • It bothered me a little that almost all of the nonessential items in the level were static. I guess it makes it easier and less annoying to loot a room with a lot of superfluous stuff in it, but this was too easy.
  • The
    gas arrow. Why someone would hide a gas arrow up there? I think it would make more sense to hide a note somewhere in the murderer's lair about his hidden chest of loot... Or even weapons. But without explanation, it's odd. The length and design of that path just don't make architectural sense, either. I think it would have worked better to shorten the path to just the adjacent building
    .

Otherwise, I'm so very happy to be playing new TDM content. It has come so very far from Thief's Den. Wonderful work.

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Thanks.

 

As for your comments, it's a learning process. You get started on something without fully knowing where you're going, and put things in to do one job but then they look weird from another perspective, especially late changes when you're building fast.

 

That table behind the crib once held a lamp that made an even cooler looking shadow across the whole room, but then like you say it looks weird to have a lamp back there, and it got complaints, so I took it out, but the table got left probably for no better reason than inadvertance, and I didn't like empty space back there, (and TBH maybe out of a little defiance for having to take the lamp out). Putting a bathroom in Soren's was a late addition for the reason you said, it was weird if they didn't have one, and that was the only place to fit it, but taking the funiture out there made too much dead space (And Soren's characterization is to make it big fast from his more humble origins, convienence be damned, so he's trying to stuff his place with new stuff as he can get it, wherever he can stuff it, so blocking the bathroom was sort of part of his character, too, in my mind anyway). Harlan got a pail in the closet for his toilet (and I figured he always ate out). And Benson used to have a disabled door to imply more rooms, but that got cut because it couldn't really fit into that back room, each wall had a reason it couldn't go there, and there's no where else it works. So there you go, that's the kind of thinking that leads to stuff like that. And when you're building very fast like I was, a lot of times you're just building with your gut and roll with it, and you don't worry so much... :D

 

For the thing that you mentioned in your Spoiler, it's basically an easter egg, outside the boundaries of reality for the FM and just there for fun.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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Wow, just finished this and found it really fun! I had never finished it before, and I was totally creeped out once I

got into the warehouse. The ambient, and the build-up of tension, was VERY well done. When Crattick jumped out at me I had a moment that I haven't had

since The Cradle. I lost hit points because I couldn't get out of there fast enough.

 

Great job!

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I might be alone in this, but I didn't really like this mission. It's extremely difficult to figure out what to do next, and it just seemed so... linear. I spent about an hour and a half walking around the streets before I got fed up and turned notarget on and found the window like 20 seconds later. Some of the scenes were great though, very... unsettling.

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