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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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This is just a note that I finally got the last parts of my YouTube

up now. Sorry for the delay on that. It's all bundled into a convenient playlist now too.

 

In case I didn't say it before, except for the first video which is spoiler free, the rest are full of spoilers. So I recommend you don't watch it until after you play it, or if you're having problems running it and you want to see what happens.

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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So is a there supposed to be

a guard that patrols through Soren's house after you've entered the lab? Or did I do something to attract him?

 

No, he's not supposed to be there. But if you leave the door open at the right time, it's possible that either he saw or heard you (they turn their heads periodically) or that he just found the path convenient at the time and took it, which is sort of hard to control as a mapper sometimes (I didn't want to block the AI from going inside there either.)

 

Thanks for your comments, btw ... One of the more interesting play stories I've read. ^_^

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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No, he's not supposed to be there. But if you leave the door open at the right time, it's possible that either he saw or heard you (they turn their heads periodically) or that he just found the path convenient at the time and took it, which is sort of hard to control as a mapper sometimes (I didn't want to block the AI from going inside there either.)

 

Thanks for your comments, btw ... One of the more interesting play stories I've read. ^_^

 

Interesting...so once I unlocked both doors to the house, the guard might have have considered it to be the quickest way to his destination?

 

If it isn't a bug, it's a feature for sure. More mappers should change up the patrol routes of guards after key events -- planning your approach and sneaking around is all well and good, but it's having to react quickly when something unexpected happens that really elevates the classic Thief gameplay for me. That bit with

Crattick

was a great example of this, I really appreciated the thought that went into it.

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More mappers should change up the patrol routes of guards after key events -- planning your approach and sneaking around is all well and good, but it's having to react quickly when something unexpected happens that really elevates the classic Thief gameplay for me.

 

 

I agree. I'm hoping to see some missions make use of a pathnode feature that hasn't gotten much attention yet--guards can be given random patrol routes, as well as specific routes or positions they only use when relaxed. So a guard that normally wanders around in the kitchen could be told to move to an important door and stand guard if he becomes alerted to an intruder. Or a guard could have a regular patrol route, but could randomly stop and warm his hands by a fire.

 

http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Path_Nodes

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No, a guard shouldn't walk through the house if you just unlock it ... I don't know what happened. But that's actually the big counter-argument to the random pathing here because then guards really would have regularly walked through Soren's house and through the shortcuts I left to cut to far markers, and I really wanted a few routes that were reliably guard free.

 

The other reason I didn't want random patrols for the street guards was to keep a consistent, even spread over the whole game area so they didn't bunch up too much. And like you say, so players could plan their approach (I was thinking about ghosters). It might have worked if I had planned it from the beginning, and I did think about it some, but I just kept to the game-plan.

 

Yes, sometimes Crattick changes up his paths, though, and that adds some color.

 

I'll think about using more random pathing in future projects. I completely understand the appeal it can have.

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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Oh, it's certainly a balancing act. Particularly in areas with lots of guards, you want to ensure that they're behaving with some regularity. They need to know how much time they have to lockpick a door before the next guard comes around, when it's safe to dart past a well-lighted area, etc. Otherwise it becomes just a game of trial-and-error.

 

But it's also good to throw in a few 'reflex' situations where the player is forced to think on his toes. You could have a guard in the next room declare that he's hungry and is going to grab a bite to eat from the pantry, or some kind of key event trigger an alarm that puts all the guards into alert mode. There's a few guidelines that I think it's good for mappers to follow for triggered events:

 

-If a guard is going to behave erratically, make sure he's alone: unpredictable behavior is fine, but if there's a lot of them and you can't keep track of what any one of them are doing at any given time, keep it to a minimum. It makes sense too -- if a guard is alone he's going to slack off more, but in a group he's probably going to patrol with more vigor.

-Changes to patrol routes should be non-arbitrary: it's bad form to stick a bunch of guards at your escape route if you've just grabbed St. Antonius' McGuffin off the pedestal but nobody has seen yet that it's gone.

-Give the player time to react to triggered events: since this is a stealth game, the player should usually have a reasonable amount of time to be able to hide when guards change their patrols. This means tipping the player off with visual or auditory clues.

-Failure to react to unexpected triggered events should not fail the mission: Many players don't like reloading saves a lot, if you put a trigger in your mission that sets off an alarm and the player fails to hide in time, don't punish the player by killing him. Always leave an escape route in case the player screws up a triggered event.

-Chase situations are fun, but if you force the player to fight during a triggered event, force him to fight one enemy at a time.

 

I'm actually a big fan of 'triggered' events in a mission, particularly ones that occur toward the end of the level. Once you've scouted out the level and know the lay of the land, it becomes much more fun to deal with an unexpected event. If you have to run you know the best routes and hiding spaces and it can lead to a very dramatic escape. Just make sure the player has had time to grab the loot they need before making him make a getaway ;)

 

A few of the Thief II levels had chase situations -- there was "Ambush!" and at the end of "Framed", where it's suddenly revealed that the person you were trying to blackmail was murdered and you have to make an escape. And of course there was the part of "Trail of Blood" where you're ambushed by the Treebeasts...I don't think I've ever run so fast in a video game in my life. I knew that something was up, but I had no idea what until something whacked me on the back of the head and shook my screen all over the place.

 

Anyway, the point is I think that reflex situations can be great in stealth games like Thief as long as the mapper puts a lot of thought into them. Which, of course, demagogue did for this mission :)

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This is just a note that I finally got the last parts of my YouTube

up now. Sorry for the delay on that. It's all bundled into a convenient playlist now too.

 

In case I didn't say it before, except for the first video which is spoiler free, the rest are full of spoilers. So I recommend you don't watch it until after you play it, or if you're having problems running it and you want to see what happens.

 

Thanks for that , I look forward to seeing the end of the mission !

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Hi map creator (also hi to everybody else),

I just finished your mission and wanted to give some feedback in return for the huge fun I had playing it.

A lot has been said already about the mission being too linear and while I would normally agree I also think that this linearity makes it a good first mission to play. I'd even say that it would be a great setting for a soap opera (if you were somehow interested in selling the rights...), as every inhabitant of the area is somehow connected to the others in an interesting way. Sure, it's artificial, but I could easily get into it nonetheless.

As has been stated before I found it a bit annoying that a lot of the doors were not pickable, like they were f... vault doors or something or G... erald won his lockpicks in the lottery. I know that this was probably a requirement due to the - comparatively - small map size so no big deal.

 

<this is about the last part of the mission>

 

What I really liked was the warehouse part. The readables in the other houses set the mood quite well and I was expecting something dangerous and out of the ordinary. Every door I opened offered the view into a slightly more upsetting room (although I carefully searched the corpses for loot ;~). When I came to a door that wasn't even frobbable (sequence break!) I suspected that whatwever horrible thing this warehouse had to offer would come out of there, so I walked backwards and as I saw it opening I quickly hid behind it, let the guy pass and knocked him out. So much for that. I think that door should at least be frobbable. A secret door would even be better and it could have some practical use for smuggled goods etc (btw, why did the killer hang out in a storage room?). On the other hand, maybe it's not too bad to keep it that way, as it was quite satisfying to see my prediction come true).

 

 

 

Overall I liked the map and really appreciate the amount of time and work that you put into it. While it isn't exactly Bafford's Manor (which I played like a hundred times when the Demo came out) it sure is an impressive first (at least for me) mission in it's own right that foreshadows the things to come.

 

Thanks!

lbh

Edited by lostbuthappy
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So much for that. I think that door should at least be frobbable. A secret door would even be better and it could have some practical use for smuggled goods etc (btw, why did the killer hang out in a storage room?).

 

 

 

Thanks. I appreciate your comments. ^_^

 

As for the comments that I quoted,

 

 

I think I would have made that door frobbable if I knew how to do it and get it to always properly trigger at the same time (and keep the AI from always freaking out)... It would have taken a little more thought, and sometimes when you get something technical working like you want it to and it doesn't break, you kind of want to leave it be for fear of breaking it again, lol. It finally works! :laugh: (And I didn't think about a secret door; interesting.)

 

As for why he's hanging out in the storage room; the idea was he heard the elevator coming, knew someone was coming, and hid, to either stay out of their way or slit their throat if they got near. I originally had some readables about him hiding around stalking people, but I decided it was creepier just to have those rooms without readables so the effect was more stark and ambiguous. It just sort of evolved into how it ended up, and when I was done I more or less liked it... I felt I got that atmosphere of dread right, and it scares the hell out of most people, so I was happy.

 

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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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The first time I was in the warehouse I ran straight to the door where the murderer was (which I didn't know), keeping to the right wall. The door swung open and it scared the crap out of me, but the murderer didn't see me. He waited and when I slowly backed away to the shadows he started his walk to the room with the coffin. I don't know if this was intended. I was playing on easy that time. I didn't try the same thing on expert.

Edited by Carnage
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I finally finished it in Medium. Nice map after all, but as many other mentioned it is a little frustrating to understand where to go next. As usual I played ghosting, 0 KOed, 0 kills, 0 damage taken or done, 0 stealth score (oh well) ...

 

Questions about the story:

 

 

The little girl died of sickness and the father started working non-stop in the lab. Or at least so it seems, instead in the end it seems the father killed the daughter in order to get some ingredients?

It seems a little strange: overall considering what the father says in its log. What happened?

 

Why the doll of the child was in the warehouse? The letter of the mother clearly says it was buried.

 

 

 

Thanks for the nice map.

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Questions about the story:

 

 

The little girl died of sickness and the father started working non-stop in the lab. Or at least so it seems, instead in the end it seems the father killed the daughter in order to get some ingredients?

It seems a little strange: overall considering what the father says in its log. What happened?

 

Why the doll of the child was in the warehouse? The letter of the mother clearly says it was buried.

 

 

 

Thanks for the nice map.

 

Well, some questions were meant not to be answered so there was a little ambiguity and mystery

(did Emmy really commit suicide or was she killed when she met Crattick and the note forged in a different handwriting, as part of Crattick's revenge for not getting paid?)

And the daughter was another thing that wasn't meant to be 100% entirely clear.

 

But the general idea is that,

 

yes, she died of sickness -- Soren is a jerk but still not *that* bad... But he was bad enough that he's not beyond using her body, once dead, for experiments. The letter did clearly say the coffin was buried. He's not going to take it before that and have to deal with his wife moaning about it forever. And we know Crattick was expected to be a gravedigger, so clearly he dug it back up soon thereafter, while the body was still fresh, and handed the body over to Soren, but kept the coffin and dolly for his own twisted sicko purposes. (I guess a proper gravedigger wouldn't have taken the coffin, just the body, but then you can think it was pretty lightweight anyway and he'd rather just haul the whole thing back and pry it open in private, so that's what he did. But in terms of visual narrative, I felt I needed the coffin there to visually tell what happened.)

 

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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.

 

I promise to have a closer look at such things in your next mission, because I completely missed these little intended undecided things. :)

 

 

But now as you mention it: Emmy's death appeared to be a strange suicide. How could one possibly make such a mess? I mean unless you're a ninja on some harakiri business...

 

Edited by plasticman
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@Demagogue

 

Emmy was murdered and put behind a closed and unpicklockable door? Or Crattick is a master thief too and passed through the lab dropping the key in the lady room, he had a copy of the key or it is somewhat forced.

 

Anyhow, I think the rest do make sense and I like it. I wish I killed that bastard Crattick... Maybe on Difficult.

 

 

@Plasticman

 

I thought she cut her wrist veins, it is extremely painful and bloody: if she did not take some kind of painkillers she could easily splash blood around while desperately trying of not screaming.

 

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@Demagogue

 

Emmy was murdered and put behind a closed and unpicklockable door? Or Crattick is a master thief too and passed through the lab dropping the key in the lady room, he had a copy of the key or it is somewhat forced.

 

Anyhow, I think the rest do make sense and I like it. I wish I killed that bastard Crattick... Maybe on Difficult.

 

 

Actually I was thinking more like ...

 

he would have come in through Soren's window just like you did and used Soren's key, the same way you got in; dropped her down and locked the 1F door (so it looked like suicide), then went out the same way, locking the door behind him and leaving the key where he (and later you) found it, then back out the window. So elaborate it stretches credibility, I know, lol. He would have been making it look like a suicide, and maybe it gave him a sicko kick to haul her in right past Soren in his lab while he slept? But it was supposed to be ambiguous whether he really did it or it was a real suicide, and for some weird reason that's what my brain cooked up. But it was a minor thing anyway; the story works just fine with it being a "normal" suicide, too, like most people probably reasonably accepted and that's fine with me.

 

And I sympathize with giving him no mercy. I killed him in my YouTube walkthrough (though more out of panicked sword-flailing than a calculated plan) but then I threw him into the urinal for punishment...

 

Thanks for the thoughtful comments, by the way.

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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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I played again on Difficult, I could not

kill the bastard because otherwise I'd fail the `no kills'

objective: what about

add an optional objective `Kill Crattick' or `Bring Crattick _somewhere_ the guards will find him' when you get the log of Soren

? I guess the FM is already `final' but I wanted to suggest it...

 

As always happens in this kind of levels the second run is less fun as everything is more or less known. Moreover I decided to use my friend Jack the Black, so it became also much easier.

It remembers `the Crandle' the first part is very scary even without AI the first time... The second time, of course, becomes a simple run.

 

Chief Police officer the day after:

 

 

- More or less at 0130 everyone of you as been blackjacked?

- Yes sir, still headache...

- And the murderer you were looking for since days has been found unconscious in front of the Harren house with a note about where finding bodies of the victims?

- Yes...

- Well. Good job!

 

 

:D

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Funny, but to respond...

 

I played again on Difficult, I could not

kill the bastard because otherwise I'd fail the `no kills'

 

Worth saying out of spoilers: You can kill him.

 

The "no kill" objective on difficult is itself optional. I killed him in my YouTube video and that was on difficult. (Although it does leave a red X, even though you can still "win" the mission; maybe you don't like that.) I put the "no kill" there just for a challenge and to reward ghosters. I also didn't want a "kill" objective for the same reason; in case people wanted to ghost it. But I see what you're saying, too, and I made the objective optional just because I understood a lot of people would want to do him in just on principle. I'll probably keep it the way it is, though.

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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Nice little city scene, but object placement could've been somewhat better as mentioned before allready.

Didn't like the part with the window because I wasn't expecting to be able to get on that wall.

The horror moments were just great, good job! (remembers me of F.E.A.R.) :)

"Einen giftigen Trank aus Kräutern und Wurzeln für die närrischen Städter wollen wir brauen." - Text aus einem verlassenen Heidenlager

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Hiya Demagogue. Enjoyed your mission immensely, thank you for your efforts. It's the second map I've played for TDM and it gave me the Thiefy feeling even more than St Lucia.

 

Comments then. I liked the density of guards patrolling the streets from the get-go, and I had a few frantic moments where the closest mumbling dunderhead took a turn towards me that I didn't expect. This room for uncertainty in guard routes adds a lot to the gameplay, IMO.

 

I got stumped getting onto the rooftops. Tiny lips need to be more obvious if they're an intended path for the player IMO. My monitor may be a bit darker than usual, but I only found the rooftop bit after jumping over in blind hope even though I couldn't see the ledge. Even after that it seemed odd to be able to run at full speed on such a tiny sliver of support.

 

The story materials were well written and I thought you struck the right balance with the density and length of readable material. I liked the bit of visual storytelling at the end of the mission, this kind of thing really works well.

 

 

At the end bit with Crattick, I didn't realise the idea was that he had heard you coming - obvious as it was with the resounding GRRRWHEEEEEE of the generator - and just thought the unfrobbable door was some weirdly placed poke at Doom 3 monster closets!

 

 

More use could have been made of ambient noise in the streets, but all in all I thoroughly enjoyed the mission. Hope to see more from you.

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At the end bit with Crattick, I didn't realise the idea was that he had heard you coming - obvious as it was with the resounding GRRRWHEEEEEE of the generator - and just thought the unfrobbable door was some weirdly placed poke at Doom 3 monster closets!

 

Not to mention all the lights in the entire building suddenly bursting on. :laugh:

 

And yeah,

there was a bit of poking at the old trope of a monster closet. Anyway, the idea just came to me and I ran with it.

 

 

Thanks for the comments.

 

I also had similar feeling, overall because

 

I did not used the elevator. I mantled in order to avoid the noise.

 

I found this exploit but I didn't take it away because I didn't want to punish anybody for trying to be creative. ^_^

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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Bravo!

 

Great map, I liked it so much. The story is great! It is very difficult to predict at the beginning of the mission what is going on. Eventually you find out that everything is interconnected. The ambient sounds are very cool! The finale is performed thrillingly!

 

I understand that walkthrough is very linear (bacause of key locations + triggers). But this is the only way to ensure the correct order of information gathered.

 

The only strange thing I noticed is how movable objects are placed on the tables. When I try to take a candle from the table  it jumps down through the table it is standing on and hangs in that state intersecting with the table in its middle.

 

 

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