Fan Mission: No Honor Among Thieves (2010/04/29)

[161803398874989]

Finally finished all three missions, and it pains me to say that every single one of them had a moment where I just got fed up with the mission and had to go do something else. Mostly because 90% of the doors were unpickable, and this just bummed me out as I tried to find a way in through the roof and failed. I wanted to play as a thief, but what I got instead was a traceur. Now I don't really mind verticality, not at all, but I don't think you should force anything on the player. Unpickable doors were WAY overused.

 

I liked the first mission the best, except for

 

Finding the generator room. I had to look in the thread for that. It's something I missed completely on my way up. Also, please give a heads up about the undead in the mission description. I do not enjoy that type of gameplay just being thrown in my face.

 

 

The second mission I didn't like that much, because I choked really hard at

 

entering the watch building. Eventually I cracked and looked at the thread again, because vines are kind of hard to miss. (For me at least, being colourblind.) And then when I went into the Smuggler's Den, I spent 5 minutes trying to blackjack the guy at the end of the pier. In the end I just shot arrows at him until he died, which goes directly against my usual playstyle. Also, what's up with the wooden pier being louder than freaking metal?

Also, the doors to the blacksmith and the door behind old man Harry were unpickable, and I spent maybe another 5 minutes trying to find a way in through the roofs, but I was unsuccesful.

 

 

 

The third mission was kinda enjoyable, but

 

the problem with unpickable doors was especially apparent in the 3rd mission where there were 3 at least, and I missed the captain's key, so I couldn't progress. Then I got the rope arrow from the showcase room (I was really surprised at the lack of stuff to steal there), so I went outside and looked around the entirety of the house exterior to see if I could put the rope arrow to use; I couldn't.

 

Also, where was all the loot located? I found Nathan's chest and the shack, and thought I would find enough loot there to make up the extra loot I needed (total 1800), but I had to go back to the mansion. Then at the end screen it said I had barely gotten 50% of the loot, and I thought I'd looked through it pretty thoroughly. Was there a hidden vault or what?

 

 

In between the frustrating moments, the missions were fun to play though.

[Springheel]

Is it customary to give a "heads up" about what kind of opponents you're going to meet in a mission? I've never noticed this, and frankly wouldn't want such spoilers.

[Lux]

Finally finished all three missions, and it pains me to say that every single one of them had a moment where I just got fed up with the mission and had to go do something else. Mostly because 90% of the doors were unpickable, and this just bummed me out as I tried to find a way in through the roof and failed. I wanted to play as a thief, but what I got instead was a traceur. Now I don't really mind verticality, not at all, but I don't think you should force anything on the player. Unpickable doors were WAY overused.

 

I liked the first mission the best, except for

 

Finding the generator room. I had to look in the thread for that. It's something I missed completely on my way up. Also, please give a heads up about the undead in the mission description. I do not enjoy that type of gameplay just being thrown in my face.

 

 

The second mission I didn't like that much, because I choked really hard at

 

entering the watch building. Eventually I cracked and looked at the thread again, because vines are kind of hard to miss. (For me at least, being colourblind.) And then when I went into the Smuggler's Den, I spent 5 minutes trying to blackjack the guy at the end of the pier. In the end I just shot arrows at him until he died, which goes directly against my usual playstyle. Also, what's up with the wooden pier being louder than freaking metal?

Also, the doors to the blacksmith and the door behind old man Harry were unpickable, and I spent maybe another 5 minutes trying to find a way in through the roofs, but I was unsuccesful.

 

 

 

The third mission was kinda enjoyable, but

 

the problem with unpickable doors was especially apparent in the 3rd mission where there were 3 at least, and I missed the captain's key, so I couldn't progress. Then I got the rope arrow from the showcase room (I was really surprised at the lack of stuff to steal there), so I went outside and looked around the entirety of the house exterior to see if I could put the rope arrow to use; I couldn't.

 

Also, where was all the loot located? I found Nathan's chest and the shack, and thought I would find enough loot there to make up the extra loot I needed (total 1800), but I had to go back to the mansion. Then at the end screen it said I had barely gotten 50% of the loot, and I thought I'd looked through it pretty thoroughly. Was there a hidden vault or what?

 

 

In between the frustrating moments, the missions were fun to play though.

 

1) If there is holy water for sale in the shop OR you start the mission with it in your inventory OR you find it somewhere in the mission, count on this, that's your tell.

 

2) Vines are something in TDM I wasn't familiar with at first either. They are easy to spot on walls if you're looking for them because of the pattern and now you know, you need to look for them. If first you don't succeed, try different tactics based on readable clues in the mission. Also be on the lookout for climbable pipes or guttering. How do you know if its climbable? Try to climb it.

 

3) Any door that "clicks", but your snake and triangle lock picks turn red, requires a key. If there is no sound, the door won't open. If there are no other doors or windows on the building, move along...nothing to see here. Try not to waste a lot of time and frustration searching an inert building until the end IF your loot requirements aren't met or you're going for 100% loot.

[rinscewind]

FM downloads page shows message of

 

 

 

Mission Download Locations: No Honor Among Thieves

 

No Download Locations available for this FM.

 

 

 

Am I missing something other than a working link?

[Melan]

This mission pack is undergoing revision, and will be re-released in an updated and expanded version relatively soon.

[Bikerdude]

A re-released and updated version relatively soon.

Very soon in fact.

[Goldchocobo]

Maybe even today?

...

[Melan]

Aieeee! My precious productivity!

[Bikerdude]

Maybe even today?

Yup, just fixing some very minor bugs then will upload, create thread and update FM page.

[Sir Taffsalot]

Yup, just fixing so very minor bugs then will upload, create thread and update FM page.

 

Well that's my social life for the immediate future down the toilet. Damn you Biker!

[Gantolandon]

I may have found a bug - whenever I approach the altar in the cathedral church area, TDM hangs on me and I have to kill the process.

 

Edit: I think it's something with the candles on the right of the iron hammer - crash happens usually when I look in their general direction and the place where they are becomes visible.

Edited October 19, 2013 by Gantolandon

[Erdrick27]

I've played through 2 of the 3 missions and I'm having some serious issues with the third.

 

 

I've managed to get into the showroom and on the ground it says something about stags, so I figured you either stay in or out of the gaze of the skulls to avoid dying, unfortunatly either way this doesn't seem to work. I've managed to find safe spots by just running around but am completely unable to pick up anything off the display pedestals including the rope arrow and chalice which is a mission requirement. I've even shot arrows at the items to see if they move but they're all glued to the pedestals. Is this a bug?

 

[Goldchocobo]

I may have found a bug - whenever I approach the altar in the cathedral church area, TDM hangs on me and I have to kill the process.

 

Edit: I think it's something with the candles on the right of the iron hammer - crash happens usually when I look in their general direction and the place where they are becomes visible.

We have found this bug post release, and will be fixing it hopefully next week.

[Goldchocobo]

I've played through 2 of the 3 missions and I'm having some serious issues with the third.

 

 

I've managed to get into the showroom and on the ground it says something about stags, so I figured you either stay in or out of the gaze of the skulls to avoid dying, unfortunatly either way this doesn't seem to work. I've managed to find safe spots by just running around but am completely unable to pick up anything off the display pedestals including the rope arrow and chalice which is a mission requirement. I've even shot arrows at the items to see if they move but they're all glued to the pedestals. Is this a bug?

 

 

 

 

Follow the stare of the NEAREST stag into the next. You'll notice they create a safe pathway. To grab the Chalice, you may have to lean forward a little bit (default bind "F)". Everything else in that room is NON FROBABLE, meaning it can't be picked up.

 

[Gantolandon]

Now that I finished:

 

1st: the best of all three in my opinion. I loved the entrance and the cathedral itself. Each part was beautiful in its own way and interesting. The plague of later missions, non-pickable locks were used somewhat sparingly here.

2nd: very nice, although here keyhunts felt somewhat heavy-handed - it didn't feel like I shouldn't be able to just pick those locks, instead of searching for keys. Optional objectives were great. One of the better city missions I have seen.

3rd: mixed feelings. Mapping and the plot were as good as in the previous missions. There were, however, some very annoying things which broke the flow of the mission and sometimes made me to hunt for an answer in the forums:

 

 

1 Non-pickable locks again. As in the previous mission, it didn't make much sense - why am I able to pick the lock to the front door, but not to the governor's room inside his mansion? Here, however, I couldn't just ignore it, because every major objective was behind a door with a lock that couldn't be opened without a key.

2. The basement chute was non-climbable, which forced me to exit with the front door.

3. The showroom. I had to check here, because I had no idea how to take the taffing vase.

 

 

 

One of the other things I spotted - all three missions seemed very glitchy. I don't know if these glitches are a result of porting the maps to 2.0, or were present before. The second mission was affected the most - mostly overlapping surfaces, but sometimes I spotted guards sitting or standing in the air.

[jardakrupka]

Excellent mission, I played a total of about eight hours the whole story. Just more such missions .......

[Mortem Desino]

2nd: very nice, although here keyhunts felt somewhat heavy-handed - it didn't feel like I shouldn't be able to just pick those locks, instead of searching for keys.

Regarding the keyhunt: that's an old-as-dirt gameplay device called a "gate". In fact, that's the main device used in the old Zelda games and Metroids to force the player to complete certain objectives before allowing them to progress to certain new areas. This is just a slightly different way around using it. And maybe it does feel slightly unfair, especially if the prerequisite objective is simply "explore to find the key", if the key isn't very strategically placed by the mapper. That allows the un-pickable door to act as an obvious indicator to the player -- "There must be some game/story progression behind this door. Gotta go complete something else first, I guess."

[Gantolandon]

Regarding the keyhunt: that's an old-as-dirt gameplay device called a "gate". In fact, that's the main device used in the old Zelda games and Metroids to force the player to complete certain objectives before allowing them to progress to certain new areas. This is just a slightly different way around using it. And maybe it does feel slightly unfair, especially if the prerequisite objective is simply "explore to find the key", if the key isn't very strategically placed by the mapper. That allows the un-pickable door to act as an obvious indicator to the player -- "There must be some game/story progression behind this door. Gotta go complete something else first, I guess."

 

Sure, I agree with that - even original Thief used non-pickable doors to prevent the player from reaching certain places prematurely. It can quickly, however, break the immersion and become tiring, if overused. The first mission was exemplary when it comes to using keys - only the most important places were blocked in this way, which were also the ones that were most likely to have a strong lock. In the others, it sometimes felt arbitrary.

[Mortem Desino]

Absolutely right. It gets rather tiresome if there are too many in one enclosed area (as opposed to the aforementioned Metroid games, which only occasionally led you backwards through old areas.)

[Goldchocobo]

I'm taking notes, thanks for the feedback Gantolandon. If you find bugs, PLEASE screencap them and show us here so we can fix them in NHAT 2.01.

 

And believe it or not, there were several other keyhunt scenariors that I REMOVED the day before we shipped NHAT 2.0.

[Gantolandon]

I'm taking notes, thanks for the feedback Gantolandon. If you find bugs, PLEASE screencap them and show us here so we can fix them in NHAT 2.01.

 

And believe it or not, there were several other keyhunt scenariors that I REMOVED the day before we shipped NHAT 2.0.

 

I'll try to do this when I have more time - unfortunately, I don't have saves from these places right now. Here is what I remember now clearly enough to be sure of the location:

 

1. Almost every door in the starting inn in mission 2 - when you open them, their edge will overlap with the door frame.

2. The gutter-pipe in mission 2:

 

It's the one near Henry and the closed door - when you meet them, just go back towards the clock tower and the offending pipe will eventually be on your right. The affected surface is the one in the direction of the clock tower.

 

3. In the guardhouse in mission 2, one of the guards were floating above his chair.

4. When trying to steal a purse from one of the two guards near the entrance to the inn, I shot a broadhead arrow somewhere in the middle of the alley and proceeded to hide there. When one of the guards were searching for me, he either stumbled on me or some hidden prop and stood about 3 meters in the air. Granted, I'm not sure if this was a problem with the mission, as opposed to the engine.

5. The cathedral church in mission 1 had some overlapping surfaces somewhere near the stairs. I don't remember where exactly, because I was preoccupied then to find a source of the crash bug.

6. In mission 3, some of the decorations in side rooms react weirdly to frobbing. I remember two ordinary vases that sunk into the dresser and two tomes stacked on each other - I managed to melt them together.

 

I'll try to screencap them when I have more time to replay the mission - probably on the weekend.

[TE2]

ok. I need a hint on part 3. Where is the gold chalice? I must be missing something pretty simple. I think i have explored everything. I have the showroom key. But cant pick up anything in the showroom..if its in there

 

Great FM, loving it!

[Goldchocobo]

Gold chalice is in the center of hte showroom. If you can't grab it, try leaning foward a bit (default binding "F") and it will become grab-able.

[TE2]

Thank you

 

Incase someone else has the issue:

 

Took a few minutes of me moving about. Just leaning forward didnt work. After a bunch of trial and error, which included me cursing mulitple times, I crouched down then looked up (at an angle above the chalice), then pressed lean key.

 

Quite annoying to jump through all the hoops just to pickup something simple left out in the open.

[Melan]

I played this mission pack yesterday and today - good to finally have something in a real campaign form.

 

Quite a lot of improvements on the visual side, and some cool new content, but I am puzzled by one feature:

 

You start with rope arrows in mission two! (Or they carry over.) This is strange, because some of the challenges in this mission seem to be designed for regular climbing, and here you can just bypass that stuff with your arrows.

 

Also, a few cases of annoying invisible walls.

 

OTOH, all the backstabbing going on is very entertaining, and, well, it is NHAT!