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Fan Mission: The Glenham Tower by Sotha (2010/07/17)


Sotha

The Glenham Tower by Sotha (2010/07/17) Summer FM Vertical Contest Entry  

126 members have voted

  1. 1. 1. Gameplay: Enjoyment. Fun duration. Smooth flow, ect. Versus Bugs. Frustration, Boredom, framelag

  2. 2. 2. Appearance: Vertical use, Visual pleasure, lighting, visual style, deduct bad texturing etc.

  3. 3. 3. Story & Text: Story. Text. Briefing. Graphic storytelling



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Can't believe I hadn't voted on this one!

 

4 / 4 / 5

 

I got pretty damn frustrated for the final areas - but I couldn't honestly give it only a 3 - overall I enjoyed it far too much for that!

 

I think the bare exterior is absolutely fine, seriously. It's what the briefing tells you to expect - a Tower people have tried to get into but it's so treacherous that no one has succeeded.

"No proposition Euclid wrote,

No formulae the text-books know,

Will turn the bullet from your coat,

Or ward the tulwar's downward blow

Strike hard who cares—shoot straight who can—

The odds are on the cheaper man."

 

From 'Arithmetic on the Frontier' by Rudyard Kipling

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  • 1 month later...

Finished today. :)

A beatiful mission, but i think there are tooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo many zombies.:laugh:

 

Hey, I´m the first!! Playing... :P

Thanks for this great scary mission.

 

Uhoohh ... the ghost didn't see me. :ph34r:

post-3384-127938801343_thumb.jpg

 

 

 

What is this? Super mario bros graphic setting?:laugh:

Edited by ECHELON
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Duh, duh, duh, duh duh duh duh :)

 

It looks like he is playing with r_shadows set to 0. I did this once on a Geforce 6200, but it basically breaks the game for obvious reasons. I would trade texture quality and specular and bump maps AND resolution before I gave up my precious dynamic shadows!

--- War does not decide who is right, war decides who is left.

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@ECHELON, plotzzz:

The amount of zombies in this mission has been carefully matched to your recorded level of mission expertise.

 

You know, when you phrase it like that... And I look at your avatar... I have to say it with Xerxes's voice!

 

"These zombies are of the highest quality. Please do not be alarmed..." =D

"No proposition Euclid wrote,

No formulae the text-books know,

Will turn the bullet from your coat,

Or ward the tulwar's downward blow

Strike hard who cares—shoot straight who can—

The odds are on the cheaper man."

 

From 'Arithmetic on the Frontier' by Rudyard Kipling

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  • 1 month later...

5 / 4 /4

 

This is the first undead mission I played and it was thrilling as hell! Had to restart the game though because I ran out of weapons mid-way. There was a lot of surprises in this one, especially when I saw the first Revenant, I thought it was a guard but when shot it with a broadhead and it turned to me it screamed! I screamed too and my cousin who was watching with me did the same. XD

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 2 months later...

Upfront confession time - I'm really not a fan of these kind of levels, and the only way I can play them is by actively avoiding getting too immersed in them. This usually means:

1) having the sound turned down quite low (creepy sounds freak me out way more than creepy visuals), and, if necessary, putting an Adam & Joe podcast on in the background;

2) mucho use of reload.

 

So, apologies to all you scary-FM makers (NB: not scary FM-makers. Although some of you may be :D ), and apologies to Sotha especially for point no. 2 after seeing his views on saving & reloading, but, I yam still a TDM newbie and that's the way it is (at the moment anyway).

 

Given that, if anyone's still interested, this is my gameplay experience (warning: very long): -

 

 

Nice creepy atmosphere at the start. Explored the grounds a bit and found the secret lever in the cellar – it didn't seem to do anything but I didn't worry about it; just trusted there'd be another way of achieving whatever it was meant to do (I wuz right too). Enjoyed mantling up the tower, especially with the stuff giving way underfoot (or over-rope arrow).

 

Then into the tower – staircase giving way was a bit of a scare but not huge (sound turned down), and the sight of the dismembered body on the other side of the room gave exactly the right sense of 'Oh, cr*p'. Something told me to close the staircase door that was open, so the first zombie arrival didn't catch me completely off-guard. Noted and was creeped out by the defaced paintings - shades of the observatory(?) in Shalebridge Cradle?

 

I took the tactic of downing all the zombies with holy water as I went along. (I had forgotten fire arrows also worked, and didn't know mines would do the job too.) "It'll be fine," I told myself when supplies started running low. "There'll be more holy water and water arrows provided as the game progresses. No FM-maker would be so cold-heartedly brutal as to plunge a poor newbie playing in easy mode deeper into a plague pit of zombie hellishness without arming him or her to the teeth with weapons. It'll be fine."

 

Hah. The hall of three zombies took me about twenty minutes to get through as I was determined to get them all down with one vial of holy water; not easy - especially when my Intel integrated graphics chip was giving me between 2-5fps – but I did it. Nearly wore out the quickload button, but I DID IT. BTW, this area highlighted the seriously good AI route-planning – the zombies never seemed to do the same thing twice even though I was doing pretty much the same thing every time.

 

And on down, down and down – and into the pool! Finally! This is where I stock back up on water arrows! Gotta be some in here somewhere, right? And there's some more holy water somewhere too? Right? Right???

 

Oh. Cr*p.

 

I'll be honest – when I finally entered the lowest level with one water arrow and no holy water and saw what looked like an army of undead wading around, I very nearly gave up. I've got no chance, I thought. But hey, give it a go. And waddya know, got the book and the courage to get the crown behind Ol' Flamehead's throne. I even went through the doorway there, but after falling to my death a few times I gave up (too panic-stricken to think of rope arrows, even though I had found the one near the book).

 

I certainly wasn't going to bother with the optional objective, and scampered halfway-back up the tower when my conscience started pricking me. You can't leave without at least trying to destroy that thing, I thought. You got out with the book, which you thought would be impossible. Give it a go. So, heart thudding in my throat, I turned around and went back down. Greater courage ne'er was displayed (blah blah blah).

 

Hopefully, Sotha, you''ll take it as a huge compliment to your game-creating skills that a whimpering panic-stricken noob like me was able to go into that hell-pit with only one water arrow and actually fulfil that optional objective. I used the last water arrow to douse the light above the sphere, then just grabbed it and ran back up to the window entrance by the pool chased by half-a-dozen enraged undead. (Nearly gave up again when I realised I had to 'hold' it in front of me, but I persevered. Not as bad as trying to

drag that wretched skeleton around

 

in Heart of Lone Salvation, at least. :angry: ) Got some damage – mainly from a zombie coming down the stairs while I was racing up 'em – but managed to get through and then up the chain & rope to the upper floors.

 

Which is where my 'kill-all-zombies' strategy paid off, as it was then a doddle getting the sphere up to the acid bath. (I nearly had a heart attack the first time it lit up though; I thought it was going to reactivate all the zombies I had felled. I think I genuinely would have finally given up if that had happened.)

 

Destroyed the sphere, and then hit the one point where I did, finally, give up – namely, meeting the final objective of trying to 'exit the way you came'. Y'see, I didn't look at the collapsed attic and think "It's blocked". No, I thought, "Sotha has turned the final objective into a fiendish climbing puzzle, because that is the evil kind of thing he does, and so I must find a way through this rubble because the objective says I must exit the way I came, and this is the way I came, and I MUST OBEY WHAT THE OBJECTIVE SAYS."

 

Anyway, after about ten minutes of mounting frustration (culminating in fire-arrowing the intact parts of the ceiling to see if any more would come down and give an escape route), I did finally give up and check this thread (comment in next spoiler). Then went back and finished, much more easily than I thought. Fire arrows rock!

 

 

Sotha, to save you wading through the above, this is the only thing that comes close to a criticism: -

 

Sotha, you comment in one of your spoilers that 'For some reason people do not spot the attic collapse'. I say this as a respectful newbie - I think the wording of that final objective may be part of the problem. I'd suggest that a fair number of players would understandably interpret 'exit the way you came' as 'take the same route out of the tower that you took coming in' and then get frustrated when they can't. Personally, I may have found something like 'Get back to the tower entrance gate where you started' may have helped me be a bit more, er, flexible in my thinking.

 

Hope this doesn't sound too complaining (and I guess most people seem to have managed fine) – heck, you've emptied a pit-load of undead horror over the soul of an undead-hating newbie, and the only thing I can suggest changing is the wording of one of the objectives. Plus, I will be playing it again (when my new laptop with a standalone 144-core gpu instead of a 10-unified pipeline chip arrives, that is – I want to play it on at least a semi-decent system before I officially rate it). Please believe that, for me, that's a huge compliment! Despite the undead, the design was great, but what really made it for me was the strong story – joking aside, that was probably the reason I decided to go back and try to destroy the sphere. It felt like what I did mattered!

 

 

Overall, a really well-designed FM with a good story that kept me in it despite my dislike of the subject matter. Good stuff!

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And some screenshots (warning: auto-levels and rather silly captions have been applied): -

 

I came so close to adding this caption to the reload pic (given how many times I saw it): -

post-9265-0-92992100-1331161005_thumb.jpg

 

 

post-9265-0-31546100-1331161036_thumb.jpg

Your mission, simplen00b, should you choose to accept it – fell these three undead horrors with one vial of holy water. Go! – oh bad luck. Try again….ah. That didn't work either, did it? Have another go. Oh, well done! – two down – ooooh no – the last one's gone back down the stairs. Now now – hitting the reload key like that isn't going to make it reload any faster is it? And that language certainly isn't going to help. See how you get on this time. Oh, good try. What's that? Your 10-pipeline Intel integrated graphics chip is only giving you 4-5fps? Oh boo hoo. Man up and grow some. Wow that was bad. Have you ever actually used a bow before? (etc etc, cont. for 20 mins)

 

post-9265-0-41756400-1331161079_thumb.jpg

Four Revenants and a Flamehead, and a zombie. Someday all Richard Curtis/Hugh Grant films will be like this.

 

post-9265-0-79413700-1331161098_thumb.jpg

Ner ner nerner ner. I've got the Sphere and yooou haven't. Ner ner nerner ner. And you tore off only one of my limbs while I escaaaaaped. Still gonna climb up chains and ropes and run up stairs and stuff to get away and destroy it. Ner ner nerner ner.

 

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  • 3 months later...

Ok so I'm getting to this mission late, but it's too fantastic not to finish so a couple of questions:

 

I have seen several posts referring to multiple Holy Waters and multiple mines being used to kill the zombies but I only find the one mine for purchase and 1 holy water? The 'former thief's gear did not include any.... so is there a stash that I'm missing? Oh yes and I I only find 1 firearrow to buy and none in the tower? I ask because I'm stuck trying to get out with the sphere without killing the zombies in the room.

 

Any help appreciated.

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Ok so I'm getting to this mission late, but it's too fantastic not to finish so a couple of questions:

 

I have seen several posts referring to multiple Holy Waters and multiple mines being used to kill the zombies but I only find the one mine for purchase and 1 holy water? The 'former thief's gear did not include any.... so is there a stash that I'm missing? Oh yes and I I only find 1 firearrow to buy and none in the tower? I ask because I'm stuck trying to get out with the sphere without killing the zombies in the room.

 

Any help appreciated.

 

 

 

You should investigate the floor with the bedrooms more carefully... There is a secret room around there.

 

 

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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  • 2 months later...

Good god...

 

I wonder if that is the predominant way to play TDM: save, fail, load, repeat ad nauseaum?

 

Hopefully he also fixes the fraps/lightgem issues before playing onward: tdm gets bugged-looking youtube exposure if he does not.

 

But in the end, if he enjoyed the experience despite all the issues, great.

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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Yeah he kinda reminds me of myself in my early Thief days. I used to kill all the guards/opposition I met while playing the game.

 

Anyway,

he didn't bring a stockpile of explosives on that run and thus he had to make do with sneaking (and sometimes running). "Destroy all opposition" was simply not an option.

 

Edited by lost_soul

--- War does not decide who is right, war decides who is left.

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  • 6 months later...

Sorry for the super bump but I recently downloaded The Dark Mod and I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed this mission! The previous missions in the series were extremely good as well but this one in particular blew me away with how fun and genuinely scary it was. The scripted events really took me by surprise! And realizing that I had to sneak all the way back up the tower, except now timed, was very nervewracking but a unique challenge. And the battle in the final event (don't want to spoil it) was shocking and I won by a thread with practically no resources left. I usually hate undead missions in Thief but this has to be the best undead mission I ever have played, it even makes me want to reinstall Thief 1. I loved the story elements, including the visual storytelling, and the way the story developed through the mission, which is why I voted this mission was "near perfect" in that area. I am going to finish the series soon, but I don't think anything can top this for me. Just wow.

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No need to apologize. FM authors love receiving feedback and that's what these threads are for. ;)

 

Thanks of playing and enjoying this! I very pleased it brought you so much joy.

 

Welcome to the TDM community.

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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Interesting to see a new post in this as I just played it again and enjoyed it

One thing I did notice is that ghosting the last part was easier than I remembered (I must be getting better at it :D ) and watching the ghouls etc. die was very satisfying

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hello all. I am new here but have been following this mod for a while now.

 

Sotha

 

I am a big fan of your work and want to congratulate you and all the other Fm creators for doing a great job.I would also like to say thank's to all that helped make this mod possible, for an older taffer like myself who started out playing the TDP demo this has been a great experience.And I am looking forward to more great evening's ghosting through old cathedral's, and crowded manor's.Keep it up.

 

Now if anyone could point me in the right direction of another great horror Fm I'd appreciate it.(My lockpicking finger's are getting itchy)

 

I have completed Glenham's, and Flakebridge(another great one btw) big shoutout to Jesps on that one as well.

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St. Albans Cathredal by Bikerdude, a wonderful homage to Thief 1

FM's: Builder Roads, Old Habits, Old Habits Rebuild

Mapping and Scripting: Apples and Peaches

Sculptris Models and Tutorials: Obsttortes Models

My wiki articles: Obstipedia

Texture Blending in DR: DR ASE Blend Exporter

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  • 3 weeks later...

I had the fight of my life, quickly grabbing the extinguished sphere and running up only barely able to escape through the hole, having difficulties throwing the damn sphere through which got me killed twice. I managed to grab the chain and then jump onto the rope arrow I set, and climbed up. I then ran like I was on fire, zombies after me and the revenant hot on my trail I managed to make it to the second last room with only the revenant on me... I had to drop the sphere near the door in order to get the door open, and man I had to kill the revenant. I circle straffed around the furniture and did probably the best swordsmanship I've ever done, fired my last holy water and ran out because a zombie walked in the room and I kept accidentally hitting the zombie instead... I managed to lure the zombie down and finished off the revenant with 2 more hits. Ahhh the audible clunk as the ghastly fiend goes back to hell.. they will not drag me to hell. As the unlife of the sphere disolved scorched in holy flame I was free until the builder's undying flaming brother ran at me, I had to jump down into the water and then go through a door I had vaguely scouted before..... freedom.

 

+Climbing

+Scary, one part really got me good

+Tough

+Lots of loot

+Story was decent enough

+I Liked the use of lighting in this, made the water arrows quite precious indeed

+2 mines oh that made things easier if only slightly.

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