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The Caduceus of St. Alban: Vertical FM Contest entry: Aug 8th, 2010


Bikerdude

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Wow bikerdude, this is a very professionally crafted map :) It run super smooth for me, which made the 3 crashes a fair bit of a surprise :o

But since this has happened on almost every other map (or half) I'd blame it on dark mod. What's with that anyhow? is it fixable or what, anyone know?

 

Aesthetics are great, give yourself a pat on the back :)

 

2 game-play problems:

 

 

 

-I played on hard and got something that was easier than easy :o If you put in about 10-15 more guards in the tight hallway spots and right in the center of the tower with the fountain, that would have made it more interesting. That said, I know it would have looked weird, but you could always say that they were holding a convention there and that they were looking for the escaped prisoner.

 

-I had to noclip under the beam in the tunnel under the cell. Maybe you should have made the ground a little lower there. (The beam furthest towards the cave)

 

 

Other:

 

 

-The story was cool, I felt sorry for the prisoner though :( you could have made it so that you had the journal had an address scrawled on it in case it got lost and the option of taking his journal with you as an optional quest and leaving it in an outbound mail tray.

 

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Nice mission, Bikerdude :)

 

 

 

First things first:

 

I liked accessibility of this area, there was so much possibilities how to infiltrate the outpost.

 

And that breathtaking landscape! How did you did that? That was beautiful!

 

I have only two tiny remarks:

 

 

 

 

The cave under the cellars – was that meant to be accessible? Because I couldn´t get in.

 

And second one – I didn´t liked the optional objective being active right from beginning. It should pop up after reading high priest´s journal (because Garret couldn´t know that they have such a good cook, who´s book would be so stealing worthwhile ).

 

 

And thats all.

 

 

 

By the way, that room at the loading screen – it´s in the mission? I didn´t found it.

Edited by Tarhiel
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The cave under the cellars – was that meant to be accessible? Because I couldn´t get in.

By the way, that room at the loading screen – it´s in the mission? I didn´t found it.

I'm gonna upload a small incremental update to fix the cave issue and the Orrery is somewhere in/on the top of the main tower.

:ph34r:

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update:

 

I have updated the mission to fix the following bugs:

# fixed corrupt brushed giving node warning in console.

# fixed floating geode.

# the impassable tunnel.

# the light source on the wall gate

# move one of the wall guards to the guard hut.

# corrected the inner vault door, (should have been unpickable to begin with)

# removed pointless optional objective (blame jdude, his idea to add it in the first place, lol..)

Edited by Bikerdude
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Just wanted to say that I was blown away by the interesting and well thought out architecture in this mission as well as some of the locations, the blacksmith and orrery (and secret area) were among my favourites. I didn't have any performance problems except for one complete stall while I was on the rooftop above the dining room (which I didn't experience again), so I would have liked more AI but can understand that this might cause problems for lower end PCs and isn't a huge issue for me, it was still very enjoyable just exploring.

Edited by Midnight
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I found this a nicely balanced mission. Lock picking was audible over the soundtrack, game-play was straightforward with zero lag on full settings, and the map was well done. Nothing really jumped out and struck me, but I like my missions on the dark side anyways. Overall, great job.

Edited by peispud
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It was very hard to squeeze through but I finally did it after a lot of tries. Strange this didn't appear during beta.

I suggest making the tunnel a bit taller. Thanks for the great mission.

 

This was reported during beta, but the ticking clock didn't allow time for a change. Workaround of noclipping through is prolly acceptable for now, especially with a new version coming that will most likely deal with the problem.

 

EDIT: Reading backward through the thread, I see Biker has already dealt with this.

 

 

 

Edited by grayman
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I will be happy to proof read, make suggestions or even ghost rewrite your future readables Biker. I'm sure lots of others could do so too.

 

I would also be happy to do this.

 

The problem I ran into beta-testing this mission was whether a readable was supposed to read the way it did. So if someone proofreads readables in the future for any author, the author should note the literacy of the writer. For example, I didn't suggest corrections for many of the guard readables (lower literacy), but I did try to straighten out the priest's journal, since I assumed he was a literate person.

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Finished the original version.

 

 

Gameplay: Good

There were too few guards, in my opinion. I think you could have gotten away with making one or two areas very difficult to sneak through, because you could just climb the pipes outdoors instead. The non-linearity and hidden areas/things prevented boredom.

 

Appearance: Near perfect

I loved the arcitecture in this mission. Nothing more to say.

 

Story & Text: Good

 

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another very minor update....

 

for some very annoying reason the door to the cell block was mission from the latest version - corrected.

 

<_<

Really a good job BD!

And again, amazing UNREAL-ish sky!

Task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen but to think what nobody has yet thought about that which everybody see. - E.S.

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Just wanted to say that I was blown away by the interesting and well thought out architecture in this mission as well as some of the locations, the blacksmith and orrery (and secret area) were among my favourites.

I found this a nicely balanced mission. Lock picking was audible over the soundtrack, game-play was straightforward with zero lag on full settings, and the map was well done. Nothing really jumped out and struck me, but I like my missions on the dark side anyways. Overall, great job.

Your welcome

 

I would also be happy to do this.

Thanks Gman

 

This was a fun and very nice looking mission. It would have been cool if there were a few archers on the ledges though.

Again, would have run into Max Ai issue on low end systems, but good Idea I will add then to version 2 of the missio - assuming we get any builder archers released in TDM 1.03.

Edited by Bikerdude
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I've really enjoyed this FM! I love the architecture, and it's been great fun climbing around on things and exploring, even if there aren't many AI and they're a little ...err, 'simple', I suppose. (I am NOT complaining, mind you, I'm still getting used to the Dark Mod's guard sensitivity levels. This also lets me play around more easily at Ghosting, which is not something I, as an avid Blackjack junkie, often do.) And the caduceus is gorgeous! But I'm stuck.

 

 

I'm down in the spider caves, and I can't get back out again. One of the vine trails near where I came in is climbable, but ONLY from the side facing away from where I entered, which puts the vines and/or stalamites/stalactites in the way of any jumps.

 

 

Is this not the intended way back out, or am I completely missing something?

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Yes, both side of that vine are climable.

 

No matter what I do...try to walk up to it to attach myself, jump at it, running jump at it, or anything else I can attempt, nothing happens on that side of the vine. I just hit the vine like it's a barrier, and I can jump up and down all I want against it- nothing happens. The backside of the vine works perfectly fine, however.

 

I'm not the only one with this problem, I also checked the TTLG forums and found this post in the FM thread there from someone with the same single-sided-climbable vine issue.

 

Oh, and just to add, the other vine down there is perfectly climbable on both sides. It's very weird!

Edited by Shaz
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Had some trouble with this mission. Sorry. Had to vote honestly.

 

It had, as expected, a very nice look overall. And some extremely cool showstoppers: the towers, the skybox, the solar system model...

 

But there was a lot of empty...ness. And many too many buggy bits. Just about every sleeper was blackjack-through-the-bed-now-yer-dead. I didn't want to kill the cook! And many of the moveables were positioned so too - sunken.

 

Plus I had multiple crashes -- which I haven't had but one of since, well, quite some time. And even the return of the herky-jerky lags that I also haven't had in quite some time.

 

The other bugs and downsides have been mentioned a bunch: the extremely uncool[/u] showstopper, the tunnel-of-must-noclip; the lack of AI; and lack of coherency... damn I gotta be harsh it appears, but these are true criticisms.

 

None of this defeats the fact, biker, that you have proven to be an incredibly talented AND helpful and generous force. Still only your 2nd mission and truly excellent marks for much of it.

"A Rhapsody Of Feigned And Ill-Invented Nonsense" - Thomas Aikenhead, On Theology, ca. 1696

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No matter what I do...try to walk up to it to attach myself, jump at it, running jump at it, or anything else I can attempt, nothing happens on that side of the vine. I just hit the vine like it's a barrier, and I can jump up and down all I want against it- nothing happens. The backside of the vine works perfectly fine, however.

 

I'm not the only one with this problem, I also checked the TTLG forums and found this post in the FM thread there from someone with the same single-sided-climbable vine issue.

 

Oh, and just to add, the other vine down there is perfectly climbable on both sides. It's very weird!

 

 

 

I too had this problem with the 1st vine. I had a long hard fall to the bottom but managed to survive. After finding no other way out ( I did jump to what seemed to be a ledge from the other vine but when I got there turned out to be the tops of some of the stalagmites) I climbed up the 1st vine on the side away from the entrance to the top and then edged my way around kind of to the side so I was facing the tunnel and jumped. Now I'm back in the outpost and have no idea how or where to end this mission.

 

Lost - any clues or hints appreciated!

 

Figured it out. I should always remember to walk away and take some time to think about it.blush.gif

Edited by Thiefette
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Had some trouble with this mission. Sorry. Had to vote honestly.

 

  • But there was a lot of empty...ness.
  • And many too many buggy bits.
  • Just about every sleeper was blackjack-through-the-bed-now-yer-dead.
  • And many of the moveables were positioned so too - sunken.
  • Plus I had multiple crashes -- which I haven't had but one of since, well, quite some time.
  • And even the return of the herky-jerky lags that I also haven't had in quite some time.
  • The tunnel-of-must-noclip; the lack of AI; and lack of coherency...

None of this defeats the fact, biker, that you have proven to be an incredibly talented AND helpful and generous force. Still only your 2nd mission and truly excellent marks for much of it.

 

  • not compared to the other maps there isnt.
  • Such as, my beta testers were very picky about such things.
  • NOT my fault, thats a TDM bug.
  • Er, if by that you mean too hidden - people would do that in real life dude....
  • NOT my fault either, lots of people have been having crashes with TDM its thief system - my TDM has been rock solid from day one.
  • Agian NOT my fault, I spend a lot of time trying to build this mission so it would run on low end systems.
  • This has been fixed in the latest version and should be included as its a bug not an addition after the fact.

Aida, I think your basing your voting of my fm on inherent bugs with TDM which isn't exactly fair.

Edited by Bikerdude
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Lost - any clues or hints appreciated!

Ok, apologies for this, as it was working just fine but now seems the ladder texture is being a shit - I will re-jig it and upload. Give it 20mins then use the link in the main post of this thread.

Edited by Bikerdude
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Biker, I think you might already be able to get a builder archer. I've added a little to http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Adding_Heads_and_Weapons_to_AI but you can see there I'm not certain the offsets will align it ideally. The bow might clip into the back for instance. I've not tried it. Whether it's appropriate for builders to use bows I don't know though.

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