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

[Bikerdude]

I've gotten to the point where I don't want to work on it anymore to be honest. I like other mappers appreciate honest feedback, but its a bit demotivating when players still don't understand the different between a bug with TDM and a bug with a mission.

 

Anyhow... I have started back on Melan's mission so I can get that out the door now etc..

Edited August 27, 2010 by Bikerdude

[nbohr1more]

Thanks for all your efforts Bikerdude.

 

I think the ground-level AI brings up the tension nicely. I will get back to playing this and vote soon but I think I know the scores and they are high.

[Bikerdude]

have fun mister ;-)

[Thiefette]

Finished the mission but did not get all the loot so will be returning. The visuals (sunset etc.) were stunning. Other than the issues after the tunnel I had no problems with the mission. Thanks for resolving the tunnel issue Bikerdude, I was able to complete. Hate leaving them undone.

[aidakeeley]

Sorry to have dampened any part of your enthusiasm for mapping Biker. Really.

 

I still think, though I did lay on the criticism quite a bit, that it isn't just a case that each thing I said was injudicious. My votes do stand. I'm certainly not happy to have voted low where I did, but I don't feel as if I am kicking you while you are down.

 

I could explain a bit further on each of my points, but, don't really feel it's necessary. I may come back and do it anyhow... or I will definitely if you want me to.

 

I also still think you are impressively excellent in many areas (as I tried to make clear).

[Shaz]

Now that the one-sided vine issue I had was fixed, I was able to finish (though about 200 shy on loot, so I'll have to go back and scour for what I'm missing).

 

Thank you for a fun (and phenomenally gorgeous) FM, Bikerdude!

[Bikerdude]

Thanks for resolving the tunnel issue Bikerdude, I was able to complete. Hate leaving them undone.

Thank you for a fun (and phenomenally gorgeous) FM, Bikerdude!

Glad you guys enjoyed it, that's what I was aiming for etc.

 

Sorry to have dampened any part of your enthusiasm for mapping Biker. Really. I also still think you are impressively excellent in many areas..

You haven't dampened my motivation Aida, its just that I think you based some of your voting on bugs that were caused my tdm, not my map building. But happy that you enjoyed playing it.

[7upMan]

Just in case you ever touch this map again, you could consider changing the prisoner's head - right now he has a helmet on. Oh, and I couldn't get him to wake up. I sooo much wanted him to wake up and run straight to the guard to be killed... *sigh* But you can't have everything, can you? 

[LEGION]

I haven´t read the thread, I just saw that there is an update? Since yesterday? Damn, I played the mission last night and haven´t dared to look in here before.

 

I spent 4:28:41 hours and found

1908 (out of 2423) loot with stealth score zero, as ever,

and I so much enjoyed this mission! Tis was the first time I voted 'Near perfect', and the optics were near perfect! The places felt so much alive, all those details, I so often hold still on top to watch the beautiful skybox, though it was not animated except the standard-clouds.

Only negative points were the few AI´s, though I understand that due to the narrow architecture inside they would´ve been stuck everywhere, and of course performance reasons. Also the existing AI´s as some objects had too narrow sound-radius resulting in me not hearing the sounds most of the time. I guess that was your choice?

 

 

 

Gameplay: Good

 

 

Due to the missing AI´s the tension was not as it could´ve been and I wasn´t able to climb any pipe? I would´ve liked that due to presence of an AI the player would be forced to try one of the alternate ways into the tower. Instead I just used the kitchen door and had access to everything. But the alternate ways to get to places were really fun and it all felt believable and I can´t wait to play the updated version! I hope you made the two lanterns at the stables frob- and deactivatable?

I wasn´t able to find a way into the crapper-room. Key?

 

 

 

Appearance: Outstanding

 

Hell, it all looked so beautiful and felt so alive! Everywhere details to discover, I loved it all!

The orrery (I hate this word!) was so nice with it´s shadowplay, but I would´ve liked a lightswitch to get a better sight of it. Anyway, there wasn´t a thing that doesn´t seemed right except some maybe misaligned textures in a staircase that I´m not sure about anyway, so the mission deserves a 'Outstanding' because it simply was outstanding! Interior and Exterior looked so good, man! The elevators were nice, but if they have elevators, why no lightswitches? I loved to rip the painting leaving the, well, unpainted frame, cool! Also cool I found the opened bag spilling out his content! Did I told you that I hold several times still to watch the beautiful skybox? Did I? I have a feeling that I did. But why were the darker clouds not animated? Hmm?

 

 

 

Story: Excellent

 

 

Thanks for giving me so much readables! The first ones including the briefing had definitely your humorous presence that made me think: "Oh yeah, tis is a BikerDude-mission." I very liked the builder-books in the chapel, I always like to read their tenets. Though the story wasn´t that original it never were boring to read the readables and due to the amount of them I think it deserves the 'Excellent'-voting.

 

 

 

 

Overall it could´ve been the best mission so far if it had more AI´s present and the player would´ve been more forced to take the alternate ways up to support the vertical-theme a little bit more. But still it´s one of the strongest entries and never before I made so much screenshots. One of them I want to share because I think I made a nice photograph and it shows how nice the architecture is:

 

Oh, on the left of this shot you can see a builder doing questionable, most likely dirty, things to another builder. Really, as I came by, the first guard stood still, the over was moving/bumping into him and at the moment as his hands reached the first guard, this first guard made his stretch-animation and there was only one dirty thought available to explain all this doing, though I doubt it was scripted, was it?

 

 

Though I didn´t played the update I want to share the bugs I found:

Bug-list:

 

 

- sure a mod-bug: when you drop all the flashbombs one of them gets doubled when picked up again, is repeatable

 

- AI´s had a very short sound-radius (also their keys that they were wearing appeared to be too much brightened, but I guess you wanted to make sure everyone sees them? Although they were pointless?)

 

- The two lanterns around the stables couldn´t be frobbed.

 

- The battlement-guards were after a while blocked by the gate and didn´t unblocked.

 

- All the chests were not highlighted in whole and missed the needle.

 

- The 'Journal of St. Alban' was put into the loot-inventorysubfolder with a loot-symbol. Nothing to read.

 

- The carpets in the main hall played most of the time the stone-sound. Like in Thief, jumping made spawn the correct foot-sound. I don´t think this was intended by you to create the old Thief-feeling?

 

- The book about "good old bob" and his boots had a blank page at the end.

 

- Both two builder-books in the chapel had missing text on the second page, left side.

 

- The two little altar-doors didn´t knew when the other door was picked and appeared itself still being locked.

 

 

Alright, that´s it. Thank you very much for this very beautiful and nice mission, felt very well entertained, BikerDude!

 

Oh, considering your motorcycle-accident, isn´t it that what karma is about? Do sth good (this mission), sth bad has to happen...

[Bikerdude]

Glad you liked playing it, most of the bug's you mentioned are tdm specific, so I cant do much about them.

Edited August 28, 2010 by Bikerdude

[Mortal Monkey]

A lot of bugs you can do something about; namely, avoid situations in which they often occur. There will still be the rare glitch where the priest opens a door and falls over dead for no reason, and there's not much you can do about that. But I don't think anyone will mark your mission down for not having enough people sleeping in beds.

 

That being said, only the FMs that are never released can ever be perfect. TDM is still relatively new to all of us, and you only had so much time to make this mission. Don't fret about the bugs, wether you made them or not (a lot of people didn't even notice, and by people I mean me). But if you can learn something from them, then you'll surely have an edge for the next competition.

[McPhisto2051]

very nice mission but it seems the the sky ia a little big buggy. are there trees in the air? or a forest?

 

the tower is funny and the solar system looka really great but u shouldnt step on it or u get nearly no frames ^^.

 

i got many useless keys but couldnt find the real treasure i was looking for.

 

the exit is easily to find but not the priests mentioned chest with the main objective.

 

so far

Mc

 

ps: the tower with the telescope looks funny from above if u climb the scope and try to get to the ceiling

[Bikerdude]

the exit is easily to find but not the priests mentioned chest with the main objective.

 

That's because just like in real live the priest has hidden the key, in a safe place...

 

hint: In the priest's room look for

a jewelery box

, the key for which is in the same room.

Edited August 29, 2010 by Bikerdude

[McPhisto2051]

didnt i wrote the metal chest?

 

the one in the priest room wasnt hard to find ... btw i open throught the shelf

but i cant find the (metal) chest where i need this key for from the small box.

 

ps: how can i make such spoilers?

 

greetz Mc

[Trickster]

didnt i wrote the metal chest?

 

the one in the priest room wasnt hard to find ... btw i open throught the shelf

but i cant find the (metal) chest where i need this key for from the small box.

 

ps: how can i make such spoilers?

 

greetz Mc

 

McPhisto2051: spoilers: in post editor window, there´s dropdown list showing "other styles" spoiler tags are there.

 

like this

 

you should look for the metal chest down in the basement

 

 

 

B1k3r: thanks for this mission, i finally get what i was begging for from the beginning, a real architecture with great detail. As mentioned, a view from higher places was bit lacking, but i understand clearly time and contest limits, so no big deal for me. One thing that suprises me, the tubes in bathroom looked like PVC ones, i personally don´t like reference to modern things in TDM, like Fids... but i liked references to Fids himself:-)

Really liked the decals, not overdone IMHO.

Now i need a spoiler,

 

i noticed scratchings on the floor by the bookcase which was in the orrery IIRC, couldn´t find the lever which opens this...hint please ?

 

Gameplay was bit lacking due to dumb/deaf AI, so i ended up KOing / killing all of them cause they deserved it

Readables were fun to me,

 

especially the book on the "altar" which orders to builder´s sheeps to build a house, sit there for 50 days not eating nor drinking, and after that meet thy lord... i like sarcasm when it comes to "religion"

 

 

I´m sure your next mission will be a killer

BTW: i looked for "caduceus" in wikipedia, shouldn´t it look like a real thing rather than "generic builder artifact" ?

Edited August 30, 2010 by Trickster

[Bikerdude]

@McPhisto

Dude,

the jewelery box

, the

key for the metal chest

is in there.

 

@ Trickster

Just like in T2, what does a movable bookcase mean..?

yes there is a book that acts as a lever

 

If you google the word 'caduceus' its just a fancy name for religious symbol.

 

Also the reason the Ai not quite as alert, is because I dumbed down the Visual/Audable setting to 75%. At 100% they were too alert and could hear and see a mouse fart on the other side of the compound.

Edited August 30, 2010 by Bikerdude

[aidakeeley]

Caduceus, Caduceus, Caduceus...

 

Quite an interesting "controversy" about this symbol. Read the discussion at Wiki... some people get quite wound up about it -- on both sides.

 

Another interestingly, multiply coincidental bit is at the top of the wiki about its "Later Antiquity" symbolism -- "the caduceus provided the basis for the astrological symbol representing the planet Mercury and in Roman iconography was often depicted being carried in the left hand of Mercury, the messenger of the gods, guide of the dead and protector of merchants, shepherds, gamblers, liars and thieves.

Edited August 30, 2010 by aidakeeley

[Bikerdude]

Another interestingly, multiply coincidental bit is at the top of the wiki about its "Later Antiquity" symbolism -- "the caduceus provided the basis for the astrological symbol representing the planet Mercury and in Roman iconography was often depicted being carried in the left hand of Mercury, the messenger of the gods, guide of the dead and protector of merchants, shepherds, gamblers, liars and thieves.

So without trying or even knowing I tied some parts of the story together...

 

[Ladro]

For me it was an excellent mission, really.

Appareance was with a lot of details, i liked a lot. Great atmosphere, and direct clear objective. I liked a lot the calm to explore the castle, for me was a plus to not have a lot of AI.

 

 

Congratulation Bikerdude :-)

Edited August 31, 2010 by Ladro

[Bikerdude]

your welcome :-)

 

Looking at your sig, can I ask what was the lowest FPS you got..?

Edited August 31, 2010 by Bikerdude

[Ladro]

your welcome :-)

 

Looking at your sig, can I ask what was the lowest FPS you got..?

 

Lowest that i spotted was about 15 fps, but really rare; the average frame rate was good to play smooth (but i'm with vertical sync disable);

[McPhisto2051]

sorry guys im totally blind.

i got everything in the whole mission but i missed the key for the inner vault

i thought the door cant be opened because it has no doorknob.

there was the metal chest and the main mission object...

 

shame on me

[Bikerdude]

hint - go to the priest's quarters

[Springheel]

This mission has some absolutely stellar (so to speak) moments.

The solar system model was absolutely beautiful; so beautiful, in fact, that I'm disappointed that it wasn't actually a more integral part of the mission. It's so unique and obviously took a lot of time to make, but it just seemed to be just a set-piece with no real purpose. I tried frobbing it for some time, thinking that it must be the special relic I was supposed to get. It was so impressive that it really deserved to be more important than it was.

 

The architecture was generally superb. I really enjoyed the water tower and you had nice mix of environments for something so compact. Lots of alternate ways to get around, which was also a plus. The lifts were well done.

 

I had the same feeling others did about the lack of AI (though I understand the problem). It's not even the number of AI; the ones you had were probably enough, but they were generally placed in ways that made them easy to deal with. Even the one guarding the cell key turned to face the wall, making him easy to BJ. Having a couple AI that watched well-lit halls or something would have made it more of a challenge.

 

I did get taken by surprise twice though, in unusual ways. The guard at the very top of the complex completely surprised me, because I didn't see him at first and he apparently didn't make any noise. I just suddenly found myself being attacked.

 

Another somewhat humorous moment was when I snuck into one of the living rooms to blackjack a priest staring at the fire. I didn't even notice there was a guard sitting on the sofa. He didn't see me either (too dark), but the moment I KO'd the priest, he suddenly jumped up and yelled for a healer.

 

I'm not a big fan of wink-wink, nudge-nudge humour in TDM missions. Like Fidcal, I like to take them seriously, so readables about "Bob" or in-jokes about real people spoil the immersion for me a bit. I know others' tastes may differ.

 

I also found that I could have used clearer instructions about what to do in some places. I didn't really know what the "relic" was that I was supposed to find (I thought it was related to the solar system model for the longest time). I also still have no idea how to get out...maybe I've missed an obvious clue somewhere, but I don't even know where to look.

This might be a consequence of my having limited time to play; when I was younger and could spend an entire afternoon playing, I think I was more willing to wander around exploring. But when you only have an hour a night, spending forty minutes looking around for a secret gets frustrating.

 

Still, it was an enjoyable mission, and I think it is an improvement over your last mission in every way.

[Bikerdude]

Hey Springs

 

Glads you enjoyed it, and yeah i agree some aspects of the mission could have been done better, but it was all down to a lack of time. I will refresh the mission after to contest to try and fix all of the remaining issue people had.

 

I assume you found the relic, or did you need a hint..?