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Fan Mission: Lords & Legacy by Kvorning (2013/08/30)


Kvorning

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@Beyondthesun

 

Glad to hear you had a fantastic time playing it, and that you found a load of impressionable details. Awesome that you noticed the change in style and color scheme from one tower to another. I like the sound of another play-through, as replay value is one of my favorite qualities in a single player game. ;)

 

Sorry about the bug, it was a faulty visportal in same room from the latest optimization, I'll do a ninja update if I can avoid messing with the mirrors.

 

 

@numbers

 

If there's one thing we've all learned from Assassin's Creed, then it's that a liquefying fall can be survived, if landing in a pile of hay. I had an empty corner of the courtyard and thought it was a cute detail, glad someone found it. :D

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hello ! (sorry for my english, it's google translation :ph34r: )

 

This is my first post, I just joined to be able to congratulate you, Kvorning. B)

 

I have of to make about twenty FM and at the moment it is the mission which I most liked of all. The made work is extraordinary!

 

 

 

The fact of being able to cross by several places, underground, by windows, visit inside, I adored!

 

 

 

 

Congratulations. You are a genius somewhere... :wub:

Edited by Capodastre
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Thank you very much man, I'm glad to hear you enjoyed the mission.

 

 

The several routes seemed necessary for the size of the map, but they were also a lot of fun to make and chain together. It's very satisfying to hear that people find and use them :)

 

 

Welcome to TDM forums btw., I hope you stick around as well ;)

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  • 3 weeks later...

This mission is way too large. Exploring was fun at first but after more than an hour of traversing this maze of a map (which is filled to the brim with bugs) having the game arbitrarily tell me which windows and doors I can and can't open I just got sick of it. By the time I reached the keep I didn't even care about the story anymore (and it was interesting at first) and I was not in the mood to search for the rest of the loot (I had about 3000 by the end and I probably picked up about 150-200 loot items) or complete the optional objective. I'm sorry, but this mission is just exhausting. The areas look nice and taken individually the sections themselves are fun to play through, don't get me wrong, but it was all just too much. Not to mention the absurd loot requirement which doesn't make any sense. The loot is in my opinion severely undervalued but regardless, the entire point of having a loot objective in the first place was to make the frame job look authentic, right? I stole a great deal of loot from the keep and yet it only ended up being worth like 750-1000 at most. Surely "making it look like a robbery" doesn't entail robbing the entire city?

 

So yeah, unfortunately I did not enjoy it. The scope is impressive, but the mission took way too long to actually begin and there was too little substance to warrant such a large map. It might not have been as bad had it been a two-parter. Have to commend you on the mapping though. There are some kinks as I said, which in all fairness should have been spotted in playtesting as they are quite obvious, but overall it is very impressive. Must have taken a lot of work.

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This mission is way too large. Exploring was fun at first but after more than an hour of traversing this maze of a map (which is filled to the brim with bugs) There are some kinks as I said, which in all fairness should have been spotted in playtesting as they are quite obvious,

 

Examples of said bugs would be useful, I can't personally recall any though, at least nothing game stopping.

I always assumed I'd taste like boot leather.

 

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Examples of said bugs would be useful, I can't personally recall any though, at least nothing game stopping.

 

Nothing game stopping no. Just climb on top of things in the slums for a while and you are bound to run into some frustration, especially close to the roofs. Perhaps the skybox was placed too low or playerclips were placed to prevent the player from going out of bounds but there are certain completely doable jumps that are inexplicable impossible. You can also get blocked this way by simple brushes. It's not a major problem, especially if you are a chronic savescummer like me, but I fell to the ground more often than I should. Then in the commons climbing on top of the tanks is problematic I found, and basically every other window I came across was unenterable due to some type of obstruction. Thankfully all of these were moveable items but it shouldn't be necessary to pick them up and move them out of the way. Not exactly sure what the problem is but probably the worst example of this is in the woman's house in the slums: if you enter by the left window you will get blocked by the candle even though it seems like you should be able to move past it easily. It was a little bit frustrating. Then in the keep I ran into a bug where the game wouldn't render the staircase leading to the lower floors (cannot recall if the same happened when going up), it would simply be solid black until the player was close enough. There was another example where I could see the skybox through the roof of a house, I don't remember where this was. Sorry to say I don't quite remember every instance I ran into some kind of problem as I wasn't consciously registering them (not as much as I would were I testing anyway) but I ran into quite a few rough edges that had easy fixes. I think the overall experience would greatly benefit from such polishing if the creator is adamant in how the level is paced.

 

EDIT: Oh, and the climbable chains were a bit bugged. They are all climbable as far as I could tell but as soon as you grab onto them they become distorted somehow, as if they were perpetually swinging (imagine a violin string) and for some reason I had to be looking completely up, or at least more so than with climbables in other levels for me to actually move up the rope. I can't quite recall how it felt now, but I ran into an issue where looking at an angle >0° wouldn't necessarily cause me to move up the chain. Sometimes I would think I was moving up and to my confusion end up descending the chain. Ran into some performance issues also, including one part (traversing a visportal somewhere in the keep if I'm not mistaken) where I experienced a massive drop in framerate (60 fps down to like 20 perhaps) although it didn't last more than a few seconds. Also, none of the guards' coinpurses are pickpocketable for some odd reason.

Edited by Bridge
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That's alright Bridge, the mission isn't meant to please everyone, but you were warned that it was a big one. ;)

 

As for the bugs, you should read through the change log and the previous discussions, in the topic as most of them are covered and could give the insights you're looking for. Most of your concerns have already been addressed, however some of them aren't bugs and some seem to be local.

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That's alright Bridge, the mission isn't meant to please everyone, but you were warned that it was a big one. ;)

 

As for the bugs, you should read through the change log and the previous discussions, in the topic as most of them are covered and could give the insights you're looking for. Most of your concerns have already been addressed, however some of them aren't bugs and some seem to be local.

 

Well I have what I presume is the latest version, I downloaded it from the official mirrors and the notes say it is v2.0. In any case, my complaint isn't that the mission is large-scale per se, it's just that the pacing is all screwed up. It's a good mission all things considered, but it is essentially a small to medium sized level with a large one tacked on. Honestly, it plays more like two missions spliced together than one long one to me. Taken separately, both of them would be immensely enjoyable. On one hand you have a mission where you start in the slums and the only objective is to discover the thief's identity, gathering enough loot along the way to cover expenses (or whatever). Then on the other you have a mission where you spawn at the entrance of the keep and the objective is to frame a lord. Two missions that have nothing in common which are excellent when considered on their own terms, and yet when combined cause the whole to lose focus. I can't be alone in thinking it's exhausting - it's not even the length because I don't feel the same way about say Thief 2's final level (although it is occasionally frustrating in other minor aspects) which is much larger than Lords & Legacy. It's still a great mission with a lot of depth, I don't mean to criticize it overmuch.

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After one year without playing the Darkmod, I must say I'm impressed by the quality of this new FM :blink: . This mission is SUPERB!!! Architecture, Esthetics, Story, everything was great. I didn't have the impression of exploring the same Darkmod rooms again. And no undeads!!! :rolleyes: Congrats!!!

 

After scratching my head a long time I found possible improvements: a change of plot/objectives during the story (but that's been used so much, maybe your choice can be now considered as original! ;) ), a less linear use of the map (go there, go back-style), guards ability to spot the hero in the dark are very high, even as novice (I was surprized but why not after all...) and 1 of the card-playing guards not exactly sitting on his chair :P .

 

Thanks Kvorning and all the Team!

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Thanks Plotzzz, glad you enjoyed it:), though it took a lot of time to make, I did have a lot of fun doing it as well. A lot of things I'd like do different if I made the mission now, but those ideas will have to wait for next project.

 

The guard you're referring to has indeed been caught a few times, doing a card trick called "the floating butt shuffle" and I don't think he's gonna stop.

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  • 1 month later...

Classic thiefy fun! I spent about three hours just exploring the town and trying to rob every building before remembering I had objectives. Best points: the high paths, getting spotted through windows, getting to see through windows, the clues in the readables and the open plan mass thieving opportunities. The town architecture was very good too. I missed the loot objective but got the others, only KO being

Sir Anthony who if I'm not mistaken you can't avoid taking out if you want his objective. I tried blockading him in his bedroom with a huge jar but he pushes it out of the way.

 

 

Great work. Hard to believe it was your first FM on a scale like that.

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Glad to hear you enjoyed it, and exploration was definitely a big part of my drive when making it. I wanted players to be able to spend at least a couple of hours investigating clues, while discovering little stories unfold and entwine.

 

 

Good that Sir Anthony still puts up a fight. He's not someone whose home is easily robbed, considering the secrets he holds as well...

 

 

Thank you for the kind words, though I wont be able to wave that "first FM" stamp around much longer. ;)

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Glad to hear you enjoyed it, and exploration was definitely a big part of my drive when making it. I wanted players to be able to spend at least a couple of hours investigating clues, while discovering little stories unfold and entwine.

 

 

Good that Sir Anthony still puts up a fight. He's not someone whose home is easily robbed, considering the secrets he holds as well...

 

 

Thank you for the kind words, though I wont be able to wave that "first FM" stamp around much longer. ;)

 

Another Kvorning masterpiece?!?! Yes please :wub:

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Unfortunately, this mission eats my CPU alive, so i won't be able to play it until i get a new PC. :/ Not that it wouldn't be time to buy a new one. TDM 2.0 in general seems to be more demanding. Edit: Saw in the first post now that it's recommended to adjust the LOD sliders. Will try that then.

Edited by chk772
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Unfortunately, this mission eats my CPU alive, so i won't be able to play it until i get a new PC. :/ Not that it wouldn't be time to buy a new one. TDM 2.0 in general seems to be more demanding. Edit: Saw in the first post now that it's recommended to adjust the LOD sliders. Will try that then.

 

I'm running a pretty basic and crappy laptop so I know exactly how you feel! However I was able to run this mission rather well. Also a side note I actually found TDM standalone (2.0) runs better than before but yeah that's just my experience.

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I'm running a pretty basic and crappy laptop so I know exactly how you feel! However I was able to run this mission rather well. Also a side note I actually found TDM standalone (2.0) runs better than before but yeah that's just my experience.

Weird. Did you update your 1.0x version, or did you do a new install of 2.0? Because i did upgrade, and there definitely is less performance on my system.

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