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Fan Mission: Alberic's Curse by b1k3rdude (Updated: 01/11/2014)


Bikerdude

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congrats on release Biker

 

i enjoyed T2 version of this mission before and enjoying it now.

 

i also find thing that was in T2 version but not in TDM version.this is swinging bell (bell start swinging when player jumping on the rope).but this is just small details

 

FPS is fine,it only drops around 30-45 on the cathedral roof

 

 

 

 

Proceed with caution!

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Look up high for a room with a desk. Search the room throughly

 

 

yeah i didn't see that room - it was on the other side of a stuck haunt and the other way to get there was "unobvious".

 

The haunt was stuck on the other bookstand room btw, on a statue on the floor.

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The season felt cold and autumn-ish. Not sure, as the season wasn't clarified or tied into the story as far as I could tell.

 

I never got bored throughout the mission. The little spiders scurrying about made hallways always feel living. No particularly notable bugs. The length of the mission was quite nice. It wasn't excruciatingly long like one or two thief missions.

 

Visually, one of the best I've seen, and very moody. Use of ambient speakers was fantastic and sometimes quite tense. I had to go outside and take a s'mores break halfway through the mission. :o I didn't complete the optional "doll" objective. I just wanted to hightail it out of there!

 

Storytelling was disappointing at first, as I didn't know what I was getting myself into or why. Readables cleared some things up. Kind of a crucial aspect, so I had to turn your 5-star aesthetics down to 4.

yay seuss crease touss dome in ouss nose tair

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  • The season felt cold and autumn-ish. Not sure, as the season wasn't clarified or tied into the story as far as I could tell.
  • I never got bored throughout the mission. The little spiders scurrying about made hallways always feel living. No particularly notable bugs. The length of the mission was quite nice. It wasn't excruciatingly long like one or two thief missions.
  • Visually, one of the best I've seen, and very moody. Use of ambient speakers was fantastic and sometimes quite tense. I had to go outside and take a s'mores break halfway through the mission. :o I didn't complete the optional "doll" objective. I just wanted to hightail it out of there!
  • Storytelling was disappointing at first, as I didn't know what I was getting myself into or why. Readables cleared some things up. Kind of a crucial aspect, so I had to turn your 5-star aesthetics down to 4.

 

  • Smashing, twas Autumn and this is backed up in the readable's. I would have liked to have windows blown piles of leaves but alas i dont have them skills yet.
  • Thats was the idea, glad you licked it.
  • It was hard to tell after working on it for so long, ah dude you gotta get the doll, it was a another homage!
  • I'm getting better in that dept and I did have a little help. had I more time I could have polished this side of it more.

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Am I the only one who gets the following error during mission load?

Joint 'Head' not found for attachment position 'velvetcap_1' on entity 'idFAAttachment_atdm:ai_head_thief_player_3123'

 

Sigh...

 

Edit: I get the same error in Rake Off too, so this is a TDM 1.06 issue, not an issue with the FM. I'll post in the appropriate forum.

Edited by PranQster

System: Mageia Linux Cauldron, aka Mageia 8

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Well I haven't finished this one yet, but I can tell you now that it gets very high marks for visual and audio quality from me. There is tuns of detail everywhere and it doesn't just feel like simple brushes slapped together.

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

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I'm usually not a huge fan of exploration missions and frequently find myself bored and clipping thorugh the walls just to finish the damn thing already. But this one is really good! Not only motivated to finish it correctly, I actually enjoyed it a lot! I even completed an additional objective when I was finding my way back :)

 

5 stars on the visuals, environment and all..

 

Thumbs up specifically for the lower crypts. WOW! dust particles in the air.. very polished

 

Edited by Diego
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I need help breaking the curse.

 

 

 

I am supposed to use the skull with a "pool" and reactivate first....

Which pool? I found several of them...

And where are the switches ? Frobbed a book switch, but I am not sure what it does.

I found a key to the Ritual room, but as far as I remember this opened the door to the room

the scepter was kept.

 

 

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when I built the mission I tried convey good and eveil via colour, so white for good and green for evil, there is only one good pool...

 

regarding the switch mentioned in the 'pool book' thats a typo from the original T2 text - I forgot to change it and non of my testers picked up it either. (poor testing practices on my part)

 

The only funtion of the ritual room

was for the location of the holy secpter

did you did you find the other reward in that room..?

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Yes, tried that. The door just makes a metal sound like it is being blocked.

I have a savegame if you want.

Ok, in Chirons case the door is blocked by the little spiders, after he killed them in the doorway.

 

There are 2 issues here,

  • People dont know that these little spider wont attack the player (thats a TDM issue not my map) - but I did mention in the player notes that you only have to worry about the big ones...
  • and Secondly I wasnt awar that those little Ai could get stuck in/on doors - so maybe a are arg on the door such push_ai similar to push player..?

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I admit to being a bit confused initially with the breaking the curse optional objective...

 

 

I ended up using a holy water, splashing the arrows on the ground at the ghost's feet, then dragging him all the way inside to the green pool and shoving him facedown into it... Later I remembered it was a skull I needed not a ghost, and I ended up on another jaunt down into the crypt.

 

 

 

Have to admit I didn't really catch any seasonal theme, but the architecture was brilliant, the atmosphere was good, and a few readables in everything started making sense. Well done Biker, each release impresses me more :)

 

 

I think the reason I missed the skull the first 2 times into the crypt was because if they made their last stand in the crypts... who was there to bury him in the tomb?

 

Intel Sandy Bridge i7 2600K @ 3.4ghz stock clocks
8gb Kingston 1600mhz CL8 XMP RAM stock frequency
Sapphire Radeon HD7870 2GB FLeX GHz Edition @ stock @ 1920x1080

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Haven't finished this yet, but if you don't comb home the crown on this one, I'm gonna eat my shorts!

 

I'm not gonna vote on any mission before I've played them all, but I just wanted you to know that this is really good! :o It's to that stage where I feel pain when I play, knowing that I will never achieve anything like this. Like it's not worth trying because someone will always be so much better.

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You can do much with scripting by knowing just a few commands. All scripting in my mission is only based on calling entities in the map and some if-strings...once you got the syntax down, it's fairly simple to achieve many small tasks.

 

But if we're talking advanced AI-things a la Grayman et al, I'm covering in shame...

 

 

And no, I will never reach this standard...

 

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Did you miss the readable down there..?

 

Must have, hence bogwashing the blue guy in the stand on the lower level, heh.

Intel Sandy Bridge i7 2600K @ 3.4ghz stock clocks
8gb Kingston 1600mhz CL8 XMP RAM stock frequency
Sapphire Radeon HD7870 2GB FLeX GHz Edition @ stock @ 1920x1080

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Thanks, finished it. Here is my verdict:

 

 

 

Seasons Theme

Good, the general atmosphere felt like a moist & foggy night in early autumn. But if it hadn't been released for the "Seasons Contest", I probably wouldn't have picked up on the that at first. Some details like whirls of fallen leaves would have been nice, but I understand that this isn't an easy thing to do, especially given the short time of building & testing of six weeks.

 

Aesthetics & Architecture

Awesome. 5 out of 5. The atmosphere is brilliant, I had quite some "Cradle" moments, something that TDM undead missions often give me, because compared to Thief Haunts, Revenants, Zombies aren't that easy to get rid of. Plus you do not have a sword in this one :unsure:

The church is well thought through, and convoluted enough so I got confused quite a bit sometimes. Nice !

 

The outside with the little pool is just beautiful !

 

Gameplay

Great if you love sneaking in uncertainity, bad if you love your blackjack. And due to the low number proper weapons you cannot reak too much havok on the revenants. The story is well constructed and builds up nicely via the readables.

 

 

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When I went into the room with the small sink? on the main floor between the front and back stairway there was a large explosion sound but could not find any damage or where it came from so curious as to what it was?

It was half to make the player jump, and I forgot to add falling dust & debries (but there is a pile of bricks etc on the floor)

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Here be my review:

 

 

Season: Season was clear. Autumn leaves&fog. I didn't get very strong feeling of the season, but it didn't lessen my enjoyment.

 

Gameplay: Oh so easy. Like walk in the park with the park path replaced with a turbo-speed conveyor belt. I liked your decision to make the mission multi-approachable with many ways to get in. I loved to make the decision where to go.

 

But now comes the biggest issue in the mission. It was too easy. Like taking a lollipop from a zombie in a holy water bath. There were plenty of darkness. There were plenty of hiding places. There were plenty of climbable escape routes which the AI could not follow. Therefore there could have been plenty of monsters or more lights. The zombies should've been patrolling instead of napping. I could just waltz around like I owned the place and the undead were just clueless. The lack of challenge made the mission fun-factor to collapse and fast. I was gonna give two stars, but I'll upgrade that to three simply because of the multi-entrance approach which was great!

 

Appearance: Typical Bikerdude. Lifelike photorealistic location. I don't know how you do it. Does it come from your head or do you have a vault or library full of images and maps to inspire you? This is one of the prettiest missions to date. Five stars.

 

About the readables. The amount was right, but I personally did not like the humour where flipping a page in a prayer book would throw nosy comments at me. It was immersion shattering and made me feel not to take the mission seriously. If you want to convey a feeling of terror, dodging undead monsters in a ruined church where everyone has been gruesomely killed, don't suddenly ruin the mood with silly jokes.

 

Also I was puzzled by the briefing. It was really odd to have a short scripture as a briefing and then seeing the formal objective list with absolutely no clue why must I do those things. Okay I got the letter in my inventory and read it, but that letter info should have been in the briefing to make the objective list make sense.

 

All in all. Your visual style is perfect. While I think you could work hard to improve your skills in that regard to even higher, I think you should focus on the other aspects of mission building. On your next map, please, use one energy unit less for the graphics and spend that unit for gameplay. Draw a map and plan how to lay out your patrols. Spend a good time thinking the balance: lights, darkness, hiding places, areas the player can go but the AI can't.

 

Then, using the above information, think how many AI you want to place to keep the game balanced. In essence, stealth gaming is just about right, when the player moves from an island of darkness to another island of darkness when the guard looks the other way or when the guards change shifts. Or when the player needs to use equipment every now and then to make safe progress.

 

This mission could have been The TDM Killer Mission if the AI opposition would have been more interesting.

 

 

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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