Fan Mission: The Gatehouse by Bikerdude & Goldchocobo (updated 02/11/2014)

[Bikerdude]

"I am Matthias, a Postulant in training for the Order of the Builder. I have been on a pilgrimage for over a year now and have finally arrived at the end of my journey."

Build Time:
- About 3 months for version 1, but we are now upto version 1.3

Mapping Team:

• Evilartist - for letting me convert his D3 map, top man!
• Bikerdude - map conversion, mapping, textures, sounds.
• Goldchocobo - mapping, traps, puzzles and sounds.
• AluminumHaste - textures and general testing.
• Grayman - scripting of the mirror puzzle.
• Obstortte - scripting and textures.
• Mortem Desino - scripting.

Thanks:-
- Beta testers: Goldwell, nbhormore, Aluminiumhaste, Nbohr1more, Moonbo, SirTaffsalot, Airship Ballet, Snobel, Xarg, MacD11, Oldjim, Cookie and anyone else who i missed of the list.

Download:-
- The latest version is now available via the in-game downloader.

Info:

• The latest version is now available via the in-game downloader.
• The mission is fully l10n ready. (thanks Tels)

Known issues:

• This mission will have less than optimal fps at some locations.
• For very low end PCs I recommend the following settings: V-sync is off, AA is off, Aniso is 4x or lower, advanced settings are simple/default & Post processing of disabled and as a last resort the command line arg ' r_skipFogLights 1 ' (turns off the fog)

Edited December 19, 2015 by Bikerdude

[Lux]

oboyoboyoboy!!! Digging in to this when I get home tonight!

 

Thanks guys for all the hard work and congrats on the release.

[grayman]

Congrats!

[Airship Ballet]

Airship Bullet, I like that =P

[Sotha]

Cool!

 

I'm so gonna reserve some time for this one.

 

  On 1/29/2014 at 2:52 PM, Airship Ballet said:

Airship Bullet, I like that =P

Heh... Sounds like something I did to betatester names on my little april's fool prank last year:

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/14629-fan-mission-the-poltergeist-by-sotha-20130401/page__view__findpost__p__308407

[jaxa]

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/15837-the-gatehouse-a-tdm-fan-mission-trailer/

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqI7OXpOxa4

[Airship Ballet]

  On 1/29/2014 at 4:02 PM, Sotha said:

Heh... Sounds like something I did to betatester names on my little april's fool prank last year:

 

Hahahaha, Mulan! I snorted cola out my nose, hope you're happy.

[Sotha]

Completed it now.

 

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The mission is very impressive looking, that's for sure. Beauty.

 

It is nice to have a adventure missions like Amnesia, or the old graphical adventure games.

 

The mission was a bit too linear though. Linear walk from room to room and solve puzzles. Could have been more than that, but true, puzzles with too many pieces and zillion non-linear locations to visit could have made it a bit difficult.

 

The puzzles were okay, not too difficult, but the some were a bit difficult to trigger. I mean sticking the dagger into the gargoyle mouth and hope the gold piece falls out. I think it didn't work like it was designed and I was stumped for a moment.

 

The arrow traps were cool.

 

I also liked the falling spike balls. I picked up the first one and blocked the others with that. Nice that I could shield myself with it. The arrow trap was very nice, people should put stuff like that in missions more. A cool puzzle to solve to disable the arrows from firing, perhaps?

 

Oh, and BTW: does the mission have an ending? After the mission complete signal, I got a dark screen that lasted for a while and then I got the mission success stats. Was there supposed to be somekind of epiclogue?

 

I liked it, but it might have perhaps been a little less linear and would have had more sneaking challenges, but it was pretty fun like this too. I was enchanted at my seat the whole time. I kinda expected the doors open and monsters appear so I could escape the castle by sneaking.

 

 

Thanks for the mission. Overall the mission was of very high quality.

Custom music and models and more! Nice!

 

 

 

  On 1/29/2014 at 4:14 PM, Airship Ballet said:

Hahahaha, Mulan! I snorted cola out my nose, hope you're happy.

 

Achievement Unlocked: Cola Nose.

 

I just hope no liquids ended in the keyboard. That would suck.

[Goldchocobo]

  On 1/29/2014 at 8:42 PM, Sotha said:

Completed it now.

 

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I mean sticking the dagger into the gargoyle mouth and hope the gold piece falls out. I think it didn't work like it was designed and I was stumped for a moment.

 

I also liked the falling spike balls. I picked up the first one and blocked the others with that. Nice that I could shield myself with it. The arrow trap was very nice, people should put stuff like that in missions more. A cool puzzle to solve to disable the arrows from firing, perhaps?

 

Oh, and BTW: does the mission have an ending? After the mission complete signal, I got a dark screen that lasted for a while and then I got the mission success stats. Was there supposed to be somekind of epiclogue?

 

 

 

 

Sotha,

 

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Sticking the dagger into the gargoyle mouth? Hwwaa?? I'm 99.9% sure you just jump and grab the coin from the gargoyle's mouth

 

I honestly had no idea you could do that with the spikeballs. Very awesome!

 

No ending per say, just the standard mission complete page. I think if you click, or hit escape, the mission complete page should show up. I had the bug once myself, but seemed fine after a bit more testing.

 

 

[Sotha]

Oh?

 

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The first note I found along the dead body with the dagger said some thing like

i) the dagger was sticked to a door (writing of the dead person)

ii) the item sticked to the door must be placed into the mouth of the monster

iii) ladys hair gem should be put next to the hand of our dead.

 

Now I am confused what those clues were about. Oh well, now I understand they simply listed the original locations of all the items.

 

I sort of read them as thing1 goes to thing2, and thing3 goes to thing4.

 

And I even thought that I was right: when I sticked the dagger to the mouth, after a lot of trying I saw a coin was spawned and it neatly fell from the mouth at my feet. I just thought the difficulty was that by mistake the dagger stim radius was too small.

 

 

[AluminumHaste]

Love this mission, so pretty. Thanks for letting me help Biker, was a pleasure.

[AluminumHaste]

LOL Sotha, just jump

Using the Dagger must have been a pain in the butt.

[gnartsch]

Very nice mission !

 

 

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I surely had not expected such a death-trap type of mission.

Very well done and very beautiful !

I liked those traps. They were quite a challenge, but well done.

Interesting enough it was the lockpicking that killed me a couple of times and not the running jumps later on.

And although my 5 year old GPU surely isn't up to date, I had constant 60 fps all over the place. Impressive desgin, I guess!

 

Just like for Sotha, the mission ended with a black screen and some music.

And it took like 30 seconds before the Stats screen would pop up.

 

 

Thanks!

[grayman]

Stuck.

 

 

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I assume the statuettes have to go on the pedestals, but I've tried all combinations and nothing happens.

 

Hint?

 

 

 

Edit: Never mind.

 

 

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I just fiddled with the statues until they were standing up and looking in certain directions. Suddenly the fence dropped.

 

 

 

A very nice mission. I too had the long black screen before the Mission Complete screen.

 

Only one admission, and it comes from a personal inability to do something:

 

 

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I absolutely dislike running and jumping. I'm not good at it, never have been, in twenty years of gaming, and have zero patience for it. When faced with the stepping stones at the lava pit, I gave it a dozen tries but never got past the second stone. Looking at all the stones I was facing, I used noclip to leave the area. I might have stuck with it if the stones didn't descend into the pit after landing on them. Purists might scream about this, but it was the only way I personally could finish the mission.

 

I'm sure others will do better than me, and perhaps even love this area, but noclipping was my only way through.

 

 

 

Thanks for this!

[Oldjim]

Very nice graphics and interesting puzzles to solve

 

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I did have a slight problem with the dropping spiked balls as I got stuck and couldn't move at all at one point - a reload fixed it

The only part I wasn't too happy with was the lava - I am totally useless at fast mantling

 

The ghosts needed a bit of listening to avoid them but in the end weren't too difficult

The whole idea was interesting and reading the various notes was absolutely essential.

 

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regarding the gold coin I don't know why people were fiddling with the dagger I just jumped up and frobbed it

 

[AluminumHaste]

For people having trouble with the lava mantling, make sure you set your game to Always Run on, otherwise trying to mantle while pressing the Run key is cumbersome.

[Bikerdude]

  On 1/29/2014 at 11:49 PM, AluminumHaste said:

make sure you set your game to Always Run on, otherwise trying to mantle while pressing the Run key is cumbersome.

I never had that to do that, I just got a flow going where I could jump from one platform to the next. I will admit that even I had difficultly making the route but once I did I felt I had accomplished something and improved my TDM mantling as a result.

 

If we think its hard in TDM, imagine how impossible it would be in T2 or worse T3....

[Deadlove]

 

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Great mission! Architecture top notch!! The torches / candles being lit on one side stood out to me.

 

Wish there was a trinket for the curious wanderers under the initial bridge before the drawbridge gate lowered. I climbed under there and found nothing but stone!

 

Figured from early on, once I couldn't get the bow or arrows that there was going to be no weapons needed.

 

Loved the use of traps and puzzles.

 

The classic pressure plate triggering arrows! Woohoo!

 

For the spiked balls, I jumped from the chest onto the stairs. I liked the creative use of warnings to signal the player a trap was near, like the skeleton laying over the chest. Had to make a mad dash back to the entry door.

 

The lock picking while the crushing ceiling came down was a winner for sure, harkon back to the days of yore with original DOOM traps. Very tense!! I remember there was some conversation not too long ago about how to make lock picking engaging, and Sotha mentioned that it needs to be at the right spot. This lock surely was! I play with 'door does not open on unlock' just in case there is something on the other side, this was a time I could've used the door opening right away as I was crouched down and turned around to see the ceiling coming down. I got through just in time. Nerve wrecking good!

 

The light mirror puzzle, I don't even know how I accomplished it, it was hard to decipher the pattern from the buttons to which mirror they adjusted, but once I heard the stone piece move I knew it was over. I couldn't tell you how I solved that one. Good reference to St. Lucia.

 

Loved the use of the shadow undead again. The creepy statue with the red eyes was nice too. Collecting the statues and placing them was nothing too fancy, but I was under the impression that once I got the sword, the mission was probably only half over. I was wrong! The lava jumping was the hardest part for me. The sinking of the rocks once landed on was very good touch, added a great suspense to it. Only thing that messed me up was the camera shaking. It definitely was not my favorite part of the mission, but a good finale nonetheless, given how it was the most challenging part for me. I wish the speed of the lava flow was a bit faster, it looked like a non-moving texture until I really stared at where the walls met the lava and saw the difference.

 

Maybe I missed readables along the way, but there doesn't seem to be an answer to what happened during the ceremony and why the castle became abandoned?

 

 

 

Great work Bikerdude & Goldchochobo!!

[pwl]

Fantastic job on this one I tried to stop playing so I would have some more fun tomorrow but I couldn't. Man now what am I going to play then???

 

The puzzle and gameplay were great!! Loved the falling pillars.

 

P.S. I couldn't figure out how to do the spoiler function?

[Airship Ballet]

  On 1/30/2014 at 3:05 AM, pwl said:

P.S. I couldn't figure out how to do the spoiler function?

 

[.spoiler] Immediately before your text and [./spoiler] after it (minus the full-stops) would become

 

 

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Immediately before your text and

 

 

I said it while beta testing but I'll say it again: the mantling in this game is really forgiving. If you just pay attention to making sure you press jump as late as you can, you'll make it provided you're looking where you want to go. You don't need to rush on most of them either, which is where some may mess up by panicking.

Edited January 30, 2014 by Airship Ballet

[pwl]

Thank you for quick response

Edited January 30, 2014 by pwl

[grayman]

Remove the period in your spoiler tags.

[Airship Ballet]

  On 1/30/2014 at 3:16 AM, grayman said:

Remove the period in your spoiler tags.

 

They're there to comment out the tags. I did say to remove them. Period, full-stop, tomayto tomahto.

[grayman]

  On 1/30/2014 at 3:21 AM, Airship Ballet said:

They're there to comment out the tags. I did say to remove them. Period, full-stop, tomayto tomahto.

 

Yup. My comment was for pwl's edification, since he left the periods/full stops in.

[brethren]

Great mission! Lots of fun, and gorgeous. Felt a lot like Amnesia in the beginning, and Bonehoard/Lost City near the end. I'm a bit torn, part of me wanted a

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few AI to elude,

but another part of loved it just as is, with a nice feeling of

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desolation and emptiness.

 

 

The

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mirror

puzzle was awesome, I won't even begin to try to figure out how it was done. Reminded me of the T2 FM

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Temple of the Tides.

 

 

I will say the

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lava jumping

was...somewhat irritating. I think doing it without the

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columns dropping

would have been better.

 

First mission I ever got a

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stealth score of 0!