Fan Mission: Poets & Peasants by Digi (6/29/14)

[Digi]

 

Description:

Fleece the mansion of a former colleague that betrayed you. This is a relatively small, straightforward thieving mission set in an upper-class neighborhood.

 

Version:

1.0

 

File:

The mission is now available via the in-game downloader. If you need to download it separately, the link is below:

PK4: https://drive.google...dit?usp=sharing

 

Beta Testers:

Airship Ballet

RJFerret

 

Thanks:

First, to my excellent beta testers, who were prompt with responses and thorough with their testing. Several small but important gameplay tweaks came about as a result of beta testing, and the mission is better off for them.

Second, to Fidcal, who I've not had the pleasure of "meeting" on the forums. His incredible tutorial made this mission possible.

Third, to everyone who helped me out in small ways on the forums. Grayman graciously fixed a couple problems for me via PM, and several of you answered my questions in the Newbie thread.

 

Notes:

This is my first FM for any Thief game, and incorporates many of the techniques learned in Fidcal's A-Z tutorial (as well as a couple others I picked up along the way or during beta testing). It was intended as equal parts playable, fun mission, and as a way for me to learn how to make a functional level using DR. I'm happy with the result, and I hope you are too!

 

As a secondary note, from installing Dark Radiant to typing this sentence, it couldn't have been than two months. My hobby-level skills as a graphic designer and programmer undoubtedly helped some, but honestly most of it was just slogging through Fidcal's tutorial in my free time. Anyone can learn this quickly and create working, fun levels.

 

Preview Shots:

{note, some of these locations will look slightly different in the final version, as these were taken before beta testing}

http://imgur.com/a/AuxWJ

Edited June 30, 2014 by Digi

[lowenz]

Here we are

[RJFerret]

As a tester, I must say this is one of the cleanest, well put together missions I've had the pleasure of checking out. It was playable and fun from the start.

 

Kudos for a rather nicely designed first mission Digi!

[Digi]

I don't need the .zip file, do I? I edited it out and just left the PK4.

 

  On 6/29/2014 at 6:39 PM, RJFerret said:

As a tester, I must say this is one of the cleanest, well put together missions I've had the pleasure of checking out. It was playable and fun from the start.

 

Kudos for a rather nicely designed first mission Digi!

 

High praise, coming from you. Thanks!

[RJFerret]

  On 6/29/2014 at 6:47 PM, Digi said:

I don't need the .zip file, do I? I edited it out and just left the PK4.

 

Correct, folks simply drop the PK4 into the FM folder, the game does the rest (creates the "poets" folder, etc.) yw!

[lowenz]

Maybe it's too clean.....

 

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.....and maybe you can put a door here

 

 

 

Zoolander here

 

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Edited June 29, 2014 by lowenz

[Digi]

Doors, schmoors. :-p

 

And the sign was actually one of the first things I made, with the expectation that the building itself (built from scratch) was going to look like an abomination and/or an affront against sanity. It was a hedge against my (lack of) architectural skills in DR at the time. The fact that the building looks functional actually ruins the joke a bit, though I left it in as a tribute to Fidcal.

Edited June 29, 2014 by Digi

[Airship Ballet]

Whoop whoop, far better than my first map made right after the tutorial. Playable, too, well done

[grayman]

I really enjoyed this one. Good mix of timed sneaking and occasional brazen "catch me if you can" running. I had several "neener neener!" moments.

 

Nice job!

[Loa4ever]

Gratz on release, i will play it

[Bikerdude]

Now available via the in-game downloader, if someopne want to grab me some screenshots at 800*600 that would be great.

[Digi]

  On 6/29/2014 at 8:44 PM, Bikerdude said:

Now available via the in-game downloader, if someopne want to grab me some screenshots at 800*600 that would be great.

 

Awesome, thank you for putting it in the in-game options so quickly.

Edited June 29, 2014 by Digi

[Goldwell]

Good

 

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I loved the story and the idea of taking revenge against someone who has done you wrong in the past just waiting patiently in the shadows for the right time to strike them where it hurts (in the pocket) it's very believable for a thief and was a cool scenario to play out.

 

The mission and the house had a cool layout and parts of it impressed me like how you were able to make that nice uneven ground at the start and the spiral staircase. Also having no ability to knockout that guard who is walking around the table inside made it fun and a challenge to try to steal everything on the table without alerting him.

 

The objectives were straight forward just get in and get out was really cool.

 

 

 

Bad

 

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The one thing I noticed this mission was missing the most was ambiance! It was dead quiet outside and in other than some little noises of candles/gas/guards walking/chittering but there were no tracks in the background to help bring the mood in. Even if you wanted it quiet inside fair enough but outside should definitely have some crickets chirping and maybe a nice droning ambient once inside.

 

A couple of things were crudely made such as the sink in the house and some things were missing such as sheets/pillows on the bed inside, also there was no one sleeping in it which struck me as odd.

 

 

 

Overall I really enjoyed this mission Digi and i'm keen to play your next mission

[SirGen]

The placement of lighting and shadows was great! I really like to have to wait for/create a Window of Opportunity to move from one shadow to another shadow; which you did so well in this mission. It was very intense to do so because the windows were so short. I had to improvise with

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a broadhead arrow I got from one of the patrolling guards, and the rope arrows near the tree. I used them as noise arrows to lure guards away from their posts, so I could hurry and move to new cover.

It was quite fun

 

Thanks for the great mission Digi!

[Digi]

Thanks guys; glad you enjoyed it!

 

  On 6/29/2014 at 10:58 PM, Goldwell said:

Good

 

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I loved the story and the idea of taking revenge against someone who has done you wrong in the past just waiting patiently in the shadows for the right time to strike them where it hurts (in the pocket) it's very believable for a thief and was a cool scenario to play out.

 

The mission and the house had a cool layout and parts of it impressed me like how you were able to make that nice uneven ground at the start and the spiral staircase. Also having no ability to knockout that guard who is walking around the table inside made it fun and a challenge to try to steal everything on the table without alerting him.

 

The objectives were straight forward just get in and get out was really cool.

 

 

 

Bad

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

The one thing I noticed this mission was missing the most was ambiance! It was dead quiet outside and in other than some little noises of candles/gas/guards walking/chittering but there were no tracks in the background to help bring the mood in. Even if you wanted it quiet inside fair enough but outside should definitely have some crickets chirping and maybe a nice droning ambient once inside.

 

A couple of things were crudely made such as the sink in the house and some things were missing such as sheets/pillows on the bed inside, also there was no one sleeping in it which struck me as odd.

 

 

 

Good point about the sound. Once I sealed the house, I noticed the lack of ambient music, but didn't think to add something new. I'll keep it in mind for future reference.

 

The briefing did say Peasant was out for the night, so I'd be a bit worried if there were someone sleeping in the bed. But thanks for the comments, both in praise and critique.

 

  On 6/29/2014 at 10:58 PM, Goldwell said:

Overall I really enjoyed this mission Digi and i'm keen to play your next mission

 

My next won't be for a while, unfortunately. I have some other projects, both personal and professional, that will take me away from TDM for several months. But I don't plan on this being my only mission, and I'm slowly trying to form cohesive ideas to turn into future levels.

Edited June 30, 2014 by Digi

[raymeld]

Well done Digi , something new I'll look forward to playing when I've time.

[Lux]

Congratulations on first mission release!

[Thiefette]

Congrats on the release of your first mission. Just finished playing it and found it enjoyable! Your use of

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light and shadow made for some sneaky moments though. Some places, when I was close up, it didn't seem as if there was enough shadow to hide but from far away (example: looking at the two guards by the door from the beginning of the mission, I can see a shadow running from the door, up the middle to the other side. Up close I wasn't sure). Made for a nice challenge trying to stay hidden from those outside while trying to get out of the house before the guard circling the table came by again.

Thanks for your hard work and look forward to more from you.

[Oldjim]

Nice little mission completed with all the loot on ghost

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the generator was a nice touch

Playing on 2.02 beta no problems

Edited June 30, 2014 by Oldjim

[Digi]

Thanks all!

 

  On 6/30/2014 at 7:45 PM, Oldjim said:

 

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the generator was a nice touch

 

 

 

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The generator was Airship Ballet's suggestion, actually, but was easy to implement. I like the added variety it adds to the level, and it allowed me to make the lights it controls quite a bit brighter to make it more of a challenge. Ghosters can be thorough and still flip the switch if they want to do everything flawlessly, but others will have a wilder time running from guards and such.

 

Edited June 30, 2014 by Digi

[AluminumHaste]

Congrats man!

[Oktokolo]

Nice Mission. Played it on hardest with stealth score 1 and some coins missing.

 

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I liked:

+ Innocent hungry man and his outdoor "home" (doused his candle but didn't harm him).

+ Walled off room and backstory of the poet forced to visit the builder's collegue (took his two builder crosses and rope arrows).

+ Two side uses for the rope arrows (switched off the generator even if useless and took the coins at the balkony).

+ No keyhunting / spawns / overly complex scripting or other annoying "creative" stuff - just a good ole thieving mission.

+ No bugs (i did not stumble upon any).

 

I did not like that much:

- Rather obvious hole in the wall that none could ever miss when looking at at daylight. There needs to be more cover.

- A guard i can't blackjack. I am not a ghoster, prefer blackjacking everyone standing between me and my loot. (doused the candle and took the two golden plates from the table to make him get fired).

- Upper floor room looked rather empty.

 

Overall there is room for more clutter / ambient / open windows / pickable doors. As it looks like there are no bugs to fix, i hope for a version containing the tavern and collegue interiors.

 

 

[Digi]

Thanks Abus. Some good comments, both good and bad. The only one that is a Catch-22 is the guard. Some have loved the challenge of it, which was intentional. It's one of those things where you just can't please every play style. But with such a small mission, I had to get creative in amping the difficulty a couple places.

 

Also, the generator isn't useless, though it's not needed for ghosting. ;-)

Edited July 3, 2014 by Digi

[Oktokolo]

  On 7/3/2014 at 2:50 AM, Digi said:

But with such a small mission, I had to get creative in amping the difficulty a couple places.

For a harder challenge:

 

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# Make the guard inside use a less predictive route.

# Add a moving butler, maid, chef or wife to the inside.

# Give the patroling guards outside and in the garden torches.

# Use some noisy materials and clutter to cover appropriate places.

# Add some movable cover in front of that hole in the garden and light the place to make the entrance harder.

 

 

Ya may also open a "how to beef it up"-thread to get loads of other suggestions from all sides

[raymeld]

Thank you digi , neat ( if brief ) little mission.