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Goldwell

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Posts posted by Goldwell

  1. 1 hour ago, datiswous said:

    Something I noticed: The mission has the tittle:

    Shadows of Northdale ACT I

    With a capital letter i, instead of a 1. This means it's listed in the mission selection screen right under ACT 2, instead of above. Changing it to 1 in darkmod.txt fixes this.

     

    Yeah I noticed that too, I do have plans to rename the missions so that they flow more naturally in the mission selection screen.

    • Like 2
  2. On 10/25/2022 at 9:00 PM, greebo said:

    I'd like to finish working on the user interface changes, it's taking shape already. A release is always a chunk of work, and since Linux folks tend to compile from source more than Windows users, I'd be inclined to not push out an emergency release. I won't be too long till 3.5.0, I'd like to keep the pace of doing a release every 2-3 weeks anyway.

    The UI changes are rather substantial, this is why it takes a bit longer than usual. After getting that back into master, I'm going to fix the most urgent issues like crashes or other annoyances, and 3.5.0 is done.

    Please say darkmode please say darkmode please say darkmode....

    • Like 2
  3. 34 minutes ago, SeriousToni said:

    I really miss an up light functionality in this forum. Everytime I have a look at ingame Screenshots I'm looking on a black screen on my phone 😄

    *ahem* I did include that in my post :P

    10 hours ago, Goldwell said:

    If those screenshots are too dark, here are some brightened versions

      Reveal hidden contents

    cD6pPJo.jpg

    vIHrnC7.jpg

    jxYEvUc.jpg

     

     

    • Haha 1
  4. On 9/4/2022 at 5:57 AM, bobber1 said:

    Enjoyed playing both chapters very much.  Any news on when Act 3 will be released? Thanks!

     

    Thanks for playing!

     

    It's hard to say when Act 3 will be released. The majority of the mission is done, except for two buildings that need an interior, one being decently sized. The briefing video, readables, patrol routes, voice acting and objectives are all finished, in game, polished and ready to go. It's just a matter of finding the time to get that last little bit done.

     

    Progress is happening, slowly but surely :)

    • Like 2
  5. 1 hour ago, Netos said:

    So, I went *all the way* through the 

     

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    literally no version of the spoiler quotes with one / or \ works. If someone could mention it, that would be great.

    all the way through the flooded basement avoiding each of the invisible monsters 2 or 3 times, to get the new valve for the elevator.

    I insert it with hopeful step, and then

     

    and then I still can't open it? The lever just fizzles as if I had done nothing. What should I add, elbow grease?

    Spoiler

    After you put the new valve on the wall. Spin the valve and then the elevator doors will open.

     

    • Like 1
  6. On 6/19/2022 at 6:19 AM, Obsttorte said:

    Interesting mission of good size, not to small, not too big. I liked the visual style and the voice-acting was pretty well done. Kudos to the speakers. Both were good to understand even for a non-native speaker like me. Overall the atmosphere was good.

    The only downside is that the mission is way too easy under the highest setting. A few more thoughts:

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    • While the guards patrol routes appear difficult to manage to begin with, once one guard is down it is pretty easy to take them out on after another
    • The amount of gears is simple unneccesary. There is no real use for most of them and you threw additional stuff like water arrows at them, although explicitly informing the player at the difficulty selection screen, that equipment is sparse and expensive (which will lead to the player storing it for later, which increases the issue)
    • Performance was sometimes a bit suboptimal, but never bad. I got it improved by lowering some settings, but I am not sure what causes the issues.
    • The relation between the amount of time spend outside the manor and inside is a bit off. One has the means to prepare oneself for the missions very carefully (even though only in regards to the equipment, intel would have been a nice twist), only to find a few rooms and guards. I think I didn't spend more than 15 minutes in the manor, but 45 minutes outside.
    • The meat factory was a bit odd. I didn't find out how to progress there and wasn't able to get up into the shaft either (both of which may have probably been my fault). I finally noclipped back up. I am sure this is not intented ;)

    This is criticism on a high niveau and mostly subjective, though.

    I overall like the approach you are taking and trying to find some means for the loot to acquire by the usage of the shop. This holds quiet some potential. And I hope there will be more from the voice actress.

    Despite some criticism I can easely recommend this mission. Well done.

    🙂

     

    Difficulty is an interesting one to tackle, like most things it is highly subjective. I have had people complain that a mission is both too easy and others say it's too hard before, much like some people will enjoy a mission and some wont. It all comes down to tastes and playstyles. The route I like to take is somewhere down the middle with a little more leaning on the easier side.

     

    I would rather people have an enjoyable time in a mission than not. However I do offer up more difficult tasks within levels. So for example @Obsttorte the meat factory you mentioned is an expert contract. So for those I don't offer as much hand holding and expect the player to figure out their own way forward.

     

    Spoiler

    The factory forces the player to follow some hints, although even then they are quite direct. So an elevator door wont open, inside the control room it mentions the valve being broken and the spare one is in the storage room. This plants the clue that you need to head into the storage room, you grab the valve, attach it and voila you can now open the door to the elevator.

     

    If this was a main objective you would have things more directly telling you what to do and where to go, there would be less AI down there and it would be better lit. But because it's not a main objective, it's an expert contract, I wanted to provide more of a challenge to folks. Perhaps I could convey that some areas are tougher by having an onscreen text read "You are in an expert area" but I feel that takes away from the immersion of the level so I just leave things as is.

     

    In regards to there being an unnecessary amount of gear, that's another point I don't agree on. As TDM is an immersive sim, I feel it's important to give the player as many options as possible. So say while you may not find any of that gear necessary another playstyle might. Do you want to go in with just a black jack, go ahead, or if you want to go in heavy then you can stock up on mines and fire arrows and wreck havoc, or maybe a flash bomb. Perhaps the roof is better, so a rope arrow will make that easier, etc.

     

    You did mention the issue of spending 15 minutes in the manor but 45 minutes outside. That's because the mission was originally only the manor, it felt too short so I decided to expand the things to do in the mission by building the city around it. I can see the argument that the logical pathway is to improve the main objective aka the manor, however I wanted to make things more interesting and give folks more side content through the contracts. That way if you want a quick and easy mission you can just break into the manor and get out and that's maybe a short 20 minute mission. But if you want to go the completionist route then it's going to add a lot more content.

     

    That's why in games the main storyline takes 15-20 hours to complete but a completionist will take 100 hours to complete. Again it's all about giving the player more choice.

     

    Re: the performance. Well you got me there, dead to rights. I wanted it to look pretty and fancy with loads of custom textures and sounds. I tried as hard as I could to optimize the area, but there definitely is some sluggish performance in certain areas.

    • Like 1
  7. 15 hours ago, JBERT said:

    I can enter in silent dagger, but where is this tip ? I have found a note, but without any information about this code...

    Regards,

    JB

     

    Inside the Silent Dagger you'll find a tip right here

     

    5jYMmop.png

     

    This note reads

    hUUQlxW.png

     

    Deciphering the note

     

    Spoiler

    It mentions that outfront of the Jewelry shop, a couple of men left and hopped into a boat, they did one lap around the rock with a tree on it.

     

    If we head out to the front of the jewelry shop you'll notice a landing area, and from there you can see a rock with a tree on it seen here

     

    r8TBRKu.png

     

    Swimming over there we find a scroll inside a bottle.. that is the code you need!

    MSqwQxl.png

     

    "Skip the BS and tell me the code riddler!"

    Spoiler

    9 2 5

     

     

     

    13 hours ago, Melchior said:

    @Goldwell A Great mission; reminds me of the T2X TC in a way. (not just the new protagonist, but a very colourful level!)

     

    Thank you very much!

     

    I did take a lot of inspiration from T2X as well as Dishonored and a few of DrK's incredible Thief 2 FM's.

    • Like 1
  8. 14 hours ago, Xolvix said:

    So I finished it a few days ago. This is a really good mission to highlight features in 2.10 and shows what modern TDM is capable of (at least in the hands of an experienced individual). So much custom content, it was pretty cool to see new stuff almost everywhere. Found the Grayman memorial, done really well I have to say. Despite being kinda hidden it wasn't marked as a secret, but this is good and probably the more classy approach. Hopefully we'll have more adventures with Clara!

    EDIT: A couple more things:

    1. Speaking of references to other games, I absolutely was not expecting a reference to

      Hide contents

    Amnesia: The Dark Descent. For goodness sake, invisible water monsters in TDM? I dealt with that nearly 12 years ago, I thought it was over! :)

    2. Related to that mission, I came across

      Reveal hidden contents

    Corbin and chose to KO him, but since I was curious, I quicksaved then shot an arrow through his eye. Clara didn't react to this but I didn't think until later to reload an earlier save and just kill him first instead of the knockout, just to see if the reaction was different. I'm a bit surprised the mission was designed to allow Corbin's death even though it'd totally break canon, but it was amusing nonetheless.

     

    Re: the Grayman shrine. I specifically didn't want to tie anything to that area. Originally there was loot and it was marked as a secret area, but I felt that was in poor taste. So it just became an area solely dedicated to just him.

     

    As for 1, that's hilarious :D

     

    2. That was a decision I was conscious of. There's always a battle, especially in immersive sims of whether you force the player down a path or give them options. I treat it kind of like Dishonored how you can kill or not KO enemies while playing the game, but in the sequels the canon story is always the pacifist approach.

     

    Clara only interacts with him if you frob the body/corpse after you're done. In retrospect I probably should have added that narration line after the contract completes. Oh well! :) 

  9. 11 hours ago, stgatilov said:

    So... will you commit this removal to assets SVN?

    I think allowing players to disable head bobbing is more important than allowing mappers to customize it.
    Do we need more opinions?
    @Dragofer @kingsal @Goldwell @Springheel @Obsttorte

    I agree, it's important to give players control over whether they want headbobbing or not.

     

    I think that takes priority over any customizations that may exist in missions.

  10. 19 hours ago, KalaviKnight said:

    Greetings I wanted to let the author know about a particular bug, that I've encountered. When I was playing through the accountant 2. Slight Spoilery section so read on your of discretion.

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    In the flat of the sleeping cultist the objective appears to bring the "magical orb" back to the cauldron. And as I've found the said orb and carried it all the way to the apartment I placed it inside the cauldron to complete the objective. But there was no interaction. I tried few times putting the orb in and out but simply the cauldron nor the task changed. I assume it may have something to do with that me updating to the current version that is 2.10. 

     

    Thank you for bringing it to my attention!

     

    I will mark that down as something to fix for the next version release.

  11. 1 minute ago, Xolvix said:

    Hey @Goldwell, been playing old missions again now with better hardware/effects and I have to say, this is a really solid mission! I managed to barely get over 4100 for the difficult skill loot requirement, but it turns out it was optional anyway so no matter. Got three of the 6 secrets so that was cool. Seems like the next act(s) were supposed to come out a bit sooner, but art can't be rushed and recent events probably put a bit of a strain too!

    I have one question though. Something hidden in the mission, but no one seems to have mentioned it yet (maybe nobody noticed)?

      Hide contents

    In one of the shops in the docks, in an attic there is a hidden compartment where I found a child's doll named "Mistdrip". Corbin didn't say anything when he picked it up and there were no additional mission objectives either, so it's a complete mystery as to its significance. Ended the mission with it still in my inventory.

     

    Hey Xolvix!

     

    Yes there has been a long wait between act 2 and 3, longer than I would have preferred. But between personal events that have popped up and taken my time away from mapping and also big world issues, it has just extended that time even further. Work is being made though, in fact I actually just took a break from working on Act 3 to check the forums and saw your message. The wait should be over soon :)

     

    Re: your spoiler question

    Spoiler

    Mistdrip is a play-on-words reference to Dewdrop from the OG thief games. There is a little unwritten game that some Thief FM authors do which is putting dewdrop in their level somewhere and you have to find her, I decided to do the same thing but with Mistdrip (as we're not allowed to use official thief names). It doesn't really serve any purpose other than being a little easter egg.

     

    • Like 1
  12. 5 hours ago, datiswous said:

    Hi, I'm still playing this. Fantastic mission. I just can't find

      Hide contents

    where the attic is where I'm supposed to find the orb. I found at least 2 attics, one with a garden in it, the orb wasn't there.

    Nevermind. I already found it. Would make it a bit more logical if you could put it in your inventory. But I guess this makes it more puzzly.

    Here some screenshots of things I encountered while playing:

      Reveal hidden contents

    ac2_2022-03-22_22_11_12.jpg.c2b8cf36bd99846dd2ebaff177bc1f09.jpg

    ac2_2022-03-22_21_08_34.jpg.e86b8097d9d40705fb5e8f0d06d859f9.jpg

    ac2_2022-03-22_21_22_02.jpg.6f0b372c893981f3ae0f75cb7738876b.jpg

    ac2_2022-03-19_23_27_47.jpg.615560498e35808f9338aa2eab029c34.jpg

    ac2_2022-03-19_23_13_10.jpg.ec4ae766109d2ab5c0efdb3babb4f3e3.jpg

    ac2_2022-03-19_23_31_05.jpg.1044d6648e61ad1cb885064f05837f7b.jpg

    ac2_2022-03-22_20_59_13.jpg.cee68d9b32c8badc53f50251f0f869c7.jpg

    ac2_2022-03-22_20_58_58.jpg.c3e860dba40f5ada3a786a7ccbf78f7b.jpg

     

    Also, could you give me a hint about Lord Balcon's big treasure? I have no clue where I could find it.

     

    Re: I'm not sure what treasure you're referring to sorry. What gave you a hint that Lord Balcon had a big treasure?

     

    I haven't played this mission in many years and have forgotten a lot of the finer details haha :)

     

    Re: the bugs you found, those are quite interesting! When the mission was released there was an issue with that safe I believe, but the shadow bugs weren't there. That does appear to be a problem with running an old mission (I think this was a 2.03 mission) on 2.10.

     

    However I do plan to go through and update all of my older missions for 2.10 at some point, so i'll add those bugs to my todo list, thank you!

    • Like 1
    • Thanks 1
  13. 7 hours ago, thebigh said:

    Another amazing mission. I don't know how you do it.

    The mage tower, the docks, the numerous shops, the Keeper tunnel, all your locations are cool and feel like part of a city. Popsy, LOL. OK, so the Watch archives were a bit too huge to be really believable but that didn't matter.

    Finished with a stealth score of 15, having knocked out only two guards: the one in the wine shop, because I can't get around him, and the guy urinating on the peasant because I found him irksome. I got $4,116 and only 2/6 secrets.

    Thank you for the kind words!

     

    Quote

    I'm really looking forward to seeing how the mystery is resolved.

    I am hopeful that the wait won't be too long :)

    • Like 1
  14. 1 minute ago, Anderson said:

    I like the current TDM logo but it just needs to be more high definition. No changes needed.

     

    If the team wants to do that then the easiest way to do that would be asking whoever has the source files of the original intro video and then re-render it at a higher quality.

    • Like 1
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