Sotha
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Posts
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Posts posted by Sotha
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I vote for public!
Reasons:
Public system avoids misuse and it confers openness and transparency.
It is nice to see who voted what.
And most importantly: public system increases the possibility of giving the justification for the grades given. If I know everyone will see what grade I am giving, I should be able to explain why I'm giving that particular grade.
Personally, I'd prefer if everyone gave the justification for the grades they give. Learning the reasons people liked or did not like a mission would be an excellent opportunity for the mapper to learn. And for other mappers to learn from the mistakes of others.
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Congrats for the release!
Mission downloaded.
The image you have on the post looks fantastic.
I hope I have time to play this tonight.
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I know some simpler things about elementary particles and whatnot. But science is so far from human it is inapplicable to our day to day lives.
Eh? Whazzat?
Science has revolutionized everyones day to day life.
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Non-Pickable Doors, Keys and Mission Critical Objects
Non-pickable locked doors are very dangerous elements. You can ruin your mission with these. Use them sparingly! This kind of door is a plot/mapper imposed obstacle, which requires the player to do things in the order the mapper wants. It may be vital for the plot, but remember that the player *will* be frustrated if he misses the key. Put in clues to lead the player to the key. Put the key in an obvious place so the player will not miss it. Put some kind of light to make the object more visible. Put the key in a logical place!
The same advise applies to any kind of Mission Critical Object the player must possess to make progress. Do not have the player walk all the way to Mordor only to realize he left the hidden One Ring back in the Shire.
http://modetwo.net/d...ion_Design_Tips
Fids, could it be possible to have a link to this wikiarticle from the first page of your A-Z guide? Might be useful.
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*Sigh*
Those were the days...
Also, I loved Betrayal at Krondor, which I am sure Mortem Desino likes according to his avatar over this forum.
BAK still works modern computers with dosbox. Try it.
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If nobody else had any problem finding the lockpicks then it's just me and I must find some way to boost the brightness of them and keys for me. This is spoiling missions for me more and more. But if any others failed to find them then I think it would be a good idea to re-release the FM with 'find lockpicks' as a new objective with some indication they are in the lower levels, eg, being examined by ...
Fidcal, it is not just you. When betamapping, I found the lockpicks only accidentally because I have the habit of blind-frobbing suspicious objects just to be on the safe side. This way I found the lockpicks. My betamapper recommendations was to put a light on the lockpicks, but FM chose to put a light in the room.
Thoughts:
- Putting a small light on the toolbox would point to the player that there is something useful in the toolbox, if the toolbox was glowing a bit. Frobbing the lockpicks would shut this light down.
- Putting a hint that the lockpicks are in the mint. But I generally think that objective-system should not be used for hints. It's for objectives.
- Preventing the player from leaving the lower mines without the picks.
Mappers and players should not rely on habitual blind-frobbing!
If mappers would put simple small lights shining on mission critical objects which are easy to miss, a lot of frustration could be avoided. I'll add some insight on this to the mission design tips wiki article when I have time.
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Oh, and howsabout mines? Some people complained about them in the Glenham Tower feedback. Glenham is one of the few maps which have mines available for the player.
Mines probably should have some kind of proximity sensor instead of step-on-activation. It really difficult to place a mine so the victim AI truly steps on it.
And it would be nice to be able to pick up the mine if it's placed in the wrong place. In previous thief games the mine could be disarmed by sneaking up to it and picking it with the lockpicks.
Also a gas mine would be also cool addition to the player's arsenal, and more commonly used than the explosive one because of it non-lethalness.
It would provide interesting opportunities for map design, if LIVE mines could also be placed by the mapper.
This issue surely is know by the team, but I'm just checking.
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Citizen!
Please wave at the nearest security camera! Internal Security is watching.
I suppose old style ID cards will be redundant in the future as subdermal ID chips installed after birth will replace them. Naturally these chips contain gps tracking for the citizens convienence...
And the licence agreements sell your body and soul to the stockholders.
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I´m here for you, Fidcal. Did you tried to just open the door?
Only for you I fired up the mission right now, in bright daylight!! The door opens without a key on Expert!!
-Yeah, it should. You sure you're not playing the betatest version? In that the door was locked.
But as LEGION said it should be open in this final version...
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Yeah, I saw that, I just forgot to reply. I don't know if it really fits the setting but I made this cutlass like a hundred years ago that turned out pretty good, if you want I can touch it up and try to include it. Here it is:
Wow. Nice! Looks like something a gentleman duelist noble would have in his trophy room.
With a golden handle and silver blade it would be a nice ornamental loot object. A mapper could easily use binding to embed a few prop gems on the handle to make its worth even more obvious.
Giving the same sword with steel blade and handle to an armed commoner AI would mean we have pirate characters!
This would definately increase mappers options nicely.
Now, who would do some vocals for pirates? "Arr.. Ho ho blow the man down. Ye scurvy dog."
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Damn this guy is fast.
I look away from this thread for a while and suddenly there is again a high quality model available.
All the stuff you've done so far look fantastic!
I'm really interested what you're going to do next. Did you notice my cry for more loot items in the 'master models needed list' thread?
Since this game is about acquiring loot, it would be nice to have a larger diversity of valuables to steal. Just a suggestion, if you like doing that kind of things.
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Well, I thought the crosshair as the most simple fix for the issue. I certainly agree that it would be better to make the frobbing better. There would be no need for a crosshair then.
If loot and other objects had higher priority over doors, it would be nice. However, this solution makes proper use of frobcontrol entities even more important as the door won't shield the objects inside.
It might be equally frustrating to try to get the drawer open and all you're frobbing is the object inside.Difficult..
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I have one improvement suggestion.
Sometimes (well, usually) when I am looting more complex objects, like the byro with pullable drawers I encounter this problem.
I've much difficulty in aiming inside the objects.
I'll elaborate. When I've something in the middle of the screen it gets frob-highlighted. If I have a drawer with a book in it, I've much difficulty in highlighting the book. I'm constantly highlighting the drawer.
I understand that the object in the center of the view is the one which will hightlight, but it is sometimes hard for me to quickly understand which part of the screen is the middle spot. And it is quite usual that loot is picked up in a hurry. When the guards approach there is no time to constantly frob the drawer instead of the object inside.
Would there be a possibility to add some kind of subtle crosshair or a circle in the middle of the screen to help object frobbing? It should be only small, and it should have a lot of transparency so it won't obstruct the view too much. Just a small helper. It'd be nice to have an option to turn it on or off.
What say you?
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Fieldmedic, you really pulled this one off.
I got a crude gem map for betatesting and you really swiped out all the imperfections and dirts, resulting in a delightful map. Of all the contest entries, I'd say that this is my personal favourite so far.
Gameplay: Excellent. All the annoyances removed, the mission flowed forward nicely. You did some wonders to the exterior climbing part, which worked very well. You also used the objective system cleverly for hints, although I'd prefer leaving the objective system for objectives and placing the hints 'ingame.' The mission was rather easy, but who cares if it's so much fun! The only downside was that the windows were oddly difficult to hit with the sword.
In the tunnels I had fun moments: I got the chest near the rails open and the revenant saw me that instant. I ran like hell to the elevator shaft and hid there. The revenant came and started searching for me but did the amateur mistake of walking past me towards the mint door. After a few seconds of risk evaluation, I sneaked past the revenant back to the chest and enjoyed looting it slowly while giggling at the git who was searching in the corridor.
I also laughed at myself when I followed the hint at the tower base. Moved the wooden block and got crushed to death by the collapsing piece of wood.
Appearance: Good. At first when I started playing this, I thought that OMG he made it too light now after we betatesters complained about the darkness. Then I realised I forgot my gamma value to the values I used while betatesting, turned the gamma back to normal and presto! Just perfect lighting! I loved the appearance of the wooden staircase to the soon-to-be-blackmailed-priest. It looked so real and it gave a lot of atmosphere.
You also seemed to do wonders to the exterior. No frame lag. I had to even jump down to my death from the upmost part of the tower just to see that the lower parts weren't simply left out. Nope, they were still there.
Story: Good. There is not much to say. The story was good. The location felt living and real.
So all in all: pretty impressive work, especially considering this was your first map. I'm interested to see your future works.
Jättebra! Enjoy the cruise, you've definately deserved it!
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@LEGION:
I'd say it is polite to ask for permission. If you use anything other than your own, you *must* give credit in your mission readme. Do not put the mapper you 'ripped off' as an author, but make it clear you used his work.
I'm unsure why would you use something made by others, since you can create complex stuff pretty fast and conveniently on your own. It may even be easier to make your own geometry than take from another map and then spend a lot of time to make it fit in yours. Creating the map on you own is also good practice for you.
Also I'm thinking the community aspect here: I would think it is a bit boring to explore the same inn in your map, Günther's map and Charlotte's map. It is better to have variety and individual implementations, rather than cloned geometry over and over again.
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Hi!
I started writing a wikiarticle on general mission design.
Maybe it helps new (and old) mappers to improve their work.
The basic work is here
http://modetwo.net/d...ion_Design_Tips
but it could use some more tips from other veteran mappers.
Let me know what you think.
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My only concern is that existing FMs are respected if changes are made. Mappers often spend hours fine tuning their FMs so a small change can spoil them.
+2.
As a mapper, I've absolutely no interest in digging out an old map and 'unbreak' it after it has been broken by some change. What is done, is done.
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Thank you Sotha. That post from Grayman described exactly what I wanted to do. Unfortunately it still doesn't seem to work. I followed everything in the post but as soon as I start the mission, the objective thats supposed to be triggered is visable right at the start.
Have you set the objective invisible?
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No. This is an old list I created a few years back. There's really no official "models needed" list anymore.
Probably the best way to get ideas for new models is to take requests from mappers.
If I may give a few suggestions:
Any kinds of trinkets for loot objects would be nice. Just look a the stuff we now have in DR for loot. There is generally one item of specific type: We have one loot vase, one bottle...
It may get repetitive for the players to loot same looking trophies and goblets again and again.
Can you make some expensive looking items? Ornamental sword? Golden helmet? Expensive goods like silver flute, scepters, rods.
Something like this, but with the builder symbol.
Also, I've seen that castleish or manor interior wall decorations are low. Like tapestries, and other kinds of objects one might find on walls.
I don't know what you find interesting to create, maybe this helps.
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It is not *what* he says, but *how* and *when* he says it. If some guard goes mental on me, I want him to YELL at the top of his lungs, to shout. Esp if I vanished suddenly, he should go "Come BACK HERE YOU filthy little PIG", not to mumble "hah, where did he go..." with a trailing voice.
Also, even if the thug is good, that still leaves us with all the other voices etc.
AA! Okay now I understand and agree. Yeah, would cool to have a roughneck vocal set. A guy who truly screams and roars at the player. A voice talent could be found from any low class pub with the price of a bottle of cheap booze...
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Welly well. Here is my thoughts on this mission. I'll just spoilerify everything.
First of all, interesting vote options.. someone obviously loves eggsalad.
Gameplay: Good. This was a nice map. I liked it. It was fun going down the rift. Spiders were a bit boring, since they're nothing more but target practice. The mine was nice and I liked the temple. I lingered there quite a while trying to find a way to go further, even when all the objectives were completed. A shame. I'd liked to explore more of the temple as it felt the most interesting part of the map. Other interesting places were the city and the lower mines with the zombies. The mission was rather easy, but fun. The mine zombies were maybe too easy to avoid, but I had nice high tension kicks at the temple.
Appearance: Tedious. What a shame. With little texture alignments and other tweaks the mines would have looked so much better. When the map started I had a truly big wow factor as the city looked fantastic. It looked so living and breathing. After this I expected so much, probably too much.
Then I went into the first levels of the mines. The textures on the patches were an eyesore. With little effort you could have truly maxed out the visuals. I know getting textures to look right on patches may be a pain in the butt sometimes, but it's not that difficult to simply omit that. I felt you sort of gave up after the beauty of the town, leaving the chasm textures so stretched.
Story: Tolerable. What story? It was mainly about let's grab a rich man's valuables and then the player got more interested in a chasm. When I got to the temple I was excited. Wow! Cool! What is this temple? Why was it built here and by whom? Is there a dark secret in the temple? Maybe it's an evil god's worshipping place haunted by its former inhabitants, forever tormented for their sins? Why was the temple abandoned here? Where does the tunnel over the bridge go? Why is the bridge broken? It was rather disappointing to find the silly ex-adventurer book when my mind was swarming with these questions.
But hey, as a conclusion. Simple fun sneaking. Works for me.
Could have been sooo much better with simple texture fixes and focusing more on the temple area. Plus telling a story of the place in an entertaining/interesting manner.Thanks BC!
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Is there a way for a readable to trigger an objective? It is a normal aquire item objective I'm trying to set up but it is to be triggered once a readable is read. So I don't want the player to be able to see the aquire item objective until after the readable is read. Hope that makes sense
Yes! If I understood correctly the problem, I asked this same thing some time ago. The answer lies here:
http://modetwo.net/d...post__p__220236
Post #20.
With this hidden objective arrangement you can basically target any target when closing a readable with "Completion Target" objective-thingy. In your case you need to target a atdm:target_setobjective_state -entity, as Fids told already.
This seems now a common question, so I'll add this to the objectives-wiki as well when I have time if someone doesn't beat me to it.
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People want something more aggressive than the "I'm going to piss on your corpse" thug?
"I'm gonna stuff your mouth with your own filth" is aggressive enough for me.
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I like this post a lot. It has brought a new perpective for me.
First off, I don't think religion is the Opium of the People, but very important to man for finding his purpose and meaning for life, which has been lost in modern materialism. Isn't that every human's duty to himself?People indeed need a purpose in life. Some gain purpose by career and wealth, others with children, others with religion. Others by doing silly maps for a game mod.
The most common thing is the combinations of many components, others focus only on a few, others choose many. I think it is safe to say it is entirely rational to seek the purpose for oneself. Purpose in life is a peculiar thing because it is based more on emotion and feelings, rather than logic. Interesting!But that's still a pretty irrational claim. What reason have I got to make it in the first place?Knowledge isn't based on just logic. We also base it on experience, even if it goes against logic. My logic says what Descartes said, paraphrased: I am all that logic can affirm exists. Logic is a necessary thing, but don't become a robot to it. It's limited. The rest is called metaphysics where logic does not always apply. See also: Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. I won't give you my life story, but I've experienced enough for me to teeter strongly towards Christianity.
Yep. Logic is definately not the answer to everything. I know from experience that sometimes you need to challenge existing logic to create something new.
Plus I like one specific point concerning theism as a whole. There are many and varied arguments, all saying 'this makes no sense!'. I reply: don't you think that an uber-being would do what he does for reasons beyond human reasoning?I can't comment this much, but yeah, human behavior probably appears mysterious to ants. It still does not give any rational base for faith, but like said: it is rational to seek purpose, even if the purpose itself is irrational. Some people collect used stamps, for crying out loud!
(my apologies to those that do.)
Future contest voting changes?
in Fan Missions
Posted
I like the current 1-5 grading system. Adding more steps probably solves nothing. It just brings the problem to a new scale. Keeping the current system also means that older missions gradings still match with the new ones.
The problem with the current system probably is, that people feel reluctant to give "poor" or "near perfect" evaluations. It is the choice of words, you see. Someone suggested change of words, but I'm not sure that changes anything. When considering the gaussian curve, AVERAGE is not the lowest possible grade. That way the horrible crap missions would be average. They should be poor and rightly so!
My suggestion would be:
a ) stick to the 1-5 scale
b ) remove the words.
So the questions would be like this.
Gameplay: On a scale of 1-5, how much did you enjoy the GAMEPLAY aspect of this mission. (5 is maximum, 1 is mininum)
Appearance: On a scale of 1-5, how much did you enjoy the APPEARANCE aspect of this mission. (5 is maximum, 1 is mininum
...and so forth.
From the numbers people easily see that missions with grade 1 are poor. 3 are average. And all above that is good/excellent.
Note the choice of words: "how much did YOU enjoy the ..." People probably do not have difficulties in intuitively choose a number corresponding to their subjective FM experience. And they do not get a bad feeling of calling other people's hard work "poor." (Even when effectively it does mean that, if they give a 1.)