Sotha

-Thanks for the guide. Looks simple enough. I'll put my map in this evening. I thought also that verticality is more like a visual thing. Good decision, in my humble opinion.

[idiot disclaimer: ATTENTION! This is a JOKE and a free FM mission plot for someone!] *Sneak in their house and find out what they are hiding. *Collect 1500 worth of loot while your at it. *You'll be in trouble if they find you out: no blackjackings, do not raise an alarm. [/idiot disclaimer: ATTENTION! This is a JOKE and a free FM mission plot for someone!] But seriously: You seem to make this into a big problem. If it really bugs you so much, next time you see them go have a chat. Talk about the weather and such. Then make the move: subtly approach the topic you want to find out and try to learn something about their current situation. People usually love to talk about themselves and this kind of information picking is relatively easy. Just don't ask too direct questions, but maintain a casual but steady steering of the conversation to the direction you want. You'll probably not get direct answer to whether they are paedofiles or not, but obvious things may come up, for example why a kid at so old age. You do not have to get too friendly so do not invite them to your home. According to your CPU upgrade caper thread you should be accustomed to subterfuge so I sure it is easy to pull off. You could even prepare for the interrogation by thinking conversation topics and the general flow beforehand. OR you could just mind your own business and try to relax.

Ok. The Glenham Tower is now finished and officially in release status. Now I only need "FM Contest Map Releasing for Dummies" -kind of instructions. What kind of poll? What questions exactly? What was the final conclusion with the verticality score? Can I vote my own work? I've no TTLG login, so I need help there. Once these minor issues are clear, it is releasing time. Same thing here, essentially...

Font issue: I'd say its no point in substituting anything. There is a large collection of fonts for the mapper to select the ones he wants to use in his readable. Many of them are really easy to read. There aren't many difficult-to-read fonts there. The font selection builds immersion as the mapper can give an indication of the 'personality' of the one writing the scroll. If the mapper wants to make a hastily scribbled note written by an unstable lunatic, it is good to have an 'unstable' font. Substituting that to clear crisp easy-to-read font would remove mappers possibility to portray the lunatic via this handwriting. It is an art-thing really... Please do not decrease our currently available options. Entirely different thing is the scenario where mapper writes many long readables with an 'unstable' font. At that case the mapper should accept that the player probably does not want to bother reading it fully. The mapper can easily select typewriterish looking clear fonts for everything but it breaks the immersion in my opinion.

Agreed! I vote that there is a "Greebo of the year" -prize, which goes automatically to the hero doing most of the coding.. I don't mind if there was a map of the year -contest around new year, but I think these FM building contests are more fruitful for the community: lots of new maps and lively community. In the end, without a steady flow of new maps, the fruits of the coders would go to waste since there was nothing to play. The coders DO play the mod, do they?

Well, actually..... But let's see..

Okay I still do not know how to unlock doors remotely, but it does not matter since the AI door opening problem can be simply solved by adding spawnarg ai_should_not_handle 1 to the door. Phew...

Got some nice suggestions from the beta testers. Got a nice idea for an interesting addition, which I am implementing. I'm running into trouble here with a really simple/stupid problem: *I want to have a door which is locked. And later I want to open the door remotely. *If I simply target the locked door it won't open, because it has the spawnarg "locked 1" *There is no "unlock"-response effect I could use. *I tried Set spawnarg -response effect. So I set the locked property to 0 on the door. This does nothing and the door remains locked. Please help, how can I do this? It's probably dead simple but I can't figure it out. --- Alternatively: Is there any way to make a door absolutely not openable by the AI. At present if I have a nonfrobable not-locked door. AI will mystically open it if I shoot a noisemaker arrow next to the door. The AI looks for the noise source and opens the door, even if it is nonfrobable.

Nope. No such problems here. Sometimes my Muse contacts me during my sleep and provides me with zillions of mission plots. But that is just a creativity surge, no program mechanics.

I was under impression that the verticality comes from the map dimension restrictions. If the map conforms to that, it is 'vertical.' After that it can be evaluated in terms of plot, gameplay and visuals as usual. I have to confess I have great difficulty of assessing 'verticality' as such. I know if a map is good in terms of plot, etc. But it is confusing and arbitrary to evaluate 'good verticality usage.' Whatever the end decision will be I'll need and gladly accept Fidcal's help when my map is released in the next few days.

Thank you very much. It is really nice to see my hard work appreciated. This mission has received so positive feedback that I'm slowly getting more nervous whether or not the sequel (The Glenham Tower) can reach the same kind of reception from the community.

Thanks but I already have the testers I need. You'll get the final version to play quite soon.

Heh. This mission proves it that great complexity is not required for excellence. I wished there was a better skybox and a good looking nightly ocean far down below.. Overall: Simple yet very entertaining and enjoyable mission. Many thanks for the authors!

@Fidcal: But of course if you've been really nice. @Bikerdude: Sure, I don't mind as long as you do not blatantly steal my ideas. Sending links in PM. And please, no spoilers of any kind in this thread. I've now 3 testers and that's all I need. Many thanks for your interest.

I've played this through now a few times. Things seem to work the way I planned. It looks decent and it runs well. I've no idea what to add anymore. I think it is ready! So I suppose it is time to betatest this map, which is my entry for the summer vertical contest. I'd say it is a small/medium sized map, about the size of The Beleaguered Fence. Any volunteers? 2-3 experienced mappers would be nice. Also, Melan.. If you have the time I'd be honoured and really pleased if you helped me out with this one. You did such a thorough work last time that I'm still impressed. I'd also like to the testers pay special attention to the readables. I'm not a native english speaker so I really need help in that area. Thank you very much!

Many thanks! The sitting problem is indeed a general AI bug, which is tracked in the bugtracker.

How does this voting work in practice? A forum poll attached to the FM release thread and the highest percentage of points is selected for the end score calculations or is there a closed distinguished committee evaluating the map or what? Yep. Only a few days to external beta testing. I think I did a pretty good job and the result is better than The Beleaguered Fence. Oh, and if you'd like to call me by title, you can call me master Sotha. Oh well, lord Sotha has a nice ring to it as well. But surely this isn't so serious contest that we should be secretive and be afraid someone steals our ideas. There are no prizes or anything. Beta-testing should not be omitted since it generally increases the overall quality of the map drastically.

Okay I've now found out what was wrong. In my water box, the surfaces (except the air-water -interface surface) are common/clip. When I changed the texture to /common/nodraw the gui works. Thanks for helping out!

Easier question: Is there something wrong with underwater guis? I tried to do as said in the Swimmable Water wiki pages, and made waters with different underwater guis but I seen no difference in any of those. Looks like NONE of them have an underwater gui: I'm just swimming in clear water. Any help?

@Olgeezer

Finance Crisis Strikes The City Watch! Costs were cut by issuing new headgear. Officials claim that new cheaper headgear confers total blackjacking immunity, but some argue that there are unacceptable side-effects...

I'm glad you enjoyed it. Nice suggestions. If the mission is a tad bit more difficult, surely beating the mission is more rewarding? Also if you play it on HARD difficulty, it should be.. well.. hard. If it's too hard, then there are the more easier difficulty-level where you have plenty of money to get good equipment in the beginning. My mapping philosophy is: 1) There will be no mission jamming hunts for keys in illogical places. Do not drag the player through the mission the way mapper intended. Let the player go where he/she wants. 2) All doors should be pickable, but having a key is a nice convenience and rewards the player with much easier and silent access.

Hey! Count me in this contest. My entry for this is soon reaching beta phase.

I'm happy you had fun! In the objectives it says where Lark should be taken. But yes, it is

-Thanks! Found it! The animation is called "zjump_eats_zfat_loop" Too bad it cannot be used: it looks very choppy when the zombie starts the feeding animation and blinks into the eating position. Otherwise it would be ok, but the zombie faces entirely the opposite direction. Shame. Can I play animations backwards in path_anim/path_cycleanim? I mean that *first the zombie to moves to the feeding position. *I play path_anim "zjump_eats_zfat_getup" backwards, so the zombie kneels down to the eating position. *Play path_cycleanim so that zombie eats a while. *play path_anim "zjump_eats_zfat_getup" normally so the zombie gets up. Is there a mystical spawnarg, which plays animations the other way?