Digi

Thanks! Maybe the smaller missions in the original game have some similarities, but even those are universally more intricate than mine. But I do appreciate the comparison.

Incredibly late reply here, but thanks Sotha! I also wanted to pop in to say hi. I never intended to disappear, and greatly enjoyed my experience with mission creation. Life kind of took me different directions, though, and it's been well over a year since I've PLAYED a video game, let alone anything more. There were a fair number of people who helped me through the process, and I feel bad that their advice didn't go to someone who could stick with it longer. Still, it was fun. So I don't know if I'll return to mission creation, though I do want to jump back in to playing TDM again at some point. Cheers, all!

Wanted to pop in and compliment the trailer/briefing, which just got posted on TDM's Facebook page. I'll definitely add this to my list of missions to play once I jump back into the game (which, granted, may still be several months). Top notch job, and spookily accurate Garrett voice!

Well, I'm 24 missions deep, and have tried to hit a lot of the "best" ones listed here and eslewhere. As it stands, my top 5: Top 5 (in order): Requiem TP1: Knighton Manor TP3: Glenham Tower Return to the City Alberic’s Curse Honorable Mentions: TP6: Lich Queen’s Demise A Reputation to Uphold WS1: In the North A Score to Settle There are many others I've enjoyed as well, but listing everything would defeat the purpose. But really, there have only been 1-2 that I didn't enjoy, since there's so much good work in the community. Many thanks to these mappers and others for all the work. TDM community is really cool, and I'm glad to have found it. I'm taking a break from playing for a while now, but I'll be back at some point with the eventual hope of playing all FMs for TDM.

I just marathoned all three WS missions, and for sake of ease I'm going to offer my experience with all three here. First, amazing job crafting these missions! Congratulations, and thank you for the hard work. In The North: Home Again: Cleighmoor: Difficulty: Forget difficulty. You're making large, complex missions with lots to do, and the whole thing is very story-driven. I'm happy to ignore "is this hard enough for me or too hard?" if I'm invested in the story or characters. And I am with this. Balanced difficulty is great, but the roleplaying element of a large story like this takes precedence for me. That said, even if I did care more about the difficulty, I wouldn't have much to say. Aside from the lighting in 1 and 2, which probably pushed the missions to the easier side, I didn't once think about difficulty - or lack thereof - in a negative way. I'm actually still somewhat burned out on absurd difficulty from my recent experience with TP6, so if anything, these were perfect in that regard. _____ Anyway, I had a ton of fun. Thanks again, and I'll be looking forward to The Warrens!

Thanks for your input. I've had my best experiences on larger missions too (though I have enjoyed several smaller missions as well), so I understand where you're coming from. This just wasn't intended as a large mission, and was actually just a sizable extension to the design tutorial for TDM that was fleshed-out enough to include as a full mission. I believe the in-game description does mention that it's a small level, though, so it's not pretending to be anything else.

Don't knock 87 missions (and counting!). It's an intimidating, or exciting, number for someone just discovering TDM. I've played about 1/4 of the missions, and I may never catch up entirely. There's probably only a handful of diehards and/or mappers who have played them all, and to whom the pace of new missions is too slow. And, frankly, I started playing TDM instead of T2 FMs because the huge number of T2 FMs was too intimidating. I assumed finding the "best" and most unique would be too exhausting, so I came to the community with the less intimidating number. As it stands, aside from the unofficial expansion (T2X), I've never played a T2 FM. More is better, yes. But there are benefits to being the little guy, so to speak.

I'm about to dive into the WS series. I've heard nothing but excellent things. Looking forward to it!

What a weird level. There was a lot that was done excellently, and a lot that was, frankly, just ok. But I think this is a mission everyone should play, and the type of mission more mappers should attempt. Just the audacity of the design is to be commended. Among FMs I've played, I think only "A Night to Remember" was as different as this as a full-scale mission. For different reasons, but the spirit of creativity runs through both. I have been batting around a level idea that is actually pretty similar to "Illusionist's..." in spirit at least, but my mapping skills aren't nearly there. So it's nice to see others trying similar stuff. The Good: The Bad:

This wasn't trying to be a mission, so I didn't take it as such. But it was a delightful display of what's capable in TDM's engine, and also a great mini-game. Good job!

Just finished this, and thus the series. Excellent job! This was a hard, hard mission for me. I have two "settings" in missions. One where I'm just enjoying myself and casually playing through. And a second when I have to concentrate, get serious, and actually play like I'm a badass Thief. This was the latter for pretty much the entire playthrough, which is rare. My experience wasn't perfect; there were a couple chief frustrations. But this was a sprawling, epic, challenging, and unique mission. Well done! To the spoilers:

Thanks for the review! I suspect I only applied the "no kill" objective to guards, but nice find. Let's just pretend we're all elitist nobility and we don't consider the poor to be people. :-)

It's pretty hard to know what you need to install and what types of tracking you may still be vulnerable to. I'm running Adblock, I use Firefox's private windows any time I do something sensitive, and my free antivirus (AVG) has a web addon that has additional privacy settings that I have activated. I regularly clear my history and cookies, and regularly sweep my cpu for viruses and malware. If those don't do enough, well, more power to the trackers. I like to be careful, but I also can't let myself get too worked up over making sure I'm fully secured at all times. Anonymity in large numbers, thankfully, is its own defense oftentimes.

Hilarious. I'll have to mess around with it. Thanks. Even better. Last question for now: could you link that spawnarg to events in the mission? Basically, could gravity fluctuate during a mission depending on what the player does? For simplicity's sake, maybe it's tied to a switch. ... So my idea is probably too psychotic for most systems to be able to handle, but it involves both a zero G (or nearly so) environment and the "objects on a path" ideas I just asked about above. It certainly wouldn't be a normal mission - and honestly my idea isn't a fully formed mission but just a cool demo room with a couple challenges - but may be fun to mess around with. I'm playing through more missions and realizing that my lack of time combined with my lack of expertise means that I'll probably never be making traditional levels at the same level of mastery as the majority of TDM mappers. But an original idea can make up for a gap in technical expertise. So I'm trying to think outside the box for mission ideas, for whenever I can give DR another go. Anyway, thanks again.

Thanks guys. Followup, and semi-related: can gravity be manipulated? So, say you wanted the player to be able to leap on top of a house. Or turn it off entirely for a zero G mission. This is me just brainstorming; seeing what's possible with ideas I'm getting. I appreciate the feedback.

Can paths be created for objects? Follow-up, if so, can they conceivably defy gravity to fly around? Just imagine, say, a disembodied skull floating along a path.

Another solid mission, and I'm that much closer to finishing your epic series! The mansion, while not quite the inspired creation that Knighton Manor was nor quite as complex as the Beleaguered Fence, was visually stunning at times. The furtherance of the Inventor's Guild devices was cool as well. You always find some sort of puzzle or surprise to add in. This time, for me, it was I would have liked to see the Thieves Highway portion go on for longer. But it may be a playstyle thing...I tend to go toward my objectives rather than being a completionist. I know many players like to explore every nook and cranny, but that feels unrealistic to me. Thomas Porter wouldn't worry about getting up onto an obscure ledge; his life is in danger! He needs some cash, and the book, and then needs to get back out. Unless you're on the hardest difficulty setting and need to find all kinds of loot (for this playthrough, I wasn't), there was little need to stay on the rooftops for long. As such, there's probably more Highway exploring I could have done, but my experience with it was woefully short, and the mansion portion took up the vast majority of the time. There's no real criticism in there, though. It may only seem that way because you've set the bar so high with your other amazing missions and unexpected storytelling moments. Can't wait to finish the TP series! Thanks as always for your work!

Another great mission! This one upped the storytelling drama quite a bit, and was probably the mission's biggest strength. You also continue to love guards with torches, helmets, and interlocking paths. Collectively, these are among the most challenging missions I've played. No complaints, just an observation. Knowing that the Lich Queen's Demise is generally loved, and the next mission is a thieves highway (usually a favorite of mine), I have to say that this is all shaping up into quite an awesome series of missions. You vary the mission style, objectives, and settings well, and with limited exceptions, everything has been building off of the previous missions to heighten the tension.

The interlocking stories and recurring characters are a rare treat. Of course, that's the strength of making a series of missions, but it's made to seem more novel because it's absent in so many other TDM missions. The plot, characters, and readables are becoming more of a treat as the series progresses. I'm usually pleased when there are particularly difficult AI paths, or overlapping paths and tricky lighting and such. There were 2-3 places where I'd expect to hear some grumblings about it being slightly unfair to the player, but for me these are welcome challenges. It would be unfair of me to expect an experience as perfect as the previous mission and next mission (Knighton and Glenham), which are, and likely will continue to be, at or near the top of my favorite fan missions ever. But this was a solid level. Thanks as always for you work. I'm looking forward to finishing the series soon.

Wow! The opening sequence ("I'm moving?!"). The understated but complex layout. The perfect music. The myriad options of how to enter, and a similar number of options for making my way around the manor. It felt almost maze-like at times, which is awesome, and I'd be poking around corners and through bathroom holes and would find new connections or ways to enter a particular area. There's so much packed in to find and do. This is how you do a great mansion mission. I didn't cover nearly everything, despite it not being the biggest level, but I enjoyed every minute of it. I need to play through this at least one more time. Lone small criticism: the level is really into locks. Once I was inside, I was shocked at the number of places still locked, and with 3, 4, or more sequences to the unlocking many times. And once you get the Still, that's a tiny criticism in an incredible level. One of my favorites ever. Incredible job!

I'm currently playing through the entire Thomas Porter series, so naturally this was my first stop. I'm going to make up for this review with my incredibly glowing review for Knighton Manor, but Mandrasola wasn't my favorite. There are some fun touches, like the frozen ship in the distance and sliding on the ice, that are incredible, taken alone. I actually giggled like an idiot the first time I slid on the ice. The visuals inside the hideout are occasionally great too, with the machinery and boats and such making it feel authentic. I feel like absolute shit saying anything bad about missions, knowing what goes into them, and I've greatly enjoyed several other of your levels. But that was my experience. Knighton Manor was an absolute delight, though, and I already loved Glenham, and I'm looking forward to the rest, so I hope my words here don't come off the wrong way. I also realize I'm in the minority with this review, but wanted to be honest.

@Sotha - looks like there's a texture off on the left hand side there, but it may be that the depth of the room is playing tricks with my eyes. Otherwise, cool! Especially since I realize you weren't showing us that pic to highlight the wall.

Lol, well this was a fun read. I say leave it open. Future generations deserve to see this.

Just played this on the "default" difficulty. Timed has no appeal to me, and I figured I'd go through once on normal before the mega-test of the light gem shenanigans, which I may or may not have the stomach for...we'll see. I greatly enjoyed it, and have no serious complaints to issue. Excellent job! Since this is the first mission that I've played after making my first mission in DR, I have a renewed appreciation for the work that goes into scripted sequences and map creation. In particular, the balance of lighting in the streets for the following sequence at the beginning felt just right. And the visuals, while more understated than many missions, complement the mission excellently. I hit "Excellent" by accident in the poll. Go ahead and assume one of the "Excellents" is a "Near Perfect" in the visuals category. More details in the spoilers. You seem to like to try new things and push the envelope with something in your missions. While the alternate play styles probably aren't my thing (though I'm curious about the "always visible" setting), I have nothing but respect for making the attempt to try something completely different.

It's a deliberately small level. There's more than just the main house, but also not a ton more. If you followed the readables' clues to the poet's loft and explored briefly above a couple of the ancillary buildings, that's all there is. But it was never intended to be anything more...in fact, the original layout I had planned was even smaller. So I'm sorry you didn't enjoy it, but if the size was the primary complaint, I'll happily concede the point.