dw1

I have been away from TDM for quite a few months so I'm not sure if I figured this out before but then forgot it. Is it possible to "select all" and download all available FMs with the in-game downloader?

Do you remember the T2 mission? Ah just as I wrote that I remembered, in Precious Cargo (the stowaway mission). Well anyway nice work.

Just finished this. I thought the in-game 'cinematics' were very well done. Good voice acting by whomever that was. The guard patrols were well crafted but the amount of security seemed rather disproportionate to such a modest residence. It seemed like a flat in a wealthy part of a city. I also liked the flashes of originality - the walk-in freezer for example, the unique safe. I think an earlier comment said this was your first map? If so I think you have a lot of potential. I think it could use a little more difficulty on the highest setting. The ghosting requirement is good but maybe split the main indoor guard into two guards, one for each floor. In any case I would definitely not add a key to the outside guard. You're given ample time to pick that lock as long as you don't forget yourself.

I know this is and old topic but... Nice little gem of a mission. I thought the moving lights and the guard patrols were very well synchronized to make for a difficult but not unreasonable challenge. One complaint relating to non interactable lanterns: I cautiously snuck up to the stern and approached the lantern, the sole light source up there, knowing that the patrolling guard was very close to turning around and looking in my direction. It turned out not to be interactable and so I was pretty much dead in the water when the guard approached my position. I don't know if there is a design manifesto for TDM but there are a few principles I have noticed in the better missions that I think should be followed universally: 1. Consumable types of objects should always be interactable: for example one FM used the health potion model as a non interactable item on a kitchen shelf. 2. There should be non interactable light sources and interactable light sources, and by convention each should have a distinct look. It just doesn't make any sense in-game that the thief would run up to a lamp and find that... it's somehow beyond the powers of a human to turn it off. 3. Ideally guard types would have the same AI properties across all FMs, but I can see why this would not be worth the restriction it would place on the FM designers who are of course not working in concert.

Very tidy. I didn't know about the extra water arrows. By most efficient way I meant for a speed run. I accidentally had the opportunity to try this once and it looked like it would have worked, again assuming the chest can be picked.

Sorry for the late post. This mission was a tough nut to crack on expert without saving. I never found a "clean" solution. The most efficient solution is probably too create a distraction and run away from it, because in some cases you can get every single guard looking for you leaving the loot unattended.

My point was ironmaning has this as an unintended consequence of dying and repeating.

Very well-crafted map. I like smaller maps and I like built-in challenges like the one KO limit. When I started playing TDM I was surprised to find that none of the maps had a ghost or ghost-lite difficulty because I assumed a lot of the seasoned players like to play that way.

Thanks for the suggestions, I will likely try all of them. Ironmaning Sir Talbot's I realized what excellent training it is for a speed run. The more you die the better you memorize how to rapidly get back to where you left off. It becomes almost muscle memory as someone said in another thread.

Funny you mention that, I chose Sir Talbot's Collateral. 2 hours and 10 minutes in I... The FM is excellent. Not sure how I feel about the decision to ironman it. It adds a lot of tension, making some lockpicking spots almost excruciating. But of course it gets frustrating. I had about 6-7 deaths quite early on, usually when I had misjudged the full range of an NPC's path.

I've been averse to quicksaves for a while but I also don't like losing progress. I guess that means I like the risk of failure but not failing. So I would like some recommendations for FMs without many potentially "cheap" spots, or where running and hiding from an alerted guard is not going to snowball into being chased by an angry mob. Oh and a small TDM suggestion, unless I missed it you might add a function to batch select FMs for download in the in-game downloader.

You need the decorated key or ornate key or something like that to open the vault, correct? There was something wrong then. Like I said it was less than one and a half hours, and I did not have the decorated key in my possession. I seem to get all the strange bugs. Off to try the two FMs you mentioned now.

I would consider adding a tip along the lines of "heavy objects can be pushed by standing or crouching against them and pressing forward" to the load screen of St. Lucia. I had learned that in the tutorial but didn't execute it properly when trying the hammer which left me quite stumped. A nudge from the load screen might have inspired me to try it again. Likewise a note about how to carry bodies rather than drag them. I did do the tutorial but I had a crash in the object manipulation part so I may have cut it short. I played all of Tears without knowing how to carry bodies. And I too did not realize the tunnel lead to the church, fwiw. Also regarding the "nihilism" I agree and I like it. The anti-clerical argument that the theft and defacing are acts of justice seems false when you consider that (1) you are presumed to be acting on behalf of a rival vicar and (2) judging from the found texts the local priest is in fact benevolent and does bring some solace to the local poor. This is a hard medieval world, the masses are going to take their opiate in one form or another.

A happy update, I managed to get out of my tight spot by locking Larkin in the other guys room. Hitting the loot limit was very tough and I only just made it after finding the loot stashed behind the tapestry in someone's flat. I must have missed a major loot source somewhere. I did find the sewers but didn't acquire anything there. Anyway I really enjoy the writing and atmosphere in your missions. They have a kind of grittiness I like. I guess my only concrete advice for this one would be to either take out the time limit on shadow difficulty or make it more explicit in the description. Also what other FMs have you done? I've only played this one and A Score To Settle and would like to play more.

I ran up against the time limit in shadow difficulty and have broken the mission for myself. I'm down in the basement and have cleared out every room except the locked room where the fence and his contact were doing business. Now they're coming down to the basement and I can't keep them from the room with the safe which triggers mission failure. I actually have a work around. I was able to beat them to the room and block the door with a bundle. I should be able to no-clip out of there while they keep trying to open the door. But still it's pretty annoying as I had taken the difficulty descriptions to imply that only the one difficulty has a time limit. Also I think my total play time at that point was about 1.5 hours, so my time in that actual playthrough should have been even less. Is there something wrong here? I was taking my time but not taffing about or anything. PS - Excellent mission :-).

Oh I have been shooting near the ground, which is what I did in the Thief games. Incidentally when I said "I tried it on the head of the guards" that was perfectly ambiguous - I meant I tried it on the chief guard.

Regarding the gas arrows, in all three In The North missions I have tried gas arrowing enemies and never had success. I am shooting quite close to where they're standing. I think in some cases I have actually hit their bodies. I believe every time the enemy in question was helmeted, which may have nothing to do with it. If there's a way to make an in-game recording to post I could try that. I think in In The North 1 I tried it on the head of the guards, the one with the grilled helmet. In In The North 3 I tried it on guards in conversation and guards in the sewers.

Thanks for the reply. I seem to get the bug consistently. The first time I got it I was able to defer it for a few minutes by quickloading, but then as I made progress and saved the bug seemed to get more and more locked in. Eventually I wound up with a save where the guard dies about 4 seconds after loading. I think I tried reloading that save twice and got the same result. (Maybe this save would be useful to you for debugging?) Then I tried a new playthrough and got the same bug in what felt like the same amount of progress. I can't remember if I tried quickloading, I may have just given up.

Is there a hack to get around the dead guard bug? I noticed there's a console command to remove all NPCs but that's too drastic. Is there a way to make all NPCs unkillable?

I just finished this mission and thought it was excellent. I particularly liked the music in the roof area, whatever triggers when you leave the gaol if there is more than one piece. Dark throbbing ambient music. It reminded me of T2. Where did it come from? Since I'm posting here I'll offer a few suggestions: [i'm not sure how to do spoiler tags but there's not much here.] 1. Judging from my experience the loot limit should be raised on expert. I achieved the loot objective before even entering the gaol, which takes away some of the thrill of the hunt. (I normally make the opposite criticism with respect to some TG and T2 maps.) 2. I thought there were a few points in the roof section where it was a little too hard to figure out where to go. One of them was when you're leaving the building that is being remodeled and you wind up having to drop down on some ropes. I also found the egress point from the church a little too elusive. I like difficulty and there's no perfect fit for everyone, just relating my experience. You could add some subtle pointers with light or make the map more suggestive. 3. The rooftop writings were a little confusing and I'm not sure I was able to keep track of all the bit players. I also thought In The North 1 should have had the number of writings pruned down a bit. Or alternatively add some auto-notes. But then auto-notes could be misleading when they're just for background lore and not related to mission objectives. 4. Are helmeted guards immune to gas arrows?

I like not-so-large missions. I think my favorite mission so far of the four I've played is A Score to Settle, which I thought was refreshingly concentrated and intense. (Btw Springheel, was the setting of your mission modeled on old East End London? The main villain felt a bit like a Kray-type psychopathic London crim.) Not entirely on topic, how is the volume of FMs being produced these days for the original Thief trilogy? I skipped right to TDM after playing through the first three games so I am not familiar with that scene at all.

I just played through In The North part 1 and experienced the same problem. I have also played Lucia's Tears and a Score to Settle and experienced it there as well. It looks like when I enter a new area where NPCs are active I get a big slowdown,usually to about 40 FPS but it can hit 0 or 15. I'm not sure if it's goes back to normal on its own or because I'm either KOing or leaving the area. It seems to be a CPU issue. (I have a GTX 760 with an i7 4770k). I have AA turned off and everything else maxed. I tried turning 'threading optimization' or whatever it's called off in the Nvidia Control Panel and turning it off seemed to modestly hurt performance, so I turned it back on. I can live with the performance but of course would prefer to fix it. I figured it was just a problem of optimization. My GPU fans are not audible through any of this and it's also clear from the graphical context that the GPU is not being overtaxed. I'll try turning off EAX in a moment. EDIT - Couldn't immediately reproduce the problem, I'll see when I try a new FM tomorrow. By the way TDM is a really outstanding piece of work. Congratulations to those of you have worked on it.