TheUnbeholden
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Days Won
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Posts posted by TheUnbeholden
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Something really cool about this mission, its the tight streets, that are more like back alleys... its that sort of style that puts emphasis on getting passed guards with the skin of your teeth or forcing you to take the high road, climbing is fun for me. I'm fast so I run, jump and climb like a ninja.
This whole level is beautiful with finally a small taste of the undead I have had yet to see... I went up to the corpse only to my surprise he sits up right into my face
The builders place was a bit weird to see such a easy to get into building, I have always come against heavily fortified Builder churches, cathedrals and underground machine laboratories... this time it was a cake walk. I loved the climbable vines/wooden wall, haven't seen that before.
The gameplay was as good as it could be expected but there was always something illogical, like having to leave Rowan's tip on his desk, and I couldn't find where his place is... there was no mention of it anywhere besides the note on the actual door to his room and there is no map leaving that compass of mine cold and alone, surely I would have scribbled a little map of mine by scouting the place before hand. Can't go in blind wandering around the place can I.
Also the player should have some options as to what optional tools to bring like the spyglass and a lantern eventhough I don't use them. Some shop options would be nice.
The storyline is more of a compliment to the map rather than something noteworthy.
There was also a pretty hard to get secret spot up ontop of the buildings
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Briefing: Excellent, polished, professional
Story: Best ever of any Dark Mod FM I think so far. Probably.
The book was a bit lengthy. It could be reduced in length and still give the same info.Visuals: Near perfect in the mines. Best ever mines. Lighting superb. 'Organic' in its curves. Wonderful. Top tower also excellent. Floors in between were OK but by comparison, lacking in interest and several empty flat lit rooms. Given the time this is understandable. Ideally it would be nice if something could be done with these floors to perfect the FM. Maybe a dozen AI on each floor and add interest to those rooms and light them better. I know its abandoned but it needs some way to make those sections interesting.
Verticality. Excellent in many places, mainly in the mines. A lot of the later verticality was elevators. Might benefit from villain deliberately smashing those so you have to climb through debris.
Interest: Lots. Even in the middle weak areas I didn't actually know that until I'd done them so constantly absorbed wondering what was around the corner. I had a couple of girly squeal moments when unexpected things happened.
Gameplay: Excellent, near perfect in the best sections. Only the one thing I mentioned in my spoiler above should somehow be forced on the player, maybe a new objective 'take the flask blah blah' since it is so important. But considering the size and and many things in it, it all went very smoothly apart from that. I guess it is fairly linear.
Debriefing/End 'video': Staggeringly good. Best ever (well I don't think we've had an end one yet but best anyway.) And TWO versions of it depending on the player! I can't believe you went to that trouble!
I actually thought the FM was light on exposition (the lack of readables, apart from 1 probably contributed to that), but its has a good premise. The FM's strengths are some good scripted sequences.. like the bad guy trying to prevent your progress and the drunk guard ranting to himself, and the end briefing is something I love eventhough it didn't give us anything we could have easily guessed.
Oh and the briefing was good but I always expect every FM to have that.
And I always love diaries that actually look like diaries in games by having a fair bit of writing...
The mission although looks great doesn't give much in terms of gameplay either apart from exploring which you get in every FM, the lack of looting is understandable it being a mine and all (still found myself missing some loot) and the lack of guards is also understable. My only real criticism apart from the lack of readables is that the 2 floors before getting to the main elevator are sort of bland filler, with just 1 or 2 rooms with one loot item. It could have been something a tad more difficult.
The only real gameplay element that adds something is using the fire flask but it was obvious.
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did this get translated?
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Love the name for the mod, reminds me of something, like something I read in a thief mission before or maybe in Morrowind.
The image has some discoloration at the bottom of it and its a bit dark, but otherwise it does well to tease us with a unique look of dusk at a castle.
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I've always wanted a ship level...
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I liked it for the most part, the hints I found did little for me as I'd already discovered what to do before reading them (except the one where you have to fire a arrow at the jar). The mission also did something I've never quite felt before, make me feel bad for robbing the place. In particular destroying a priceless statue...
they where going to fix the town.
I didn't much like the environments, far to cramped even in the cathedral. Felt more like tunnels, much like thes which you had to go through in order to reach the cathedral in the first place.
The priest model took me by surprise, didn't know there way one. Felt like some people would feel if they saw one of those new inventors guild models (who haven't read the latest patch notes) which we will probably see soon..
Its also something of a template for future campaigns in terms of its visual design being so elaborate to attention to detail like all those notices pinned up on the walls that you can read which we rarely see in other games.
Visual style/audio 4
Gameplay 3 (Builders always are tough bastards, short length)
Story/text 3 (I liked to see the builders view on things eventhough there wasn't an abundance of it due to the shorter game length than I was expecting)
PS- lol @ helios apollo's walkthrough, I also knocked the gold plates off the table by selecting the candle by mistake, only I did while the guard was still walking around ... twice
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One thing that I would have liked for this FM is exploration. There where about 2 doors that can't be opened (I suggest removing the door handle on those). But what I really felt that this FM is missing, is rooftop sections! This is the sort of map that should feel like a big junkyard! Where there are many secret places that you can get lost in. And should feel like a maze. I was expecting that and got zilch
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I played Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines 3 times without realizing the existence of the hotkey menu (until a mod alerted me about it). I played Oblivion for ages without accessing its hotkey menu until I did google search on it when I got annoyed with the lack of weapon cycle buttons. Now the grab button is playing hide and seek
I seriously need to know about Skyrim's details.
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oh and don't get me wrong though! I loved the story (the length of the dairies startled me at first XD but when you think about its realistic because in real life people seem to want to write down all their thoughts). The underground part in particular had good tension, the use of the clanging sounds really got my hairs to stand on end. And the mission looked unusually good considering its in daylight, I wasn't expecting it to look this good because of the dark nature of TDM being its main visual appea-l but the textures are all quite nice. Though I expected the maze to be a bit more... maze-y
that ice spreading skull coming towards me actually scared me
It was a while since I last played this mission so I cannot remember all the details and may be wrong on the names, but the reason for Oscar not paying you is that he ended up in the frost land himself, after taking over the farm.
Why wouldn't the protagonist be so evil that he could frame Alma? He's not exactly a well doer, he's only in for it for the money and besides, he suspects that the sole reason Oscar hires you is because he WANTS to frame Alma. Also he takes the opportunity to steal stuff. But to be fair, I briefly remember me and my fellow designer Ziggun discussed this ending and I believe he was sceptical to it. But the reason for adding it was to wrap up the ideom in the title; Reap as you sow. Everybody got what they deserve; Carl stealed the statue, Oscar wanted to frame Alma, Bernhard summoned the pagan band to kill his father, Alma was bitter not to inherit and it's quite unclear how she took over the farm. And you are a common thief and framed Alma that actually was innocent to the death of her father so you didn't get any money from Oscar.
And yes you are right that it fits the Title perfectly heh the end text gave it away
at first I thought the ending cinematic was the father but now I realize that the father wears green clothes so it must be Oscar
I suppose that its all about the complex nature of morality. I think stealing is morally ok aslong as its from the wealthy but framing someone so they could be sent to prison is stretching it for me :/
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Finished it, and I must say that this FM is a challenge, but for the wrong reason.
Rather then avoiding patrols, skulking in shadows, its a game of trial and error to not move around while someone is watching in your direction. Leaning around corners is useless because you will be instantly spotted if you do that.
This I think is what the FM should have fixed. Leaning around corners IMO should only cause suspicion, not cause the guard to instantly run at you and hack you down or the maid to go crazy in shock and run away.
Also if you alert someone then they should not kill you merely ask you to leave the premises & follow you until you do, if you don't then they would knock you out or something like that (why would someone stab you to death for stepping on a bed of roses, or for jumping on to a hedge or splashing around in the water around the statues? These people aren't red necks
)Thats my main issue with this mod is simply lacks the realism of the situation making stealth in broad daylight a painful shore rather then a challenge.
Theres the guard, and a maid that constantly go outside, and Alma is constantly moving around the pool table, dining room and study. (why the study of all places? considering there is no where to hide in there you will instantly be spotted).
But apart from this I have only nitpicks, like theres a mirror in the house and when you look at it you are wearing Thief's leather armor and mask... but when you leave the (high tension) restricted grounds, everybody doesn't seem to notice that your dressed as an assassin. So I assume that your character is actually dressed normally, like a detective would.
A minor issue is the sewer part where you find the amulet, its really hard to get on the ladder (had to noclip out).
My last issue is the ending, why did you have to frame Alma. I was a little shocked at that and would never have done that. Why couldn't you just tell the truth minus a few details?
Bernard was the one who hired the Pagans to go to farm and kill Oscar, they failed and where driven back. So Bernard had decided to finish off Carl off himself (thinking Oscar & father is dead), and probably had asked him to go down into the sewer with him. They had a fight and Bernard got his head slashed (thats how I killed him
) and Oscar was severely injured and died of the frost down there. Bernard had his diary with him probably planning on disposing it considering in it he admits to his evil deeds.Nobody found out about this because the sewers where off limits.
And father is still out there somewhere...searching.
Simple. Done.
You have the evidence for it to back it up.
Why you had to force the player to do something so immoral is sort of beyond me.
Oscar wouldn't have payed you anyway,
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AI patrols were decent, but rather unimaginative.
There were doors which were unfrobable, and looked exactly the same like the frobable ones. It's annoying to take a risk to reach a door which turns out to be only a prop. Maybe leave the handle out from the unfrobable ones in the future?
There could have been some readables and other backgroud info: why the thugs were there? Who was the boss? Maybe some letters home by some of the thugs? Without any the locale didn't feel very real and immersive.
I agree the AI felt very out of place here. I understand that every FM needs 2 things.
Loot and AI
but I think this is one of those instances if you don't want to put the work in to make them look as if they have made the place their home then you shouldn't include them.
I know that would make for a boring mod, but a little bit of atmosphere and things to find and you can be surprised how good a FM can be...Take illusionists Tower for example, or you could put monsters instead.
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This thread now has a poll so vote away
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Finally !! A mod set on a ship... I found it short but sweet, although the upper part felt a tad unrealistic for having those wooden boards spaced out so much, it looked like it wouldn't pass any safety tests to get to fly
It gets a lower score for having a captain that doesn't look like one, but gives us the raison d'etra of steam punk.
Its a shame the player doesn't get to look inside the Pandora's Box, feels a bit cheap as it is the selling point of the FM, or I would imagine.
Its a tad small, especially for a ship (actually an airship should be just as big as a regular ship although maybe more aerodynamic design (instead of hydrodynamic).
Not killing the captain is a good idea
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The teleportation stopped once it started to get a little annoying. I think it was decent, gameplay was a little freaky with that teleportation, going down the same halls and getting this eerie music that fit perfectly. The whole tower reminded me of a movie...
The Cube. The way the guy said theres a puzzle box at the basement of the Tower, that realigns itself every 8 days. The tower probably a reflection of it.
And that part with the ferry man, heh was random but amusing.
The spiders where pretty much blind, I suppose lack of light, but seriously the Tower was freaky enough not to need some weak spiders for anything. I think the premise of flesh eating cockroaches would be enough to keep us scared, funnily enough this is another FM from stumpy that does not feature a new creature where it suggested one was around
Grave diggers note was a tad weird. Why do the grave diggers go there? And what location where they talking about with the cockroaches?
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hmm I like the fact that story is told through spoken dialogue, (which is something which Thief games did alot mainly through the protagonist you play as, Garrett) but thats not really what this is about... something that Thief and TDM do well is how the story is told through initial cutscenes (intro), readables, eavesdropping & being a peeping Tom. And the gameplay when designed well is to take advantage of this. This FM seems to take a different approach to Thief and takes on a grand quest that isn't to do with stealing (though to be fair he did originally go out into the woods to rob a large, lowly populated houses), conversing with friendlies (which is something almost unheard of in Thief, Garrett was quite the anti-socialite, conversing with himself usually
) and the generally more exploration based locale.Its a different tune that seems to work well in Thief, because the fundamental aspects for a action RPG are all already there (minus the character customization like attributes/traits/skills that you would spend experience points & gain from completing objectives... which could take some time to implement and probably wouldn't be polished enough nor would the FM be able to take much advantage of anyway).
I will give more indepth opinion soon.
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My main problem is that the FM was far to short, there should have been a big build up to the fight with the mage, like a castle maze with many rooms, stairs, guards in action RPG fashion.
The one corridor we got had a few doors which don't open
If this mod ever gets overhauled I think it should get a expanded storyline, and bigger castle.
My nitpicks are that in the library, you can't actually read anything. Not very libraryish. Just a few readables would be nice, and its weird that I can't climb the 2 ladders there. Maybe its just the Thief in me talking, but considering there are readables elsewhere and you can still loot stuff (once a Thief always a Thief, even when saving the land from a eternal winter
) it seems weird to overlook this prime location.Heart of Lone Salvation had a library by Fidcal and it had some readables open on tables.
Come to think of it I have honestly have never seen a in game library where you can read everything. It would be amazing if someone could accomplish this, I know that Oblivion/Morrowind had tons of places where you can go through some houses or stores that are almost like a library.
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I(which is, again, not realistic at all, not your fault oviously, but the way they coded the monster, you CANNOT fool a wolf's sense of smell, they would catch your scent dozens of meters away, and also the hearing, which is freaking good on pretty much all canines; now that I think of it, I think it's safe to say they also see clearly in the dark, at least many times better than us... What I'm saying is that they should be basicly stalking-proof
).. Totally agree. I personally think that while a wolf is a excellent hunter and impossible to sneak right up to it or passed it unless you keep a distance of at least 20 metres... a werewolf is a like a incredibly powerful version of it that not only would have those heightened senses but also have a highly strong, fast, and regenerative body that easily makes them the most powerful creature in the world.
It could take on a elephant and win, other various lions, leopards, jaguar, grizzly bear. Perhaps a Cheetah might beat it speed wise but aside from that a werewolf is king of the jungle. You would have to find tricks to beat it like explosive arrows, flashbang, a few land mines, but if you don't have all that then its basically about keeping a distance from it... or run like hell when it comes and prey you have a rope arrow to get to high ground or barricade a door. If anything I think it should be upped senses wise for the following Dark Mod v1.7
It should be the most challenging AI to come up against.
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Nice I think I would have to try this one first before the Halloween FMs
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Cool
But I wonder why the mission didn't complete at the top of the well. I put quite a thick brush there and tried it out several times with no problems. I guess on occasion it takes extra time crossing through the clip brush to trigger the mission end.
Sorry to hear that. Also,
those 'lizards' are werebeasts (werewolves).
BAHAHAHA.. Lizards? Who could make a mistake like that.
Also what is this madness about a Plaque mask, whats the deal with that issue.
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To cover this: What version of TDM are you running, and might the file extension happen to be .zip instead of .pk4?
Latest. Its pk4.
It wasn't so much a serious question as a gently worded suggestion that you try something different....since the manual method didn't seem to be working so well for you. Why wouldn't you use the built-in downloader? Is there some secret downside of which I am unaware?
whenever I download something I want to have a physical copy of it elsewhere, and I very rarely download if from my own home... public computers don't have TDM installed.
and who knows what sort of stuff the inbuilt downloader is putting on my computer.
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I wonder if these files somehow got set to "read only" during download.
No
This isn't Linux, right?
its not Linux.
I know I've seen downloaded files be set to "owned by root" in Ubuntu so that would also be a problem... The closest to that kinda thing I've seen in Windows is UAC permissions (etc.)?
No
I don't know the solution to the problem, but I do know that I've played Siege Workshop without any issue. I haven't downloaded the other two you mentioned yet. Are you downloading via TDM's built-in downloader?
Thats a dumb question considering I just said I copied the pk4 into my fm folder, so obviously I download the pk4 without using the TDM downloader. And no I will not be forced to use it.
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I put alberic, siegeshop, and rake_off into my fm folder... but for some reason a folder wasn't created for them when I start TDM it doesn't detect them in my mission list... when I exit the game and go to the fm folder, the pk4 files are still there and a folder wasn't automatically created for them for some reason.. am I missing something here? Why are they the only pk4 files that don't get detected by the game?
if there is problem with these 3 fan missions then why didn't they come with a readme or something.
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I didn't fix any grammar....
Yeah I was wondering... since when has Springheel finished his year 12 English?
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I've been playing games since the early 80's. I played the Ultimas, Wasteland, The Bard's Tale all the way through to now. Thief is probably my favourite game of all time. I played a LOT of hours exploring every nook and cranny...and it was the only game that affected the way I behaved in real life (after a period of intense playing, I found myself hugging the walls and keeping to shadows a little too much). Suffice to say I loved the game.
Something happened similar to Yahtzee (AKA the best video game critic). He was going home one night and tried to stay away from lamp posts, looking for his light gem.\
When you play a game so immersing that really keeps you occupied its bound to have a profound affect on you.
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Yeah I've been spreading the word around some thief sites, including the members of the thief 4 forum, and moddb. This latest version really fixes my issue with the game. You guys really deserve as many thief fans as possible backing you up. Now is better time then ever, especially considering Doom 3 can be gotten for $20 on steam (I got it for $5 on a weekend sale).
I've joined the group, and first time I've added a non-steam game to me list, changed the shortcut name from tdmlauncher.exe to The Dark Mod.
Congrats for everyone who has contributed and stuck with TDM.
Noise maker issue
in TDM Tech Support
Posted · Edited by TheUnbeholden
anyone noticed their noisemaker arrows aren't attracting or alerting guards.. or anyone for that matter.
Is there some sort of way to check and modify how much noise they make via the console?
I've checked on several maps just to make sure.