ERH+
-
Posts
859 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
44
Posts posted by ERH+
-
-
I'm glad of any feedback even if it could be unpleasant (and your is not), so I can make more playable maps in future. I will even fix a bit this mission by changing number of loot, crystals and food, apart of rising a bit difficulty level.
-
*It was in polish, russian would have different font i think.
And I'm glad you enjoyed mission then and now.
*I think you reffering to "sword_sheath" sound played by this little moving staple in window shutter.
-
I want to know if you think game may require some pen and paper notes, maps, sketches, passwords, etc. , and find it as part of fun?
One of my ideas is to encrypt some of readables (as they suppose to be in foreign language) with simple keyword, so you need to exchange every "X" letter with "Y" to read text properly. But is it worth to try, if some of players will hate it?
-
1
-
-
Bottle of water is in dissection room, entrance is behind sliding banner in crypt, or you can dive through dump pipe near unfinished bridge.
-
Questions -
1---I spent a bit of time searching round the dining room for the person who said "Help me" as I thought that it might be a hidden objective but gave up in the end as I assumed it was just for atmosphere even though the voice wasn't of a haunt
2---I didn't find the dangerous beast which has been locked in the dungeon other than the big spider in the cage which I killed
Frame rate -
3---The only place I hit a problem was trying to get from the roof through the upper window with a beam sticking out below it - frame rate dropped and it was worse when a haunt passed by the open window
4---Food -
No problems with three of them as they were in places where you would expect them. The last one (where I needed a specific hint
) was in a totally non obvious or logical place and must have been put there just to make it difficult 
- that was the only part where a got a bit annoyed.1,2---At some point of upgrading mission, I start add jump scares and mood hints, in hope that they will be properly placed in presented story. But it eluded out of my mind that whole story is just on three randomly hide, not numbered sheets of paper, and player is expecting more visual presentation of story.
3---There was some huge performance problems and rendering errors in roof area, so one spot frame rate drop had to be tolerable for me as it is not obvious issue.
4---I think it is more about density of details, when I place something small yet important in so deserted area as 6 floored staircase, you will just pass by it running. My fault.
1---The first thing that I've noticed is that there is a pre game shop in this mission. That's a bit confusing, as the briefing says that you've lost your stuff and then you can just buy one?
2---After that the mission started quite good. The atmosphere and the tension was on a very high level. Geometry and detailing was not that high, but the FM looks good anyways. The only thing that bothered me after a while is that you've used the same textures almost everywhere, what makes orientation really hard.
3---But the mission itself grew quite tiresome after a while, as I was just aimlessly wandering around searching for loot, crystals and supplies. Also finding the water was a bit strange, as I just stumbled over the secret entrance leading to the room (laboratory?) where it was, without having found any clue leading to it. Also afterwards I never found anything pointing to it, so I'm a bit curious how you expect the players to find it. Same goes for the crystals.
4---So to sum it up, I think this mission has a high potential. The atmosphere is very good and the optical site is ok, too. But unless someone plays the FM who loves exploration this mission holds a lot possibilities of frustration.
5---Gameplay: 3/5 The idea is quite good, but you can get stuck really fast. In addition you don't give the player much hints on where to go first or next, so the only option is to search room by room by room. Another point I dislike is that the crystal and loot objective on the highest difficulty seem quite harsh to me. 8 of 9 (hidden!) crystals and 2000 of 2195 loot is really, really high. Also, why is cheese the only food you can use as rations. I've completely overseen the first one as I just didn't expected them to be important. And again, you have to find all the 4 pieces.
6---Visual: 3/5 You've managed to create a good looking place with a relative low amount of details. The inner yard looked great btw. But your repetive use of textures is not on the good sight.
7---Readables/Story: 2/5 Basically I liked the idea behind your mission. But there is a dramatically lack of information what makes the chance to get stuck quite high. I also didn't understand why this place is haunted, but maybe I missed that.
1---Yes that was pointless, I think I just want to learn how to use this part of game (and I still have problems with that, as you can see there is doubled map in inventory).
2---It is just major flaw in this map designing -huge outer area forces us to take every possible way for optimisation, number of textures is just one of them.
3---I would call it lack of direction in my work. I intended a standard, small mission where I will able to complete all my assumptions and execution of objectives will be as easy as it can be-thats why I decided I will just multiple a task like "collect X of something".
My major target in this map was "as non linear as it can be", and "no fake windows or doors, no houses filled with stone" and while story line was still just scattered on 3 sheets of paper, I was busy developing architectonical posibilities.
So you are right, there is no real reason for character to avoid living dead for all night in search of unknown price. Dead man's diary is rather excuse for simplest objectives I could make, and it was unforgivable to make them not hard but tiresome to complete.
4---Well, player expectations are not something I can plan. I was always think about Thief as a more logical succesor of Doom's invisible secret walls, and knocking on everything can be pleasure, as long as it is pleasure -if player is getting tired and bored and he don't want to finish mission, it is my and only my fault -but goal is still the same and I don't want develop mission as a movie fabula from point A to B to C. It should be maze as twisted and big as I can afford, but I need to keep player focused and with hope of win. But if player just don't want to wander aimlessly, instead he expect theatrical chapters and space bended by storyline-he is not my target.
5---It's reminds me Thief1 fan mission where author rename difficulty level to "impossible", maybe this will do the trick
. But you've got the point, as I said objectives are generic and difficulty is artificialy raised. On map where finding a way is a main tool of player, it is still good to scatter targets, but they could be more rewarding.6---Single building in open area was a big mistake in planning this mission, and low number of texture was -as i thought- less annoying countermeasure for bad performance. In general this open space was a trap, as we keep flying in "no clip" mode and repetitively encounter disastrous triscounts. It was hard to find good level for details in this deserted outer area as it can be crossed by player at many angles.
7---Yes, story was put on a hook and poorly merged with physical objects in map. It was intended to be readable, but i should try to force player to focus on it in one way or another. Main story become a trinket, and player become frustrated while competing his meal.
Maybe I should add more haunts?I finished this on expert and I liked it. The location and story premise were interesting. The mission looked good and performed well. I only voted "tolerable" on gameplay (which is a bit harsch maybe). But playing on expert difficulty I expect challenging AI and not a hunt for hidden stuff with no hints how to find it. Having to look online where the last item is when you have done everything else is not fun.
That damn food item on the tower!
And how are you supposed to find the secret door in the hallway behind the metal door? I saw that just by pure luck.
This secret room have small window to courtyard, I thought thats more than enough.
1---The mission flat out dispels some of the assumptions about the mod -- it has a huge exterior part, and only produces a slowdown very occasionally. And with such a huge presence from the outset, scaling the tower and defeating its challenges really feels like an epic undertaking. This mission has scale.
2---It also has non-linearity up the wazoo. The various ways you can get around both inside and outside is exemplary, and everyone who makes maps ought to take notice. I also liked the secrets; in fact, the sense of discovery reminded me of The Enterprise, a very old mission (which has been released for both Thief games), and I mean it as the highest form of praise.
3---People who point out the sneaking is too easy are IMO missing the point - we are almost all very experienced Thief players, so of course it is going to be easy. There is no way around that. But this mission has lots of immersive stuff, visual storytelling, interesting non-standard objectives and creatively designed AI.
4---Its weaknesses are that clues are maybe too thin, and object hunting can become too drawn-out on higher difficulties... but, well, that's what higher difficulties are for. And really, there is so much to praise that it should cancel out the criticism.
5---One thing I could not figure out:
Is there any secret related to the mirrors? They look too elaborate to be random decoration... are they?
1---Sure it is good to put whole map in line of sight, but blame my lack of knowledge about engine performance -it was realy hard to cut all those empty spaces with Visportals and make them work properly.
2---As I said before, it was my main goal -I'm happy it succeeded.
3---Yes, I would more likely done mission without even single hostile AI, or like this cozy little room on roof in T3 Old Quarter vis a vis Hammerites cathedral. Ofcourse this spell will break as soon as you encounter swarms of flies over several bodies... So much about building homogeneous mood.
4---Thanks! I will try my best next time -after all I just learning on ground of this one.
5---No, I tried to make better use of them, but they produce rendering errors quite often. And I can't apply this surface to breakable objects, so I just had to give up with some of ideas.
-
Regarding the last piece of food -
I have been all over the SE tower and even using no clip through all the upper rooms I can't find it
Just in corner of one of narrow windows.
Yes, one is armed, one you can pick and use, and rest are just static models.About the mines - I managed to pick up one and used it on the steam beast just to see what would happen. One of the others couldn't be picked up (it just exploded) and the rest didn't seem to do anything -
There are 9 crystals:
3 in chest in cargo elevator bay;
1 in water below crane;
1 in chest, bottom of N-W staircase;
1 in chest in auditorium;
1 in masonry room;
1 in purple lighted room with clock;
1 in glass tube, in secret room near prison cell.
-
1
-
-
*#str_0039 (green key) #str_0040 (silver key) looks like repetitive issue but i was thought we got rid of it. It can't be file working from DR/TDM instalation instead of mission.pk4 , or can it?
*Mine trap is just an armed piece of equipment -no trigger zones... Someone else have this problem? And as far as I know you can not picklock an armed mine.
*some of keys are not necessary, but here is a list:
brass key -both bottom tower doors, and door next to food storage room.
dirty key -masonry room, room with clock.
green key -{unpickable} chest in bottom of N-W tower.
silver key -all wall locks in dissecting room.
iron key -{unpickable} courtyard door leading to prison area.
OldChestKey -{unpickable} chest behind "iron key" door.
*last piece of food is
on top of S-E tower.
-
1
-
-
- Popular Post
- Popular Post
Intro:
"East of the Rahen Mountain, there is a swampy area, a backwater of river Rahna. Approximately twenty years ago the Inventors Guild began their effort to secure the rights to the land and presented the construction projects of water dams and locks in endeavour to create a water trails for flat-bottomed vessels.
The prospect of increased economic exchange between the plains and the mountain settlements prevailed over the objections of displeased neighbours and just five years later the water level in ponds allowed for flow of barges.
Good mood of the local lord diminished though, as more and more crops and farms disappeared under the water, wells began to stink, and dysentery started to collect a heavy toll.
Guild excuses that thawing and hardship of communication with lock's staff was to blame didn't resolve the crisis. What did, was a compensation - a one-off shipment of nearly half a ton of rock crystals. This aroused comments among people not normally interested in the Inventors and their dealings.
People like me.
The trail leads to one of inaccessible facilities of the bulkhead oversight in the network of ponds, where, the crystals are mined, pre-processed and sorted out.
Several months later...
Crossing the flooded and deserted five furlongs in one-man boat was risky enough, but I took my chances and tried to take the boat through the lock, to be closer to the guardhouse. The bulkhead mechanism was too complicated for one person to operate though.
Now I don't have the means to go back and water scattered my equipment all over the pond. And with no boat the only way back is a walk along the causeway towards the mountains, but for that I will need to get a good supply of food and water, so not to loose my strength carrying the loot."
Description:
Break in into castle infested by undead.
Thanks:
TDM Team for great tool and their dedication in improving it.
Bikerdude for working out all bugs, optimisation, improving graphics and readables details.
Caer (from Polish Thief forum) for translating.
Testers: AluminumHaste, Baddcog, lowenz, nbohr1more, adriannn (PTF), Nivellen (PTF).
Build time:
Basic playable version 1,5 months, final release after 1 year.
Update info:
Unbelievable how long it was under construction, but I hope you will enjoy exploring this mission .
Can't name all things added to previous version -just tons of them.
Known issues:
Low performance in few spots. Game sometimes freeze a bit in area around building.-
9
-
I almost have no hope this time will be no demolished visportals or other bugs... I give no word for that it will be soon, even as I want to release it tomorrow.
-
You can look around in cockpit while holding Lctrl, and even some of monitors can show actual data (ammo placement in particular locations etc.). But torso should by default have more inertia, so only arms would react for every mouse movement, letting you to look around in cockpit.Thing about Hawken that I really appreciate is that it actually has a far more immersive cockpit view. If you set the cockpit lag to max and look around fast, it is as if like you can turn your view inside the cockpit and it feels much more as if like really sitting in a tight mech cockpit, great design although low res textures. I really wish you could move around like in MWO and freely look around in the cockpit. What I absolutely love is when you move into shade, you see the cockpit turn dark and the avionics still glow. Love stuff like this, feels very real (all about immersion for me I guess).
-
No, I'm talking about customisation of undead skeleton. Just like I can choose head's models of any AI, I want to disable collision and texture for particular limb.
-
Would it be possible to detach skull or arm from animated model? I know it not good idea for right arm or for balanced walk animation, but it could not hurt with existing crippled leg skeleton animation, and when undead swings his right arm he simultaneously throw his ribchest forward so it could look like bite attempt. I understand invisible particular ribs are to much to ask, but rigged parts? And crawling (legless) undeads could be fun too.
-
It is still beta, so there are many more issues -for example I must restart game after few matches, or everything slowing down to 4fps and/or all textures turn into blank yellow sheets.
There are two kinds of SRM, guided and not.
In fact light mechs are no less deadly, especially when enemy is slow and have problems with turning around. and LRM and PPC have minimum range of 90m, so you can do nothing with them if enemy just stick to you.
I mostly play with thermal vision, because targets glowing at any range, even if they are not labelled by targeting system.
-
There is no offline practice mode, but you will die in seconds even when have some experience. Biggest problem is credits income from matches, and devs still reworking it: for first 25 matches you get "cadet bonus", so after 25 matches you will have for sure almost 8KK C-bills, but after that average income per match could be 100.000 -and mechs cost from 2KK to over 10KK. "Practice" starting mechs cannot be customized, and you have to grind hard if you want build some really cool machine. Heart of Mechwarrior was always in checking different sets of engine, armour, heatsinks and various weapons, and devs pull away this best part of game from newbies -definitely it won't help in popularising game..
Here's handy comparison of mechs and weapons, and MWO wiki:
-
In HL1 You had to move in undergrounds, somehow in HL2 they use same rule in apartment blocks. I can't remember how many of them become a one-way street -and it was just laziness of designers.
-
Guys, do You have some architectonic data base of blueprints, of common buildings and city structures? It is easy to find church or castle's plans, but nothing else, and study of genuine mediaeval or later buildings will be vital for anyone who want to work on editor. They are for sure boring, (there will be probably hallway and rooms just on one side of it) but it is no point in inventing of something what we wish to imitate. Or accurate mapping of building facades, is there any site there You can find exhaustive description?
-
One question about light: I have horizontal spot light, and next to it there is a mirror. While I cant see my shadow in FPP on wall, I see my self and my shadow on wall in mirror. I assume a player model is not rendered in FPP, but can I change it?
-
Wow, new city over the lost city. It looks even more odd than I thought.
About technical side, there is still hard to avoid open spaces, it will probably looks like 'rooms' filled with 'opened' building.
-
Sry, I've looked at some 'abandoned places' threads but in vain.That place looks awesome for a tdm mission!, got more info on that building in the picture..?
edit: another shot but still nameless.
-
I love such places, too bad demolished buildings have so complex geometry and it's so hard to place portals...
And here some fine interiors and trinkets:
-
For this point we just have make straight english version, but yeah we should think about multilingual one. I will ask admin to add You to thread, just check out link again later.
-
You should see "Crystal Grave beta" (http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/13724-crystal-grave-beta/) thread in "Editing & Feedback" forum bookmark.
-
Ok, You both are welcome!
Monsters
in The Dark Mod
Posted · Edited by ERH+
You can always alter problem, and turn creature (almost) invisible (but still quite noisy) every time it is alerted. Werebeast is described as shapeshifter, so it could fool player exchanging it's model to something like chest or chair, waiting for player to get closer. Undead ability to see live forces could require use of some protecting amulet: player could read loudly prayer from prayerbook and it make him invisible as long as he have his hands busy with amulet. Or you can alter light role, as undeads are so familiar with shadow, any light source will be barrier preventing them from crossing by.
But I think the best way will be customization of monsters, as surprise and unknown are more intriguing than even best build of rules for werebeast. Maybe some tutorials "how to do fire elemental", some stationary sentient guardian, like gargoyle or turret would be more helpful than fully formed AI.