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Fan Mission: Patently Dangerous (2009/10/31)


demagogue

FM Rating  

20 members have voted

  1. 1. Story

  2. 2. Gameplay

  3. 3. Aesthetics



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Thanks for the comments.

 

btw what the hell is that gas arrow for xDDD

 

It's basically an easter egg, though it's not really hidden well enough to deserve the title. Just there to reward people for exploration.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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Dema-

Kudos on the best FM i've played since ToSL.

 

The good:

It was small enough that I really got to know the layout, but big enough to pack a lot of content and story into a short mission. The difficulty was well balanced, and the pacing was great. Choice of ambiance was flawless, and the visual storytelling *shivers*... Not gonna lie, this FM successfully creeped me out, and I'm not squeemish. You nailed the thief feeling with maybe a nostalgic bit of classic gothic horror, reminiscent of H.P. Lovecraft and Poe.

 

Now the bad:

A few of the rooms were REALLY cramped, and for a building with rooms as small as they were, the cieling seemed a bit high, tho that may have just been my perspective. One of the best examples of this was the childs room were things seemed rather haphazardly placed without regard to actual living (such as the location of the nightstand O_O)

There is some roofing bleeding into the interior of the attic of one of the homes (can't remember the name). There are a few small places where the lighting contrasts were too harsh in the streets.

I'm in yur forumz,

Makin' them frobbable.

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Hi, demagogue!

 

Thanks for the great mission!

 

I played with the highest difficulty, just for more fun, and it appeared too hard - I had to check this thread several times to find out what to do next.

 

I had the "too large save" problem, leading the game to crash during quick load, but I resolved it by loading an earlier save. Someone mentioned AI as possible cause, and I probably agree - it is something intermittent and connected to dynamic processing and needs to be saved/loaded, so AI fits best.

 

Warehouse rules, I felt like in a horror movie. The murderer did not see me though, as I am used to move along the walls, where it is darker.

 

The whole story was great, but maybe you should've allowed more freedom to the player to go through pieces in differnt orders, except the warehouse, of course.

 

If I was responsible for T4, I would hire you and some other folks, who made great FMs! Looking forwad for more missions, maybe some remakes of T2 FMs.

 

P.S. I have played a few missions, but only in this one I had to learn that I am able to shoulder bodies!

Edited by duzenko
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Looking forwad for more missions, maybe some remakes of T2 FMs.

 

We've tried to be as vocal about this as possible, but it's understandable that not everyone will hear about everything.

 

Remakes of T1, T2 or T3 missions can not be supported by the TDM team. It would be illegal, and from our perspective disrespectful to Eidos Interactive. We have been ever so careful to show respect for their property by making TDM similar, yet different to Thief. TDM is 'inspired' by T1 and 2...so if any missions are 'inspired' by a Thief mission, or in a similar spirit...that would be fine, but it can not be an out and out remake...at the very least we can't support it.

 

 

Also, there is a fix for the large save files. I think there is a link to it on our wiki.

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Thanks for the comments duzenko. :)

 

The whole story was great, but maybe you should've allowed more freedom to the player to go through pieces in differnt orders, except the warehouse, of course.

 

I know exactly what you mean. In part, I wanted to make sure a person couldn't avoid entire areas and still finish, but in the future I'll try to be more thoughtful about how to do that so it's more open for the player. For the record, though, I did make it possible to see Damuddy's or Soren's in either order first and the other second and the game/story still works naturally.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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I might be wrong, but I think Fanmissions are as well considered to be property of Eidos, no matter if they are full-custom or use standard resources.

 

But here is another thing: Why are missions for TDM titled "Fanmission" as well? :) They should rather simply be titled "Mission", because this is not a commercial product for which fans provide their own custom maps. But then again, we're all fans of TDM! So what the heck... :D

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I might be wrong, but I think Fanmissions are as well considered to be property of Eidos, no matter if they are full-custom or use standard resources.

 

But here is another thing: Why are missions for TDM titled "Fanmission" as well? :) They should rather simply be titled "Mission", because this is not a commercial product for which fans provide their own custom maps. But then again, we're all fans of TDM! So what the heck... :D

LOL, you got a point! :D

Edited by lowenz

Task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen but to think what nobody has yet thought about that which everybody see. - E.S.

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it's a pretty good mission, the scenario is simply great.... even if I couldn't

 

refrain myself from killing the psychopath...

 

 

I generally prefer sneaking mission rather than "tomb raider" agility missions and I'm not a big fan of blind room where the doors are not useable and you can only get in by the windows, it's quite less realistical. but theses concern are rather personal, and the map is otherwise simply great, I quite love the "lovecraft" kind of touch and the fact that you've included a map... I really miss old thiefs map system :)

 

 

edit: managed to get a sneak score of 3 even if I think i've been seen(not sure). it's the first time I get something different than 0 :ph34r:

Edited by elwing
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  • 4 weeks later...

this mission was fantasterisc. The only real beef i have with the mission was in the warehouse. There was a

cock'n'balls depiction on the graffiti wall

that I found, which caused me to promptly bust out laughing, which really stole from the general creepiness of the atmosphere.

 

But then again, when i found the

hangman in the closet

it wiped the stupid grin off my face pretty quick. Heart jumped into my throat on that one. Bang up job!

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I quite love the "lovecraft" kind of touch and the fact that you've included a map... I really miss old thiefs map system :)

 

Me too. Thanks for the Lovecraft mention; quite a complement.

 

edit: managed to get a sneak score of 3 even if I think i've been seen(not sure). it's the first time I get something different than 0 :ph34r:

 

It currently starts from 10 and goes down a bit for each bust, so a 3 is still doing pretty good. I always get a zero too.

 

 

this mission was fantasterisc. The only real beef i have with the mission was in the warehouse.

 

 

Lol, that graffiti wall was taken from Doom3 so that's why it's a bit tongue-in-cheek and works just if you don't look too closely. But I thought it was worth the risk since it was in the dream (I mentioned above how this scene came almost straight out of a dream in whole cloth.)

 

 

Bang up job!

 

Thank you. :)

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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//Offtopic

Could it be that the stealth score system is still a little buggy or are low-level alerts also considered busts here? Even on a presumably successfully ghost-playthrough, I never got a 10, although I am almost certain nobody ever saw me. Or maybe they saw me but didn't get alerted enough to run after me??

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  • 3 weeks later...

Second DM FM I've played; very enjoyable but I haven't beaten it yet. (I pretty much stopped following Thief after I got married and was pleasantly surprised to see DM done!) The feel is very good, though it really helps to have darkness and gama adjusted down for the mission... felt a bit bright at first. I also felt there were too many guards on the streets at first, until the plot unfolded! Just goes to show you not to assume you know what's going on in a mod right off the gate.

 

At the moment I'm stuck on two points. I read through pages of posts, but can't find an answer without peeking at every spoiler, and it certainly isn't my intent to ruin the mission. So, point #1:

 

 

I can't find how to free the tied up victim and return him to his bed... sorry, didn't write down his name. If it amuses you, I did try to cut him free. ONCE!

 

 

And point #2:

 

 

I can't find the warehouse key. As far as I can tell, I've been in every house, made it to the roofs, looked under every couch and object I could lift. Hate to ask for a gimme, but where is that elusive key?!

 

 

Overall it's been a great Thiefy experience so far! There is only one peeve I have, and it's with 99% of missions out there, FM or stock, and that's any more than one or two locked doors in any one mission that I can't pick with some deal of effort. I know key hunting is a big part of Thief, but usually you can pick a lock if you can't find the key (heck, I used to pick locks and THEN find the key!) It's more a story thing than a difficulty thing; a master thief should rarely find a common door or chest an obstacle. Much more believable in banks, lordly manors, or Mechanist buildings, but not "Bob's House."

 

Great mission!

207115_1788633687853_1599901965_31729336_1424191_n.jpg
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There's a "trick" that may help you solve both of those problems. It's actually a nice new feature:

 

You can either drag the bodies of the slain or "shoulder" them (pick them up as in Thief, for faster and more manageable moving). You first grab them - which by the way is how you would simply nudge or drag them about - by pressing your "frob" key when they are frobbable; then once you have them like this (they will generally shake a bit) you then press your "use" key. This will pick them up completely, or "shoulder" them.

 

Then you can move them about long distances quicker and/or drop them to effectively check their bodies for keys and loot bags and such -- every time you drop them and then pick them back up and drop them again they "flip" over....

 

Hope that helps. As I say, I think it is the "key" to both of your problems.

"A Rhapsody Of Feigned And Ill-Invented Nonsense" - Thomas Aikenhead, On Theology, ca. 1696

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To answer your questions.

 

1.

To shoulder Harlan you first need to KO him with the blackjack, like any other AI. I realize it's odd to KO the guy you're trying to rescue, but I was just working with the mechanics of the game.

 

 

 

2. The warehouse key is in

Damuddy's downstair's office. If you haven't got into Damuddy's house yet (it's on the map), you get in through the windows on the 2nd level... This is assuming you've found your way onto the roofs through Harlan's attic.

 

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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  • 1 month later...

Hell, 8 pages in here! Maybe I read them later after I played this mission on Expert. Just finished on Hard and I was amused! :) So if I have questions that are already answered, forgive me! I just want to leave my comment for this great mission.

 

But first: I couldn´t resist and read the last posts and there I saw that you can

rescue Harlan? I assume this is an optional objective or appears only on Expert?

I guess, cause demagogue talked about differences in the difficulties in his readme.

 

I first report the bugs I experienced, though it was only one:

The ambient sounds (wind and music that was really great stuff, btw, the music I mean) were very loud! But unlike in other FM´s this time the ambient slider in the menu worked, so it wasn´t annoying at all. As I reloaded the ambient sound was almost unhearable, but it was solvable by adjusting the ambient slider in the menu, this way the set volume was instantly back and I had to lower the slider again because it was so damn loud! And if I reloaded inside (the places there normally was calm) the last played ambient was hearable (in a volume how it should be IMO and I have to add that I hate calmness because of hearing my PC working).

Oh, and in Sorens kitchen and the tree before Bensons house I got stuck. I came out of the kitchen edge, but while 'in' the tree I had to reload an older save.

And now I remember that the street guards wanted to go through Sorens front door that I picked before, but they couldn´t open it. I had to help them. After they walked their round, the same occured again. (funny, as I locked the backdoor and the guard tried to open it, he just turned around! Not like the stupid guards in Thief, they just stand there and praying to the builder that he please open the door, hehe) After I locked the front door they still tried to get in.

Oh, I remember another bug: This äh, what was his name, Duddledamn or something, the one with this illegal business, floated over his bed while sleeping! (This reminded my of the second Ghostbusters movie :D )

 

At the beginning of the mission I was kind of lost because there seemed no way to get to my objective and so many doors not lockpick-able.

Now I know that I should have just turned to the left after getting through Sorens back door, but insted I walked through the whole town and tried every door before I got there.

 

But I was glad that I didn´t gave up. At first I didn´t understand the route I had to go but at the end it all fitted together.

I really loved the atmosphere that evolved with the great story (no wonder it had first place in the story category during the contest).

At the end in the second floor in the warehouse I sometimes thought I am in Silent Hill. Ah, and i found a, ähem, secret. Ähem, between the legs of the slaughtered girl. rolleyes.gif

 

BTW, I was really glad to finally see some females. A pitty that they were all dead. (Does this tell us something about the mission author? ;) ) Or doesn´t they have voice-overs, yet?

 

So all together, this was a really great mission. Here I had the most fun of the missions I played yet. (Maybe because I hadn´t really an annoying sound bug this time, like in the others, though I had a sound-bug, but nothing serious)

-> Crisis of Capitalism

-> 9/11 Truth

->

(hard stuff), more
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Thanks for the comments LEGION. :)

 

Yes, sound is a bit weird... But it's better than it was now that the ambient slider works.

 

BTW, I was really glad to finally see some females. A pitty that they were all dead. (Does this tell us something about the mission author? ;) ) Or doesn´t they have voice-overs, yet?

 

I'm happy I got the females in, too, since I had to go to special work to use them (they were not part of TDM 1.0). But, as you guessed, I could only use the corpses, no voices or animations, and male animations for them either looked hideous or didn't work.

 

I really love this mission, but my only criticism is the 'shark-pool' of guards circling around. It's just a style of AI patrol that I don't like.

 

I understand, and in fact all the versions were originally like Easy, just 2 guards. The issue I found from play testing, though, was that once you cleared those 2 guards, the entire streets area was free-roaming for the entire rest of the FM and it could get a little boring running up and down them. The extra AI do keep you on your toes through the whole FM. And it just fits the story; everybody is so paranoid about the murderer out there, and I wanted you to feel how over-protective they're trying to be.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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Just finished this one. Fantastic! So much more than I originally thought. But while reading through this thread, I realized I never did find

the tied up victim

 

 

 

I believe I had all the keys but maybe not because I never got in the door by the big tree outside of

Sorens house

 

 

Also only got 1072 of the loot on med and have no idea what I could have missed.

 

 

While all of the missions thus far have been very good, this one ranks up there with Salvation and Return to the City as my favorites so far. Still have a few to go through, thank God. I've gotten in such a Taffer mood that I finally found my original copy of TDP and been playing that as well.

Edited by olgeezer
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@olgeezer, how did you get on the roofs, then? (put in spoilers.)

 

Because the tied up victim in that door you missed had the key that led to the roofs. By the way, you get into that door for the grey apartment (and find that guy) through the 2nd story window, which you can reach by climbing up on the little brick wall on your left.

 

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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