Fan Mission: The Parcel by Xonze (2009/12/24)

[SneakyJack]

I've played this mission through three times and got neither the 'starting with tons of gold in the shop' nor the 'loot count gets chopped off by one number' bugs. Strange.

[STiFU]

Hey that mediafire site seems to have problems with german hosts. I can't download the file. It stops at "processing download request". I also asked a couple of friends all over germany to download that file for me, but no luck there. If someone could hook me up with the file I could also upload it to my rapidshare account...

[Carnage]

With all the FM's I'm having trouble to finish my own . Will test it and leave some feedback asap. Also found a dload link on southquarter by the way.

 

http://www.southquarter.com/downloads/

[rustmite]

A nice little mission and a good start. For me it was quite easy on Difficult, but was enjoyable nonetheless. Thanks Xonze! Merry Christmas all!

[STiFU]

Thanks for the southquarter link. I played it too now. Ghosted it on expert with 1187 in loot and 4 pickpockets. I had to restart once because I got busted and I had some trouble at first to accomplish the loot-objective, but in the end only loot worth of six gold was missing. This mission had some nice visual touches, but was missing in detail work sometimes I think. But what I really missed was some ambient soundtrack, which would've improved the atmosphere a lot.

 

 

I really liked the two secrets. I found it pretty funny that you could simply push the water-tap aside no matter if there are any pipes behind it or not... And another thing would've been nice: A bonus objective "Dave Rescued"!

 

 

 

[Carnage]

Very nice mission. Finished it in about 30 minutes, without being seen or noticed, which made it more difficult. Almost found all the loot, missed 60, probably because I couldn't find one of the secrets that opened after activating a switch. I liked the way you hid stuff, which wasn't frustrating. The story could have been a bit more in depth, but I know I can't expect that from a mission that was build in about two weeks. Good job!

[nobody]

Carnage, thank you for the southquarter link I was having trouble dL-ing it too. maybe because I'm in GRand Cayman right now who knows. anyway, I'm very happy to have another FM to play underway. thank you Xonze

Edited December 25, 2009 by nobody

[Tels]

I put up a mirror at bloodgate.com:

 

http://bloodgate.com/mirrors/tdm/pub/pk4/fms/parcel.pk4

 

Enjoy!

[Fidcal]

Really good FM especially given the short time! Had fun for best part of an hour playing stealthy. Only flaw is not enough 'fair' loot on Expert. In the end I failed so cheated just so I could advise. All the loot I failed to get I would class as 'special extras' so I don't think should be in 'essential loot' even on expert. I wouldn't add more now it's released though but maybe advise players to only play on Expert if they like scavenging for hard to find loot or don't mind asking on the forums. Of course, anyone might just get lucky anyway and find it. But don't let that spoil anyone's enjoyment of a good FM.

 

The missing digit on the loot count is glitch we've not been able to solve - it's caused by the font sometimes reverting to doom3 default so there's no room for the final digit. Dunno what causes that (not enough RAM?) but actually we ought to be able to enlarge the space allotted. I'll make a note and maybe get in the next update. I might also be able to post an adjustment you can make for those who don't want to wait.

 

@Sonosuke: Do you mean you can't decide how to vote? Or that you don't understand the choices? Or you can't find how to place your vote? To vote you just click the Vote! button on every page of this thread. If instead you only see Show Vote Options then click that to get the other buttons.

[etdarkb]

I tried playing again with no KO, it indeed more challenging and fun.

Really you should consider to put no kill in Medium and no KO in Hard.

[Sonosuke]

@Sonosuke: Do you mean you can't decide how to vote? Or that you don't understand the choices? Or you can't find how to place your vote? To vote you just click the Vote! button on every page of this thread. If instead you only see Show Vote Options then click that to get the other buttons.

 

Yeah i cant decide how to vote. Its escpecially about the "Looks". Like the option how it looks, if you compair it to Nielsen74s map, the outsides are the only thing that looks really "Excellent" for me (textures and such) on the outer side for 2 weeks it looks very good. If i vote here on Excellent isnt it unfair for nielsen because he made near all textures fitting and had a lot of extras, OR if i vote here on Tolerable isnt it unfair for Xonze because i dont think of the time its been made....?

Edited December 26, 2009 by Sonosuke

[Fidcal]

Yeah i cant decide how to vote. Its escpecially about the "Looks". Like the option how it looks, if you compair it to Nielsen74s map, the outsides are the only thing that looks really "Excellent" for me (textures and such) on the outer side for 2 weeks it looks very good. If i vote here on Excellent isnt it unfair for nielsen because he made near all textures fitting and had a lot of extras, OR if i vote here on Tolerable isnt it unfair for Xonze because i dont think of the time its been made....?

yeah I wondered myself but I decided to vote as it is and make no allowances for time spent or hours free to work on it per day or previous experience or anything else. As if it were anonymous and I had no idea if it took a year or day to make.

 

Yes, the rooms are a bit bare so with more time probably there could could be more detail. On the other hand I didn't notice a single 'error' in anything as I recall which is pretty amazing. Make your own judgement as to how you interpret the 'rules' but for me 'outstanding' would only apply to something really special and 'excellent' would be more visually attractive than this (that's not a criticism of course but a judgement in this situation.) So it's outstanding for two weeks work but I called it 'good' for the purpose of this vote. You have to allow for something better otherwise then you'd be stuck as to how to vote for something that's excellent if you call this excellent. So if you then call the excellent one outstanding and the next one is truly awesomely stupendously outstandingly jaw-dropping then what do you do.

 

There is another alternative. You can save all your voting until all (most?) of the entries are in. You might then find it easier to compare and judge.

[Sonosuke]

@Fidcal: Thanks for your advice!

[etdarkb]

And overall do not worry much: I do not know how people feel, but I always thought the contest thing is only a way to push people release FMs for the enjoyment of everyone.

[Sonosuke]

And overall do not worry much: I do not know how people feel, but I always thought the contest thing is only a way to push people release FMs for the enjoyment of everyone.

 

Yeah i know but i still want it to be fair thats me

[STiFU]

You should definitely try to evaluate the quality of the map without any considerations in my oppionion. It's up to the team to interpret the final scores. To make it more fair, they could have two awards: The quality award and the quick-mapping award, which somehow implicates the buildtime of the map. But then again it's really just a just-for-fun-contest.

 

Anyway, a quickmapping score could for example be done like this: Meanscore / log( buildtime ) . I guess the log should be used because in the later productionprocess only little improvements to quality are applied and so the Score would be weighted accordingly.

 

 

[nobody]

I had my blackjack out and I tried to club a guard with it but I messed up and alerted him. instead of running for it like I usually do I just decided to wack him with it until he killed me so I could start over. funny thing is I knocked him out before I died. I didn't expect to be able to beat him senseless when he was in combat mode trying to kill me.

 

is this normal? it's pretty realistic, you sure could beat someone sensless with a blackjack while they are trying to kill you but it wouldn't be easy.

[Springheel]

Just played this tonight; I enjoyed it for the most part, and was impressed with it considering it was only a two-week build time. I did get quite frustrated by a few things though: first,

I couldn't find the key on the nobleman

, even after flipping him over and specifically checking. After reading the clue in this thread I went back and blind-frobbed it by accident. The second thing was the

secret in the bathroom.

I searched everywhere and couldn't find what had happened.

 

I got busted twice and had to reload...the third time I fought it out and killed three guards upstairs. I didn't feel the mission was much too easy, but not hard to ghost.

 

It's difficult to criticize things when it took only two weeks to build, but just a couple things:

 

I did miss having an ambient track...felt much too quiet to me when no one was around, especially since almost nothing gave off sound (clocks, etc). Also, sometimes the voices of guards seemed to be coming from the wrong place (when I was outside I heard the nobleman as if he was in the courtyard with me.

 

The snow was great in the courtyard, and I liked the transparent windows too.

 

And really, really nitpicky thing, but I couldn't get past the name "Dave" for the runner...way too modern-sounding.

 

Overall, a positive map!

[id3839315]

 

The key is on someone downstairs. Check the guy in green.

 

Hi,

you don't need the key. I turned off the light and waited next to the door. The guard entered the room and when he tried to close the door I re-opened it.

[STiFU]

Springheel, are you seriously complaining that the secrets were too hard to find? ;-P Personally, I think the more challenging the better.... But the loot-objective could've been a bit lower I guess. Finding secrets shouldn't be mandatory.

 

I agree on the Dave-issue though!!

 

 

Edited January 2, 2010 by STiFU

[Serpentine]

Leave Dave alone!

 

Well, I was gonna comment on the name in the beta, but then I thought that was more to do with author style and declined... still it could have been Mike or Bob!

[Xonze]

Eh, Dave was the first name that came to me, it was David but it somehow got changed to Dave, lol.

 

Had you I would of changed it as I wasn't attached to the name, but Dave doesn't sound as bad as some other like you said lol.

 

I agree with the secrets somewhat, but I always thought

the fireplace one

was really easy to find so I figured if you're playing on expert you should have to hunt a bit for the loot. But it seems I'm wrong on that, so I'll take it into account for next time.

 

Thanks for playing,

 

 

Leave Dave alone!

 

Well, I was gonna comment on the name in the beta, but then I thought that was more to do with author style and declined... still it could have been Mike or Bob!

[nxxs]

not a bad mission. the biggest drawbacks are these three:

 

 

a: the windows facing the yard are not recogniseable as see-through when you start

b: the key to te room with the parcel is practically invisible on the green dude.... i flipped him more times than i care to remember, and only after reading this thread and blindly frobbing for a minute around the guy produced it.

 

c: when i frobbed the fosset in the upstairs bathroom, i heard a door opening and stone sliding. the door opening i have identified as the hidingplace behind the bathtub, but where is the stone sliding thingy? i tried every room, every state of the fosset and nothing. also, the fosset seems oddly timed. on first activation the door and some stone thingy sound can be heard, on seond frob the door closing and on third frob the stone thingy again.

 

 

[Springheel]

Springheel, are you seriously complaining that the secrets were too hard to find? ;-P

 

I guess so. I just got frustrated when I *knew* there was something opening, but couldn't find what it was.

[Ishtvan]

That was a fun little mission and excellent for 2 weeks work. I did manage to get stuck on

the sack right of the door in the kitchen

.

 

Secrets:

 

I found the secret in the bathroom without cheating, but had to cheat to find the last loot in the first floor noble's room. It was impossible to tell if that button was frobhilighted (not really your fault, it's a mod problem that frobhilight can be too subtle to see in moderate lighting conditions)