Jump to content
The Dark Mod Forums

Fan Mission: Return to the City by Melan (2010/01/10)


Melan

  

69 members have voted

  1. 1. Gameplay: Enjoyment. Fun duration. Smooth flow, ect. Versus Bugs. Frustration, Boredom, framelag

  2. 2. Appearance: Visual pleasure, lighting, visual style, deduct bad texturing ect.

    • Poor
      0
    • Tolerable
      0
    • Good
    • Excellent
    • Near Perfect. Outstanding
  3. 3. Story & Text: Story. Text. Briefing. Graphic storytelling



Recommended Posts

It is a bug; the guard sometimes does not progress through the door for some reason. In some cases, you can nudge him to go on by opening the door yourself.

 

Of course, there are also two other ways into the storehouse, so...

Come the time of peril, did the ground gape, and did the dead rest unquiet 'gainst us. Our bands of iron and hammers of stone prevailed not, and some did doubt the Builder's plan. But the seals held strong, and the few did triumph, and the doubters were lain into the foundations of the new sanctum. -- Collected letters of the Smith-in-Exile, Civitas Approved

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

this mission was super extra awesomeness. didn't have any problems with the guards, mostly because i ended up approaching most of the mission from the backside. Found a way to

use a rope arrow to hoist myself up and drop down into the secluded alleyway connected to the "bomb room" as i call it, from the center of town!

 

 

I ended the mission w/ 1245 loot, after ending up missing out on the

gemstones the carpenter stole. I read that note and immediately said to myself "Yeah i'll be taking those, methinks", but never ended up finding them? thought i read something in this thread about them being hidden on or around a gargoyle? i don't remember any hints provided in his confession as to the location of the gems, so i didn't know where to start the search. or maybe it was in one of the parts where i couldn't read his 'handwriting'.

 

 

Not sure if those 2 articles would of landed me all the loot in the mission, i guess I'll just have to replay it, and with no complaints! Maybe in a more linear fashion this time. Kinda felt like i started at the end of the mission and worked my way to the beginning, lol.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

Geez. I must have missed a whole lot in this mission. I got in, immediately did what I had to do and all of a sudden it was mission over before I realized what was happening. It's kind of hard for me to tell in FM's just how much content is in them, because as of now there're fairly small.

 

Dammit all! Now I'll have to replay it. rolleyes.gif

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

 

How the heck am I supposed to get into the tower? I saw the open window by the Gargoyle, but am not able to see a way in.

Also there was talk about a cleaning area there the carpenter used to work (and there I suppose the missing two gems), but don´t see anything that would fit to that.

 

I found the Loot List, but it didn´t help me at all to know where I could get up.

 

I found an area with a hanging cage up there. Is there something to do/get?

 

What about the vines you can climb? Does everyone lead somewhere? I could only make use of the one on the clock-tower to get to the attic.

 

I didn´t understand what guard you and Springheel talked about. Should the one inside near the tower be walking around?

 

A lantern would´ve been very helpful cause on some places it is really dark and because of this I couldn´t see the hole in the cage, read about it here.

 

 

It´s a very beautiful mission, I love all those details. But it really frustrates me that I´m stuck with 600 loot (100 missing on Hard) and that I´m not able to read most of the readables due to the horrible font. I really hope that the Team will substitute this font with a more readable. Really, please do that, please, I beg you!

-> Crisis of Capitalism

-> 9/11 Truth

->

(hard stuff), more
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I liked those fonts myself, and people haven't complained about them yet. Sorry for the lack of a lantern, my next mission will have one.

 

Spoilers:

Tower:

 

in the storehouse courtyard, before the stained glass windows, you can climb some vines. From the top, jump to a ledge surrounding one of the small towers on the wall, then mantle to get on the roof. From there, you can enter the top room. (Or are you talking about a different tower?)

 

The carpenter:

 

Try looking around in the city for a place a carpenter might be working.

 

Hanging cage area:

 

there is a lost holy symbol next to a broken holy water fountain.

 

Come the time of peril, did the ground gape, and did the dead rest unquiet 'gainst us. Our bands of iron and hammers of stone prevailed not, and some did doubt the Builder's plan. But the seals held strong, and the few did triumph, and the doubters were lain into the foundations of the new sanctum. -- Collected letters of the Smith-in-Exile, Civitas Approved

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks, Melan. I wasn´t able to locate the hiding place for the gems, but I was able to find some other places including the Tower, yeah I meant that one. Before I couldn´t see the ledge above me. So I have found 1140 out of 1615 gold pounds. I´ll definitely play the mission again tomorrow `cause I had to put out everyone and that´s usually not my style. But I found it really hard to ghost in the city. I couldn´t even read the public notices hanging there so I blackjacked. At the end there was only one cityguard walking and he spotted me as I was trying to get to the tower and he waited downside for me getting down the vine, so I had to nail him with a bunch of arrows. Especially the climbable places in town seeming for me almost impossible to ghost since guards in TDM are really able to looking far distances, but it´s realistic. Well, I will see how good my stealth-ability really is...

 

Your mission really was a gem, Melan! All those details and I really loved that you could almost frob everything! I love that! :) Only the big chair in the clock-tower wasn´t. Is it not possible to make such things frobable? The clock-sound seemed not right.

I don´t know what it is, but your mission seems to be the first one I played so far that doesn´t suffer from ambient-bugs after reloading. And I had to reload very often.

 

I have a technically question. On the attached screenshot the shadow looks like cut. Is this a bug or caused of Doom3´s sharp shadows? It looks not right. I guess positioning the Lantern more left would solve it, but I´m very sure you know ;), I´m just curious. The shadow on the far side before the gate looks softly.

 

edit: I can´t remember from which source I downloaded the mission, but I have the Hammer-version. Speaking of it, is there still an updated version planned? Maybe you could add a new area like the inside of the church or what else is behind the blocked doors. Would really like to see this gem expanded! What do you think? :)

post-3744-127930366068_thumb.jpg

Edited by LEGION

-> Crisis of Capitalism

-> 9/11 Truth

->

(hard stuff), more
Link to comment
Share on other sites

LEGION: Thanks for playing and commenting!

 

The entire mission is ghostable, but due to interlocking patrol routes, it is hard in the central city area and very hard for some pieces of loot. You really have to look for openings to accomplish your goals. If you still need spoilers on the gems:

 

On the marketplace, climb up to the scaffolding on the derelict churchlike building. The gemstones are hidden in the eye sockets of the perching gargoyle. You can even see them gleaming from below if you are really observant.

 

 

The chair could have been made a movable, but it is by default a static model (a heavy wooden chair would be hard to move anyway...). The light in your screenshot is how the engine does shadows. Unfortunately, it doesn't look natural, but that's what we have until someone implements soft shadows after the source code is released. I could have moved the streetlight a bit, but that would also have meant no shadows to hide in next to the wall... and the mission is already hard as is.

Come the time of peril, did the ground gape, and did the dead rest unquiet 'gainst us. Our bands of iron and hammers of stone prevailed not, and some did doubt the Builder's plan. But the seals held strong, and the few did triumph, and the doubters were lain into the foundations of the new sanctum. -- Collected letters of the Smith-in-Exile, Civitas Approved

Link to comment
Share on other sites

ETA: Never. :unsure:

 

Seriously, it was a hassle, it burned me out and I don't want to do it. Rather spend my time on something new.

Come the time of peril, did the ground gape, and did the dead rest unquiet 'gainst us. Our bands of iron and hammers of stone prevailed not, and some did doubt the Builder's plan. But the seals held strong, and the few did triumph, and the doubters were lain into the foundations of the new sanctum. -- Collected letters of the Smith-in-Exile, Civitas Approved

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sorry to add this but I suspect it would be a final remaining concern in the hearts and minds of anyone who has enjoyed this map:

 

"Would you give license to either the advanced team members or the community at large to attempt to fix performance for this map, provided that they submit their work to you for approval?"

 

I will suggest that once this has been answered that you add these statements to the description at the start of the thread to avoid any further pestering.

 

My apologies again.

 

Thanks for this terrific FM regardless of how well it performs :)!

Please visit TDM's IndieDB site and help promote the mod:

 

http://www.indiedb.com/mods/the-dark-mod

 

(Yeah, shameless promotion... but traffic is traffic folks...)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The light in your screenshot is how the engine does shadows. Unfortunately, it doesn't look natural, but that's what we have until someone implements soft shadows after the source code is released. I could have moved the streetlight a bit, but that would also have meant no shadows to hide in next to the wall... and the mission is already hard as is.

 

The shadow could have easily softened/improved by giving the streetlamp a light texture, that would hide the hard edge considerable without affecting game play (much).

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

 

"Remember: If the game lets you do it, it's not cheating." -- Xarax

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just for info: The bloodgate and even the DarkLurker-download are still the hammer-versions. The mediafire-link is the correct one. (But still in the splash-info screen is the bad word with 'h';))

 

Should I replace the version on bloodgate then and where is the correct one?

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

 

"Remember: If the game lets you do it, it's not cheating." -- Xarax

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It´s the Mediafire-link from the MainPage:

 

http://www.mediafire.com/?omyy2nnymtz

 

Updated the package on bloodgate.com.

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

 

"Remember: If the game lets you do it, it's not cheating." -- Xarax

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

well I just get these moments of inspiration, I like to keep my mind active while I'm out of work..that and I would like to see Melans mission have much better Fps levels that it currently has.

 

spent so about a dozen hrs optimizing the mission so far-

 

- caulking so many hidden surfaces ive lost count..

- changed most of the outside lights to non-shadows and removed a few.

- have now sealed and VP'd 5 big areas of the map

 

Just wonna crack the 30fps mark on the previously bad areas of the map and I'll be happy.

 

-_-

Edited by Bikerdude
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bikerdude: wow, thanks. Will respond in a sec...

Come the time of peril, did the ground gape, and did the dead rest unquiet 'gainst us. Our bands of iron and hammers of stone prevailed not, and some did doubt the Builder's plan. But the seals held strong, and the few did triumph, and the doubters were lain into the foundations of the new sanctum. -- Collected letters of the Smith-in-Exile, Civitas Approved

Link to comment
Share on other sites

well I just get these moments of inspiration, I like to keep my mind active while I'm out of work..that and I would like to see Melans mission have much better Fps levels that it currently has.

 

spent so about a dozen hrs optimizing the mission so far-

 

- caulking so many hidden surfaces ive lost count..

- changed most of the outside lights to non-shadows and removed a few.

- have now sealed and VP'd 5 big areas of the map

 

Just wonna crack the 30fps mark on the previously bad areas of the map and I'll be happy.

 

-_-

 

BK may I make a suggestion... i too have spent many a hour caulking endless surfaces, and may I recommend those hours are better spent rebuilding areas, visportaling, and noshadowing lights... I just never really noticed caulking surfaces to make any performance impact imo.

 

Can't wait to replay it though!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

yeah I am now of the same opinion - it made little or no diff to either the compile time or fps rate... Anway nearl;y there just trying to jigg the VPs on the mains street and Im done..

 

sorry for the poor spelling, but Ive been at this for 12hrs (when I get into the Zone, I keep going till my body starts telling me enough is enough) and Im about an hour away from collapsing...

 

Anyway good new Ive managed to crack the 35fps mark in the worst areas.. and Ive still got two VP that arent working, so I should be able to crack the 40-50mark at this rate..

 

[update]

WELL F**K ME...!!! Ive cracked the 60fps mark at the start positon looking up the main street....B)

 

Ok, Guys, would you like to play the mission as is, or wait untill Ive added some more nooks and crannies..?

Edited by Bikerdude
Link to comment
Share on other sites

well after 13hrs I have reached the holy grail 60fps - enjoy

 

 

rttc-hurra.jpg?psid=1

 

I have pm'd Melan with the updated map file, but as a lot of requested this map to expanded then i assume you'd all like to wait untill then..?there is still a bit of tweaking of the VPs via the FPs hence the closed VP in the far background..

Edited by Bikerdude
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


  • Recent Status Updates

    • Petike the Taffer

      I've finally managed to log in to The Dark Mod Wiki. I'm back in the saddle and before the holidays start in full, I'll be adding a few new FM articles and doing other updates. Written in Stone is already done.
      · 1 reply
    • nbohr1more

      TDM 15th Anniversary Contest is now active! Please declare your participation: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22413-the-dark-mod-15th-anniversary-contest-entry-thread/
       
      · 0 replies
    • JackFarmer

      @TheUnbeholden
      You cannot receive PMs. Could you please be so kind and check your mailbox if it is full (or maybe you switched off the function)?
      · 1 reply
    • OrbWeaver

      I like the new frob highlight but it would nice if it was less "flickery" while moving over objects (especially barred metal doors).
      · 4 replies
    • nbohr1more

      Please vote in the 15th Anniversary Contest Theme Poll
       
      · 0 replies
×
×
  • Create New...