Fan Mission: The Builder's Influence (2010/03/20)

[Springheel]

Announcing the release of a new TDM mission--The Builder's Influence.

Mapping by Railgun. Story and readables by Springheel.

 

This mission continues the story of Corbin, the former smuggler first introduced in "The Thieves".

 

Download it here:

http://www.bloodgate.com/mirrors/tdm/pub/pk4/fms/builders_influence.pk4

http://www.fidcal.com/darkuser/missions/builders_influence.pk4

 

Briefing:

"Whenever I attract a little too much attention in Bridgeport, I use some friendly smuggling lines to head north to Braeden. It's smaller than Bridgeport but still large enough that a visitor like me can go unnoticed. I've always been on good terms with the Cratchit Gang here, and for a small cut they set me up with a place to stay and some information on jobs in the area. Braeden is a great getaway for someone in my line of work; the watch is stretched thin and will usually look the other way for a small fee. With the constant threat of barbarian invasions on the minds of the people, a little domestic burglary tends to be overlooked. "

 

"Things have soured over the past few months, however. The Inquisition has come to Braeden. Suddenly there are armoured Builder guards everywhere, even on street patrol. A lot of the underground closed up and fled for greener pastures, and jobs have been drying up. I've decided it's time to head home to Bridgeport, but the Cratchit boys have asked me for a favour first. "

 

"There's a city Councillor by the name of Gerrard who is payed handsomely by the gang to overlook their smuggling activities. He writes forged tax registers and toll records for them among other things. Apparently the Inquisition has been paying a lot of attention to the city Councillors recently, and they've arrested Gerrard on suspicion of heresy. The Cratchit Gang is worried that they'll get ahold of Gerrard's forged records during the investigation; that would put their entire operation at risk. They need someone to break into City Hall after hours and get the tax records from Gerrard's office before they fall into the wrong hands. The gang is good at what they do, but they're smugglers. Breaking into City Hall is beyond them. "

 

"That's where I come in. "

 

"They've given me a map with Gerrard's office on it, so finding the tax records should be easy enough. I have a hunch that the city archives are worth a visit too; there might be some useful maps there. Of course, I'll help myself to some valuables along the way--enough to enjoy myself for a while when I get back to Bridgeport. I hear that Builders are patrolling the City Council halls now, so I'll need to be sharp. Night is falling...better get ready to go. "

 

Screenshots:

 

Full Size

Full Size

Full Size

 

Note that although this mission requires TDM 1.01 to play, don't expect it to showcase all of 1.01's new features. 98% of the map was completed before the release features were available.

[Sonosuke]

Nice, got to try it right away! Congrats to you two!

[Tudor]

Brilliant!

I'm probably going to love this one as well. You're all a lovely bunch.

[Chiron]

Looking great so far. Gameplay is fun too.

 

 

 

Love the roofclimbing.

 

And btw, why does the blacksmith have swords in an open box out on the street at night?

 

 

[lowenz]

Really enjoyable thievin' & taffin' experience, a must have!

 

Only one problem: TDM crashes at the end of the mission (statistics summary).

I experienced crashes loading a saved game in Private Records room too!

Edited March 20, 2010 by lowenz

[Diego]

Really, really great mission! Thanks and congrats!

 

I don't think I have anything to complaint about.. I played in the most difficult setting and didn't have any problems finding the loot! I found it while exploring and thinking about the main objetives, which is good. I've quickloaded a few times, but they were all due to sloppy sneaking on my part, so there was no part hard to the point where the player has to resort to trial and error.

 

BTW:

 

Was there another way in, besides the opened window on the second floor and the front doors?

 

[Springheel]

 

Was there another way in, besides the opened window on the second floor and the front doors?

 

Yes, there are three ways in. There's also a basement entrance.

 

[ungoliant]

this mission was sweet. got a little bit tricky on expert, but managed it while only missing about 200 loot. great story on this one too! there were some nice little readables that gave good flavor to the mission. very enjoyable.

[PranQster]

Well done! I only saw one issue where there was a guard who would occasionally sit for a while on an invisible chair outside one of the rooms. I'll have to go back in and scout out nearly 600 more loot, which makes me happy.

 

I did find the loot on the balcony rather quickly, so the rest must be inside.

 

 

The guard sitting on the invisible chair was just outside the private records room.

 

Edited March 21, 2010 by PranQster

[Springheel]

 

The guard sitting on the invisible chair was just outside the private records room.

 

There was a guard *inside* that room that was supposed to sit on a stool

...I think that was the only sitting guard in the map.

[ungoliant]

 

I did find the loot on the balcony rather quickly, so the rest must be inside.

 

 

The guard sitting on the invisible chair was just outside the private records room.

 

 

there is more loot

outside, in a window frame above the basement entrance.

 

 

that guard

only sat on air for me after i shot his candle with a broadhead to knock it away. he investigated, and then promptly took a seat on... nothing.

 

[Springheel]

@sitting guard:

Strange...I wonder if the candle somehow blocked his pathfinding? Was he anywhere near the stool?

 

 

[raymeld]

Had a strange problem with this one. I downloaded the pk4 the day before and next day started playing the mission. Enjoyed it a lot , got a long way into it and saved and closed down DM. Didn't do anything else that session ( of about an hour) other than playing the game, not online , nothing. Have just changed my computer which has a Bullguard AV trial on it. Immediately on closing the game Bullguard went berserk and gave the following warning ' Trojan-Fake-Alert.5'. Everything was mussed up even though Bullguard said it had quarantined the 'virus', all short cuts up the creek etc. The only way I could access the computer was by wiping rhe hard drive and restoring Windows 7 . Luckily , everything was backed up. don't even know whether it was a virus or a conflict between Bullguard ( which I'm getting rid of ) and something in the game.Never had this before , but seem to remember someone else posted on this site that they had the same sort of thing with another mission. Certainly not blaming it on the mission but as i say i wasn't doing anything else at the time. will reload Doom etc and try again at a later date keeping my fingers crossed!

[ungoliant]

@sitting guard:

Strange...I wonder if the candle somehow blocked his pathfinding? Was he anywhere near the stool?

 

 

 

 

i quickloaded and played with him for a while after that happened the first time. it seems that anything that causes him to veer off his normal patrol will result in him not finding his 'usual' seat again(sometimes). strange noises, seeing player movement, anything that would cause him to investigate off his route.

 

one time i made a loud noise near the door, he went out in the hall, said something to a patrolling builder, and sat down right out there, and would not come back inside.

 

[Tels]

 

i quickloaded and played with him for a while after that happened the first time. it seems that anything that causes him to veer off his normal patrol will result in him not finding his 'usual' seat again(sometimes). strange noises, seeing player movement, anything that would cause him to investigate off his route.

 

one time i made a loud noise near the door, he went out in the hall, said something to a patrolling builder, and sat down right out there, and would not come back inside.

 

 

I think that is a general TDM bug, one often sees people sleeping "off" from their position, too. Might be worth to file a general bug tracker entry for this.

[raymeld]

Had a strange problem with this one. I downloaded the pk4 the day before and next day started playing the mission. Enjoyed it a lot , got a long way into it and saved and closed down DM. Didn't do anything else that session ( of about an hour) other than playing the game, not online , nothing. Have just changed my computer which has a Bullguard AV trial on it. Immediately on closing the game Bullguard went berserk and gave the following warning ' Trojan-Fake-Alert.5'. Everything was mussed up even though Bullguard said it had quarantined the 'virus', all short cuts up the creek etc. The only way I could access the computer was by wiping rhe hard drive and restoring Windows 7 . Luckily , everything was backed up. don't even know whether it was a virus or a conflict between Bullguard ( which I'm getting rid of ) and something in the game.Never had this before , but seem to remember someone else posted on this site that they had the same sort of thing with another mission. Certainly not blaming it on the mission but as i say i wasn't doing anything else at the time. will reload Doom etc and try again at a later date keeping my fingers crossed!

 

 

P.s should have said that if anyone else has any ideas on this I'd be grateful for imput. It may well have been pure coincidence except that Bullguard threw up the warnings etc immediately after I'd quit the game. No other programs were in use and I was not online. Maybe a quirk with Bullguard or some strange interaction between it and Dark Mod? I shall play the mission again in due course with some trepidation !

[id3839315]

This is a nice mission but I think there's a bug:

I can't open / close any doors after getting the Mayor's Office Key.

[Tudor]

I find it odd so many people had problems with this, I didn't encounter a single bug or problem apart from some iffy ragdolls with chairs.

I had no problems with anything in this entire mission.

[Serpentine]

P.s should have said that if anyone else has any ideas on this I'd be grateful for imput. It may well have been pure coincidence except that Bullguard threw up the warnings etc immediately after I'd quit the game. No other programs were in use and I was not online. Maybe a quirk with Bullguard or some strange interaction between it and Dark Mod? I shall play the mission again in due course with some trepidation !

 

Having never heard of Bullguard, I took a quick google around and looked around at their stuff and it seems that its quite likely that it could cause unexpected issues like this. However seeing as you were running Win7, I find it a bit hard to accept that it would do such a good job of damaging windows (assuming UAC is still in place), even in Vista it shouldn't have been able to do that much. I had a look for anything about it having trouble with named pipes and couldnt find much in the way of issues and considering that its about the only major OS related thing that TDM does different to vanilla doom3, I couldnt really blame TDM/d3...

 

Anyway, I would look at an alternative as judging by the general forum threads and such about it, it isnt all that good for people that do a lot more than just office work

[snobel]

Only one problem: TDM crashes at the end of the mission (statistics summary).

I experienced crashes loading a saved game in Private Records room too!

Me too

Other than that, great mission! Lots of nice readables

[PranQster]

there is more loot

outside, in a window frame above the basement entrance.

Yeah, I got that too...

 

that guard

only sat on air for me after i shot his candle with a broadhead to knock it away. he investigated, and then promptly took a seat on... nothing.

 

I had not interacted with that guard

...or the other standing near him at all... and I never saw a stool for him to be sitting on anywhere. I'm not sure exactly where he was supposed to be, but he was just outside the door to the private records. He would stand up and put his back to the wall for a bit, then turn around and sit down in mid air, facing the short stretch of wall which is perpendicular to the door.

 

 

I'm going to go back in to my saved game, with everyone knocked out, and hunt up that last bit of loot.

[Springheel]

.or the other standing near him at all... and I never saw a stool for him to be sitting on anywhere. I'm not sure exactly where he was supposed to be,

but he was just outside the door to the private records.

He would stand up and put his back to the wall for a bit, then turn around and sit down in mid air, facing the short stretch of wall which is perpendicular to the door.

 

So the guard was not *inside* the record room? No other guard had any sitting behaviour. And no guards should be just standing around not patrolling either.

 

You didn't happen to see a message about "AAS 32" when the mission started, did you? Apparently some linux users are having that problem, which would affect pathfinding.

[Tels]

So the guard was not *inside* the record room? No other guard had any sitting behaviour. And no guards should be just standing around not patrolling either.

 

You didn't happen to see a message about "AAS 32" when the mission started, did you? Apparently some linux users are having that problem, which would affect pathfinding.

 

Hm, that could be a cause, because I am also on Linux and sometimes see sleeping/sitting AI just offset from their real position. It did not happen in Heart so far, but it happened in another mission, the guard slept in mid-air about 2m from the bed.

[raymeld]

Having never heard of Bullguard, I took a quick google around and looked around at their stuff and it seems that its quite likely that it could cause unexpected issues like this. However seeing as you were running Win7, I find it a bit hard to accept that it would do such a good job of damaging windows (assuming UAC is still in place), even in Vista it shouldn't have been able to do that much. I had a look for anything about it having trouble with named pipes and couldnt find much in the way of issues and considering that its about the only major OS related thing that TDM does different to vanilla doom3, I couldnt really blame TDM/d3...

 

Anyway, I would look at an alternative as judging by the general forum threads and such about it, it isnt all that good for people that do a lot more than just office work

 

Hello Serpentine. Many thanks for your reply. First thing today I googled ' Bullguard - Trojan-fake-alert-5 ' and one of the links directed me to the Bullguard forums. Apparently , hundreds of computers have been shut down because Bullguard AV issued a faulty update and was recognising Windows files as viruses ! They ( Bullguard ) have been slow in addressing the problem and the only recourse apparently is to reload Windows which I had already done anyway. the Bullguard AV and firewall was a three month trial when I purchased my current computer my old self made one having given up the ghost. Needless to say , I won't be taking up their offer of a subscription and will revert to my old firewall/ av. Apparently , some folk are considering taking legal action. Thanks Bullguard , I'll stay well clear in future! I didn't for one moment think it was anything to do with the mission , it was just strange it happened at the same time. I think Bullguard must have downloaded the faulty update right after I quit the mission. Have now reloaded and look forward to starting all over !

Edited March 22, 2010 by raymeld

[Crispy]

*head smack* FAIL.

 

What a shoddy piece of software, that sucks! Glad you're back on track and had backups. Hope you didn't lose much.