Fan Mission: The Heart of Lone Salvation by Fidcal, Baddcog & Bikerdude (2010/04/02)

[Fidcal]

Thanks Mike. It's really encouraging that people are enjoying this FM. I was really discouraged at various stages when making this so I appreciate this.

 

tinrobot: What I meant was that when I ran it on my own computer it gave *your* path! So I knew the path was embedded inside the gamesave. But I also know that we can 'share' gamesaves as we have often done it when testing. So I hacked into your gamesave and found it and I hacked into my gamesave and in mine it does not have the full path. It shows my engine path to doom3 and it shows the game folder but that's all I saw. So somehow it is not reading your engine path correctly.

[rustmite]

I just copied TDM from Windows 7 over and just reinstalled your mission and started the mission from the beginning again. Didn't change any setting in the configuration.

 

 

@rustmiste: I've been testing mostly on XP myself which fits that idea. But I have tested quite a lot on Vista. Perhaps anyone who has had crashes could post what OS they were using? Did you copy your install over, keeping the same config or did you start from scratch and define the settings anew? If so, it might still be a config thing.

[Fidcal]

Which points firmly at the system: OS, graphic card drivers, or DirectX I guess.

 

In related news...

 

I won't be uploading the FM update today for sure. Taking me longer to fix things and some things I can't fix without too big a rewrite.

[Fidcal]

Strangely, looking at the download stats for this FM, webalizer always gives about double the number that awstats gives. Webalizer gives 668 hits which I think means requests, some of which might fail but not consistently half of them. Awstats gives 314 views which is a web page term I guess but applied to this pk4 file I suppose it means downloaded. Can't reconcile the two values. This is for mirror 1, fidcal.com; dunno what number if any have downloaded from mirror 2 at bloodgate.com. Maybe most people just hit mirror 1 typically?

[raymeld]

I've really been defeated by this mission for some reason , I think I must be playing a different one from everyone else ! I've ticked off most of the objectives but I think I'm missing something big somewhere:-

 

All this talk of a garden with spiders , I've not found it although I've found a garden key. Where is the door?!

 

 

and

 

How do you get into the basement? is this how you get into the dungeon for which I've not been able to find a key.

 

 

Bear with me folks , I know I'm hopeless, stiill enjoying it though.

Edited April 10, 2010 by raymeld

[tinRobot]

For anyone who's been following this thread, you may have read that I've had problems loading the mission. It appears that I have since resolved it, by accident. When I work out exactly which files I swapped around to get it working, I'll let you know. I can't say now though, because once I'd got it working, I was keen to start playing...

 

...and haven't been able to stop, until now. ...allowing only enough time to grab a meal and type this entry, before donning the hood again, and robbing those taffers blind. You see, I'm absolutely enthralled in this mission.

 

Within the first five minutes of starting out into the fog, I knew that it was going to be good. After an hour or so, I became convinced that it was more than 'good' - I was experiencing simply the finest FM I've played, and I've played them all (including those from the previous version mods).

 

This is a well-designed environment, with intelligent architecture, shrewdly 'tweaked' and full of the sorts of clever, subtle touches that make this feel real, like a living, breathing household, with real people, with real lives. ...I have to shut up now, because I want new players to gasp, astonished like I did.

 

Then there's the story. It too is intelligently crafted, keeping me interested - a good story means the difference between simply pilfering, and 'going on a mission'.

 

I haven't finished the mission yet, but are confident that I'm going to enjoy it 'til the end. This mission is of the sort of caliber seen in the original 'Deadly Shadows'. Fidcal and Baddcog - you should be enormously proud of what you've achieved with this - it will be a hard act to follow, and a benchmark for other FM developers.

 

Sincere thanks and congrats.

 

Eager for the next one...

[Melan]

All this talk of a garden with spiders , I've not found it although I've found a garden key. Where is the door?!

 

There are two ways: 1) ground floor: go to the dining room with the sitting noble, then to a short hall. There is a door with a lot of junk piled before it; this leads to the garden. 2) Once you have found access into the rooms beyond the lady's room (baths etc.), there is an open window overlooking the place and vines you can climb down on.

 

[raymeld]

 

There are two ways: 1) ground floor: go to the dining room with the sitting noble, then to a short hall. There is a door with a lot of junk piled before it; this leads to the garden. 2) Once you have found access into the rooms beyond the lady's room (baths etc.), there is an open window overlooking the place and vines you can climb down on.

 

 

 

Thank you Melan. I charged right through the doors you mention because I had a guard notice me at the time. Didn't ever think of going back that way, just wandering around the perimeter corridor looking for clues as it were. As you didn't give a clue to my second guery I'm guessing

that the garden will give some clue to this to help me progress further

. Thank you again.

[rustmite]

is there a way to shut off the pump? Is that necessary, cause when i go to destroy the heart, i get stuck and cannot get back out?? I must be missing something.

[aidakeeley]

I believe that the force of the current in the sewer there was toned down in newer versions; but yes it was a problem. Make sure you have the latest iteration of the mission.

[Fidcal]

tinRobot: Many thanks. Delighted you are enjoying it so much.

 

rustmite: Maybe it is not obvious but you must RUN against the current and also be in standing mode (see crouch indicator at sides of light gem.)

 

raymeld:

There are four ways into the basement so hard to miss one of them. I suspect you don't actually mean the basement. (yard door, trap door in toilet, wood stairs in room opposite, well access from street.) What you call the dungeon is probably the interrogation room. Leave that until you have found the Heart. If you are not making progress then you should firstly explore everywhere you can and read every clue you can. In particular: the officers' quarters (south corridor,) Lord Edridge's bedroom, and the upper west corridor. Good luck.

 

 

Anyone who has already finished this, do you fancy an informal test of the update before I release it? There are some fixes and some small changes.

[tinRobot]

Ok, I must be right near the end, but I need some help with the following:

 

 

I have 'freed' the heart (and got the associated objective checkmark), and I was under the impression that this somehow leads me to find Sam. But how? After releasing the heart, was something supposed to happen? I've also assumed that Sam is somewhere behind the two cell doors opposite the pump room, but beats me how to get in there.

 

 

@Fidcal: happy to test the new build. Give me a list of specific objectives to test.

[raymeld]

tinmite: Many thanks. Delighted you are enjoying it so much.

 

rustmite: Maybe it is not obvious but you must RUN against the current and also be in standing mode (see crouch indicator at sides of light gem.)

 

raymeld:

There are four ways into the basement so hard to miss one of them. I suspect you don't actually mean the basement. (yard door, trap door in toilet, wood stairs in room opposite, well access from street.) What you call the dungeon is probably the interrogation room. Leave that until you have found the Heart. If you are not making progress then you should firstly explore everywhere you can and read every clue you can. In particular: the officers' quarters (south corridor,) Lord Edridge's bedroom, and the upper west corridor. Good luck.

 

 

Anyone who has already finished this, do you fancy an informal test of the update before I release it? There are some fixes and some small changes.

 

 

Thank you Fidcal. I guess I suffer from the typical man's complaint of not reading the instructions to anything. I'll reread the stuff I've found ( properly this time) , something I'd already decided to do as although I now seem to have been everywhere and bumped off everything in sight including the spider , I seem to be missing some vital clue. I know I'm supposed to be a thief who slinks unspotted in the shadows but I much prefer to play a mission the brutal way! Anyway , thanks again for an absolutely great mission which , in spite of my failures , I've become totally absorbed in.

[Fidcal]

@tinRobot:

The key to the interrogation room is in the Heart cabinet the centre of which rises up when you get the Heart. If this is missing then exit, run tdm_updater again and make sure it says it is uptodate, then see if the key is there. Let me know.

[Tels]

Enjoy your extended weekend with this monster easter egg! Heart is a full-size Dark Mod FM, the third in the Thief's Den series in which you play Farrell.

 

Holy cow, good news! I'll retry the mission, this time with the v1.01 code base and hopefully a few of the bugs found have now been fixed

 

Thanx for your hard work, much appreciated!

[rustmite]

Thanks about the current but it is so strong that running crouching, etc. does not work.

[Fidcal]

rustmite: Can you open your DoomConfig.cfg file in your current game folder and search down and tell me what values you have for these please?...

 

_speed [this is the key you have set as the run Shift key. You have to hold it down when running]

pm_walkspeed [This is your walking speed]

pm_runmod [This is how much your walk speed is multiplied when you hold down the run Shift key.]

in_alwaysRun [if this is 1 then it reverses the above so you run with the move key and walk when you hold down the run Shift key.]

[Fidcal]

I've now updated and uploaded version 2 with some fixes and changes. You must UNinstall the original first before installing this. Nothing special so probably not worth replaying for the changes alone (you decide!). Only read the following if you have already finished the original and are curious what got changed:

 

 

 

DONE:

 

Added clue to interrogation room key to Lords Log summary.

 

Hole in armoury wall fixed again! This time covered with a wood panel and hanging static sword.

 

Removed fire arrow on expert+ - Use that slow match!

 

Added 'needs release 1.01' to darkmod.txt. Not tested but I believe this only rejects when installing not running.

 

Slow match default 'beep' sound when dragged against surfaces. I have no way to test this but I have changed the impact sound. It always worked before for me so do not know if this is fixed for anyone that had the problem.

 

If you can get Sam out from above by wedging open the pit then the objective should now check when you take him to the chapel. I was unable to test this because it is SO difficult that even by cheating I could not figure out a way to do it.

 

Office now has a sign on the door to avoid confusion with library.

 

Keys removed; can lockpick:

Office

Lord Edridge's bedroom

Bathroom

Rear hall from bedrooms

 

Lord Rodney now listens if Eleanor is OK and does not go to rear hall so does not get stuck there.

 

Ruth's diary now states special room (chapel) opposite so helps to indicate where it is.

 

The guardian spider was spawned and empowered because the Heart was misused, withheld. Now, once you take the Heart then the spider loses its strength and fades to a pale white. You can then kill it if you want but be careful because it still has normal strength. Spider animation, shoulderability etc is still not perfected in Dark Mod.

 

There was a logic problem in that if the player destroyed the Heart before using it then he could not escape the trap. I could not block the destroy until after the Heart was used because the player might never see that objective so escaping and destroying were legitimate. So what I did was...

 

So that the Heart cannot be destroyed before it is used:

The Heart can now only change ownership or be destroyed after it has brought the owner good fortune. The summary in the research log now states that.

There is now a new objective to find info about the Heart (Lord Edridge's Research log.) This forces the player to get it and trigger the Find Sam objective. The player is now likely to use the Heart and so can later destroy it. But if he manages to get Sam out back into the interrogation room without using the Heart then he cannot cast it away. In fact, does not need to because it is still 'lucky'. He can complete the mission and keep the Heart.

 

The Book of Rogues is now moved to a new location partly because there was too much critical in one place and also finding it you might overlook the research log.

 

Fixed the potion objective bug where it remained checked even if you took it away. The potion objective now requires a special holy healing potion which you have to find; an ordinary health potion will not work.

 

No interrogation room key; only scroll and stone. Someone else reported some missing keys in other FMs. I even tested with a fire arrow but could not duplicate. Eventually this was found to be caused by the updater not being full up to date. You MUST run tdm_update.exe again and again until you see the message: "All done, your TDM installation is up-to-date. Enjoy! "

 

 

NOT DONE:

 

Clipping problems on roof over balcony and wood beam. I simply overlooked this somehow.

 

If some 'new' objectives are done before they are visible then you will have to redo, eg, drop and pick up again. Seems to be a bug where some 'new' objectives checked off automatically so I had to UNcheck them as they appeared even if you had actually done them!

 

[aidakeeley]

 

 

Office now has a sign on the door to avoid confusion with library.

Aw, but that was so fun (seriously)! I (and I believe I read someone else as well) had about an hour in that GD room lloking in the very fucking cracks in the ceiling trying to find the trigger! I forgot to tell you that. But it really was fun.

 

 

 

 

Removed fire arrow on expert+ - Use that slow match!

I also forgot to tell you I did use the match. You know how frightened I was of that Guardian Spider*.

 

I mention this because, I wanted you to know that I paid attention to your "hold on to the match" bit... and to suggest that If you ever do a major major overhaul of the mission I hope you'll do something easter-eggy that plays on that screen shot I gave at the beta testing forum, where I used both matches... that'd be extra cool if that triggered something; it just seemed so obvious that that was what the matches were for...

 

 

 

 

*I might just go back and play this just to get a chance to kill that damned thing -- really like the idea that once the Heart is destroyed this guy loses enough of his raison d'etre that he becomes mortal.

 

 

If one upgrades from say, beta1 to this latest and greatest... will the saves be compatible?

[Fidcal]

No - previous gamesaves will not work with the upgrade - it is effectively a new FM.

 

What was that use for two matches? I must have missed that and can't find your post.

[aidakeeley]

Heart Of Lone Salvation v2:

 

Okay, well, I think I'll give it a download at least and a play-through while testing my new-found console commands and cvars.

 

The two matches:

 

The last picture in this post:

 

 

there is also, as you know a statue on the other side of that portal that seems to want something to be placed in her hands... maybe another use for the Heart to go along with the matches?

 

 

http://shalebridgecr...t=1384&start=42

 

...

 

Thanks for v2!

Edited April 12, 2010 by aidakeeley

[raymeld]

Finished in 5 hours 36 minutes with a deal of help from Fidcal and others. Absolutely enjoyed the mission in spite of my pathetic thieving. Had a job for some reason

pressing the little button in the cell to find Sam , piling up crates and suchlike to reach it. Also, mucked about dragging the body in the cage around for a while thinking it was Sam .

I'm afraid I never did

get Sam's bones to the chapel , getting myself out was problem enough!

Thanks again to the makers of the mission , you've set a very high standard with this one.

Edited April 12, 2010 by raymeld

[Tels]

rustmite: Can you open your DoomConfig.cfg file in your current game folder and search down and tell me what values you have for these please?...

 

_speed [this is the key you have set as the run Shift key. You have to hold it down when running]

pm_walkspeed [This is your walking speed]

pm_runmod [This is how much your walk speed is multiplied when you hold down the run Shift key.]

in_alwaysRun [if this is 1 then it reverses the above so you run with the move key and walk when you hold down the run Shift key.]

 

Hm, I had the same problem with the current, but after _running_ upstream in the canal center I very very slowly moved so I thought it is designed that way.

[Fidcal]

What settings do you have Tels? Seems worrying if force fields are not constant but vary on different systems. I originally could wade with no problem but some beta testers said they couldn't. I reduced the force to about two thirds of what it was. Not I could almost walk against it. That fixed it for some yet now we have others who still cannot wade against the current. I have to suspect different config which is why I am asking for settings. Maybe my settings are wrong. Maybe others are wrong. Needs sorting out since it could be mission critical in some FMs.

[Fidcal]

One other thing that perplexes me. Different people keep trying to wade in the deepest part in the centre. Why? Please tell me before I go barking mad.