Fan Mission: The Alchemist by Sotha & Fidcal(2010/06/01)

[Fidcal]

 

The Alchemist is a full-size city and mansion Dark Mod FM, the fourth in the Thief's Den series in which you play Farrell. It follows on from Heart of Lone Salvation so you should play that first.

 

The main build of this FM was by Sotha who was unable to continue work on it. I (Fidcal) could see the potential so completed it, somewhat roughly and quickly, so it could be enjoyed rather than abandoned. Even so, it exceeded my original estimate!

 

Read the notes below while you ... DOWNLOAD HERE. (27MB)

 

Sam's death hit me hard and I've not been feeling so good. I'm worried I didn't get rid of the Heart of Lone Salvation quickly enough. I don't want to end my days like Martha Edridge. A health potion is too weak; I need something stronger. Only a holy healing potion will lift a curse so I need to find a good alchemist.

 

But the city watch have been tipped off and the district is alive with guards searching for any intruder they find on the streets. I have no choice: I must get that potion...

 

This FM needs Dark Mod Update 1.02 or later.

 

TIP: You cannot drink the holy healing potion if you are perfectly fit!

 

As said in the briefing, the city watch are already ALERT right from the start and much more likely to notice you in the dark. You'd better be ready to move!

 

ALLOW 2 TO 4 HOURS PLAY FIRST TIME AROUND

 

Players with low end machines will find this slow in some places especially when there is an alert. Hide. Let things calm down. Closing doors behind you may help.

 

In Dark Mod some glass is breakable using any weapon. It may require several hits. But there is also toughened glass which cannot be broken. Only one way to find out which is which!

 

Do not use Esc during the briefing or the cursor becomes invisible. (You can still select blind though looking for highlights.) You can skip the briefing with the left mouse button. If you miss anything you can use the back button to show it again.

 

Above all, Enjoy!

 

[EDIT] updated with debugged combination lock script 5 June 2010. If you had a previous version installed make sure it is totally removed first, ie, doom3/alchemist and darkmod/fms/alchemist.

 

[EDIT] If you get strange crashes there is a known bug caused by the spiky balls. This is fixed in Dark Mod but I think not released until 1.03. Try my patch from http://www.fidcal.com/TEMP/alchemist_patch2.zip It makes the spiky balls passive - they don't do damage - but apart from that no difference.

 

Close Dark Mod

Unzip the patch into your game folder doom3\alchemist

Start the FM afresh, don't use earlier gamesaves.

[SneaksieDave]

Get outta here! Wikified.

[nbohr1more]

...this will be a looong day at work.

(And even longer if I have to do stuff with the wife after work... )

[lowenz]

Can't load savegames without crash, it only happens to me?

[Fidcal]

I am not certain about this but don't save when there is an alert. I know that hard in this game as the city watch keep getting alerted in the first 15 minutes or so. Make lots of named saves in the menu just in case. I had one bad crash early on when testing but since then it's been OK.

[greebo]

The alerted AI savegame crash should be fixed by now (TDM 1.02).

[SiyahParsomen]

besides, restart also crashes sometimes. Apart from these problems, it's nice mission.

Edited June 2, 2010 by SiyahParsomen

[Berny]

Oh man...

 

 

 

I know I WILL love the city part (; (; (;

 

 

 

but I have the savegame bug.. ;( No reload

 

 

Edited June 2, 2010 by Berny

[Sotha]

It was interesting to walk around the map. It was so familiar, but still so different.

 

Oh, an introduction seem to be in order. I'm Sotha. I was learning Dark Radiant by creating most of the geometry seen on this map. Once I encountered some serious hardware problems I had no time to work on it anymore and then Fidcal took over working the map. He definately deserves the credit for the map more than I.

 

Anyways I have to admit that after many hours of gameplay I had to noclip to get forward. Missed some clue somewhere, I suppose.

 

I also had a crash every time I tried to reload a save. Which in the end made me restart the entire map and noclip to the spot I was in before getting killed.

 

Do not read the following before you've played the map, it will ruin your fun:

The most coolest parts of the map were

 

 

*the surprise in the closet. I almost needed a new pair of pants after that one.

*the atmosphere in the mansions cellar. Most excellent.

 

 

 

The not-so-cool parts were:

*My geometry. After playing some other FM's it looked so... coarse. My excuse is that I was just learning DR at the time.

*The map was way too large and it was easy to get distracted from the main goal.

 

*I'm probably an idiot, but I never managed to get the door with the keypad open. Nor did I figure out how to get to the locked room next to it. Even though there was a hint of a hidden passage.

 

 

But anyway, I've certainly learned a lot from this and I'll be employing my lessons in the map I'm currently working on.

 

And again, thanks for Fidcal for finalizing this.

[id3839315]

Thanks for another great mission !

 

As said in the briefing, the city watch are already ALERT right from the start and much more likely to notice you in the dark. You'd better be ready to move!

That's not nice. The archer started shooting from the roof assisted by another other guard making dog food of Mr. Farrell.

 

The most coolest parts of the map were

 

 

*the surprise in the closet. I almost needed a new pair of pants after that one.

 

 

Me too but the guards took care of the surprise.

 

The not-so-cool parts were:

 

*I'm probably an idiot, but I never managed to get the door with the keypad open.

 

 

I thought the incantation is the code for the keypad but it doesn't work. Any hint ?

 

Edited June 2, 2010 by id3839315

[Fidcal]

It is. I can't get it to fail. Did you pull the lever or just set the numbers?

[aidakeeley]

Yeah...

 

Sorry, greebo, but I've got the save-reload fails thing on my last 2 saves... and I tried it with 1.02 (very latest) and 1.02 (the one I saved after the fix you did about it crashing when I had that guy dead in the water...) both crash. (Memory reference...)

 

ETA:

It turns out all of my saves fail...

 

Anyway, as before, in case you can make use of it, a copy of my latest save

 

save, tga and txt

Edited June 2, 2010 by aidakeeley

[Ladro]

I have too some problems on re-load after an alert (F9 and then F4): it makes loading page for ever

 

(i'm with V1.02)

[aidakeeley]

Well...

 

I restarted the mission and played much further before my reload was necessary...

 

 

 

I got into the Manor

 

 

 

From there I was able to save, load, reload a bunch...

 

 

 

Not sure if this is because I am beyond/behind any crash-sensitive "portals" or because, having to restart I got experimental and actually used my mine to kill the boys at the beginning (3) and then the archer above too... so maybe nobody was left on this "alerting-like-a-chicken-with-its-head-cut-off" thing?

 

 

 

But now I've crashed again:

 

 

 

I got to a point where I needed to find another clue or something apparently... put that damned code in, it registed "correct"... but it didn't open the door... so I decided to get experimental again and get rid of the boys at the gates and front door so I could do some more looking about unhindered. So got 3 dead or knocked out and 2 left very "alerted"... when I went to save this state... crash!

 

 

Edited June 3, 2010 by aidakeeley

[Fidcal]

aidakeeley: Ah, that's useful. You say it registered as correct? So you mean you saw a message in the console? If you can confirm that then might help me debug it. I've been wasting time trying to get the wheels to rotate perfectly when it might be a completely different problem. But why it doesn't fail for me I do not understand.

[Fidcal]

I think I fixed the combo lock bug. It might relate to the state players leave the test combo lock at the inventor's (which would explain why it didn't fail for me.)

 

Please would anyone with the problem please download and test this patch and if OK then I'll update the main FM...

 

http://www.fidcal.com/TEMP/alchemist_patch.zip

 

Close Dark Mod

Extract the zip into your doom3\alchemist game folder (NOT the darkmod\fms\alchemist folder)

Try the combo lock again. I am fairly sure you can use your previous gamesave but I am not certain. Perhaps greebo can confirm whether map scripts are saved with a gamesave.

[aidakeeley]

You say it registered as correct? So you mean you saw a message in the console?

 

No. Not the console. Just the sound it gave...

 

 

 

I'm trying not to read much of what else is being said here as I (as usual) want to avoid any spoilerageingness... so I quit reading your stuff right there, sorry... If you can assure me that I'll not be spoiled I'll read on but thought I'd answer that question re: "correct"...

 

I'll say this much, I have a habit of doing things completely unconventionally and "messing up" the (mostly adventure) games I play. Here I went from the starting point into the shop/house across sewers, down in to the basement behind the crate... into the water... up far down the line into the yard of V... into that breakable window...

 

So I missed a bunch of city. Which I am now exploring... I missed a bunch! I got way up there a few times and "saw for miles and miles and miles"... I meant to explore the city on my way back, unless I had to do what I'm doing now... Anyway, I found the Inventor for instance... and his note may make for more to think about. Seemed to get a "correct" with his dial up too, but it didn't do anything I could discern either (wanted it to open that wee, little house...

 

So, I am in the midst of figuring things out a different way if need be... If you are exasperated by my rambling and want me to read the rest of what you wrote. Please assure me it won't spoil me and let me know in a reply to this...

 

 

Edited June 3, 2010 by aidakeeley

[SiyahParsomen]

I thought load crash bug was fixed, because I didn't get any crash since beta 2. I think it was my luck. Anyway some notes about crashes:

 

- I killed every living creature in the mission, completed all objectives except leaving, and saved at the front of exit gate. Load crashed.

 

-Saved the game inside of mansion. load crashed.

 

-Crashes happened in all difficulity levels.

[Fidcal]

Ah! I just had a thought - those who have had trouble opening the combination lock door - do you have open on unlock OFF in the settings? My guess is yes. I'll do another patch.

 

[EDIT] OK I uploaded another patch

[id3839315]

do you have open on unlock OFF in the settings?

Open doors on unlock is set to YES.

 

Try the combo lock again. I am fairly sure you can use your previous gamesave but I am not certain. Perhaps greebo can confirm whether map scripts are saved with a gamesave.

Thanks for the patch. It works but you have to pull the lever twice. You can't use old savegames with the patch.

 

By the way:

 

What's the sense of the room with the seven thieves in the southeast corner of the map when you noclip ?

 

Edited June 3, 2010 by id3839315

[SiyahParsomen]

yes! In my gameplay settings "open doors on unlock" is "yes" and it works perfectly. Then changed it to "no" and I wasn't able to open the door.

Edited June 3, 2010 by SiyahParsomen

[Berny]

now I have a broken savegame ;( damn ;( ;(

 

 

 

 

Besides: I love the music at the start!! also the (secret) underground areas are cool!

 

 

[Fidcal]

thanks id3- I think you might have my first patch. I uploaded another. The first patch probably fixed the main bug but then you have to frob the lever again to open the door. The second patch hopefully opens the door first time.

 

 

The 7 thieves I stuck in to teleport into the FM at different places and times to keep the city watch alert. In the end I only used about 3 of them.

 

[Sotha]

 

The 7 thieves I stuck in to teleport into the FM at different places and times to keep the city watch alert. In the end I only used about 3 of them.

 

 

 

-Ah, so *THAT's* why it was so easy to waltz inside the the manor as all the plate mail armored guards were chasing the poor sod. I was first confused when I arrived to the manor and saw it without guards. They were chasing the thief with the ever vigilant citywatch..

 

[Fidcal]

Damn! And I added more - I had about 5 guards at the front. I should have put them on a team relationship so they ignored the thieves as it's not their job to chase thieves in the city but to guard the house. It all depends on timing and which route you take of course.