The Caduceus of St. Alban: Vertical FM Contest entry: Aug 8th, 2010

[Oldjim]

Under 1.08 is this supposed to happen going to the bell tower

Going past the seated guard by dowsing the fire I opened the gate to the elevator and there is a guard standing there. I tried moving the elevator up and down and even hitting him with an arrow but he just stays there. I could use the gas arrow but it seems a waste

 

 

Edited November 18, 2012 by Oldjim

[Thiefette]

Under 1.08 is this supposed to happen going to the bell tower

Going past the seated guard by dowsing the fire I opened the gate to the elevator and there is a guard standing there. I tried moving the elevator up and down and even hitting him with an arrow but he just stays there. I could use the gas arrow but it seems a waste

 

 

 

I believe I just snuck up behind and KO'd him. I didn't even see him after I knocked out the other guy until I was well into the light but he didn't seem to notice so I just snuck over back to the dark and then went and got him

 

[Oldjim]

Must look for a blackjack then - haven't found it yet

[Thiefette]

Must look for a blackjack then - haven't found it yet

I just played this the other day so I'll go back in & check it. Having a brain dead moment here.

[Oldjim]

As I could get to the bell tower the other way I raised the lift from there and used the gas arrow - never did find the blackjack - all finished although I was about 100 loot down

[Thiefette]

As I could get to the bell tower the other way I raised the lift from there and used the gas arrow - never did find the blackjack - all finished although I was about 100 loot down

Well I'm glad you were able to finish. Our different experience seems to have come about with the difficulty level played - you on expert and I on hard. Sorry about that. I started a game on expert and had a look around but I couldn't find one either.

[Bikerdude]

At some point I will be updating this for 1.08 as well and as you all know I will probably do some tweaking and adding while I'm at it

[Thiefette]

At some point I will be updating this for 1.08 as well, as as you all know me I will probably do some tweaking and adding while Im at it

What's better than a Bikerdude mission? An udated Bikerdude mission. Yay!! Look forward to it!

[Oldjim]

At some point I will be updating this for 1.08 as well and as you all know I will probably do some tweaking and adding while I'm at it

Great news - I look forward to it

[Furman]

This is so far my favourite TDM mission - it's architecture is absolutely great! It's non linear, which is a big plus. Only two drawbacks I see are easy to avoid AI's and some AI in game glitches (I saw certain AI's stuck in doorways and I saw one guard sitting on thin air - just like there was chair under him).

 

Also, solar heliocentric system was really great.

[Yasrynn]

I just registered so I could comment about this mission. Love the mod and the fan maps.

 

Just played this mission. I liked the architecture and how there were multiple points of entry, and a number of interesting things to find. The story is mostly consistent and interesting.

 

A few gripes:

 

 

- Killing the spiders in the cave triggers failure on expert. My guess is that this is unintentional. It's particularly annoying because the location of the vine and lighting in the cave make it very likely you'll be seen by them entering the cave. It's hard to read the journal while being chased around by spiders you aren't allowed to kill.

 

- Alerting the spiders seems to count against your stealth score at the end of the mission.

 

- After finally finding the exit after searching around for a few hours, it's very unsatisfying. I found it by randomly clicking the wall behind the hanging sheet in the basement barracks, since at this point I was randomly clicking everything. Maybe I missed a journal or some kind of clue that I should be looking for a secret passage here.

 

- Since I couldn't find any clues leading me to an exit, my fallback was to look for places an exit would exist naturally... I checked kitchens and privies for drains, etc. Now that I've found it I have a hard time imagining why a passage connecting a barracks, a prison, and the outside would exist. Most of the rest of the architecture makes sense, so this seems particularly jarring given that finding it is required for completion.

 

- If we aren't able to use the grate Fids used, why is it pickable? It would make more sense to have a grate with no hinges there.

 

- It would make more sense for the prison guard to carry the key to the cells, since his patrol has him opening the main prison door repeatedly. Maybe have the vault key hanging on the wall instead.

 

- There are underscores in the display name for the vault key.

 

- Walking along the edge of the walls seems abusable. It makes avoiding detection on the roof near the belltower and the outside areas between the main tower and the eastern/western towers really easy.

 

- The priest's patrol seems excessively long. At one point I waited for him to leave the chapel for 7ish minutes before giving up. Having long patrols can raise the difficulty so I'm not against it in general, but since there are so many places to hide and wait to pickpocket him it just makes it take forever once you realize he moves from the chapel to the study. (Trying to pickpocket him in the chapel seemed like a bad idea.)

 

 

The map is 3 years old so I doubt the author is going to make changes at this point, but these are my opinions.

[Bikerdude]

• hmmm, that will be a miss-configuration in the objective then :-/
  
• Probably needs a readable placed somewhere to hint at this.
  
• makes sense, will remove the grate.
  
• Its an old map, my mapping skills at the time were limited - anyway what lunatic creeps along the wall where a fall would mean certain death ;-P
  

[Yasrynn]

• Its an old map, my mapping skills at the time were limited - anyway what lunatic creeps along the wall where a fall would mean certain death ;-P
  

 

Hah, the same lunatic that sneaks into a Builder monastery unarmed without knowing how they'll get out, I guess!

 

Cheers, thanks for making the map.

[Cookie]

Just played this mission again, still quite entertaining.

 

If the question is allowed: Where did you get those recipes from? Some of them sound actually quite realistic, others, well I guess funny

[Bikerdude]

Either from a book in my kitchen or online

 

I will at some point get around to fixing the remaining bugs in this mission

[wesp5]

I just now played this map and it really was great! I especially loved the planetarium in the tower, it's amazing to see fantastic visuals like this in a FM. I have ony one suggestion: As many others I found the exit tunnel rather via accident and didn't like it, because it just didn't make much sense. Why not actually add the exit tunnel to the cool cave area and remove the corpse there for another happy ending ? You could even keep the corpse and made the tunnel reachable via the second climeable vines wall, which that guy just didn't get...

Edited August 9, 2015 by wesp5

[Bikerdude]

When I get around to updating this mission I will make the the tunnels the exit.

[Taquito]

What a beauty of a mission Bikerdude! I just wanted to push this baby up. My only complaint was finding the exit to the mission It was totally confusing given the mission objective exit explanation which made it feel like a dead end or perhaps give the feeling of an incomplete mission. Excellent lighting, great atmosphere, Great architecture. You really know how to work small spaces and make the most of them. Loved this! Here are some nice pics I took while traveling this amazing mission:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 23, 2016 by Taquito

[Bikerdude]

Glad you enjoyed it, one of these days I will rework the exit :-)

[lowenz]

 

 

 

[Bikerdude]

That's actually a stock TDM resource

[lowenz]

That's actually a stock TDM resource

A beautiful stock resource!

[duzenko]

Is there any clue for the exit location anywhere? I had to noclip to find it.

What is the meaning of the hatch between the tunnel and the barracks? Can it be opened from the barracks side?

Couple of visual errors:

 

[Bikerdude]

The obvious exit isnt the real exit, think straw bails. The first screenshot is in the right location, but from memory will only trigger when you have completed all your objectives.

Edited August 27, 2017 by Bikerdude

[chakkman]

I just finished this (the second time i think, don't remember the first one though). Nice mission, with a few frustrations here and there.

 

Gameplay: Good. I liked the amount of guards, and the linear guard paths. The architecture was again a bit tight, so i couldn't really avoid some guard encounters once again. The good thing was though that there were quite a few places the guards weren't moving to, so, there were hiding spots, not in the corridors though. I found it a bit strange that you start without any weapons at all, and i never found a blackjack, even though it was mentioned in the intro.

 

Appearance: Excellent. Even though it's an older mission, and some of the more recent missions surely raised the bar. The interior, and especially the cellar/prison really look nice, and provide a great atmosphere. As i mentioned above, the layout was a bit tight, but, that's rather a gameplay thing, i guess.

 

Story: Excellent. Not much to criticize here. Quite classic mission story. I found the readables a bit more on the generic side, they could have been done with a bit more "middle age" or Thief vibe. Only a small concern though, as, in general, they were quite OK.

 

 

I wonder if the front door wasn't meant to be opened by design, or if i missed a key... i found almost anything though, which is also a good sign.

 

 

P.S.: Like lowenz, i liked the sky.

Edited March 21, 2018 by chakkman