Fan Mission: St Alban's Cathedral (01/11/2010)

[nbohr1more]

Probably a bit complicated but I wonder if you could load-up a bunch of readables for the easy mode and use nospawn on many of them for the difficult modes?

[Bikerdude]

maybe, but would be eaier for me to just make the mission more accessible for everyone.

 

@nbohr1more

 

Would u like me to do a game play video for moddb..?

[Midnight]

Please make missions for really dumb people (like me). It's much more rewarding to say "oh, that was a bit easy". Thank you!

I think I prefer a range of difficulties. It's a big ask for a community of mappers to have consistency in this area, but making good use of the difficulty settings (with things like hints as opposed to just number of enemies) is the ideal situation IMHO.

 

Also...

 

 

Dang Bikerdude, what did you say?

 

Edited November 9, 2010 by Midnight

[nbohr1more]

maybe, but would be eaier for me to just make the mission more accessible for everyone.

 

@nbohr1more

 

Would u like me to do a game play video for moddb..?

 

 

Y... E... S... (that'll be good to keep the momentum going along with your mission uploads... I was thinking that since I already put download links on your release article, that I should upload a "Bikerdude Pack" with all 3 of your missions).

[Bikerdude]

@midnight,

 

Nothing special dude, what site was that for darkmod or moddb.?

@nbohr1more

 

Ok, Ill make one this evening and upload it to my moddb profile. The limit is 200mb, do you have a bigger limit as your a contributor..?

Edited November 9, 2010 by Bikerdude

[nbohr1more]

I have the same limitation... Youtube HD link?

[Tels]

What we need to do is move this derailment to a "TDM propaganda" thread and leave St. Alban's Cathedral alone.

 

Agreed, can some admin please move the relevant posts over to here:

 

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/11900-moddb/page__view__findpost__p__236728

[nbohr1more]

What we need to do is move this derailment to a "TDM propaganda" thread and leave St. Alban's Cathedral alone.

 

My apologies ungoliant.

 

(Double apologies for not derailing with at least LEGION quality topics)

[Bikerdude]

what ungol said, sorta...

[raymeld]

Great mission but I can't find

the inventor's room. Is it one of the rooms in that maze of rooms reached by the ladder with boards above it ? They all look the same and I can't get rid of that pesky skull !

Probably easy , but could someone give me a very direct hint before I throw

the skull out the nearest window !!

[Springheel]

It is one of the

rooms, the one with the hat on the bed and the empty chest.

[raymeld]

It is one of the

rooms, the one with the hat on the bed and the empty chest.

 

 

 

Thanks for that , can now get my sanity back ! Trouble is , because of constraints on my time I guess I'm trying to play these missions too fast.

[fraten]

I think I prefer a range of difficulties. It's a big ask for a community of mappers to have consistency in this area, but making good use of the difficulty settings (with things like hints as opposed to just number of enemies) is the ideal situation IMHO. (...)

 

Sure, but the difficulty SETTINGS were not the problem. My point was, that the ARCHITECTURE was too hard (e.g. I didn't recognize windows being frobbable, since they looked just like the other windows). It's not about the hard, medium, easy - menu.

[Bikerdude]

I didn't recognize windows being frobbable, since they looked just like the other windows). It's not about the hard, medium, easy - menu.

 

Sorry thats kinda an issue with tdm, any thats bright already is hard to see if its frobbable - I will keep this in mind in future missions.

[Tels]

I have voted "Excellent" gameplay, "Near perfect" Appearance and "Near perfect" story.

 

As I wrote, there are only a handful, very minor technial issues like z-fighting. The "not that optimized" rooms did not hinder me (my system is fast enough so they don't matter), and basically, almost everything was nearly perfect. Too many static items nonwithstanding, but I think that is all covered under "Near perfect". It doesn't say "perfect" after all

 

There is one thing I would have like: all the small rooms should have gotten their own location, and a "ambient_dynamic" setting on it. That would have softened the hard shadows if only a single candle is lit in the room. But heh, nothing is perfect

 

There are, besides that, only a few points that others already mentioned: Some more readables could really have helped steer me along, a lot of time I was wondering what to do next and where to go - the only reason this wasn't really bothering me was because there was always something new to explore, so I was stumbling forward anyway. However, a few questions remain:

 

 

 

* would I really have detected that this is the diplomats room? I kinda guessed, but then I had to run all over the map to find it again because when I was there, this looked like any other room to me am I ignored it.

* would I have found the lever on the ceiling without hint? I guess I would have know where it is (the hint on the stone is pretty clear), but not how to reach it, because after 20 minutes running around and looking at all ceilings I still didn't know how I could inspect the high ceiling in the church itself where I suspected it. Likewise, the fallen plate (and continuing of thee puzzle) was nice, but how on earth would I have known it is there? I was more or less walking everywhere just to check (and at this point I was using noclip because I couldn't be bothered anymore to sneak for 30 minutes and still have no clue where to look). Random searching isn't that fun. To be fair, the last piece of the way ("your way goes downward" was very easy compared to all that before)

* whats with the pit in one of the cells with the 3 boards across it?

* Can one steal the cadecus?

* whats with the "frobbable window" people talk in spoilers?

* it felt wrong to rob the shopkeeper and the old lady. I did it, because I feared I might not make the loot, however, due to the invalidation of the savegame I also played on easy (w/o knowing it) and I managed to get the required loot while already in the city. Oops. Would have liked to place some money for the shopkeeper back I think required the loot amounts could easily be raised a bit.

 

 

 

Anyway, I deducted one point from gameplay for this, because I didn't feel the last parts of the mission were fun, they appeared abit tedious. To be fair, tho, I used v1.03 to play, and due to the way D3 works, every update to a script file or anything else seems to invaidate savegames, and this happened to me the last days. So I needed to played the start of the mission about 3 times and the last time I couldn't bother to replay 1h so I noclipped everywhere until I was in the church again. I guess that also contributed to my "I don't have patience" mindset tonight, another night I might really have searched the entire church

 

Summary: Excellent mission, I can see tons of work have gone in it. This is much much more than I could have ever achieved as mapper, so I salute bikderdudes patience, work hours and his dedication. Bravo!

[Bikerdude]

Summary: Excellent mission, I can see tons of work have gone in it. This is much much more than I could have ever achieved as mapper, so I salute bikderdudes patience, work hours and his dedication. Bravo!

 

Heh, your welcome :-)

 

I already have my 4th mission brewing in the back of my mind - will be like nothing TDm'rs have seen before.

 

in the mean time I am again working on RTTC, so hopefully between myself ands Melna we will have this out for Xmas! I am also working on two other mission with another author, but I dont have a release date on them..

 

 

[raymeld]

Well it's obvious that the bones are in the crypt what it should say is sth like

 

 

 

Look above the crypt door or sth along those lines. And there should also probably be at least some slight clue as to how to read that latin stuff by reading the capital letters such as having them stand out in some unusual way rather than just being capitals where capitals are always found.

 

 

 

Can you give me a direct hint ,

I've opened all the tombs ( I think ) and dumped the bones out in some cases but can't find the relic!

Being particularly thick on this one or getting tired ! Thanks

[pmw57]

Can you give me a direct hint ,

I've opened all the tombs ( I think ) and dumped the bones out in some cases but can't find the relic!

Being particularly thick on this one or getting tired ! Thanks

 

 

Try at the tomb where you entered from the sewer.

 

[Bikerdude]

Try at the tomb where you entered from the sewer.

but dont forget you will have had to frobbed the two switches

(one in the cathedral and one in the cell/crypt area)

before looking said sarcophagus etc

[raymeld]

but dont forget you will have had to frobbed the two switches

(one in the cathedral and one in the cell/crypt area)

before looking said sarcophagus etc

 

Ah ah ! Haven't

frobbed the second crypt switch yet.

. Thank you both for your replies. Bikerdude you are devious !

[Bikerdude]

ROTFL...

 

 

its the one above the crypt entrance, that becomes unhidden after you have frobbed the first switch in cathedral..

 

Edited November 11, 2010 by Bikerdude

[raymeld]

ROTFL...

 

 

its the one above the crypt entrance, that becomes unhidden after you have frobbed the first switch in cathedral..

 

 

 

Thanks Bikerdude. Now that I've finally finished , may I congratulate you on a very interesting ( and different ) mission. That last clue would have given me some difficulty without your direct hint. I'd like to play it again sometime when I've more time because I think I rushed it a bit towards the end. When I look back ,

I think the chandelier and crank bit was easier than it looked , it should have been obvious that it was near the scaffolding and ladder. But not to me at the time!

Strange thing regarding the haunt .

When I used to play fan missions of the earlier versions of Thief it was my style to let the prisoners out of their cells and leave them to the hammers etc. In one mission it allowed me to sneak past in a tough spot I remember. Anyway , to get to the point , I let a couple of the prisoners out and wandered off to explore the upper regions. When I'd found the crank etc I came back to the crypt looking to avoid the haunt. Imagine my surprise when I found one of the escaped prisoners at the foot of the stairs with the haunt dead at his feet ! No need to avoid him now !

In looking for the bones I even fell through the manhole cover entrance and got badly injured ! So all in all a very entertaining mission with lots to explore. No problem running it apart from a few malloc errors.

Edited November 12, 2010 by raymeld

[Bikerdude]

yer that bloody malloc error was due to amount of memory need to run it.

 

If I do an uypdate I try to address that error along with a few other annoying bugs etc.

[masterthief]

Now I finished the mission. (Unfortunately I could not sooner, because it was a lot of things to do) would have enjoyed every minute of it because I liked it, but unfortunately I went on a mission rather jerkily. Was a lot of fps drop (in the near future will have to buy a more powerful processor, it does not fall back to the fps, do not go to the intermittent gameplay) that I could climb up to the roofs, slipped through a window. The channel also had a good wander around, and I liked the Cathedral of the undead spirit. Thief mission was overall very good. I would like to see even more such Bikerdude!MeghallgatásOlvasás fonetikusan

 

[Bikerdude]

your welcome.