FM: Lockdown Part 1 by GameDevGoro and BikerDude (2010/12/24)

[grayman]

Okay, I'll get you the zip. Tell me how you'd prefer/recommend ...

 

I sent you a PM.

[GameDevGoro]

This mission feels straight out of Thief 2... and that is meant as a compliment. We haven't had many town-based missions where you can break into many residents like this. It reminds me of Life of the Party very much.

That's great! Life of the party is my personal favorite Thief 2 mission!

Edited December 27, 2010 by GameDevGoro

[i30817]

This is a nice mission. Compact, and the way to go get the builder's priest crown was devious (i thought the guard wouldn't move, and the door bellow was the access point, so i was a little bit lost for a while. Very fine object placement.

[Sotha]

Oh, no review poll?

 

Played this now. Nice mission. I played it on easy.

 

 

Gameplay : Good.

Very, very dense geometry. It made avoiding the AI really really difficult.

 

The downside of dense geometry was that it was really easy to make a single mistake which were terribly unforgiving. This resulted in many reloads and slight frustration. Good thing there were balconies and bridges to hide in. In the end the high density geometry made me blackjack most of the AI (because it is safer) and that was not very interesting. But it is nice to have variety of missions of different focus areas.

 

The AI's had rather short and unimaginative 2 path_node patrol routes, but I guess that is necessary since the dense geometry would make them collide and most likely get stuck.

 

There were some non-monsterclipped (or poorly monsterclipped) func_statics in which the AI got stuck. There was also one really bugged door which I could open from the other side, get in, but I could not open it anymore to get back. The door was in the builder compound and it led from a narrow corridor to a room with one builder guard and machinery. If you plan to update this mission, please check monsterclippings and this particular door.

 

There were those key-hunts which I loathe very much, but luckily these were minimal and the keys were in logical places. I would still prefer if the player could make some intelligent decision when finding such things, rather than blind exploration which uncovers the key.

 

Also the player could have had more tools like the spyglass and the lantern. Also it would have been nice to give the players shop options to get the gear they prefer.

 

The most critical gameplay problem for me was that it is difficult to enjoy this mission without spamming the save/load function. This was due to unforgiving nature of the really dense geometry.

 

I had a suspension of disbelief problems in the abandoned crypt that had electrical fan ventilation or something. The blue, haunted lights were nice. And The Big Zombie Surprize from the watery grave made me jump. All it would have needed was some sudden and scary noise and I would have needed a new pair of pants.

 

Appearance : Excellent

Looked really good. I think it was better looking than than missions on average, but then again this was the first mission I played with HDR lite and other new visual candies on, so they give extra punch to the visuals as well. Nice job on the visuals!

Story : Good

Not much complaints. The story wasn't very impressive, but not bad either. Good missions do not need grandeur plots in my opinion.

 

I see this more like an exploration mission rather than a mission with story guiding the player. Explore around and get loot.

 

Conclusion

Nice mission! Good job!

 

 

EDIT: Oops, sorry. Post spoilerified.

[McPhisto2051]

nice FM

 

but for my opinion trhere could me more climbable windows and they should not all lead to room where u can enter from inside the buildings...

 

the zombie dungeon is too easy because they all sleep but i was really shocked from the underwater zombie .

 

the guard are good but they all began to stuck on the map the longer im playing. blocking ways and doors.

 

resume: funny small FM

 

 

 

last question: where is the crown which should be repaired? it isnt in the builders rooms and the one in the "tomb" seems not to be the right one...

 

greetz Mc

Edited December 27, 2010 by McPhisto2051

[Fidcal]

Well, no surprise for anyone else then eh? What happened to spoilers?

 

Sorry I forgot the poll. I felt there was something I'd probably forgotten. I'll add it now. Better late than never.

[Fidcal]

I added a poll with a slightly different format. Poor is combined with tolerable so there is now a 'very good' added for when it's better than good but not quite excellent.

 

[edit] so let me know whether this format is better or worse.

 

We could actually have 6 choices but that screws up my calcs and the spreadsheet for when it is a contest so I was rather reluctant to change that because of the extra work.

[GameDevGoro]

Hmm... After reading Sotha's and McPhisto2051's reviews I get the feeling it's easy to miss certain parts of the map, probably due to the geometric complexity and density, as pointed out by Sotha.

 

Exploration is nice, but not when it's regarding mission objectives, I guess.

[Jesps]

Fun mission.

 

First I played it on expert, and was only missing the get out objective, when load the saved game (my error, not the game's). So I finished it on easy.

 

Gameplay: 3/5. The many guards made it challenging to sneak around. And there were a few occasions where I had to jump for my life to avoid the guards. There were some poor monsterclipping in some places so the guards would walk endlesly into a e.g. a tree.

On easy I could just knock down all the guards, which made the map a bit dull.

 

Apperance: 3-4/5. The arcitecture had a very 'real' look to it; narrow streets, balconies etc.

 

Story: 4/5. Quite a lot of readables gave life to the characters and places.

 

I found couple of bugs:

 

One window was non-solid. I alerted the sleeping watch captain, who got up and fell through the floor. The same happened to the sleeping builder

 

 

[McPhisto2051]

where did i miss map parts? i ran around several times...

 

where should i look for more map parts?

 

and please give me some idiot-like guide how to make such a spoiler im still too stupid, sorry!

 

greetz Mc

 

nevermind the part where to go to...

i was already there but i just jumped to the opposite roof and back again...

Edited December 27, 2010 by McPhisto2051

[Fidcal]

Forum spoilers are under 'Other Styles' at top left of the full editor.

[GameDevGoro]

where did i miss map parts? i ran around several times...

 

Hehe, don't worry about that remark I made, it wasn't made specifically at you or Sotha, it's just that ever since I started creating this mission people have reported on not being able to find mission crucial items or the like.

[McPhisto2051]

ok thx

 

test

 

 

btw i found a big bug...

after i got the real crown im unable to lift chests and cant use any weapons so i cant use e.g. the rope arrow.

 

if anyone needs the savegame i can share it

[STiFU]

Hehe, don't worry about that remark I made, it wasn't made specifically at you or Sotha, it's just that ever since I started creating this mission people have reported on not being able to find mission crucial items or the like.

Well, I for one think the mission layout was the most brilliant thing about your FM. So don't let any comments discourage you to build this complex levels in the future. After all, most of the areas are only necessary to reach on expert difficulty, which is supposed to be hard.

 

I still didn't find it hard at all though...

[GameDevGoro]

Well, I for one think the mission layout was the most brilliant thing about your FM. So don't let any comments discourage you to build this complex levels in the future.

 

Why thank you.

And no, I don't get discouraged easily. It's just that I probably have to plan out future missions "flow" some, as I find great fun in missions that have a story, but you can sort of choose to put the story aside and go for some rambunctious exploring just like that.

But for people who play the mission and play it for the story's sake (maybe the first run-through or something) they can, and it should be rather easy to get clues as to what you should do.

 

But it should (and will) definitely require the player to still think about stuff. I'm not trying to spoon-feed anyone with a cookie-cutter story.

[Fidcal]

ok thx

 

test

 

 

btw i found a big bug...

after i got the real crown im unable to lift chests and cant use any weapons so i cant use e.g. the rope arrow.

 

if anyone needs the savegame i can share it

By 'chests' do you mean 'crates'? If so, do they highlight? If no, they may be unfrobable crates.

Do your weapons show in your hud? That is, you can see you have some rope arrows for instance? Does the weapon selection work or is it just the use that fails?

[STiFU]

Why thank you.

And no, I don't get discouraged easily. It's just that I probably have to plan out future missions "flow" some, as I find great fun in missions that have a story, but you can sort of choose to put the story aside and go for some rambunctious exploring just like that.

But for people who play the mission and play it for the story's sake (maybe the first run-through or something) they can, and it should be rather easy to get clues as to what you should do.

 

But it should (and will) definitely require the player to still think about stuff. I'm not trying to spoon-feed anyone with a cookie-cutter story.

That's absolutely how it is supposed to be in games, in my opinion. Very good! I'd also think about dropping the no knock-outs restriction on medium difficulty. I believe there are people that hate to ghost and would therefor only be able to play on easy difficulty.

 

And of course the expert loot objective should be a lot higher. But that has already been noted in the main post of this thread.

[Sotha]

Hm. Sounds like I've been missing a lot. I admit I was playing under time limitations. Maybe I'd better to give a retry with more time and higher difficulty...

[grayman]

@Aprilsister: savegame loads up fine.

 

That guard is really stuck.

 

This will help in testing, thanks.

[McPhisto2051]

By 'chests' do you mean 'crates'? If so, do they highlight? If no, they may be unfrobable crates.

Do your weapons show in your hud? That is, you can see you have some rope arrows for instance? Does the weapon selection work or is it just the use that fails?

 

yes, it should be crates, sry. yes they highlit and the weapons are not shown in the screen, just the symbol in the left corner. thats why i canbt use the weapons. the crates cant be liftet they make just every clickl a little jump as if i grap them and they are too heavy so i drop them after 5cm? lifting.

[Midnight]

I am NOT cool with any "service" that wants the ability to delete from my hard drive.

 

And once again we can see from miles away that this is going to "grow" into a completely commercial enterprise. Ads or pay or ads and pay...

The ability to delete from someone elses hard-drive only applies to a shared folder that you've given them access to, this is not the same as a 'public' link to a file you want someone to download (and they need to be a DropBox user as well). I doubt they'll introduce ads, the business model is pretty much based on the fact that most people who try out the free 2GB service will like the convenience and ease of use and many will pay for the larger capacity.

 

This mission feels straight out of Thief 2... and that is meant as a compliment. We haven't had many town-based missions where you can break into many residents like this. It reminds me of Life of the Party very much.

I too had a very nostalgic feeling when playing this mission, not sure it reminds me of T2 missions, most probably some of the early FMs that were very claustrophobic (in a good way!). Despite the small area, there was a lot of good gameplay crammed into this mission.

[Sotha]

Alrighty, I completed this now in the most difficult setting.

 

 

 

Heh.. Looks like I missed half of the city.. I never realized the scene seen from the captains window is actually new area. I just assumed it was the area I already went through. This area was really nice with lots of burglary to do.

 

Additional comments:

It would be nice if the player knew by simply looking which doors are unopenable. Maybe leave prop doors without a handle in the future? It is not fun to expend a water arrow to get to a door which turns out to be a unfrobable prop.

 

About the Rowand's tip the player starts with: it felt really weird to leave that to the captain. A letter which tells about how the player is going to go amateur and steal things. That felt illogical. A more logical would have been an actual tip with something like "Captain, the bandits are at this location + evidence. Regards, your secret admirer."

 

Also I found several stashes with loot in the mission. It was one similar stash which then was the proof that the bandit is in town. And when I took the tip to captain's desk I dropped it there many times until the objective was completed. The dropping area should have been bigger. I almost gave up and thought the tip should be placed elsewhere.

 

These issues aside the mission was much more interesting this time around, well done. Remember, my comments are not intended to upset you or anyone else, I just want to honestly point out some things, which may improve your future maps, which I indeed eagerly await. Thank you for this one!

 

 

[GameDevGoro]

@Sotha

 

Thanks for playing through it again, really.

 

Now here's some dirty secrets.

 

 

 

About the Rowand's tip the player starts with: it felt really weird to leave that to the captain. A letter which tells about how the player is going to go amateur and steal things. That felt illogical. A more logical would have been an actual tip with something like "Captain, the bandits are at this location + evidence. Regards, your secret admirer."

 

This, Sotha, is a mistake, I'm not sure on who's part though, as it appeared after the 1.03 update. I might've done something in the XData files that messed with future version's messages or something.

 

But the real message was this:

 

Who I am is not any of your concern, what I know, however, is very much your forte.

It seems that I have acquired information about the bandits in this town. And I know exactly what should be done.

It also seems that there is a man named Murchad and that he has every finger on his dirty paw in the bandit business.

He lives near the streets leading down to the docks.

Take him down and the bandits should naturally disband. This is their one true weakness.

The voice without a face bids you adieu.

 

And THAT is what you're really supposed to leave Rowan. Actually. I might make an official question of this right in this thread, it might be a bug of sorts, or a result of my stupidity, either way really.

 

And I agree with you on the doors thing, I was very split when I was making those doors as to how they would differ from frobable doors, but I guess I ended up making them just like that.

 

And that whole tipping objective has had A LOT of problems, and as it is now it's barely comprehensible as is, and for that I'm slightly regretful. It's a nice objective idea, but it didn't play out that well, haha.

 

Anyhow, thank you for playing it again!

 

 

 

Edited December 27, 2010 by GameDevGoro

[Fidcal]

yes, it should be crates, sry. yes they highlit and the weapons are not shown in the screen, just the symbol in the left corner. thats why i canbt use the weapons. the crates cant be liftet they make just every clickl a little jump as if i grap them and they are too heavy so i drop them after 5cm? lifting.

I just don't no what this could be. Perhaps one of the crates is trapped in the carry position and preventing a weapon from being used. Have you tried the drop control to see if it clears? Otherwise I can only suggest reload an earlier gamesave.

[GameDevGoro]

OK. I've noticed some funky stuff with the mission that I don't really know what to make of.

 

Some of the xData messages are oddly misplaced (Like the message to Guard Captain Rowan that's instead displaying the briefing text), and the messages in game on the papers and books and what-not don't show up anymore (I saw someone else mention this a while ago... I think.)

 

Is this a mission related bug? Game related bug? Or what is it?