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Fan Mission: Mandrasola by Sotha (2011/04/10)


Sotha

Please grade this mission  

81 members have voted

  1. 1. Seasonal Theme

    • No Season
      0
    • Barely Defined
    • Season is Clear
    • Season is Captured Well
    • Near Perfect
  2. 2. Gameplay: Enjoyment. Fun duration. Smooth flow, ect. Versus Bugs. Frustration, Boredom, framelag?

  3. 3. Aesthetics: Visual pleasure, lighting, visual style. Audio, use mood. Storytelling and consistency?



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Nice Mission Sotha. I really like trailing people like in assassins and trace the courier so it got off to a great start. I completed it on expert. The mandrosola was hidden very well. Finding them all was challenging but never frustrating. Good luck in the contest.

"I believe that what doesn't kill you simply makes you... stranger"

 

The Joker

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Very nice mission. Two questions:

 

- In the cellar, is it possible to get the coins from the card playing ruffians without ruining ghosting? Even if I douse the torch nearby, it seems impossible to grab and extinguish the candle without them noticing, and dousing it with a water arrow or creating a noisemaker distraction puts them into alert.

 

- Is there a loot list? I'm less than 100 gold short of the Difficult requirement.

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Very nice mission. Two questions:

 

- In the cellar, is it possible to get the coins from the card playing ruffians without ruining ghosting? Even if I douse the torch nearby, it seems impossible to grab and extinguish the candle without them noticing, and dousing it with a water arrow or creating a noisemaker distraction puts them into alert.

 

- Is there a loot list? I'm less than 100 gold short of the Difficult requirement.

 

I don't know the answer to that question. I never build missions with ghosting in mind because that limitiation is quite severe and would require all situations to be solvable without any equipment. I love to promote clever use of equipment.

 

Just use a well placed gas arrow or a distraction to get the gold with a good conscience and enjoy the gear that is provided to you. ;) If you distract the card players, you will have more room to maneouver in the cellar after they resume patrol state, but getting out is a bit more challenging.

 

There is no loot list but there is a console command which shows the remainging loot items for a few seconds to point you to the right direction. But that's cheating.. -_-

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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Excellent gameplay, good lighting, good stealth etc. continuous interest right from the start and for over an hour of play time. Big performance hit later on that corrupted something and remained for the rest of the FM sadly. I'll read this thread to see if anyone else had this problem. I played on Easy. Got ample of the objective but probably only half of what was there! Animations good and good activity most everywhere. Very enjoyable apart from the performance issue.

 

 

At the start I saw the noble lady but after she left I thought there was another guard around and it delayed me getting down so I lost sight of her. No matter, I spotted her in the distance later. Found the back way in and hid inside in shadow while I surveiled the action. I checked around the doors when I could intending to play as stealthy as possible. No hurry. What's that? A serving woman appears where there was no door? I'd better check there again more thoroughly. Worked my way through grabbing stuff into the kitchen. Nobody saw me but I was suddenly surprised in the kitchen by the woman who decided to go at me with a dagger. I instinctinvely defended myself and cut her down and quickly hid her body. Nobody noticed in the next room. Odd that.

 

As I was moving out the rogue woman moved to stand in a corner and remained there forever so I couldn't get some other loot. I had to KO her.

 

Down to the basement and after disposing of two or three monsters at some point performance chugged badly. FPS looked to be about 60fps but I think it must have been dropping every fraction of a second. Later I could see AI moving a step forward normally, freezing a fraction of a second, then resuming, repeating. My movements were the same. It never recovered although it helped temporarily to exit and reload TDM. Gamesave file size normal.

 

After completing the objectives and escaping I was lockpicking the bakers and interrupted by the torch guard. I managed to hack him down and hide him round the corner.

 

Back to the start was fairly easy after that. Needless to say my stealth score was poor again but I prefer to play spontaneously and if the odd KO or kill seems appropriate then so be it.

 

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Damn you Sotha! :)

 

 

I was all psyched up for spiders, and when I saw the first werebeast coming at me, I yelled like a little girl.

 

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That was a very decent FM. Thanks Sotha. The lighting could have used some more work here and there, but all in all a very solid achievement. Played on difficult and finished in a little more than one hour with a hilarious stealth score of 58, but at least I found all the loot... :)

 

The briefing was very good and made me hope for a deep story. The story apparently wasn't that deep, so together with the lighting that's a 4 stars vote for me. The leveldesign was brilliant though and I had a couple of really nice moments.

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I got caught several times in this one, mostly due to my own fault. .

One time I still have no idea what happened...after I came back downstairs from rumaging through the bedroom, I cracked open a door and suddenly a citywatch from outside came charging at me with his sword drawn like he'd heard a fire arrow go off or something.

 

I found out about the hidden door when I was being hunted by the dagger-woman. I hid in the corner right in front of the door (unbeknownst to me) and she started trying to open it, but it wouldn't open because I was blocking it. She didn't appear to notice since she couldn't see me.

 

As I said above, the werebeasts scared the crap out of me the first time. I hadn't seen or heard them, and went around the crates into the corrider when suddenly two were bearing down on me.

 

Loved the pagan...how did you get his eyes to glow? I didn't even realize he was a spellcaster, as I shot him with the gas arrow from the shadows.

 

Didn't know there were other places to enter, either. I was too focused on following the woman to explore very much.

 

Great conversations...that added a huge amount to the mission.

 

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Thanks!

 

I got caught several times in this one, mostly due to my own fault. .

 

Loved the pagan...how did you get his eyes to glow? I didn't even realize he was a spellcaster, as I shot him with the gas arrow from the shadows.

 

 

 

 

Simple bind/bindtojoint work. I bound two gem models into his eyesockets. Then I bound two red lights in front of the gem models. In the end result, the eyes glow red and the gems, lit up with the red light made the intense red core for the glow.

 

there was the problem that when the AI went ragdoll, the gems and lights went partially inside his head. I solved this by making the lights and gems disappear when the AI is stunned or killed.

 

But those pretty eyes indeed show how TDM really offers incredible amount of possiblities to customise AI.

 

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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It took me a long, long time to get to play this mission. My impressions:

 

The aesthetics are up to the usual high standards we expect; the frozen harbour was especially good with its distant buildings, frozen ships and the boats in the side channels. Still, something was missing from the seasonal element - I saw the winter but did not "feel it". Paradoxically, The Transaction is a better seasonal (Autumn) mission although it was not made for this contest!

 

The mission shines because of the good use of AI scripts, which give it dynamism (which can be missing from mine), and for the entire cellar subplot, which blindsided me. Who knew those things would be down there?! :wacko: Creepy.

 

Also like how the Thomas Porter campaign is shaping up. The individual episodes are not too large (except probably Knighton Manor), but the series works well with this structure. And, despite his promises and oaths, it seems Sotha cannot get away from editing after all, with screenies of a new FM already available! :D

 

 

Come the time of peril, did the ground gape, and did the dead rest unquiet 'gainst us. Our bands of iron and hammers of stone prevailed not, and some did doubt the Builder's plan. But the seals held strong, and the few did triumph, and the doubters were lain into the foundations of the new sanctum. -- Collected letters of the Smith-in-Exile, Civitas Approved

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That is definitely not normal.

Update!

 

Mail from FRAPS developers:

 

Thanks for bringing this issue to our attention. We have located the bug with the gem recording The Dark Mod and a fix has been included in the new Fraps 3.4.4 release.

 

 

Problem solved (if you are interested)!

Task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen but to think what nobody has yet thought about that which everybody see. - E.S.

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Hey Sotha you seam to grow some knack for toilet entries in your FMs ;)

And of course just when opening the seat one of these dealer guys urged in... :laugh:

 

Thinks I like in Mandasola in particular are:

 

 

- The good skyline (again)

- The "pastel" colorisation while outdoor (again)

- Multiple ways to enter (again)

- All loot being unmovable (I like that decision)

- The use of subtle ambient sounds

- The conversations

- Adding Mandasola to the lore

- The workbench logically being used to build equip (the player can grab)

- The visuals of the caves

- The evil dude and his "special" eyes.

- The amount and routes of AI (a good and balanced difficulty)

- Performance was very smooth through the mission (no low fps or stutters on my old rig)

 

Season is captured well. However Winter Harvest excels Mandasola in that aspect.

 

I encountered two issues during play:

 

* The sky does flimmer when exiting through windows to the seaside shore

* (Too) sudden change of ambient brightness between front and rear of the dealers' building (both in the tunnel as well in the street)

 

Even many things being excellent in this mission it didn't hooked me in that extend as Glanham Tower or The Transaction. Please note there is nothing wrong with the straight forward setup of Mandasola. However both Thomas Porter missions mentioned have such a great interest curve, accelerating points of interest and drama I loved and which I missed in Mandasola to some degree. The caves and their dwellers were great but they came by surprise and too unconnected having been able to build up that tension they could. ... of course I'm much spoilt from your terrific last offerings in that regard. :D

 

 

Thanks for the TP series so far Sotha!

It's an splendid series and Mandasola an excellent addition to it.

 

My Thomas Porter fun so far:

Transaction 4,5 > Glanham 4 > Mandasola = Knighton 3,5 > Beleagured Fence 3

 

Much looking forward with what you come up for us next... :wub:

"To rush is without doubt the most important enemy of joy" ~ Thieves Saying

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And of course just when opening the seat one of these dealer guys urged in.

 

I had the same thing, and I dove into the toilet shaft to hide. Landed in a big pile of crap. I was so annoyed that I intentionally KO'd that guard and dropped him down the privy later.

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Nice work!

 

It took me a long time to find the basement, too! But I liked the mission.

 

Edited by SeriousToni

"Einen giftigen Trank aus Kräutern und Wurzeln für die närrischen Städter wollen wir brauen." - Text aus einem verlassenen Heidenlager

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  • 4 weeks later...

Mandrasola bag locations:

 

 

 

1 - chest in hidden room upstairs Lovell's room (two bags)

2 - chest in the pagan wizards room (three bags)

3 - next to a box in the cave entrance, near a campfire

4 - a female in the basement

5 - Lovell

6 - Lovell's room, next to bed

7 - a male thief in the basement

8 - basement room with a keg, hidden under a moveable basket

9 - basement kitchen on the shelf

10 - Basement table

11 - Cave big room, on a shelf

12 - Pagan wizard room, on a barrel

 

Totals 15 mandrasola, all accounted for.

 

 

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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Mandrasola bag locations:

 

 

 

1 - chest in hidden room upstairs Lovell's room (two bags)

2 - chest in the pagan wizards room (three bags)

3 - next to a box in the cave entrance, near a campfire

4 - a female in the basement

5 - Lovell

6 - Lovell's room, next to bed

7 - a male thief in the basement

8 - basement room with a keg, hidden under a moveable basket

9 - basement kitchen on the shelf

10 - Basement table

11 - Cave big room, on a shelf

12 - Pagan wizard room, on a barrel

 

Totals 15 mandrasola, all accounted for.

 

 

 

Thank you, my peace of mind is restored. That #8 was real tricky to find, especially since I dropped a body on it :). I still missed 90 loot somewhere but that's okay.

Great mission, my only complaint is that it's too short.

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Thank you, my peace of mind is restored. That #8 was real tricky to find, especially since I dropped a body on it :). I still missed 90 loot somewhere but that's okay.

Great mission, my only complaint is that it's too short.

 

tdm_show_loot

 

Or something like that, sometimes I just HAVE to get all the available loot.

I always assumed I'd taste like boot leather.

 

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I somehow missed this mission. Well it was very good. Great performance, good conversations. When I couldnt find last dose of mandrasola I at first thought "Sotha probably took last dose and used it himself to make me look for it for eternity!" Then my second idea was to noclip through the map and play a ghost of the future christmas... In the end I found last dose lying on the WELL LIT table in basement - how did I miss that in the first place? Keep up the good work!

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  • 3 months later...

I love the variety of that first conversation....

 

 

Guard: "I'd love to get my grubby hands on _those_"

 

Noblewoman: "I warn you...."

 

Guard: Walking off disappointed... "Bugger."

 

:laugh:

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I love the variety of that first conversation....

 

 

Guard: "I'd love to get my grubby hands on _those_"

 

Noblewoman: "I warn you...."

 

Guard: Walking off disappointed... "Bugger."

 

:laugh:

 

Thanks man!

 

Just a reminder that mappers can scourge through the barks the AI character have and make some simple dialogue. Mapper could also make unique lines for their own conversations by simply taking existing bark audio and editing them by removing and adding sections.

 

It was fun to find interesting matches from the different AI's barks.

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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