Fan Mission: Alberic's Curse by b1k3rdude (Updated: 01/11/2014)

[PranQster]

ps: i found a small bug: there is a room with a hole in the floor and inside the room are 1 big and 1 small crate. by touching the small one the big fall through the massive floor to the next floor and blocked a patrolling ghost ^^

 

I did the exact same thing.

[Bikerdude]

yeah tha5t sometimes happens if a moveable FS is touching the floor its sitting on.

[raymeld]

So how do you actually start the mission , there seem to be barriers to stop you going in any direction ?

[Bikerdude]

As mentioned in the first post -

 

"read and explore, read and explore" you can figure out how to enter either by exploring or reading your player notes.

[AluminumHaste]

As mentioned in the first post -

 

"read and explore, read and explore" you can figure out how to enter either by exploring or reading your player notes.

 

LOL I did have the same problem, but exploring did it for me though.

[Chiron]

So how do you actually start the mission , there seem to be barriers to stop you going in any direction ?

 

 

 

There is a hole in wall where you can crawl through !

 

 

[Melan]

I finally finished this mission - didn't find the door with the sceptre and the doll on my first try. I missed about 200 loot and got a horrible stealth score (80+) in spite of trying to ghost.

 

Impressions:

The Seasonal theme was captured very well. It was not perfect, but the foggy autumn mood, especially with the cloister's magnificient hollow gothic spires, did its job very well.

I voted the Gameplay five stars. I plain like exploration-based missions, and this one has it - especially good is the three-dimensional nature of the navigation challenges. There are satisfying moments of discovery all around (but I really liked the lower levels).

Aesthetics is state of the art. No question about it.

Some very delicate prefab arches, and a lot of environmental detail (except outside, but that's performance-related). Once again, nothing but praise for the underground sections. There is a palpable sense of going deeper and finding something long abandoned. Wow. The bar has been set.

I would have subtracted a point for errors and immersion-breaking jokes in the readables, but really, it would have felt wrong with all that beauty.

 

So yes, I consider this a showcase mission, and the best of the contest so far. I will have to replay the old Cathedral of the Damned to see how it compares.

[Bikerdude]

Blimey, thanks Melan! Coming from you that means a lot

 

But credit where credits due, I did have my own window and door arch models originally and they were similar to the type you make. But then Flanders kindy supplied me with higher tris models in an effort make thing look better and while keeping all the important performance up etc. The gothic spires were an original flanders model from a map that he and I are working on, that I then modified etc. And Springheel made the little doll, which was a last minute thing and almost didnt make it into the mission - and which again is a homage to the game that brought this community together.

[raymeld]

Thanks for that Chiron !

[id3839315]

Great mission.

 

Tiny bug: The frogs are missing in the pond.

 

Can you give a hint where the correct skull is ? I had no problem to solve the other objectives.

TIA

 

[Bikerdude]

Hint: deep dark and scary... irachnids and the stench of the rotting flesh...

[Professor Paul1290]

I really liked how many ways there were to enter navigate the cathedral. The building felt navigable enough to seem like it used to be a usable building. That's something that I like a lot because it makes the setting a much more believable and it gives the players more possible routes to take.

It really bothers me in some other FMs when buildings seem too linear to feel usable.

 

There is a slight issue of the difficulty feeling a bit too low, but I think simply adding more haunts and zombies would hurt the atmosphere somewhat since only so many people could have lived and worked in the place. I think giving them patrols that cover more of the building would be a better way to improve the difficulty.

 

 

I noticed one of the AI on the upper floor gets stuck on the fallen statue a lot, and I'm guessing that's why the upper floor felt like it should have had an AI patrolling it but didn't.

 

 

 

 

I think the skull is too easy to miss because you have to open the coffin to get to it. None of the other coffins on the way there can be opened so the player would have likely given up on opening any of them by the time he/she reached that room. I think it would help if some of the other coffins could be opened so that the player knew he/she could open them or perhaps that specific coffin can be already open when the player gets there.

 

 

Edited June 24, 2011 by Professor Paul1290

[Bikerdude]

I'll update after the contest..., but glad you having fun :-)

[id3839315]

Hint: deep dark and scary... irachnids and the stench of the rotting flesh...

Found it but the ghost is still fooling around in the garden after all objectives are solved.

 

 

The only other problem I had was with so many doors but after running around for awhile I got my bearings on what door led where and things were good. Oh yeah one other thing - spiders - enough said.

 

LOL ... I knew there will be a comment from Thiefette.

 

I thought so many doors, spiders and undead.

 

[Bikerdude]

Found it but the ghost is still fooling around in the garden after all objectives are solved.

The book of folklore explains that... but yeah if I knew more about scripting or had more time to learn before released I would have done something better etc

[AluminumHaste]

Found it but the ghost is still fooling around in the garden after all objectives are solved.

 

 

Well according to the readables

once the skull is blessed, it's the next morning that the curse is lifted not at the moment of blessing the skull.

 

[id3839315]

Well according to the readables

once the skull is blessed, it's the next morning that the curse is lifted not at the moment of blessing the skull.

 

OK... I was just wondering when I met him on the way out.

[Trickster]

Season is clear. Gameplay . Aesthetics .

 

Obvious reasons.

 

Thanks, b1k3r ! Best contest entry IMHO.

[Bikerdude]

Awesome, thanks Trickster

[raymeld]

'Finished' , but too many doors for me ! Thanks though Bikerdude for a fun mission. Never did lift the curse on the skull , out of interest can someone walk me through where the pool etc is , it was driving me insane looking for it what with all those doors but I'd be interested to know! ? Thanks

[Briareos H]

'Finished' , but too many doors for me !

 

Oh yeah, speaking of those. Once again I have nothing against your way of doing things Biker: I know you probably did it for performance purposes, but I really hate auto-closing doors. I would advise mappers to use them only as a last resort because hearing a door closing a few metres behind you when you're concentrated on picking a lock is rather immersion-breaking.

[Bikerdude]

The place is haunted, its to be expected that doors will close by themselves. And hearing a door closing behind you is supposed to make you jump or uneasy...

[Sotha]

Oh yeah, speaking of those. Once again I have nothing against your way of doing things Biker: I know you probably did it for performance purposes, but I really hate auto-closing doors. I would advise mappers to use them only as a last resort because hearing a door closing a few metres behind you when you're concentrated on picking a lock is rather immersion-breaking.

 

I didn't find it that bad, but yeah...

 

I would advise mappers only to use auto-closing doors for exterior and other map choke-off point doors. They are an important performance booster when they block a big area, but are of little benefit for tight corridors with short view distances.

 

The close delay should be long enough. Typically 60-90 seconds is long enough for the player to be far enough so he won't even notice the door closing and realize it is an auto-closing one.

 

Also I've noticed that many mappers never tweak door sounds. There are a few different sounds to use and adding variety is always a good idea..

[Bikerdude]

I have always changed door sounds and in this map each door randomly picks from a bank of 4 or 5 etc.

 

The Auto closing of the sdoor in the main atrium was unavoidable, if player with low end system want to continue to play the mod and want mappers to push the bounderies of quality/details/perf then either they upgrade or put up with these minor idiosyncrasies.

[raymeld]

So , can someone online put me out of my misery regarding the pool then?