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Fan Mission: In remembrance of him (by RPGista)


RPGista

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This Mission is great because of its atmosphere. I think, Userfeedback is important and so please let me say, what me stopped first to continue playing.

 

I found your Walkthrough and Videos just now.

 

I really don't like jump'n run-episodes where one have to jump pixel-accurate. Sure, every situation is solvable. But it disturbs the atmosphere. Like an musician, who hit the wrong note and suddenly you "wake up from a dream". 2 tries are ok. 3 tries are bad. more than 3 tries is very bad and boring.

 

First i tried the way through the building at the left side: There is a plank. I tried to place the plank between the ledge of this house and the pile below the window at the target house. Because of the bad sight i lost the plank many times and so i gave up.

 

 

Without your video i didn't continued your mission. Because i had no idea, that there is a drainpipe, where you can jump to. (I already arrived there by myself as i explored the environment.)

 

My gamma is high enough, but from where you standing it is impossible to recognize the pipe. When you know it, then you see it directly. But a player who see this mission the first time and have no video/tips etc. is pretty helpless ;-)

 

 

 

Your Video "TDM - In remembrance of him - route (2) through the flat.mp4" shows a way, that i tried many times. This is an example for what i mentioned above. Such episodes interrupt the atmosphere for me. I know, that some other people see it different.

 

For me the Thief-Games and TDM is a sort of "adventure" and not so much a "jump'n run"-Game.

 

But with your Video "TDM - In remembrance of him - route (1) through the derelict building.mp4" i can continue your Mission. And as i said: It's great ! Thank you for it :-)

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I actually mantled through the abandoned house to the ledge without any problems at all the first time. But I couldn't figure out where to go from there. I tried jumping onto just about everything I could think of any nothing worked, so that lead me to go back into the house and try to get to one of

 

 

 

 

the other doors in an attempt to try another route. I did not see the drainpipe until watching the walkthrough.

 

 

The cellar was damn creepy and probably the most frightening moment I've had yet in TDM. I lured the zombie up to the church and got him to fight the priest (unfortunately a known bug hit at that point, and after swinging at each other once they just stood there looking at each other). But I did not find the ring. I thought the body parts were from whoever wrote the note (a lover that was watching over Kevin). I did check the hand for a ring eventually, but did not see one (apparently it's underneath?)

 

I was convinced Richard's tomb was the one with the nobleman's hat and belt buckle on it (those seemed like clues to me), and spent a good deal of time trying to figure out how to open it.

 

I never found the priest's room, so apparently I missed a great deal of story. Maybe that would have given me a bit more to go on.

 

Overall, this mission was a mix of thrills and frustration for me. With just a few minor adjustments I think it would rank somewhere in my top ten.

 

 

I also had the problem of the merchant's wife's conversation triggering when I was downstairs, so I didn't really notice it.

 

 

 

Also, I had the same problem of her and the Priest not patrolling (anyone have that playing under 1.07?).

 

I have to say, the visuals in this were absolutely amazing...it is the most realistic-looking TDM map to date, and I plan to ruthlessly copy as much of your lighting and patch technique as I can for my own missions. :)

 

Hope you'll try something else in the future.

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After i knew about the drainpipe i had no longer problems with this mission. Now

i can complete it in a few minutes. (But the mission is worth, to stay longer. Look around and enjoy the environment and have fun to "clean" the area from enemies ;-) )

 

 

Here the way i did:

 

 

I knocked out the priest outside of the building as he goes back to the door and opened it.

You can get loot in this area. Look at the half-open door...

Inside the church i go downstairs. After the zombie appeared, i lured him to the

outside-area: Far enough from the church's door. Back to the church and closed

the door. The zombie was unable to follow me inside.

In the cellar you need a burning candle. There are enough to find.

But: If you blow out every candle by reflex, you will have a problem ;-)

Look around in the cellar and you find the little room. The ring lies on the ground.

See the bones ..

 

 

 

 

 

A good mission and i will play it again because of it's atmosphere. Like some other missions.

 

Like at good books and movies one will return from time to time.

 

And the good thing here is the alternative. To have more ways is always good. A way

with heavy jumps, that will some people disappoint, and some people will like it, and other ways without jump'n'run-overload.

Edited by john
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Springheel:

 

 

Drainpipe - I flirted with the idea of kind of "finishing" the map and adding detail and decals to certain areas that were left as is because of all the rush at the time of release. I think I'll at least release a new version soon a fix to that area (more light, and a different, bigger and more inviting pipe) as that seemed to be a problem for people, some didn't even know you could climb them.

 

Ring - The hat on the tomb was indeed Richard's; his body should still be there for the waking cerimony (that was the lead on the briefing), but now it is gone, only some of his stuff is left. The body was fed to the zombie by the priest, who is protecting him. The idea was to put the ring right on the finger (unrealistic, but easy to spot), for some reason I wasnt able to, so its underneath the hand (you can see it through the fingers). There's a bug here I only noticed after the map was out, 50% of the times you have a hard time lifting the arm, it gets stuck. You can still frob the ring though, if you can point at it between the bones.

 

Priest house - the entrance to it is the gated one, on the cemetery; the gate is a brush construct made door, so you need to aim at the bars themselves to be able to frob it, and the door is unlocked. There's one more piece of plot in there and an optional read (excerpt from a 18th century book) inside a locked stash, but nothing you need to find the ring on your own.

 

Wife and Priest patrols - this is terrible and a huge hit to the immersion that was designed... Without it the wife looks stupid in front of the merchant (she has a semi-random route between the living, dining and bedroom which makes exploring the house quietly a lot more exciting) and the builder stops for no appearent reason right after entering the church, he should go to the altar, eventually go into his house and ponder, then come back to the church and stay at the main altar facing the entrance. It seems that there is a problem with the very last step on the conversation of both characters, which is an "activate entity" command; it is supposed to activate a trigger, which in turn will activate a path_wait for trigger that will send them on their patrols. I wonder if this is happening just to this mission? Baddcog and Grayman were the only ones reporting this (but who knows how many thought it was normal), all other betatesters reported it was working as intended, so Im at a loss...

 

 

PS: A request - since this is happening to you, could you please test when you have time if the other conversation scene is also broken: if you go for the second route (and reach the glass window facing the archer courtyard (just check my video walkthrough post above)), open the windows (do not noclip through them), that should trigger a scene and after it the AI should leave one room and go sit down on another.

 

As for the mission itself, thanks a lot for the review, that is high praise; and by all means, use whatever you think is useful - Score to Settle was a big influence to this one (and in fact I used ideas and elements of it to populate the main street you cant access, in the beginning - as well as the reading routine for the merchant AI). ;)

Edited by RPGista
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John:

 

Good to know you were able to hang in there and finish the mission, as I was hoping you would from your previous post. As you said, the intention was to have a bit of everything in the mission - you can take out some bad guys, you can ghost some houses and leave the innocent people alone, and you even have to face this monster and deal with him somehow. And even though the mission is small, there is hopefully enough detail in there to keep you busy for a while.

 

I like the way you solved the church area; and that actually took skills, as the zombie is not an ordinary one (has increase acuity), it is tougher to fool him. ;)

 

Thanks for your review and comments.

 

PS: Out of curiosity, if you could tell me how the merchant wife and the priest behaved, that would be useful - did the wife stayed put in the living room the whole time, or did she walk around the house? Did the priest go to the altar after dropping the skull (and possibly inside his house), or just stayed close to the church door?

Edited by RPGista
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Baddcog and Grayman were the only ones reporting this (but who knows how many thought it was normal), all other betatesters reported it was working as intended, so Im at a loss...

 

It's a possibility that it's a 1.08 issue. Not sure if Baddcog was using 1.08 or not but I know Grayman was.

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John:

 

PS: Out of curiosity, if you could tell me how the merchant wife and the priest behaved, that would be useful - did the wife stayed put in the living room the whole time, or did she walk around the house? Did the priest go to the altar after dropping the skull (and possibly inside his house), or just stayed close to the church door?

 

 

I found the time to test something.

 

First to your Questions:

 

1.The woman walk between the rooms after she was talking.

2. The priest walk between Altar and grave.

 

So both don't stuck.

 

I found some interesting.

 

Don't read this if you play the game the first time. Explore by yourself ;-)

 

 

The Undead is not an usual undead ...

 

 

And here an experiment:

 

 

priest and zombie are fighting together against the player. But if you are able, to direct an attack from one to the other, then they fight against each other. I tried this in Godmode, because the Priest fight with an fireball. Go quickly behind one of them and the attack of the other enemy will hit the one in front of you

 

Edited by john
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  • 2 weeks later...

I thought this was a really nice mission and the story really struck a chord with me. I'm gay myself so I kinda empathized with the poor priest and his former lover-turned-zombie. The romantic drive of the plot was a nice turn away from the usual "gotta pay the rent so I guess it's time to raid a heavily guarded mansion" motivation. The beginning FMV didn't bother me at all and I liked its minimalist style - it doesn't tell you much about who these people are, but the moodiness made me feel for them regardless. There's a pervasive feeling of tragedy throughout this which doesn't make me feel too optimistic for the future of the nameless protagonist and his lady friend.

 

In terms of gameplay, I thought it was servicable; simple enough to navigate, and I easily found that second, alternate route, although it took me a few tries to successfully mantle those wooden posts. Could have done with less worthless rooms and loot that doesn't really contribute towards anything besides player greed... although, maybe that's the point? Heh.

 

Anyway, I liked this a lot. Thanks for making it!

Edited by Ryan101
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Thanks for your review. It is great to know that the story made sense in more than one level.

 

As for the map itself, it is simply a preference of mine, that the map be focused and to the point (a pathway), but full of detail around it to give it context and a bit more depth. Many spaces are indeed "optional", but they have to be there so the map feels like something that is interactive. Glad you enjoyed the work!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Just realised TDM version 1.08 is out, really excited and happy about it but untill further notice (= when I actually have time to sit down and implement some changes) "In Remembrance of Him" is to be considered broken and should not be played untill there's an updated version, due to some coding differences between this and the previous version upon which the mission was based on. You *can* still play it and complete it but 3 events with NPCs inside the map wont work as they were planned and you will get a diminished playing experience.

 

An update has been released and the mission can now be played normally on TDM version 1.08 and newer.

Edited by RPGista
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Yep, I havent had time to update the mission yet and anyone playing it in 1.08 will get the frozen NPCs issue (a problem with the conversation system differences)...

Edited by RPGista
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  • 1 month later...

Started to replay this but should have checked here first as I was getting increasingly frustrated with things not happening as I remembered (ie: AI just standing in one spot etc.) Will check back here before I try again.

 

Sorry, didn't mean to sound harsh - its a blah Monday here. Look forward to the update when you get to it. Thanks.

Edited by Thiefette
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Dark Radiant (and RL) is keeping me from finishing the update, there's this bug which gradually modifies and corrupts small geometry (which I have a ton of in the map), I started by adding some more detail and tweak some textures but Im ending up having to remake most of the existing details (cornices, balconies, etc) because I was half way through the update when I noticed all the small problems creeping up... It should take me a while, Im afraid. :(

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Dark Radiant (and RL) is keeping me from finishing the update, there's this bug which gradually modifies and corrupts small geometry (which I have a ton of in the map), I started by adding some more detail and tweak some textures but Im ending up having to remake most of the existing details (cornices, balconies, etc) because I was half way through the update when I noticed all the small problems creeping up... It should take me a while, Im afraid. :(

 

Thanks for the update RPGista. No pressure no rush. I look forward to replaying whenever you're happy with it.

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  • 7 months later...

I hope I'm not totally out of line in resurrecting this thread. I just got around to playing this mission and I felt I should offer some words of encouragement, because this was probably the most enjoyable TDM mission I've played since Patently Dangerous. The platforming was pretty rough around the edges and made me feel like I was playing it wrong, but aside from that the gameplay was solid, and I loved having only broadheads and environmental junk to work with (though admittedly, I found myself itching for a rope arrow more than a few times). All the neat subtext you had going on was great, as were the visuals. Clever use of very sparse artificial light against moonlight; it's one of many environmental features in this mission that help carry across that sense of almost oppressive, dreary realism so well. Other FM authors could learn a lot from your stuff. :)

 

 

Speaking of which, I should mention that the horror setpiece at the end was brilliant. Not actually being able to see Kevin but only getting glimpses of his silhouette against the two spots of light, having to listen for his steps the rest of the time was really unsettling. I opted out of confronting him, and had a hell of a time fumbling around in the darkness trying to find the ring while remaining unnoticed. The frob highlight almost served to simulate touch, as though feeling around in the dark. Very tense, and very fun.

 

 

An improvement would be more consistent interactivity. For instance, having one climbable pipe out of a number of unclimbable ones is a pretty bad call, because you're setting people up for a pattern that you later break. Done right, breaking established patterns can be used to your advantage, but in this case it just makes the ways in which I can traverse the map kind of confusing and not as obvious as they ought to be. It sets people up for frustration. Another example of this is all the neat-looking buildings I never got to enter. This isn't just a problem because exploration is a big part of what makes the Thief formula so good. Because up until the barn/courtyard section the map is pretty linear and very restrictive about where I could go, at first I found myself stumped because it didn't seem like I was meant to cross the collapsed building or enter the apartment window. I got to the bottomless pit and thought, "I guess I wasn't meant to see this." Lastly, it bothered me to get hit with an invisible wall right at the start of the mission. Invisible walls really mess with immersion, I think -- they're the heavy hand of the designer showing itself -- and I'd stay away from them as much as possible if I were you. It's true that the alternative is usually inexplicable dead ends and locked gates, but I find those a lot easier to swallow than weird immaterial barriers that only seem to apply to me.

 

All in all I think a lot of the issues with this mission would be solved by introducing the sorts of gameplay patterns the player can expect early and in a way that would be hard to miss. Every FM has its problems, though, and there's definitely not enough stuff like this for TDM. Don't give up! (Please.)

Edited by Boxsmith
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Oddly enough I came here yesterday for the first time in months and saw all the topics about updating the missions for the new TDM version, so I thought I should drop by and talk to some people, when I saw your post. So I guess you could say you have brought me from the dead, along with the mission thread.

 

I am hoping that you somehow did NOT experience the frozen NPCs issue that is a problem with playing it in the current TDM version. You most likely did, so I would urge you to play the updated version which will come "soon"(er than later). Appearently, the last scene wasnt broken, but all others were (the priest, the cooker and the merchant wife).

 

I have done a fair amount of tweaks to the mission already, some months ago, mostly on improving the visuals with details (the mission was done inside a competition, so there was limited time), correcting stuff, simplifying the texts and the "engrish" a bit, and most importantly, fixing the npcs cutscenes which are essential for the full experience of the mission, which as you stated, is not very big and not very expansive, so all the situations that do exist should matter (that was the whole point of the map).

 

Thanks for the review and the good experiences described (specially that last scene moment). I know there were a few puzzling moments left in there, so its good to see when someone keeps on going and finds the way out.

 

The updated map whould also make it a bit easier to spot the way foward on the key points you mentioned. Hopefully, I can sit down and finish it in the coming weeks, I do not at all like the idea of people playing this randomly and getting the broken experience (wish there was a way of pulling it out from the download section actually, but maybe its a bit late for that).

Edited by RPGista
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In remembrance of him was a good level.

I really felt like I was in a "bad" part of town. After reading some of the readables in the merchant's house I actually felt bad about robbing them, even though it's just a video game, haha! It took me a little while to figure out how to get through the dilapidated building, but it was a fun challenge and I enjoy climbing/platform obstacles. I had to watch a Youtube video to learn that I needed to jump to, and grab onto a pipe to progress. This level scared the $#!+ out of me. Having no lantern made the crypts a bit scary, but it was the shrieking that made it necessary for me to change my underwear. I really enjoyed this level and am a bit disappointed that it wasn't longer,

but I'm not really complaining. After watching a few videos on how to make a TDM level I realize it's a lot of work to make a level. Very nice work RPGista.

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I have just uploaded an updated mission file (version 2.0) to the thread (http://www.mediafire.com/?q13iidqqlig1w33), it features the following changes:

 

Revised texturing on several places, as well as adding some more grime on surfaces that were left too bare.

Added detail on streets and some inside spaces.

Added new models (benches, vegetation).

Added new speech sounds for 2 NPC characters (thanks to Bikerdude for the narration).

Revised readables.

Places where some players got stuck were made easier to get through.

Aesthetics tweaks (more varied voice sets for AI, some more light sources and architectural details here and there, adjustments to light values, etc.).

And obviously, NPCs in-game cinematics are all working as they should again.

 

Thanks to Melan, Simplenoob and Bikerdude for additional playtesting.

 

The mission can now be played normally once again.

 

 

 

PS: How can we go about replacing the download links referred to on the main TDM website?

Edited by RPGista
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Updated my dropbox:

 

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/17706561/remembrance.pk4

 


https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/17706561/remembrance.pk4

Please visit TDM's IndieDB site and help promote the mod:

 

http://www.indiedb.com/mods/the-dark-mod

 

(Yeah, shameless promotion... but traffic is traffic folks...)

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Removed the other mirrors, so you may see some complaints about the in-game downloader because of the HTTPS issue with dropbox.

@Bikerdude, please add the mirrors back with the new version :)

Please visit TDM's IndieDB site and help promote the mod:

 

http://www.indiedb.com/mods/the-dark-mod

 

(Yeah, shameless promotion... but traffic is traffic folks...)

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Nbohr - Thanks a lot my friend, for the quick response. Hopefully we wont have to do this again hehe. ;)

 

Springheel - Hmmm, if by that you mean some of the models I was working on (stone bench and bushes), then yes, they are included in the map files.

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