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Fan Mission: The Phrase Book by Sotha (2012/05/12)


Sotha

The Phrase Book  

52 members have voted

  1. 1. Gameplay: Enjoyment. Fun duration. Smooth flow, ect. Versus Bugs. Frustration, Boredom, framelag

  2. 2. Appearance: Visual pleasure, lighting, visual style, deduct bad texturing etc.

  3. 3. Story & Text: Story. Text. Briefing. Graphic storytelling



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Oh, I found it.

 

 

It was farther out past the area the map indicated, not really near the gas factory or the tavern but rather on the other side of the balcony right under one of the castle entrances. I was going crazy searching the facade of the gas factory, because that's where the briefing implied it would be near, and the tavern area because the map implied it was around there. The arrow on the map is a bit misleading, but I guess maps are expected to be inaccurate sometimes. I should have just given up on finding it and kept going, would have seen it eventually.

 

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Finished! Another excellent mission. I liked the RIT gameplay as well. It really makes you pick a spot in a room that no one can possibly get to (like crouched on top a bookshelf). I also liked the frequent relighting of candles (on difficult, at least). That makes you remember what places were brightly lit before you extinguished the candle, and stay out of those areas if someone's coming to relight it. Or, you can try to slip by when their back is turned relighting it. Awesome gameplay overall.

 

 

 

Also, I'm a sucker for any Thieves' Highway misson, and starting out in a bell tower always makes me think of LOTP :)

I also liked the visual storytelling with the burglars unable to get into that room, and I liked being able to postpone, and then prevent, the tragedy. I thought about leaving his would-be suicide note in her room as well, but then I thought, no, women usually find it creepy when guys attempt to commit suicide over them. We'll just let that note be our little secret. Hey, maybe when they eventually end up happily together, I can blackmail him with it!

 

The only sore point was not being able to find that arrow cache. If I'd known to look farther away I would probably have seen it, but I interpreted the map literally to mean it must be somewhere in that courtyard of 3 facades (including the gas factory).

 

Random question: Does the master of the house notice when you turn off the basement generator and turn it back on? I know he visits the basement occasionally, and assumed I had only a limite time before he turned it back on.

 

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Ishtvan,

 

 

Glad you liked it.

 

Arrow cache:

the map entry pointed to the general area and the location mentioned was vague so the player would have to search for it, some players like that kind of stuff. Some player don't like that kind of things so looking for it was not compulsory. It will also change location upon each replay so finding it may be a challenge the next time around too.

 

Yes, the master of the house will re-enable the display case locks if he sees the cellar generator disabled. I wonder if someone had the cases locked right before their eyes...

 

 

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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I wonder if someone had the cases locked right before their eyes...

 

That would have been super duper awesome B)

Didn't know that - cool feature!

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

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi! Biker needs some pretty screenies of this mission to be placed on the website.

 

Someone prolly has some nice pics (around 6 screenies) or would like to play the mission and grab some screenies while they're at it? Upload them somewhere in 800x600 and put a link here so Biker can grab 'em.

 

Thanks in advance!

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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Okay I made the screenshots, but I can't log into the admin page for mindplaces anymore, it's been converted to a Wordpress blog?

Weird I can log in the old way still, oh well, I uploaded the screenshots to the mission download screen.

I always assumed I'd taste like boot leather.

 

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Hello,

today I and Knymed were looking to translate this mission. But when we "analized" it, we found it's build with the 1.06 strings system and not with the 1.07 strings system (the new multilanguage system).

My question is: your mission has been released May 12, 2012 and the dark mod 1.07 system has been released november 27, 2011. Why you did not use the new strings system?

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Why you did not use the new strings system?

 

I was interested in

*Mission planning

*Plot creation

*Mission brushwork creation

*Mission detailing

*AI patrol design

*RIT design and creation

*Implementation of gameplay elements that change upon each mission play time, increasing mission replayability

*Custom dialogue writing

*Overall creation process

 

After spending so much effort in everything it takes to make a successful map, I was not at all interested in spending any time to figure out the strings system or any translation things. Nada, zip. I am deeply sorry, but I just don't have any motivation for it and therefore will not do it.

 

If someone else wants to make a translated version of this, please by all means, go ahead, just don't ask me to do it. I will not.

 

Remembering the last discussion about translation I was involved with I'll add the following text: If someone feels inclined to call me lazy or selfish because of this decision, please don't do that. I've seen a lot of trouble to give this mission to the community and I will be very upset and unhappy if you do that.

  • Like 1

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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I see no problems in manually translating missions (have translated the mod, the training mission and thief's den, have another one to translate in the near future), so not all worries should be laid on the mapper. The classic case being I havent found time and energy to translate my own mission (those who hated the long readables will enjoy the irony). Tels work in automating a good deal of the translations for objects, hud, etc is commendable, and it takes a bunch of nights to translate a good sized mission, so no big deal really.

Edited by RPGista
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I see no problems in manually translating missions (have translated the mod, the training mission and thief's den, have another one to translate in the near future), so not all worries should be laid on the mapper. The classic case being I havent found time and energy to translate my own mission (those who hated the long readables will enjoy the irony). Tels work in automating a good deal of the translations for objects, hud, etc is commendable, and it takes a bunch of nights to translate a good sized mission, so no big deal really.

 

No,

for example, if now i want to translate the sotha mission, I have to use the i18n converter, convert the mission, test the mission, translate it, upload the new mission format and ask to sotha to delete previous mission format (to not have two types of the same mission) and update all the links.

And this for ALL the missions i want to translate.

Edited by ECHELON
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I know the translation discussion already happened so I'm a bit confused as to why there's still a debate. Let me see if I have this right:

 

The FM needs to be "converted" to make the translation easier. After this step, the entire readable/string/whatever content is stored in a file strings/fm/english.lang - and only this file needs to be translated. Thus the content and the translation are sep. This means it is easier to update the translation because you don't need to touch the FM again.

 

It looks like this translation conversion process happens in a deterministic and simple way. If that's the case, why don't we just convert every mission that is uploaded to official TDM mirrors that wasn't already converted to allow external translations? It doesn't look like testing is even required, although images with text in them won't be automatically translatable (not a big loss, can be fixed manually if someone notices or points it out, or, cares). If Sotha or any other mapper releases a map update without converting, it gets converted before it hits the mirrors. Rinse and repeat. Then apply external translations, maybe using a user-friendly process that bundles translations with their missions in the in-game downloader.

 

Also:

 

1. Only autoconvert new missions as they come in. Convert older missions only if someone is actually interested in creating a translation.

2. Or convert every mission, and use some sort of flag to prevent older missions from being automatically marked to be redownloaded in the in-game downloader, if possible.

 

In short, I am very sympathetic to Sotha's position that he doesn't know/care about translations, because it looks like almost the entire process can be automated.

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I just released "In the North" to beta test.

 

Just prior to doing that, I spent some time preparing it for translations.

 

I followed Tels' wiki instructions, found a few problems, got them straightened out with Tels' help, and now have a process I can follow any time I want to update the mission PK4. I'm not aware of the differences between the "1.06 strings" system and the "1.07 strings" system; I can only assume that since I did this only a couple weeks ago, I'm using the latter.

 

I had to prepare the gui files myself, but that's nothing compared to the amount of work that the I18N.pl script takes care of. It took me about an hour to deal with the gui files manually, and since they're going to hardly change at all from here on out, I just copy and paste their strings into english.lang again if I have to rerun the perl script for a new rev. Easy peasy.

 

I do recommend not bothering with I18N until very near the end of the map creation process, though. It's way easier changing/creating readables along the way w/o having to worry about being translation-ready.

 

I've yet to give the translators my strings, so i can't comment on the problems of translations no longer fitting on the pages of readables, or what the briefing text looks like, etc. I imagine that can be a big deal.

 

I'm hoping that I can release the mission with just the english strings, and add the other languages as they become ready. I wouldn't want to wait for all translations to be done before releasing the mission.

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I just released "In the North" to beta test.

 

Just prior to doing that, I spent some time preparing it for translations.

 

I followed Tels' wiki instructions, found a few problems, got them straightened out with Tels' help, and now have a process I can follow any time I want to update the mission PK4. I'm not aware of the differences between the "1.06 strings" system and the "1.07 strings" system; I can only assume that since I did this only a couple weeks ago, I'm using the latter.

 

I had to prepare the gui files myself, but that's nothing compared to the amount of work that the I18N.pl script takes care of. It took me about an hour to deal with the gui files manually, and since they're going to hardly change at all from here on out, I just copy and paste their strings into english.lang again if I have to rerun the perl script for a new rev. Easy peasy.

 

I do recommend not bothering with I18N until very near the end of the map creation process, though. It's way easier changing/creating readables along the way w/o having to worry about being translation-ready.

 

I've yet to give the translators my strings, so i can't comment on the problems of translations no longer fitting on the pages of readables, or what the briefing text looks like, etc. I imagine that can be a big deal.

 

I'm hoping that I can release the mission with just the english strings, and add the other languages as they become ready. I wouldn't want to wait for all translations to be done before releasing the mission.

 

Thanks for the work you are doing. :)

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I don't understand the question.

 

When you create a mission, you normaly use the old string system and now you have converted in the new system. It's possible to create the mission using directly the new strings system?

Edited by ECHELON
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When you create a mission, you normaly use the old string system and now you have converted in the new system. It's possible to create the mission using directly the new strings system?

 

Oh, you mean working directly with #str_ replacements in DR?

 

DR doesn't entirely support this. For example, in the Readable Editor, the text itself is translated, but the Inventory Name field shows "#str_NNNNN".

 

Also, since I sometimes directly edit the xdata and gui files, I'd find it easier to edit the originals rather than trying to sort through the string file format, which is full of newlines and backslashes for special characters.

 

Also, now that I've prepared a map for translation, the process takes all of a few minutes, so I'd rather backend that process instead of having to deal with the #str_ replacements throughout map development.

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  • 1 month later...

My (very short) review:

 

I was very pleased by the "aerial" take on the first half of the mission, which was the first time I had seen it and a bold design choice - it had a bit of a plataforming flavour to it, with obstacle sections, traps (fire) and a lot of agility involved. This more abstract section of the map is replaced by some very well done interior environments, in the sense that they are all quite unique and offer some good challenge - the thief gang in the first flat, and specially the lord's flat, and his ordeal, which we can interact with and make a difference (to see him stopping in front of the rope, look at it and then start to lament and cry, was something).

 

This very diverse first half takes you to a more traditional area where you find the mansion itself. I must confess it took me quite a while to navigate through it. The RIT network certainly makes it very challenging and alive, in a sense perhaps too alive for me, I felt at times everyone was doing the rounds, sometimes on top of each other, which is the risk with all that randomness, but overall, once you forget about strict realism and dive into the gameplay offered, it becomes a challenging chess game of avoiding the guards and being uneasy about they bursting through the doors at anytime, which is quite fun. Like I mentioned a couple of times, I like to play fast and even though the AI population is very high, there was enough space for you to move and to solve all puzzles - a balanced and vibrant gameplay arrangement being the constant in all Sotha's maps I played so far (without mentioning the interesting puzzles and technical mastery). I was able, by luck I assume, to find what I was looking for quite fast, and then spent the rest of the time exploring the mansion in all its rich interiors, there was even space for a hidden area that was fun to discover.

 

If there is any criticism it would be the lack of unique animated scenes with the mansion main characters, like we saw with the gang or the lord; but this is indeed a fantastic mission, with very strong visual qualities (perhaps your most ambitious, visually), great variety in interior environments, some brilliant AI tough spots and placement, and a challenging set of tasks to keep you double busy. Near perfect all around.

Edited by RPGista
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  • 4 weeks later...

Finishied now.

 

It's simply AWESOME!!!

 

I extremely loved it. IMHO a perfect balance in this smart mission. Sotha you are really a master mapper! :D

 

I voted "near perfect" in gameplay, it was my first time ;-)

 

Really congratulation for this work, you are my favourite mapper.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I've played almost every FM, and this one gave me the biggest fun. Everything I like is there (like rooftops, non-linearity, an undead-free). I think it's almost perfect, maybe the story is too simple. Anyway. Collecting so many health potions I thought I was going to have to fights. One guard (I think the one guarding the street generator) had a servant-like behavior and got scared ;) . There is also a poker hanging in the air in a chimney (last manor I think).

JUST AWESOME!!! Thanks Sotha!

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Hmm, not having a good start. I've only just started, but I've tried multiple times to climb down to street level, and I keep getting killed by some invisible wall or something. Is this supposed to happen? Did I miss instructions somewhere that you're not allowed to go to the streets?

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