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Fan Mission: In the North (by grayman) (2012/10/20)


grayman

In the North (by grayman) (2012/10/20)  

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As for the definition of "ghosting", it depends on the community. For instance, I believe the TDM community (as well as the Dishonored community) allows for guards to be moderately suspicious. However, in the Assassin's Creed community, this is not counted as ghosting, which is when no guards are even moderately suspicious.

 

Same thing with disturbing the area.

You can call me Phi, Numbers, Digits, Ratio, 16, 1618, or whatever really, as long as it's not Phil.

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Okay, about the ghosting stuff.

To the inhabitants, it's as if you were never there.

That's exactly how I did it. TDM allows the AI to react to changes in their environment. This particular candle, however, is of no interest to any of the NPCs in the mission. Some of the other lights are and this one isn't. Zeroes in the mission statistics screen prove it. The same goes for valuables, the disappearance of which could arouse suspicion, but doesn't. In case it did, I'd have to search for items, that aren't on public display, yet there was no need to. Realistically speaking, is one candle going out in a drafty cellar to be considered a sign of malicious perpetration? Hells no! To the inhabitants, I emphasize, I really wasn't there.

 

Now for the details of phrasing. "Undetected" doesn't quite cut it, since I could just KO everyone and still be undetected. In my video description on YouTube I settled for a "playthrough with zero NPC interaction". Who is to say it's not ghosting? Well, the author of the mission doesn't count it as one, but what ya gonna do? :rolleyes: I could probably dispense with extinguishing that candle, but I believe the rigid approach like that is hardly justified. That's my subjective opinion and I urge you to just view my video as a quick, efficient walkthrough, if you disagree. Thanks for your time, by the way.

 

It doesn't look like you read any of the readables, either, on your earlier run(s), otherwise you wouldn't have said the lady in black was "the maid", or opening the desk in the cellar was "unnecessary".

You're completely wrong here. Mistaking a noble lady for a maid is my honest fault. I guess, I'm not too used to NPCs changing their location and behaviour throughout the mission. As for the cellar detour, I'm returning there later in the video, which I didn't realize at the time of recording. Skipping past that door could save me a couple of seconds, but it hardly matters, does it?

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Just out of curiosity, how much time did it take you on your first play-through of the mission?

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I have absolutely no idea, but I guess it was an average time as seen on the other screenshots in this thread. Anyway, this data is rather inaccurate, since it doesn't take into account the time spent replaying the loaded fragments of the playthrough. And I did reload several times - that much I can say for certain.

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  • 1 month later...

This was a really good mission; it definitely felt like a busy, inhabited castle/mansion with the readables, detailed decoration, and so many occupants. I thought that all the 'shift change' notices were just for atmosphere, so had a real shock when I came back to the barracks (which I thought I'd cleared out already) to find 3 different guards hanging around.

I'm usually quite dependent on the blackjack, but next time I play this I'll KO as few people as possible to get the most of the shift change mechanic.

 

 

I must've gone through this in a somewhat illogical route, because I found the chapel very early, had no trouble finding the right sconce and did all the crypt stuff straight away. The crypt section was very well done - I don't generally like undead levels, but it wasn't overdone here.

Since I got Lord Whatshisname's journal quite early, I ended up leaving it with the sleeping Mary for her to find, and when I got the 'prove he's a bastard' objective for Trumble about half an hour later I had to go back and get it :) I left the fake skull with Mary instead.

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Super mission thanks grayman. Beautiful attention to detail, and I loved the way you managed to let the player uncover the interesting stories of everyone in this busy castle in any order they chose. I just completed two playthroughs on difficult and no KOs, although a bit clumsily so I won't be bragging about my stealth score. You had a lot of ai going unpredictably about their business, which is great. I like being forced to peep round doors. I used the map constantly on my second run to make sure I got to see all of it. And your effort with RIT was definitely worth it. I did notice the shift change, but it was just before I saw the only clock so I didn't get to make use of it. It really impressed me with the realism though: I got to read about it, anticipate it, and I knew what was happening when it did. Maybe a few more clocks about the house when you put this mission into your campaign? (Now you'll tell me I missed the other three)

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  • 2 weeks later...

Played on difficult with hardcore AI vision and expert combat, took three and a half hours! By the end of it I had quite a pile of bodies laying in the infirmary. :-) This is first mission I played that hard on all the settings, and well worth it! I soaked it up, but there were still a couple things I know I didn't finish.

 

For all connected dots required for a mission to be great IMO, this is the best mission so far I've played on TDM. Sure there were parts of other missions I liked more than this, but on a whole, this is by far the most intricate, lengthy, and detailed TDM FM I've had the pleasure of falling victim to.

 

The story is outrageous. It really does remind of classic Thief in giving life to a computer generated world, and feeling for the characters. Also, the bits of twisted humor were much appreciated. Fine details like that add lots of depth, because everyone enjoys a good joke and to see the readables / notes hung up, etc. participating make the immersion that much more realistic IMO.

 

Very gorgeous layout, although it seemed a tiny bit repetitive throughout all three floors. I was happy to get much more colored lighting in the crypt + the roof was very nice. I didn't find the entrance to the attic on my first playthrough...however, since this FM is three floors plus, the size of it made up for it in spades, and made the playing length extremely rewarding.

 

On this mission, I noticed for the first time in TDM that NPC's breathing while sleeping and it is visible the diaphragm expanding and contracting. Very nice touch of realism. Also, I noticed that AI outside in the cold, NPC's breath is visible with cloud of carbon monoxide from exhale! Another great touch of realism.

 

I agree this takes TDM to a whole new level, and with this type of level building, story and attention to detail, a full campaign would blow me away.

 

All in all, great work Grayman! Looking forward to the next installment, but if the build time for this one is any indicator then I figure it may be a bit more time till it arrives.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Finished it just now, in about 2.5 hours. Glad I decided to spend the night playing TDM, had a lot of fun!

 

 

I thought I'd got all the church book pages, so I went looking for the skull in the catacombs (I dislike undead, so I wanted to be in there as little as possible). Couldn't find it. However, I couldn't find it (I thought the elaborate crypts were the places where you'd hide important stuff and one got Father Grimmore's stuff). I concluded that I might have missed a readable, but rather than going hunting which would have been a PITA and not fun at all (not to mention that I wasn't even sure whether I'd missed anything), I decided to just extract the readables from the .pk4 file to see whether I missed one. Turns out I did, but it told me enough to go skull hunting, with success. I'm glad I did that, because otherwise it'd have spoiled the great feeling I had during the rest of the mission.

 

 

 

I didn't bother to check every nook and cranny of the mansion for loot: just did what a real thief would've done: complete the main objectives, get enough loot to make it a good haul, and call it a day. Didn't bother checking a lot of the rooms I felt didn't need checking. I did go out of my way for the Blue Room, though, since I figured there might be some highly valuable items in there.

 

Overall very fun. Blackjacked 3 people in total, which is very low for my playing.

 

Great job, looking forward to WS2 and WS3!

You can call me Phi, Numbers, Digits, Ratio, 16, 1618, or whatever really, as long as it's not Phil.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Excellent, excellent mission. Easily the best I've played for Dark Mod out of the maybe ~30 I've played so far. I went in with no expectations as I'm new to Dark Mod and don't really have a feel for the authors but knew once I got just a few rooms into the basement and went through my inventory, the maps etc. that I was in for something special. If I had to compare it favorably to any kind of mission made for T1/TG/T2/TDS, I'd probably compare it to Transitions in Chaos: Conspiracies in the Dark for T2 which was just a legendary mansion mission.

 

You've got a story with multiple layers going on here, from the one woman everyone seems to trust with their money and other info to that staircase where the accident happened and how it all ties in with the guy who you're there to steal from, among other things to not spoil things much. Great visuals in the area design, with multiple ways to traverse some parts of the mansion. It's really a full-sized mission of better quality than you'd expect in a retail game, honestly. Beats many of the missions in the original Thief trilogy in quality, easily.

 

I finished it in ~2h40m and was short about 700 loot it seems. No idea where it could be or if I missed any section of the mansion (the burned section is all inaccessible?) but definitely one I'll revisit sometime. That you're almost done a 2nd and 3rd map in the series is great. Looking forward to those for sure.

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Ok, I think I'm being a bit dense.

 

I've found

the dirty skull

- and since its the ONLY alternative one I can find, I'm going to assume its the right one. However, I'm supposed to put it

with Grimmoire's remains - somewhere

and so help me, I can't seem to find *those*! lol Probably a bit backwards, I know.

 

I did try dropping them on the altar/coffin/thingy in the middle of the chapel, but it just rolled off and didn't do anything, so apparently that's the wrong place.

 

Also not having a ton of luck finding

the gold bar

that I'm supposed to find.

 

All in all, I'm really enjoying this mission. The extra stories, the atmosphere, the optional objectives. . .very thiefy. :) I'm actually even ghosting it for the most part (have KO'd a few that got in my way and I couldn't figure out how to get past, but most of them I'm leaving.) Having fun running around snuffing out candles, then throwing them across the room so that they won't be relit. lol

 

I have run across a small bug. . .in that the

entrance to the crypt

gets 'blocked'. . .by a rat! Stupid rat is right in front of the door and try as I might I could not get the silly thing to move. Door won't open from either side because its blocked and the rat won't move on its own.(it sort of opens, but only a fraction, then the rat REALLY gets stuck, until I close the door again, then it goes back to scrabbling at the door. uh huh. . .) All I can say is that I hope I'm done down there. . .

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@Elentarian,

 

 

 

Perhaps you read in Harckoff's journal that he found the entrance to Grimmore's crypt and it requires pushing 4 buttons in any sequence?

 

Look for a sarcophagus that's surrounded by 4 buttons on the floor.

 

 

 

Hopefully that will help.

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