Fan Mission: Business as Usual v3.0 (2013/01/19)

[Bikerdude 3738]

Hmm, seem the mirror'd file is corrupted, so have uploaded a replacement. Try now.

[Bridge 8]

Yeah it works. Cheers.

[Nicholas 1]

There is another problem in this mission. The mission runs nice, but when I try to save, the game crashes and the save is broken, so I can not load it. An idea of playing this particular mission without saving does not fit me. So, Bikerdude, could you solve this problem too, please?

Edited October 29, 2013 by Nicholas

[nbohr1more 2041]

There is another problem in this mission. The mission runs nice, but when I try to save, the game crashes and the save is broken, so I can not load it. An idea of playing this particular mission without saving does not fit me. So, Bikerdude, could you solve this problem too, please?

 

Make sure your Dark Mod install directory is named "darkmod" all lower case.

[Bridge 8]

Just finished the mission. I really liked it. Everything is top notch although there were some mapping errors (check the crates behind the tavern) and I thought the loot requirement on expert was just a little too high. BTW, have to commend you on the abandoned house that is only accessible via the sewers. That part made me feel quite uneasy.

[Bikerdude 3738]

have to commend you on the house that is only accessible via the sewers. That part made me feel quite uneasy.

Glad you enjoyed it :-D

[Nicholas 1]

Make sure your Dark Mod install directory is named "darkmod" all lower case.

Man! I checked the name of my Dark Mod install directory SEVERAL TIMES. Any other suggestions?

[nbohr1more 2041]

Man! I checked the name of my Dark Mod install directory SEVERAL TIMES. Any other suggestions?

 

Collect a console dump while playing and attempt a replication the post the result.

[Araneidae 26]

It does strike me that rather than just having downloaded_version in missions.tdminfo there ought to also be some form of checksum, MD5, or similar. The updater didn't offer me any fixes to this mission, and my missions.tdminfo had version "3" as downloaded, but when I deleted the mission and redownloaded it I have a different version and it now works. As it is, unless mappers are careful about stepping versions, it's too easy to be out of step with updates. (Sorry to suggest yet more work for the developers

[Nicholas 1]

You don't believe it, but this morning i loaded mission one more time, tried to save and.,... IT WORKS! Don't know what it was, but finally I could play this nice mission. Have completed it. Haven't found only 135 of 2538 loot. However, there was one moment in this mission, i don't like - I tried several times blackjacking two swordmen patrolling on the snowy streets, but can not knock them out, every time i hit them with my blackjack, they just turned around and killed me with their longswords( No matter that, in general, I enjoyed this mission, especially looking for the loot in the windows above)

[Deadlove 260]

 

 

Great mission. Always an admirer of Bikerdude's architecture. Very pleasing to the eye.

 

Enjoyed the ability to pick off objectives in whatever order, as the new areas introduced themselves based on each individual's preference to exploration.

 

Liked the homage paid with bringing Benny his bottle. Great name choice. Barrett also stood out to me...wonder why. :-)

 

The frequency of notations in readables made finding the next target interesting. For example, the note in the odd job guy's place explaining building the secret area in the hotel.

 

The one thief in the hideout in the sewers cannot be blackjacked even though he is not wearing a helmet? He was a bit hard to slip by. Once I got the candles extinguished it made it much less stressful to navigate that area.

 

The snow was great! Very well done, and it's nice to have more types of weather introduced in TDM. It probably did take some time to redo all the railings to add snow to them.

 

The note in the hotel about the lights being powered in the same way the street lanterns are was nice, as it lended to the supernatural science of the TDM world and giving the lights an explanation.

 

When I first entered the tavern, noone was hostile and greeted me. Once I went upstairs and came back down, then the NPC's became hostile. Nice touch of realism, as I was hoping for something like that since I was going into an off limits area to the normal patrons of the tavern.

 

Also, I really liked being able to stick the metal bar inside the spinning gear to stop it, and that made getting the gold from underneath in the water not as threatening as the gear was no longer spinning. I was surprised to be able to stop the gear, but I purposely stuck the bar in there just to see if it would stop the gear from moving.

 

Only thing that I'd criticize, which is something I notice in other missions by Bikerdude (and some other mappers too) is the not being able to select/purchase your own gear, and having to start with a set amount of gear picked by the mapper.

 

I enjoyed this what I'd call a medium sized mission. Great work Bikerdude!

 

 

[Bikerdude 3738]

@Deadlove, glad you have fun playing it.

[Maethius 2]

Exceptional mission... I just never wanted to find the edge of the map because I wanted to keep exploring! The details were great and the objectives each had a fun little twist. I also liked that you didn't get bogged down in some epic story... the the title says, it was just a night in the life of a thief! Like the old T1/T2 missions, there were times when the map felt bigger than it was, and that's a great feature.

 

Wonderful work on this! Business as Usual is in my top 5 for sure.

[Bikerdude 3738]

Nice to see people are still playing this :-)

[Atomic 11]

Nice to see people are still playing this :-)

Well sure, there's always new people learning about Dark Mod. Like me.

[Bikerdude 3738]

heh, welcome to the forums and the Darkmod

[Deadlove 260]

I have to take back what I said about purchasing gear. Not being able to purchase gear and being dropped in a mission with a only a select set of tools is becoming something I really enjoy about TDM.

 

This mission is one of my all time favorites. Great replay value. I know I keep asking (and I won't stop), when will come Blackheart/Blackthorn? Manor Biker + Melan? I see we have great ROW intros now too. TDM is on the rise!

 

Don't be surprised if my missions/campaign is filled with dark candles and blood and scares and isn't very friendly. I love the scary stuff.

[Deadlove 260]

When I inititally started playing TDM I was very used to Thief and compared it a lot to Thief, but TDM is it's own separate game, and it stands alone as possibly the best stealth game out there. Just as the PC Gamer article says, that if the devs won't make it then the fans will. I just need to work on my Dark Radiant skills I have many and many pieces of papers outliining some really ugly and undesirable treasures to be taken...

[Bikerdude 3738]

I know I keep asking (and I won't stop), when will come Blackheart/Blackthorn? Manor Biker + Melan? I see we have great ROW intros now too. TDM is on the rise!

Well we are working on the prologue mission for the crucible campaign, the map is fully built, just need to get remaining readables, objectives, beta testing & briefing video done. And there is no time frame, it will get done when it gets done.

[Silverd 10]

Overall a quite solid fan mission without specialties, but there are some flaws in it for me:

 

In the objectives it is called "Drop a bottle of wine in Benny's footlocker". Actually there is a lot of wine around and I assumed it can be any bottle. Actually it has to be a certain item.

 

The key for the hidden chest might be quite tricky to find, however it might be tolerable.

[161803398874989 81]

Wow. Excellent mission. Very well done! Had tons of fun with this, lots of variety in locations, interesting characters, and tight gameplay.

 

I like that it really was business as usual. Normally authors like to make a joke with those things and end up having the protagonist involved in some kind of epic story.

 

One negative point: lots of typos and grammatical errors in the readables. Always a good idea to have someone else look over them.

[Bikerdude 3738]

One negative point: lots of typos and grammatical errors in the readables. Always a good idea to have someone else look over them.

Drop me a pm with the corrections and I will fix and put back the snow for xmas..