Fan Mission: The Lich Queen's Demise by Sotha (2013/05/20)

[Springheel]

You can also carry one of the candles there.

[Cynical]

Just finished this mission (and the TP campaign as a whole). I liked this one quite a bit, as well -- not as much as the previous one, but well enough. It had a strong Thief 1 vibe IMO,

with the variety of locations (outdoors -> caves -> mansion proper -> weeping halls), and also with the "find information, gather the things, then perform the ritual" mission structure reminding me quite a bit of Return to the Cathedral

. There's a couple of rough edges on the actual play that are worth mentioning:

 

It's not obvious that the Queen herself will be immune to holy water after casting the spell. After seeing it fail, I understood the hints at it in the diary, but it's not something a first-time player is likely to realize until they blast 8 holy water arrows into her with no effect.

 

This grate looks like it should be usable: http://imgur.com/euUWFZo. Doubly so, since the patrols of revenants that stare down the nearby staircase make it look like you're supposed to find an alternative way out.

 

I really take umbrage with the difficult lockpick to get into the Queen's bedroom. It's hard lockpick in an area with random patrols of revenants that have to be entirely avoided, and the light sources keep getting re-lit. Doing this successfully is almost entirely pure blind luck. It's particularly infuriating if you go there before the study, miss the ingredient list, go to the study, learn where the ingredient list is, and then have to break in a second time, after someone has re-locked it. IMO, with that torch setup, it should have been unpickable, and there should have been a key somewhere that would have made sense. Or it should have been an easy pick.

 

[SteveL]

I finally finished the Thomas Porter series! After taking a long break after Beleagured Fence last year because they were too hard for me as a newbie to TDM/Thief. LQD is a superb mission, and not so hard after all, just needing lots of patience waiting for the right moment to dash between shadows and needing full attention to the readables, which were very good: I always knew what was going on despite the unique mechanics. The dialog between undead characters was a great surprise, and was wonderfully written. I normally veer away from undead missions, because I like dealing with characters that feel real, but these undead have motives and personalities It looked great, and the

new shadow AI

were great fun and a good reason to wave a candle around. Only nitpick: it took me ages to find the

mushroom

. The loot goal was trivial again -- I got 1700 on my first playthrough when I only needed 700 -- but I guess you do that by design and it doesn't hurt gameplay. You have to explore everywhere anyway, to pick up the readables and find all your quest items. Thanks Sotha: TP is a super campaign that I look forward to playing again now I'm more skilled up

[Sotha]

Thankd for playing! I'm glad the campaign brought joy for you!

[V-Man339]

So this is a weird bug.

I'm able to maintain stealth score 0, up until, I kid you not,

I put the bag of gunpowder into the cannon.

 

This doesn't alert any AI (I've checked using tdm_ai_showalert 1), and ends up creating a single level 2 alert.

 

Obviously this isn't something huge, but such an anomaly may want to be noted for future maps and bug related issues.

I can honestly say this is the most left field required bust I've ever seen.

Edited February 15, 2016 by V-Man339

[Twitch]

Wow, it seems like the stealth scoring must be pretty buggy

[V-Man339]

 

I actually have to say this is my favorite mission out of the bunch, if only because you rarely get this much well done insight into the undead.

The weepers were absolutely brilliant.

 

I do feel like there's a strange sense of disbelief in the fact that Ulysses sounds exactly like Thomas Porter, but it can't be helped anymore than a short of actors can be.

Edited February 18, 2016 by V-Man339

[thebigh]

Terrific finale to the Thomas Porter series. Some scrambled, incoherent thoughts:

I loved that you made the revenants intelligent, with ambitions and concerns of their own. It was a really nice touch.

The awesome new enemies downstairs made me really have to think about what I was doing, because I found that area before I found the readable describing them.

I did think there were too many pickable doors with no key that the revenants locked behind them. Having to pick the same door 500 times felt like more of a chore than all the relightable candles.

Beautiful skybox! That sunset!