Fan Mission: Home Again (by grayman) (2014/2/12)

[grayman]

Announcing the release of the second William Steele mission!



Summary

Home Again takes place in Bridgeport when Steele returns home from the north. He finds that something terrible has happened, and he must begin a quest to find the perpetrator and why he did it.

Most of this mission is spent on the rooftops.

The William Steele Missions

Home Again is the second of several Steele missions. Altogether they'll tell a story of corruption, greed, and revenge. At some point, I'll start packaging them as a campaign, in addition to the single missions.

If you haven't played WS1: In the North, I suggest you start with that, then come here.

Download

Home Again is available through the in-game downloader.

Build Time

16 months.

I18n

Home Again is ready for translation.

Thanks

Thanks to the TDM team for creating a terrific platform for storytelling and stealth gaming.

Thanks to my beta testers: AluminumHaste, Bikerdude, Mr. Tibbs, Xarg, lowenz, Lux, plotzzz, and Deadlove.

Thanks to Goldwell for providing voice work for a key part of the story.

And thanks to YOU, for playing!

Known Issues

This is a large mission. To ease the burden on older systems, consider shutting doors and windows behind you as you go.

Some players have experienced savegame crashes when playing large missions with TDM 2.01. This problem is under investigation. Until it’s corrected, I suggest you make frequent saves.

There are a few spots where long sight lines will cause framerate drops, possibly even pauses. My apologies to anyone who experiences these.

If you experience low frame rates, please consult the Performance Tweaks page on the Wiki.

Performance Tweaks

For very low end PCs I recommend the following settings:

• V-sync is off
• AA is off
• Aniso is 4x or lower
• Advanced settings are simple/default
• Post processing is disabled

Anyone having performance issues with TDM missions can put the following cvars into their Darkmod.cfg file. This will improve the framerate and stutter/chop when in-game, but may increase loading times a little.

image_usePrecompressedTextures "1"
image_useNormalCompression "2"
image_useAllFormats "1"
image_useCompression "1"
image_preload "1"

Important

This mission requires TDM 2.01 or later.

I rely heavily on readables to tell Steele's story. Please try to read every readable you find.

Most Importantly, Enjoy!

Screenshots





WS3: Cleighmoor

Steele's story continues with Cleighmoor, which you can find here.

[Oldjim]

Congratulations - downloading now :D

[vvGarrettvv]

super

downloading

U made my day

[chakkman]

Yay, looks very nice. Looking forward to play it. Grats on the release.

[Bikerdude]

Congrats mister, it was a joy to beta test and perf.

 

@Oh you lovely people won't know what hit you, Grayman has raised the bar yet again!

 

You wanted death defying rooftop exploration you got it, you wanted a deep engaging storyline and stories within stories, you got it all over the place and finally you wanted awe inspiring views and TDM bling, you got it.

 

Now stopping reading this fan boy's post and get playing yet another one of Grayman's masterpieces!

 

@Gman, I'm uploading to the mirrors and creating the FM page now.

[Sir Taffsalot]

AWESOME!!! Congrats Gman!

[Obsttorte]

Congrats on the release. If it's half as good as the last one it will raise the bar once again. Don't have the time to play it today so I have something to look forward to tomorrow.

 

Thanks for investing all the time

[Springheel]

Dammit! Why did this come right when I'm way too busy to play it??

[Oldjim]

Just started and this is going to take a long time to complete - not that I am complaining at all - just the opposite in fact

I had a few go's to see what counts as the streets and it is lot more encompassing than just the streets themselves - so guess who has been killed a few times

Edited February 12, 2014 by Oldjim

[Lux]

Fantastic! Congratulations! I can't wait to dig in to this, probably be Friday night or Saturday morning though so I can enjoy the darkness. Can't wait.

[lowenz]

@Oh you lovely people won't know what hit you, Grayman has raised the bar yet again!

You wanted death defying rooftop exploration you got it, you wanted a deep engaging storyline and stories within stories, you got it all over the place and finally you wanted awe inspiring views and TDM bling, you got it.

Exactly. It's a perfect synthesis of what TDM can bring to life.

Edited February 12, 2014 by lowenz

[Dunedain19]

Congratulations! Downloading now! *Turns out lights in room in eager preparation*

[AluminumHaste]

Was a joy to beta test!

Even though I've played it through 8 times now during beta testing, I still want to play it again and just sit back and enjoy it.

[nbohr1more]

Congrats on the Release!!!

[gnartsch]

Thanks for a new mission !

Too bad... don't have any time for anything these days.

[STiFU]

Dang, why couldn't I see this a little earlier, me gots to go to bed now! Grrrr! Congrats on the release. I am sure the mission will be as excellent as the last one.

[grayman]

Please remember to use spoiler tags when you begin to provide feedback, make comments, and ask questions.

 

tanks!

[skacky]

Thoroughly enjoyed this. Superb and dark atmosphere and great gameplay with lots of nooks and crannies to explore. This mission begs for street exploration though, but even like this it's a very very solid rooftop mission.

Several issues:

 

 

- The cash box key found in the captain's office doesn't unlock the cash box itself. I was forced to pick its lock.

- I couldn't frob that dude:

 

- You can climb here, directly after the inventor's guild:

 

[Bikerdude]

As Gman was so chuffed with personal play-through vid I did, I thought I would do it properly and capture it at better resolution, enjoy -

 

- 5 parts that were recorded @ 5140*1040 but youtube dumbed down to 1440p. (2160p is available but dosent seem to work atm)

 

http://youtu.be/B_TpGQLoIjg

 

- here is all 5 parts joined together at 1080p, but dosent look as cool.

 

http://youtu.be/4Ga50TQjcoE

 

@Grayman, feel free to add these the OP.

 

Created post for this over on ttlg - http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=143211

[grayman]

Argh!

 

Whoever posted skacky's screenshot on Facebook needs to change the picture. That's a view that the player is not supposed to see. I can put up with folks going where I thought they couldn't go, but screenshots like that shouldn't be posted outside the thread as an example of the mission.

 

Please use one of the two pics I posted in the OP.

[grayman]

 

 

 

- The cash box key found in the captain's office doesn't unlock the cash box itself. I was forced to pick its lock.

 

- I couldn't frob that dude:

 

 

 

 

 

I just checked, and the key opens the cash box, and I can frob and shoulder the Inventor.

 

Not sure what's going on at your end.

 

 

[GUFF]

Had no performance issues! For such a big mission that's really surprising. Really solid rooftops exploration to be had. I found a few areas outside of where you intended to get to, like skacky did. Looks like they're probably the same one--the tower with the archer was at least. I had no issues with the other things he mentioned. This is probably the most amazing rooftops/"thieves highway" type mission since, well, Life of the Party. I wouldn't say it's better than the last WS mission, but it's still really good.

[ungoliant]

Drat, I want to play this right now, but I've decided to make this mission my next blind ironman LP vid, and i need to find a pair of headphones.

[Sotha]

Whee! Looks incredible. Gotta start reserving uninterrupted time for this. I'm gonna enjoy it slooowly.

[beyondthesun]

Congratulations grayman! "In The North" is one of the best, I'm really looking forward playing this!