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Fan Mission: Ulysses: Genesis by Sotha (2014/07/24)


Sotha

Rate Ulysses: Genesis  

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

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Very nice FM Sotha. I didn't play it like I play most TDM FMs as I wasn't very stealthy but with the amount of weapons to be found in this map it felt like you wanted the player to have more of a direct approach. The Mansion looked really nice and was the visual highlight of the FM for me. I liked the story. It seemed that you took inspiration from the Mechanists from T2.

 

Thanks for all the hard work you put into making this fine FM. I'm glad you didn't retire from TDM level editing like you said you would and I hope you stick around to make many more fine FMs.

  • Like 1

"I believe that what doesn't kill you simply makes you... stranger"

 

The Joker

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I don't like touching non targets, but I was able to safely stash

the body of the lord in the bathroom, and I don't think it raised an alarm (if it did, I was long gone, but my stealth score was horrible). One very odd detail though: I killed him in his bedroom and first hid the body on the bed -- and then when people came into the bedroom (both ladies and a guard) they went completely beserk, even if I'd washed the blood off the floor -- but they couldn't actually see either me or the body on the bed. On the other hand, if I crouched on the bed holding the body then all was quiet, they came and went and I had time to dump the body in the bathroom (on the loo).

 

Is that behaviour with a body a game bug? Seems rather odd.

Edited by Araneidae
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This is something I wished we had in TDM. When you knockout or kill someone, provided you water arrow the bloodstain in the second instance, and then drag them up in to a bed, they "appear" to be sleeping and guards shouldn't notice.

 

I don't know if this is something you can do with a boundry box on the bed which sets the AI state to ignore if the character in question is knocked out or dead. Maybe as a mapper this could be scripted or set up with the stim/response system. Would be neat though.

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This is something I wished we had in TDM. When you knockout or kill someone, provided you water arrow the bloodstain in the second instance, and then drag them up in to a bed, they "appear" to be sleeping and guards shouldn't notice.

 

I don't know if this is something you can do with a boundry box on the bed which sets the AI state to ignore if the character in question is knocked out or dead. Maybe as a mapper this could be scripted or set up with the stim/response system. Would be neat though.

 

That would definitely be possible as a custom thing. Would be cool to have in a mission perhaps where you have to clean up a murder scene and use your water arrows to do that so the guards don't become alarmed.

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I don't think it would be a good idea, this bed thing. If you bash someone's skull open and put them to bed nodoby would be fooled. Everything would be messed up with blood and water would just spread the mess around. Also it could lead to silly exploit where bodies are piled on the bed and AI walking past would not care.

 

Hitman-style boxes for a single body would be better. And those would not even need any scripting. They should just work right now without any additions.

 

Simple solutions are usually the best.

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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Also it could lead to silly exploit where bodies are piled on the bed and AI walking past would not care.

 

Having piled bodies high in dark corners in my time this makes sense. Still seems odd to me that I was completely invisible holding the body on the bed and yet the body by itself raised all the alarms -- makes finding the right dark corner that bit more tricky...

 

I guess as a thief I have a special aura that makes me and what I'm carrying especially invisible (not to mention the loudly clanking bag of loot on my back that everybody's too polite to notice).

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Never considered piling a mound of bodies on the bed or bashing someones head open since that doesn't happen in TDM. The box trigger on the bed would only be high enough for a single body laying down.

 

Generally a black jack won't break the skin and most arrow or sword marks could maybe be covered by a conditional statement.

 

Maybe its not feasible but there have been a number of times in FMs where someone is sleeping, you blackjack them and they're still alive, and still in bed but the guards are alerted. Seems silly.

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The start of the mission was quite difficult, with

those guys with the red light to illuminate wherever they looked. Getting out of the cell was easy once you figured out how.

I like to knock people out with the BJ, and in this one, that practice was challenging in the mansion. Too many people roaming about and with hard armor too. The music upstairs was scary. Overall, I liked this one quite a bit :smile:

Edited by Summer
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Amazing mission Sotha, congratulations!

It's really nice to play as an assassin for a change. The targets and the layout of the level (although a bit short) are well thought out, and I even could take them all out silently. Also, if I remember correctly this character is even mentioned in the Thomas Porter series. In the Beleaguered Fence mission, in the evidence room with a text on one of his assassinations :) Nice story tidbit tie-in, thumbs up! :)

I really hope you will make this into a series!

Edited by beyondthesun
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I must be missing something as usual ! I got

out of the cell easily enough but can't find a way past the two guards with spotlights. The front one nearest the door never seems to turn and it is very light in that room. Can someone give me a clue?

Thanks.

By the way , what does 'Warn status' under my member avatar mean ? Sorry just 'searched' and found the answer but would still appreciate help on above. I've

 

since moved on slightly in that I managed to snatch a sword. Slashing the bloke with the syringe though brought in a whole nest of AI's. Now I'm on the top of the bales outside the door waiting for them to move off.Oh for a bow and some arrows!

 

Edited by raymeld
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Its just if you've gotten in to any trouble posting malicious comments on the forums I believe. If its a white bar, you're good! :P

Yes, worked that out as I said, but can anyone give me a clue on how I proceed in the mission please?

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It occurs to me ref the above ,

maybe there are a stash of mines somewhere or some such, Or maybe I should just try to wade in with the sword although I'm getting killed easily doing that . I got up into the crawl space above the cells but can't see any way out from there.Obviously missing something simple here.

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Thanks , I did

go up above but there seemed to be no way through , only fans.

Will look again.

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Explore the vents? There are multiple ways to go/exit.

Finished it , but if there were any vents I couldn't find them.

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I'm pretty sure this is what happened....

 

I had a body on shoulder, and saved game. Then I died, reloaded game and got an error about an extra body in the map, save game slot was corrupt. I guess TDM acts up and it messes with putting things in place if you are shouldering a body and doesn't know what to think since the ragdoll is on the person and not in the world.

 

Btw, congrats Sotha, loved it! Glad you have started a new story / new character.

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Forgive me for asking again as no one answered originally. Firstly, I have to explain I'm not the best Thief DM player in the world as I suffer from painful arthritic hands which give me a short attention span. However , even at my late stage in life ( at 72 , wonder if I'm the oldest player of DM on here) , I still enjoy the odd mission or two. Maybe it was me with this one but ,

I still don't know if I was on the right track in finishing it which took me ages because I couldn't get past the two AIs with spotlights on their heads.Someone kindly told me ( Lux ) that there were numerous vents etc and I duly climbed up to look for them with no joy. Were there any? One guard always faced the door in a key position. I eventually made some sort of noise in the roof area and by a miracle managed to get past but with him chasing me downstairs. I managed to hide in the shadows. But this was after several hours of play after getting out of the actual cell in seconds. And I stirred up a hornets' nest because of it with all the AI s on the alert thereafter. What did I do wrong ,was there an easier less frustrating way? Just interested.

Edited by raymeld
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Became a little irritated with something I thought we weren't supposed to do to players:

 

 

 

After 10 minutes of avoiding a search by the "guy with the needle" and a couple mechs, I grabbed the desk key off the guy's belt, opened the desk, and--sudden death?#$%?

 

I can understand perhaps hurting the player a bit, but should we really be killing him unexpectedly? I always thought that was verboten.

 

With my last savegame way back in the cells, and not wanting to have to repeat all my hard-earned progress, I'm off to do something else. Might come back to this, and might not.

 

 

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Sorry man.

 

 

 

There was a note on the desk, which hinted it was trapped. Maybe should have had put labels ON and OFF in the lever under the straw hat.

 

The betatesters didn't much complain (well said it required a clue which I added), so I thought it was okay. I'll try to make traps more obvious in the future.

 

Please give it another go later. I'm sure you will be statisfied.

 

 

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Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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I get the irritation, but the whole idea of traps is that they catch the unwary, there was a note, there was a switch to disable the trap.

 

15 year of playing thief and now TDM has taught me to always look at readables before opening things and I never, ever, stand in front of something I'm trying to open just in case there's something lethal inside, if I'm forced to stand in front of whatever it is I scour the area for switches and hints first, if I get killed after that then I think I have a right to be righteously p*ssed as there was no way of avoiding it. but if I miss a hint or a switch then it's my fault.

 

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I always thought that was verboten.

LOL. Are you using that word in english, too, or is this some kind of joke?

 

 

 

@Sotha: It got me the first time, too. I did not see the readable the first time, as I was crouching. The same with the button. Blood splats or similar may be a more obvious hint here. But it is not a big game breaker, imho.

 

 

FM's: Builder Roads, Old Habits, Old Habits Rebuild

Mapping and Scripting: Apples and Peaches

Sculptris Models and Tutorials: Obsttortes Models

My wiki articles: Obstipedia

Texture Blending in DR: DR ASE Blend Exporter

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First off, congrats on the release, Sotha. Finished it up this morning. Enjoyed it for the most part with some trial and error.

 

 

Getting out of the cell was a nice challenge and dodging your automatrons was also tricky with their spot light for an eye. I found a great hiding spot for bodies where I thought no one was going until along came one of my targets right to the door.

 

That was one of the difficulties I was having as I didn't know the targets were my targets until they were dead and the objection checked off. I knocked the one out at the door of my "stash room" and took his key, which is how I figured him out so had to reload. The one in the lab I figured out just because of where he was but had more difficulty with the captain. I gassed him first and when I picked him up it only indicated that he was a "body". Since I was, at this point, running out of bodies I decided to reload and kill him to see if that's who I was looking for - it was.

 

I saved most of the objectives for after I'd been through the mansion so I could go loot hunting - got it all, yay! - as at some point I put AI on alert and all were walking around with arms drawn so didn't want to alert farther. I also didn't find any vents other than those above the cell.

Thanks for all your hard work. Look forward to more.

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