Fan Mission: Chase Mercantile by Airship Ballet (2015/02/04)

[Airship Ballet]

Merry's Magnificent Mapping Co. Delivers Again!

Chase Mercantile

Screenshots

La Banque was something of a practice run: this place should prove to be something closer to a challenge.

Title: Chase Mercantile
Theme: Bank
Release: 2015/02/04
Mapper: Airship Ballet
Special thanks: Nobiax for the custom loot models and textures, Melan for his textures and Xarg, Kyyrma, Oldjim, Phi, Melan, Cookie and Bikerdude for beta testing the map for me! Vault and courtyard ambiences made by me using this and this respectively.
Build Time: 1 month and 13 days.

Well, here it is! We're about 2/5 through the campaign provided I don't decide to extend it. While going back to change things with La Banque I was really enthused to see how much better I am at mapping already, so hopefully you will be too! This is the same deal as La Banque but bigger and better. It's physically about twice the size and a fair bit more complex with regards to objectives and the like. As a result, you get a ton of notes if you buy a lot of things! Having the notes in your inventory is integral to the system itself working, so hopefully you won't mind reading then discarding a bunch of pieces of paper. I've got plans for a somewhat cooler way to introduce the notes to the player, but you're stuck without for now.

This is, of course, bundled with La Banque so all that gold means something now! It'll be on the mission downloader as Chase Mercantile so delete La Banque from your FMs folder because it's obsolete. I tweaked the former mission somewhat, spawning some new guards on expert and implementing a 500G/1000G KO/Kill penalty to your loot total across all difficulties. I also wrote a new briefing that hopefully doesn't show how bad I am at English anymore. It was only ever intended as a tutorial, however, so don't expect crazy difficulty there. There's tons of loot to be had, but even more if you're sneakier about it! The same goes for Chase, albeit far moreso: expert difficulty has pretty much 100% guard coverage, so good luck with that.

Erm, what else... oh! I recorded the building process, so if you're curious or just fancy zoning out to some timelapses, you can see the map's construction from start to almost-finished here, although hold off until you're done to avoid spoilers.

Note

- Noclipping around like a mook will skip triggers that change things based on what you bought. It will completely negate the system in some cases and often brick your playthrough. Don't do it unless you've no desire to be able to finish!

- As the note you start with says, you can bag up the loose loot in the vault into bags. Dropping these out of the starting window in the basement or at the alternate loot drop (if you buy it) will net you 3000 per bag, which translates directly into 3 gold for the next mission's asset shop.

- Knocking people out will cost you 500 gold on Expert, and killing them will dock you 1000 on Medium and Expert.

- Optional objectives will pay you gold immediately on completion.

- It is impossible to acquire all of the loot in the map: there are variants of some that get swapped around depending on what you buy. Don't sweat it: there's tons anyway!

Cheats
Come to the thread because you can't find something? Look no further you casual! Obviously don't expand spoilers if you don't want spoilers.

Where are the vault keys?

One is in Malloy's cabinet, the other is in Chase's vault

How do I get into Chase's vault?

There's a button in his desk

use the wine glass on his desk in the empty hand of the statue

 

How do I turn off the steam?

There's a leaky steam pipe in the basement opposite the vault threshold: damage it however you like

What about the electrified gate?

The only lever that works in the electrical room near said pipe

...and the gas?

Same again, only the gas room that you can only access with the bought gas storage key, or just buy the deposit box key and never set the gas off at all.

Where is the sword?

The break room, hanging on the wall

Where is the necklace?

The far end of the right-hand rafters

Where are the client records?

In the chest in the right-hand teller stands, nearest the main doors

Where are the financial records?

Chase's vault, one of the chests full of books on the right

Where's Turk Malloy?

In his office! How did you even manage to boot the game?

Look, you made a system I despise. The least you can do is tell me what to buy.

All four guard removals if you can afford them, the gas arrow drop and/or the steam and deposit keys

Download links

The Campaign

Available on the in-game mission downloader as "Quinn Co."

The Single Mission
chase.pk4

Edited February 4, 2015 by Airship Ballet

[Goldwell]

Congratulations on the release Airship Ballet! Really looking forward to playing this one tonight, thoroughly enjoyed your first one

[Obsttorte]

Congrats on the release. *thumbs up*

[Xarg]

It's a beautiful building, but we're bringing ugly business. We'll need keys to get further in, so look for their stashes.

[id3839315]

for another great bank mission.

[Bikerdude]

Added to the in-game downloader, but need some working screenshots to upload etc.

[nbohr1more]

Congrats on the release AB!

[Dunedain19]

Congratulations on the release! Looking forward to playing it!

[kyyrma]

Was a ton of fun to test, and the offices are marvelous to look at. Some of the best interiors I've seen in TDM. Great improvement from your last map which was already a fantastic FM debut

 

I'd consider adding a link to just the individual map without the previous part attached to it, because there isn't a simple way of skipping a level in TDM is there? I'd wager some would like to just try out the new map without having to play La Banque a second time.

[grayman]

Congrats!

 

When you do your next update, please read the section Menus Show Current Mission in New TDM 2.03 Features for Mappers.

 

Thanks!

[Lux]

Congrats on the release, AB! Looking forward to playing through.

[Airship Ballet]

I'd consider adding a link to just the individual map without the previous part attached to it, because there isn't a simple way of skipping a level in TDM is there? I'd wager some would like to just try out the new map without having to play La Banque a second time.

There's been a thread up asking as much for the weekend, but not many people got back to me so they've only themselves to blame!

[Dunedain19]

I fully agree with kyyrma, please can you release it as a standalone mission. I enjoyed La Banque, but playing through it again in order to actually get to Chase Mercantile was frustrating.

 

 

 

 

I was in the process of playing through Chase Mercantile earlier, and while I was enjoying the layout and architecture - I am seriously not a fan of the KO/Kill penalty system. I did not read through your entire post above prior to playing, and when I saw that my loot total was decreasing, I thought that it was a bug that was occurring each time I picked up a particular loot item. I almost wrote an entire post warning you about it, and then I discovered that this was a actually deliberate mechanic that you created.

 

In the event of being detected, it's punishment enough to have to fight and kill the guard in question in order to carry on the mission (rather than take the easy way out and simply reload a save) - having my loot total slashed as well comes across as both needlessly punitive and unrealistic. Why should I suddenly lose gold if I have just lured a guard into a trap and blackjacked him? At a stretch, I can understand that if I'm hauling around a loot bag and I get into a sword fight, that the bag might get slashed and some coins will inevitably spill out; but at the same time, hauling around a giant loot bag with all my goodies would also slow me down (a mechanic you have already successfully dabbled in with having to manually carry the large loot items).

 

However, with KOs, the loot-penalty mechanic literally makes no sense and completely destroys the "lure-and-KO" gameplay style, forcing me to play as a complete ghost if I want to keep my loot total intact.

 

As it stands, the mechanic only serves to encourage 'load-spamming' if you unexpectedly find yourself face-to-face with a guard, rather than flee (almost guaranteed certain death given the abundance of light sources in the basement) or engage in combat (and then definitely lose my loot). I'll certainly be more careful, but then the entire mission becomes either a case of "explore mission," "I found an AI," "spam F9," "avoid previously discovered AI," or alternatively, go into it knowing in advance that I have to ghost it or risk losing my loot - neither option is very appealing.

 

In his critical review of THIEF, Gopher made a crucial point: in a stealth-game, "getting caught should be worse than dying." Here, I would rather die or reload than have my loot slashed because I was a successful swordsman or a clever trickster who lured unsuspecting guards into my eagerly awaiting blackjack - not because I was clumsy. Thief II had its Shoalsgate Station mission, where you were limited to only killing/KO-ing a certain number of guards, and that made sense from a narrative perspective. Equally, one of the FMs here had a section where the light-dark mechanics were literally flipped on its head, where you had to use your lantern in order to detect and then avoid the enemies. In both cases, the mechanic is fully complemented by the narrative. Unfortunately, without any narrative background, this loot-penalty mechanic is forcing players to play the mission one specific way - i.e pure ghosting - without proper cause. You could have achieved the same effect by simply taking away all combat weapons from player.

 

Sadly, as long as the loot-penalty mechanic remains unchanged, I am unable to play the mission according to my gameplay style, which renders your architecture, layout (and hopefully intriguing story) pointless for me, because you are needlessly punishing me (and I am certain that there are others) for tackling the mission in my unique way.

 

I apologise if I have come across as harsh, it is certainly not my intention to diminish or dismiss your hard-work and effort in creating this mission; however, having followed these forums for over three years on an almost daily basis, I truly feel that this loot-penalty mechanic is going to prove highly divisive once more people in the community play the mission, and I hope that there is an easy way to deactivate it.

 

 

 

Edited February 4, 2015 by Dunedain19

[SteveL]

Grats Merry! I'll get stuck in to both missions as soon as we get 2.03 out the door. I love your intro posts by the way.

 

Do TDM's save game mechanics provide you a way to let people move to the next mission? There's automatically a "final save" that could be used to start up the previous mission just before the mission complete screen.

 

That wouldn't work if TDM itself or the map scripts have been updated in the meantime of course, but it might work for successive missions in the same version of TDM.

[Bikerdude]

Added to the in-game downloader, but need some working screenshots to upload etc.

The campaign for the time being is going by the name "Quinn Co."

[VanishedOne]

There's been a thread up asking as much for the weekend, but not many people got back to me so they've only themselves to blame!

You mean, post #7 of a thread called 'Beta Testers For My New Mission'?

[Airship Ballet]

So I've rushed to change a few things. I'm a bit irked: I asked about both the loot penalties and the separate missions thing well before release, just when beta testing started actually. Not many people got back to me, but now the opposite opinion to those who did has come out in full force. These are forums, guys! Your opinion directly changes the output, but if you don't respond it won't change, and usually the release thread is too late a place to do it. Since I'm so great, however, there are now two download links in the OP. Only one (Quinn Co.) will go up in the in-game downloader, but if you want to play just the new one on its own, there's a link to it in the OP that you can sort out yourself. I added mission titles in preparation for 2.03 too.

 

[snip]

I moved the penalties for killing and KOing people to different difficulties. Knockouts will only remove money on expert, and kills will do so on medium and expert. If you want to play the game your way without consequences, easy mode beckons

You mean, post #7 of a thread called 'Beta Testers For My New Mission'?

Yeah, I was going to make a new thread for the question but saw that people were very regularly looking at that post and not replying. I assumed that meant they didn't mind either way.

Edited February 4, 2015 by Airship Ballet

[Oldjim]

Tried downloading from the ingame downloader and it stuck at about 5%

Backed out and now it doesn't show up for downloading

[Airship Ballet]

Well I'm being a huge pain and making Biker juggle a bunch of .pk4s, so it should be good in a minute.

[Dunedain19]

Thanks for your super speedy response, AB. I really appreciate your prompt resolution of my concern.

 

I wish I had seen that earlier discussion, I certainly would have given you my feedback on the mechanic back then.

 

Looking forward to continuing the mission!

[Oldjim]

Does that mean I should junk the one I just downloaded from your link

[Bikerdude]

Done.

[VanishedOne]

Yeah, I was going to make a new thread for the question but saw that people were very regularly looking at that post and not replying. I assumed that meant they didn't mind either way.

I didn't de-lurk because I thought it was a question to your beta testers. Oh well.

[Airship Ballet]

Does that mean I should junk the one I just downloaded from your link

If you downloaded the campaign version, it's the same as the one that's now on the downloader.

[Lux]

I'm a bit confused on what is taking place. So if we played and finished La Banque previously, the stats will not be carried over, correct?

 

We hAVe to play La Banque again (and a new version?) if we want the stat carry over?

 

If we don't care about the stat carry over from the first mission we can just play this new one by itself?

 

Having finished La Banque previously, playing through this new FM without replaying La Banque, what are we missing out on?