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Missions in exotic locations


MirceaKitsune

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I have been wondering about this for some time. There are a lot of TDM missions with great maps and detailed environments. While city designs and the general feel of each map do differ between missions, the style still becomes a bit monotonic after playing a lot of them. The action always takes place in European cities during the medieval or victorian era, and I haven't really seen any exceptions so far. I'm wondering about missions around other parts of the world, with different architectures and cultures. Are there any so far, or are any planned? How possible are they in general at this stage?

 

I'm mostly thinking of Arabic and Asian cities, since most European countries are pretty alike. It would be really neat to play a mission which takes place in an Indian city for instance... with civilians dressed in robe like clothes, guards having machetes instead of short swords, Indian music playing inside taverns, etc. Or one where the action happens in ancient Japan... in a town with wooden houses that have paper windows and doors, and colored paper lamps instead of torches, with a few notes written in the Asian alphabet here and there (preferably also translated to english).

 

From what I noticed, the content is there for some of those ideas. Some extra textures and models would certainly help, but towns of different cultures should be easy to pull off with the existing ones too. I imagine the biggest issue is the lack of characters with proper appearance and clothing, as well as voice packages with the right accents (still in english of course). There is however hope in this sense as well: Springheel once posted a video of a character set called Moor, which has a few Egyptian looking NPC's that also wield traditional swords. I'm curious if they're part of TDM by now.

 

 

Beyond real exotic locations, I'm curious about surreal ones as well. What about hobbit towns in huge magical forests, or floating sky islands... perhaps even a town in a hellish underground world? Here is some nice art which shows what I'm thinking of seeing from a FPS perspective in such a mission:

 

 

 

arab_city_street_by_rage1793-d5v9i4p.jpg

desert_city_by_ericoscarj-d8dzvpb.jpg

the_peaceful_town_by_kailyze-d7ygugg.jpg

red_riding_in_china_by_3yen-d3jbnql.jpg

 

 

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There is however hope in this sense as well: Springheel once posted a video of a character set called Moor, which has a few Egyptian looking NPC's that also wield traditional swords. I'm curious if they're part of TDM by now.

 

Moorish NPCs have so far been used in One Step Too Far and Chase Mercantile. The upcoming Accountant 2 also features a Moorish mage. I'm also thinking of adding a few Moors in a few of my missions.

"Let me guess - little blue men with three heads stole your sweetroll?"

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Moorish NPCs have so far been used in One Step Too Far and Chase Mercantile. The upcoming Accountant 2 also features a Moorish mage. I'm also thinking of adding a few Moors in a few of my missions.

Ah... One Step Too Far was that mission where you play on a ship, right? I finished it a while ago, and remember that one of the guards was a Moor character. So they are part of TDM in that case... awesome!

 

The necessary assets are likely there more or less. Main problem seems to be that there are no maps in non-European setups. Obviously I can't request mission creators to make any, but perhaps this inspires some to try it out. Making an Arab palace or Indian bazaar in Darkradiant could be a fun attempt by itself... not to mention playing a full mission in such, where you interact with characters and read notes and so on.

 

As for the other links, thanks for the info! They're more or less related, but still fun to see some of those "weird maps" :)

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Ah... One Step Too Far was that mission where you play on a ship, right? I finished it a while ago, and remember that one of the guards was a Moor character. So they are part of TDM in that case... awesome!

 

The necessary assets are likely there more or less. Main problem seems to be that there are no maps in non-European setups. Obviously I can't request mission creators to make any, but perhaps this inspires some to try it out. Making an Arab palace or Indian bazaar in Darkradiant could be a fun attempt by itself... not to mention playing a full mission in such, where you interact with characters and read notes and so on.

 

As for the other links, thanks for the info! They're more or less related, but still fun to see some of those "weird maps" :)

We'd probably have to make new Moor characters though if there's going to be a mission with an exotic setting (heads, costumes, voices).

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"Let me guess - little blue men with three heads stole your sweetroll?"

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We'd probably have to make new Moor characters though if there's going to be a mission with an exotic setting (heads, costumes, voices).

More would help to detail and capture such settings. I think TDM has enough for them to be doable already though. Especially since you can combine a lot of parts... for example the existing guards can be made to wear a Moor helmet, which would give a somewhat mixed result.

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I'm all for missions in alternate environments. I have one in a space ship, currently on the back burner, with stars zipping past the windows and an active security camera with corresponding lcd monitor. It's not perfect, but it works pretty well.

I also have one which features an (supposedly) short dude who lives in a home built into the side of a hill. It features a round green door with a central brass doorknob. Out front, on a bench, sits the homeowner...smoking buds in a pipe. Call it what you will, but it reminds me a bit of that "Hobbiton" place and its most famous character.

So yes, from time to time it is nice to have missions not centered around "Garreth", etc, and his world.

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System: Mageia Linux Cauldron, aka Mageia 8

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Well, of the existing missions...

 

Lord Dufford's is set in Lunarium, "a city that lies five thousand leagues east of Bridgeport, and is home to many people who came here due to the magical healing properties in the air surrounding the spires". I have not played that FM, but it sounds interesting. (And it's possibly a homage of sorts to TDP's The Mage Towers mission).

 

Briarwood Cathedral had, for some strange reason, palm trees. I know it's on an island and there is a pirate subplot in the story, but I always found the presence of palms to be a bit peculiar in that mission.

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May sound a bit ignorant, but the setting is part of why i love to play Thief and this, so any exotic location would kind of break this, so for me that's nothing i would go far when i play, or if i would create a mission. But each to its like of course. I like dark city missions the most, in the style of this: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/10509-fan-mission-return-to-the-city-by-melan-20100110/That's what Thief and TDM is about for me. Or dark castles with torture chambers and stuff like that. :laugh:

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May sound a bit ignorant, but the setting is part of why i love to play Thief and this, so any exotic location would kind of break this, so for me that's nothing i would go far when i play, or if i would create a mission. But each to its like of course. I like dark city missions the most, in the style of this: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/10509-fan-mission-return-to-the-city-by-melan-20100110/That's what Thief and TDM is about for me. Or dark castles with torture chambers and stuff like that. :laugh:

I totally love them as well! Certainly TDM wouldn't be as awesome without the default setup, and rustic medieval towns in existing missions. Just that sometimes, a bit more diversity would be good as well. There are many different environments players could experience, and I think mixing them properly would by itself be an art :)

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For me personally, visiting strange and unknown locations is all what Thief is about. Such missions like:

- Lost Crusade (bustling town in Arabia)

- Deep Trouble (gigantic submarines and habitation complexes in the depths of the sea)

- Eclipsed! (terrifying harbour town)

really bring this idea of taking a break from one's daily duties and instead travelling to someplace else to its peak.

 

 

I tend to look for ideas for maps in those directions, such as (these are all things I did some mapping towards in the past):

 

- A gigantic oil tanker of cold metal and salty rust, stacked high with containers and barrels, with moving loading cranes, cargo bays, a bridge tower, rounded windows, huge diesel engines, a submarine with headlights and claws, and the ambient factory01 looping in the background. Everything below deck is overrun with zombies, which you could see through Obsttorte's surveillance cameras all over the ship through the monitors at the bridge. However, this project turned out too big to handle, IIRC it was 8000 x 2000 units over many decks. Maybe this was just my reaction to how cramped my carack in One Step Too Far was.

 

- A huge sprawling network of caves connected by the tunnels of the Borers of Stone. Sudden earthquakes from the Borers' activity, balancing along the edge of pitch-black chasms, deafening underground rivers and slippery rocks, glowing caves of many-coloured crystals, an alien tribe of pagans who carve their homes in these gray stones. But I realised in One Step Too Far how difficult it is to get AIs to path around unusual objects or over uneven surfaces, and we don't have full pagans yet, so I wouldn't be making a full mission set entirely in this environment.

 

-Getting caught in an Arctic snowstorm and waking up next to a stove in a well-heated room of an opaque old man's manor in the middle of an icy landscape. No need to mention that he is not what he claims to be... (not so easy to get much sneaking gameplay in this scenario though)

 

 

As you can see mapping is great fun, do anything you want ;) What they keep saying in these forums: if you'd really like to see something, and it isn't there yet, make it!

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I've already scripted and paper-mapped out FMs set in medieval Japan (Goemon's story) and our world's version of Baghdad, complete with pasha's palace and the grand mosque-equivalent, which is one of the FMs for the campaign I scripted.

 

Another one I scripted and mapped out is a post apoc future cyberpunk society that collapsed back into a medieval period, and now it's 1000 years later but futuristic ruins remain. E.g. the way Cloud Atlas did it.

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What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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I've already scripted and paper-mapped out FMs set in medieval Japan (Goemon's story) and our world's version of Baghdad, complete with pasha's palace and the grand mosque-equivalent, which is one of the FMs for the campaign I scripted.

 

Another one I scripted and mapped out is a post apoc future cyberpunk society that collapsed back into a medieval period, and now it's 1000 years later but futuristic ruins remain. E.g. the way Cloud Atlas did it.

 

That all sounds amazing! Can any of them be downloaded from anywhere please?

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Don't know how i could have missed this, this is what i always thought back then in the "old" days, modders would make stuff totally crazy and contrary to the original game, for example a guy made a rally racing car from the Unreal game (or was it quake? don't remember now) others made levels happening on totally crazy and surreal places, right now people just make the same similar stuff and try to much to stay within the reality and canon of the original game, more different stuff would be welcome to TDM for me. :)

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T2 has more of this variety, OttoJ55's Japan FM, nicked's Egyptian FMs, Balboa's arabian FM, nicked again IIRC island pirate FM, our own baddcog's (Schwaa) swamp FM, belboz's TTGM series, sliptips's & John#'s scifi FMs, Slugg's and the 'worst FM ever' contest anti-FMs, etc, etc.

 

I think it's a matter of quantity. The more releases you have per year, the more percent will be further out there. Komag's Swing is out there, some others I don't want to spoil, and some FMs we saw videos for but not released yet.

 

That all sounds amazing! Can any of them be downloaded from anywhere please?

If/when they ever get finished and released. ;)

 

The post apoc is next in queue if I can get the Stalker texture mod textures TDM compliant, and it needs an AI that's still in development.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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The issue is creating suitable AI, textures, objects and voice sets for these projects, which a large undertaking. In fact, it is getting harder and harder with more advanced engines as assets become more complex.

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Come the time of peril, did the ground gape, and did the dead rest unquiet 'gainst us. Our bands of iron and hammers of stone prevailed not, and some did doubt the Builder's plan. But the seals held strong, and the few did triumph, and the doubters were lain into the foundations of the new sanctum. -- Collected letters of the Smith-in-Exile, Civitas Approved

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I love some of the non-city (exotic?) locations for Thief Gold - The Bonehoard, The Lost City, The Mage Towers, The Maw of Chaos, etc. These are some the types of locations I'd really like to see in TDM. Ones where the protagonist is pulled away from civilization and ends up in some dark, lonely, remote place.

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A major issue here is that we have undead, but no monster AI except spiders. No fire elementals, no burricks, no craymen, no bugbeasts - and so far no standalone werewolf. Creating them would also be a major undertaking, requiring exceptional skills most of us don't have. (And we are very lucky with the skeleton / zombie models, because they are so good!)

Come the time of peril, did the ground gape, and did the dead rest unquiet 'gainst us. Our bands of iron and hammers of stone prevailed not, and some did doubt the Builder's plan. But the seals held strong, and the few did triumph, and the doubters were lain into the foundations of the new sanctum. -- Collected letters of the Smith-in-Exile, Civitas Approved

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I honestly don't think that's an issue. Ever since Half-Life I've been in love with environmental hazard sections that are less platforming and more reacting to things that happen around you. I don't think you don't need free-moving AI if you can make a dangerous environment that keeps the player trepidatious.

Ones where the protagonist is pulled away from civilization and ends up in some dark, lonely, remote place.

amidoinitrite?

 

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I honestly don't think that's an issue. Ever since Half-Life I've been in love with environmental hazard sections that are less platforming and more reacting to things that happen around you. I don't think you don't need free-moving AI if you can make a dangerous environment that keeps the player trepidatious.

 

amidoinitrite?

 

The Half-Life games did sections like that very well, but I think Thief is different. Thief really comes alive through its enemies. Everything from the drunken remarks of the guards to the fast and deadly Haunts to the chittering craybeasts with their odd walk really made the game more immersive than just having hazardous/exotic environments to traverse. That's why LGS broke up the first game with sections of tomb dwelling and hiding from monsters because they knew that "all humans, all the time" would get boring.

 

I too really hope that we can one day see belchers and Fire elementals (they still have pages on the wiki after all) and other non-human nasties but I also understand what a tremendous endeavor it is to create totally new characters. If and when they're ever made, I think that dark mod missions can achieve even more than what they're doing already. At least Sotha and Moonbo have shown that it is possible to create some cool enemies using the default human guard assets.

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Everything needed for fire elements may already exist...I had them nearly working at one point and flying code has been added since then. Would just need someone to take it on as a task.

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