Fan Mission: Ulysses 2: Protecting the Flock by Sotha (2015/05/28)

[Sotha]

Ulysses 2: Protecting the Flock
By Sotha

 

The mission starts some time after the events of Ulysses: Genesis, and continues the story of Ulysses. It is a medium sized mission with a focus on stealthy assassinations and hostage liberation.

BUILD TIME: 12/2014 - 05/2015

CREDITS
The TDM Community is thanked for steady supply of excellent mapping advice. Thanks goes also to everyone contributing to TDM!

Voice Actors: Goldwell (as Goubert and Ulysses), Goldwell's Girlfriend (as Alis)
Betatesters: Airship Ballet, Ryan101.
Special Thanks to: Springheel and Melan (for proofreading).

 

Story:
Read & listen it in game.

 

Link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwR0ORZU5sraRGduUWlVRmtsX3c/view?usp=sharing

 

Other:
Spoilers:
When discussing, please use spoiler tags, like this:
[spoiler]
Hidden text.
[/spoiler]

 

Mirrors:
Could someone put this on TDM ingame downloader? Thanks!

[Oldjim]

Great - another wonderful FM (no doubt) downloading now

 

Quick screenshot - I suspect that the window for the title is fixed width but it looks a bit odd

 

 

To add - in the introduction the location of the gear should be the quarters (minor spelling error probably)

Edited May 28, 2015 by Oldjim

[fllood]

Congrats! the next FM from Sotha!!

[Obsttorte]

Congrats on the release. Will play asap.

[grayman]

Congrats!

[Bikerdude]

Could someone put this on TDM ingame downloader? Thanks!

That would be moi and done.

[demagogue]

Good work! I was just playing the first Ulysses today, so good timing for me too.

[SteveL]

Fantastic! I do love being a stealth assassiin. The intro is superb, and what I've seen of the map so far is lovely to look at and the AI are numerous but avoidable with patience. I've only got as far as

 

killing my first plague mask in the abbot's bathroom and manoeuvreing him down the toilet

so far, so I'm really looking forward to taking my time and picking off the rest without being seen at all ever . Dammit, I'm going on holiday tomorrow but fortunately I'm taking a laptop! I'm also taking that 9-yr-old godson of mine who's a huge TDM fan too, so I'll be able to play without being completely antisocial

[Oldjim]

Completed on the hardest setting and all the optional objectives

Only one problem - I assumed in my ignorance that blackjacking the plague enemies wouldn't count so I finished up sneaking the last half as I couldn't knock anyone out

I didn't try the gas mine as I assumed that counted as a knockout

An interesting and novel idea made more difficult by the fact that there really wasn't anywhere to hide the bodies so near the end there were a lot of people running about with swords drawn

Will need to play through again to see how I can kill all the plague enemies (I think I got them all this time) without knocking any of them out first

Edited May 28, 2015 by Oldjim

[Dunedain19]

Congratulations on the release, I've just downloaded it and I am eager to play!

[SteveL]

there really wasn't anywhere to hide the bodies so near the end there were a lot of people running about with swords drawn

I admit I've still only explored one corner of the map so far -- the church and abbot's quarters -- but I strongly suspect the body problem is solveable in this map in a slower playthrough. So far I'm three plague masks down plus the leader, and none of my bodies have any chance of being spotted. I've used one knockout so that I have a clearer path to a hiding place, and I've used distractions to draw individuals to my "safe zone". As for where I put them,

I tipped them down the abbot's toilet and the sewer grate in the church, so far. My one knockout I pushed into a shadowed spot where only a mask seemed to go, after killing the mask.

 

[Goldwell]

Just finished playing Sotha, another fantastic mission from you! Thank you

 

story spoilers here

 

 

I really enjoyed the story you were telling here, it was very fun to not only do a normal thief mission but to add in the assassinations made it really fun too. I played on hard so I had to kill the plaguemasks but avoid the peasants which made it all the more interesting.

 

I found that the narration I did for you come out as very very loud on my end, I turned down the narration slider in my sound menu but it still was a bit jarring and in your face when it happened. Also I caught a couple of audioble breathes in the narration video that I must have forgot to edit out but I think it turned out well overall!

 

I managed to get the head honcho knocked out with a gas arrow and threw him down into that sewer/pipe sort of thing in the church and then threw a mine on him haha, it was a big send off but felt good! After reading the note and finding out their intention there and seeing the poor builder guards slaughtered I thought it was appropriate.

 

I really loved the layout of the place, not too complicated but not too easy either. A nice balance and plenty of free roaming, whether going through the back door, front door or the vents on the top. When I saw that I could access the building through the vents and saw/heard the fan it put a smile on my face, i've always enjoyed entering via the vents.

 

I finished the mission in just under 50 minutes and collected almost all of the loot, I agree with your statement that the one hour mark is a good time to cut things off and so your mission had great timing in that sense.

 

The only question I have left now is.. will we see a U3? judging from everything that happened I guess the story could conclude but I think it would be cool to go after other members of this weird cult and take revenge.. but thats all upto you of course

 

Once again, thanks for the mission!

 

edit: oh and I forgot to include I really enjoyed the mechanic where you have to kill the plague-masked AI without notifying it otherwise it would kill the hostage, I thought that was very well done!

 

 

Edited May 29, 2015 by Goldwell

[Sotha]

@Everyone great that you find the mission fun!

 

@Goldwell,

 

 

Will we see a U3?

 

 

 

 

You did find the hidden letter in the Abbot's bedroom, did you?

 

I have some ideas for continuation and the letter does some foreshadowing. Now I am very burned out and have a long backlist of FMs to play. But later, once the mapping bug bites again, I think it is very probable that Ulysses will kill once more.

 

 

 

[SeriousToni]

What's wrong with this font? Where did I put my glasses? xD

 

Besides that, congratulations on your next release! I'm very curious about your next masterpiece!

[Oldjim]

Completed still on the hardest setting and this time no alerts - mind you I had no water arrows left having washed out all the blood stains.

So it is possible to hide all the bodies

A nice little mission.

I did like the conversation in the wine cellar - scheming little minx

[Zaratul]

Playing right now and all is great exept one thing.Ghosting(or limited knockouts)should be optional.In this mission it makes no sense for objective "no unnesecary violence" because both peasants and plague mask people do the same thing(atacking the monastery).

[Sotha]

I disagree, as the motives of the attacking factions are different.

 

Fortunately, those who dislike such objectives can always play on the easier difficulty level. There is candy for everyone.

[Obsttorte]

Finished this beautyful mission and want to give some feedback (as always, may contain spoilers)

 

 

Story

 

The story was told in an interesting way, and especially the voice acting was well done. I also liked the intro video, although the font was a bit blurred. However, there were some spelling errors in the briefing video. What I did not like that much was the reaction on the letter you get from the leader of the masked squad. It appeared a bit exxagerated to me. While it may fit the character, it made it a bit hard for me to indentify myself with the person I am playing.

 

Overall I think the story was interesting and athmospheric, with some minor issues so I would rate this a 4/5.

 

Aesthetics

 

The mission looked good as always. You are mapping at a very high level. However, I think the mission is lacking some visual highlights. The inner yard was a bit empty for my feelings, some more flowers or other plants would have been nice here.

 

All in all well done. 4/5

 

Gameplay

 

This is always the most important part for me. The idea and implementation of the hostage situation was pretty nice, and assasinating the masked guys without getting detected was definetely something different. All hostages were placed in logical situations and the level of difficulty caused by the amount of guards and the lighting felt right for me. I've played under the highest difficulty and was able to fulfill all objectives.

 

There are some minor issues, though. The ai didn't respond to the blood trails, although they were in bright light. Increasing the chance of them noticing them (maybe even setting it to one houndret percent) would have made thinks more interesting here. In addition there is way too much equipment. I only used two water arrows, a mine and a broadhead (over and over again). Under the highest difficulty the player should be forced to use his equipment very wisely imho, which isn't neccessary here.

 

I liked the air shaft in the starting area allowing me to enter the monastery silently. You could have used this much more, as it is always a nice way of bypassing guards.

 

So this was definetely an interesting and tensive experience, with some possibilities for slight improvements. I rate this a 4/5.

 

 

This mission is definetely worth playing, and I can't wait to play the next part in your Ulysses series. Keep up the good work and thanks for the time you've invested into this mission (and all your others before).

[Cookie]

Very nice mission so far, finished everything aside from one objective:

 

 

I just can´t find the thing needed to complete the objective which gives the reasoning of the plague mask guys to attack the monastery.)

 

Edited May 31, 2015 by Cookie

[Sotha]

@Cookie,

 

 

The leader has a scroll on him.

 

 

[Cookie]

Wow, no idea how I missed that,

 

 

I guess throwing two mines from the distance and the body falling on the wrong side were enough to hide it

 

 

Really nice mission, not as good as the masterpiece Ulysses 1 (which is the second best Thief style mission I have ever played, only behind Life of the Party in my opinion), but still really really good.

 

Can´t wait for your next FM

Edited May 31, 2015 by Cookie

[Sotha]

Really nice mission, not as good as the masterpiece Ulysses 1 (which is the second best Thief style mission I have ever played, only behind Life of the Party in my opinion), but still really really good.

 

Wow! That sounds like a very high stature for a mission. Thank you.

 

I'm very happy that my missions have been so enjoyable!

 

I'll keep doing my best in the future, too.

[Zaratul]

Yest,i don`t like ghosting but rest of the mission is really awesome! I especially liked

rescuring hostages,really intensive moments when you shoot cult people in the head with arrow)

.Also my zealous protagonist is great with his actions and voice acting! I cannot wait to see your next mission. And sorry for my bad english.

[lowenz]

Solid FM Sotha (as always), but maybe lacking of vertical elements (why not use the church bell tower?!)

Edited June 1, 2015 by lowenz

[Sotha]

Solid FM Sotha (as always), but maybe lacking of vertical elements (why not use the church bell tower?!)

 

Thanks! Some reasons:

1) Mapping occurs in orthoview. It is very easy to get stuck in two-dimensional mindscape. This happens to me very often, and also for other authors, too. Generally, our maps are quite flat.

2) Allowing access to high areas makes a lot of stuff more complicated: suddenly you need a killer skybox that looks good, suddenly you need have the player to be able to see to the next visleaf from above. This is more work and bad for the performance. I was keen to get the mission completed and have it perform well.

3) The bell tower would have needed some kind of purpose and a reason to be built. I was more interested in fleshing out other locations. I like it when missions have a good focus. A trench warfare analogue: spreading your front over long distance makes it very thin and weak. I like to focus on key strongpoints and do them well. This may be one ingredient in my missions that folks find appealing.