Fan Mission: Volta and the Stone by Kingsal (05/26/2016) V1.3

[kingsal]

Hello Everyone!

I've been a fan of the TDM community for some time now. Over the last year or so, I've been chipping away at an FM of my own and it's finally ready for release.

Volta 1 : The Stone

Volta and the Stone is a fairly large Thief-style mission (Lord Bafford's Manor).

It is the first mission of a campaign that follows the Thief and his encounter with an archaic and powerful force.

The campaign will span from robbing noble houses to being hunted by malevolent creatures from beyond the Veil.

The emphasis is on creating a mood and tone that will hopefully feel familiar to fans of The Dark Mod and the original Thief games.

 

Available through in-game downloader.

Or Download here.

A few notes

• Dark Mod v2.8 Required 
• Normal difficulty is intended for new players. Hard/ Expert for most of the TDM community
• 2+ Hours of gameplay
• Features lots of custom art/ sounds/ and intro video.

 

If you are stuck or need help:

Please PM me or post spoiler free in this thread. I will make an FAQ with hints as they come up!

 

Thanks: Bikerdude, Oldjim, Taquito, Melan, and Goldwell for beta testing.

Andrew Bartmess for the wonderful narrator vocals. (v1.2)

Special thanks: to FinalBoss and Tins for early alpha testing.

 

I hope you enjoy it!

 

[Goldwell]

Congrats on the release! This mission is a blast to play

[Andrey]

Congrats on the release!

[Taquito]

Congrats on your first of many releases Kingsal (I hope). There goes my weekend.

[kin]

Congratulations Kingsal!

One question: Do i have to unzip the file or use it as it is in FM folder

[Oldjim]

change the extension from zip to pk4 and put it in the fms folder

[Bikerdude]

Im at work atm, so can one of the other mods upload this to the mirrors and create the FM entry please..?

[peispud]

This mission is one of my all time favourites - thank you, very well done.

[hanmin]

Deleted

Edited May 27, 2016 by hanmin

[Anderson]

Wow, this is indeed a pleasant reminiscence. Many thanks to those who worked on this.

[hanmin]

Deleted

Edited May 27, 2016 by hanmin

[nbohr1more]

I had monitor problems last night but I'll try to get this into the mission downloader tonight if Biker or someone else from the team doesn't get to it before me.

[Bikerdude]

Am home now, so will do the honours.

 

Done.

Edited May 27, 2016 by Bikerdude

[Cookie]

Wow, so many amazing FMs in the last weeks.

 

 

Not too many things need to be said - outstanding mission. Many little details on top of the great visuals and atmosphere, many different paths the player can take, some really surprising moments (moving light in the tower, maid entering the bathroom, engineer doing the water temple move and checking the switch ). I could mention even more things I really liked in this mission, but you better spend your time playing than reading about it.

PS: There was only one bug I experienced - on top of the tower, after opening the gate to reach the fire arrows, my character could not use any type of weapon anymore and I had to reload an older safegame - no idea how I managed to do that, though. I also wasn´t able to recreate this scenario. Maybe I was jumping around too much...

 

[nbohr1more]

This is utterly jaw-dropping. I heartily agree with the folks at Darkfate who think that Kingsal might be a professional game developer

working under an alias. I wont shout too much about this theory as I don't want Kingsal to get in trouble with his\her company...

 

Bravo!

[pwl]

Great mission enjoyed everything! I will have to play again to find some loot I missed and a key I did not find.

 

Thank you and Great Job!!

pwl

[Destined]

This is really a great mission! Very beautiful and detailed. Only one point (although it might be an error only I experienced): In the bath there was a hole in one wall. Looked like a brush that was not drawn completely to the balkony. Anyway, it was really fun to play this mission!

[Ladro]

Finished yesterday, but I want to replay.

 

Your mission it's simply awesome and has an *insane* quality, a real masterpiece, IMHO.

 

I don't know how you did it (more, if this is your first mission), but the graphics, every texture that you placed, are simply artistic, with some sense of beauty that normally I don't feel in other missions.

 

And I like a lot the puzzles, the architecture, how you placed guards, very realistic, incredible gameplay.

 

My congratulation, this is my favourite mission fo the year, you made my day! :-)

 

Veramente BRAVO complimenti!!!

Edited May 29, 2016 by Ladro

[Ladro]

This is utterly jaw-dropping. I heartily agree with the folks at Darkfate who think that Kingsal might be a professional game developer

working under an alias. I wont shout too much about this theory as I don't want Kingsal to get in trouble with his\her company...

 

Bravo!I

I agree!

[Taquito]

TAQUITO'S REVIEW: VOLTA AND THE STONE!

 

 

ARCHITECTURE: 10/10
The balconies, the Halls, The Streets with the canals, The atrium, the library. This is perfection! Loved the scale of the buildings which were big enough yet never felt gargantuan or exaggeratedly gigantic. Excellent scale! Oh the geometry of the map with the angular hallways, a delight! There are so many things to discover, so many places to climb, so many routes and paths to take and nothing felt out of place, everything perfectly balanced between the big and small spaces. The whole map had a sense of reality in scale. One great detail to mention is the whole map had areas which perfectly highlighted the Tower which was pretty much the center of attention in the layout of the map.


ART DIRECTION & MUSIC: 10/10
From the very beginning of the mission, you feel like you're about to experience something special. The intro video artistically design with a specific palette of colors, the reverse twisted music which surprisingly feels quite fitting to the aesthetic of TDM. The little plaques describing each room was a really nice touch. The fog effects were nicely placed giving great atmosphere in certain areas. The music is also perfectly presented adding to the feeling of tension in the right areas. The object placement was great as well with rooms perfectly decorated with the right amounts of objects.

GAMEPLAY & STORY: 10/10
Another perfect ten here. The AI was perfectly placed, with great pace. There were instances where I had to stop and think my approach. The Mission is filled with so many great little details like the auto save, the interactive cues by the player's character. The textual cues in the center of the screen during certain events which I think could be a great addition when objectives are completed. The challenges were perfectly balanced and the story was interesting, engaging and fitted quite well with the setting. I personally liked the cruelty presented in some texts and how well it set the whole feel of the story. The game play elements were well executed with nice challenges that never felt out of place. All in all a well balanced game play.


LIGHTING: 10/10
Another perfect score in the lighting department. ALTHOUGH, I think the beta version of this mission the one with the entire concept by Kingsal was slightly superior to the one now. I felt the lighting was dumbed down for no particular reason and it lost a bit of atmosphere here and there. I still don't get why people want dark areas to be visible in the game, this is the DARK Mod. For the Grace of God there is a brightness option in the menu! Is way easier to brighten the map with the menu option than trying to get the game to look naturally dark. The beta version felt pretty much like playing a T2 Mission with better graphics. I do think the original textures also had to do with this. Either way the lighting still great with good balance between darkness and light and Oh, the highlighting was amazing!


FINAL THOUGHTS:
All in all a Great Mission that could be considered The best so far. I had so many feels with this one, from feeling nostalgic with T2 memories, to feeling Paranoid hearing things and getting scared in the dark isolated rooms when I cleared most of the map from the AI. If there's a Mission that should be packaged with the new version of Dark Mod I think this would be a great candidate and I wholeheartedly recommend this mission to everyone. Excellence across the board! Hope to see much more from Kingsal. You are a great addition to the line up of already great Creators here. Congrats!

 

Edited May 30, 2016 by Taquito

[nbohr1more]

Nice post but please encapsulate it in a spoiler Taquito:

 

 

 
[spoiler]
 
<Awesome review stuff and screens>
 
[/spoiler]
 

[Taquito]

 

Nice post but please encapsulate it in a spoiler Taquito:

 

 

 

Doesn't seem to work. I moved it to the Reviews topic.

[kin]

how do i use spoiler tags?

Edited May 30, 2016 by kin

[161803398874989]

how do i use spoiler tags?

Literally two posts above, mate.

[Goldwell]

how do i use spoiler tags?

 

[spoiler ] Ronald mcdonald IS the hamburgler

 

 

Just remove the space at the end of the start of the first spoiler bracket and you have

a successful spoiler