Fan Mission: Penny Dreadful 3 by Melan and Bikerdude (2016/07/10)

[Bikerdude]

• A little more clarity when underwater would help out a lot though.

A very difficult mission to play, but it trains you to "look up" a lot and explore absolutely every corner of the map. Is there a place to rate TDM missions ?

• This down to the mapper, rather than a mod setting.

There isnt, but there should be.

[Aildon_01]

The mission is pure awesomness: lots to explore, lots of little secrets, getting up and down, up and down and then suddenly to the bottom of things ;-)

 

The only thing I'd change

 

is make 5 times less often "Voices in the head" so they would not annoy the shit out of player ))

 

[Melan]

In hindsight, yeah, me too.

[goodtaffer]

still cant play it. everything get black, models disappearing.

[Bikerdude]

still cant play it. everything get black, models disappearing.

What are your system specs including OS and drivers and what version of TDM are you using..?

[goodtaffer]

we talked in 2016 before in previus pages. everything is latest.

 

switched windows 8.1 to windows 7 only for tdm

its better now but after i stroll around its becaming black again. not happening on other missions and im getting far less crash than 8.1 now.

if i were a millionaire i would set up a team for this and optimize shit out of this beautifull game

acer 4830tg laptop with :

i5-2410m

nvidia 540m

8gb ram

256gb samsung evo ssd

[Marbrien]

Replaying this on Expert. I have the book of Enigmas. But after trying several things, I cannot solve the secret with the two lion's head plaques. I have seen clues in this thread, but they have not helped...

[Darkriser]

Today I finally finished THE mission. But what a mission...

If I didn't follow the forum I never would believe that this is a work of a 'few

community members'. Looks more like a product of a group of full-time professionals.

It took me several months to finish (5hrs net playing time, TONS of saves,

trial and error attempts and rude words...).

But let's rate the mission.

It literally feels like an independent game inside a game.

I totally forgot that this is 'just' a mission for TDM, I was just playing PD3.

The storyline behind in combination with objectives are awesome, seem so natural.

The city is huge, architecture and layout is astonishing!!

There are so many ways, secret passages, accessible roofs and water channels

that I was absolutely lost more than half of the time spent there.

Only recently, when I started to notice that 'hey, I know this place, I remember

I was here few weeks ago!!!' - I actually learned that the parts of the city

are connected in multiple ways and I slowly learned to move between them much quicker !

After playing the whole trilogy I just have to put my hat off. A huge acknowledgement

to the authors.

And now I'm going back to the city to explore it more deeply because I know that I missed

a lot of secrets (have looted only around 1700!). And maybe browse this thread to read

some spoilers...now I'm finally allowed to do so.

[Bikerdude]

Melan will be glad you enjoy them :-)

[MirceaKitsune]

I got around to this pretty late. Really liked the FM overall: It took me a few days to find most locations, even if I only found 1/3 loot even so. Nice city to explore with a lot of vertical action.

It's been 3 years since this part was released: Is there going to be a part 4 as well, or was this the last one? I liked the FM's in this series, especially parts 2 and 3.

[Melan]

I don't know. Every time I tried to make something new in DR (or even fix one of PD3's minor bugs), I got hit by terrible burnout. Also, PD4 was supposed to have features which have been covered in a better way by other authors since. So maybe, but not any time soon. Hopefully not as late as the ten-year gap between Disorientation and Rose Garden.

[chakkman]

Hope you find the time and motivation in the future, because, I really enjoyed your missions. 

[MagmaT]

Thanks to Melan and Bikerdude for this fantastic mission, Thanks to all. Thanks for this great game, for the models, for the textures, the tools, the loops, the voices, the lights, the dedication. Long is the list.

This one is a masterpiece. A work of art. It's a complex object, trying to solve unsolvable contradictions. Something beyond my simple gamer satisfaction. Melan said elusive. He's right, but it's also brilliant, dense, multidimentional, beautiful and much more.

Edited May 26, 2020 by MagmaT

[Silverflame3]

Hey, I'd like to report a possible bug. Might be related to the mission itself, might be releated to the 2.08 update, not sure yet, but I didn't notice it before.

All the water "pool" surfaces reflect the sky box as it is, even for water reflections that are inside a building. Maybe some sort of collision detection is missing or glitched?

So far, I've noticed this issue in the arsenal building, while the swimmable water in the canal, probably a different object, does not show this property.

[nbohr1more]

1 hour ago, Silverflame3 said:

Hey, I'd like to report a possible bug. Might be related to the mission itself, might be releated to the 2.08 update, not sure yet, but I didn't notice it before.

All the water "pool" surfaces reflect the sky box as it is, even for water reflections that are inside a building. Maybe some sort of collision detection is missing or glitched?

So far, I've noticed this issue in the arsenal building, while the swimmable water in the canal, probably a different object, does not show this property.

I cannot reproduce this. Please post a screenshot.

Did you try deleting your Darkmod.cfg and setting your preferred settings again?

[Amadeus]

I just finished what was probably my seventh or eighth playthrough and I'm still finding new things in this map that I've never discovered before. I know I'm late to the party but I just wanted to say excellent work Melan. The atmosphere, the architecture, the gameplay, the writing (especially the writing!!!), all of it is truly amazing work. You have an uncanny ability of creating amazing environments and developing such a unique, grim world. You really do put the "Dark" in Dark Mod.

[Melan]

Thank you!

[Silverflame3]

On 7/6/2020 at 1:28 AM, nbohr1more said:

I cannot reproduce this. Please post a screenshot.

Did you try deleting your Darkmod.cfg and setting your preferred settings again?

Hey, sorry for the long wait, I tried to delete the Darmod.cfg completely and let the game create a new one upon starting, and the issue persisted. I captured a few screenshots I will attach under the spoiler. they are all captured inside the arsenal building, two up at the kitchen, the other two in the basement, near the grate with the arrow next to it.

Spoiler

https://ibb.co/72JKmzq
https://ibb.co/pxmcxWF
https://ibb.co/0BwkJ2k
https://ibb.co/1qmPDn3

It might not be obvious on all pictures, but I've tried to capture the reflection of the moon in the skybox inside a building that had a very clear defined roof above the surface with the reflection.

Edited August 1, 2020 by Silverflame3

[ShadowSpectre]

OMG. This mission's architecture is INCREDIBLE. If you could only sucker some people into helping you crank out more of these missions. The open world concept definitely makes these harder, but the scale and attention to detail is gorgeous.

 

Spoiler

I can't seem to find the key (or is it a "key" like the hemlock in PD2?) to unlocking the statue in the bottom of the crypt area in Grunt's house.

Also, WTF does the button in the statue's eye socket do by the beggar in front of the church? I can't figure out for the life of me what that does.

 

Edited September 26, 2020 by ShadowSpectre

[Xolvix]

I haven't finished this mission yet but I find it kinda... odd in a way. It's what I'd consider my ideal TDM mission - packed with areas to explore, tons of secrets, interesting lore and so on. But at the same time it's almost too much. It's very much a city mission in that it's easy to get confused about where you are and where you need to go, the disorientation effect is very real.

I'm not sure that's even the mapper's fault to be honest; for all I know it's a consequence of playing too many modern games with objective markers telling me where to go. But at the same time I'm pretty good with most other FMs. I will say this for sure, despite my best efforts it's gonna come down to multiple replays. There's no damn way I'll find even a 1/4 or what's been put in this map within a single playthrough, it's too much effort doubling back every time I hunt a new avenue.

I'm still going to keep going, just in stages. Like I said it's basically everything I'd want in a FM, but it demands your attention and I want to give it the best chance of doing so.

Edited September 27, 2020 by Xolvix

[Araneidae]

A mission goal isn't triggering as I would expect it to:

Spoiler

I overheard the two thugs exclaiming that they'd murdered the wrong guy and dumped him in the water, so of course I'm thinking "oh good, I don't have to kill him", retrieved the body and dragged it up to the waiting coffin.  At this point I'm expecting the corresponding goal to trigger as completed ... but it hasn't.  What have I misunderstood?

Edit: As I play on my best guess is that there's no shortage of bodies in this mission...

Edited October 4, 2020 by Araneidae

[V-Man339]

One of the guards near the target will consistently walk into something, collide and die.

The other guards will then find his body and become more alert.

 

Posting this here because nagging Melan in the DM's for over a year and a half hasn't worked.

 

[chakkman]

I just finished this mission. And, while I really liked the map architecture, layout and the city design, I had some rather big frustrations with the gameplay side of the mission (like with the other missions the Penny Dreadful series as well).

Spoiler

First of, let's start with the most fundamental thing: A thief who is not capable of picking locks. Does he rely on luck to find all the keys which lead him to his loot locations? I understand the restrictions in Penny Dreadful 2, where he was just robbed of everything, and thrown from a bridge, but, I don't understand that restriction in the other 2 missions, ESPECIALLY in part 3, where you reach some places only when you take a big look on the rooftops, and even then some keys are so well hidden (like the one in the Bellingcourt estate) that you miss them the first time you look around (like me). 

Next, the layout was pretty difficult to manage. It's a huge map, with a lot of verticality, a lot of locked doors where you first have to find the keys, and also switches which are non-explanatory what they do at first (had such a case with 2 levers which opened gates, had to trial and error what those do, and, after climbing up and down again a few times, I saw that they open 2 consecutive gates. I'm pretty good at navigating, I would assume that people who are not that good at navigating have a damn hard time with this mission.

Then the objectives weren't really documented well. Obviously, for the non-lethal ways of doing those objectives, you relied on people finding and reading all of the readables in the mission (which were pretty long, by the way... 4 pages are plenty, some of them had 10 pages). I found quite a few of them, and I still had no idea how to either deal non-lethally wih Grunt OR with Almsmaster. In fact, I even totally missed that I already blackjacked Grunt in the basement. Had to walk back, and then I realized it was him. That really could have been clearer. In the end, I shot them both an arrow in the head, although I usually opt for the non-lethal objectives.

Generally, you shouldn't make life that hard for people playing the mission. I never really had such issues in other missions.

So, yeah, quite a few frustration, while I really wanted to like the mission. It was one complicated beast, to be honest. 

On the plus side, as mentioned, the layout, architecture and design of the city was awesome. The difficulty in regards of amount of guards and their placement also seemed fine. Better than in Penny Dreadful 2, where there were way too many undead.

Oh, and some things I didn't find out:

There were a couple of things behind glass in the Bellingcourt mansion. Among them (I think) the Grail of Regrets (or wasn't it?). I had no idea whether I was supposed to get that stuff. I found no way to open those cases.

There was a shop I wasn't able to get to. There was a front door which was locked (doh!), and the shop was visible behind a grate from the side. Found no way to open it. 

 

Edited July 20, 2022 by chakkman

[grodenglaive]

I finally played the Penny Dreadful series this past week, somehow overlooking it before. It's very impressive, I especially like the complex mapping of PD3 with all the verticality and interconnections. I've completed the main objectives, but here I am Christmas day trying to

Spoiler

locate the key for the Gargoyle in Grunt's basement. 

 Can someone help me out? The grail beckons me.

Cheers! 

[Bluehawk]

In the Tenements there is a scholar who has left a Book of Enigmas in his room. You must seek to understand "The Octagon Weird". If you want a better hint, open the spoiler.

Spoiler

The excavation in Grunt's basement is actually directly below his neighbour's estate. The one that's "For sale" and barricaded on the street-level.

 If you just want the solution, open this second spoiler.

Spoiler

You need to enter Bellingcourt's Mansion through an open window. Get up onto the roofs around Tar Street, head to Crosset Square and then climb across the chain to an open window. There you'll find a lonely wizard who has been imprisoned in his own home, and among his many strange possessions is a gargoyle with a key in its mouth.