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TDM 2.05 official introductory missions


Springheel

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I checked chakkman's savegame and the target_set_frobable brush inside the desk is turned off with the desk lid open. It should be on.

 

Somehow the target_set_frobable brush got out of sync with the desk lid, but this code is not complicated, and I can't see how that might happen.

 

Usually, getting out of sync has to do with not setting the "trigger_on_open" and "trigger_on_close" spawnargs on the container lid properly, but the desk has the correct settings in this case.

 

I'm still hoping someone can give me a savegame prior to the first opening of the desk, where the first opening shows the problem.

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Yes, that's a good question...if it's just the issue of the frob-box, why would items outside the box still not be frobbable? I think Nightstalker mentioned that he knocked the ring out of the desk (it's a movable, I guess) as well but still couldn't frob it.

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The ring is (wrongly) set for non-frobable, and the only way it would become frobable again would be to put it back in the desk and close the lid.

 

Since you can't pick up the ring to do that, it's stuck on the floor forever, or stuck wherever it flies if you bump into it.

 

======================================

 

On a separate note, I just noticed that the dresser in that room is floating 7 units above the floor.

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I think Nightstalker mentioned that he knocked the ring out of the desk (it's a movable, I guess) as well but still couldn't frob it.

That is correct. I used the chalice from the wardrobe cabinet to dislodge it.

 

I haven't used chakkman's savegame file, but I'm 98% sure that I now know what's happening here.

 

There are drop-top desks in rooms "IV" (the one we've been talking about) and also in rooms "III" and "V". There are errors in the map file for 2 of those desk entities whereby it's erroneously specifying "target0" "atdm_target_set_frobable_3" where there should (presumably) be no such specification. Basically, a copy 'n' paste error, to my untrained mapping eye.

 

So, the practical result is that if you leave one (but not both) of those desks in the other rooms open, the stuff (ring and diary) in room "IV" becomes frobable even while the desk is still closed. So when you eventually enter room "IV" and open the desk, the ring and diary now become unfrobable. But if you go back into one of the other rooms with an open drop-top desk and close it, then go back to room "IV", you'll find that the ring and diary are suddenly frobable again. I tested this hypothesis enough to convince myself that it's almost certainly correct.

 

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I believe I found the problem with the bad desk.

 

The only way the frob-box is supposed to toggle is when it's activated.

 

Usually, that's done by the container lid the frob-box is sitting under.

 

So it came to me that perhaps something else in the map is also targeting the bad frob-box.

 

So I put the *.map into a text editor and went searching.

 

And--lo and behold--I found two instances:

 

  • The desk lid in room V.
  • The desk lid in room III.

 

Neither of these desks has anything in it, so their frob-boxes were removed w/o clearing the 'target' spawnarg on the lids.

 

Depending on the sequence of how a player searches the rooms, if he fiddles with either or both of those 2 lids before entering room IV, the desk in room IV could be out of sync.

 

This is why the bad desk's behavior seems to be random; everybody plays in a different sequence.

 

To verify this, I started chakkman's savegame, ran into room III, opened the desk lid, then ran back to room IV and I was able to frob the book.

 

To solve the problem, you have to remove the 'target' spawnargs from the desk lids in III and V.

 

Voila and good night!

 

 

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I find it oddly humorous that we've been hearing about this problem for many weeks now, and w/in the span of 6 minutes, 2 people come up with the solution.

Great! I hope that fixes it. The bad name of the other guy points to a copy-and-paste-error as well, maybe the whole rooms were switched...

Edited by wesp5
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Initially I decided to wait for the Steam release, but my impatience got the better of me and I just had to dive back into 2.05 to try the newly introduced and reworked missions. :)

"A New Job" is a nice, simple introductory mission with a good flow, great voice acting, and it looks really gorgeus with all the new assets. It's the perfect way to introduce new players to basic TDM mechanics.

 

And it was good to see that "Tears of St. Lucia" got a facelift as well! I thought I knew this mission in-and-out by now, but

 

this was the first time I found those water arrows mentioned in the note at the beginning of the level, on the rooftops :) That was hugely satisfying.

Also, right at the beginning of the level, at the entrance to the pub, that conveniently placed barrel next to the spade is a godsend! :D

As for the creepy factor: In one of the abandoned buildings on the street, with a homeless person inside, I also found a note mentioning Belhaven that I don't remember being there in previous versions... That sent shivers down my spine, and also did the sewers, especially the part with the spiders.. Did you guys made it more creepier, or it's just my imagination playing tricks one me? :)

 

 

I'm really curious how new players will handle this mission as it can be a bit disorienting at first, but heck, that IS one of the beauties of the classic Thief games and TDM in general :)

 

Amazing job team, keep up the good work!

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@chakkman,

 

I noticed in your savegame that the ring from the desk is sitting on the floor next to the Lord's body, and it's not frobable.

 

How did it get there, if you couldn't frob it out of the desk?

 

Oh, yeah, i actually wanted to mention that, lol. I took the candle from the other small desk, right from the wardrobe, and used it to "scratch" the ring from the desk, because i thought it might be too far away to frob it. First i pushed the ring even further into the desk, but it finally worked, and when it fell to the ground, i realized, it wasn't frobabble at all. I tried the same with the journal, but, that didn't work at all.

 

Edit: I see now that NightStalker tried the same thing. :)

Edited by chakkman
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The bad name of the other guy points to a copy-and-paste-error as well, maybe the whole rooms were switched...

I'm surprised (and a bit dismayed) that nobody has replied to you about this issue by now and acknowledged your discovery as a legitimate bug. It's actually just a simple mis-application of a specification within an entity in the map, easily fixable.

 

To anyone interested in understanding this stuff a bit better, you can see the problem quite easily by extracting the 'newjob.pk4' file (it's just a zip file with a "fancy" extension) and examining the single, text-format map file itself ('maps/prologue9.map'). Here's the definition for the "commoner" laying in the bed in room "III":

// entity 2320
{
"classname" "atdm:ai_townsfolk_commoner_02"
"name" "atdm_ai_labourer_wealthy01_1"
"def_head" "atdm:ai_head05_commoner_lighthair"
"def_vocal_set" "atdm:ai_vocal_set_simpleton_civilian_01"
"max_interleave_think_dist" "1700"
"min_interleave_think_dist" "600"
"origin" "1008 -128 176.248"
"shouldered_name" "Lord Rothwick"
"sleeping" "1"
"sr_class_5" "R"
"sr_effect_5_1" "effect_trigger"
"sr_effect_5_1_arg1" "message_body"
"sr_state_5" "1"
"sr_type_5" "STIM_FROB"
"target0" "path_corner_33"
}
See the '"shouldered_name" "Lord Rothwick"' line? Clearly that was supposed to be applied to this entity (the nobleman in room "IV") instead:

// entity 2375
{
"classname" "atdm:ai_nobleman"
"name" "Lord Rothwick"
"def_head" "atdm:ai_head_nobleman1_greyhair"
"max_interleave_think_dist" "1700"
"min_interleave_think_dist" "600"
"origin" "1269.62 -620.279 176.067"
"rotation" "-1 0 0 0 -1 0 0 0 1"
"sleeping" "1"
"sr_class_5" "R"
"sr_effect_5_1" "effect_trigger"
"sr_effect_5_1_arg1" "message_body"
"sr_state_5" "1"
"sr_type_5" "STIM_FROB"
}
Notice how there's no '"shouldered_name"' assignment there? That's the problem.

 

 

BTW, good catch and thank you for bringing this bug to the TDM team's attention. (I never "shouldered" that commoner's body, so I never noticed the wrong name during beta-release play-testing of "A New Job". In the future, I will be more careful to pay attention to this when play-testing people's maps.)

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Initially I decided to wait for the Steam release, but my impatience got the better of me and I just had to dive back into 2.05 to try the newly introduced and reworked missions. :)

"A New Job" is a nice, simple introductory mission with a good flow, great voice acting, and it looks really gorgeus with all the new assets. It's the perfect way to introduce new players to basic TDM mechanics.

 

And it was good to see that "Tears of St. Lucia" got a facelift as well! I thought I knew this mission in-and-out by now, but

 

this was the first time I found those water arrows mentioned in the note at the beginning of the level, on the rooftops :) That was hugely satisfying.

Also, right at the beginning of the level, at the entrance to the pub, that conveniently placed barrel next to the spade is a godsend! :D

As for the creepy factor: In one of the abandoned buildings on the street, with a homeless person inside, I also found a note mentioning Belhaven that I don't remember being there in previous versions... That sent shivers down my spine, and also did the sewers, especially the part with the spiders.. Did you guys made it more creepier, or it's just my imagination playing tricks one me? :)

 

 

I'm really curious how new players will handle this mission as it can be a bit disorienting at first, but heck, that IS one of the beauties of the classic Thief games and TDM in general :)

 

Amazing job team, keep up the good work!

 

Thanks! You're right about those not being their in earlier versions. One is a new story element. :)

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I'm 98% sure that I now know what's happening here.

 

 

Good catch (both of you). Completely my fuck-up then. My apologies to everyone, this was not the way I wanted the mod represented.

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Don't fret about that. I think this introductory mission still represents the mod very, very well. I think the possibility of bugs and the people's effort to get rid of them is also part of the mod (even if this may not be one of the first parts you want to show to newcomers). It hust proves that bugs are taken seriously and people not just ignore them (like is the case in a lot of big games).

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It's not easy to update. It either requires an entire mod update, which is significant work to create a new release package, or it could be released as a separate pk4 like a regular FM, but then there are potential issues with conflicts.

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I think the easiest approaf here would be to upload fixed versions to Moddb. Then users can be given explicit instructions on how to handle the fix and what to do before upgrading to 2.06

Please visit TDM's IndieDB site and help promote the mod:

 

http://www.indiedb.com/mods/the-dark-mod

 

(Yeah, shameless promotion... but traffic is traffic folks...)

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I'm surprised (and a bit dismayed) that nobody has replied to you about this issue by now and acknowledged your discovery as a legitimate bug. It's actually just a simple mis-application of a specification within an entity in the map, easily fixable.

I thought as much and guess Springheel will fix this when he fixes the frob problem! I hope he doesn't ignore my input because of the discussions for exstinguishable oil-lamps that I love to start :). I was very tempted to do it here too, as while the mission is great otherwise, this issue is obvious with all those small oil-lamps on the walls. I even managed to cover the one in the kitchen area by a bucket! So while there will not be a universal solution to this, has it been discussed to add an extinguisher item for modders who want their oil-lamps being exstinguishable? Which I could cheat myself to have for my immersion ;)?

Edited by wesp5
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I think the easiest approaf here would be to upload fixed versions to Moddb.

Yes, there is no 2.05 there. Also can't be a 2.05a or something be released over the downloader too? Beause this is a serious issue, especially when TDM ends up on Steam and hundreds of newbies will try the game...

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I thought as much and guess Springheel will fix this when he fixes the frob problem! I hope he doesn't ignore my input because of the discussions for exstinguishable oil-lamps that I love to start :).

 

I'm not ignoring anything. It sucks seeing bugs in your mission after it's been released and there's nothing you can do about it. Everything that has been reported will be addressed the next time the mission is updated, whenever and however that happens.

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I'm not ignoring anything. It sucks seeing bugs in your mission after it's been released and there's nothing you can do about it. Everything that has been reported will be addressed the next time the mission is updated, whenever and however that happens.

 

Don't whip yourself too hard, man. It happens to everyone of us. Remember the time when I released Phrase Book. There were some unpickable doors, which broke the mission for many.

 

Let's just fix it!

 

Howsabout quickly updating the most critical bugs, and putting the updated mission in the internet. Then add the TDM update thread a line

"For those interested in the saint lucia prequel, the version that comes with the mod has some bugs. You can download an updated ultra-hot-fixed version of the mission conveniently from this link. Just overwrite the prologue9.pk4 in the fms folder and you are good to go."

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Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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Let's just fix it!

The issue is related to the fact is not a separate FM. Because the mission ships with the core mod, a fix would require the whole 2GB+ package to be updated. Which as I understand it is time consuming task according to Taaaki/Grayman, then there is the whole release another update just to fix a just this dynamic to consider.

 

If it were just a normal FM, It would have been uploaded to the FM mirrors already.

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