Fan Mission: Braeden Church (by grayman) (2018/7/1)

[grayman]

Announcing the release of Braeden Church.

 

 

Summary

 

William Steele: In the North introduced us to some memorable characters: Lord Harckoff, Lieutenant Trumble, Father Grimmore ...

 

The setting was a renovated Builder church. But what was that church like, back when Father Grimmore was alive and the Harckoff family was nowhere to be seen?

 

This mission takes place on one very nasty night back then, when a gang of murderers and thieves raided the church.

 

You happen to be in Braeden on the same night, and you decide to visit the church, with a goal that's quite different than what the gang had in mind.

 

Download

 

This mission requires TDM 2.06 or later.

 

Available through the in-game mission downloader.

 

Build Time

 

Who knows? This was an idea I had after releasing In the North, and it got built in bits and pieces over the years. Its time has finally come.

 

Thanks to ...

 

Bikerdude, Amadeus, Cambridge Spy, Ubersuntzu, s.urfer, and AluminumHaste for beta testing.

Bikerdude and Mortem Desino for the conversation voices.

 

I18N

 

Initially, this mission is not ready for translation. I intend to deal with that in the future.

 

Recommendations

 

1. If you haven't played In the North, I recommend you play it before you play Braeden Church. (Braeden Church is NOT a Steele mission.)

 

2. For those of you inclined to race past conversations, I suggest you don't in this case. The opening conversation is an important part of the mission.

 

Enjoy!!

[chakkman]

Grats! I was looking forward to this.

[nbohr1more]

Added to the missions page and it should be available in the in-game downloader:

 

http://www.thedarkmod.com/missiondetails/?id=128

[grayman]

Thanks, NB. Will edit OP in the morning.

[Kerry000]

Great mission, thank you Grayman!

 

It's my first time playing on v2.06 and it felt like a big upgrade to me.

 

The atmosphere in this FM is fantastic, especially when you...

 

 

 

 

...discover the dead bodies of the acolytes etc. behind the church. Creepy.

 

 

 

 

I found all 3493 loot on my first playthrough without breaking a sweat. Everything was placed/hidden intuitively, which was great. It took me a minute to work out how to use the magic key, though :-)

 

Thank you for all of the hard work that went into this.

 

EDIT: In case anyone else has trouble figuring out how to use the magic key, you have to...

 

 

 

 

...hold it out in front of you by using the "drop item" button, then make it touch the magic door.

 

 

 

Edited July 2, 2018 by Kerry000

[grayman]

Great! Glad you liked it!

[Cambridge Spy]

Here's my playthrough of Braeden Church:

 

[SuaveSteve]

Enjoyable out of 10.

 

Observations:

 

 

This is the third fan mission I've played where an opposing faction appears en masse at some point. Unlike those other two (which were Thief 2), you hinted at the conflict before hand and so I enjoyed seeing how long I would hold out till I started blackjacking. Thankfully, I found the special key before my patience ran out. I also had the issue of how to use it I encountered 4 revenants and 2 humans still alive when I toured the place again post-catacombs.

 

Any reason why you only let us see one revenant walk out and not all of them? I see you spawn more ahead, but I think it would have been cool for him to have become a vanguard. He notices the door opened, turns around, barks, you hear all of them reply in a deafening chorus and they all run out behind him.

 

I was expecting some sort of secret, readable or other reference to the tunnel being in close proximity to the wall bellow (where we entered in WS1). Maybe a builder musing on a secret escape or someone hearing noises.

 

 

[grayman]

@SuaveSteve:

 

 

 

I didn't want the revenants to all emerge from the same church exit, so having them walk out 'in line' wasn't in the cards, otherwise they would've ganged up on the first guard they saw, and then would've hung around that spot too long before starting their patrol around the church. I thought it better to have you see one of them exit normally, so you knew what was happening, then "magyckly" distribute the others to the corners of the church yard, to give them a better chance of starting individual fights.

 

 

 

Thanks for playing!

[Atomica]

.

Edited August 2, 2018 by Atomica

[grayman]

In general, possible missing textures, models, skins, script support, etc.

In particular to this mission, no idea. We don't typically test how missions will behave on older versions of TDM.

 

Edit:

 

And if you have a crash or hang or some other problem, we don't usually debug older TDM versions.

 

So it's best to upgrade. 2.06 is ~280Mb when updated on top of 2.05.

[taffercobbles]

I really enjoyed this. Because I wanted the revenants to have people to fight, I broke my usual habit of blackjacking everyone and played the game properly, sneaking around. OK, I may have still blackjacked one or two. Missed around 300 loot, so I'll have to go back to it when I have time.

[Oktokolo]

Was fun to blackjack all the bad guys.

For blackjack-oriented players, this mission is too easy even on expert - despite having invisible light gem brighteners in random places on the exterior.

I would expect ghosting to be hard though.

 

 

If you update the mission, fix the patrol routes so that you can't blackjack-camp that easy. I blackjacked most AI at my spawn, and all but one in the other outside areas. The missing one i found sleeping in his bed in the extra barracks. There literally was no human AI left as i entered the church for the first time. Was a real surprise as i realized, how easy that was.

The Revenants are a nice touch. But somehow they see the player even when the lightgem is black and need massive amounts of holy water arrows to die (explosive mines work as expected though). So i decided to not engage with tem but took the exit out of the crypt that i used to get in (because it leads to the shortest path to the spawn). I then hid behind a pillar until they have all passed by. Then i ran to the spawn and finished the mission without using any consumables.

 

 

[lowenz]

Nice litte-size-big-esploration FM!

[grayman]

Nice litte-size-big-esploration FM!

 

Thanks!!

[chakkman]

For blackjack-oriented players, this mission is too easy even on expert

 

To each his opinion, but... i really hope that mission makers don't take note about the "lack of difficulty", which is often stated here. The general difficulty in TDM and its mission is so extremely high that it puts Thief 1-4 to absolute shame, and makes them complete childs play. For casual players, it's absolutely fatal when mission makers make the missions even harder, because a handful of elite players think it's easy peasy. TDM by itself is a very hard game, especially for people getting onto stealth games, who aren't used to hide, avoiding AI to see them, blackjacking, which is much harder in TDM than in the original Thief's etc. If you really want people to get into stealth gaming, and TDM, please, don't make the missions so hard. It's already hard enough for me, and i play Thief games for 15 years now. Not a specific request regarding your statement, or this mission, just a general thing. I don't think anyone but a couple of players benefit from ultra hardcore carnage difficulty.

 

TBH, if someone states that the mission was "too easy" for him, i actually expect just the right kind of challenge. While when someone writes "The mission was the right difficulty", i already expect to be frustrated. Like at the start of the Cleighmoor mission. I mean, don't get me wrong, nice mission and all, but, 4 elite guards with flares in the sewers right at the start is a bit way over the top, especially when you're supposed to pickpocket them for maximum loot results. Why would 4 elite guards guard sewers anyway?

Edited July 3, 2018 by chakkman

[lowenz]

 

Thanks!!

And it's so charming and fascinating to revisit those good old RED catacombs!

Edited July 3, 2018 by lowenz

[Boiler's_hiss]

Most of my impressions of FM are already noted by others, thus it remains after me to ask this.

Why there are no hammers neither alongside with corpses, nor in armory?

 

Edited July 3, 2018 by Boiler's_hiss

[grayman]

 

 

Why there are no hammers neither alongside with corpses, nor in armory?

 

------------------------

 

Pick one: forgot, oversight, hammers weren't invented back then, Father Grimmore's group took them all.

 

Good catch. None of the beta testers brought this up, either.

 

 

[Oktokolo]

For casual players, it's absolutely fatal when mission makers make the missions even harder, because a handful of elite players think it's easy peasy.

The higher base difficulty of TDM is likely caused by having more game mechanics that take longer to master (it took years until i realized that i can ceil-water-arrow torch bearers and i still didn't try the crate knockout myself).

But there are difficulty levels for the Missions and extra difficulty settings in the options menu. So it probably is possible to make most missions as easy as the old thiefs by just making the AI almost deaf and blind.

And i am definitely not an elite player - i can't finish most of Fieldmedics missions and never completed "Swing".

 

Like at the start of the Cleighmoor mission. I mean, don't get me wrong, nice mission and all, but, 4 elite guards with flares in the sewers right at the start is a bit way over the top, especially when you're supposed to pickpocket them for maximum loot results. Why would 4 elite guards guard sewers anyway?

Yes, Cleighmoor sewers where a challenge. I do not remember elite guards though. But they had lanterns and the noisy water made sneaking up on them a lot harder.

[Amadeus]

Hey, congrats on the release! I'm a little late to the game, haha (this month has been insane for me) but I can't wait to try out the final version!

[Wenex]

Thanks for creating those missions and keeping the game fresh and alive I think I said it once to you in PM or somewhere but will say it again; my favourite FM I ever played on TDM was created by you. Can't remind myself of a name, but I remember it had a prison/warehouse atmosphere with I believe some sewer parts.

 

Can't wait to check this one after I finish Shadows of Northdale. Cheers.

 

@edit

I found the FM you created that I fell in love with. It was William Stelle, but I'm not entirely sure which one exactly. It must have been the first one though, since I barely started playing TDM back then.

Edited July 10, 2018 by Wenex

[wesp5]

 

The general difficulty in TDM and its mission is so extremely high that it puts Thief 1-4 to absolute shame, and makes them complete childs play.

You really should try my TDM Unofficial Patch, if you have not already, it helps with black jacking a lot and exstinguishing more light sources makes the game easier as well! So I recently played this mission as well and was able to black jack everyone on Easy before I entered the catacombs so no enemies for the revenants were left...

Edited July 13, 2018 by wesp5

[NeonsStyle]

Congratulations on the release. Will look forward to playing this once TDM is updated.

 

Thank you

[chakkman]

You really should try my TDM Unofficial Patch, if you have not already, it helps with black jacking a lot and exstinguishing more light sources makes the game easier as well! So I recently played this mission as well and was able to black jack everyone on Easy before I entered the catacombs so no enemies for the revenants were left...

 

I always wanted to give it a go, but, never did. Thanks for reminding, i will do soon.