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Fan Mission Ideas Megathread


Kurshok

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Well, I realize I have lots of ideas of things that could go into missions, but also lack the tools and technical know-how to make my own. So, at demagogue's behest, I decided to make a megathread for ideas that come to me that are ABSOLUTELY FREE for people to use in their fan missions, only thing I'd like is of you said "basic idea by Kurshok".

Edit: Changed the name so other people could add their ideas in too.

Edited by Kurshok
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Very good, now just one more step: rename the thread to "FM ideas" so other people can use it, too. Furthermore, people should Mark ideas as "taken" once they adopt an idea, so that not two FM makers use the same idea.

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You can edit in links to your past ideas in older threads so they can be part of this thread too.

 

Edit: The title was my idea because Kurshock has ideas he posts about not only on FMs ;) but having a megathread for FM ideas for everybody isn't a bad idea either.

 

Edit2: You know you don't have to build an entire FM with your ideas either. Just writing fan fic in our universe is a legit way to contribute to the community. I'd actually encourage it. New material is the lifeblood of a creative community like ours and fan fic is relatively easy to kick out compared to an FM.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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It's possible that only a forum admin can change thread names? Maybe one can do it at some point. Or if you can use full editor to do it all the better. But I don't think it's such a big deal and there's no big rush anyway.

 

As for writing an entire story, while it's possible someone might be inspired to make the story into an FM or put elements into their FM (generally a lot of people want to make their own ideas because they're putting so much work into it; but you never know, it's worth asking if anyone's interested). But I was also thinking that the story even just by itself also counts as a fan contribution. This is just my thinking, but our world still seems a bit small and there are lots of corners of it that just don't have any backstory at all, and anybody can add to that just by writing stories. The more stories we have, it makes our world feel bigger and more interesting.

 

I was thinking about writing a Dark Mod bible at some point, or somebody should, with a lot of history of Bridgeport and empire & of the different factions and beliefs. But even that's hard to think about because we need more stories to build off of.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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Would you consider "Shadowcursed" as Dark Mod fiction? After all, it has been written by our Moonbo a.k.a. Gelo Fleisher, but it doesn't center on the main cities we got to know in TDM. :-)

 

I can definitely recommend the book, though! I rarely ever read, but this peaked my interest.

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Obviously I'd have to read it to consider it to be anything. ;) I can dig Moonbo's FMs so I trust it's a good read.

He's the one to say whether it has anything to say about our universe though.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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Hello, since my gaming computer crapped out, I am unable to play the Dark Mod, and since I was never a computer engineering genius, I don't know if I could design a map even if it were to be fixed. Therefore, I shall instead contribute my ideas to the forum for those who are more talented and able to actually make use of them to make reality. Consider this me being a "ghost-writer".

 

The first mission idea I have is a standard Lovecraftian sea monster story simply titled "From The Depths". In it, the Thief (you can make him your own character if you already have one, such as Corbin or Thomas Porter) hears from some warty,flabby fat sailor drunk off his ass in a seaside tavern in Bridgeport about how some sort of freak storm literally wrenched a galleon from the depths and flung the stinking wreck out of the sea and into the Flooded District. Soon after, reports of strange beastmen are reported in the flooded ruins in southern Bridgeport, and of how they seem to be guarding some sort of magical artifact.

 

The artifact in question is the skull of an infamous necromancer, chopped apart and flung it the ocean for his hideous experiments on fetuses. Imagine using stem cell regeneration and mixing it with necromancy to create some sort of genderless, pasty white, technically undead, lamprey-mouthed, leechman that reproduces by ripping in half. Something kind of similar in appearance to the Freaks of the disliked on this forum Thief 2014, but with no eyes and a gaping jawless circular mouth.

 

The skull of the Necromancer seems to have fused with some coral, with the upper right half of it having mutated into what looks like a human heart covered by an exoskeleton of blood-red coral, and small pearl-like eggs that spawn albino leech-looking Leechman larva are "birthed" out of the remaining eye socket like a demented birth canal. The creatures are weak to fire and holy water, so the Builders have managed to hold them back.

 

Bodies of undesirables and criminals can be found shriveled and pale, drained of blood and raised as zombies. Your client, a mysterious member of the nobility, hires you to get in and steal the skull from its blood-nest in the half-biomass-covered wreck of the galleon in the flooded district. Additionally, a ritual can be done to turn the entire flooded district's water into holy water by lighting candles at Builder shrines around the area, causing all Leechmen and the weird meat on the ship to disappear in a screaming burst of flame, revealing a door that had been covered in undead biomass that leads to the galleon's treasure chest.

 

Anyone have any critiques?

Remember this idea I had?
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Now this is more like it. ? To add to the discussion in my own way, here's a thread I made a few months ago, was very fruitful:

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/19501-what-type-of-short-fms-in-terms-of-tone-and-setting-could-we-make-more-often/

The wiki also has this archive of design discussions:

http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Fan_Mission_Design_Discussions_Archive

Should offer plenty of ideas for this main discussion, including revisiting ideas and concepts that didn't get off the ground previously.

Edited by Petike the Taffer
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Alright, so picture this: A subgroup of the Inventors Guild recently got interested in what lies under the ocean. They make some submarines as transport, and start some underwater domes as study centers. But they realize they will eventually need more funding to keep their research going and subs fueled.

So they take to fashioning underwater buildings like in Bioshock, as a form of exotic vacation place for the wealthy and famous. You hide in a submarine's storage to get in, hoping to nab some loot, but when you get there, it seems deserted, with signs of violence.

You discover that the city has been invaded by a zombie horde, later discovered to have been originally the crew of an exploring vessel that came back from parts unknown with a sick crewman who started the outbreak.

The kicker here is that you have a hard time sneaking here due to the glass walls that allow you to see the reefs and sealife allowing extra visibility, with only shadows from metal support beams serving as cover, along with metal flooring.

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Okay, here's another one. You've sneaked onto a pirate boat trying to steal a load of gold, only for the ship to sail out. You hide in the storage area, and when the ship arrives at its destination, you're surprised to learn it went south to the land of the moors and saracens that are mentioned in the wiki lore. You head out into a jungle trail where werebeasts of a pantherlike appearance stalk the darkness by torchlight, steal a golden panther statue with ruby eyes, and make your way back to the pirate ship.

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you get a mission to break into lord leprecarnuses mansion and steal his prize collection of golden gnomes, only once in the place you find out he's a necromancer and the golden gnomes are actually what remains of his victims. You can either escape with the golden gnomes and have them melted down to gold bars to sell on the black market, or access the lords rooms of conversion to see if there's a way to revert the golden gnome back to living humans and convert the lord to one of his creations then melt that down to gold bars to sell on the black market.

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Mission Idea:

 

The Cicciliona: Lady Ludovika of Castelgandolfus

 

hqdefault.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

The Cicciliona: Lady Ludovika of Castelgandolfus

 

Lady Ludovika di Casttelgandolfus goes from City to city in a beautiful mission. To collect goods (Jewelry) in order to raise orphanages and churches around the realm. In exchange, Lady Ludovika gives the donator a little cheap fabric brooch to symbolize salvation to the generous devote.

 

 

Mesmerized by her beauty, the whole town turns upside down and quickly becomes a circus, a competition of who's more devote and give Lady Ludovika their most valuable gems and ornaments. Some even bring family heirlooms going for generations. During this process, Lady Ludovika takes a moment to show the townsfolk her generosity by donating a piece of her own, a very expensive looking ruby bracelet and wows the crowd.

 

Truth of the matter is Lady Ludovika is a Con Artist, a prostitute who had the genius idea to go town to town and scam everyone. She's not alone tho, she goes with a whole band of thieves and actors who perform quite a convincing spectacle.

 

So the premise is very simple. The Thief has the mission to fool the Lady:

 

- Lady Ludovika is staying temporarily at the Church premises (a week), the thief not only has to be wary of town guards, he also needs to infiltrate the rooms where they keep the coffers with the stolen jewelry. Those are heavily guarded by the Lady's personnel.

 

- Exchange the goods inside the coffers with something of the same weight. (Sack of potatoes or stones for example).

 

- Find Lady Violante's family heirloom in the stash and return it to her while sleeps at her manor. The thief doesn't want the beautiful Lady Violante to suffer of such vandalism.

 

- Make Sure Lady Ludovika gets suspicious she might get caught so that she decides to leave early and in her celerity wont check the vault contents before leaving.

 

- Find a small coffer beside Lady Ludovika where she keeps her Ruby Bracelet. Exchange it for a Venus Bag, lol yes a Medieval Condom. So that she knows what's up when she already leaves town and won't dare to ever come back.

 

 

1646 Oldest Condoms in the World Discovered

dudley-castle-england.jpg

 

During excavations in 1985 at Dudley Castle in the West Midlands, England (pictured), the contents of the castle toilet (aka ‘garderobe’) were discovered remarkebly intact and subsequently sorted for further analysis by the Department of Scientific Research at the British Museum.

It’s believed the contents remained so well preserved due to the latrine being sealed circa 1947 due to the castle being under siege during the English Civil War (1642-1651).

Examination identified several animal-membrane condoms, thought to be the earliest physical evidence of the use of animal-membrane condoms in post-medieval Europe.

It remains unclear however whether the condoms were used for contraceptive or as protection against venereal diseases.

 

 

 

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you get a mission to break into lord leprecarnuses mansion and steal his prize collection of golden gnomes, only once in the place you find out he's a necromancer and the golden gnomes are actually what remains of his victims. You can either escape with the golden gnomes and have them melted down to gold bars to sell on the black market, or access the lords rooms of conversion to see if there's a way to revert the golden gnome back to living humans and convert the lord to one of his creations then melt that down to gold bars to sell on the black market.

I like that idea!

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So, I could write an entire story here set in The Dark Mod world, and someone might like it enough to make a mission out of it?

I suppose, if you have a good enough concept. Also, as noted by STiFU, moonbo has that Shadowcursed novella of his, probably the very first of its kind to be use the TDM setting (or at least general parts of its milieu and moonbo's own FM characters).

 

Would you consider "Shadowcursed" as Dark Mod fiction? After all, it has been written by our Moonbo a.k.a. Gelo Fleisher, but it doesn't center on the main cities we got to know in TDM. :-)

 

I can definitely recommend the book, though! I rarely ever read, but this peaked my interest.

I sort of included it semi-officially in the wiki documentation of mission series we have. Technically, it's the first literary spinoff of a TDM mission/story series, LOL. :laugh:

Edited by Petike the Taffer
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Well, I realize I have lots of ideas of things that could go into missions, but also lack the tools and technical know-how to make my own.

 

And that's why such ideas are not super useful. You're not aware of technical limitations (engine, content) or the amount of work that goes into making new stuff. Working around technical and personal constraints impacts how you make decisions and come up with new ideas.

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And that's why such ideas are not super useful. You're not aware of technical limitations (engine, content) or the amount of work that goes into making new stuff. Working around technical and personal constraints impacts how you make decisions and come up with new ideas.

People think limitations seem like a negative, but in my mind, they can be beneficial in surprising ways. Limitations tend to add to the inventiveness of mission design, so long as the basic tech rules aren't broken.

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And that's why such ideas are not super useful. You're not aware of technical limitations (engine, content) or the amount of work that goes into making new stuff. Working around technical and personal constraints impacts how you make decisions and come up with new ideas.

 

Yes, that's generally the case.

 

On rare exception, mappers sometimes "ask for ideas":

 

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/13674-wip-fm-the-elixir/?do=findComment&comment=283045

 

...but it is more common that mappers will have their own ideas that they even "know how to implement" but do not

have the time and energy to start working on them (or continue working on them) and will instead choose smaller,

more feasible projects for fun.

 

Even with the simple concept in "The Elixir", the mission turned out to be much smaller than the "Lord Edmund Entertains" idea

I had originally envisioned. Still, it's cool to have at least one of my story ideas out there.

 

There are similar "make it for me" threads over at AtariAge forums where players ask Homebrew and Rom hackers to

somehow make Atari 2600 games for them based on their concept designs.

 

They are predictably filled with requests that go well beyond what a 2600 can do. :D

 

So many have been offered that they have made guidelines in the forums like:

 

You should include concept art.

 

You must be willing to attempt Batari Basic coding and Sprite editing.

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've had to make 200+ items just for two maps because they don't exist in the dark mod files, that includes models, particles, skyboxes, fonts.

 

Over last two years year I made around 200 models (both architecture and single-use props) for my tiny map, and it still looks barren, believe it or not...

 

...but it is more common that mappers will have their own ideas that they even "know how to implement" but do not

have the time and energy to start working on them (or continue working on them) and will instead choose smaller,

more feasible projects for fun.

 

I know that feeling, I did start a project that I thought was small, but after several cuts and scope shrinks it's still not even close to being finished. Asset production takes forever, unfortunately. But yeah, small scope is typically a more healthy approach, especially if you want to see the light at the end of the tunnel before burnout.

 

 

You should include concept art.

 

That's a good idea. It doesn't even have to be yours. But do some work and e.g. compile a selection of images to make a base reference set, either for general mood and color palette, or specific locations, if you like.

Edited by Judith
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