Fan Mission: The Painter’s Wife v1.2 by Fractured Glass Company (2020/07/01)

[Dragofer]

 

 

My old friend Andreas urgently needs my help. He asked if I could meet him at the Lion's Head Inn, our favourite retreat in a quaint part of the city called Mirkway Quarter. He’s got a small apartment nearby where he makes a modest living off paintings he sells to pompous nobles and the odd merchant.
 

Not long ago, his wife Lily was hired as a servant at the manor of the local alderman, one Lord Marlow. Now she hasn't been home for days. Andreas went to the manor looking for her, but the guards shoved him into the gutter and warned him not to return. Andreas is certain that something bad has happened, and I don’t think he’s wrong.

 

Gallery

 

Authors’ Notes

It all started many years ago when Shadowhide laid the foundation for a sprawling and convoluted city and worked with MoroseTroll and Clearing to create a macabre storyline to befit this medieval metropolis. At some point, however, the beast grew too large to handle, so he handed the keys to the City to Bikerdude and Melan. Together, the two worked tirelessly, passing the map back and forth, each playing to their respective strengths. Notably, Melan reworked the story concept, toning down many of its darker, R-rated elements.

 

Eventually Melan, too, moved on in 2017, but by then large swathes of the community had become involved in this map’s development. Mapping work was contributed by Baal, Grayman, Fidcal, Ubermann, Skacky, and Flanders, while Destined, nbohr1more, and Obsttorte wrote story texts. Several scripts were provided by Grayman, Baal and Obsttorte, such as an elevator with scissor gates, a TDM first.

 

Even after all this input, the daunting task still remained to transform what had grown into the largest TDM map ever made into a playable mission. Bikerdude hammered away at this for some more years still, on and off between other projects, until in early 2020 when he deemed it ready for public viewing.

 

It was then that Dragofer and Amadeus joined in. In the months that followed, the trio reworked, finished, and polished the mission in nearly every aspect, fully writing out and editing the story as well as adding countless scripted effects and (with help from Bienie) many new readables. The good working atmosphere and pooled creativity brought forth several new secrets, of which the largest likely hasn’t been done before in TDM (hint: check the libraries). In the very end, the name “Fractured Glass Company” was drawn up to refer to everybody who was involved in creating this very special mission.

 

Without the hard work of all these people, most of all Bikerdude and Shadowhide, this mission would likely never have seen the light of day, let alone become what you see here before you. The mission is, as Bikerdude puts it, a homage to Thief 1 & 2, and it’s our hope that you catch these vibes as you explore and enjoy this mission. 

Update 1.2 (released 04/04/2021)

Spoiler

• Massive reduction in .pk4 size as a result of cleaning up assets, also allowing to use a faster compression setting. Everything that’s left has a purpose. Here’s a more detailed breakdown of what was done:
  • Eliminate unused or duplicate assets
  • Eliminate custom assets that have meanwhile become part of the core mod
  • Convert .ase models to more compact .lwo
  • Convert .tga images to more compact .dds wherever possible
  • Re-export custom models with the fixed DR model exporter to get rid of excess vertice counts
  • Oversized textures have been downscaled
• Lighting tweaks throughout the map, in particular in the hidden chapel.
• Console warnings pointing to undiscovered bugs have been fixed in many cases.
• New locations:
  • Small attic on Upper Bridge Street.
  • Tiny roof garden on Kings St.
  • Balconies added to apartments off Tavern Sq.
• Added ductwork:
  • in the sewers around the thieves’ hideout.
  • from Upper Bridge St. to Hill/Bell St.
  • from Knife St. into the courthouse - thieves highway entrance.
  • from the sewer maintenance room on Archway to the pumphouse on Bridge St.
• Location tweaks:
  • Added geometry to allow better visportaling ( = performance) throughout the map.
  • Secret spider cave has a loot item that now counts as the 14th secret.
  • The steam engine at the power factory is now active and animated (a new asset in 2.09).
  • Tweak access from the ducting to the generator room in Marlow’s manor.
  • The stone ring above the temple is now solid and can be used to get into the temple via the windows.
  • Player should no longer float sometimes when riding the dumbwaiter in Marlow’s.
  • Make all 4 clock faces on the St Andrew’s clocktower visible.
  • The player can now crouch under a number of desks (where there is obvious space underneath): in the machine shop, magic shop, thieves’ hideout, Marlow’s dining room and others.
  • Fixed the clock hands and 2 of the faces on the St Andrew’s clocktower.
  • Fixed clock dials on the mantelpiece clock model.
  • Tweaked the pattern wood flooring and added a few more book piles in the mage’s tower.
  • Tweaked the narrow gap down the side of St Andrew’s to allow the player to traverse in/out from that spot.
  • Fixed a few minor bugs in the sewer cistern and hideout.

Update 1.1 (released 11/11/2020)

Spoiler

Objectives

• Loot goals lowered to 2500/3500/4500 respectively
• No more knockout limit on Expert. The “No Kills” objective is now worded the same on Hard and Expert
• “No Kills” objectives explicitly name Marlow as the only exception
• Both desks in the courthouse are viable drop-offs for evidence
• Coming to the courthouse with insufficient or unread evidence triggers a voiceover
• Leaving the note for the assassin is now optional, unless going for the no KO + no kill route
• Added [New] to the ends of objectives that become visible during gameplay

Marlow’s Manor

• Added a difficult security camera to watch Marlow’s painting. A new readable says how to shut it off
• Marlow’s elevator no longer useable for AIs as it has been deemed too lethal
• Marlow’s elevator doors can now be opened manually, in case the player has locked himself in by disabling “Doors open on unlock”
• Marlow’s elevator doors: fixed z-fight and greatly reduced sound loss
• Restored lights to Marlow’s elevator
• Marlow’s key to the sewers has been moved to a more visible location
• Marlow’s note on a door about him having a master key has been removed
• Added another guard to the center of Marlow’s mansion
• Marlow’s ceiling railing made climbable and added a vent for no-rope way up/down.
• One of Marlow’s servants looked identical to Lily

Gameplay

• Glass door to the emerald display case no longer behaves like a regular locked door to discourage the player from going on a key hunt
• Archer on the wall next to Andreas’ apartment is no longer stationary
• Noisemaker added to weapons shop
• Alternative route out of the Thieves’ hideout added
• All vines & pipes should now be climbable
• More pipes added for extra routes in various locations
• Added health potion to archway pumphouse
• Tweaked the light levels in the warehouse locked cage area

Map

• All text should be clearly legible even on lower screen resolutions
• Named many more landmarks on the map
• Automap highlighting didn’t fit the shapes of some streets
• Clock Tower & Bell Tower labels were swapped around
• West Gate has been renamed to Southwest Gate and marked on the map
• Fixed typos

New areas

• New spider cave near the sewer cistern
• New blacksmith’s shoppe
• Allowed the player to get behind the rooves on King St.
• Added balcony above Tavern Square to give the player an easier way down
• Miscellaneous further routes

Secret areas

• Golden chalice has become a regular loot item since it has no use
• The guardian of the golden chalice now has a patrol route
• The mask & tomb key can now be placed by simply frobbing the pedestal/socket while they’re selected in the inventory, not only by using the “Use” key (Enter by default). The tomb key can also be held in front of the mechanism to open the door
• “Hmm” sound plays if interacting with the mask pedestal or stone socket without the proper item
• The trap in the king’s tomb fires more reliably on all systems
• Village hut door starts open to show it can be entered
• Orb in the village hut now activates by frob, not proximity
• Black cubes in the village removed
• The chasm has become much longer. The hidden path teleports in piece by piece to avoid using lucky jumps to skip part of it
• Flame jets no longer fire at random intervals
• Changed water implementation in the temple to avoid “spiky” water bug

Readables

• Better description of the assassin’s location in Marlow’s final letter
• Letter to the assassin has been shortened
• Part of the assassin's journal was cut off
• Hideout boss readable wasn’t fitting on the page
• Various grammar/typo/bug fixes for readables

Miscellaneous

• Countless solidity issues, moveables dropping through surfaces and other map issues fixed
• Sapphire texture showed up black
• Some doors in the sewers didn’t react to lockpicks at all
• Gambling den toilet lids swung in the wrong direction
• Unfrobable golden dagger next to the sleeping mage has been removed
• New corner desk by Dragofer for the office of Kings & Co.

 

Credits

 

- Mapping: Shadowhide, Bikerdude, Amadeus, Baal, Dragofer, Fidcal, Flanders, Melan, Skacky, UberMann

- Original Story Concept: Clearing, MoroseTroll, Shadowhide

- Story & Readables: Amadeus, Bienie, Bikerdude, Dragofer, Destined, Melan, nbohr1more, Obsttorte, Shadowhide

- Editor: Amadeus

- Scripting: Dragofer, Baal, Grayman, Obsttorte

- Voice Acting: AndrosTheOxen (Andreas), Joe Noelker (Player)

- Video Editing: Bikerdude (briefing), Goldwell (briefing intro)

- Custom Models: Bikerdude, Dragofer, Dram, Epifire, Grayman, Obsttorte

- Custom Textures: Airship Ballet, Dmv88, Hugo Lobo

- Custom Sounds: GigaGooga, Sephy, Shadow Sneaker, alanmcki, andre_onate, Deathscyp, dl-sounds.com, Dmv88, dwoboyle, eugensid90, gzmo, lucasduff, mistersherlock, qubodup, randommynd, richerlandtv, sfx4animation, Speedenza

- Betatesting: Amadeus, ate0ate, Biene, Bluerat, CambridgeSpy, Cardia, Dragofer, Garrett(Monolyth-42), JoeBarnin, Kingsal, Krilmar, ManzanitaCrow, MikeA, Noodles, S1lverwolf, s.urfer

 

Download

Note: this mission requires TDM 2.08, which is now available for download. Please be aware that old saved games will no longer work after you upgrade to 2.08's release build.

Note: it’s highly recommended to run this mission using the 64-bit client (TheDarkModx64.exe), since there've been frequent reports the mission won't load on the 32-bit client (TheDarkMod.exe). Both are found in the same folder.

 

The mission is available from the ingame downloader. In addition to that, here are some more mirrors, as well as the official screenshots for anybody uploading this mission to a FM database:

 

Mission: Google Drive / OneDrive
Mission (v1.1, slimmed down version for 32-bit clients): Google Drive / OneDrive
Official Screenshots: Google Drive / OneDrive
Hi-Res Map: Imgur

Links

Secret loot & areas walkthrough by @Lzocast

[duzenko]

Let me be the first to congratulate on this tremendous personal and community achievement

[Baal]

Congratulations!

What a surprise. I am looking forward to see what has become of this. Thanks to everyone involved in getting this done. 

[Bienie]

Wow, that's quite a surprise. I was hoping to get my mission rolled out to help out with this beta a bit before release, but you beat me to it! Congrats to the entire team! Will definitely have to play the final version of this!

[kin]

Thank you for making our life better with your hard work (to everyone involved)

[grayman]

Congratulations to the team, especially Bikerdude.

Looking forward to playing this one.

[Amadeus]

So happy to finally see this released. Tons of hard work was put into this by tons of people, ya'll are gonna be in for a treat with this one

[chakkman]

Oh yeah. Grats to the release. 

[kin]

The updater runs and shows 2.08 version availiable but after updating and restarting my version is still 2.07. Any ideas?

edit: ok found a new updated "update.exe" file that did the trick.

Now i can not adjust gamma?

edit2: ok gamma works in game but not in start screen

Edited July 1, 2020 by kin

[joebarnin]

Congratulations to the entire team for a fantastic achievement! I did a small amount of beta testing on this, and I have to say that it was one of the best thieving experiences I've had in years. The geometry/geography is amazing, the story and gameplay flow is excellent. Brilliant stuff.

[nbohr1more]

Congratulations to everyone who worked on this monster!

[grayman]

2 Hours in and I have to say this is a Most Excellent mission.

Lots of nooks and crannies to explore.

And so beautiful to look at.

[chakkman]

The menu music already sends shivers down my spine... off to play now.

[Hotlyx]

Help needed, please! Whenever I try to load the mission, it crashes to desktop. Dark mod is 2.08, and the intro plays perfectly, but when I click ‘start’ the ‘creating the world’ bar only progresses about a quarter of the way, then crashes to desktop. I tried playing other fms and they still work okay. Any suggestions? Thank you!

[nbohr1more]

46 minutes ago, Hotlyx said:

Help needed, please! Whenever I try to load the mission, it crashes to desktop. Dark mod is 2.08, and the intro plays perfectly, but when I click ‘start’ the ‘creating the world’ bar only progresses about a quarter of the way, then crashes to desktop. I tried playing other fms and they still work okay. Any suggestions? Thank you!

Are you using the 64-bit executable?

Please post your Darkmod.cfg

[Krilmar]

Congratulations! I had a lot of fun beta testing this mission. You guys are in for a treat!

[Hotlyx]

1 hour ago, nbohr1more said:

Are you using the 64-bit executable?

Please post your Darkmod.cfg

I can’t open the cfg file to post it. My Alienware computer is 64 bit. The dark mod screen reads version TDM 2.08/32

[nbohr1more]

44 minutes ago, Hotlyx said:

I can’t open the cfg file to post it. My Alienware computer is 64 bit. The dark mod screen reads version TDM 2.08/32

There should be a "TheDarkModx64.exe" file in your darkmod directory too.

[Hotlyx]

Thank you nbohr1more, the x64 exe worked. I’m now exploring this amazing fm. Thanks again for the quick help.

[Apiai]

Hello, I have same crash as Hotlyx, crashing when progress bar is at 25%.

I can't use TheDarkModx64.exe because my OS is Win7 32bits.

Here's logfile+darkmod.cfg

qconsole.logdarkmod.cfg

 

I've also generated a dumpfile but size is 65Mo. Tell me if I should post it.

[SeriousToni]

Wow - my dearest congrats on releasing this what seems to be a really huge project. Respect for bringing this to the finish line. I can't wait to play this - great work everyone!

[Dragofer]

Thanks for all the congratulatory messages!

@Apiai a new direct download link has been added to the bottom of the release post to a version that should run on the 32-bit client. One or the other fairly expensive area has been removed from that version, but otherwise it should be identical. Please let us know if it works.

[lowenz]

This larger-than-life  fm makes me think about some things:

1) to remaster/rework to these new high quality standards another "community-wide effort" as a flagship FM for TDM: "Crucible of Omens: Behind Closed Doors"  (you know, the ghosts of the lost campaigns return chasing the taffers!  )

1.1) to "join" other campaign fms in one single fm (now it's possibile thanks to TDM technical evolution) when a temporally contiguous setting (read: the same day/night) is properly possible

2) to create a campaign playlist ( https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Fan_Mission_Series ) directly in the downloader

Edited July 2, 2020 by lowenz

[swillz_]

Congratulations on the release, this is such an amazing mission. The map is top notch - as per Thief series - this map really makes "rooftops are thiefs highway" true.

BTW, in the little torture room, there is a spot where you can fall though the floor/ textures.

Overall i am very impressed, and it would be nice to see this turn into a campaign as the map has so much potential.

Edited July 2, 2020 by swillz_
is in the edit

[chakkman]

It's great, but, I'm almost a bit beat up by the size... especially when you have a bit of OCD like me, and always try to explore everything. Lots of stuff going on vertically, and, I'm 2 or 3 hours in, and haven't even touched the ground yet... a bit overwhelmed, TBH. Would have been material for 2 or 3 maps.

I've already been to 1 or 2 places where I can activate something, but, I have no idea how. Not so good.

Edited July 2, 2020 by chakkman