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Fan Mission : Hazard Pay by Kingsal 01/27/22


kingsal

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@NeonsStyle Thanks for playing! Yeah the bloated zombies are a real danger :)

@Shaz Thank you! That's a lot of kind praise I am glad you liked the zombies, that was my hope.

@vozka Awesome! Yeah I did plan to do something more with the survivor, at least a custom vocal line, but I ran out of time. Also thanks for bugs.

@Daft MugiOh good catch, that shouldn't be happening. I'll fix it in the core mod so missions won't overwrite the default run mod.

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

I knew you are a gifted level designer after playing Volta 1 and 2 mission.
This just confirms it - unusual setting (mining site/archeological excavations set in Middle-East-ish setting), lot of verticality, cleverly, but never unfairly hidden loot and delightful lightning.

Not to mention plethora of new assets and new zombie design.

I like the clear objective, which always stay at the center, 5 hidden secrets, which were joy to hunt down 

Spoiler

and the 3 different ways how to approach the final confrontation - either bribe the sleazy guard, outwit by finding dead man´s key or simply, after learning the key combination, just loading older save and inputting it yourself - I loved how the player character had different quib for each of those situations!

Especially the "Ha! Lucky guess" had me laughing. Descent into pit remined me of Ravenholm, but the overall level design and aesthetic was not unsimilar to Arx Fatalis, or rather Dark Messiah (the desert temple location with the great Wyvern).

Oh and I liked the jab at Indiana Jones (please, tell me I am not mistaken!) with that final piece of loot, which looked ominously enough, and when you took it, the pedestal unburden rose up and sprung a trap - smart! 

I immediately loaded it, because I noticed a frobbable rock on the ground and I tried to push the mask out of the pedestal with it. Then, just for a good measure, I used also second stone from the ground before I picked the mask - and it didn´t activated the trap! That was a really neat touch :)

 

Edited by Tarhiel
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  • 2 weeks later...

Hello! I've made some minor bug fixes to this mission. Update to version 5. @nbohr1more I am unable to access the mission archive and mirrors atm. Would you mind updating this for me?

 

@TheUnbeholdenAh bummer, where you able to pick it up after reloading? Where was the blowtorch?

@TarhielThank you for the kind words! I'm glad you tried out the different ways to complete the objective

@Melchior Thank you! Glad you dug it.

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I enjoyed this mission. Zombies are not usually a favorite because they move slower than chasing guards and don't say funny guard things. Still these zombies kept me on my toes, and they were exceptionally gifted in the hearing department. They found me from half a large room away while crouching and moving forward slowly. Luckily there are lots of hiding vertical hiding places and the means to scramble away easily. Some of the jumps were hard to gauge (like the hanging pallet with the human guy sitting among the boxes) and I found myself falling to my death attempting to make jumps without a rope arrow. All in all, the strength in this mission is the Indiana Jones vs Tomb Raider level design and visual features.

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2 hours ago, Shadow said:

 Still these zombies kept me on my toes, and they were exceptionally gifted in the hearing department. They found me from half a large room away while crouching and moving forward slowly. Luckily there are lots of hiding vertical hiding places and the means to scramble away easily. 

Thanks for playing, glad you liked it. These zombies are pretty amped up. I struggled to find a good balance there so thanks for the feedback, it will help me tune them in the future.

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  • 2 weeks later...

A masterful and original mission, and that takes some doing these days. I enjoyed this the most of the recent flurry of missions. The story flowed at the right pace, kept me intrigued and never made me feel bored of the scenery. This is something very few mapmakers have achieved.

The mission also encourages a different style of gameplay with the save mechanic and also other thngs:

Spoiler

The searing fire arrows and lack of blackjack had me reconsider my usual stealth-only ghost approach - Rounding up the undead and incinerating them around the tomb proved to be a great tactic, and I didn't feel like this approach was the 'wrong' one (many missions discourage this or punish this by putting all guards/zombies on full alert). To me it was clear I had taken a problem solving approach that the creator accounted for. This was punctuated by the fact that at the end of the mission we have to kill the Goffrey to get our loot back - there's no way of ghosting that as far as I can tell! - Or maybe there is!

Having limited saves also caused me to behave in a more realistic way - I thought twice about unnecessary risks, I planned my exit from ledges I needed a rope arrow for, where usually I'd hit the shot without thinking

Congrats once more!

Edited by LordRutherford
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  • 3 weeks later...

I've just gave this mission a try and it was actually quiet entertaining. It's nice to see the savegame mechanic in action. :)

The visuals were pretty good and atmospheric, although not extremely detailed you have proven a talent for consistency and atmosphere. Especially in regards to the lighting. The whole mission has this return to the lost city vibe. Nice. :D

Storywise I won't say much as I don't play games for the stories sake (I read books for that - sorry games, still got a lot to learn in that aspect). Nevertheless I like the fact that you were saving on the readables and there content (length-wise), although some background info about the excavation site would have been nice.

Now for the most important part: Gameplay. Obviously I have played under the highest setting just for the sake of seeing the savegame mechanic in action. Due to the sometimes clumsy controls and me not having played TDM in a while (the latter is probably the bigger issue) I managed to fell to death on the first two approaches (without having saved til that spot), but managed to get through the mission in roughly one hour with three saves total, the last one two minutes before the end. As stated, I was well entertained. Some thoughts nevertheless, if I may.

Spoiler
  • I am not sure whether you have created the mission with the altered savegame mechanic in mind and allowed the free saving on lower settings for newcomers et. al. who simple don't like restrictions or the other way round, but I think there is some wasted potential here. The mission feels a bit like a hybrid between souls-like games and typical TDM missions in regards to the level setup, which doesn't always pay off. I just quote the headline of a german games magazine for their Thi4f review: "Everybodies darling is nobodies friend!"
  • After discovering that I can kill the undead with one headshot and retrieve the arrow and combined with the efficiency of the fire arrow the mission turned from average difficulty to comparable simple. Also the amount of gear is quiet high. This stands in contrast to your "promise" on the difficulty selection screen. ;)
  • I really like all the new stuff added for this mission, but also feel sad about the wasted potential here either. Especially the blowtorch. I found three of which two have to be used in exactly the room they can be found in. The water arrows had no use for me. I know I could have combined them with the holy water, but due to the efficiency of the broadheads and the dark surroundings that wasn't necessary.
  • As the player may have to replay longer parts when choosing the highest difficulty setting, some on-the-fly randomization (meaning not everything is setup at mission start) and the possibility to skip the dialog with the guy having the code (Goffrey?!) would have been worthwhile. But that's criticism on a high niveau.

Overall it is the first TDM mission in a long time that I actually like and would recommend. Well done, thumbs up, like and may the Builder bless you. :)

 

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FM's: Builder Roads, Old Habits, Old Habits Rebuild

Mapping and Scripting: Apples and Peaches

Sculptris Models and Tutorials: Obsttortes Models

My wiki articles: Obstipedia

Texture Blending in DR: DR ASE Blend Exporter

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  • 2 weeks later...

I decided to give this mission a try since it seemed to spark some debate. It was much easier than I expected, I always play on challenging AI, but the mission never felt like it was too difficult patrol-wise. I did end up dying once by falling to death, and that was a bit annoying. By the time I had finished the gold objective, I could not find another save gear so I had to cut my losses and complete the mission even though I wanted to explore more. Well, I could always do it again on a lower difficulty, I suppose.

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After months of abstinence I found this interesting fan mission.
I really wanted to like the idea of "ribbon-typwriter"-saving like in the old days.

But if you play over one hour, to save saving gears, clear the zombie-population slowly and then the game crashes upon saving, I really lost all my concern about this mission...
It just created an invalid savegame (0 kB) and quitted. 😒

1.jpg

2.jpg

Edited by McPhisto2051
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@McPhisto2051Ah damn. Are you playing on Linux? There is a known bug with the save system. The saves should be labelled and not generic names like "save_1" :(


Otherwise, I am not sure what happened here. The save system is still very new to tdm. 

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12 minutes ago, McPhisto2051 said:

ofc not 😉

on a normal Win10 PC with more than ok'ish specs. If I can save every 2 minutes its no problem but if you're limited and then it crashes it kills the mood 🤐

Yeah sorry about that :(. The only reports Ive had about corrupted saves where on Linux. It's odd that its 0kb. Unfortunately, there isn't much help I can offer here. If you have the energy you could play it on Normal or Hard. Thanks for giving the mission a shot though. 

EDIT: Something is definitely broken- the mission should not be creating saves named "Save_1" - Just double checking you are using TDM 2.10?

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8 minutes ago, McPhisto2051 said:

ofc, I upgraded from 2.10beta to 2.10 release before I downloaded new missions...
also looked for some kind of crash report but didnt find any...
And yeah, I could play on lower difficulties but I always play on the hardest ^^

Alright just double checking.

Would you mind PMing me those save game files  (unless they are both 0kb) and your fms/hazard/qconsole.log if it exists. 

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@McPhisto2051Do you have the darkmod.log that can be found in the darkmod folder? Maybe it contains some useful information.

EDIT: Good timing :D

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FM's: Builder Roads, Old Habits, Old Habits Rebuild

Mapping and Scripting: Apples and Peaches

Sculptris Models and Tutorials: Obsttortes Models

My wiki articles: Obstipedia

Texture Blending in DR: DR ASE Blend Exporter

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I would love to send the darkmod.log but It just contains the log from the start two times after the crash 😞
In my opinion, It should save at least 10 logs so that you can look back a little.

Here are the savegames from the hazard-mission:


https://filetransfer.io/manage-package/VYRYwepi#

 

sorry for the link, Im just allowed to upload 500kB total...

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@McPhisto2051Your link doesn't work ("Page not found")

FM's: Builder Roads, Old Habits, Old Habits Rebuild

Mapping and Scripting: Apples and Peaches

Sculptris Models and Tutorials: Obsttortes Models

My wiki articles: Obstipedia

Texture Blending in DR: DR ASE Blend Exporter

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Just a wild guess, but is it possible that you have your language setting differing from english?

FM's: Builder Roads, Old Habits, Old Habits Rebuild

Mapping and Scripting: Apples and Peaches

Sculptris Models and Tutorials: Obsttortes Models

My wiki articles: Obstipedia

Texture Blending in DR: DR ASE Blend Exporter

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I am not able to reproduce the issue. The code uses the name "default" as a fallback, in case the savegame name would get corrupted. And when saving after loading your savegame (the one that worked), it uses the correct names on all available spots. And as you seem to be running basically the same specification as I do (Win10 german with TDM in english) that's probably not the issue either.

Any chance you could try to reproduce it? It would probably already be useful if you manage to get to the first save grammophon and see if the savegame gets wrongly labeled again. If so, the log may contain useful information.

EDIT: You need to type conDump name into the console for the log to be created (it is a text file). In case of a crash the darkmod.log mentioned earlier on may also be of use.

FM's: Builder Roads, Old Habits, Old Habits Rebuild

Mapping and Scripting: Apples and Peaches

Sculptris Models and Tutorials: Obsttortes Models

My wiki articles: Obstipedia

Texture Blending in DR: DR ASE Blend Exporter

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