Fan Mission: Iris by WellingtonCrab [TDM 2.10 Required] (2022/02/13)

[prjames]

I would like a hint.

I have completed all objectives except for the optional objective of...

Spoiler

finding the cop's spyglass in a apartment in one of two areas

Any hints on this?  I (otherwise) finished the mission last night; absolutely AWESOME mission!

- prjames

[Wellingtoncrab]

7 minutes ago, prjames said:

I would like a hint.

Spoiler

The watch is strapped for coin and resources, and Tobin for all his skill as an officer is kind of an irritating pedant. So they sprung for perhaps the worst accommodations in Southbridge. You can see at least one entrance to this area from the player’s apartment. You might find another “up” around Blackbriar Park.

 

[RedNoodles]

amazing mission. finally finished last night, then started over to try and ghost it. turns out I missed a ton of stuff. the readables make more a lot more sense on a 2nd playthrough- there's just one thing I'm missing

Spoiler

Lady ursine's safe. The book she stole is known as the "poisoned tome". I found a crazy old man in the plague ward with an interesting name- Crassus of the poisoned page, I think? I searched the area but I couldn't find any other clues. Am I looking in the right place?

[Wellingtoncrab]

35 minutes ago, RedNoodles said:

there's just one thing I'm missing

Spoiler

Quite sharp! There are indeed lore connections to the notorious “Oras Infernum” within old and fallen Hollowbrook. Though surely that must be simple a coincidence? 

The key and combination to Ursine’s vault however are a bit closer at hand. Ms. Jakobs journal mentions in addition to the other peculiarities of the house, that when glimpsed in a certain light there there is something off about the lady’s portrait.

 

[RedNoodles]

I can't believe I missed that... I even visited that room and stared at the ...thing... a number of times but just didn't see it. Very well done by the way. I hope we get to see more of Lady Ursine in the future.

[Wellingtoncrab]

13 minutes ago, RedNoodles said:

I hope we get to see more of Lady Ursine in the future.

Spoiler

If I ever have another mission in me - I think we likely will.

 

[datiswous]

Hey @Wellingtoncrab the loading screen uses a low quality image. You can see the blocks. Maybe something to improve on a future patch?

[Wellingtoncrab]

@datiswousyeah it seems true of the in game menu screen as well!

[Bluehawk]

Well I didn't get terribly great performance. I was frequently hovering around 30 fps even in simple interiors, for some reason. However, this is one of the greater FMs ever released so far for the Dark Mod, in my opinion. It's architecture and layout, difficulty balance, unique gameplay, readables and lore, all excellent across the board. Lots of opportunity for alternative routes and solutions - for example, I finished the mission with three sets of lockpicks and two sets of "peculiar glasses". So many little stories to discover and threads left open to interpretation or maybe a sequel... It's also a great twist on the usual plague quarter mission.

Spoiler

I especially like how much of the plague quarter is not occupied by the undead, but instead two groups of squatters rummaging through the ruins, just like the player.... but then there is a supernatural presence deeper in the neighbourhood. And how the older architecture in the plague quarter means more moonlight to contend with - you move through that space differently than in Red Rook. I laughed out loud when I cracked the code for the Sanguine Dawn and discovered it was basically just an empty club house full of mundane furniture, and the objective list even said "you grew no closer to understanding it secrets". That encapsulates the "less is more" story-telling throughout.

Am I right in assuming that there isn't really a "client" hiring the player character? That he lived in the "forgotten house" before the outbreak of whatever and the painting is his to retrieve. The Iris he's writing to is dead and he's still grieving for her. That's my interpretation.

It took me a good long while to figure out how to end the mission after finding too many mementos. I thought first I had to return to the house, or the church catacombs, those didn't work. Then I returned to "Thief's End" and the "Improbable Sanctuary", those didn't work. Only when I fell off a roof and died did I discover that suicide is the PC's only escape... And then I reloaded anyway and discovered that when you die you can sent to either the Improbable Sanctuary or to the "Communion Chamber" Twin Peaks reference place... possibly depending if you failed the optional no-kills objective, but I don't know what the wider implication there is. Maybe the phrasing of the objective could be clarified for the player so they know they need to die, though I understand you wanted it to be a secret ending of sorts.

 I scored it 5/5/5.

[Wellingtoncrab]

2 hours ago, Bluehawk said:

I was frequently hovering around 30 fps even in simple interiors, for some reason.

Oof that’s rough, but I am glad you were still able to enjoy the mission! The fact that the frame rate was so low even in simpler scenes makes me wonder if the mission was CPU bound. Would you mind sharing your rough hardware config so I have a reference?

Spoiler

I am equally glad you enjoyed the plague ward - I wanted to subvert expectations of what would linger on the other side of the wall after so many great undead thief missions, and I understand this could potentially be a disappointment to some players. The fact it worked for even one is enough for me!

As you might imagine it’s a bit of stretch for me to bluntly state the nature of the player character and their connections to Iris or the forgotten house, but you seem like a very perceptive player.

I am working on the first first patch now and will look to see if I can smooth the edges on that ending as I see how it might be confusing.

 

[Zerg Rush]

I noticed some FPS issues, but not so much to make it unplayable (~30 FPS in some ocassions), but I think it's because it's a very huge mission with a lot of AI moving in. (Sys specs in my signature)

[madtaffer]

I just wanted to make a suggestion to Wellington to add more patrol guards in empty houses and in rooms generally till next update.

Edited February 19, 2022 by madtaffer

[Heuli]

Congrats on the release! 

I have never seen such a great mission.

I still do the feet hurt me

I felt like Indian Jones

A giant adventure. I hope there are even more 

[Wellingtoncrab]

5 hours ago, madtaffer said:

I just wanted to make a suggestion to Wellington to add more patrol guards in empty houses and in rooms generally till next update.

I have read this feedback also on darkfate. In the patch there will be some additional ai encounters added for the highest difficulty setting where it makes sense to me. I would point out there are currently around 85 encounterable ai on the map and I would not necessarily agree that a room is “empty” simply because it’s unoccupied - but that is my own bias as an exploration focused player. For those who need a bit more I hope they see an improvement in the next patch.

[JackFarmer]

I'm not really a fan of city missions, but I have to say that this is my new favorite along with A good neighbour, Now and Then and The Painter's Wife.

My hatred of the author has now reached irrational levels. Just creating fake accounts to badmouth the mission here. I have also asked a number of friends to register here and call this mission a sham and punish it in the ratings - I'm tough but fair (when it serves to protect my ego).

On a different note: My new favorite DM/Skyrim tavern:

Spoiler

 

I wished I could have drinks there.

[Bluehawk]

16 hours ago, Wellingtoncrab said:

Would you mind sharing your rough hardware config so I have a reference?

Intel Core i7-2600K, 4 cores, 3.40GHz

ATI/AMD Radeon R9 390 (8 GB GDDR5)

32 GB DDR3 physical memory

I prefer to play at my native desktop resolution of 2560x1440, with low AO, low soft shadows, stencil shadows, no AA, medium LODs. I know my machine is about 5-10 years old now in parts, so I don't really have grounds to complain. I think the "problem" might just come down to lots of particle effects and a little bit of over-draw in the visportals. Sometimes exterior meshes like distant towers bleed into the interior scenes.

Here are some examples, with n_ShowTris on 0, 1 and 2.

Spoiler

In Percy's Potables

Spoiler

In the central hallway of Burgage House

Spoiler

In the alley outside the starting apartment, looking toward the blacksmith's shop. All the shadows and haze hide a great deal...

[datiswous]

7 hours ago, Wellingtoncrab said:

I have read this feedback also on darkfate.

darkfate?

 

Spoiler

17 hours ago, Wellingtoncrab said:

I am working on the first first patch now and will look to see if I can smooth the edges on that ending as I see how it might be confusing.

 

Did you change something to the ending compared to the beta? Maybe I shouldn't read player reviews here..

[madtaffer]

Bluehawk, set renderscale to 0.45-0.5 and Sharpen to 1. You'll get satisfying visuals with double performance.

[Wellingtoncrab]

59 minutes ago, Bluehawk said:

I know my machine is about 5-10 years old now in parts, so I don't really have grounds to complain.

I am not so sure about that - I am not very familiar with AMD graphics hardware, but on sheer brunt the specs on your machine don't seem all that far off from the machine I built Iris on (though it's a 1080p one) so I would kind of hope it'd fair a little better. The fact that you're getting the same performance in a scene like the burgage house - with a third of the draw/triangle budget as that outdoor area seems off to me. 

Did you let the TDM installer rewrite your cfg file when installing 2.10 an everything?

1 hour ago, datiswous said:

darkfate?

darkfate.org - I had never been but a user mentioned they got the mission from a mirror there, but yeah they have it up with screenshots and a very thoughtful discussion thread.

1 hour ago, datiswous said:

Did you change something to the ending compared to the beta? Maybe I shouldn't read player reviews here..

Spoiler

No, but perhaps there isn't just one way to end this story. I would always tread lightly in the spoiler tags.

 

[Wellingtoncrab]

1 hour ago, JackFarmer said:

I'm not really a fan of city missions

HA! I feel the same way - I have no idea why I made this.

1 hour ago, JackFarmer said:

along with A good neighbour

Perhaps my favorite mission (or close to it) so I will accept the company!

[Oktokolo]

There are more than 150 TDM missions - and this is the best of them.

I initially thought 300 MiB of normal maps in TGA format additional to the 300MiB of DDS textures to slightly be on the excessive side. But as the mission is of excellent visual quality not seen before, i guess, that they are worth the space.

Spoiler

I had to noclip through both code lock doors though. They made a sound as the correct combinations where entered, but didn't open. The safes worked fine.

And i did not find any of the alternate endings suggested to exist in the spoilers, so i feel like missing out.

 

[RedNoodles]

My interpretation of the story:

Spoiler

The protagonist never left his room. There's an incense burner next to his bed which I assume contains the drug mentioned in one of the mementos. A lot of people in the city seem addicted to it (there are incense burners all over the place) some take it to try and remember better times (like the protagonist) while the academically inclined try to make sense of the hallucinations thinking there is some kind of higher meaning to them.

 

[Wellingtoncrab]

13 hours ago, Abusimplea said:

  Hide contents

I had to noclip through both code lock doors though. They made a sound as the correct combinations where entered, but didn't open. The safes worked fine.

And i did not find any of the alternate endings suggested to exist in the spoilers, so i feel like missing out.

 

Spoiler

Well that is not good - no idea what would cause this, but there is custom handling with the combination locks and I wonder if this is breakable in some way. Though the fact it worked with the safes is interesting in that light. If you recall the codes you entered and don’t mind messaging them to me I can at least verify if they are correct.

Do not worry, you are not missing anything by not triggering the alternate ending and it is not intended to be more satisfying or “true”.

[madtaffer]

my theory

Spoiler

My interpretation is right there under the title. 'City, we are it's dream.' What if player is in a dream within a dream like in Bloodborne? As E.A. Poe would say:

O God! can I not save

One from the pitiless wave?

Is all that we see or seem

But a dream within a dream?

 

Edited February 20, 2022 by madtaffer

[Wellingtoncrab]

@madtaffer while I encourage the thoughtful dialogue- please be so kind as to wrap any story theories in a spoiler tag for me