Fan Mission: Gem of Souls (31-10-2024)

[datiswous]

15 hours ago, nbohr1more said:

It barely has any visual impact since you have very complex ambient behavior in this mission with all the cubic ambients but does improve the underside of a few outdoor models (etc).

Main benefit?

You can have the normal fresnel mod installed and still play this mission with no artifacts (etc).

Indeed, I see zero difference. Maybe I should look harder

[tapewolf]

6 hours ago, MirceaKitsune said:

Thank you, glad you liked it!

  Hide contents

You don't need to KO the angel as she's non-hostile. But I thought it would be fun to make her immortal yet still possible to KO, given health doesn't affect how the blackjack can put someone to sleep.

 

Yeah, I was definitely thinking in terms of updating the text if you need to do an update for a larger reason - no point in re-releasing it just because of that!

And

Spoiler

I wasn't mean enough to save with the angel knocked out, I just had to try it to find out whether it could be done at all.  That design decision was definitely a good call!

 

[Keruah]

Played it through this morning. A nice short mission with a twist in the end. Found 3 or 4 secrets. For some reason, had trouble finding the key on a handrail. In the end, tried to holy-water the undead, but quickly realised that I don't have enough. So, cheers for making it, I had good times with it!   

[The Black Arrow]

Alright, I have played this mission. For transparency, I want to mention that I use Fresnel and I had to use nbohr's fix, this means the visuals/graphics may be a bit different.

For starters, I want to mention the story, all in a spoiler:
 

Spoiler

At first, I hated the story because it made 0 sense. Why was this long-abandoned cathedral full of living, healthy people? Well, thankfully by reading notes (I didn't find the thief note until later) and knowing the name of the mission, I came to realize that most surely this Gem is keeping everyone in the cathedral alive, because otherwise they're dead. The small note of a fellow being hit in the head and "waking up" is a clear tell. The one from Peter or Pete where he mentions his hand turning bony, makes it even more obvious if the other one was not.
So, I've learned to like the story, but...It sadly wasn't too good, the problem here is that the story is better read, than it is seen. Nothing seems too unordinary in the cathedral, at first I thought they were just squatters, or maybe the Hammerites took them for shelter in the rain.

Now for the visuals.
They're not bad, it's very nice, I like the heavy rain and the interior of the cathedral is very good, really love the top floor where you can see some beautiful reddish Volumetric Lights.

This makes me wonder; is there any way the TDM developers can improve the shaders, for the rain? I know Mircea himself had to use some different shader for the terrain, to make it look glossier, but that's a "hack".

It would be great if TDM had a function similar to what STALKER Clear Sky uses, the "Wet Surfaces". It's pretty much a shader that makes the texture have more gloss than usual and it also adds an animated texture to it, to simulate rain drops.

Oh and like everyone said, the "waterfall" on the stairs is way too much, I would just remove it, it would look better, I am very sure of it.
And I didn't really enjoy the outdoors too much, too many derelict buildings where you could not get inside, uneven terrain which I understand it was intentionally made to be like so, but I don't think it seems to do the desired objective?

For the gameplay, I'll separate it into paragraphs:
- Loot. Loot. Loot. WAY too much loot. A LOT of loot. Loot is bloody everywhere. Damnit!
I've found the loot to be rather bad, literally the place is just full of it. What's up with that? A derelict place that has nothing but loot, it's just everywhere, you can simply run into the cathedral, keep pressing the use key, get enough loot to reach 3000.
I like missions where loot is scarce, the reason why is...I believe a "Master Thief" is so, because he has a good eye for *finding* it, not just downright stealing it, where in this mission it's way too easy to just steal and find about.
- The secrets did their job. Nothing too interesting but also nothing too wrong.
- The guards. Do they have telepathy? I've noticed that the guards at the top can be easily taken care of, including my good ol' friend Erasmus (Yeah I do have a real friend with that name), but woe unto you if you dare knock anyone at the main floor, somehow telepathy starts working and EVERYONE goes on full alarm mode. That's just weird...
So, in short, it was tedious and sometimes it feels like there's too many guards (why are there two guards in both outdoor areas?), but it was not the worst, it's not excruciatingly annoying.
- In turn, the civilians. So, funnily enough I'd expected them to just call me out but they're friendly, yet the Builders are not, heh. Only problem is, they have insane telepathy where any Builder you knock out, they will literally ALL know and go in full panic mode.

Oh and time for more spoilers here!

Spoiler

I've rather liked the ending, it's very nice. You finally realize, if you haven't already, that everyone here is undead and the Gem kept them alive while also enabling a "Time Bubble", said thing is also mentioned by Erasmus himself, he had no idea of Flintlock Pistols until now.

So anyway, the moment I've got the gem, I knew my next plan was simply to escape, which I did. But before that, I noticed some very cool volumetric lights, to the left, where one of the cemeteries are at.

It was an Angel doing that! She even had some loot, and a note. Of course, I've "borrowed" it and the story about it is incredibly ridiculous LOL.
She is apparently one of those that take people who have died back to heaven? Well, okay then.
I'm glad it's a secret and not something in the lore itself, because to be brutally honest, that was absolutely ridiculous. Still a good secret though, I like how she's just a noblewoman with a nice mask, emitting a beautiful volumetric light, and for whatever reason has a ponytail on top of her butt.

Maybe the character I've played as will forget her, as mentioned by his...Boss. But I will not.
And you know, that's one part of Videogame Philosophy I like to talk about; our very own sentience.
It may be that the character may forget or act different, but we, the ones who play as him, are completely different to him.

Overall, this was a mission that was rather confusing, then got less confusing but also way too "story is not subtle anymore" in your face. Not the best gameplay, but still fun, has some amazing yet questionable visuals.

Overall I would rate it a 3.5/5, if you are willing to update it or overhaul it, I wouldn't mind re-trying it and giving it another, hopefully better score.

[MirceaKitsune]

Lots to say, but this is a good opportunity to note some details down before I forget them.

Spoiler

The goal was to have an element of surprise: At first things wouldn't make sense and the player is confused by what is going on, as you navigate and get the keys as well as readables it slowly starts to make sense, by the time you finally snatch the gem it becomes clear. I generally like to divide my missions into two parts to make them less linear and more interesting, first half being normal and second half changing the world to reflect the player's actions before they finish. TDM has a fixed design so there's only so many ways you can arrange things to tell a story and tie it to what happens in the world especially when it comes to AI behavior.

The reason civilians aren't hostile, difficulty aside, is that (as some readables describe) most people in the church don't agree with the head priest and the builders. The ones living there want to interact with outsiders and know what's going on, ideally they'd have had a surprised reaction and gasped at the player... it's Erasmus and the guards who are guarding the Gem and desire no outsiders in the church.

The angel came up as a way to reward players for going back behind the church after taking the Gem: I figured most would run straight for the exit, I wanted to offer a reason to keep exploring. Her note is a bit of an Easter egg which is why I made it just a little bit weirder. Her character design is from another FM which I'm likely to remake into something else, I figured with the light she'd initially add to the scare / surprise factor before players realize she isn't evil or hostile. As for the tail and horns, one can imagine she's from another world and not fully human.

On loot I felt I may have added a bit too much near the end of the development cycle, though apart from the secrets I did try hiding it in plain sight. I also did it because as the debrief explains, most of it was also created and / or maintained using the Gem and technically an illusion, only a fraction of it survives: I felt that would be fitting, letting the player collect all those goods only to learn most of them were just dust like the inhabitants of the church.

As for shaders I'm definitely in support of a better weather system: As I said we have to work with the current possibilities provided by the engine and its various systems. Weather and wind and water are particularly hard to do; One thing I could have used was the dynamic wind system I suggested recently, fortunately the animated grass does a good enough job for now. The water running down the stairs should have used a custom texture as to not be as extreme, I didn't want to spend time on that for what was ultimately a 10 day Halloween project as well as the second FM I get to release and hear others feedback on, between the default running water and not having it at all I went with the former to try something new and see how well stormy weather can be simulated.

[hightide]

On 10/31/2024 at 1:56 AM, The Black Arrow said:

I believe I'm experiencing this problem, do you also have the ground flickering like crazy, while also being absurdly shiny and foggy?

I'm also seeing Z-fighting on triangular patches of grass all around the yard. The larger statues are so shiny they look like they are made of ice.

On 11/1/2024 at 11:41 AM, datiswous said:

I think it has the opposite effect unfortunately, at least in my opinion. It's way too shiny. Also I think the water falling down the stairs is a bit too extreme.

I like that the water is being funneled down the stairs, but it just stops before the last step which breaks the effect.

Whenever I walk into an outbuilding my steps sound like they are wading through water; is there in invisible layer, or is that a weird ambient from outside?

It certainly feels dark & stormy, so success on that front! Now to head inside...

[STRUNK]

That was a nice and creepy story, and the atmosphere was very good too. The build had some flaws, but thanks for putting this together as a halloween suprise : )
 

Spoiler

After running throught the locked building and didn't see a way out, I reloaded my save and put some stuff between the doorframes and gates before fetching the gem, and it blocked the gates from closing so I could sneak out ...

 

[MirceaKitsune]

1 hour ago, STRUNK said:

That was a nice and creepy story, and the atmosphere was very good too. The build had some flaws, but thanks for putting this together as a halloween suprise : )

  Hide contents

After running throught the locked building and didn't see a way out, I reloaded my save and put some stuff between the doorframes and gates before fetching the gem, and it blocked the gates from closing so I could sneak out ...

Thank you, glad you liked it!

Spoiler

That's one way of dealing with it. The intended way is going upstairs and frobbing the handle under the round window in the hallway to open the doors back up. It's visible but not frobbable before you get the gem, as to not break the entity setup and objectives: One thing I'd probably do differently now is making that switch a bit more obvious.

[wesp5]

A great little map! I always love it when simple missions have a story twist in the end and I liked this one. Like STRUNK I didn't find the intended way out though and used the same trick, so maybe you should add text to the priest's journal to hint at the lever? Also if you are going to patch the mission, I found a lot of floating rats and I agree with others that the flowing water is cool but should have a puddle at the bottom. Last not least there are some text issues unless it's intended that some notes are missing several words...

Edited November 12 by wesp5

[grodenglaive]

Thanks for the mission. Good lighting plus weather effects for added drama. As usual, I found zero secrets. I look forward to the next one!  

[Sotha]

This was an interesting mission! It surprised me many times.

Spoiler

I'm not a big fan of key hunts, but the poem was good and even an idiot like me could find the keys, even though I was close to give up. But didn't! And found them! Made my day!

The transformation was very cool. One frob and everything changed. Ingenious idea! Bravo!

I was totally clueless how to get out from the church and was wandering around for a while. I never spotted the lever initially. Some kind of clue would have been in order after the undead-change. Maybe a blue fire or the angel would have pointed to the lever somehow? I don't know how, but somehow I noticed the lever in the end and pulled it. I liked the dramatic effect of the bells and general spookiness. But I got no clue what was going on or why the door opened with the bells.

And then there was some black spook running around the yard like crazy. And there was an angel and of course I knocked her out just so see if I can. It got quite weird  for me in the end.

But that I guess was a good thing. You caught me off guard so many times and I liked the novelty and the creativity.

Well done and thanks!