Fan Mission: The Last Offering (2024-11-16)

[Sotha]

Hello! To celebrate 15 years of TDM, and because so amazing missions have been made in my absence, I felt compelled to made a small mission for everyone to enjoy: 

The Last Offering!

Mission briefing:

Spoiler

The place I once called home is fading away, just a shadow of what it used to be. The streets that were once full of life are now quiet and empty.

Hope is slipping away, and those who can leave are heading to the City, looking for a better life.

I'm at a turning point. The idea of leaving is tempting, but the City wants a heavy price to get in. I need some gold: enough to start fresh and escape this dying town and all the memories that haunt me.

In the middle of our old Builder cemetery stands a chapel, a reminder of when wealth and status meant everything, even in death. Below it lie the catacombs, a maze of forgotten treasures where the rich once sought their eternal rest.

My plan is simple: break into the chapel, find a way down to the catacombs, and take whatever gold I can find. After all, the dead don't need their riches anymore.

Build time: roughly 30 h darkradiant time during october-november 2024.

AI has been used for initial mission brainstorming, proofreading and polishing readables.

Thanks:
*Whole TDM community for everything.
*Betatesters: thebigh, datiswous, Shadow

Other:
I challenge you to play this short mission without saving or loading! The player gets plenty of gold for gear: buy a good thieving kit and enjoy the mission without saving! It is quite possible it is more exciting that way. Let me know what you think replying to this thread: I'd love to hear about your experiences and opinions.

Enjoy, and I hope you have as fun playing as I had making this!

Download link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HthqgoeBKf7kgYTRm5ice5t31_90_PRu/view?usp=drive_link

[chakkman]

That "escalated" quick. Grats to the release.

Regarding the saving part, I considered it for 1.365 seconds, and then decided to play the way I always play (with saving).  

Edited November 16, 2024 by chakkman

[nbohr1more]

The mission is now available in the mission database!

Congrats on the release!

[Amadeus]

Congrats on the release, Sotha! Very much looking forward to playing this

[thebigh]

Congratulations on the release! This one was a heap of fun to betatest. It looks nice, gameplay is fun, and it's not so long it overstays its welcome.

[Knüppelaufdierübe]

Just finished and it was fun, but I'll still nag about a few things

Maybe I'm too much of a casual player, but for a no-save run (which I would never do, so, just hypothetically speaking), I would have liked some helpers. Like, being able to snatch NPC room keys and lock them in or something (which is just me ranting about NPCs un-/locking doors without (snatchable) keys ... although I can totally see some reasoning behind that).

As for the secret

Spoiler

closet behind the closet (and the mechanism mentioned in some readable), are there any visible switches on the outside or are you supposed to just frob some invisible places (only indicated by the frob pointer)?

[Sotha]

2 hours ago, Knüppelaufdierübe said:

Just finished and it was fun, but I'll still nag about a few things

Maybe I'm too much of a casual player, but for a no-save run (which I would never do, so, just hypothetically speaking), I would have liked some helpers. Like, being able to snatch NPC room keys and lock them in or something (which is just me ranting about NPCs un-/locking doors without (snatchable) keys ... although I can totally see some reasoning behind that).

As for the secret

  Reveal hidden contents

closet behind the closet (and the mechanism mentioned in some readable), are there any visible switches on the outside or are you supposed to just frob some invisible places (only indicated by the frob pointer)?

Thanks for comments!

Spoiler

Stand on the bed and look at the wall next to the closet. I never though that one would blind-from it from the inside of the closet. Whoopsie.

 

[thebigh]

There's a really nice touch in this mission that I only just realised:

Spoiler

In the lowest two difficulties, you don't have to go into the undead lair at all. There's just barely enough loot in the ground level area and upper tombs to meet the medium loot goal. So if you're very very thorough you can avoid the worst dangers entirely and still run off with enough cash to start your new life.

I'm going to assume that was deliberate. So well done on adding this new approach.

[Sotha]

1 hour ago, thebigh said:

There's a really nice touch in this mission that I only just realised:

  Hide contents

In the lowest two difficulties, you don't have to go into the undead lair at all. There's just barely enough loot in the ground level area and upper tombs to meet the medium loot goal. So if you're very very thorough you can avoid the worst dangers entirely and still run off with enough cash to start your new life.

I'm going to assume that was deliberate. So well done on adding this new approach.

It was sort of by-accident-by-design.

Spoiler

I placed loot naturally as I went on with the mapping and then noticed that there is almost enough so that catacombs are unnecessary, liked it, and fine tuned it so that the end result is what you see.

 

[Heuli]

Thank you Sotha,

a really good little mission, I had a lot of fun. I think it's good that you wrote that you worked on the mission for 30 hours, that's an important message, everyone should do that

[STRUNK]

Thanks for this fun little mission Sotha!!
I'm still wondering:
 

Spoiler

The switch that is hidden in the corner of the bookshelf in the priest's "office" ... what does it trigger?

 

[Cambridge Spy]

Here's my playthrough of The Last Offering:

 

 

[Tarhiel]

Nice little mission

I had only one problem, I assume somebody might have already report it before me: 

 

Spoiler

When frobbing the secret lever in the high priest´s library, nothing happens. I had to noclip inside and continue from there

 

[Sotha]

Spoiler

9 hours ago, STRUNK said:

Thanks for this fun little mission Sotha!!
I'm still wondering:
 

  Hide contents

The switch that is hidden in the corner of the bookshelf in the priest's "office" ... what does it trigger?

 

 

1 hour ago, Tarhiel said:

Nice little mission

I had only one problem, I assume somebody might have already report it before me: 

 

  Hide contents

When frobbing the secret lever in the high priest´s library, nothing happens. I had to noclip inside and continue from there

 

 

Spoiler

Oops, looks like I forgot the lever into the library.

In an early version, the door to the small room with the chest and the trap was indeed in the library and the lever in the bookcase opened it.

But I decided to move the door into the bedroom side so that you can enter through the cabinet. That I think was more fun. The lever to the cabinet secret door is on the wall next to the cabinet (get on the bed to see it.)

The original lever in the library I forgot apparently to delete. It does nothing.

So you found a developer-legacy-Easter-egg-secret even the author was unaware of! Congrats!

 

[thebigh]

I played the mission like 12 times and I didn't find that XD.

[Tarhiel]

13 hours ago, thebigh said:

I played the mission like 12 times and I didn't find that XD.

Now I feel really kinda (professional deformation) special

[Zerush]

An excellent little mission, just difficult enough to not lose interest if played several times. Very good amount of detail in such a small map. Congratulations, added to favorites.

[Bergante]

puh-ha
Okay @Sotha
i´ll have to give my response before having it done like i want to 

sadly i have to tell about my only but sure the most innocent victim in my supGhost-Run

your demanded : o-Save run should be possible ! 
your on difficult expected Ghost-Run is possible ! 
a Supreme-Ghost-Run is randomly possible !?! 

a Zero-Save + Supreme-Ghost is impossible  !!! 
 

Spoiler

1.: The guard sleeping in the barracks will make it impossible (in the end!) 
     to leave the yard unseen (Sup.Ghost does not extinguish light sources! )
--- so he must become a victim of the undead!

2.: so to asure about - one has to do one save before opening the down-crypt !

3.: if one tries to sup.Ghost ! : this one Save ( or an other ) has to be done before taking the zepter --- 
     because it is nearly impossible to kill the Chief-Undead without getting Suspicious / alarms 
     normally one will allways get 2-searches
I once killed him with 3 holy water arrows, but got a suspicion - 
Later, this was never possible again!
I think his defense after the first hit makes it almost impossible to do him enough damage with the two more
sadly It does not seem to be possible to vaccinate the puddles

i will go on to do a 1-Save Sup.Ghost-Run 
and maybe there will be only one (but the right) undead´s victim - 
or better none and i´ll bust my run by using one water-arrow to escape  

ahh - a nice hiding place if timing gets wrong 

[Sotha]

Ah, just to clarify: I don't consider ghosting (no AI interaction, no tool use) normal play style in the sense that I would specifically design my missions to be ghostable.

I'm more interested in providing a challenge and tool use is expected to overcome those challenges. Ghosting may be possible, but could be extremely difficult.

All the ways to enjoy TDM are of course correct, if it brings the player joy.

I was curious for people playing without saving, because I've seen many playthrough videos (with no tool use) where the player saves constantly. That could mean that the player probably reloads every time when things do not go as they wanted. Those players can see only the "unalerted AI side" of TDM and are missing out all the gameplay that arises when the AI detects the player somehow.

[hightide]

On 11/18/2024 at 8:45 PM, Sotha said:

  Hide contents

 

 

  Hide contents

Oops, looks like I forgot the lever into the library.

In an early version, the door to the small room with the chest and the trap was indeed in the library and the lever in the bookcase opened it.

But I decided to move the door into the bedroom side so that you can enter through the cabinet. That I think was more fun. The lever to the cabinet secret door is on the wall next to the cabinet (get on the bed to see it.)

The original lever in the library I forgot apparently to delete. It does nothing.

So you found a developer-legacy-Easter-egg-secret even the author was unaware of! Congrats!

 

I found the one that doesn't do anything, but not the one that works  time to load it back up.

there was also an issue with the puddle in the northern tunnel of the lowest level not reflecting the ceiling properly from some angles.

 

this was a fun one; a bit of sneaking around at the beginning, followed by a bit unrepentant destruction at the end.

I liked the AI wearing items in a way I hadn't seen before!

[Bergante]

19 minutes ago, Sotha said:

Ah, just to clarify: I don't consider ghosting (no AI interaction, no tool use) normal play style in the sense that I would specifically design my missions to be ghostable.

I'm more interested in providing a challenge and tool use is expected to overcome those challenges. Ghosting may be possible, but could be extremely difficult.

All the ways to enjoy TDM are of course correct, if it brings the player joy.

I was curious for people playing without saving, because I've seen many playthrough videos (with no tool use) where the player saves constantly. That could mean that the player probably reloads every time when things do not go as they wanted. Those players can see only the "unalerted AI side" of TDM and are missing out all the gameplay that arises when the AI detects the player somehow.

Ah . just to clarify : 
yeah ; your optional is just not to be seen 
the way i mostly use saves is to test the possibility of doing some thing 
(climbing to get to places - you may not used to go- ; testing an idea - and yes the best way to get around unseen )
and yes doing so sometimes needs a lot of quick-load ( like killing your special undead without suspicious ! ) 

Playing without saves : ? have you done HazardPay ?
the best mission i ever played (for many - and some privat reasons ) 
with limited Save-Options , so you need to be sure if and where you want to save 

but your point of missed actions when alert starts --- mmm ?!?
it´s mostly only going for a - run and hide - or - go for a fight
for that - many players go for a BlackJack-Rally 
it´s very rare that i discovered something funny/interessting/extraordinary happen by alertness
( and often one has to wait a very long time to have people calm down ) 
 

Spoiler

this happened to me in HazardPay :

for an unknown reason they suddenly all got nervous and had a Party meeting 
( in my privat Video i did , i choose DJ´-Oetzi "Live is life" as Background Music )

P.s. is there a way to use mines when held in hand ?
"U" place it where you are , when held in hand it gets back to inventory , layed down - they are inactive - so ???
 

[Zerush]

I played it with 0 score in difficult mode, but Ghosting, I think is too challenging at least for me in this Mission.one more Mine for the undeath would be nice, holy water isn't very efficient, too much shoots needed (>3) in TDM, not usefull when there are several undeath.

[snatcher]

On 11/16/2024 at 5:33 PM, Sotha said:

I challenge you to play this short mission without saving or loading!

My cup of tea

BUT

I BJ'ed a guy 20 mins into the mission and he died. Not your fault (game bug) but all considered mappers probably shouldn't make the mission fail but the objective.

Thanks for this mission @Sotha, time to go back to my cave and try again in a night or two

[Oleron]

Neat mission. I love...

Spoiler

...undead invasions.

I had...

Spoiler

...disabled the mine at the top of the forbidden catacomb...

...wondering if it would be factor later. As soon as I saw the...

Spoiler

...Hammer Haunt and Zombie race (or shuffle rather, depending) up the stairs...

...I was like 'lol, yup" =D The...

Spoiler

...Hammmerites took care of them with a few casualties, unfortunately including Lady Elvira's sweet daughter.

I should have...

Spoiler

...sapped her and put her out of harms way...

...as I had a feeling what was going to happen. I'm a softie like that.

 

Anyway, cool mission.

[Oleron]

4 hours ago, snatcher said:

....I BJ'ed a guy 20 mins into the mission and he died....

Um, phrasing?