Fan Mission: A Winter's Tale by Bikerdude (2024-11-30)

[nbohr1more]

A Winter's Tale

By: Bikerdude

 "One of the few pleasures I have as a man of the thieving profession is to return to my old home town for the holidays and relax in the company of friends and relatives. But a local lord has been going out of his way to making the lives of the locals a miserable."

Notes:

- TDM 2.12 or later is REQUIRED to play this mission.
- This is my entry for the speedbuilding jam.
- This FM should play on the vast majority of systems. I have perf tweaked this map with low end players in-mind. And have moved the globale fog/moon lights to the ‘ better’ LOD level.
- min recommended spec (as per beta testing) Intel Core i7(3rd gen), nvidia 1030 4gb (GDDR5), will get you 60fps inside and 45fps outside.
- Various areas will look better with shadow maps enabled (SoftShadows set to medium/high, Shadows Softness set to zero and LOD set to 'better'), at the possible expense of performance depending on your system specs.
- this mission continues the imperial theme, with this being a border town slightly further out from the main imperial lands than Brouften.
- build time roughly 130hrs.

Download Link:

- (v1.4) - https://discord.com/channels/679083115519410186/1310012992867405855/1310022631415746632

v1.4 changes:

I have been tweaking the LOD levels through-out the map -

- Snow fall has been moved to LOD low/normal.
- world fog moved to LOD better.
- fireplace grills to LOD better.
- world moonlight moved to LOD high.

Other tweaks -
- reduced light counts in all the fireplaces.
- reduced the length of the looping menu video background.
- Some new assets

Gameplay:
- added more ways for the player to get around.
- tweaked existing routes to make some easier or more of a challenge.
- and added an additional option objective.

Credits:

Special thanks go to -

- Nbhor1more, flashing out the briefing and creation of readables.
- Amadeus, Help w/custom objectives, script work, proof reading, mission design & testing.
- Dragofer, for custom scripts and script work for the main objective.
- Baal, for additional tweaking of the main objective and script work,.
- Beta testers: Amadeus, Nbhor1more, Mat99, DavyJones, S1lverwolf, Baal & Dragofer.
- Freesound.org, for ambient tracks, further details in sndshd file.

Speed Jam Thread:

- https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=152747

[nbohr1more]

The mission is now available in the database.

[Zerush]

Very nice enjoyable mission, itself works flawles with a good FPS on my laptop, but saving and loading has terrible lags, even to not respond messages

[chakkman]

Grats to the release.

We're really getting blessed with missions currently, also for Thief Gold and Thief II.

[Johnnytheboy76]

Loving the mission so far. 

Spoiler

Great layout, especially if you love climbing. I have distributed the wealth except for one. Struggling to find it. Still exploring and finding new places though.

 

[werner]

Thanks a lot, Bikerdude, for this new and all of your other missions before!

 

My very first impression of A Winter's Tale: the radio of background sound is far to high, had to reduce volume to stand it and by this I can hear hear the ordinary sound/speech nearly no more.

 

Quote

5 hours ago, Zerush said:

Very nice enjoyable mission, itself works flawles with a good FPS on my laptop, but saving and loading has terrible lags, even to not respond messages

 

There really seems to be something foul on the technical side of this mission, normally by pressing the ESC-key the menue immediatly appears but here it takes 10-20 times longer. Also during play it feel as if something slows down, something doesn't run properly.

 

[pwl]

I can not figure out 

Spoiler

the vault code hint in the journal

it doesn't make any sense to me can someone give me a nudge?

[nbohr1more]

28 minutes ago, pwl said:

I can not figure out 

  Reveal hidden contents

the vault code hint in the journal

it doesn't make any sense to me can someone give me a nudge?

Spoiler

Look around the smoking room for items that match the poem in curmudgeon's readable

 

[nbohr1more]

6 hours ago, Johnnytheboy76 said:

Loving the mission so far. 

  Reveal hidden contents

Great layout, especially if you love climbing. I have distributed the wealth except for one. Struggling to find it. Still exploring and finding new places though.

 

Spoiler

Try exiting alternate windows of the found apartments or looking for semi-open windows

 

[pwl]

Thanks for the hint it got me going again!

[Zerush]

At least I finish it, a little bit struggeling with the safe code and reparting the treasure, the damage I think is from the security cam, which I leave in the need of repair (nice detail with the firearrow)

 

 

[thebigh]

Another nice Bikerdude mission. It's pretty linear without seeming so, and not overly challenging. I only worked out the middle digit of the safe code, but luckily trying 100 combinations isn't very time consuming. Mission looks and feels great, as expected. I thought finding all the neighbours was pretty tedious though.

 

And I really hope

Spoiler

the other thief, whose hideout I found in the rooftops, robs Lord Curmudgeon of his remaining treasures.

 

[Johnnytheboy76]

21 hours ago, nbohr1more said:

  Reveal hidden contents

Try exiting alternate windows of the found apartments or looking for semi-open windows

 

Spoiler

Thanks. I'd already stumbled across all of the apartments. I couldn't the chest in one of the rooms but found it now and completed the mission. Excellent work on this one and I liked being able to redistribute the wealth!

 

 

[Oleron]

Fun mission. It's nice to play Robin Thief for a change, and the town was neat (if a bit cramped). Only one thing is a mystery to me:

Spoiler

I got the first two combination numbers, so of course the third was had in moments,  but I don't know what the final digit signifies...

 

Edited December 3, 2024 by Oleron

[Taquito]

Nice Cozy Mission. Playing right now.

[GUFF]

It ran at a constant 60 fps on a much older cpu (AMD FX-8350) for me. My GPU is more recent but still only a 4gb card.

Wasn't hard to figure out the safe, either. Good hints.

Spoiler

Specifically inside the room you find the readable. If you still couldn't figure it out...

Spoiler

The lady in the painting

The number of lanterns on the bench. I thought it was either this or the number of lights in the room initially so I was going to try both, but the first guess worked.

The number of pillows in the room

 

 

[Oleron]

4 hours ago, GUFF said:

It ran at a constant 60 fps on a much older cpu (AMD FX-8350) for me. My GPU is more recent but still only a 4gb card.

Wasn't hard to figure out the safe, either. Good hints.

  Hide contents

Specifically inside the room you find the readable. If you still couldn't figure it out...

  Hide contents

The lady in the painting

The number of lanterns on the bench. I thought it was either this or the number of lights in the room initially so I was going to try both, but the first guess worked.

The number of pillows in the room

 

 

Spoiler

The number of pillows in the room

 

Aha. Makes sense now...

[hightide]

this one had a great atmosphere, but I had a hard time navigating it. I used the notarget cheat because I couldn't move around the streets without making a small noise someone would hear across the map and come running, then eventually used the noclip cheat because I tried to climb on things that weren't solid (a rope, a street light, etc) and kept falling.

I needed help finding the last of the neighbors - not their home but the chest within it (it was behind a door that could have opened the other way). I also needed help with the safe combo; I would never count on something easily movable by a resident/servant to be the key to a puzzle.

I'm thankful for bikerdude & co's work, but this one ended up being frustrating for me.

[Zerush]

6 hours ago, hightide said:

this one had a great atmosphere, but I had a hard time navigating it. I used the notarget cheat because I couldn't move around the streets without making a small noise someone would hear across the map and come running, then eventually used the noclip cheat because I tried to climb on things that weren't solid (a rope, a street light, etc) and kept falling.

I needed help finding the last of the neighbors - not their home but the chest within it (it was behind a door that could have opened the other way). I also needed help with the safe combo; I would never count on something easily movable by a resident/servant to be the key to a puzzle.

I'm thankful for bikerdude & co's work, but this one ended up being frustrating for me.

The mission is not that difficult, but certainly it is not the most suitable for a not so experienced TDM player either. You can alleviate stealth in the game by setting nearly deaf and nearly blind for the AIs on the difficulty.

It's not too difficult to get to the places either, you can't always get there directly from under a window, but from somewhere else where there are boxes or barrels, stacking boxes, chairs, etc. to reach, using or scaling pipes and ledges to get there, or jumping from a window in front to the other of you. It often needs to explore the environment to see how you can reach a site.

The code is not that difficult either and has already been explained in several messages in this thread.

 

TDM is a game to play it with calm, observing AI and the trayect they do, Guards mostly take the same way up and down, wait the best moment to move when they have passed you..

Edited December 5, 2024 by Zerush

[nbohr1more]

v1.3 is up in the mission database.

Changes:

* Improved objectives display

* Minor bug fixes

* Minor readable fixes

* Optional hidden objective...

[Cambridge Spy]

Here's a playthrough of A Winter's Tale:

 

 

[esme]

Quite enjoyed this one, nice climbing opportunities, thanks

Re the safe

Spoiler

I didn't bother looking for a combination

I built a stack of crates between the camera & the safe, made sure the camera couldn't see me when I was on the other side of it, settled down & brute forced the safe

 

[MirceaKitsune]

What a beautiful FM! I enjoyed every bit of it. Pleasant town design, great story, great execution of this story through the world and objectives. Haven't found any secrets so I presume there just aren't any?

As far as issues go, only noticed one area from which you can see the sky brush cut through a building behind it: You can see it if you climb over the church wall through the balcony then look behind.

One more issue otherwise, not sure if it was fixed in the updated version which I only noticed later, will spoiler this one as it's related to a story bit.

Spoiler

When you've finished filling the last empty coffer with gold, there's still an objective saying "1 more to go". I'd remove that objective entirely, or better off replace the wealth redistribution objective with it and just change the number: Apart from this bug it also seems redundant to have a whole objective acting as a mere counter.

 

[MirceaKitsune]

Had a little thought in mind I wanted to share, for a little secret objective in case this FM is updated again.

Spoiler

Even if the player is technically not on good terms with the Builders, what if a small part of the dark lord's chest could be donated to the church? You have this tiny donation box which I almost felt bad robbing till I saw the note inside: On my way back I tried to leave some of the safe's contents inside but there wasn't any way which seemed a little meh. Maybe after you fill up everyone's chests, a few coins can be left over which the player may deposit here to achieve a secret objective for a very kind gesture?

 

[nbohr1more]

14 hours ago, MirceaKitsune said:

What a beautiful FM! I enjoyed every bit of it. Pleasant town design, great story, great execution of this story through the world and objectives. Haven't found any secrets so I presume there just aren't any?

As far as issues go, only noticed one area from which you can see the sky brush cut through a building behind it: You can see it if you climb over the church wall through the balcony then look behind.

One more issue otherwise, not sure if it was fixed in the updated version which I only noticed later, will spoiler this one as it's related to a story bit.

  Reveal hidden contents

When you've finished filling the last empty coffer with gold, there's still an objective saying "1 more to go". I'd remove that objective entirely, or better off replace the wealth redistribution objective with it and just change the number: Apart from this bug it also seems redundant to have a whole objective acting as a mere counter.

 

Are you sure you have v1.3 installed ?