Fan Mission: "The Maybury Idol, Part 1: A Trip to the Museum"

[Jnon]

"Out of all the districts in Bridgeport, the Pagan Quarter is probably the second worst... it's certainly the last place I'd want to live. Sadly, I don't have a choice in the matter."

It's with great pleasure that I present my third Dark Mod FM, "The Maybury Idol, Part 1: A Trip to the Museum"

https://www.thedarkmod.com/missiondetails/?internalName=maybury1

 

This is the first in a planned 4-part series which is largely already plotted out to conclusion, and I'm planning to get started on Part 2 soon. Compared to the last FM I submitted, this one is a lot more linear and story-driven, but it also includes conversations and a mid-mission cutscene... which along with learning some basic scripting has really opened up a lot of possibilities in mission creation, and I'm looking forward to putting the lessons learned here to use in future.

I'd like to thank everybody in the Beta Testing thread for ironing out the many, many wrinkles that came up and for offering helping advice in how to patch up the map's shortcomings: @Baal, @Cambridge Spy, @Bikerdude, @wesp5, @Bergante, @Keruah, and @tapewolf

I hope you enjoy it.

[Baal]

Congratulations! It was fun testing this. There a lots of cool ideas in here, and a few "nice" suprises. Well done.

[chakkman]

I really liked the museum in Thief: Deadly Shadows, so, looking forward to this.  

[Keruah]

Great little mission. Liked it a lot. Two things were missing for my taste: more rooms to loot, especially in the sealed quarter, and, I was really anticipating that, after we get the statue, the dead would rise and patrol the area. But, otherwise, a fun to play, atmospheric mission. Ambiance is off the charts, and I like that it leaves an open ending and a seed for a sequel. Been fun to test it! Cheers

[Knüppelaufdierübe]

A few things that didn't quite work or seemed off:

Spoiler

After exiting the elevator shaft through the broken door and passing the room with the 2 crawlies, I walked through (literally through) the inclined section and got stuck under it.

Seems I unknowingly killed someone in the pagan quarter (I didn't). The objective was crossed out. Or is it supposed to do that no matter what?

I could go through the north east gate before finding out anything about the thugs. And there, I could pass the invisible wall on the right side and just walk around behind the stage.

That said, how do you

Spoiler

clear the thugs objective?

 

Edited July 10 by Knüppelaufdierübe

[Jnon]

3 hours ago, Knüppelaufdierübe said:

Spoiler

After exiting the elevator shaft through the broken door and passing the room with the 2 crawlies, I walked through (literally through) the inclined section and got stuck under it.
...
I could go through the north east gate before finding out anything about the thugs. And there, I could pass the invisible wall on the right side and just walk around behind the stage.

Oh dear... these never came up in testing, I'll have to see if I can replicate them. The latter at least is probably just a clip brush misplacement.

3 hours ago, Knüppelaufdierübe said:

Spoiler

Seems I unknowingly killed someone in the pagan quarter (I didn't). The objective was crossed out. Or is it supposed to do that no matter what?

Spoiler

The "no kill" and "don't harm innocents" objectives should be marked as Canceled/Invalid rather than Failed. They're justified by the plot point of trying to keep a low profile, which (once the thugs show up) are no longer relevant. This is to avoid any confusion where the player might think they can't kill the thugs, when it's perfectly valid to both want and be able to.

 

3 hours ago, Knüppelaufdierübe said:

Spoiler

how do you clear the thugs objective?

Spoiler

One of the two thugs in Kasper's house have a frobable note you can pickpocket or take which outlines their instructions and who sent them. Reading it and then closing the readable clears the objective.

 

Edited July 11 by Jnon

[Knüppelaufdierübe]

7 hours ago, Jnon said:

  Hide contents

One of the two thugs in Kasper's house have a frobable note you can pickpocket or take which outlines their instructions and who sent them. Reading it and then closing the readable clears the objective.

Oh ... I'm an idiot

(I had the thing already, just forgot to look at it)

[waxhead]

Thanks for this fun little mission. Great atmosphere, but it would have been fun if there was a bit more to do at the end after dealing with the tugs. Also thanks for making a mission that was so varied, which means you don't (easily) loose track of where you have been or where you are supposed to go.

By the way:
Played on TheDarkMod V2.15 #11349 on Debian Testing.
The game unexpectedly exited (no logs found) when coming back and meeting the tugs, but it worked on the second try (reloaded savegame).

Edited July 11 by waxhead

[RedNoodles]

Congrats on the release! Played through it yesterday and had a lot of fun.

The museum was awesome, I took my time exploring it and read every plaque. LOL at the "moorish" exhibition

Oh and the map to the second part of the mission looks awesome.

Not sure if this is a bug:

Spoiler

The slow match does not ignite the coal. I had to use a fire arrow.

Looking forward to the rest of the series!

[kin]

I enjoyed the mission and found it challenging in the

Spoiler

museum

. I would love to see larger missions from you

[chumbucket91]

Completed in 1hr7min with about 2100 loot on the Normal difficulty.
This mission was pretty fun! I liked the overall level layout and the little side areas and stories in all the readables.

The museum itself was a nice challenge to get through, and felt like it worked well with TDM's mechanics and engine - I distinctly recall hiding in dynamic shadows behind the bar counter in the cafe area, behind open doors, on top of display cases, and lots of other locations because of all the torch bearers. Good stuff!

The map did a great job building tension in the plague district section, which I quite liked. The first path through the district felt quite creepy even though it turned out to be a relatively empty section of the map. The return trip after the museum sort of suffered for that same emptiness, though - the tension is gone after you've gone through it once. Maybe there ought to have been a shortcut back to the starting area after you get the statue, or some surprises spawn in the plague district after you get the objective? I did find the sort of half-shortcut, and used it, but I feel like that section of gameplay could have used something more.

There were polish issues with the geometry that took me out of the experience a bit - I saw some light leaks (things that ought to be solid and in the dark, but were very brightly lit) and z fighting in the rafters of the museum and at the bottom of the maintenance shaft in the sewer section. The front of the church and the back hallway down to its tomb were conspicuously flat and boxy, the rafters in the museum didn't really look like they were held up by anything, and I think the columns at the front of the museum could have used bases and crowns.
This is like a 7-7.5/10 for me. Good stuff! Excited to see more in the series.

Edited July 11 by chumbucket91

[DavyJones]

Nice fm, congrats!

Finished on difficult level with 2735 loot

I only have a question about delivered key, where I may use it?

Edited July 11 by DavyJones

[RedNoodles]

1 hour ago, DavyJones said:

Nice fm, congrats!

Finished on difficult level with 2735 loot

I only have a question about delivered key, where I may use it?

Spoiler

Check the room above the museum bar

 

[Jnon]

11 hours ago, RedNoodles said:

Not sure if this is a bug:

 

Spoiler

To confirm, are you using it correctly? I didn't know this at first, but the Slow Match needs to be dropped from inventory, then carried, rotated point-first and moved into the furnace to ignite it. When I first started playing TDM, I mistakenly assumed it could just be used from inventory like a key or a readable.

 

Edited July 12 by Jnon

[Jnon]

9 hours ago, chumbucket91 said:

The map did a great job building tension in the plague district section, which I quite liked. The first path through the district felt quite creepy even though it turned out to be a relatively empty section of the map. The return trip after the museum sort of suffered for that same emptiness, though - the tension is gone after you've gone through it once.

This was the intent for the initial trip through (since zombies in the Plague Ward is kind of a trope, I wanted that hanging in the air only to never actually happen). But in hindsight, I agree with the return trip.

I did add the lever in the small gatehouse on street level to allow for mostly skipping the sewer on the trip back, but it is still rather long and could have been tightened up. Still, glad you enjoyed it. Thanks.

[taffernicus]

congratz on the release

Is this supposed to be impassable or not? Because I can't get out this way :

Spoiler

 

 

 

that's in the building where Jeffery Combs is located

i'm on TDM 2.14

Edited July 12 by taffernicus

[taffernicus]

I saw a strange black texture on this cabinet in the

Spoiler

clerk's office

Spoiler

 

 

[wesp5]

8 hours ago, Jnon said:

 

  Hide contents

To confirm, are you using it correctly? I didn't know this at first, but the Slow Match needs to be dropped from inventory, then carried, rotated point-first and moved into the furnace to ignite it. When I first started playing TDM, I mistakenly assumed it could just be used from inventory like a key or a readable.

 

That's why I replaced it with the easier to use flint in the Unofficial Patch ! Which also wouldn't go out under water...

Edited July 12 by wesp5

[chakkman]

3 hours ago, taffernicus said:

Jeffery Combs

 

Named after the very similarly named actor?

Edited July 12 by chakkman

[Jnon]

6 hours ago, taffernicus said:

Is this supposed to be impassable or not? Because I can't get out this way

No, that's definitely supposed to be passable. There's an invisible brush over each doorway that's meant to block opening the latch from outside as well as NPCs arbitrarily opening it, but frobbing the latch from the inside is supposed to remove them. In dozens of playthroughs, I never once had a problem with not being able to go through those doorways, and I'm really curious how that happened.

 

3 hours ago, chakkman said:

Named after the very similarly named actor?

Quite by coincidence, I was watching DS9 around the time I was working on this part of the map 

[Zerush]

Congrats, I enjoyed a lot in this mission (Difficult level).  

[RedNoodles]

14 hours ago, Jnon said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

To confirm, are you using it correctly? I didn't know this at first, but the Slow Match needs to be dropped from inventory, then carried, rotated point-first and moved into the furnace to ignite it. When I first started playing TDM, I mistakenly assumed it could just be used from inventory like a key or a readable.

 

You're right! Just tried it again and it worked. I had completely forgotten how to use it.

[Knüppelaufdierübe]

Did the whole thing a second time for good measure. Could not reproduce glitching through the floor this time.

 

It is a fun little mission as an opener to a series, although I have 2 small nitpicks:

The plague section felt a bit empty (I get why, from a story perspective, but just a little bit more player engagement would have been nice).

General thing regarding scripted events (issue in several missions, I think): Plan ahead for what you don't expect the player to do (which sounds a little contradictory, now that I read it). If there is an event the player might want to tweak in their favour and you suggest to the player that the option exists, that option better work.

Spoiler

In this case: If you give the player the freedom to drag the "inactive" undead away, don't just ignore that in the scripted event where said undead goes live.

Best solution: Have another event ready for players trying to be clever. Probably a lot of work.

Workaround: Just don't give the player the freedom to seemingly intervene in the first place. For example, don't place the undead where the player can interact with it (have it come out of a coffin instead or something), or make it immovable.

 

Edited July 12 by Knüppelaufdierübe

[hightide]

16 hours ago, taffernicus said:

congratz on the release

Is this supposed to be impassable or not? Because I can't get out this way :

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

that's in the building where Jeffery Combs is located

i'm on TDM 2.14

I had this issue in the smith's shop and the bloodroot flophouse; the door doesn't frob, but the deadbolt does. the deadbolt doesn't unlatch, but the door swings in anyway. I think the game thinks the door is still closed.

 

I've made it through the sewers and now I'm struggling to progress. I found a locked door in the apartments above, and a blocked gate in the canal around the corner. Did I miss something, or forgotten how to play Dark Mod?

[covert_caedes]

Can't you open the locked door with lockpicks?