Fan Mission: Chalice of Kings by Fidcal (2009/10/17)

[N o i r]

Just played this mission, great fun. I appreciate the (relative) complexity in the lights + guards pattern, this is indeed a mission that someone that is familiar with ghosting thought for fellow ghosters.

 

I ended up with a stealth score of 10, in a hurried re-play this afternoon. Saved three times, never reloaded - could do better but don't have too much free time those days.

 

As others said the only "choke point" for me was the initial passage from the kitchen to the main mansion - after that, everything was trivial until the infamous "crown swap". Tried that one for the first time, so I saved before - went smooth at first try.

 

Two questions:

-if I use a Noisemaker, does it affects my stealth score?

-if the guards see the missing crown or a badly placed fake one, does this affects my stealth score?

 

Thanks, and GREAT work! Have you created any other FM's for either Dark Mod or Thief 2?

[Guest john]

After buying the items, during the loading process doom3 crashes. I tried it many times.

 

My system:

 

 

CPU: AMD Phenom™ II X4 965 Processor (3415.74 MHz)

4 GB RAM (3326 MB accessible)

Microsoft Windows 7 32-bit Service Pack 1 (Build 7601)

GeForce GTX 460/PCIe/SSE2/3DNOW!

OpenGL Version: 4.2.0

Edited September 30, 2012 by john

[ECHELON]

You have to set english in your menu.

 

This bug should be fixed after 1.08.

Edited September 30, 2012 by ECHELON

[demagogue]

Two questions:

-if I use a Noisemaker, does it affects my stealth score?

-if the guards see the missing crown or a badly placed fake one, does this affects my stealth score?

 

The only thing that affects the stealth score is a guard going on any alert. If you click the little "down" arrow on the stats page, you can even see exactly how it's calculated. It's just every alert * it's severity. So if you shot a noisemaker in a forest where no one hears it, it won't affect the score. But if a guard hears it & goes on alert because of it, it'll count towards the score. If a guard sees the crown missing, this depends on how the mapper set it up. For normal loot, the guard won't go on alert. But for special loot, the mapper can have the guard notice it's missing, and he'll go on alert, and again that will count towards the score... Not seeing it missing per se, but just the alert he goes on if it's set up for that (which I believe that crown is; if it's missing, but not if you replace it).

[mikenowo]

I enjoyed Chalice quite a bit!

 

Two questions:

Is the false brick supposed to hide anything, or are we to assume someone else got there first? The room owner did suspect someone of stealing his things. Also, is there a way to open that armory room?

 

Neither prevented finishing the mission, but I'm still wondering.

 

Peispud (spoiler) :

Look up, down all around

 

 

mikenowo (spoiler) :

I've looked around Hodge's room but can't find this brick you speak of?

 

[Oldjim]

Re questions above

the brick, from memory, is beside the bed behind the shield tapestry but it you aren't careful when you frob it the money behind gets pushed down into the wall and you can't get it. You just need to be careful that you only pull it not push it

Edited November 20, 2012 by Oldjim

[Oldjim]

Replaying this mission on 1.08 and the description at the start seems to be truncated.

 

 

If you are going to fix this it might be worth editing the objectives - don't kill nobody should be don't kill anybody

[Oldjim]

Just played it again under 2.0 and it may be just me but the first part in the hall area it seems much more difficult not letting the guard see you

[Bikerdude]

Afternoon

 

With the help of Xarg, nbhor, A-haste, Oldjim & others this map has now been updated to tdm 2.03. It has better textures, lighting and slightly increased gameplay difficulty.

 

Enjoy

 

[nbohr1more]

Bikerdude and Xarg have really outdone themselves on this fixup project.

 

Don't skip this update even if you've played this mission a few hundred times!

[Goldwell]

Oh awesome going to give this a play through tonight!

[Springheel]

Is there something wrong with a particle somewhere? None of the fireplaces had flames, just sparks going up.

[nbohr1more]

There are a number of fireplaces which are at the end of the flame and are just producing embers.

 

There's probably a better way to convey that though... more additive glowing wood, more smoke?

[Bikerdude]

There's probably a better way to convey that though... more additive glowing wood, more smoke?

yeah, we could do with a glowing skin/texture for all of out log models.

[nbohr1more]

Nice min-update with the fixed fireplace changes!

 

Gotta check elsewhere but thus far no guards are reacting to noise arrows in this mission?

[Bikerdude]

Gotta check elsewhere but thus far no guards are reacting to noise arrows in this mission?

Eh, even if the guard and the arrow are in the same viz-leaf..?

[nbohr1more]

Yeah, in two different spots I've fired noise-maker arrows and the Guards failed to even acknowledge them.

In one case, the arrow was in the corner of the same room they were in... the other case the arrow was down the

same hallway.

 

I need to go on a noise-arrow spree in a few missions to check and see if it's a more widespread problem.

[athalle]

It seems that I'm always late... Thank you for this update !

[Goldwell]

Fantastic mission! A TDM classic for sure, there were a couple of bugs here and there but overall very fun.

 

I never actually finished the original and started playing it a while ago so i'm not sure how much the update added however the new version is incredibly detailed and has fantastic gameplay.

 

Overall though this mission really reminds me why I love The Dark Mod and just makes me want more FM's to play!

 

Thanks to all involved

[nbohr1more]

FYI. If you didn't get your version some time after 3pm est today, you will be missing Bikers last fixes for the noise arrow behavior and how the fireplace damage behavior works. Mostly minor changes but that would cover any bugs I can think of. Feel free to update with anything else but today's version is probably the final one for a long while.

[Oktokolo]

With the help of Xarg, nbhor, A-haste, Oldjim & others this map has now been updated to tdm 2.03. It has better textures, lighting and slightly increased gameplay difficulty.

I played the old version a long time ago and somehow the new one feels much more immersive regardless of myself remembering some guard patterns and loot locations.

 

I tried to look for quirks but found only minor ones:

 

 

Right at the start the skybox is visible through a small gap between the two wings of the gate to the streets:

 

The lack of ground outside the building is visible through the Windows in the armory (stars where ground should be are not visible due to reduced image size):

 

I got stuck at a chest and had to noclip away:

 

The chalice was not frobable from any direction at first. After lowering and raising the cage again, frobbing worked.

 

The ambient sound in the chalice room is a bit loud (EAX 4.0 HD is off).

 

 

[V-Man339]

Another perfect notch added to the belt.

 

The inclusion of a decoy to avoid triggering guards is wonderful, I hope I can see more of that at some point in the future.

[CountMorillonite]

For me, Chalice Of Kings had a list of loot that couldn't be picked up, including The Chalice, so I couldn't complete this mission. Waiting patiently for 2.06.

 

btw....If I come across loot that won't highlight, no matter how much I contort and squirm around it, I go into "clip mode". If the item refuses to highlight, I know it's not a problem of positioning, but a bug. Having said that, there was an occasion or two where going to a previous save somehow changed the "environment" and the loot item miraculously highlighted.

[nbohr1more]

Small update:

 

There were two oil lamps on the lower floor that were inexplicably set to noshadows even though there

was no game-play (no way to hide, too small a hallway), visual (no ugly shadow casting), or performance benefit (small hallway)

so I set them back to shadow casting.

[thebigh]

Awesome mission! A good, old-fashioned mansion heist. I finished with all the loot and a stealth score of 4. I loved how there were multiple ways to get to most places in the mission, with only a few irritating choke points. Grabbing the

Spoiler

death mask from above the fireplace in the dining hall was a bit dicey, but exhilerating once I was up there.

On the off chance this ever needs to be updated again, I found two tiny oddities:

Spoiler

• The door to Hodge's room opens too wide and clips through the chair in the corner
• Ditto for the door at the top of the spiral staircase. It clips through the geometry as well.

Overall I rated this 9.5 colourful keys out of 10.