Lightningline on 1/8/2019 at 01:59
Angel loader don't show the mission at all. If I select show junk then it shows with a red circle saying the file is junk. I don't understand. I had to fight like hell to make Patriot work. I thought this Angel Loader was the latest and greatest. If anything its junk. :( I would never say someone's mission is junk though I may not like them all. Darkloader sees it and would load it though the author said not to try so I am not.
DirkBogan on 1/8/2019 at 02:14
Did you download the Taffers Paradise zip file? If so, please download one of the .7z files (Google Drive, Southquarter etc.). I have just tested that these work with AngelLoader. The .zip file on Taffers Paradise has to be manually extracted, because this archive was unfortunately repacked with the wrong folder structure.
Renault on 1/8/2019 at 03:07
Awesome mission, congrats to DirkBogan. A dream for anyone who likes to explore and scour for loot. Some of the building and interior designs were just wild, stuff I could never personally come up with. I'd say a good deal of influence from The Sword, while still being subtle and not getting overly weird or surreal. Great mission overall, anxious to check out your next one.
Speaking of loot, I only came up with about 6600, so I'm guessing I missed some areas. Where is this area I read about with a bunch of masks? Also, there's a door just south of the Grand Old Hall, down one level, that's locked and I never found a way in. It's near a vent in the ground that has steam coming out of it. And I never found a key for the green grocer entrance that is marked with a plaque with the name "Gustal" on it. How do I get in there?
DirkBogan on 1/8/2019 at 04:08
Thanks for your comments, Brethren, and thanks again for hosting both the mission and the beta-testing forum.
When designing the architecture and interiors, I really tried to avoid making 'Just Another Damn City Mission', considering how incredibly high the bar has been set by a dozen well-known authors. Personally, two important things that I think separate good or okay OMs/FMs from the all-time classics are asymmetry and non-90-degree angles, so I made a conscious effort to avoid having lots of square rooms or long rectangular hallways. Since there's lots to explore, I tried to make sure the interiors never got repetitive!
6600 is a perfectly good score; it's in the ballpark of what some very experienced beta-testers got on their first playthrough! To answer your questions:
Room with a bunch of masks: did you discover that some windows open? There is a window in the High Reeve's Office with a Lost City jar on the windowsill. That window opens to the outside of City Hall. From there, there is another tower to your west, with the same sort of window ;)
Doorway near steam vent: Did you find a way into the sewers? If not, you can access it from the Burrowing Burrick pub, a grate in the bushes south of the Bakery, or from the Navenvolk Public Works station. You can access the house in question via a latrine/drop toilet
Gustal the Greengrocer's house: You can either jump from the Bakery sign to his window, or go through the grate with the pipe next to it near the stairs and the bushes. There isn't a key for that door; I probably should have added one inside the house!
I hope that helps! I wanted to include lots of things for players who like jumping and mantling, while avoiding making a mission that was frustrating or boring for players who prefer a more authentic/classic Thief play-style. And thanks again for your kind words!
nicked on 1/8/2019 at 06:14
Quote Posted by DirkBogan
Personally, two important things that I think separate good or okay OMs/FMs from the all-time classics are
asymmetry and
non-90-degree angles,
Also a good way to separate missions which will successfully optimise from missions with too many cells. :laff:
DirkBogan on 1/8/2019 at 06:38
Quote Posted by nicked
Also a good way to separate missions which will successfully optimise from missions with too many cells. :laff:
To be honest, that was a big problem for me when I first started. I would get
SplitPortalPolyhedronByPlane and
remove_poly_edge errors pretty frequently. However, since discovering '
hilight_check_snap 1', which snaps all brushes to 1/16th angles as well as aligning to the grid, I've only had these errors maybe once or twice across hundreds of in-editor hours. That's the reason some of the windows in this mission are weirdly oriented -- it's either that, or a World Rep that refuses to render.
To anybody who wants to start using DromEd, that would be my number one tip: ALWAYS gridsnap by rotation.
MrMunkeepants on 2/8/2019 at 05:15
this mission is an absolute treat!
I'm having trouble getting into the vault at city hall; I've been through the security office and high reeve's office (with the watcher) but found no keys for the portcullis door.
DirkBogan on 2/8/2019 at 05:16
Quote Posted by MrMunkeepants
this mission is an absolute treat!
I'm having trouble getting into the vault at city hall; I've been through the
security office and high reeve's office (with the watcher) but found no keys for the portcullis door.
Vault Key:
the key should be on Captain Ricardo (tall soldier in purple), in the High Reeve's OfficeMrMunkeepants on 3/8/2019 at 08:38
after about 3 hours I think I've gone everywhere but only gotten roughly 8300/10,000 loot.
such a densely packed city! I love FMs like this, with twisty alleys and multi-level traversal puzzles. I can only recall The Warrens right now, any others?
I would have appreciated a secret counter, to get a better idea of what I had missed, but I also just had a tone of fun exploring :)
one bug: the lamppost just outside City Hall servants' entrance is on, but doesn't have a pool of light under it.
DirkBogan on 3/8/2019 at 08:55
Oh no! I'm such an idiot. In the final beta, I added a transparent table object to that Streetlamp, inspired by A Night In Old Quarter, to redress the stock physics box that allows the player to walk under the lamp. I can't believe I didn't notice that it blocked the light :o Man, that was sloppy. Such a pity too, it looked so nice illuminating the blue paint over the industrial brick.
As for the secret counter, Mat99 mentioned it during beta-testing. This was an intentional design omission. I wanted many secrets in the mission, but I'd prefer the player to think for themselves that they had found a secret, not be told so by an arbitrary counter. I often found in Thief 2 OMs that I would get a 'Found Secret' chime for things that felt like routine exploration to me. But of course, this is a matter of personal preference. I'm just not sure where I would have drawn the 'secret/not secret' line in such a convoluted FM!
