T2 FM: Thief II - The Golden Project - First City College (8-VII-09) - by Bulgarian_Taffer
intruder on 8/7/2009 at 14:01
I played through the mission and noticed some things that should be changed:
1. Guards with huge scrolls attached to their belts look rather strange :weird:
2. All sitting persons do not respond to you. A sitting guard wanted to attack me while stil sitting on a chair. He moved and turned around on his chair but never hit me. Seems like you've forgotten to add an alert response.
3. You used the original Thief 2 bookcase secret door in one big room (I think it was the art gallery). This object has no real texture on its left and right side, only a strange greenish colour. And you forgot to uncheck the "Blocks Vision" property and therefor each of the bookcases has a black square in its center.
4. The typical ambient when starting a mission can be triggered each time you enter the area where you started (next to the tree). I think you used the
m00start-schema. It should be triggered only once...
5. Why do all the students rooms look identical? I'm a student myself living in an rooming house for students and although all rooms have the same layout, each one is looking different (wallpapers, furniture...).
6. You should change the textures in this room:
(
http://s7b.directupload.net/images/090708/c8y8j48h.jpg)
Inline Image:
http://s7b.directupload.net/images/090708/temp/c8y8j48h.jpgPlease don't get me wrong, but it seems to me that this mission has been released to early.
Esme on 8/7/2009 at 14:11
excellent ... another reason not to get on with my own mission :cheeky:
oo Bulgarian_Taffer could you (or a mod) add a release date to the thread title please so I don't see this in six months and think it's a new release, I have a very short memory :thumb:
Bulgarian_Taffer on 8/7/2009 at 14:12
I will think about improving the mission, but it won't happen these days or even weeks
Quote:
I'm a student myself living in an rooming house for students and although all rooms have the same layout, each one is looking different (wallpapers, furniture...).
Hahaaa, you have to visit Bulgaria :)
Now seriously: It's because of multibrushing. It was intended to speed up development.
I know this mission is far from perfect. OMs in Thief 1/2 had a rooms with one or two textures like the one you criticize. Bafford's and Ramirez, for example.
Stath MIA on 8/7/2009 at 21:18
I've played through most of the mission and I generally like it but I've found a number of rather deadly bugs:
1. When a civilian sees me doing something illegal they respond by entering permanent search mode, they search for and follow me around not alerting the guards and never enter the proper panic mode
2. Guards, and civilians for that matter, don't care if I carry bodies, if they are on the ground the guards immediately try to kill me but if I don't put them down they could care less.
3. Many doors don't block AI's LOS allowing Mechs to attack me without warning
4. I can steal whatever I want and no one cares
5. The map is horribly inaccurate, it is barely even comparable to the actual mission
6. There appears to be no way into the map area marked Hamms
Swiz on 8/7/2009 at 21:33
Quote Posted by Stath MIA
5. The map is horribly inaccurate, it is barely even comparable to the actual mission
North is to the right, which threw me.
Bulgarian_Taffer on 8/7/2009 at 21:46
The mission is medium-sized and you don't need a map. What you only need is to know where the dangerous spots with Mechanist are so you can avoid them. The map was included in the very last moment.
What makes me wonder is that you really complain about so little and so silly things that are common in many FMs... Do you want me to give examples? The bug in the Oh Dear FM that causes to stay under the elevator forever? Or the prisoners in Lord Ashton - Mission 3 who are calling the guards when you rescue them? Or the civilians who enter permanent search mode in 70% of the FMs I've played?
In the end: If you don't like it, don't play it. :D Or make something better. Thief II Gold missions were released in 2006 and nobody started working on them for three years.
darthsLair on 8/7/2009 at 22:47
Congratulations on Your Release B_T!:thumb: Very Good Work!:thumb:
A simple explanation for some of the AI reactions, is that Darius is Welcomed by all factions (as it says in the intro story line) except by the Mechanist faction, who are guarding their secrets among other things. The suspicion was and is that the Mechanist were behind the vanishing of Alun. Darius is only there to investigate to find the answers. The booty is part of the game, and how many thieves in the World are not willing to take a chance to improve their livelyhood even with a chance of being caught. It is an in and out style. The sitting AI are there for props more or less....students in a class room. They will not respond to Darius as he is considered to be a new coming student to the College.
The ambient start would only be triggered more than once if the player had a second reason for exploring the Archer on patrol near the camp fire, and to find moss arrows ect., the player will want to search a wide span, not covering the same ground twice. The ambient start also tells the player that he has been here before, as in some complicated large city missions where the final objective is to return to where you started. This can be a good feature.
Like Bulgarian_Taffer has stated, this release is to get a Positive or Negative reaction which would determine if he continues his work on the Gold at all.
Constructive criticism is for the Community as well as the Author of an fm, but also what must be considered is that time is taken from real life to fulfill something for everyone that can be enjoyable if they are not always looking for perfection. This concept could kill an Authors motivation for trying to reach perfection, because of this perfection like anticipation. Sometimes due to each individuals perception, good, bad, perfect, imperfect and so on cannot be standardized by no means. Maybe only alittle by percentage, or ratings by the multitudes, and even after years be known even more.
In my opinion This was a job well done for a trial run to gauge the popularity of the intermixed story lines which again in my opinion are well suited for Thief 2 the Metal age beginning and ending saga. (my opinion)
I really do wish for some more Gold adventures B_T, and I look forward to another story in the future. Again, Job Well done!:thumb:
intruder on 8/7/2009 at 22:52
Bulgarian_Taffer, you shouldn't take it personal. You created a mission that is fun to play with great capabilities. I'm speaking of capabilities because it left me with the feeling that it has been released too early.
Quote Posted by Stath MIA
4. I can steal whatever I want and no one cares
This is a good example of what I mean. Your Fm isn't the ordinary "break into house X and steal Y gold"-mission. You created a undercover mission which is cool - but looting the place while guards are watching you breaks the immersion. Just take the T1 OM Undercover as example: you were not allowed to enter several rooms, if you did and someone spotted you - you were in big trouble! Same with stealing when they where looking at you...
Quote Posted by Bulgarian_Taffer
Thief II Gold missions were released in 2006 and nobody started working on them for three years.
Which doesn't mean that player's can't make proposals or report things they noticed to the author ;)
Stath MIA on 8/7/2009 at 22:58
Quote Posted by Bulgarian_Taffer
The mission is medium-sized and you don't need a map. What you only need is to know where the dangerous spots with Mechanist are so you can avoid them. The map was included in the very last moment.
What makes me wonder is that you really complain about so little and so silly things that are common in many FMs... Do you want me to give examples? The bug in the Oh Dear FM that causes to stay under the elevator forever? Or the prisoners in Lord Ashton - Mission 3 who are calling the guards when you rescue them? Or the civilians who enter permanent search mode in 70% of the FMs I've played?
In the end: If you don't like it, don't play it. :D Or make something better. Thief II Gold missions were released in 2006 and nobody started working on them for three years.
Oh, don't be that way. I really did enjoy it, I said as much before. I was just trying to offer constructive criticism and inform you of bugs which you might otherwise have missed. I'm sorry if you took that as a slap in the face, I assure you that was not my intention. I really appreciate the work you are doing and wholeheartedly hope you continue on with your noble goal of bringing these lost missions to life.
With utmost sincerity,
Matt
Gloria Creep on 8/7/2009 at 23:26
I don't get it Taffers.
Why all of this stress about this mission.
I betatested it and I didn't find all those bugs you're talking about. OK. once in a while a guard could walk through a part of a door, when it was open, but never through a closed door. This happens a lot in other FM's, but I don't consider that a big bug myself.
And I never would consider to analize the Thief OM storyline, when I would make a FM of my own.
I would just write my story and put in all the stuff I was cabable to put in.
I now for a fact that B_T has been thinking of this, since he didn't make the masks pickable. I never would have thought of that, so when I asked him about this, he informed me of the logic in it.
My compliments are for Bulgarian_Taffer, who gave us another great mission to play. It took time for him to do so, as it took time for the testers.
I, for one, enjoyed it very much :thumb:
Gloria Creep :angel: