[Dark Mod FM] Patently Dangerous (Oct./31/09)

[demagogue]

The Halloween fun continues!

I am happy to announce the release of the first post-release Dark Mod FM: Patently Dangerous by demagogue.

Darkmod.com: http://www.mindplaces.com/darkmod/fmdetails.php?id=6

Mirrors:

Thiefmissions: http://thiefmissions.com/info.cgi?m=PatentlyDangerous
TTLG: http://downloads.ttlg.com/download.aspx?id=2497
Darklurker: http://www.darklurker.com/DarkMod/pa..._dangerous.pk4
Mediafire: http://www.mediafire.com/file/ydimzz..._dangerous.pk4

Briefing:

"Nobody said hypocrisy didn't have its uses. The Inventor's Guild, always so secretive about its own inventions, isn't beyond a little espionage when it comes to the inventions of others.

They've hired me to steal the design notes from a young man named Soren Rikk, just on the outskirts of the Highlands Ward. He's reputed to have made a huge discovery in a field the Inventors have some interest in.

It should be an easy job. Soren isn't known to be a dangerous person."

Notes:

- Thanks to my beta-testers: Fidcal for early testing, Broken Arts & Leatherman, and everybody else that gave comments (basically most of the Dark Mod team ). Thanks also to alacazam for permission to use his cool ambient.

- Notice there is a map in your inventory. The default key-bind "m" will bring it up.

- There have been some reports of a little slow-down near the start on some systems, but it should pick up after that. If performance is slow for you, see the Performance Tweaks wiki entry.

- Enjoy! Happy Halloween everybody.

Screenshots:

[Yandros]

Woohoo! Let the Halloween fun continue! Thanks, downloading now.

[clearing]

Downloading now Thanks

[BrokenArts]

So far this has been my favorite release, it has a bit of everything going on for it. demagogue has a bit of a sick mind as well, which I like. Have fun everyone.

[Namdrol]

Oh dear, more distractions.

But I'm very, very glad of 'em.

[BrokenArts]

This is a great weekend for release of FM's!! Christmas came early this year.

[Briareos H]

This is suffering from the same animated sky bug that makes some of the other beta release exterior missions hardly playable on Radeon 4XXX and 5XXX.



EDIT : Dammit I hadn't seen the recent talks about Catalyst A.I. Turning it off did the trick, FANTASTIC.

[Brethren]

This is suffering from the same animated sky bug that makes some of the other beta release exterior missions hardly playable on Radeon 4XXX and 5XXX.

If this is the same sky bug I was experiencing (where the distant art moves around awkwardly), you need to turn off your Catalyst AI. That fixes everything.

[Tannar]

Congrats, and thanks, demagogue!

[elkston]

Thank you for the release, Demagogue!

I was wondering:

Thanks also to alacazam for permission to use his cool ambient.

Is there music throughout or only in certain areas? I am at the beginning and I cannot hear anything. I'm sure it is fine, but I am just making sure I don't have an error somewhere.

[BrokenArts]

There is a little ambient, you don't hear the same thing through out the town. You're fine, there is no error.

[bdkl]

Thanks demagogue. This looks and plays like what I always hoped a Thief2 sequel would.

[Kin]

Installed the mission fine and started playing but suddenly I had a blackout in the house electricity. After restarting my computer and hit the start mission the mod asks for the doom cd key. I enter my cd key and it tells me it is in use. What can I do?

edit: Ok solved. It seems that the problem was that was using the numpad nubers in the cdkey code.

[BrokenArts]

Did you try rebooting your computer? We're looking it up, the issue.

[Thelvyn]

Downloaded. Uploading to a site now for a mirror will post link when it is up.

Download it here

[BrokenArts]

Glad you got it sorted Kin.

[demagogue]

Is there music throughout or only in certain areas? I am at the beginning and I cannot hear anything. I'm sure it is fine, but I am just making sure I don't have an error somewhere.

There is a little ambient, you don't hear the same thing through out the town. You're fine, there is no error.

Yeah, the music ambients are spread here and there. There should be a rasping wind sound throughout the outside parts, though. It's loud enough for me, but I usually play with ear-phones.

[Yandros]

OK, I'm stuck. I've picked open Soren's place and the house to its west, but can't get to the upper floor of either house. I have no rope arrows and have found no keys, and no other doors are pickable. I know I'll probably get into Soren's workshop on the second floor via a window, but need a nudge as to how to proceed from here.

[LeatherMan]

OK, I'm stuck. I've picked open Soren's place and the house to its west, but can't get to the upper floor of either house. I have no rope arrows and have found no keys, and no other doors are pickable. I know I'll probably get into Soren's workshop on the second floor via a window, but need a nudge as to how to proceed from here.

Did you see the note on Harlan's door? There is a note in Edgar's place as well. Follow those leads.

[Thelvyn]

OK, I'm stuck. I've picked open Soren's place and the house to its west, but can't get to the upper floor of either house. I have no rope arrows and have found no keys, and no other doors are pickable. I know I'll probably get into Soren's workshop on the second floor via a window, but need a nudge as to how to proceed from here.

If your still stuck after Leathermans post
You need to climb the wall next to Bensons place
Thats the one with the note about a police investigation going on.
Open the window and climb in.
The key you get there gets you into Harlans, which gets you to the roof tops.
If you are stuck after that post again.

[Bouregard]

Very good fanmission. Was quite a nice evening. And my first completed The Dark Mod experience, yeah!

DO NOT READ UNTIL FINISHED FROM NOW ON SERIOUS SPOILERS
IF YOU READ THIS WITHOUT FULLY PLAYING THE MISSION YOU WILL LOSE A FEW GOOD MOMENTS

I really liked the story of that mission. the slow build-up from "Ah murder somewhere..." to "Jump-out-of-chair Murder right in front of me". The way you build up the tension in the warehouse. -Masterful. Brightlit-noisy elevators are something a thief subtly fears. And that scripted event with the door is also quite good. Further I really liked the build up ... first ordinary empty rooms... than dirty rooms... then a corpse ... room filled with corpse.
(I'm the only one halfway expected a zombie/vampire rising from that coffin?)

Some small critism:

It's a small mission, yes I know. But what bugs me is that there is only a single way to go from start to finish. And the way to enter Bensons house was for me more a Dark Mod problem as a riddle. I read all that notes and quickly gussed I had to enter Bensons. However my Thief didn't managed to climb that small wall so I thought there had to be another way and tried for few minutes to climb that tree. A secondary way would do that mission much good. There are only a few points where you can succesfully mantle to the window.

For example you could have hidden a ropearrow somewhere around the warehouse (maybe with swords/bags as a toolkit the murder forgot outside?)

Or placed in the tunnel-area 3 well-lit - hard-to-sneak-on watch officers where one owns a key to Bensons house.

Or make the Benson-house door bashable. You may have to deal with 2 watchmen... but it would be another way...

All in all the notes where sufficient to figure it out. But that mantling seems to be pretty hard there in my opinion.

[Outlooker]

Well, that was 2 hours weekend time very well spent.
Thank you.

[bikerdude]

Can I just Say Bloody Awesome, This Halloween is just the best, first Eclipsed, then Saturnine with his mission and now this. I think this is the best Halloween I have ever had..

[demagogue]

DO NOT READ UNTIL FINISHED FROM NOW ON SERIOUS SPOILERS But what bugs me is that there is only a single way to go from start to finish.

For the record, the only real bottleneck is getting into Benson's to get to the roofs, and though it's not exactly what you meant, the FM does branch at points, so it's not strictly linear. Once up there, you can go into Soren's lab and get the notes first (and there are two ways to get in there), or you can go into Damuddy's and the Warehouse and get the missing pages first, and the FM let's you do it in either order and know what's going on. Also, you should be able to climb Benson's tree and get to his window from there; I don't know why you couldn't. I understand your point. This is just how I designed it at the time, to use all the buildings so you couldn't do it without seeing all the story bits or possibly skip anything. I'll think about having another way to get into Benson's if I ever do an updated version, though. Thanks for taking the time to think about it and give comments.

[fraten]

Oh my God! I won 2 hours of playing time, but my life will be 20 days shorter, believe me, at least!

spoiler:

I was completely scared to death in the warehouse anyway due to the pictures (I especially "liked" the graffiti) and the ambient sounds (those footsteps... there's someone coming... ohmegawd...) and that scripted scene certainly freaked me out. I'm not proud of it, but I do think I threw away the mouse out of sheer panic, honestly.

That was fun. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU.