Reply With QuoteFirst FM, eh? Well, I will surely download it and play.
I've finally finished my first FM, which is for Thief: Gold - Creature Clash: Gold. You can download it here.
Komag - I'd be very happy (not to mention honoured) for you to include this mission on your FM CD/DVD collections and 'The Keep' if you so desire.
Please feel free to leave comments/suggestions/constructive criticism in this thread. Please also be aware that the mission does contain several minor bugs, but from the play-testing I've done they don't spoil things too much.
I will now provide some background to the mission:
Original idea - Credit and thanks has to go to Kung Fu Gecko for his two original Creature Clash missions, and for granting me permission to produce Creature Clash: Gold. The original Creature Clash was a Thief: TDP mission - there were none of the AI units present that are exclusive to Thief: Gold, such as the mages. My plan was to produce an update to the original Creature Clash that encompassed all of the Thief: Gold AI units. In addition, the original had only a limited number of preset AI units to engage each other in combat. Creature Clash: Gold not only contains (almost) all AI units from Thief: Gold, but these AI units are created during play, rather than on startup, so if you want to fill the battle arena with 100 angry haunts, you can (just about)!
Creature Clash: Gold originally started out as an experiment involving the use of quest variables for more than simply storing objective information. However, after finally getting the basic 'counter' system set up, I decided to have a go at building something useful around it - this is when the original idea for Creature Clash: Gold was born.
Story - I did originally intend to include a background story to the mission, but eventually decided to remove the two books that I had in the mission to simplify things. However, for the interested:
The story was going to be something about a splinter group of Keepers - the New Keepers, who disliked the "passive" balancing influencing of the Keepers, and decided to be more active in the maintenance of the Balance. They created a device, using a curious combination of Hammerite and Lost City technology, coupled with Pagan magic - all working in harmony. The "Device" was capable of creating entire armies of fighting forces, so that if any side were showing signs of becoming dominant, the Balance could be restored by using the Device to reinforce their opponents. Anyway, Garrett stumbles on the secret New Keeper installation where the Device is located, and decides to have some fun with it.
Playing - On startup, Garrett will find himself at the end of a long corridor. To his left is the main power switch for the Device. To his right is a switch to activate the Device's speech system (announcer). At least the power switch (and preferably the announcer switch as well) must be flipped before the device can be used.
After flipping the switch(es), Garrett must move along the corridor, and into the main arena, where he will find three buttons. The upper left and right buttons are used to scroll through the selection of creatures that the Device is capable of producing, and the central, lower button is used to create an instance of the currently selected creature in the arena. A holographic image of the currently selected creature can be seen displayed on the 'holographic projection pad' suspended over the main arena, and if the announcer has been activated, the Device will verbally identify the currently selected creature.
Bugs - Too many to count. Some of the more noticable ones are listed here:
1) - The Apparition and Frog Beast holograms fail to rotate. At least in the case of the apparition, this is due to some of the Physics/Model settings automatically reverting to preset values which counteract the rotation.
2) - The announcer sometimes (but not always) says the name of the next creature, rather than the current one. This is most noticable when the Fire Elemental is introduced as a Hammerite Guard (I think).
3) - Sometimes a creature won't be created - particularly when there are creatures already standing on the "creation point". The system I have set up for creation of creatures is pretty clumsy, and is easily defeated, so watch out when you're creating loads of creatures!
Finally, I hope everyone enjoys this FM. Don't take it too seriously!
Last edited by Weyoun; 25th Nov 2002 at 11:16.
First FM, eh? Well, I will surely download it and play.
Also available here:
http://thief.math.uh.edu/missions/CCGold.zip
- J<
Sounds great, downloading it right now.
This sounds cool! I was wondering when someone was going to expand on kfgecko's idea.
I had a notion to do a version where Garrett could teleport between several arenas with different AI team configurations, perhaps even incorporating well-known "rooms" from various FM's and OM's as the arenas.
My original idea was to have a situation where everyone fights everyone else. Unfortunately, despite trying several different approaches, I couldn't get it to work properly, and had to settle for the five preset (fighting) teams. This means you can't get a haunt and a zombie to fight each other, but you can stand back and observe a haunt chopping hell out of a bug beast...Originally posted by yandros
...I had a notion to do a version where Garrett could teleport between several arenas with different AI team configurations...
If anyone was wondering, the thieves and the civilians are on Team: Good, so they won't harm Garrett. The Trickster's crowd (ape beasts etc), the Hammerites, the undead, the various guards (except the 'thief guard' who is good) and the "beings of nature" (burricks, mages etc) make up the five bad teams.
Very cool mission. I liked pitting a fire shadow against a fire elemental because the fight goes on for minutes. Eventually, it seems that the shadow physically hits the elemental enough to kill it. If a fire mage would fight an elemental, I imagine the battle would go on indefinitely.
Hehe I just fed some mages to the Trickster!
I broke Thief a couple of times with this FM.
Having the Trickster face down...er...everything not allied to him is a real time-passer. Especially when I had him fighting two fire elementals. Standoff/framerate killer. Great fun. Particular joy is had when Thieves and Haunts fight each other...and Hammers and zombies are just fun together.
Btw, I *hope* the civilians are on my side...I'd hate to get my head handed to me by a servant.
It's really interesting to see how different opponents do against each other; there's way more variety than T2. For example, I think that only the water mage has a chance against the fire shadow, that both zombies are immune to the bugbeast's blasts, and that the earth mage is pretty much hopeless against everyone except Garrett.
Last edited by Norman Druart; 27th Nov 2002 at 20:20.
I think the Trickster is invincible in this mission. He mowed down an assortment of 100+ creatures I spawned. He also shrugged of the 50 broadhead arrows I fired at him.
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