T2 FM. Bad Venture - Old version (Released 12/25/14) - by Soul Tear
Printer's Devil on 29/12/2014 at 06:45
Wow, I never thought I would see the day when a T2 FM would grind my computer to a halt while loading, playing AND quitting. Are the AIs constantly moving or something? Or is it all those objects? Granted, my rig is older, but HL2 EP2 ran smooth as butter on maximum settings--it even ran the Crysis demo at a decent fps. Weird and a shame too, since there are so many nice touches throughout. I'm sure it plays great when it runs properly.
zajazd on 29/12/2014 at 07:20
Quote Posted by 242
Haven't played this yet, but I applaud the author if that's the case. Many people tend to seek help upon slightest difficulty. Usually, Thief FMs are quite easy and obvious, especaially after such long term of experience.
Fun for me, I like to be puzzled about how to get somewhere/something for hours :)
High difficulty and poor design are two different things. It's the reason why the adventure genre kind of died or went underground. You can't give the player a huge area with a lot of objects and no hints, and inventory items that the payer has no idea where and how to use - that is bad game design. Most people don't have the time and patience to go back and forth gadzillion times. I bow my head to the talents in level design of this FM author but otherwise this FM is a mess.
Renault on 29/12/2014 at 07:29
I think Judith may be being a bit harsh, but I understand what they are trying to say and there's some truth there. I remember Alexius (author of the now abandoned Hammerite Imperium) used to complain that he couldn't finish any of the missions for his project because he kept running into all of Dromed's limitations (this was pre-New Dark). I couldn't help but think - if you know what Dromed's limitations are, then why are you trying to build missions that surpass them? Seemed like it should be common sense that you would only build within the technical capabilities of what the engine can do.
No offense is meant, ST, your mission is beautiful and I'm enjoying it quite a bit. But I just upgraded my PC about a year ago (it's an i7 with 16 GB RAM, and a Radeon 7970), and there are some sections of the mission that drop into the 20s for fps. Overall the mission runs great for me, but I can't imagine that a PC more than 3-4 years old can run it very smooth. The Thief community isn't all that big anymore, so it seems a shame to eliminate maybe 50% of your potential players. Might be interesting to do a poll sometime to see what the average PC specs are for FM players that are still active in the community, so authors would have a baseline to work off of.
Judith on 29/12/2014 at 08:16
Sorry if I sounded harsh Brethren, I meant more or less what you said. ST's response sounded a bit like "I'm an artist and can't be bothered with such earthly (performance) concerns". I guess that might be a language problem. Sure the mission is beautiful, and it would be a waste if there was no update.
fortuni on 29/12/2014 at 08:31
In defense of Soul Tear, I personally applaud his ambition. He clearly set out to make one of the hardest, most original, most obscure and eye-wateringly good looking missions that he could imagine and in all of these i believe he has succeeded. His errors are however down to just 2 faults: Inexperience and Over ambition, both of which are common traits among the youth
Inexperience: KoI is only Soul Tears second mission, in Thieving terms he is still a novice, with a lot yet to learn, ST made this mission pushing Newdark to its limit on his relatively powerful computer, and so did not realise how poor the fps was until he got to beta testing stage, by then he had committed a huge amount of time and effort into making this mission, and had every intention of releasing it as is, and if it had not been for Xorak coming to the rescue things would have been even worse, but maybe some other DromEd boffin could take another look and see if there is further improvements are available ?
Over Ambition: there are over 1250 missions out there, the vast majority are 'safe' in their gameplay approach following unwritten but standard procedures, ST wished to play around with novel ideas, such as 'how do you actually use a crowbar in real life' you don't just touch a crow bar on a piece of wood to pull it away from whatever, you need to wiggle it around, get some leverage....
In real life if you walk down a street no 2 door handles look the same, and i bet you not all of them would be pickable either, who said all door locks must act in the same way, which rule book did that come out of ? I'm not attacking you Judith, all I am saying is I like the idea of change and alternatives from the usual. But maybe ST has tried to put TOO many new and novel ideas into just one mission ( anyone worked out what to do with the 'spare arrows' yet ?) and so has compounded peoples frustration...1 or 2 new ideas good, 6-8 new ideas....trouble.
ps most if not all the bugs and issues pointed out in the above posts were raised by the testers
Soul Tear has every potential to become one of the Great authors of the Thieving world, his ambition and vision are without doubt, so here's hoping that this mission will have been a big learning curve, but the biggest lesson, ST you must bring in more than 1 DromEr to beta test your future missions and give beta testing a lot longer than you did on this mission, as i suspect you will always learn more in beta testing than you ever can do on your own whilst building a mission
Judith on 29/12/2014 at 08:59
I don't feel attacked, Fortuni, I mostly agree with your points :)
The problem is, as usual, the communication. As in your example: the way use of crowbar was communicated to the players was wrong, at least in my case there were no sounds of wood planks giving way or something like that. There was no feedback for me that I'm going in the right direction, I had to read it on the forums. Same goes for doors. It might sound harsh again, but nobody really cares how real life looks like in games, translated 1:1. The more important thing is: how can you use game systems to communicate with the player, make him learn something, then give him a challenge and some fun stuff to do. The reason behind door handles, or doors without door handles, color-coded objects and many other things is to show players what they can or can't do, using only visual means. Discovering game or world rules this way is satisfying, and in some cases almost subconscious (e.g. the "red barrels rule" in shooters). This way you avoid frustrating trial and error style gameplay.
There are tons of stuff to read on the web on the subject matter, also a few ex-LGS/Ion Storm employees posted some great keynotes on designing stealth gameplay - IMO this is a must-read for all FM authors. I'm trying to find proper links, but I have offline versions as well. I can put it in dropbox, if anyone's interested :)
Marbrien on 29/12/2014 at 10:48
I'd appreciate a fairly direct steer on how to get into the wine cellar in Lady A's area. Thanks.
Kurhhan on 29/12/2014 at 11:25
Quote Posted by zajazd
High difficulty and poor design are two different things. It's the reason why the adventure genre kind of died or went underground. You can't give the player a huge area with a lot of objects and no hints, and inventory items that the payer has no idea where and how to use - that is bad game design. Most people don't have the time and patience to go back and forth gadzillion times. I bow my head to the talents in level design of this FM author but otherwise this FM is a mess.
What actual casual, brainless easy games do to you, and not only with you looking at these posts above ? This mission is not too hard, maybe only "finding Thereon" is a bit challenge, and all loot of course but this is optional.
Sorry for naming mission but I prefer 30 fps with a big amount of object and other stuff than for example 60fps in Kingsbridge where is just nearly empty rooms and spaces.
E : Hi Zeratul , moderators at thief-forum sleeps again.
trudnicki on 29/12/2014 at 12:12
Ok how do i find Theoren spoil me plz I found some note in his room, that he found a bloody key and he saw something at the inn attic but i cant access inn attic
Kurhhan on 29/12/2014 at 12:15
Quote Posted by trudnicki
Ok how do i find Theoren spoil me plz I found some
note in his room, that he found a bloody key and he saw something at the inn attic but i cant access inn attic
