MrMunkeepants on 8/4/2020 at 04:36
just a quick note: I couldn't find it in FMsel 1.1.2 after downloading, turns out the release date was set to 01/01/70 and the name does NOT include TMA20AC (just listed as The Builder's Paradise).
playing it I'm very impressed; a creepy, atmospheric Mechanist mission with great dimensionality to the surfaces (many functional layers, moving parts) and creepy new enemy AI!
is there supposed to be deafening static outside and near the throne room?
Grandmauden on 8/4/2020 at 08:15
Saved this contest mission for last, and boy, am I glad I did! What a fantastic alternate ending for Thief 2! :D
I had already finished the main objective and was about to leave when I remembered I still hadn't found a way into the security room. The only way I found to reach that part of the map was to enter the hallway near the start with the watcher and the door jammed shut by the combat bot, mantle the lamp, and then mantle the bronze pipe. I'm sure that's not the intended route (and is potentially sequence-breaking if I were to do that maneuver right away on another playthrough), so I'm curious how I was supposed to reach that area.
Anyway, once I finished exploring for loot, I ended the mission with 3 hours of playtime, 4271/4771 loot, and 6/9 secrets.
Also, nice touch with the gilded apple on the iron tree. :thumb:
DirkBogan on 8/4/2020 at 08:30
Grandmauden: did the giant door with Karras' face on it not open for you? That's the way you are supposed to go to get to the Security Room. Seems like a few people are having this issue, but unfortunately nobody experienced this door not opening during testing.
MrMunkeepants: the static might be a result of OpenAL being on. If it isn't on, try setting your Audio>Hardware Acceleration setting to the inverse of its current setting. I never had any static with both Hardware Acceleration and OpenAL off, but it seems to differ depending on the player's install.
Karras35 on 8/4/2020 at 08:49
For those who haven't played it yet, and for those who want to replay this mission. Here is an observation I made.
I played this mission with graphical enhancement pack necro age mod ON.
And here is why: It looks unbelievably amazing with it. I compared both, ON and OFF. It looks way better ON. This is true and I'm speaking from my own experience.
I don't know about other mods, but this one certainly works more than well. It's definately a big improvement and I can only recommend it.
And before anyone might feel the urge now to bad-mouth the use of this 'soulless' graphic mod: Please try it out yourself first, before commenting. It makes everything just better. At least in this FM.:)
DirkBogan on 8/4/2020 at 09:08
NecroAge is at odds with the stock resource stipulation of the contest. It also desaturates and 'wears out' many textures that are supposed to be shiny and polished. While you can do much worse (the dreaded HD Mod), I have it on authority from the authors that you are NOT supposed to experience this FM with NecroAge. Whether you choose to use it on replaying is another matter, but your first experience should be as the authors intended.
marbleman on 8/4/2020 at 09:10
It's just utterly disrespectful towards the author(s) to endorse the use of mods when they clearly intended the mission to be played vanilla.
You really-really-really like how it looks? Great. Play it that way. But don't advertise it.
:)
FenPhoenix on 8/4/2020 at 15:45
Quote Posted by MrMunkeepants
just a quick note: I couldn't find it in FMsel 1.1.2 after downloading, turns out the release date was set to 01/01/70 [...]
For the record, here's what's happening here: it's not that the date is explicitly set to 1/1/1970, but rather, it's that the date is specified in the wrong format in fm.ini, and FMSel therefore just puts a default date of 1/1/1970.
The fm.ini file looks like this:
Quote:
NiceName=The Builders Paradise
ReleaseDate=03/23/20InfoFile=Readme.txt
Tags=author:Children of Endeavour,genre:contest,genre:mechanist,genre:industrial,genre:alternate history,genre:endgame like,genre:system shock like,language:English
Descr=Viktoria's plan was based too much on luck
so Garrett obviously could not stop Karras with it.
So he explored some Mechanist churches to gather information
and learned that Karras can move from SoulForge via a tunnel
to a bigger secret and guarded safe house called the "Builder's House"
which shall become the core of the new city Karras plan to build :
The Builder's Paradise.
Now Garrett have enough information, he knows some machines could
be used against Karras to stop him without a risk of failure.
All he needs to do is to get there, find the last information
he needed and defeat Karras.
Crawling in vents in the complex tunnels under the City,
he managed to find his way to a basement right under
the compound. Will he succeed on his mission?
Note the
ReleaseDate= line. The date is specified as a standard North American-style human readable date, but what FMSel expects is a Unix hexadecimal date. The correct line in this case would be
ReleaseDate=5E785E70 (at least for my time zone).
Because it can't read the date, it just defaults to 1/1/1970 which is the earliest possible date that Unix time can represent.
For the record AngelLoader will detect this date correctly even though it's not to spec because I'm an obsessive dork, but yeah, it's not to spec, so that's why.
AngelLoader will also convert the audio files to 16-bit for you on install (by default, and you can also do it manually later) to avoid the static problem :o
Edit: The
Descr= line is also in the wrong format. It's supposed to be all one line with line breaks delineated by \n. So FMSel only displays the first line, "Viktoria's plan was based too much on luck" and nothing more if you go to View Summary. INI file values should not ever be multiple lines as that's extremely, extremely not to spec whatsoever at all. I've never made a mission so I'm not 100% sure on this, but I think what may be happening is that sometimes authors make this fm.ini file manually but it should be generated using a tool(?)
MrMunkeepants on 8/4/2020 at 20:00
Quote Posted by DirkBogan
MrMunkeepants: the static might be a result of OpenAL being on. If it isn't on, try setting your Audio>Hardware Acceleration setting to the inverse of its current setting. I never had any static with both Hardware Acceleration and OpenAL off, but it seems to differ depending on the player's install.
Both those and 48 audio channels are locked (white text) .
Quote Posted by FenPhoenix
AngelLoader will also convert the audio files to 16-bit for you on install (by default, and you can also do it manually later) to avoid the static problem
Maybe I should finally give that a try. Are saves cross compatible?
FenPhoenix on 8/4/2020 at 20:17
Yep. AngelLoader is designed to drop right in to any existing setup. You can keep using your saves and you can even import data (ratings, comments etc.) from other loaders too.
ticky on 8/4/2020 at 20:50
Quote Posted by Karras35
For those who haven't played it yet, and for those who want to replay this mission. Here is an observation I made.
I played this mission with graphical enhancement pack necro age mod ON.
And here is why: It looks unbelievably amazing with it. I compared both, ON and OFF. It looks way better ON. This is true and I'm speaking from my own experience.
I don't know about other mods, but this one certainly works more than well. It's definately a big improvement and I can only recommend it.
And before anyone might feel the urge now to bad-mouth the use of this 'soulless' graphic mod: Please try it out yourself first, before commenting. It makes everything just better. At least in this FM.:)
I think that this mission and its vibes are already waaay enough dark and creepy even with the original textures, and as I experienced, the necro age mod makes everything a bit darker, grittier, and nasty even more, than probably the authors of the original game intended to. However, thank you for the idea!
