TDM FM Review: The Caduceus of St. Alban

This is a review of one of The Dark Mod’s (a mod for Doom 3) fan missions. It may contain traces of spoilers. You have been warned.

Author(s): Bikerdude
Version Reviewed: 1.5.5
Date released: 2010-08-26
Other info: Summer Vertical Contest ‘10 entry
Theme: Builder

Bikerdude is likely the most prolific mapper when it comes to TDM. He’s made the most FMs out of all the authors that have churned out a mission in the last near three years since TDM’s original release. And while I wasn’t a fan of his FMs originally, I have since grown to like them.

Under the tutelage of Melan, he’s learned more than a few tricks, and just like his mentor, prefers to design city-based FMs, like “Business as Usual” or the excellent “St. Alban’s Cathedral”, with plenty to explore.

The Caduceus of St. Alban is the follow up to the aforementioned FM, and the scale with this one is somewhat smaller, but there’s no shirking when it comes to design. Caduceus was entered into the Vertical Contest of 2012, and it shows: great big spires that reach the sky, with plenty to climb, such as vines and pipes. It’s a veritable playground – on the outside anyway, with some fantastic atmospheric effects such as a low lying fog that hugs the ground.

On the inside there’s stairwells and lifts that take you to the several floors, which are broken up by the three or four spires – it can get confusing traversing from one to the other at first.

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But Caduceus isn’t without its faults. For one, combing through the TDM forum thread dedicated to this FM, you would find that there are some bugs in the mission, such as unpickable doors that need a key, that actually can be picked in the first place. Entering the “spider caves” can leave you stuck. It’s very hard to get out once you’re down there, and you might be forced to cheat by noclipping out of there. Another minor thing here, but more care could have been used with spelling with some of the items you acquire in the mission. “Armoury” (or “armory” if you speak yank) – well this mission yielded yet a third way to spell or misspell this word: “amory”. And “quarters” was misspelled as well. Things I don’t like to see.

Personally I think the design, apart from getting a bit lost in the spires, is excellent – particularly on the basement levels where you’ll find the armoury. The layout is great, smoothly travelling from lifts to stairs, through dark, torch-lit corridors. Mind that your brightness is set high enough though, otherwise you might miss a few doors down there. It’s poorly lit, but what would you expect in a place like this? It fits. But seriously, lighting could have been a bit better down in the dungeon and lower levels.

Climbing up the pipe to the top where the water tower is (one of the alternate ways up to this level) was thrilling, but once I got there, to the top, I was a little disappointed, being greeted with both the water tower and the bell tower, which were mainly for decorative purposes and didn’t serve much purpose as far as I could tell. Not that it’s a bad thing. But the view from up there was. There was just a background, much like you would have expected to see in a title like Half-Life or Quake II (I suspect Bikerdude is influenced by such games with a more modern, industrial feel, when I look at other maps such as Yan’s Test – a conversion of a Quake 4 multiplayer map), and it betrayed that former sense of awe I had on the lower levels, as it showed a disconnectedness; a floating island in the middle of nowhere. I understand this was probably to prevent a performance hit, as there are all ready FPS drops in the mission as it is, so it’s probably more of a design choice.

Pros:

+ Awesome level design, layout

+ Plenty of interactivity with the environment (vines, pipes to climb)

Cons:

- Needed more proof reading, beta testing

FM score: 8.6/10

The Dark Mod FM Review: Alberic’s Curse

This is a review of one of The Dark Mod’s (a mod for Doom 3) fan missions. It may contain traces of spoilers. You have been warned.

Author(s): Bikerdude
Version: 1.0
Date released: 2011-06-19
Other info: Seasons Contest ‘11 entry
Theme: Builder/Haunted

As soon as you see the name of this FM, you can’t help but know right away that there’s going to be some ghosties in here. This idea is reinforced once you read through the mission briefing. “Alberic’s Curse” is an homage to the original FM for Thief II: The Metal Age, called “Cathedral Of The Damned”. Bikerdude is no stranger to doing this sort of thing, as he’s also converted maps by other authors into TDM maps (with the original authors’ permission, of course), such as “Yan’s Test”. What I am surprised at is that this latest offering from said author could be classified as a departure of sorts, though not too vast, from his usual theme when it comes to TDM FMs. Either that or he’s added more atmosphere and life (no pun intended) into this FM.

I couldn’t help but smile a little as I started the mission. You’re greeted by a clichéd scene of a camp site off the beaten path – a gravel road that leads to Bridgeport. You walk over next to the fire and pick up the red book, giving it a bit of a read, only to find that once the semi-seriousness has ended, Bikerdude’s trademark sense of humour is displayed as he comically urges you to “get on with it” – a bit out of place in any TDM mission, let alone this one. Nevertheless.

At first, the way forward isn’t all that clear. Both sides are blocked off by various obstacles, and if you were to attempt to travel along the road to Bridgeport, you’d hit an invisible wall. But once you fumble along the wall and find the hole (Oh, do keep quiet!), you’re all set.

 

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Inside the grounds, there’s few things besides the cathedral to see, such as the cemetery. But there is a plethora of a ways to gain access to the cathedral itself. You could opt to climb up somehow on to the roof of the ground floor and enter through a door, or you could try for a trap door, or you could take the stealthy way in and enter through the underground tunnel into the catacombs below. Here you’ll find spiders – most of them are harmless, although the bigger ones you might want to take out with a broadhead arrow. There are zombies that litter the place, lying all over the floors of the cobweb-covered catacombs – as long as you don’t step on them you should be fine.

Inside the cathedral itself however you will come across several patrolling haunts. This place is practically devoid of  human presence unless you count the two deceased robbers who came before you and paid the price for their treachery.

Careful attention to detail and polish is noticeable, with cobwebs, dust particles and so on to be found. More emphasis on the Autumn theme could have been made, but there was some effort put in. One gripe I have with AC is the music and ambience. I don’t like how when in the cathedral, there are overlapping sound tracks, and the main one is not to my liking. It feels out of place, and there is unnecessary urgency and loudness in it. It’s a mess.

It’s not too hard to complete the main objectives for this FM, and it’s quite easily “ghostable” – a term which means to go through a level without raising any alarms and preferably obtaining a perfect stealth score, which would be 0.

Pros:

+ Great atmosphere, effects, textures.

Cons:

- Overlapping music/ambient tracks is a bit messy.

- Humour is misplaced.

FM score: 8.7/10

TDM FM Review: Business As Usual

This is a review of one of The Dark Mod’s (a mod for Doom 3) fan missions. It may contain traces of spoilers. You have been warned.

Author(s): Bikerdude
Version: 1.0
Date released: 2010-01-14
Other info: Grand Christmas Contest ‘09
Theme: City

This is a relatively small map made by Bikerdude – in fact it’s his first ever fan mission for The Dark Mod, and it’s not too shabby at that. Even though he received a lot of help from the TDM forum dwellers, Bikerdude all ready displayed a knack for making enjoyable, interactive, and challenging missions at this early stage.

You start off in your apartment, and go about collecting your gear. This makes a change from starting off with everything, as you usually find. You’d be wise to get your lantern and use it to make sure you have everything. Search the place thoroughly – in fact, this is a golden rule when it comes to every room, in every mission.

Once outside you'll see that there are several buildings, and unlike other maps of similar size, almost all of them are accessible – although not all of them have much inside and appear to be uninhabited. Or are they? Yes, there’s less waste of space or opportunity here than some maps. Places to explore include a tavern, where the civilians won’t react to you in any way, whereas the guards and city watch outside will hound you if seen on the streets which have quite a bit of electric lighting going on to make sneaking a tad more of a priority. There’s also the local City Watch post, and a hotel. These are the main three places on the street level.

On the subterranean level, there’s the sewer, accessible from at least to or three entry points, and there’s a “secret” or two here to be had – in fact it’s a critical mission objective, so if you can’t find the hidden area, then you are in trouble.

The hotel is likely where most of the action will take place, and in the guests’ rooms you’ll find… guests, mostly sleeping. Hardly guards are present here whatsoever, making things a little too easy. Even though there isn’t much in the way of story here – just a case of “I stole something, somebody stole it from me, now I need to get it back”, plus some other optional extras – the focus on level design and interactivity isn’t unappreciated. To me, a small map which has lots to do and places to poke around in is more enjoyable than a big map which doesn’t do much to make its needless waste of space any more enjoyable. This is a map that shows that a little can go a long way.

Bikerdude’s maps, including this one, are a bit tricky with secrets and the like, which forces you to frob just about everything to see if it serves a purpose or not, making the first playthrough the most challenging. After you know where to go and what to do though, the 2nd playthrough, and onwards, is a breeze for the most part, and allows for little replayability – particularly in a small map such as this.

Still, a good effort for a respected FM author’s first attempt.

Pros:

+ A few nice secrets.

+ More usage of what the map has to offer, with little wastage.

Cons:

- Not a big map.

- Not that challenging in terms of AI.

FM score: 8.5/10

TDM FM Review: Let Sleeping Thieves Lie

This is a review of one of The Dark Mod’s (a mod for Doom 3) fan missions. It may contain traces of spoilers. You have been warned.

Author(s): Sir Taffsalot, Bikerdude
Version: 1.0
Date released: 10-20-2011
Theme: City/Haunted
Download FM here

This FM was never going to be a magnum opus of any sort. The main reason why is the fact that it’s by a relatively unknown author, even though he had help from Bikerdude – one of the more seasoned FM creators.

You start off on the streets and it’s fairly straight forward. You have to enter the sewers to reach the hideout of one Jack Blackthorn - a man who some say is the devil himself. He’s wanted you dead for some time seeing as you refused to join the Unseen Thieves guild. Whispers around town say that he’s back from the dead, even though you assassinated him a little while back by putting an arrow through his heart. Now he wants you dead more than ever.

It’s best to go straight for the sewer. There’s plenty of time and motive to explore the rest of the city later on. The key is easy to find seeing as it’s hanging on the one patrolling citywatchman’s belt. Down here in the sewer, I was greeted by some ugly textures and level design. What else would you expect to find in a sewer, anyway? The water for instance didn’t look right – it wasn’t the same pretty, fluid liquid I’d seen in other FMs. And the reflection of items on said water surface just wasn’t done right.

 

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There were some nice additions, such as mushrooms decorating the entrance to the Unseen Thieves’ lair and water dripping from the pipes above. The lair itself has one eye-catching room with plenty going on, and without spoiling much, it’s the last room, and there’s a huge haul here – enough to fulfil your loot objective. There’s some other grisly things to see here, too.

Then after this it’s back to street level, and here you can rope arrow up to several rooms above you. Doing this will eventually lead you on the path to the crypts below the cemetery. This is probably the scariest, most atmospheric place in this FM, and there’s some good loot to be had here. After ascending to ground level it’s off to the church through the misty cemetery, where you’ll notice the empty grave – the one that was meant for Jack.

All in all this mission is too easy. There could have been more challenge in areas like the cemetery and church. But there’s these large, empty, unpopulated areas punctuated with some small interesting areas that have something going on. I see Bikerdude’s name when this FM loads, and in the credits – but this isn’t a Bikerdude mission. It’s not a bad first attempt by a new mapper. I have played worse, for sure.

I initially thought that this mission was an entry in the Halloween Speed Build Contest of 2011 – but it turns out that it isn’t. This FM has been a long time in the making, apparently. I was going to say that I’ve played moodier missions that weren’t submissions for this competition; that overall the theme was quite understated. But none of this matters seeing as it isn’t a submission for the contest, it turns out.

This counts against the map’s overall score, seeing as I could have overlooked most of its flaws if it were a speed build, but it isn’t. If that much time had been spent on it, I think more effort could have been spent on making it look and play a bit better, personally.

Pros:

+ The author gave it a good try.

+ One or two good moments to be had.

Cons:

- Ugly texturing.

- Clipping issues.

- Uninspired design.

FM score: 6.5/10

New TDM Campaign Announced: The Crucible of Omens

I remember reading some time ago on the TDM FAQ or another source where it it was asked if there would ever be an official TDM campaign. It’s been two years since the mod’s release (version 1.07 was brought out just the other day). During this time there have been over 50 fan missions released by various mappers.

But finally the day has come. It was announced just this week that there is a campaign that has been in the planning stages at least for the last four years, whereas for the most part has really existed in earnest for the past year or so. Some of the screenshots shown over at the forum thread where the announcement was originally made look familiar to me – particularly the ship.

The campaign is called “The Crucible of Omens”, and will follow the story of a thief and adventurer named John Welland Hadley. You’ll traverse several different locations of the TDM universe (covered in the Wiki to some extent), and will no doubt go on a tour of probably every possible environment; you’ll bump into new AI factions, opponents and NPCs to interact with. The campaign also promises animated briefings, cutscenes, scripted sequences like conversations between characters. Let’s hope the production quality is on par with the original games by Looking Glass Studios – a bit ambitious, but I think it’s possible. Look what the people behind T2X did – it was a bloody good effort.

Chief mappers for this campaign include Bikerdude, jdude, Fidcal, and Melan. Some of the best mappers for the mod. If you chucked Sotha and Jesps in there at some point, you’d have a full house.

It all sounds terribly exciting, and like one forum dweller commented: "It’s about time”.

----

Sources:

http://www.thedarkmod.com/posts/a-dark-mod-campaign-in-the-works/

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/13280-announcing-the-crucible-of-omens-a-campaign-for-the-dark-mod/

http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-dark-mod/news/announcing-the-crucible-of-omens-a-campaign-for-the-dark-mod

https://twitter.com/#!/thedarkmod/statuses/148540518224244737

TDM FM Review: Dragon’s Claw

This is a review of one of The Dark Mod’s (a mod for Doom 3) fan missions. It may contain traces of spoilers. You have been warned.

Author(s): Bikerdude, Flanders
Version: 1.0
Date released: 10-31-2011
Other info: Halloween Speed Build ‘11 entry
Theme: City/Haunted
Download FM here

Whenever I see a Bikerdude mission, I instantly think that it’s going to be one hell of a lot of fun ahead of me.

Missions of the past like the fantastic “St. Alban’s Cathedral”, or the awesome “Caduceus of St. Alban” left me with a very positive perception of an author’s work who I admittedly didn’t like much to begin with. Bikerdude’s missions are in a way sort of like watching a Quentin Tarantino film. You dislike it the first time – you might even be a it bewildered. But after the second viewing, you understand the genius behind it. It grows on you and you appreciate it for the brilliance it is supposed to convey.

This mission is not like that at all. This mission is a poor excuse for an FM in comparison to the aforementioned ones. It’s the worst of Bikerdude’s mission’s I’ve played. It’s not that bad, but it’s not that good either.

The story sounds like it could be interesting. You’re a thief as usual who wants to get a hold of the legendary “Dragon’s Claw”, which is holed up in a section of town known as the Plague Ward. It’s walled off from the rest of the city, much like the Old Quarter was in Thief: The Dark Project. But even though they might be similar in story, there’s no comparing this FM for The Dark Mod to “The Haunted Cathedral”. I might sound a little harsh here, but bear with me.

Starting off in the city, I was in familiar territory. I expected to be able to pick any lock, open any door, and go pretty much anywhere, much like in the beginning of St. Alban’s Cathedral – a mission which I hold in regard, and like the best from this author so far.

But you can’t. Exploration is limited, and the only real area of appeal is the canal. There’s a bit of loot here, and a few guards. This area presents the most challenge you’ll face in this FM.

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But this limited exploration actually detracts from the experience as far as being able to find the entrance to the Plague Ward is concerned. It’s an unnecessary distraction. Once you navigate your way around the underground, and make your way up to the plague ward, again things seem familiar. It’s like a lesser version of one of the undead missions from T2X, the unofficial expansions for Thief II: The Metal Age. Everything looks nice graphically speaking – at least on the outside. There’s some nice effects like low lying fog and dust particles, and even a rare sighting of a will o’ the wisp.

But there’s just a real feeling of laziness or incompleteness that lies behind the fancy texturing. If you were to look inside some buildings here, you just see black – well, I do. I don’t know if this is a graphical glitch, or it was intentional on the author’s part. Having a look through the official forum thread dedicated to this mission, Melan (who tutored Bikerdude, so some say) claims it’s a caulk texture, and thinks it wasn’t that good an idea to use it so generously.

And it’s here that some other major gripes of this mission come in to play. There are some severe slow downs (literally 0 FPS) during this part of the mission that either require you tap the forward key to move out of this slowdown zone, or just reload a savegame… again.

Again there’s the illusion of exploration here, as there are some places to go, but not much to do or find. There’s not a lot of interactivity on offer. It’s way too easy to get the main objectives and get out of there. But like most BD missions, there’s always a stash of loot somewhere that you never seem to find. This might make things trickier on harder difficulty settings.

Exiting the Plague Ward with my prize, I was on the way to the tavern to finish the mission, and then I was hit with 0 FPS again, but this time it froze completely, forcing an alt+ctrl+del solution.

I’m disappointed in Dragon’s Claw. It had the promise; the potential of a great mission, but just fell flat. I wouldn’t say it’s the worst FM I’ve played, or even the worst in the Halloween Speed Build competition. But it could have used a bit more polish and testing, bug-fixing, and a lot more challenge. Those undead lying around in the Plague Ward are far too easy to step around and avoid. They should have been upright and patrolling. I’d rather have a tough undead mission than one that hardly even tries.

Pros:

+ Good story.

+ Level design is decent.

Cons:

- Bugs, bugs, bugs.

- Practically no challenge whatsoever for the most part.

FM score: 7.0/10

Happy Halloween

Today is the 31st of October, or Halloween as we all know it by.

Why am I posting about this here? Because today is the last day you may submit missions for the Halloween Speed Build of 2011 - a Dark Mod competition which was announced in September. All in all there were four submissions for the competition. Most of them arrived just in time - the authors of these missions took the time to polish their FMs.

The five FMs are:

A Night to Remember by Fieldmedic
The Creeps by Mortem Desino
House in Blackbog Hollow by Stumpy
Samhain Night on Bone Hill by PranQster
Dragon's Claw by Bikerdude

A sixth mission, Let Sleeping Thieves Lie was uploaded during this period, but is not an official competition entry.

I haven't played them all - only Samhain. But I will get around to playing and reviewing them now on All Hallow's Eve! Expect the winner of the contest to be announced... some other time. Personally my fave would be either "The Creeps" or "House in Blackbog Hollow".

By the way, if you hadn't noticed, the TDM website has changed its look - again.

TDM FM Updates: Business as Usual and The Siege Shop

I was over at ModDB the other day, and saw that there are some updates for a couple of great mods for The Dark Mod. First off, as the title suggests, “The Siege Shop” by PranQster has been updated to version 1.2. The Siege Shop is one of the latest FMs released for TDM – it was uploaded back in about June this year. And if you haven’t played it yet – you should. It boasts originality that will wow you.

The other FM is “Business as Usual” by Bikerdude. This is quite an old FM that’s easily over a year and a half old now. It was also BD’s first mission for TDM, released under the Grand Christmas Contest (GCC) of 2009. It’s not that big of a mission, but it has plenty to explore. And playing it, you’ll probably get a Thief: Deadly Shadows feel – but TDS done right, that is. BAU has been updated to version 2.0.

So you can download the new versions of these FMs from the TDM forums (look under ‘Fan Missions’, taffer). There should be threads with the titles of these missions right in plain view. I’d link to them, but what sort of a thief are you if can’t find them for yourself, anyway? You’ll have to uninstall any existing versions of these FMs you have in your Doom 3 directory. Just delete the folders with the names of these mods (careful to select the right ones). Then you can just copy and past the new pk4 files into the FMs folder inside the doom3/darkmod directory. Easy.

This should tide you over, perhaps until we start to see the new entrants in the Halloween contest ‘2011. By the way, Bikerdude was announced as the winner of the Spring Seasons Contest, for his entry, “Alberic’s Curse”. It’s not too shabby. He beat out Jesps with “Rake-Off”, Fieldmedic with “Reap As You Sow”, and the absolutely dismal “Winter Harvest” by Shadowhide.