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-- Begin from "A" from at the bottom --
G - Update: I shortened F below, as part of Operation: Cut the Crap.
Also rewrote a shorter "About the Missions" and shortened "Story" section.
Crap Cut: 40% - Mission Accomplished.
In other news, construction of the mission is going fast and smiley.
F - Change of Plans.
While at the Keep of Metal and Gold, I was reading the rules of Kontest 5. It was very appealing because of the sheer size of this contest: Eight 40x40x40 blocks this time. That adds up to enough space to make a really cool mini-mission in a shortish amount of time. So I was thinking... about how a mission would be made for Kontest 5... a little Faceless mission. Yes, yes... uh-huh, uh-huh... that'd be cool... and I could have this over here, and that over there... the architecture would be like this, and the rooms like that. Outdoors this, indoors that, this here, that there, blah blah BLAH!,... And it all works out! :-)
But NOT for a Kontest mission. See, while I was thinking about how I'd make a Kontest mission, I started to realize more and more that these ideas are what the CURRENT Faceless mission needs. For many months I've been wrestling with the thought that what I've constructed so far is a bit too linear and not very free. If I were a Dromed Machine, I'd have made a gargantuan mission spanning in all directions with a little bit of everything. But my plan was to make all the layouts simple at first (which could draw complaints that this area is too streamlined), then I'd space-out and go nuts with complex layouts and path options once the NEXT area began; the BIG area.
So I'm putting "the killer area" on hold and going back to rework the dungeon and "double-decker" some of those rooms in the screenshots, and basically expand the entire layout.
Before I go on, I don't want to forget to mention that the killer area will also be different than planned (and more uniquely layed out) and YES, the additional rooms will be built, but I've decided to make them smallish is simpleish. But ALWAYS good... It's against the rules here to let any room look junk. That also means that I'll remake the Long, Yellow Room (with the lightbeams) since that room looks like flat, mono junk to me.
So now begins Operation: Cut the Crap. It's a mentality of "This is Thief, not Myst. Build whatever you're going to build FAST, FLUIDLY, and without spending hours looking around to make sure everything matches perfectly. Time to Cut the Crap. Make it nice, make it cool, but make it FAST, and no staring at it."
That's enough for ONE update. I need to save stuff for the next updates. :)
E - Might make a small page for the REAL Faceless story. Maybe. Not sure of it's use. No reason to, no reason not to. ...well, I guess you could read it. ;)
D - Tonight's construction update: Yes, this area is a killer; still working on it. It's nice to look at, but MAN am I sick of being around it. Most work being done while working on it actually isn't construction, but rather planning and writing and artwork for the rest of the mission. That's why it's taking so long. It's kind of hard (and fun) to be writing things that these people wrote, and be making the place as they describe it. The people I'm working on are getting really fascinating; I wish the mission were done now so I could show you.
On a happier note, whenever my brother sees the area he says, "Aw, man, awesome. You should take screenshots and show everyone. They'll be like, AWWWMANAWESOME!! And will want to hire you." He has a "thing" with me working at a game company. He's always like, "Go work for them! Go work for them! Work here, work there!" But I have no intention of working for a game company... so keep those hiring emails at bay, at least until I'm 18.
...And then we start arguing about why I'll never show these areas or release another screenshot.
That's right. I'm not going to show ANY more screenshots of anything until the mission is done and you actually play it. I think I may have already shown more than I meant to, so from now on it's progress updates and mission artwork.
Until the next update; Won't someone please snap their fingers and make this area just done with so I can move on? I dread more excruciating construction. I often catch myself quitting dromed prematurely so that I can write more and work on artworks n' srtuff.
C - Tonight's Construction Update: The section I've been working on lately is nearing completion. I'm very happy with it, but keep bumping into difficult decisions that slow me down. Only 20 more yards of indoors need to be constructed before it's finished, but that could easily become 100 if I can't find an easier solution to the problem. See, without saying what's going on exactly, the problem is this: Four rooms, plain and simple. Are they going to be enough for this area? They are perfectly substancial, but they aren't all the area COULD be. I just don't know if the additional rooms should be built.
By default, YES, they'd be great to have. But tell that to someone who's been staring at the same walls for almost two weeks now, who's very anxious to move on... and you'll see why it's such a difficult problem. (sigh)
B - Updated Today! A new dromed page, a new splash index page, and spring cleaning all around.
Still undecided about the fate of the Legend Of page; it still looks the same as it did when I first made it. The writings are old, the layout is kind of junky, and the screenshots at the bottom of the page don't belong anymore.
Also, since the pages have inevitably switched to the blue color theme, the gold text and theme of the Legend Of page is beginning to look strange. I don't know what to do: the Legend Of mission is undeniably Gold themed, so having blue text would be a sacrilege.
Also don't know what to do about those Faceless screenshots that are mixed with the others on that page. Without them, the page is too bare... but if they're moved to the Faceless page, the text will have to go with them, and the two little "preview stories" will be funny to read one after the other.
Maybe I could make TWO Faceless pages, but then something would have to fill up the Legend Of page, and then I'd have to redo the reflections on that index page eyeball. .... AYEEEE!!
Just kidding :-D It's really not that hard or stressful. This page is something I do for fun, in those times when working on the mission is like, "Phew, no more for now."
No sweat. I'll figure it out some other time.
A - The rest of the website is beginning to lag.
Soon it'll be time to redo most of the text,
and maybe get some artwork on the other pages.
Maybe more mission artwork would be good,
but only stuff that's not in the mission itself.
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About the Missions:
In 2002, the first mission began as a learning mission following Komag's Dromed tutorial. It grew (see the screenshots of 1st mission, which still contains the first brushes I ever made with dromed) but was eventually put on hold. It follows a story, and the story cannot begin there. So began the Prequel: The Faceless mission, which tells the story from where it starts. At least for Garrett, the adventure began there...
The Faceless mission is a very heavily atmospheric and story-driven mission. It aims to be a very immersive, scary, visual, and audial experience.
It will be very heavily reliant on audio, using none of the original Thief sounds, to help portray the forest and indoors in the most immersive way possible. It will feature individual crickets and frogs that, if you have stereo or surround sound, will be heard in every direction, also according to your distance from them. Amongst howling wolves in the background, owls will be heard (and one will fly above you).
Indoors the audio will surely catch up to you, as you experience the many hidden wonders of the Sketts who once were, and maybe still are. With the use of an "Otis," a circular engraved block found on walls (see screenshots), you can lean against it to hear... things that the Otis has heard. This is but a taste of the audio plans for Faceless. If I told you more,... I'm not going to tell you more. :)
The visuals, needless to say at this point, are being taken seriously. The visuals, however, far exceed what you've seen in the screenshots so far, as far as special effects are concerned. You'll just have to play the mission to see more. :)
The Horror is FAR from what the mission is about.. but who can ignore it? Sometimes things in the background that are kind of just "there" are reason enough to say that there's going to be significant horror. Nevertheless, it's being taken very, very seriously... the goal is still to be creepier than anything before experienced in Thief, but always as a background element. This is no undead mission.
The whole experience will be subtle, realistic, and Immersive. If only the mission were done now...
"The Legend Of" is just a continuation of this.
The Release Date isn't set yet. It won't be ready for a few more months. Maybe late Spring?
Story:
In brief, the story is the reason this mission is being made in the first place. It tells a story that Garrett kind of happens across, and witnesses in some strange ways.
Knowing what the story is has been the easiest part of making this mission. It dictates the mission in every way. But putting Garrett in the story, and telling it from this new perspective, is the hard part. Though the Sketts exist in the story, and their major events are known, 'who they were' individually was not known. So they have to be re-invented on an individual basis. This is the hard part of the story.
The Sketts weren't mindlessly evil. They were once ordinary people, who lived with much pain and regrets, and didn't exactly have life the easy way that would leave them good people forever. They came from bad pasts, and carried wounds that slumped them into darker ways of living... each was an exile.
From a writing:
Wae and I were the first here. When I fled the city, Wae came with me. We were rejected by men who hated us, and were sentenced to be hanged for stealing a gem. Noma helped us escape, and attacked the mob who bound us. We ran for the woods, knowing this was it; there was no going back. If the forest did not take us in, we were through.
...and so we were. The forest was against us. Noma dragged our starved and freezing bodies in the direction that he smelled men. Two days of weary travel to save our lives, and the first men that saw Noma beat him nearly to death.
They brought us to forest Guard Station 5, and strung Noma up to a pole. When we finally woke up I thought they had killed him. They fed and cared for us for two days. To make conversation, they told us that they had excavated a door, and told nobody else. The door was mysterious, and to where it led, they didn't know. We didn't care.
There came the time when all certainty vanished: That evening more guards were supposed to arrive from the city. They would kill us if they saw us. We only had a few options: let them arrive and discover us, and drag us back to the city. Or, we could run away, back to the forest, but only to die a slower death. Or finally, they had found the mysterious door and weren't going to tell anybody. If we ran for the door, at least we weren't guranteed death. We decided to run away and find it. Our lives were handed to the door: whatever lied beyond it would decide if we lived or died.
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The only regret with the story is that it has to be limited and rewritten for these two little Thief missions.
