Lamplighters

[Darkness_Falls]

In T2, there is a mention of a "Spiral Lamplighter" in a journal. I didn't know what a lamplighter was, so I Googled it. I can't find a 'spiral lamplighter', but I did turn up these for 'lamplighter'. It seemed like a cool idea of something we could implement for town scenarios. Civilians (or some guards) could walk around lighting lights as darkness falls (no pun intended ). I like the top picture best...

 

 

 

 

http://www.junipercivic.com/berry/0303/lamplighter.html

 

Of course, with some of the cool gas lights found in the Thief universe, lamplighters (the people) could actually also turn on the lamp gas and light the weird gas particle-effect balls that feed the lights rather than the actual lights... if that makes sense?

 

T2 Book Entry:

Location of book: Mechanist Seminary/Level 2/ East Tower

 

Week 23:

Lord Bassel, six crates wool tweed --send spiral lamplighter.

Lord Wilkerson, 300 gold -- send clockwork picturetray.

Lord Toby, one crate paper -- ignore.

Brian Masterson, 1500 gold -- will send masked servant.

Gorman Truart, goodwill -- sending clockwork spy cameras.

Lord Winhill, one crate fine wire -- send spiral lamplighter.

Source of this book quote and all others in T2: http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=70803

[Domarius]

I don't think they would be an integral part of the game play anymore than blacksmiths, and should be left up to the community to develop.

 

Except that they might go around re-lighting things that you put out, in which case you'd track them down and knock them out easily every time because they'd be defensless, potentially extra work without much challenge. Could be a challenge if you can't find them and the first you know about it is your water arrows have been wasted because you see some lights have been re-lit.

[sparhawk]

Our streetlamps are electrical, right? Of course they would fit in pretty well, and they could be implemented using the system we talked about using objects by AIs. But this means we would need extuinguishable streetlights as well.

[Darkness_Falls]

They may not have to be extinguishable. It looks like the glass panel would need to be opened to provide access to the flame. Or in another picture above, it looks like maybe there's a small opening in which to put the flame up inside from underneath. Either way I feel it would be believable if a thief wasn't able to extinguish a street lamp such as this. So these could be permanently lit lights once lit.

[Springheel]

Our streetlamps are electrical, right?

 

No, they're gaslights, so they would be lit just like that. I can't see any point in going through the work to include AI for that purpose though.

[god_is_my_goldfish]

Basically the way i see it this would be a nice bit of atmosphere for our campaign, as it doesn't really effect gameplay. I would like to see it even as a scripted action however.

[Darkness_Falls]

I wasn't proposing to create brand new AI models, like blacksmiths, to do this. I was more thinking that any regular old citizen or guard could be AI programmed to do this. Give him one of those lighting sticks and have him walking around lighting lights, when he's done he can dispose of his stick and get back to whatever he normally does. Or if a FM author wants, they could make this AI unit be a dedicated lamplighter person going around the level re-lighting any and every gas light that may have been extinguished by the thief, never dropping his lighting stick. (I say this as an option only because some gas lights in T2 can be extinguished.)

 

I think the main things we'd need for this to work are: (1) a model of the lighting stick, (2) the flame at the end of the stick (which would probably be the same or similar as a candle's flame), (3) particle or lighting effects for when a lamp gets lit or re-lit, and (4) the AI intelligence and animation sequences.

 

If guards carrying torches are going to be programmed to light or re-light torches (I can't remember what was decided), the same sort of AI intelligence would be used for lamplighters. They would see that a light source is not lit (null value) and then light that source (active value). The benefit of lamplighters over torch-bearers, though, is that lamplighters can reach lights that are higher up and enclosed in glass cases, obviously.

 

And I agree with GIMG, it would mainly be for atmosphere. I've never seen them in a game before and it is in-line with the era. Sounded intriguing to me that a civilian could actually have some purpose other than walking back and forth through a level doing nothing. And since Thief is all about lighting and the mood that is created by them, this falls hand-in-hand with that. A previously dark area could be lit up again the next time you go to it, so maybe it's in your best interest to find and take out the lamplighter.

[oDDity]

Can't see the point. THey would be lit in the evening before it was actually dark anyway, they didn't actually wait until night and then go around lighting them in the dark, so our character would never see them being lit anyway.

You couldn't put one out with and arrow either, since they are enclosed in glass, unless you shoot a breoadhead at it to breeak the glass and then the water arrow.

[Darkness_Falls]

You're right that the lamps would already be lit by the time it is dark. Which is why I wrote this:

Civilians (or some guards) could walk around lighting lights as darkness falls

I figure we won't have time progression to show the day going from evening twilight to complete dark, but twilight missions (not completely dark) would be nice to see every now and then. I can't force FM missions to do this; nor can I force it for our campaign. Again, it's primarily an atmosphere thing. Little extras like this are mainly to polish things up and give it the extra details.

 

The more I think of it, though, what are the odds that lamplighters actually stuck around with their lightstick after lighting the town's lights? Lights probably didn't go out so there was no need to re-light them and so their job for the evening was over. Grr.

[Springheel]

Again, it's primarily an atmosphere thing. Little extras like this are mainly to polish things up and give it the extra details.

 

A lot of animation work for something that would almost never be seen. There are tons of more versatile animations we could use to make civilians seem busy. Sweeping, carrying baskets, stacking crates, etc.

[sparhawk]

I don't think that it is THAT much work. The AI would have to be setup by the FM author anyway to follow a path with lamps. The animation is basically the same as a guard carrying a poleweapon. So the only extra work would be to lift the pole to touch the light.

[Domarius]

And have the light be unlit, and program the light to respond to being lit, and have some way for the FM author to tell the AI to light this light when it reaches this point in the patrol path.

[Springheel]

And tell the animation how to make sure the pole connects with the lamp (and what kind of polearm animations are we intending to include that involve the AI sticking the weapon fifteen feet in the air??), etc....

 

There's no way it's worth that kind of effort.

[god_is_my_goldfish]

I would say don't just throw out the idea though, stick it aside into the "maybe one day" pile.

[sparhawk]

Somehow I don't think that this is so much effort. The AI just needs to rais his hands. The pole can be adjusted by code, by moving the top end in the direction of the light. If everything were so easy to implement than this partuclar piece I would be happy.

[Ishtvan]

If the pole moves without the AI's hands moving to follow it, wouldn't it just clip thru their hands and look bad?

[sparhawk]

And have the light be unlit, and program the light to respond to being lit, and have some way for the FM author to tell the AI to light this light when it reaches this point in the patrol path.

 

Sure. You can do it as complicated as you want, but making something complicated doesn't mean it gets better.

 

An AI travling a path and all the streetlights that are unlit along it's way will be relit. It's as simple as that.

[Springheel]

Let's code regular AI to be able to relight normal torches before we start going on about how easy it would be to do this. I remember someone saying the lightgem was going to be easy too.

 

Actually, I'm amazed we're even still talking about this...it's something that would only be appropriate in one kind of map (city) at one time of day (dusk) and for one kind of light (lamps that the player can't even extinguish!). Are we really that desperate for things to do?

[Darkness_Falls]

Extreeeemely desperate! We want, want want!!!

[sparhawk]

Let's code regular AI to be able to relight normal torches before we start going on about how easy it would be to do this. I remember someone saying the lightgem was going to be easy too.

 

Don't know who should have said this, because this was sure not coming from me.

 

Actually, I'm amazed we're even still talking about this...it's something that would only be appropriate in one kind of map (city) at one time of day (dusk) and for one kind of light (lamps that the player can't even extinguish!). Are we really that desperate for things to do?

 

No. But I think this can be even easily done in scripting. And I didn't say we should implement this right away, so just stick it in the ideas thread and case closed for now

[Darkness_Falls]

I'm definitely okay with just throwing this in the 'maybe some day' thread. I realize it might not ever be done, but I think there's enough interest in it by people to at least consider it again at a later time. Even if we just use them in one or two missions of our campaign, it's those extra touches that makes good games or levels really stand out sometimes. I'm just sayin'

[sparhawk]

As I said in the other thread, this would certainly be limited to city type missions, but I think it could add some additional atmosphere, because it makes the environment more alive.

 

I always think of Gothic I and II when I think about a real good example of "wasted" time which has been put into making a more believable gameworld.