Obligatory Review Of Update

[demagogue]

well, we can't have a public update without some helpful public commentary, so here goes:

 

Where to start?

 

We are releasing a new alpha build to our beta-mappers, full of cool new features, including a working noise arrow.

 

We talked about noise arrow before here, didn't we? Does it work like classical style, it starts crackling when it lands, and when a guard sees it he instantly goes into investigation mode, but around the arrow. Or are there noticable differences?

 

AI turn their heads to look around as they patrol, making sneaking around near them more difficult.

 

That's a really cool feature that will liven things up because I can't count the number of times I would run along side an AI knowing he'll never see me. Is there ever a time when he'll slow down, "have a feeling", stop, and turn a little to peek behind his back (not very often, but on rare occassion)? Now that would be a (potentially fun) surprise! If it were cued, you could see it coming and have to react fast.

 

Dram has created a map with a working combination lock just like classic T2.

 

Lovely. Not much to add except good to see it. 1998: Anno Furtim, eh? (or Furis; I'm about 100% sure the case is wrong here). That would make 2006 year 9 A.F.

 

The Stim/Response system is essentially done.

 

This is awesome news. I love playing with S/R because it gives you so many options, so many things you can get going on in the background that give a level a life of its own. Does it essentially work like Dromed, or is the paradigm a little different?

 

Our Objectives system is coded and we're working on the GUI.

 

Good to hear. Did all the classic T2 objectives get in; any ones left out or new ones put in? Also, is it possible to trigger new objectives in-game? And is the system roughly the same, e.g., reversible vs. irreversible, visible vs. invisible, etc.

 

Mission stats are saved and are available at the end of the mission.

 

Very nice. Important for those screenshots in threads to prove you "really did it".

 

As work continues into June 2006, we felt that it would be a good time to give the community a sneak preview of our customized version of the Doom 3 Level Editor, DarkRadiant.

 

Is this the big surprise we've been waiting for, or just part of the normal front page update? [edited stuff out]

 

Anyway, from what you've shown it looks intuitive and promising. Clean looking layout ... and, e.g., the menus have a familiar ring to them from dromed. Suppose I'll have to get used to thinking about "entities" instead of "objects". Are properties organized hierarchically like in dromed? I guess I should pick up Doom3Ed to get a sense of it.

 

 

Anyway, nice update.

Edited June 22, 2006 by demagogue

[Arumakani]

Absolutely dbrilliant guys. Keep up the good work. The Thief community, even newbies like me, are really proud of you. If there was some sort of donation to speed things up I'd give a bit !!!!

 

I'm going to really get down to learning Doom3 editor now!

[sparhawk]

Is there a special reason that demagogue suddenly feels the urge to announce a release that hasn't even happened yet? Or did NH switch jobs with you?

[Vadrosaul]

AI turn their heads to look around as they patrol, making sneaking around near them more difficult.

Excellent! I hope the models appear believable. Even though it is a dark game, making the eye scanning and motion look realistic would be key to making it work.

 

Lovely. Not much to add except good to see it. 1998: Anno Furtim, eh? (or Furis). That would make 2006 year 9 A.F.

Come to think of it, a perfect release date for the DarkMod would be the 10th anniversary of Thief IIRC DP was release around November of '98

[Springheel]

It's a review of the website update.

[sparhawk]

Oh!

[Denny]

Considering how small steps other modifications make, this is actually a big update. Patiently waiting.

 

Cheers~

Edited June 22, 2006 by Denny

[demagogue]

Is there a special reason that demagogue suddenly feels the urge to announce a release that hasn't even happened yet? Or did NH switch jobs with you?

 

Haha ... Well, the update was up on the main page. And I forgot that NH usually announces them on the public forum page; I sincerely wasn't trying to preempt anything. Maybe just being unmindful.

 

Maybe it's because we see the update before we get to the forums, so it's like it sort of announces itself ... and I had ideas brewing in my mind that I wanted to talk about while I was thinking about them and wasn't thinking in terms waiting for an official thread -- it seriously wasn't a sudden urge to "announce" anything. In fact, I had this idea that the update had been up for some hours before I commented (since it's already midday for me), and I actually wondered why there wasn't a thread on it yet and was looking for it to comment there, but that could have been my misimpression.

 

But yeah, totally sorry about that NH if you wanted to announce it. Really ... I don't like being a blundering gimp when I can help it. :angel:

 

 

 

... Actually, for the record, I'm confused a little. Is the update what you mean by the "release"? Because when you say "hasn't even happened yet?" ... I mean, the news update is already up on the main page. Does it not "happen" until it's officially announced?? Or is there something else coming, too, that I inadvertantly "announced"? I just want to be one of the good guys, you know.

 

I should admit, though, that it did occur to me while writing that that it's been quite fun being a backseat driver critic on these boards, all the opportunity to say this and that about this and that feature, and none of the responsibility. Thinking that just makes me feel more guilty now. But no malice intended.

 

 

---------------

 

Edit (because this was written while I was writing the above):

 

Oh!

 

Ah-ha!!! You *were* thinking about something else! And now I think I have an idea of what it is!! Yippee!

(If it's actually what I think it is, hell, even if it isn't ... the fact that you guys are so protective makes me think it's going to be good whatever it is). Anyway, sort of funny there.

Edited June 22, 2006 by demagogue

[Denny]

Can it become more official than being announced on the front page? :S

 

Also that "Oh!" is an answer to the previous post.

Edited June 22, 2006 by Denny

[demagogue]

I interpreted "oh" as in answer to Springheel's comment that my review was actually "a review of the website update" and not whatever else he had in mind (as I interpreted the situation), hence my comment that Spar actually did have something else in mind, which granted it still just a guess of mine, but it sort of excited me anyway.

 

As for "Can it become more official than being announced on the front page? :S", if you mean the update itself then, yeah, I sort of agree. I was just being, you know, extra contrite because I was given the impression that I made a mistake in "announcing" it here (I guess extra-officially??) and I like being a team-player and everybody's buddy and it doesn't hurt so much for me to apologize even though I'm a little confused what I'm apologizing for... But especially if it was stepping on NH's toes, since the last thing I want to do is bite the hand that feeds us (not to mention he's been cool throughout).

 

If you mean the website update "officially announced" the "something else" then I have to admit I didn't catch it. For a moment I thought we'd get a little taste of DarkRadient itself by the look of the link, but it was just some screenshots.* But I was of course happy to see the little blurb we got here. I still really don't have a clue what "it" is ... although now I feel like I have some speculating material to work with.

 

 

* Actually, if you've been paying attention, there was a link to an earlier version of DR posted on the public forums a while ago where we could have seen it in action ... but since I don't have Doom3 yet I couldn't see it myself.

Edited June 22, 2006 by demagogue

[Denny]

Ah, get what you mean.

[New Horizon]

Don't worry Demo'. Spar didn't realize the website had been updated, so he was under the impression you were privy to an update that nobody had even posted.

[Maximius]

Good work, gentlemen!

[Komag]

I suppose the update does say "we are releasing" as opposed to "we have released", hehe

[sparhawk]

Haha ... Well, the update was up on the main page. And I forgot that NH usually announces them on the public forum page; I sincerely wasn't trying to preempt anything. Maybe just being unmindful.

 

LOL! No! I was just surprised, because I didn't know that Spring has updated the website, and we hadn't released anything yet. So I was surprised to read this "announcement".

 

... Actually, for the record, I'm confused a little. Is the update what you mean by the "release"? Because when you say "hasn't even happened yet?" ... I mean, the news update is already up on the main page. Does it not "happen" until it's officially announced?? Or is there something else coming, too, that I inadvertantly "announced"? I just want to be one of the good guys, you know.

 

We were planing to have an internal release these days, which would have included these updates. We are only waiting for some reorganization to finish, which should take place the next days. So when I read this, I had the impression that you were somehow trying to write a readme for the upcoming release and wanted to gather opinions on it.

 

Ah-ha!!! You *were* thinking about something else! And now I think I have an idea of what it is!! Yippee!

 

LOL. Don't expect to much.

[sparhawk]

I interpreted "oh" as in answer to Springheel's comment that my review was actually "a review of the website update" and not whatever else he had in mind (as I interpreted the situation), hence my comment that Spar actually did have something else in mind, which granted it still just a guess of mine, but it sort of excited me anyway.

 

That "Oh!" was an "Oh! We have updated the website." kind of Oh!.

 

I rarely look at our website, only coming here at the forum.

[demagogue]

Oh!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Fingernail]

Clearly nothing would get done at all if anyone bothered to waste time telling other people they had done something!

[sparhawk]

Huh!? What?

[Fingernail]

it was a joke, let's just forget it now.

[Dram]

Lovely. Not much to add except good to see it. 1998: Anno Furtim, eh? (or Furis; I'm about 100% sure the case is wrong here). That would make 2006 year 9 A.F.

 

I don't know exactly what you mean, but I set the combination for the main door in that map as 1998. Yes it's because Thief 1 was released then, kind of a tribute hehe.

 

Anyways, I'm writing tutorials on how to do things that you could in Thief, and also things that you could not >

 

So far the tutes I've made are for:

*moving platforms triggered by buttons,

*elevators with multiple floors (my tute covers 3 floors, easy to add more of course)

 

and soon I'll make one for the wheel lock. Next comes a Thief type keypad (0-9) for things like vaults etc.

 

In fact, using the scripting system, you can easily make a safe have key combinations with the wheel having to turn the right way etc.

 

It's a bit more complex to do things like elevators in Doom 3 as opposed to Thief 1/2 (have'nt used T3ed), but you can do so much more using this system.

[demagogue]

That's great news. I'm usually of the opinion that "more powerful > easier" (within reason, something shouldn't be made more complicated for complicated's sake) ... if someone is going to all the trouble to learn the editor, a little extra work to do more shouldn't be that much of a problem. Anyway, it makes me happy that so many old, familiar features are making an appearance (iirc TDS didn't have wheel locks or keypads at all did it? Did it have elevators?)

 

I don't know exactly what you mean,

 

Haha, I'm just full of misunderstandings today.

 

I did think you were talking about the release of the original Thief, hence, Anno Furtim, Year of the Stealth (or Furis, Year of the Thief). When I said "I'm about 100% sure the case is wrong here", I meant the Latin case. I'm about 100% sure that Anno Furtim is *not* the way you would spell it in actual Latin, because I used the simple (accusitive?) case, and it should be the genitive case ("of the"), but at the time it totally slipped my mind how to do it in Latin. Let's see. A.D. is Anno Domini, so maybe it's Anno Furiti??

 

 

Edit: Oh, and 100 posts this makes! Makes me feel like an aspiring newbie all over again.

 

Edit 2: Also, for the record, at first I thought I had inadvertantly blundered into "announcing" something to do with the "big surprise" we were supposed to get in May, which is why I thought my post had a hint about what it might be (hence the "yippee"). I'm actually sort of disappointed it was *just* about the internal DR release, now that we already all know about that. Although, of course, that's cool too. Just not as much subversive-potential.

Edited June 23, 2006 by demagogue

[Dram]

Anyway, it makes me happy that so many old, familiar features are making an appearance (iirc TDS didn't have wheel locks or keypads at all did it? Did it have elevators?)

 

I don't remember any elevators, and definately not wheel locks.

 

I did think you were talking about the release of the original Thief, hence, Anno Furtim, Year of the Stealth (or Furis, Year of the Thief). When I said "I'm about 100% sure the case is wrong here", I meant the Latin case. I'm about 100% sure that Anno Furtim is *not* the way you would spell it in actual Latin, because I used the simple (accusitive?) case, and it should be the genitive case ("of the"), but at the time it totally slipped my mind how to do it in Latin. Let's see. A.D. is Anno Domini, so maybe it's Anno Furiti??

Oh, and 100 posts this makes! Makes me feel like an aspiring newbie all over again.

 

Ahh! ok! Now I get it

 

I don't know much Latin at all so I did'nt know what you meant. I had a feeling it was something to do with Thief though lol.

[New Horizon]

T3 had a few elevator pads. The rutherford mission had one, as did St. Edgars....can't recall others at the moment.

[Northeast]

AI turn their heads to look around as they patrol, making sneaking around near them more difficult.

This could probably be answered if I knew more about how the D3 engine works, but... This AI routine isn't meant to be applied to all people, right? Meaning, nobles will be more oblivious while they are in their mansions, workers in their workshops etc. Only guards who are patrolling or standing guard will be naturally extra alert in this sense, yes?