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I had an idea... but I don't have a plan. New Volumes of Virtual Rooms must be the result of a collaborative community effort. We have to figure out everything: rules, content, plot, presentation... and we have to figure it out together. I am not the director or supervisor of this project. I can act as a coordinator during the initial stages but consider me as simply another member. Anyone is free to volunteer for any role. VIRTUAL ROOMS VOL.2 (ALPHA) Whenever there is new content new alpha versions will be made available and the good news is that the first alpha is already here! Member @thebigh quickly figured it all out on his own and he already created the very first room for Vol.2: Thaumaturgy! Please note Vol.2 is not available in the in-game downloader. It will be uploaded to the official repository only when the project is complete. Manual install instructions: Download the alpha from here Create the folder "fms/vr_vol2" and place the pk4 there Launch the game and look for Virtual Rooms Vol.2 (alpha) Room names: DISCUSSION What do we want Virtual Rooms to be? I propose we start with a basic set of Questions & Answers and let it grow from there. Can you help improving these Q&A? What is a Virtual Room? [Provisional] A Virtual Room is the container of an idea or an experiment. Anything that doesn't fit in a more serious project can have its home in the form of a Virtual Room. A Virtual Room can be large or small, simple or elaborated, short or long. Are there any rules? [Provisional] Yes, we want to have a cohering experience and for that we need a consistent set of main objectives. To keep things simple yet interesting the current main rules are: While having AI is not required being seen by AI is an instant failure There must be at least one optional piece of loot in the map The player must reach an exit point to complete the room Each room (map) can have its own set of scripts, textures, materials, sounds... As long as the main rules are respected, you are free to do what you please. Can I have extra objectives in my room? [Provisional] Yes but think how you will let players know about them. Do I have to adhere to a particular aesthetics? [Provisional] No, you do what you want. You can opt for a blocky design or you can go with your own style. How do I submit a room? [Provisional] Upload it somewhere and announce it publicly. Somebody will eventually include it in the next Alpha. Can I revisit the room I submitted? [Provisional] Yes, of course. As many times as you want or need. It is your room after all. In what order are rooms arranged? [Provisional] "First come, first served". When we have a good number of rooms we can see if authors agree to different arrangements for a linear or cohesive experience, if such thing is even possible considering the different sources. Will I be credited for my room? [Provisional] Yes by default but you can opt out. Authors will be listed in the release page, in a readme, and we can probably add something in the briefing or debriefing. Is there a tutorial on "how to create a room"? Yes, one is in the works but it is not yet ready / available. Discuss!

There are currently nearly 200 missions to the game. That's a lot. So I made a list of the ones you shouldn't miss. If you're a beginner, do not start with the best missions. Play a few others first to learn how the game and controls work, and how you can use some items to interact with objects on the map. You will appreciate them more that way. Tastes vary. My subjective assessment is based on how enthusiastic and interested I was during the mission. Generally, I appreciate the unusual circumstances. If I felt lost too many times or needed hints to solve the plot, those were clear disadvantages. I don't like the needle in the haystack type elements. (Secrets are fine.) The list isn't a quality line. I don't want to add precise ratings, that's not the point. I have a message for those whose missions didn't end up here: Don't worry. Others may judge differently. In any case, some missions may be added here with some editing. A few didn't make it here only because of the obscure wording in the descriptions of objectives. Give me tips if you think something is missing from the list. 200 missions are a lot, I might have skipped some gems. BEST MISSIONS -A House of Locked Secrets: Very funny, diverse and memorable, sometimes nonsensical. The best mission. 4 hrs -Seeking Lady Leicester: It's probably the second best mission, but I won't argue with anyone who ranks it first. Knowing how to rotate items is essential to play this mission (middle mouse button). 6 hrs -Volta 2, Cauldron of the Gods 2.5 hrs -Volta 3: Gemcutter 3 hrs -Penny Dreadful 1: The grail of regrets 1.5-2 hrs -Penny Dreadful 2: All the way up 3 hrs -The Painter's Wife: A monumental mission. The size doesn't mean this is the best one. -Hazard Pay 2 hrs -Now and Then 5.5 hrs -Black Mage 3 hrs -Requiem: The mission is excellent and imaginative. But it's painfully difficult to move without being noticed at certain points. 4 hrs -Crucible of Omens: Behind closed doors: Excellent mission, the only problem is that it's difficult to navigate between the different parts, and it's hard to find your way back to places. Having a route back to the first part, which could be opened from the later part of the map, would have helped the flow. 5 hrs RECOMMENDED MISSIONS -Iris I hesitated a lot whether to put this in the list of best missions. But the first part of the mission offers so many options, it's rather a caricature of the genre. And the environment isn't very good either. Less would have been more. The second part of the mission is much better. I appreciate the innovative element. 7 hrs -Chronicles of Skulduggery 0: To Catch a Thief -Chronicles of Skulduggery 2: A Precarious Position 2.5 hrs -Chronicles of Skulduggery 3: Sacricide: Good, traditional mission but the story is too black and white. -No Honor Among Thieves: The end isn't satisfying, but otherwise this is a good mission chain. 5.5 hrs -Shadows of Northdale act 2. 3 hrs -The Last Night on Crookshank Lane 4 hrs -Penny Dreadful 3 -Mother Rose Funny. It's not for beginners! 40 min -A Score to Settle -Sir Talbot's Collateral -Talbot 2: Return to the City 1.5 hrs -Talbot 3: Fiasco at Fauchard street 1.5 hrs -Thomas Porter 1, Knighton Manor: Good jokes. -Thomas Porter 2, The Beleaguered Fence -Thomas Porter 3, Glenham Tower -King of Diamonds -Accountant 2: The code is good. -Golden Skull: 30 min -Vengeance for a Thief 1-3 -The Factory Heist -A Good Neighbor -Snowed Inn -Langhorne Lodge -Heart of Saint Mattis 3-4 hrs -Perilous Refuge 2.5 hrs -The Hare in the Snare: Part 1 -Rightful Property -Alberic's Curse 1.5 hrs -A Night in Altham: A strange mission. 9 hrs -By the Cookbook 1 hour -Wizard's Treasure 1 hour -A Night to Remember 1.5 hrs -Lord Edgars Bathhouse 1.5 hrs -Last Offering: How much you enjoy it depends largely on what equipment you choose at the beginning. 1 hour -The Rift: Quite cool, but the music isn't on the ambient channel so it's not possible to make it quiet. 1 hour -Briarwood Cathedral 1.5 hrs -The Threepenny Revue: 45 min -Mission of Mercy 1 hour

Author note: A couple of weeks ago Kingsal & myself set ourselves a challenge, to see if we could make a small wholesome winter themed Dark Mod mission. And if we could do it as a speed build in two weeks. The final result was Snowed Inn. Enjoy and Merry Christmas! Thank you to our beta testers Epifire & Skacky. Thank you to Moonbo for his briefing video script revision. NEW UPDATE AVAILABLE 1.2 Version 1.2 Dropbox Mirror Version 1.2 also available via the in-game downloader File Size: 379 mb

Pickpocketing somebody who is awake and not distracted sounds like a difficult thing to pull off. When it comes to execution (gameplay / mechanic) I don't recall ever blaming the game for the failures (I normally always rush up and hardly ever retreat) so I support extreme short frob-distances in this case. I would agree though that it should be easier to pickpocket death/unconscious bodies but that's a different topic altogether because there are many things at play: Auto search bodies on/off Frob helper on/off Frob-fighting between the item and the body

For the people eager to play with the latest state of development, two things are provided: regular dev builds source code SVN repository Development builds are created once per a few weeks from the current trunk. They can be obtained via tdm_installer. Just run the installer, check "Get Custom Version" on the first page, then select proper version in "dev" folder on the second page. Name of any dev version looks like devXXXXX-YYYY, where XXXXX and YYYY are SVN revision numbers from which the build was created. The topmost version in the list is usually the most recent one. Note: unless otherwise specified, savegames are incompatible between any two versions of TDM! Programmers can obtain source code from SVN repository. Trunk can be checked out from here: https://svn.thedarkmod.com/publicsvn/darkmod_src/trunk/ SVN root is: https://svn.thedarkmod.com/publicsvn/darkmod_src Build instructions are provided inside repository. Note that while you can build executable from the SVN repository, TDM installation of compatible version is required to run it. Official TDM releases are compatible with source code archives provided on the website, and also with corresponding release tags in SVN. A dev build is compatible with SVN trunk of revision YYYY, where YYYY is the second number in its version (as described above). If you only want to experiment with the latest trunk, using the latest dev build gives you the maximum chance of success. P.S. Needless to say, all of this comes with no support. Although we would be glad if you catch and report bugs before the next beta phase starts

I just stumbled across this comment from @stgatilov and was wondering if the GUI-based debrief was implemented. Turns out is wasn't, so consider this an official feature request My own requirements aren't terribly complicated - just the ability to either: display a page or pages similar to the briefing show just a custom image (e.g. a newspaper article or something) display a readable like in the game (again the newspaper example works here). Not sure if it should display before the stats screen or after? I've only put about 2 minutes of thought into this, so I imagine others will have more to add. Also, I'm scared of working with GUI files, so making it as simple as possible would be great (especially if it's just to display an image).

So I just read in a post about the black parade over at ttlg that someone was using a custom script to create a little challenge. You can only save your game for every 200 loot you gather. As many missions struggle to give loot a valuable sense of existence because it is only used as a mission goal (while not being part of a campaign where it would carry over), I personally found this a really good and refreshing idea. So, would this be possible in the dark mod too, either as a customizable game option or as a custom script j in a fan mission ? What are your thoughts on this idea in general ?

I'm looking into it, no promises but maybe I can cobble together a proof of concept and get some other people on board. Mostly the benefit would be optimization and utilization of modern hardware. Modern engines have a lot more options to optimize large open spaces with high object counts. Currently mappers do a lot of extra work to get around this optimization problem using time consuming/outdated techniques that a modern engine can handle automatically, or by crippling their artistic vision to limit draw distances and object counts. Even with optimization, you can never really overcome engine limits without a massive performance hit. It would save experienced mappers quite a bit of time, and newbie mappers even more time and headaches, as they wouldn't need to pay as much attention to optimizing for engine limitations. There are some other fringe benefits, like access to more modern shading techniques. For example I recently hit a wall in trying to implement reshade for proper ground truth ambient occlusion and global illumination, as the Dark Mod's depth buffer includes some erroneous information around torches/fires. Having those shading techniques in engine would be quite an improvement, rather than hacking them in via reshade. Lighting in general should be a lot easier to program without tanking performance. I wholly disagree that TDM performs well enough. Claustrophobic mission design is the norm around here, with people who try to step outside these limitations encountering quite a performance train wreck if they don't know all the advanced tricks that Cryengine can handle much more efficiently. You can find examples of large open spaces with details, but these are the result of veteran mappers who know how to get the most out of very little, which just encourages gate keeping and fewer missions being made. There are plenty examples of TDM's pitiful default rendering of large areas, one in particular set on a bridge stands out...

Virtual Rooms Vol.1 You are trapped in a virtual simulation of interconnected rooms, each holding its own challenge. Do you dare attempt the escape? Volume 1 marks the beginning of a journey. Future volumes of Virtual Rooms will be driven by the community: rooms will be created by different authors. We will set common rules as we go. Stay tuned for the upcoming kickoff of Volume 2! In the meantime, let know your thoughts about Volume 1 and "Virtual Rooms" as a concept. Feel free to criticize and/or suggest areas of improvement. Share your ideas. This initiative now belongs to all of you, members of this community and fans of The Dark Mod out there. EDIT - You can now discuss it here: [Alpha] Virtual Rooms Vol.2 Have fun Install instructions: Virtual Rooms Vol.1 is available in the in-game mission downloader. Alternatively, go to the "fms" folder, create the folder "vr_vol1" and place inside the pk4 file that you can download here. Room names, as reference: Known bugs: Cheers!

============== -= IRIS =- ============== WELLINGTONCRAB TDM v 2.11 REQ Ver. 1.3 *For Maureen* -=- "Carry the light of the Builder, Brother. Unto its end." -Valediction of the Devoted "What year is this? Am I dreaming?" -Plea of the Thief Dear Iris, I am old and broken. When we were young it felt like the words came easily. Now I find the ink has long dried on the pen and I'm as wanting for words as coin in my purse. I can tell we are nearing the end of the tale; time enough for one more job before the curtain call... ============== -Installation- Requires minimum version of TDM 2.11 **Dev build dev17056-10800 (2.13) fixes several visual effects which have been broken in the mission since the release of 2.11. For that reason playing with that version or later is currently recommended** -Iris does not support mods or the Unofficial Patch- Download and place the following .pk4 into you FMs directory: Iris Download ============== *Thank you for playing. Iris is a large mission which can either take as quickly or as long as you are compelled to play. I hope someone out there enjoys it and this initial release is not completely busted - I tried the best I could!* *Iris both is and isn't what it seems. If commenting please use spoiler tags where appropriate. If you are not certain if it would be appropriate a good assumption would be to use a spoiler tag* *Support TDM by rating missions on Thief Guild: https://www.thiefguild.com/* ============== WITH LASTING GRATITUDE: OBSTORTTE - Whose gameplay scripts from his thread laid the foundation which made the mission seem like something I could even pull off at all. Also fantastic tutorial videos! DRAGOFER - Who built upon that foundation and made it shine even brighter! And whom also provided immeasurable quantities of help and encouragement the past couple years on the TDM discord. ORBWEAVER & GIGAGOOGA - For generously offering their ambient music up for use. EPIFIRE - Who lent me his fine trash and trash receptacle models. AMADEUS - Who was the first person who wasn't me to play the damn thing and provided his excellent editorial services to improving the readers experience playing TESTERS AND TROUBLESHOOTERS: AMADEUS * DATISWOUS * SPOOKS * ALUMINUMHASTE * JAXA * JACKFARMER * WESP5 * ATE0ATE * MADTAFFER * STGATILOV * DRAGOFER * KINGSAL * KLATREMUS - What can I possibly say? Playing this thing over and over again could not have been easy. Deepest thanks and all apologies. -=THANKS TO ALL ON THE TDM DISCORD AND FORUM=- ==SEE README.TXT FOR ADDITIONAL ATTRIBUTIONS & INFORMATION== HONORABLE MENTION: GOLDWELL - If I hadn't by chance stumbled into Northdale back in 2018/2019 I would probably still be trying to get this thing to work in TDS, which means it probably would not exist - though more details on that in readme. ============== Boring Technical Information: *Iris is a performance intensive mission and I recommend a GTX 1060 or equivalent. I find the performance similar to other demanding TDM missions on my machine, but mileage may vary and my apologies if this prevents anyone from enjoying the mission.* *Iris heavily modifies the behavior of AI in the game, how they relate/respond to each other and the player. So they may act even stranger than they do typically in TDM. Feedback on this is useful - as it can potentially be improved and expanded upon in future patches.* -=- This is my first release and it has been a long time coming! If I forgot anything please let me know! God Speed. 2.10 Features Used:

https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=134733

Hmm yeah newdark also works for both thief 1 and 2 and also the gold version it seems. https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=141148 latest version seems to be from 2019.

Recently upgraded from a Gtx 970 to a 1660 Super and got better framerates in pretty much every game, except this one. Not only does it not really run any better, antialiasing appears to be completely broken. Has anyone actually had any success maxing this game out at 1080 with anything short of a 4090?

On the upside this might make some people actually happy: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/profile/34053-xolvix/&status=4090&type=status

This is now fixed in newest 2.14 dev version. It's not a huge game-breaking issue, so people can still use the campaign functionality with 2.13, but it's nice this has been fixed in 2.14.

Difficult question because for me it's a combination of different factors. The Dark engine is something that I've used for so long that it's hard for me to say objectively if it's easier or harder. I've also used the Unreal Engine for a very long time but I do find that the newest version is easy, intuitive, and it comes with a huge amount of support. I think of new mission ideas all the time, the difficult part for me is being able to recreate my ideas using game/engine mechanics.

@JackFarmerHere is an example of model def modified so that it displays a t-pose (or "af-pose") in DR: Frankly - I don't why the display pose in DR isn't a t-pose as that is how models spawn in the game - so this would make things like binding items to ai precisely a whole lot easier - but that is a an aside. It does make me thing of another way though - which if you only need a model with a static pose - you could create said pose on an uncorrupted model in blender - then export the pose as an .md5anim, then make a model def inheriting the actual model you want and point the anim_idle at your new pose. Then when you place the model in DR it should be posed as you like and you can position and export the model.

I just installed the cd-rom version of Thief 1 (not Gold) via Lutris (os: win98), it installed fine, but then did not work. Then I downloaded Tfix. Applied it to the directory and now it loads fine. Edit: Weird enough now the video's don't load anymore, so have to check that.. Edit2: This is fixed by simply copying all the movies from the cd-rom to the install folder. @JackFarmerI installed Thief 2 via Lutris now and encountered your problem, but got around it by removing the usb-cable of the portable dvd-drive an adding it again. It mounted correctly, but now it became the E:\ drive, but worked correctly and continued installation. Then I installed Tfix2 over it (without it it did not work). After closing the installer, Lutris Aborted, so I had to manually add the install again. But it works now. But anyway, I think you can just install it via the priviously mentioned tfix method. For tfix you have to navigate to the Thief install directory inside the wine c-drive. So for me that is: Games/thief2/drive_c/Thief2/ So Lutris installs all the files in thief2. Inside it there is a fake drive_c for wine and inside that via wine the game is installed into folder Thief2. When you use Tfix you have to navigate to that subfolder.

If you still have the game's product code you can add it to steam and then you can install it via it's download. I think this is how I got Prey (2006) in Steam. I still have the discs for T1 (not Gold) and 2 so could give it a try.. What is actually better about the original Thief 1 in comparison to Gold?

should be possible to copy of steams workarounds for use with lutris in case someone does not have the game on steam. otherwise using newdark might help since it is somewhat more modern so should atleast work well with proton or dxvk (system shock 2 on newdark runs well with dxvk atleast). only problem is if you prefer thiefs old 16 bit gfx mode since im not even sure if it is supported anymore on newdark (it is not supported with system shock 2 atleast it seems ?).

i use solus on my developer machine. earlier i have dabbled in pretty much any unix distro out there even several BSD distros but those need to catch up to have any relevance in the desktop market. i settled for solus KDE because it is easy to use and rock solid most of the time. i also like the eopkg package handler quite a bit. I do game from time to time on it and it handles that well to with steam, id like to see some refinement to lutris though which while working ok can be a bit of a headache to figure out if you are not used to it. i still use windows on my main gamer but that is mostly because i have so many old games it would be absolute hell to get them all set up on solus . mint seems to be pretty popular to unfortunatly i had a few problems last time i used it.

Seems quite interesting, maybe a bit rough around the edges. Available on Steam.

@datiswous No-kill objectives absolutely make sense in terms of the setting. No client wants a bloodbath on his hand, and bring much more heat on him than the actual heist. Loot objective are a base principle of the game, as you are a thief. What exactly do limited saves bring to the setting/gameplay, instead of being a restriction a player can pose on himself, in any game? And, again, it can already be done with manual saves. Asking for the game to pose the restriction is like asking to hold your hand. But, as you say, I'm pretty positive that it won't come anyway, as it makes no sense. A single mission for TDM has a save room, on the highest difficulty. Which is bad enough, when you're used to playing on the highest difficulty level, and don't want that kind of save system... The "solution" is to play on medium or easy, which obviously also changes all other objectives to a lower level (which is bad). I only can hope that this doesn't come into fashion, same with ghosting objectives, which only make sense in very rare cases as well (like in the "Casing the joint" mission in Thief II). Especially with the already much higher difficulty of TDM compared to the original Thief games (A.I. hears and sees MUCH better in TDM, and the blackjacking is quite a hit & miss), limited saves would be a huge PITA for me.

There is a post over on TTLG: https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=153145 Just re-checked, it was also just "an idea" and the scripts he posted mainly resolve around the enemy movement speed. I was so hooked up on that idea that I didn't remember this in the first place, sorry!