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NVIDIA announced the 16nm Pascal GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 GPUs. The $599 GTX 1080 will be more powerful than Titan X, GTX 980 Ti, or two GTX 980s. Neither card uses High Bandwidth Memory like the top Pascal GPU, Tesla P100. Intel's Broadwell-E flagship enthusiast CPU, the Core i7-6950X, is expected to have 10 cores. AMD Zen mainstream desktop CPUs could have 6-8 cores. The architecture has moved from Bulldozer's Clustered Multithreading to Simultaneous Multithreading, which is closer to Intel's design and has two threads per core. Zen desktop CPUs will be released before laptop CPUs. There could be a 16 core APU in 2017. AMD's 14 or 16nm Polaris GPUs will apparently be cheaper and cooler, rather than trying to compete with the GTX 1080's performance. The Radeon R9 490 could cost $300. The Polaris GPUs will not have High Bandwidth Memory, which will instead be added to 2017 Vega GPUs as successors to the Fury series. Sony could launch a "PS4K" console using an AMD Polaris GPU and faster Jaguar CPU capable of playing the current PS4 games in 2160p instead of 1080p. It could also boost frame rates for the PSVR.

It should be around $400-600, a price bracket that was once not considered mid-range, delivering raster performance similar to the 7900 XT but likely with better raytracing performance. We can only assume RDNA4 tops out at 16 GB, but 32 GB would be a funny option if they go for it. I think you can create scenarios where games could use as much or more than 24 GB in 4K, but it's obviously rare and largely unneeded. It would be a good amount of VRAM for AI stuff, though the sky's the limit there and 32 GB isn't going to be enough for some LLMs. HBM memory is expensive to make and in huge demand for AI accelerators, enterprise GPUs, and other enterprise products (such as Intel Sapphire Rapids CPUs aka Xeon Max with HBM). I think it's as much as 5x more expensive per gigabyte than GDDR6X/7. So while it would be great for consumer gaming GPUs, with major bandwidth and efficiency benefits, AMD and Nvidia are going to put it in $10,000 to $40,000 products instead. Years ago there was talk of making cheaper, less capable versions of HBM for the mass market, but it never materialized: https://www.tweaktown.com/news/53536/low-cost-hbm-way-hit-mass-market-soon/index.html If the AI bubble pops, we might see some efforts to pivot back to consumer products. Aside from GPUs, probably every CPU should eventually be packing a big L4 cache utilizing HBM, DRAM, or bespoke 3D layers by the late 2030s.

Alright, so, I'm a Texture Artist myself for more than 20 years, which means I know what I'm talking about, but my word isn't law at all, remember that. I've worked (mostly as mods, I am a professional but I much prefer being a freelance) with old DX8 games up to DX12. When it comes to Detail Textures, for my workflow, I never ever use it except rarely when it's actually good (which, I emphasize on "rarely"). This is one reason I thought mentioning that I worked with DX8 was logical. One of the few times it's good is when you make a game that can't have textures higher than what would be average today, such as, World Textures at 1024x1024. Making detail textures for ANY (World, Model) textures that are lower than 128x128 is generally appealable. Another is when the game has no other, much better options for texturing, such as Normal Maps and Parallax Mapping. Personally, I think having Detail Textures for The Dark Mod is arguably pointless. I know TDM never had a model and texture update since 2010 or so, but most textures do seem to at least be 1024x1024, if there's any world texture that's lower than 256x256, I might understand the need of Detail Textures. Now, if this was a game meant to be made in 2024 with 2020+ standards, I would say that we should not care about the "strain" high resolution textures add, however, I do have a better proposition: Mipmaps. There are many games, mostly old than new ones, that use mipmaps not just for its general purpose but also to act as a "downscaler". With that in mind, you boys can add a "Texture Resolution" option that goes from Low to High, or even Lowest to Highest. As an example, we can add a 2048x2048 (or even 4096x4096) world texture that, if set to Lowest, it would use the smallest Mipmap the texture was made with, which depends on how the artist did it, could be a multiplication of 1x1 or 4x4. One problem with this is that, while it will help in the game with people who have less VRAM than usual these days, it won't help with the size. 4096x4096 is 4096x4096, that's about 32mb compressed with DXT1 (which is not something TDM can use, DXT is for DirectX, sadly I do not know how OpenGL compresses its textures). I would much rather prefer the option to have better, baked Normal Maps as well as Parallax Mapping for the World Textures. I'm still okay with Detail Textures, I doubt this will add anything negative to the game or engine, very sure the code will also be simple enough it will probably only add 0.001ms for the loading times, or even none at all. But I would also like it as an option, just like how Half-Life has it, so I'm glad you mentioned that. But yet again, I much prefer better Normal Maps and Parallax Mapping than any Detail Textures. On another note...Wasn't Doom 3, also, one of the first games that started using Baked Normal Maps?

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

There's been talk over the years on how we could improve texture quality, often to no avail as it requires new high-resolution replacements that need to be created and will look different and add a strain on system resources. The sharpness post-process filter was supposed to improve that, but even with it you see ugly blurry pixels on any nearby surface. Yet there is a way, a highly efficient technique used by some engines in the 90's notably the first Unreal engine, and as it did wonders then it can still do so today: Detail textures. Base concept: You have a grayscale pattern for various surfaces, such as metal scratches or the waves of polished wood or the stucco of a rough rock, usually only a few highly generic patterns are needed. Each pattern is overlayed on top of corresponding textures several times, every iteration at a smaller... as with model LOD smaller iterations fade with camera distance as to not waste resources, the closer you get the more detail you see. This does wonders in making any texture look much sharper without changing the resolution of the original image, and because the final mixture is unique you don't perceive any repetitiveness! Here's a good resource from UE5 which seems to support them to this day: https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/en-us/unreal-engine/adding-detail-textures-to-unreal-engine-materials Who else agrees this is something we can use and would greatly improve graphical fidelity? No one's ever going to replace every texture with a higher resolution version in vanilla TDM; Without this technique we'll always be stuck with early 2000's graphics, with it we have a magic way of making it look close to AAA games today! Imagine being able to see all those fine scratches on a guard's helmet as light shines on it, the thousands of little holes on a brick, the waves of wood as you lean into a table... all without even losing much performance nor a considerable increase in the size of game data. It's like the best deal one could hope for! The idTech 4 material system should already have what we need, namely the ability to mix any textures at independent sizes; Unlike the old days when only a diffuse texture was used, the pattern would now need to be applied to both albedo / specular / normal maps, to my knowledge there are shader keywords to combine each. Needless to say it would require editing every single material to specify its detail texture with a base scale and rotation: It would be painful but doable with a text injection script... I made a bash script to add cubemap reflections once, if it were worth it I could try adapting it to inject the base notation for details. A few changes will be needed of course: Details must be controlled by a main menu setting activating this system and specifying the level of detail, materials properties can't be controlled by cvars. Ultimately we may need to overlay them in realtime, rather than permanently modifying every material at load time which may have a bigger performance impact; We want each iteration to fade with distance and only appear a certain length from the camera, the effect will cause per-pixel lighting to have to render more detail per light - surface interaction so we'll need to control the pixel density.

After finding the DSOG webites thought I would post about a games that in producton atm that lloks rather good - Vampyr

yeah its a jungle out there but a 12 gb card on a 128 bit bus would only be viable with dlss and then only just . but there will probably be plenty of options as you mention though id still go for something that would atleast be able to drag the ammount of vram without workarounds. strangely the old amd R9 390 had a 512 bit bus and could probably have accepted 32 gb vram but the card is to slow to do 4k in modern titles. even so the 8 gb model actually ran quite nicely in games such as the first horizon in 4K but would probably choke and die on forbidden west . minor wtf moment is crysis remastered it runs it at 4k in can it run crysis with a gazillion fps looks quite purty to but i suspect this is a bug.

Quite a few people probably don't know or don't remember that the Epic Store is giving away free games every week. As most people have very busy lives nowadays it can be difficult to remember to check the store every week. They have been giving away some pretty good games and it would be a shame to miss these. Therefore I will try to update this post every week with the games they are giving away until they stop doing it. This is obviously meant for people that are interested in downloading something from the Epic Store. This week you can download: The End Is Nigh https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8DUps2QKA0 The End Is Nigh is a sprawling adventure platformer where you die a lot, but that's ok because you are probably already dead anyway. https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/product/the-end-is-nigh/home ABZU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9d8YjpJgiU From the art director of Journey® and Flower®, ABZÛ is a beautiful underwater adventure that evokes the dream of diving. https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/product/abzu/home

My old friend Andreas urgently needs my help. He asked if I could meet him at the Lion's Head Inn, our favourite retreat in a quaint part of the city called Mirkway Quarter. He’s got a small apartment nearby where he makes a modest living off paintings he sells to pompous nobles and the odd merchant. Not long ago, his wife Lily was hired as a servant at the manor of the local alderman, one Lord Marlow. Now she hasn't been home for days. Andreas went to the manor looking for her, but the guards shoved him into the gutter and warned him not to return. Andreas is certain that something bad has happened, and I don’t think he’s wrong. Gallery Authors’ Notes It all started many years ago when Shadowhide laid the foundation for a sprawling and convoluted city and worked with MoroseTroll and Clearing to create a macabre storyline to befit this medieval metropolis. At some point, however, the beast grew too large to handle, so he handed the keys to the City to Bikerdude and Melan. Together, the two worked tirelessly, passing the map back and forth, each playing to their respective strengths. Notably, Melan reworked the story concept, toning down many of its darker, R-rated elements. Eventually Melan, too, moved on in 2017, but by then large swathes of the community had become involved in this map’s development. Mapping work was contributed by Baal, Grayman, Fidcal, Ubermann, Skacky, and Flanders, while Destined, nbohr1more, and Obsttorte wrote story texts. Several scripts were provided by Grayman, Baal and Obsttorte, such as an elevator with scissor gates, a TDM first. Even after all this input, the daunting task still remained to transform what had grown into the largest TDM map ever made into a playable mission. Bikerdude hammered away at this for some more years still, on and off between other projects, until in early 2020 when he deemed it ready for public viewing. It was then that Dragofer and Amadeus joined in. In the months that followed, the trio reworked, finished, and polished the mission in nearly every aspect, fully writing out and editing the story as well as adding countless scripted effects and (with help from Bienie) many new readables. The good working atmosphere and pooled creativity brought forth several new secrets, of which the largest likely hasn’t been done before in TDM (hint: check the libraries). In the very end, the name “Fractured Glass Company” was drawn up to refer to everybody who was involved in creating this very special mission. Without the hard work of all these people, most of all Bikerdude and Shadowhide, this mission would likely never have seen the light of day, let alone become what you see here before you. The mission is, as Bikerdude puts it, a homage to Thief 1 & 2, and it’s our hope that you catch these vibes as you explore and enjoy this mission. Update 1.2 (released 04/04/2021) Update 1.1 (released 11/11/2020) Credits - Mapping: Shadowhide, Bikerdude, Amadeus, Baal, Dragofer, Fidcal, Flanders, Melan, Skacky, UberMann - Original Story Concept: Clearing, MoroseTroll, Shadowhide - Story & Readables: Amadeus, Bienie, Bikerdude, Dragofer, Destined, Melan, nbohr1more, Obsttorte, Shadowhide - Editor: Amadeus - Scripting: Dragofer, Baal, Grayman, Obsttorte - Voice Acting: AndrosTheOxen (Andreas), Joe Noelker (Player) - Video Editing: Bikerdude (briefing), Goldwell (briefing intro) - Custom Models: Bikerdude, Dragofer, Dram, Epifire, Grayman, Obsttorte - Custom Textures: Airship Ballet, Dmv88, Hugo Lobo - Custom Sounds: GigaGooga, Sephy, Shadow Sneaker, alanmcki, andre_onate, Deathscyp, dl-sounds.com, Dmv88, dwoboyle, eugensid90, gzmo, lucasduff, mistersherlock, qubodup, randommynd, richerlandtv, sfx4animation, Speedenza - Betatesting: Amadeus, ate0ate, Biene, Bluerat, CambridgeSpy, Cardia, Dragofer, Garrett(Monolyth-42), JoeBarnin, Kingsal, Krilmar, ManzanitaCrow, MikeA, Noodles, S1lverwolf, s.urfer Download Note: this mission requires TDM 2.08, which is now available for download. Please be aware that old saved games will no longer work after you upgrade to 2.08's release build. Note: it’s highly recommended to run this mission using the 64-bit client (TheDarkModx64.exe), since there've been frequent reports the mission won't load on the 32-bit client (TheDarkMod.exe). Both are found in the same folder. The mission is available from the ingame downloader. In addition to that, here are some more mirrors, as well as the official screenshots for anybody uploading this mission to a FM database: Mission: Google Drive / OneDrive Mission (v1.1, slimmed down version for 32-bit clients): Google Drive / OneDrive Official Screenshots: Google Drive / OneDrive Hi-Res Map: Imgur Links Secret loot & areas walkthrough by @Lzocast

biggest gripe with my 2080 ti is that it only has hdmi 2.0b so it cant do 4k above 60hz luckily the displayport can and since i bought a monitor with displayport it happily chugs along in 4k 145 hz its an asus ultrawide 32" so matches my board which is also from asus and gfx card also from asus as a bonus, just stay the f... away from asus software the hardware is quite good though. the ultrawide screen has its own problems with some games though (letterboxing) but most of those can be worked around. in hzd the cutscenes are allways letterboxed which is annoying since it has a load of those but the game itself runs fine in ultra widescreen. my 3070 runs on an older phillips tv i had "1080p" eww. but i tried it on my 4k screen just for comparison. sometime in the near future ill ditch the old phillips for a 4k TV since i use my second PC as a streaming device mainly (i dont have cable TV) .

I think it would be smart to go ahead and start a "Newbie thread" that covers all newbie questions in one place, as with the TDS Forum. It doesn't have to be this one, just for future reference. Aaanyway, I was going through the A-Z Tutorial, and right about the time you make the pool of water, I fixed some leaks, thought I got them all. Now it won't Dmap again, but when I hit Pointfile, it says "Could not open pointfile: E:/games/ ... /TutorialMap.lin" I don't know why since it's been working up to now. So if I have a leak I can't find it, but it's troubling just that Pointfile suddenly, inexplicably doesn't open! There isn't any ".lin" file either; not sure what happened to it. Any ideas? Edit: I started a map from scratch and Pointfile didn't show up again. So whatever it is, it isn't something I messed up in that first map, but a general problem I'm having with DR. Edit2: But it does Dmap and Map just fine, so that's ok.

Thought it would be a good idea to collate a useful list for new and old mappers alike and this post will update as we go. Abandoned works: Any WIP projects that were abandoned by the original author - http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/12713-abandoned-works/ Darkradiant & Darkmod shortcut settings: Some example settings for new mappers - http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/15152-darkradiant-and-darkmod-shortcut-folder-settings/ Darkradiant howto, must knows, tips and faqs - http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/12558-usefull-important-editing-links/?do=findComment&comment=272581 Info for Beginners: Newbie DarkRadiant Questions - http://forums.thedar...iant-questions/ Dark Radient Must Know Basic Intro - http://wiki.thedarkm...now_Basic_Intro Editing Tips for Beginners - http://wiki.thedarkm...s_for_Beginners Editing FAQ (Troubleshooting & How-To) - http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Editing_FAQ_-_Troubleshooting_%26_How-To Sotha's excellent Mapping Tutorial series: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/18680-lets-map-tdm-with-sotha-the-bakery-job/ Springheel's New Mapper's Workshop: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/18945-tdm-new-mappers-workshop/ Inspiration: Collection of screenshots and images people have found online - http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/11610-darkmod-inspiration-thread/ Mapping Resources: List of Voice actors available for voice recording - http://modetwo.net/d...6-voice-actors/ Lengthy collection of city reference pictures - http://modetwo.net/d...rence-pictures/ Collection of texture resource sites - http://modetwo.net/d...ture-resources/ Free Ambient Tracks - http://skeksisnetlabel.wordpress.com/2009/12/30/10-songs-for-free-download-vol-10-full-moon-over-noricum/ Mapping Tools: 3 useful tools for texture creation - http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/18581-must-have-tools-for-the-descerning-mapper/ Modular Building: What is Modular building - http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/14832-modular-building-techniques/ Working example tutorial on modular building - http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/18680-lets-map-tdm-with-sotha-the-bakery-job/ Springheels new modular models - http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/18683-using-springheels-205-modules/ Some related mapper recipies - Easy Vaults - http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/14859-easy-vault-recipe/?hl=%2Beasy+%2Brecipe Easy Outdoors - http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/16159-easy-outdoors-recipe/?hl=%2Beasy+%2Brecipe Easy Caverns - http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/14469-quick-caverns-recipe/?hl=recipe Easy Alert Ai - http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/17157-easy-alert-ai-recipe/?hl=%2Beasy+%2Brecipe Easy Alert Ai Custom Behavour - http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/17160-easy-alert-ai-custom-behavior-recipe/?hl=recipe Tutorials: Collection of video tutorials for DR - http://modetwo.net/d...in-darkradiant/ Using Lighting and detail effectively: - http://forums.thedar...l-and-lighting/ Voice Actors list: List of available voice actors - http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/12556-list-of-available-voice-actors/ Usefull Console commands: A list of console commands for testing in-game - http://wiki.thedarkm...Useful_Controls

I'm happy to present my first FM, The Spider and the Finch. There may be a spider, but no ghosts or undead. It should run a couple hours. It's now available on the Missions page or the in-game downloader. Many thanks to the beta testers Acolytesix, Cambridge Spy, datiswous, madtaffer, Shadow, and wesp5 for helping me improve and making the mission to the best of my abilities. This would not be have been possible without Fidcal's excellent DarkRadiant tutorial. Thanks also to the many people who answered my questions in the TDM forums. Cheers! 2023-12-13 Mission updated to version 3. Fixed a bug where the optional loot option objective was not actually optional. Updated the animations for Astrid Added a hallway door so the guards are less likely to be aggroed en masse.

Yes. Sure, I will change it, but I do mind. In addition to changing the forum title, I have also had the name of the pk4 changed in the mission downloader and the thiefguild.com site’s named changed. It's not just some "joke". The forum post and thread are intended to be a natural extension of the mission’s story, a concept that is already SUPER derivative of almost any haunted media story or most vaguely creepy things written on the internet in the past 10 or 15 years. Given your familiarity with myhouse.wad, you also can clearly engage with something like that on some conceptual level. Just not here on our forums? We can host several unhinged racist tirades in the off-topic section but can’t handle creepypasta without including an advisory the monsters aren’t actually under the bed? (Are they though?) I am also trying to keep an open mind, but I am not really feeling your implication that using a missing person as a framing of a work of fiction is somehow disrespectful to people who are actually gone. I have no idea as even a mediocre creative person what to say to that or why I need to be responsible for making sure nobody potentially believes some creative work I am involved in, or how that is even achievable in the first place. Anyway, apologies for the bummer. That part wasn’t intentional. I am still here. I will also clarify that while I love the game, I never got the biggest house in animal crossing either. In the end Tom Nook took even my last shiny coin.

I suppose your right. The Dark Mod was originally made to be a challenge for those familiar with the Thief games, in terms of difficulty and perhaps lower in accessibility to the newer players. It wasn't meant to be a re-creation of what its like to fight or sneak or stealth takedown enemies at all of those games or to mimick real life in anyway. Its just supposed to put all our skills to the test. With that said, I sorta wish the dark mod took a different turn and made the gameplay and difficulty more organic and natural, rather than always relying on bumping it up by forcing certain rules on myself when playing. Like no tools except lockpicks, no KO's, and no killing any human NPC's, put everything back where it was except loot, and keep being spotted to a minimum by only moving around when the enemies our out of sight if I can help it. Your mod is certainly a improvement by a significant margin because its got some consistency that I appreciate And its also got a whistle and peek through doors Great work of course.

As the title says, I made an ebuild for The Dark Mod a while ago, figured I might as well post about it here in case anyone here is using Gentoo (or wants to adapt it for other distributions). The game gets installed system-wide and files are symlinked to the user's home directory whenever the game is started after an update (or for the first time), so the game files are only in one location but also users' save states don't conflict. The ebuild itself is here: https://git.sr.ht/~dblsaiko/ebuilds/tree/master/games-rpg/thedarkmod, and you can install the game by enabling my Portage overlay and then emerging the games-rpg/thedarkmod package: # eselect repository enable 2xsaiko # (alternatively, add the repo using layman) # emerge games-rpg/thedarkmod

DarkRadiant 3.9.0 is ready for download. What's new: Feature: Add "Show definition" button for the "inherit" spawnarg Improvement: Preserve patch tesselation fixed subdivisions when creating caps Improvement: Add Filters for Location Entities and Player Start Improvement: Support saving entity key/value pairs containing double quotes Improvement: Allow a way to easily see all properties of attached entities Fixed: "Show definition" doesn't work for inherited properties Fixed: Incorrect mouse movement in 3D / 2D views on Plasma Wayland Fixed: Objective Description flumoxed by double-quotes Fixed: Spinboxes in Background Image panel don't work correctly Fixed: Skins defined on modelDefs are ignored Fixed: Crash on activating lighting mode in the Model Chooser Fixed: Can't undo deletion of atdm_conversation_info entity via conversation editor Fixed: 2D views revert to original ortho layout each time running DR. Fixed: WX assertion failure when docking windows on top of the Properties panel on Linux Fixed: Empty rotation when cloning an entity using editor_rotatable and an angle key Fixed: Three-way merge produces duplicate primitives when a func_static is moved Fixed: Renderer crash during three-way map merge Internal: Replace libxml2 with pugixml Internal: Update wxWidgets to 3.2.4 Windows and Mac Downloads are available on Github: https://github.com/codereader/DarkRadiant/releases/tag/3.9.0 and of course linked from the website https://www.darkradiant.net Thanks to all the awesome people who keep creating Fan Missions! Please report any bugs or feature requests here in these forums, following these guidelines: Bugs (including steps for reproduction) can go directly on the tracker. When unsure about a bug/issue, feel free to ask. If you run into a crash, please record a crashdump: Crashdump Instructions Feature requests should be suggested (and possibly discussed) here in these forums before they may be added to the tracker. The list of changes can be found on the our bugtracker changelog. Keep on mapping!

As far as I know, there are no licensing concerns with screenshots or gameplay videos you've made yourself, regardless of the license of the underlying game (otherwise Twitch streaming and games journalism would be impossible). However, Wikipedia articles about games tend not to feature large numbers of screenshots and videos, and it's possible that other Wikipedia editors would consider your videos promotional rather than encyclopedic.

Thi4f will be free on Epic Games Store from April 4 to April 11, along with The Outer Worlds. So it's your chance to see what all the fuss is about for $0 and test one of the few AMD TrueAudio games in existence. Although from what I heard watching one of the autopsy videos, the implementation is wasted. https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/free-games

Flakebridge Monastery In this mission you will visit a Builder outpost to steal some valuable books. It is the first in what I hope will be a series about Selis Woderose. I would like to take the opportunity to thank my beta testers: Aprilsister, Bikerdude, Chiron, lost_soul, and prjames. As well as Fidcal for his starting map, and Melan for his texture pack. Known bugs: A small number may appear at the bottom left corner of your screen when the mission loads. Press sheath weapon to make it disappear. As already mentioned this is the first mission in a series. When you have completed it you may know what you'll be going after in the next mission. You may even know where! Enjoy! And please use spoiler tags where appropriate. A couple of screens: (thanks lowenz) http://2.bp.blogspot...0/shot00001.jpg http://3.bp.blogspot...0/shot00003.jpg

I've seen fun workarounds like that in other game modding as well. Years ago, maybe even a decade, some fella who was making a mod for Mount & Blade over at the Taleworlds forums revealed that he put invisible human NPCs on the backs of regular horse NPCs, then put the horse NPCs inside a horse corral he built for one of his mod's locations/scenes and then did some minor scripting, so the horses with invisible riders would wander around the corral. The end result was that it looked they're doing this of their own will, rather than an NPC rider being scripted to ride around the corral slowly. Necessity is the mother of invention. I don't know about the newest Mount & Blade game, but the first generation ones (2008-2022) apparently had some sort of hardcoded issue back in the earlier years, where if you left a horse NPC without a rider in its saddle, the horses would just stand around and wait and you couldn't get them to move around. Placing an invisible rider in their saddles suddenly made it viable again, at least for background scenes, of riderless horses wandering around, for added atmosphere. First generation M&B presumed you'd mostly be seeing horses in movement with riders, and the only horses-wandering-loosely animations and scripting were done for situations when the rider was knocked off their horse or dismounted in the middle of a battle. Hence the really odd workarounds. So, an invisible NPC trick might not be out of the question in TDM, even though you could probably still bump into it, despite its invisibility.

Here's my first FM. A small and easy mission, inspired by Thief's Den and The Bakery Job, where you must find and steal a cook's recipe book in order to save a friend from going out of business. Download: Mediafire (sk_cooks.pk4) TDM Website's Mission Page The in-game mission downloader Thanks to: The people who helped me get this far, both in the forums and on Discord. The beta testers: MirceaKitsune, Mat99, Baal, wesp5, Cambridge Spy, jaxa, grodenglaive, Acolytesix ( Per the author in the beta testing thread. ) Skaruts has given permission to the TDM Team to add Subtitles or Localization Strings to this mission. (No EFX Reverb.) If anyone from the Community or TDM team wishes to create these we will gladly test them and update the mission database.

I wrote earlier that I owe this masterpiece a review, so... Here is my detailed review of this groundbreaking and seminal Mission Fan. SPOILERS ABOUND ! TDM PLAYER BEWARE, YOU'RE IN FOR SPOILERS AND MAYBE EVEN A SCARE ! This mission... subverted my expectations. Starting with the briefing video. Not since the days of Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Westerns have I seen such daring subversion right at the start. You're expecting one thing... then, bam ! I tried everything to infiltrate the mansion from the outside ! No luck ! Well and truly, expectations subverted ! NPC dialogue heard from the inside... stellar ! Brought a tear to my eye. Or was it just one of the raindrops that fell on my head ? What else brought a tear to my eye ? The senselessly slaughtered guard at the courtyard ! Clearly, a cautionary story that he who grabs a sword... and yet, forgets to dim his lantern, the fool... shall die by someone's sword or arrow. Figures ! That you hid the masterful sidequest of collecting the pennies-for-a-thought from the rather racy fountain, in order to later thoughtfully redistribute them to the poor and hungry street urchins of Bridgeport, is nothing short of design brilliance worthy of at least a two hours long, detailed GDC lecture. I'd watch such a lecture on a loop, 24 hours a day, twelve times a day. Brilliant stuff ! Ah, the side-yard, with steps and a basement entrance that looked and felt straight out of Thief II's opening mission, Running Interference... Could the cunning TDM homages to the classics get any better ?! Could they ? Well, soon enough, I discovered that, yes, they could get even better ! There was an even more amazing homage that I didn't expect ! Read on to find out what... The chefpick was... indescribably cool. I now yearn for it to be included in every single FM. The classic lockpicks feel completely passé. I knocked out both NPCs and... what is this unexpected social commentary ?! The knocked-out have names ?! I applaud your deeply incisive observation, worthy of a skilled chef with a kitchen knife, that the NPCs in games are not mere fictional constructs, but fictional beings with names, hearts and souls ! I confess, upon this moving revelation, I started shedding tears so uncontrollably, I nearly had to quit playing the mission. Yet, I pressed on, heartened and refreshed by such displays of humanity in a work of stealthy interactive fiction ! The commentary was no less subtle and stealthy, I tell you ! As subtle as the protagonist's gritty, grounded accent ! Two different entrances into the local vent system... I... I can't even... So many possible routes of entry. Truly, in the grand tradition of the TDM immersive sim design philosophy ! The choice of giving the intrepid protagonist a temporary rat companion, bribable by cheese, who fetches priceless hidden loot, was equal parts innovative and a hard-hitting social commentary on the abuse of animals for theft and burglary, and people "ratting out" their fellow tenants by revealing the hiding places of their priceless belongings ! I was deeply impressed ! I was thoroughly amazed ! You even had my 'stalgia sense tingling ! Why ? That minor element of your FM even reminded me of the old but gold Thief II FM campaign The Flying Age: The Abominable Flying Machines of Dr. Zeppelinger, where you escape a prison cell by giving a mouse a bit of cheese you've managed to find, and the mouse then provides you with a means of escape. I have scarcely ever seen such a wonderful duo of homages to other past LGS missions and fan missions ! Of course, the shocking revelation with the undead in the freezer was an even more biting commentary on the undead precariat of today, and their ruthless and dehumanizing exploitation by The Man, maaan, the snobby culinary establishment. Undeadkind merely want to roam their abandoned tombs and catacombs in peace (pieces ?) and get a bite or two out of a stray vagrant or drunk guard every now and then, no big deal. Society needs to be more charitable to undeadkind ! And you've even included a gas arrow up in the rafters ! You well and truly know your audience, as I'm an old, die-hard gas arrow collecting enthusiast. I am a sophisticated, yet simple man: I see a gas arrow in Thief or The Dark Mod, I immediately grab it, owing to its rarity. Thank you for such generous mission design. To cut a long story short, I have had a thorough, engrossing and moving cultural experience with this short-but-dazzling mission ! In the shadowed alleys of TDM fan mission sites, I have crossed paths with missions that were ruthlessly difficult and confounding, yet rewarding, but never have I played a mission this... authentic... avantgarde... thought-provoking... It even made me feel hungry ! Riveting, simply riveting. Like working on the skeleton of a 1930s Art Deco skyscraper. Ultimate verdict: 22 frommages out of 20, with a happy cheese-filled rat as the cherry on the top. (But what kind of frommage ? Cheddar ? Swiss cheese ? Gouda ?! I dunno. Don't have a cheesemaking degree.) In other words, I cannot rate this mission other than with the Chef Excellence Award for... Excellence ! *chef's kiss* Le Mission Légendaire Magnifique ! Roll over, Requiem ! Roll over, Crucible of Omens ! Roll over, Iris ! This, this... is the pinnacle TDM fan mission of all time.

https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/free-games https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/thief-5bb95f THI4F is available, it's time to fulfill your destiny