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Another great addition to TDM. The names behind this one kinda gave away it was going to be a treat. As far as level design goes, this one's up there among some of my personal favorites. The snowy city ambience followed up by decaying underground libraries and crumbling halls was right up my alley. The first half is a tried and tested recipe for success - you can almost feel the cold as you explore the rather sizable portion of the city and break into various shops and apartments to take anything you fancy. It looks good, plays good, with plenty of verticality and some new mechanics thrown in. Speaking of which, I think the spectacles in particular really spice up what would have been a great mission even without them. The second half of the map is no less impressive and shows just how good the authors are at crafting interiors. For people like me who adore exploring forgotten places it is a true feast to the eyes. Pretty creepy too. You really nailed the 'ancient, crumbling' look. After knocking out and exterminating the inhabitants, I took my time to explore the whole place and adore the grand libraries.

Oh yes, very different but they did pay a great deal of attention to the originals. I have to give them a lot more credit than just being a fluke. I think the production leads were in the right headspace and they did a good job guiding their team away from the 'on rails' point A to point B mindset . There are interviews where they discuss teaching the level designers to create things that might never be seen by most players. I think the Deus Ex team were a good crew. The interviews with the Thief team were constantly heartbreaking...it was clear they didn't get Thief as a concept and really the proof is in the final product.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/801851353072795719/936987945603309608/startmap.pk4 Here is a link to start map.pk4 from the discord server - which if you are getting into mapping I encourage you to join us over there as well!

The duality of man!

So far fantastic mission, I'm just cleaning up the last little loot and have run into a problem. I very much loved the voiced protagonist here, she's great. Nice change from the perpetual world-weary thief trope.

Holy cow, everything they said about this mission is true! I've only just managed to get to the other side of the wall and I'm already thinking about starting another playthrough in order to keep exploring more of the starting area! You really have created something amazing here. I'm so glad to hear you are planning to make make more content for TDM. You really have shown you have a profound talent with this mission, and not just because of its size. In terms of interconnectedness, navigable verticality, variety, and verisimilitude I think this might be the absolute best free-roaming level I have ever encountered in any 3D game. Period. (Previously I split that honor between TDM's Sir Talbot's Collateral, and Metroid Prime's Chozo Ruins.) Personally I think there is so much you could do here even if you limited yourself to just reconfiguring areas and objectives within this one map. I believe Goldwell is onto something with the idea in Shadows of Northdale of a reusable hub area that would form a setting for multiple missions; but this is the very first TDM map that I feel one could easily use to do that--without any major alterations or creative compromises. I mean, even as I've been exploring the decrepit tenements, haughty mansions, and brutal fortresses of Red Rook and reading about its sad history, I cannot help but imagine another story: A district in strict lockdown and quarantine against the remnants of a zombie plague. A murderous authority more interested in preserving its own veneer of power than protecting its subjects. An innocent populous walking the knife edge between rebellion and starvation. Then a downtrodden thief comes across a certain piece of incriminating evidence, and they must deliver it into the right hands to end the madness and bring the villains to justice! (Maybe the allusion to recent events in certain corners of the world is a little crude, perhaps even offensive some might protest, but I would play the hell out of that mission. We need power fantasies in these dark times.) Anyway, before I jump back in, I'll leave a bug report for you on the off chance that it may be useful: I too have run into the problem of the level crashing to desktop whenever I try to drop an item from out of my inventory. I have a personal rule that I must drop a health potion any time I reload from a save. (It keeps me from save scumming.) There were no problems the first 2 potions I discarded, but now it has started crashing whenever I try to drop that particular item. I think this was after about 3-4 hours of play time, incase that is significant. Luckily for most players I'm sure this will not be an issue, but for me it is a bummer.

I think it is a better idea to start with another mission as template, as Iris is quite complex, uses lots of advanced stuff and thus will be for a newcomer surely confusing. I recommend you to start with Sotha's "Bakery Job" which is available via the downloader and there is also a video tutorial that shows how he produced this mission from scratch to beta: https://piped.kavin.rocks/watch?v=gem2sHGhfZE You can then start modifying this mission and see how it changes. However, after Sotha's video tutorial, you should definitely go through Springheel's tutorial as well because it includes vital information regarding Visportals, AI and other things: https://piped.kavin.rocks/watch?v=6m-yq4hH81Y&list=PLUoSeWinI05Qv5srQnKYAC-MrYwCY2-lk&index=1

Hehe, it's cool. Can't please everyone.

For the disappearing player start issue, I can now reproduce the issue and I've updated the 'steps to reproduce' here: https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=5955

I backed up and deleted my entire AppData/Roaming/DarkRadiant folder and restarted pre5, and the problem went away. Just trying to pin down exactly what setting it was - not sure I'll be able to but will update if I find it. Will also update the bug tracker.

Direct alternative to Gdrive: Ecloud

I finished this mission yesterday, and, I really liked it, nice mission. I especially like the variety of your missions. It felt a lot like Northdale Act I in that regard. You can break into shops or homes, you can deal with the black market store owner, you can rob him (yes, nice Dishonored vibe there ;)), there are side quests/contracts you can accept, and there's a lot of variety in terms of the locations as well. Makes the missions interesting. I also like that there's always a certain linearity in your missions. The player gets lead in a way, instead of having a complete open world, which might get confusing in terms of order of objectives. There always seems to be an obvious and "logic" way you go as a player in your missions. The difficulty was perfect. I don't like too hard missions. I played Written in Stone a while ago, and, while i enjoyed the first part of the mission, the later part was way, WAY too hard for me. I liked that your missions also cater to the more casual player, not the super skilled pwnzo0r player, which many other missions seem to be designed for (which, obviously, is bad for people who just got into the mod). The visuals were great, as expected. The two Northdale missions are great in that regard as well. If anything, I'd criticize that, sometimes, you seem to design some spots overly narrow and small. Most places are OK though. The one thing I didn't like was the voice acting, and also the script of the playable character. The tone, and also the lines she says are a bit too happy for my liking. E.g., I don't care if the thief who just robs noble's homes rather would be in the pub, or own a home with such a nice garden, stuff like that. I rather like the dark tone of your other missions. After all, it's a dark theme and a dark world. Just a minor niggle though. Overall, I really enjoyed the mission. Well done. :)

Okay, when I started to play this mission, I had no expectations whatsoever. To say my mind was blown off is understatement of abysmal proportions - this was fucking awesome! Right from the opening intro, the nostalgic and bitter atmosphere permeates through and I did felt like I was playing Disco Elysium all over again for a while - it was bitter and made you think, but you couldn´t stop. It was only after first few hours I had to look and found out this was a winner of a contest - and deservedly so. From the masterful leveldesign - man, where did you learned this??? To map so good? - I have read in your comments this is not your first map, rather your first released one, but you deserve all the praise for it - it easily can rival Goldwells, bikerdudes levels, etc... - I am talking that kind of quality. It´s quite vast, but more importantly full of details, various new objects that can be taken and slowly unfolding story as you progress - which is quite subtle, as you have to "connect the dots" between various readables and what you find or saw. And what an intricately created world! I loved the fact there was a historic explanation of all the various cramped buildings and materials they are made of. When I mention readables - they are tastefully written (hats off to all the people writing and perfecting this) - what I saw here, is Golden Grail of well written readables in Thief/Darkmod missions. There is so many other things I would like to write about, but I have to run to my training, so I have only one plea: please, make more. Make many more and welcome amongst Taffers! PS: And few questions at the end: