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Thanks again! Displacement v3 is now in the mission database.

What a magnificent mission, loving all the custom elements and atmosphere. Bravo. Many thanks!

Oh my gosh, I just realized, I will have my 20 year Dark Mod anniversary this year. I've literally spent half my life with The Dark Mod. That's crazy!!

I use Debian because it is just general purpose distro you can use for just about anything and it is volunteer driven, instead a corporate product. But admittedly it is not as streamlined and beginner friendly like some more popular distros are. And I would like to think Linux might be more secure and private, but of course it still requires user to have some sense using it. Nowadays you can even use Proton or Wine to run most Windows programs somewhat well and of course, Dark Mod works beautifully on it, thank you very much.

Preface HUD-elements are often a technical necessity, to convey important information to the player that would otherwise not be available to them. A problem with such HUD-elements is that they don't belong to the virtual world. They make it painfully clear to the player that they are just playing a game, thereby reducing immersion. There are many genres, where you need to have such information available at all times, think fast-paced first person shooters, Mobas, or strategy games. However, especially for genres featuring free exploration, that information is simply not needed at all times. Some games (e.g. Dead Space or Metro series) have gone to extreme lengths to completely eliminate HUD elements by integrating all relevant information in the virtual world. While this is of course the most immersive approach, it is also the hardest to implement. A much easier solution is to rely on a dynamic HUD, where certain HUD elements are displayed depending on context. In recent years, I have become hyper focused on immersion. I can't stand a cluttered HUD ("sensory overload") or a map full of quest pointers ("feels like work"). I want to immerse myself in the world, not tick of pointers on a map. About a year ago, having played a ton of WoW in my youth, I played the alliance fraction on WoW Classic for the first time. Via interface addons, I had my UI completely disappear during exploration, but when I entered combat or clicked on an enemy, the UI would become visible. The minimap would generally only become visible during mouse-over. The same goes for non-combat-relevant action-bars. I paired that with a text-to-voice addon for the quest texts and some nice dynamic camera addons that would zoom in on characters when talking to them. Of course I also did not use any quest-GPS addons, so that I actually had to pay attention and search the world for the quests. It was super immersive and a glorious experience reminiscent of the 2004 release. So naturally, having played a lot of TDM recently, I am thinking about how we could improve our dynamic HUD in TDM for immersion-seekers. Current State of Dynamic HUD in TDM The HUD of TDM already has quite some dynamic elements Healthbar only shows if we are not at 100% health Breathbar only shows if we are not at 100% breath Weapon only shows if a weapon is selected and ammo text only shows if ammo is relevant to that weapon Inventory-Icon and -text only shows if an item is selected Pickup- and object-update texts are only displayed momentarily Ideas for More Dynamic HUD Elements in TDM So basically, with every HUD element, we should ask ourselves the following questions: Added information: Does this HUD element actually convey any information? Relevant when: In what situation is that information relevant? Let's start! (Please note that all proposals below shall be made optional under some "tdm_dynamic_hud"-cvar or something like that, so I am not planning to take anything away from anyone) I will update this list of ideas as we go. Weapon HUD Blackjack and Sword Added information: None. The player can see the 3d model of both weapons, so the HUD does not add any information. Relevant when: Never Proposal: Remove completely --> Very easy (already tested) Bow and arrows Added information: Arrow type and amount. Sadly, the 3d model does not show the type of arrow unless the bow is drawn. So, the icon and weapon text add information. Also, there is the ammo display. Relevant when: Player is equipping the bow Proposal: Investigate if we can alter the non-drawn bow model such that it already shows the arrow type. If that works nicely, remove arrowtype and arrow icon from HUD and potentially move the ammo display around and make it bigger. I would need support from a 3d modeler here! Proposal: Consider showing the arrow amount only briefly when the weapon is selected (and/or when the player presses "R"?) (and/or ammo amount changes) and then fade it out again. Healthbar Added information: Health Relevant when: Player is losing health. Player is likely going to loose health, e.g., when in combat or when breath bar is close to zero. Player is preparing to enter combat. Player has very low health Proposal: Briefly show after losing health; Show when equipping a weapon (possibly limit to sword?); show when breath is close to running out; show when health is below some threshold (like 20%) Breathbar: Already very dynamic. No action needed! Inventory HUD (Not the inventory grid) Compass Added information: direction Relevant when: When player equips it. Must not fade-out unless a different item is selected. Other items: Added information: Selected item Relevant when: Only during selection (or when player forgot which item is selected) or when the item can be used with the world Note: I had added the tdm_frob_item_selects_item to prevent items being selected when picking them up, thereby eliminating the respective HUD annoyance. However, I found that frequently, I wanted to use the picked up item right away (a readable, a key, etc.), so this approach is not working well. Proposal: Briefly show after selecting an item, then fade-out. Show item when it can be used on a world entity. For picking up items, consider selecting, but not showing them, so player can use them right away without HUD pop-in. When HUD is not shown, pressing next or prev item should not go to next / prev item, but just show the HUD element. Are there maybe other types of inventory items that need special treatment? Shouldering HUD Added information: Shouldering state Relevant when: Always when shouldering a body Proposal: It would be awesome if we could actually have the 3d model shouldered in view. Then we could get rid of the HUD, but of course, this would be very hard to achieve. Lightgem Added information: To some degree, visibility of player Relevant when: sneaking about or running to hide (so basically always) Discussion: It is actually debatable, how much information is really added, because the player can already tell how well illuminated they are just by looking at the environment. I would say minimalists simply disable the lightgem and all others keep it on all the time. Crouch-intent indicator Added information: Crouch-intent, i.e., while it is impossible to change crouched-state, the crouch-state that will be assumed once crouched-state is unlocked again. Current crouch state can be seen by looking at the 3d world. No indicator needed for that. Relevant when: Only while crouched-state is locked / cannot be changed. Proposal: Only show when crouched-state and crouch-intent differ? Any other UI elements I forgot? Another aspect of dynamic HUDs is HOW visibility is controlled. HUD elements might pop-in instantly or gradually fade in and out, like our FrobHelper. I would say, having HUD elements fade in and out looks generally more appealing, but I would need some advice on how to best control transparency. Should transparency be handled by the GUI scripting or dictated by the engine like in the case of the FrobHelper? What makes most sense here?

Just finished my first semi-thorough run of Displacement v2 on 2.14 beta 3. Quite an experience if I may say so. Congrats, Wellingtoncrab and Amadeus! Found 5,256 loot, and that was with buying the gilded dagger. I guess it's easier to say I am missing 1,205. I assume quite a bit of that is in the two safes I wasn't able to open, in the head historian's office, and the inner safe at the baker's. Hints on these combinations would be appreciated. I was able to open the safe in the cat shrine attic by accident, but I have no idea why that combination is correct, so info on this too please. I found 6 special loot items, and I think that is all as it filled up the entire shelving unit. I found 4 out of 6 relic fragments. The ones I did find was: Hints to the remaining ones are also welcome. One more question, what is the purpose of buying the Jacknall's Paw? I only noticed one smaller mistake. In the manor's first floor dining room, there is texture missing on both sides of the fireplace. At the foot of each pillar, the sloping part is missing texture and you can see straight through it. Thanks again

Today The Wolfgang Press

Sorry to bring up old thread but I also wanted to share my gratitude for this mod. It is very impressive that volunteer group of people have been able to create such an impressive mod with all the features you could wish for. Not only is this a tastefully made continuation of the Thief legacy, it is also a show of skill and dedication over the years. What I find particularly nice is the fact that improvements are still made, like the fact that load times have been optimized to be lightning quick and user interface can be tweaked to hearts content, sound system has hrtf-support, graphical fidelity can be tweaked as much as you like and well - there is no end to the features available. What I find particularly impressive is the fluidity of the gameplay and the apparent simplicity of the user interface which doesn't feel limiting in any way, it is an interesting effect by the way. But, all in all, job well done everyone concerned - IMHO you deserve praise all around.

https://store.epicgames.com/pl/free-games "Nobody Wants to Die" and "The Darkside Detective A Fumble in the Dark". First part of "The Darkside Detective" was free on Epic in the past and I enjoyed it even though it's a short game for children with zero difficulty level.