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'ello! As you may be aware I spent the first week of this month remaking La Banque Bienveillante, the first mission of my Quinn Co. campaign I started almost a decade ago. Well, with the help of a bunch of lovely beta testers over a month of feature creep, it's now done! I've made a new topic rather than necroing the old one, because I feel it's come along enough now that it is, essentially, a whole new mission made in the spirit of the original. The goal is to eventually make the existing missions obsolete and put this new campaign in its place, but when that happens I'll include a link to the old .pk4 in here for posterity, since I don't believe in deleting work entirely no matter how mediocre it was! To that end, can this please be entered into the mission downloader as a standalone mission? It can then replace the existing Quinn Co. once the second mission is out, thanks! This is a small, short and sweet bank heist that sets the stage for the larger--and much more difficult--campaign in the works. It's mechanically stripped back a little from the initial release, since I feel I got a bit carried away. It is, however, far prettier as well! Your objective is, of course, the vault, but you can take on extra jobs for people to make money on the side; while the vault gives you money to spend in the next mission's shop, it doesn't count towards your overall loot objective whereas optional jobs do, so it's up to you if you'd rather almost empty the place to make ends meet, or take on extra work if you're less inclined to go hunting for shinies! Screenshots Thanks Big thanks to all the lovely beta testers without whom the mission would probably fail to run! Acolytesix, Datiswous, jaxa, madtaffer, Shadow, thebigh, The Black Arrow, Wellingtoncrab & wesp5 And thanks to everyone who's continued to contribute to the project over the years - I've come back and there's so much more fantastic content to play with! And thanks to you! For playing! I'd love to hear what you think, and feel free to notify me of any issues - provided they're not game-breaking, they'll be fixed when Quinn Co 2 comes out soon! (tm) Download (.pk4)

The behavior of the AI is becoming more and more unpredictable. Now they're already starting to put their feet up when they sleep! That Google guy was right; the programs develop a life of their own! Prepare for the worst!

There's something fairly unique in TDM, at least as far as I've seen in a user-made game. I remember when grayman passed away last year, it wasn't long before we started seeing missions that had memorials dedicated to him implemented somewhere within the missions themselves. I can't remember the exact missions I've seen with grayman memorials of some sort, but I've definitely seen at least three. Just small things, in most cases requiring a little extra work from the player to find them always tastefully done. Well I was recently replaying a bunch of missions and came across this within a recessed area in a mission called The Warrens, an area I hadn't discovered in previous playthroughs: Sir Taffaslot was another mission creator who made a handful of missions who also tragically died a few years ago. The amazing thing is not only is it a nice little memorial to just randomly find when playing, but the author of this particular map (The Warrens)? grayman. Hell the guy even made a dedicated mission as a tribute to Sir Taffaslot. So yeah. We may just be "nothing more than a cult posing as a game development project", but it does bring a tear to my eyes sometimes in way most other games don't.

I am basically rehashing lots of points of discussion which have already come up on the discord, but I think the biggest problem with gear is that in the event of detection it rarely provides a viable or preferable alternative to reloading the game, and so even if the designer attempts to “lead the horse to water” it still seems much more often they will languish in the players inventory. I guess there is always the thrill and brief endorphin injection from hearing that frob sound! Tools I think should be much more effective means of interrupting and ending the alert states of AI, or at least this strikes me as the most fruitful venue for coaxing players out of the detection = failure = reload the game loop. A flashbomb for example provides a rather brief window for escape into at best a lengthy wait for the simulation to reset. Things like the rather brief “I am blind” animation only looping through once also doesn’t provide very good feedback to players how effective the tool even is. I always got the the impression in thief that blinded AI was pretty much opened up to an easy 360 degree KO from the blackjack (and thus a quick simulation reset) but it doesn’t seem to work this way in TDM (striking them at least seems to re-loop through the “I am blind” animation). I also think the default effect duration could be longer (or at less of penalty to the player, or perhaps I am not very good at not blinding myself). Perhaps bringing over the choke mechanic for moss arrows from TDS, even it’s just using the same blind stim, is another avenue to expand the versatility of tools - then moss arrows become multifunction and can also be used to offensively interrupt alerts and open guards to KO. Maybe this could be expanded further and the moss pads not only dampen player sounds but reduce player fall damage (which I understand is technically more difficult than it sounds and has obvious potential ramifications for legacy missions). TL;DR - players don’t use tools - perhaps they should be more useful.

Just to correct a few things: Only guards with helmets become completely immune to blackjacking after being alerted (which happens if you hit them incorrectly with the blackjack, but not if you miss). There has been a plan to improve the blackjacking mechanic for half a decade. The team proposed replacing the current physics-based system with a simple distance and orientation check to remove the problem of getting too close or hitting things above the player's head. It's been on the bugtracker since 2016: https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=4289 and as far as I know has not been shot down by anyone. In fact, I had a vague recollection that someone was actually working it recently, though I could be wrong about that.

You better make another one! Lucy was ambitious but another one doesn't have to be so grand if you feel it was too much. Either way you should make more with your mapping talents.

Pretty cool

Version 1.1 only fixes an ugly immersion breaking bug where some AI stood around like scarecrows instead of following their paths and the TDM natural order of things. Otherwise it's the same. The update might break your savegame, I dunno. It takes a few minutes to blackjack the hammers and slip in to an area of the hall that was inaccessible before so you can complete the optional objective. I think it should be worth it - but it's up to you. I'm taking note of your issue as of other issues raised, but large and radical fixes affecting gameplay aren't in the cards in the near future because in an FM of this size such changes take considerable time, not just to implement but then to check through all the possible repercussions, glitches that might be newly introduced. And I'll never, ever, satisfy everyone. This FM took YEARS to make, and at this point it comes more or less "as is, where is". Because I want to move on. I want to use what I've learned to make a new and much shorter/tighter and hopefully more intense FM from scratch.

I don't understand any of this. It's all so self-contradictory and inconsistent. The player is employing the "best strategy" and "exploiting the mechanic", but he ends up getting killed. There's "no risk" (he dies) and "no chance of failure" (he wastes numerous arrows then dies) but at the same time it's "constant trial and error"? So this strategy which is supposed to be too easy but at the same time gets this player killed, is going to be made more fun and satisfying by imposing randomness and arbitrary restrictions to make it more difficult and unpredictable? Is there some evidence for this beyond the ideologically-driven belief that making a game more difficult automatically makes it more fun? Sorry, I'm just not getting it. Most missions have some combination of helmeted guards and/or no-kill objectives which would make a Sniper Elite headshot-based strategy impossible, even if it were as easy as you claim (and the video disproves).

Making the collision area for blackjacking slightly larger and the surrounding non-solid for the blackjack if an ai is directly in front of the player would be an option. Also a subtle arm raise indicating you are close enough could help. IIRC you are using a relatively large monitor. Many of us may not. Maybe that makes a difference in perception, too, considering that, as stated correctly, blackjacking success depends on depth perception. Personally I don't have such an issue with blackjacking either. But it depends on my mood and in TDM it is definetely harder then it was in thief, which is something I am not sure is intentional.

There seem to be two major causes behind the difficulty of blackjacking: The implementation is based on physics (tracking the exact motion of the blackjack model and calculating what point on the victim's head it lands), which adds absolutely no gameplay value but results in numerous failure conditions which are completely opaque to newcomers and seasoned players alike. The idea of being "too close to blackjack" is abject nonsense — if anyone has a gameplay explanation for why such a mechanic would be fun, I'm dying to hear it. Any suggestions to improve the mechanic or make it more forgiving are largely shot down by the "muh realism!" crowd. But...but...but... we need all these silly secret rules and failure conditions! Players should do 8 hours of blackjack training before playing this game! More difficulty means more fun, always and forever! Git gud, scrub! The end result of this is: players endlessly complain about blackjack difficulty, and have to work around the issue by quicksaving before every blackjack attempt because it might as well be a coin flip whether it works or not. To which the response is... let's restrict saving so you can't do this! Moooooooooar difficulty! Moooooooar fun!!!

I've just finished v1.1 on Expert. There were no T pose AI. Thanks for the mission! One quick question, in Airmid's grotto with all objectives met there were still two exits which were inaccessible (glassed over with a spell, presumably). Is that as it should be, or have I failed to do something to open them?

I guess I shouldn't have read that..

It's all those damn Social Clubbers ruining everything... I remember finding the memorial in The Warrens. I figured Sir Taffsalot was some kind of musician based on the banjo, but never worked out if the glowing egg was significant or just a decoration.

Very fun! And I didn't cheat!! Though I was tempted to, at times. But there's something about the FM that invites the player to continue searching instead of spoiling the whole thing. Thanks for brightening my day! Time: 1:06 Difficulty level: medium Times saved: 13 Damage dealt: 28 Received: 0 Pockets picked: 1 Loot Acquired: 3774 out of 4184 Killed by player: 0 KOed by player: 5 Bodies found: 0 Secrets found: 0 Alerts: 22 suspicious, 2 searches, 0 sightings Stealth score: 6

This was nice, but I would definitely like to see the original version retained - maybe that should also be available as a standalone when Quinn is updated? Having just played the two side-by-side, the updated version definitely looks nicer, and the smaller premises definitely match the "failing bank" motif better, there are a number of things which I like in the original that just don't come across in the new version. The wiring puzzle, the larger guard presence being more of a threat, and the idea of having fees deducted for knockouts is an interesting one. In addition there's something incredibly satisfying about walking away with 25000 gold coins or more, compared to the pocket money you're usually walking away with. I get that the lugging-the-loot around part can be a little tedious but in a way I found it made the payoff worth waiting for. Again, don't take this the wrong way, I love that you've updated it, I'm just giving feedback on why I prefer the original.

Headshots need to be a thing even in combat. Shooting a guard in the face should result in immediate death no matter how alerted he is. Allowing non-combat headshots, only for them to be impossible if the same guard is alerted is forcing the games no-combat design philosophy rather than implying it.

And headshots have been part of the core mod forever. It's VERY abusable, but no one does it. EDIT: You can even headshot Elite guards, but I can only get it 1/10 tries, so I don't bother.

I remember playing the original missions years ago, so going into this I expected only a bit of visual polish and gameplay fixes. What I got instead is a brilliant little mission that might be small compared to the many gargantuan sized missions released recently, but it more than makes up for it in its visual and audio qualities. The high level of polish and attention to detail really sell this mission to me. Visually it's a real treat, I love what you did with the lights and shadows, and the corridors and rooms feel lived in and with many personal touches to show the establishment is on its last legs. Listening to the storm in the background was pretty relaxing as well and I couldn't get enough of the lightning as it booms and lights up the room. Top notch atmosphere. I'm also a big fan of various little side jobs the player can do aside from the mail goal, so that's a big plus too. Thank you for the FM and good luck with the campaign!

Isn't that what helmets are for?

Helping with the beta for this mod, I can personally tell everyone that geegee worked damn pretty hard to get it in its final form. Our back and forths prove it. The original beta was a shell of the release version, and there should be no discouragement for a first mapper with vision and who tries hard. Does it have a lot of keys, sure, but that's the style that some creators take, while others leave generous amounts of loot around, others have tons of readable notes with puzzles in them, some do ghouls, some do pagans, some hammers, some mages, some mechanists, some keepers, etc. There's something for everybody. If you don't like the hunting for many keys type of mission, just play it anyway because new TDM missions only come around every few months. It's nice to just work with the free product we get and encourage the creator's work positively so you will get more free products in the future. Who's with me?

Something to realise is that when you put out any kind of artistic work, you'll inevitably receive both positive and negative feedback. Every mapper that's been at it for a while will have received copious amounts of both, and some of the criticism will have felt totally unjustified to them. At the end it's just an opinion, and if they had let the criticism discourage them we wouldn't have any mappers left. It's the satisfaction of expressing yourself artistically (as well as seeing people enjoy your work, as is the case here) that makes it all worth it.

Could go for absence_alert_increase as a compromise between length and descriptiveness, with this tooltip: "The amount by which the AI's alert level increases when it notices this item is missing, up to 23. Defaults to 18 (agitated searching)." The old spawnarg tooltip could be: "Non-functional. Use absence_alert_increase instead."

Hi! Allow me to start by saying I played this mission a few months back in Normal mode and it left a lasting impression on me. The new items, the models, the scripts, the textures, the architecture... one of my favorite missions. I am here however, to review and provide feedback about the save room mechanic. I kind of remember the areas, the main goals and the story but I will try to pretend I don't. Congratulations, @kingsal for a great mission and the new ideas. And thanks for sharing your work.

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While good publicity is always a good thing, that does not appear to be an account officially associated with id in any way. It's just a fan account run by an individual.

I can to launch dev/16498-9944 on Windows 7. Thank you!

I don't have an OLED but I am guessing that should be an option soon...

Any government introducing laws to "protect the children" is a massive red flag. The few times I heard that stuff it was just an excuse to control what the population can do on the internet and to be honest I don't know how much I trust a bunch of people who probably don't even know how to operate a phone to make laws about technology

The @Dragofer script solution is EXCELLENT. It fixes not just the T-posing side effect of my earlier attempt to fix a potentially game-busting problem but it fixes the original problem and raises the fps everywhere in the FM. It depends on individual CPUs by how much fps is improved. In some cases it raises fps enormously as in unplayable->playable. In most cases it raises fps by a smaller but very real margin. The original problem the script addresses is caused by the size of the FM, not the gfx and GPU side of things, but the AI side of things which is handled by the CPU. The script should go into a repository somewhere for other FM authors who make larger missions, esp. those with many AI.

Yeah, but these are basically LARP arrows with a broad tip which are flying much slower than normal arrows. I have done some LARPing myself and if you concentrate on the archer you can indeed sometimes dodge or reflect them. But the guards in TDM don't do either, they just take the arrow to the face and don't die if they are alerted :)!

Positioning yourself to dodge arrows or deflect them is not what we're talking about (apart from the fact that even doing so, he was only able to deflect a single arrow after minutes). We're talking about an alert state which allows you to dodge arrows out of nowhere. Which even allows you to only get a slight scratch when someone stands behind you and hits you with a blackjack with such a force that you would normally go unconscious. Yes, that's complete nonsense. Again, though, I'm fine with such a gameplay decision (especially in a game which features magic and undead). It's just that no argument in the world makes it more believable.

We have the best community here.

I'm not sure what claim you're making--that in real life, someone couldn't dodge at the last second to turn a potentially lethal hit into a nonlethal one, or that TDM AI should have some animation to indicate that this is happening. The first one is rather obviously incorrect, so I assume it's the second one. In which case...ok? It would be great if every tiny detail of reality were included, but we're talking about a game where AI spin around 360 without lifting their feet off the ground and where arrows disappear after hitting someone.

Thanks, I found it. I just finished the mission. Wow. I understand the high ratings now. Epic mission. The story was top notch, and reminded me quite a bit of Thief 3's main story line. Gameplay and visuals on a similarly high level. Perfect.

Thanks for your comment, @Obsttorte . I find all your posts constructive and thoughtful. Compromises vs determination. What a subject! Determination can reinforce the gameplay for your target audience and well intended compromises can leave a game in a status where neither your target audience nor casual players are fully satisfied. Geez, did I just open a can of worms? @kingsal, thanks for sharing your thoughts with us. Feedback, observations, or suggestions can be perceived as criticism. And leave the impression that a reviewer didn't like unrelated aspects of a mission, or the whole mission. Far from it in my case, I think your mission could perfectly be found, as is, in any commercial game of the genre. Once again, congratulations. One more thought or suggestion on the topic, that could be applied to this mission or others to challenge the way (some) players assess and approach a situation. Players make their way through the first stages of the mission killing Zombies if they like, nothing wrong with that. You can even use some tricks and encourage players to do it. But upon entering the main area, the player finds out Zombies are just poor miners gone wrong and, perhaps, there's hope and order can be somehow restored. Conflict is served.

Haha, I would say that's definitely not the intended experience, but its a valid one no doubt. I for sure fumble my way through building these missions, so its not always crystal clear what my *exact* intentions are despite all the effort. Maybe ill do a kind of post mortem write up on this mission. The deadline forced me to streamline my process a bit and have slightly more concrete goals up front. With regards to how I intend a mission to play out- I definitely have some idea of a loose fantasy I'm trying to sell (in this case some mix of Indiana Jones, Resident Evil and DnD dungeon crawling). However, I try not to be overly controlling in how players experience that fantasy. Its a weird dance; it feels like being a hopeful shepherd sometimes; "Please find this key, please use a rope arrow here, please sneak around this guard " There are definitely tools in the author's toolbox for wrangling a player, but in the spirit of Thief, I think a lot of TDM missions try to obscure the author's hand. They strive to showcase the player's actions, creativity, or skills while funneling the player towards a goal. This is a good reason for why I wouldn't spawn more monsters in this particular mission. I want to keep the player focused and feeling like they're making progress. Not saying spawning monsters is bad by itself. I actually think it would support parts of the fantasy in Hazard, but I suspect it would require reworking huge parts of the mission to make it work. Like changing the main objective to kill all the zombies vs collect all the loot. You know what I mean? All that being said, I actually love watching people play missions in crazy ways I never expected. The mission still needs to *work* on some level which is a whole other topic, but I love that a mission can be approached in so many different and even whacky ways. Once again, thanks for playing and making suggestions. I'm taking away a lot of thoughts and ideas from this.

I used a walkman for the button sound, so you're not far off!

Welcome to The Dark Mod. Oh, and better don't mention restrictions, it's ... delicate.

Don't let critical opinions discourage you. NeonStyle ( in particular ) is rather harsh about missions made by other FM authors and probably shouldn't be used as a measure of how a typical player will experience the mission. This was a very ambitiously designed mission so it is more likely to elicit strong opinions than a small heist mission made with prefabs.

Rather unexpectedly (for me) this seems to actually fix that there as well

I really wanted to like this. Such a nice big map, well made and designed. The story was great. However the gameplay was horrible. An endless key hunt! What's the point of having lock picks if they are never used? Then there's the constant breaking of the 4th wall with tips, and names of keys. Might's well had a floating nav marker. Really annoying. Just because you can do something, sometimes you have to ask should you. The endless key hunt for every damn door bar about 3 was a total pain in the butt. In the end I just gave up on it. Another door, another key! Sorry, but I have to give the execution very good job, but the gameplay is a fail!

Well, the bugtracker is about alerts spreading too fast among ai. I don't see any relation to the above code, to be honest. It is likely that it was changed afterwards. Nevertheless we don't want that behaviour anyways. There are missions who used the spawnarg correctly, too. Although the ones pointed out by @stgatilov are rather high. So your suggestion may be the one doing the least harm, if any. I would then introduce a new spawnarg as suggested by you. absence_alert_level_increase is probably quiet long, but at least descriptive. absence_scale as proposed by you on the bugtracker is shorter but counterintuitive, as a scale to me implies a multiplicative behaviour, not an additive. Thoughts?

@DragoferRegarding the bugtracker: It appears that the reason for the issue might be a typo. if ( alert < ( owner->thresh_4 + 0.1f ) ) // it should be > { alert = owner->thresh_4 + 0.1f; } I guess this code is intented to be used as a cap. In addition, the part of the description stating that the ai goes into agitated searching if absence_alert isn't specified is not implemented. Maybe the above code was also intented to do that but got changed afterwards?! Regarding your comment on the misinterpretation of the absence_alert spawnarg. The wiki explicitly states what it is intented to do and DarkRadiant explicitly states it to be a float, not a boolean. So either the fm authors who set that to 1 only wanted minor reactions which may accumulate, something we would break that if we use a new spawnarg instead, or they all suffer from dyslexie, which we hardly solve by introducing a new spawnarg. I would fix that so it does what it is intented to do but leave the spawnarg alone. If other members share your point of view that a new spawnarg should be introduced it can be easely changed afterwards. Additionally we may consider modifying the description, as "If set, the alert increase of the AI when the entity is missing" sounds odd to begin with and may be the root for misinterpretation. I would suggest "Set the amount, by which the alert level of an AI increases, if it sees this entity missing." EDIT: I've provided a fix with revision 9953 which can be tested in SVN. Feedback is welcome.

Congrats on the release! this was a very cool FM, just oozing at the seams with atmosphere and ambience. Great work!

Related internal discussion?

@datiswousCan you try to open the file gl/zfill_alpha_vp.glsl and change the version check in the first line to 130 instead of 140? It's possible that GLSL 1.30 is good enough, it worked for me locally at least. #version 130 in vec4 attr_Position; // bound to attribute 0 in source, in object space in vec4 attr_TexCoord; // bound to attribute 8 in source ... I think the interaction glsl files might have a similar check in them, maybe you'll run into the next file - you can try to do the same change there. About hat GLSL version, I remember checking the version history, and GLSL 1.40 was released somewhere around 2009? I have been thinking I'm pretty much on the safe side here, but maybe I've been wrong about this.

Just my two cents, but savegame mechanics are a rather fundamental part of game design, and missions should be designed around such fundaments. Just adding savegame restrictions on top of a mission that isn't designed for that is neither creative nor fun. And whether it makes the mission more challenging also depends on the mission. In regards to implementation there are already means for mission authors to alter the savegame behaviour, and therefore players can, if they feel the desire, create mods to add such stuff. On the examples you listed: chronos mode: Having a timer that runs down may encourage the player to just wait. This will become tiresome pretty soon as the mission has to have elements engaging the player in moving forward. If the mission doesn't has this as it isn't designed for that... lethal mode: This approach means that the amount of savegames is tied to the amount of health potions available. As they are mostly placed in a rather thoughtless manner (they are for example part of some prefabs), the changes in gameplay will be erratic. treasure mode: Similar to the above loot placement is completely erratic in most missions. The amounts placed as well as the value normally don't follow any logical order and therefore saving tied to the loot amount found will have very different effects depending on the mission it gets used in. ironman mode: Length and difficulty of missions differ heavely. Some also include parcour like parts or a high amount of verticality, both of which makes dying more likely. Restricting it to one save without taking these aspects into consideration is pretty erratic either. As the person who both suggested as well as implemented the possibility for mappers to modify how saving in their fms work I may add that it was never my intention that this gets used to increase difficulty (it's an artificial approach similar to kill or ko restrictions and no good game design imho) added on top of existing missions A specific game mechanic isn't good or bad per se, it doesn't guarantee you fun or challenge. It is a tool that has to be properly used. My impression is that due to the lack of stealth games many people relied on playing games like thief (or fms or tdm) over and over again, getting bored or aren't challenged after a while and started to invent house rules to get more entertainment out of it. This led to all those, I never kill, I never get detected, I leave everything behind the way I have found it etc... players. Players who restrict themselves to have fun, which basically means that the game as it is isn't fun anymore. More tools (like the possibility to alter savegame mechanics) allow mappers to try to move away from the standarized gameplay, mix it with other things or other genres to get even experienced players out of their comfort zone and into an engaging experience (something that is very common in board games, but doesn't happen all too often even in professional computer game design). One that may cause them to make use of their possibilities again instead of restricting themselves by not using them at any means because they know the game would get boring pretty quickly if they do.

My reaction too, but thinking on it there are some legitimate reason to want >60. For one, I've noticed since I've started configuring all my games to be locked as much as possible at 60 that if I have the frame rate drop down to 30 it causes me immediate motion sickness. But when I was playing at 30 fps on the regular it did not bother me at all. I think my brain has become accustomed to the higher framerate and now interprets anything lower as uncanny. If Aluminum is used to playing at ultra high fps it might be uncomfortable for them to play at a lower rate. Also higher frame rates legitimately add to the fidelity of the image even if they are not strictly necessary to play the game. The eye can better pick up extra details on moving objects or when panning. Fast moving objects are visible without distortions. And don't forget it makes feedback from any control inputs more responsive (regardless of whether that is necessary to play the game well).

I have put this app, because I think that not everyone here has easy access to a voice actor to create dialogue for the missions they create, this is a viable alternative. There is no infringement of possible copyright violations, since, unlike Deep Fake, the original voices are modified, changing tones and adapting it to the text. The AI is only based on one or more of the chosen voices. This is more similar in voices to what ArtBreeder does with images, not DeepFake.