Ombrenuit

Playing a bit through the new Splinter Cell game, I noticed the paper walls of certain levels (the Japanese type), and the tents that you could tear through with your knife etc. and see silhouettes through. Yes, this may not be medieval, but I might as well bring it up. I think the game might get too "Ninja" for Thief if these were implemented lol, but they might make for some interesting level design.

The links are dead

Well this is a clever little game. In High School we hold an annual Nerf war (that is absolutely huge here) that lasts two weeks. It's so big in fact that the police in my City got involved and another neighbourhood (much bigger then our own) made the front page of the newspaper! Evidently, it made the police nervous that kids were walking around with bright orange dart guns in the summer. One of the best fights I was involved in was when a car full of 4 guys with automatic guns (nerf) stopped buy to bombard a house. However, coincidentally, an alliance of 10 people were at that house. It quickly turned into a standoff with them popping in and out of the car. Untill, that is, they rolled down the sunroof to negotiate. However, what they didn't think about was their deadliest mistake. I just ran up to the car and shoved my rapid fire into the gap (20 shots) and unloaded. That was fun and all a couple years ago, but now I'm slowly getting into airsoft guns (paintball with low powered BB guns, very popular in Japan). I might add that I'm a pacifist as well.

Doc_Brown: You have some good points. The setting in The Dark Mod does resemble Thief, and no one will deny that this project's purpose is to bring the game into fashion with the technology of today. However, could there be a legal problem? Not likely. I'll lay out the basics of the matter. Copyright law is a very convoluted and difficult to understand business. Working extensively in the MUDing community I have acquired much experience on this issue. Look on any MUD database and you will see that over half are based directly on copyrighted games. Yet, they are still up and running. Why is this when they are so blatantly violating copyright law, you ask? There are more Dragon Ball Z and Star Wars MUDs then you could possibly count. There are exceptions: Sony Online Entertainment did shut down a chosen few to make room for Star Wars Galaxies way back when, however I can not stress more that sort of occurrence is rare. The reason why these Copyright violators are not being shut down?: 1) Court costs time and money- Court is one long, monstrous, money consuming battle. Even if you were to file a case now, it would be years before an trial occurred. Lawyers cost serious money for both sides. Companies don't bring people to court lightly. They try to avoid it at all costs and they only ever do it sure of their success. 2) Fan made projects = publicity- In the instance of games, when fans put enormous amounts of effort and time into a game they love, they are respected. Fan made projects for the most part will promote and highlight a company's interests. They create hype, excitement, extend the life of the game in question, and draw in a new crowd people who before were uninterested. It's free publicity for them, and if it's positive they love it. The repercussions of bringing a highly respected and hyped fan project to court could wound any company greatly. Loyal customers supporting it feel betrayed: the company is a money hungry legal machine bent on world domination, in their minds. 3) Fan made projects and money- Firstly, when a company sues in court, that company has the burden of proof that they have lost money. As discussed earlier, a company will only go to court when they feel threatened--a threat to a business is a threat to their money. Thus, a non-profit fan production such as The Dark Mod, poses no threat to that company. In United States Copyright law: you bring someone to court when they are profiting off your idea. Copyright is the desire to protect your economic claims to an idea (in general). Therefore, with no money involved, there isn't a problem. Also, The Dark Project is discreet enough not to directly claim it's using Eidos's intellectual property. So, while similarities exist, it's not directly associated with Eidos. Anything negative about this project can not be associated with Eidos in this case, and it would have to be something negative for the business department to even take notice enough to think about shutting this down. Bottom line: There is nothing to gain by threatening or staging a legal battle over a small project that would chastise fans and cost serious dollars with such little legal significance when there are zero damages to collect. The probability that this project would be shut down is understatedly minute. You have many unique and interesting ideas, however, the Dark Mod doesn't need to tailor their system for you. The beauty of Fan Missions is the freedom for you to express your creativity, which I observe you would greatly enjoy doing. You can tailor fan missions any way you would like and make any world you like. All the Dark Mod is providing are tools to help you with that world you want to create. It's a foundation. As the creator, it's your job to build on that.

While the City remains an interesting locale to explore, one of my biggest complains with the Dark Project is the lack of the environments outside of the City: the forests, the marshes, etc. I believe nature offers an interesting oppertunity for stealth and a definite atmosphere. Fog, realistic trees, water, razer grass (not just blocks! ), cat tails, insects?, storms, etc. could make for some very interesting maps. A haunted forest done right could make for one of the most memorable missions. While I imagine this has been discussed regularly, it is my request for the Dark Mod team to not neglect these aspects of the Thief world. And thus I give you the screenshot that inspired this post: http://mods.moddb.com/gallery/image/18724/ Anyone else care to help elaborate on this topic?