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DrSpock

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Everything posted by DrSpock

  1. When I first played the original Thief, my first play through of the game I killed all the guards, because I thought they would get back up if they were simply left unconscious. Only after finding out online that they remain unconscious forever did I start using the blackjack in Thief games. Even so, I still find myself feeling uncomfortable leaving an army of unconscious bodies around when I'm supposed to be playing a Thief who is trying to secure his location to make some money (or achieve some other goal). I remember in Thief 2, when not playing on expert, feeling much better throwing the unconscious bodies into water, so that way once they drowned, I knew they were never getting back up. Obviously it would be a major pain to implement and is something you guys have decided against, and that's completely find, but I always felt all of these guards just staying unconscious forever cheapened the game, and made the blackjack overpowered frankly. I mean, what is the point of even having a sword if it makes noise and blood and the end result is no better than if you just took a little care and used your blackjack instead? The sword has essentially no plus to using it, and is not even a neutral weapon, the game severely penalizes the play for using it by both noise and blood. The blackjack on the other hand is just a short little black stick, with 100% positive results for using it and no negatives. To address a few of the other points that have been made, I think it wouldn't be too big of an issue as to what the guards actually do upon waking up. It would make sense that they would call other guards to them, and then they would all go back on patrol at a much heightened alert stage. For the player, the way to prevent that would be to actually put the body movement system into real use over more than just a short distance. I mean honestly, how often are bodies really going to get discovered from their initial fall location if you don't move them? And even if you do move them, it usually entails just a short distance away to the nearest shadow. If the player were forced to consider instead, "Well I got the silent knockout because of the blackjack but now I need to find an isolated spot the guard cannot get out of for when he wakes up." And as for some system of countdown timers alerting the player to when the guards will wake up, that is just very silly, and I don't think anyone would seriously consider that. There are many, many games where enemies can either wake-up or re-spawn and it is based on a period of in-game time unknown to the player that obviously wouldn't take saves and reloads into account. This is just my opinion, and I understand you're not going to do it, but I think many of you have written off the idea of guards waking up as silly when I think it really would add real value to the game.
  2. The problem you describe is characteristic of any gameplay mechanic in a real-time environment. You could make the same argument about aiming a bow, or a blackjack, or picking a pocket. The player has to adjust very quickly to a changing situation, just like in the real world. Learning how long to press a key is just a matter of getting used to the system, as with anything else. I think when there is an option between giving the player more freedom or less freedom with what they can do, it's always more fun in the long run to have the extra options, even if it adds to the difficulty.
  3. I think someone complaining about a guard throwing a rock in a mansion where there are valuables is being a little too nitpicky. This is after all, a game, not a simulation of the real world.
  4. This actually brings up a good criticism of all of the Thief games: that the main plot of the game ultimately resulting in you having an objective that had absolutely nothing to do with stealing. In fact in the final levels there was not even any loot for you to steal at all. I always thought this was really immersion breaking and really cheapened the final levels for me. I hope if you guys decide to make a campaign eventually that you wouldn't do something similar. I actually got to ask Emil Pagliarulo about that decision they made for the final levels, and they thought that because you couldn't use the loot for anything after the final levels there was not much purpose in putting it in.
  5. As I mentioned in the other thread, maybe you guys should consider using an installer instead of just having people unzip the stuff themselves. This would eliminate some problems.
  6. Well, first of all, I have to say great work guys! Its better already than many professional games, and I really have never seen this level of quality from an independent mod team before. I think the map is really well designed and I like many of the features this mod has that Thief did not. The object manipulation is great, I really don't understand what anyone has against being able to do more realistic things in a game. I think the only issue here is that it is so easy to have an object you're holding collide with the world, and when it does it makes the collision sound effect repeatedly. I think maybe a good solution is to maybe have the object orient itself a little bit automatically to achieve what the player wants to do. (For example, if holding a candle stick sideways and its smacking into a wall, it would rotate from hitting the wall so you would be able to move it normally) I enjoy lighting candles myself by spinning them around and holding them to other flames. Is this behavior not applicable to torches? I noticed I wasn't able to light torches with a candle. With so many candles in this mission though the inability to pinch them out was sorely missed. (I know you've implemented it since then.) More along this line, will the player be able to light candles and other light sources with his torch (or maybe a flint) at some point? I always thought it was ridiculous in Thief how the only way you could light anything was by wasting a fire arrow. Seriously, was Garrett unable to just carry a flint around? Now for the things that could use improvement... As you guys are already aware I'm sure, the animations really need some work. I also noticed that the water in the beginning of the level in the streets did not make any splashes (visual or audio) when the player stepped through it. It also was a little bit too reflective looking almost like a mirror (not to mention it should be muddy street water). I also want to ask about the way breaking wooden objects is going to be handled. In Thief, you could break wooden planks covering doorways, and break wooden crates. Do you plan on implementing these behaviors? I found it very annoying at the beginning of the level to walk into the house and have the doorways covered with just wood, which is completely impervious to my sword or blackjack. And since I'm talking about crates I'd like to know if you plan on making small crates able to be picked up by the player? I found it strange that they are in the game and are perfect for stacking, but you can't pick them up as of now. In regards to blackjacking- I think it's been improved since Thief's Den, but it still has some problems. It seemed to me that the guards would ragdoll as soon as I hit the attack key, before the animation connected with their heads and before the sound effect even played. I think there maybe should be a small pause (less than a second) even after your blackjack connects before the guards ragdoll, otherwise it just feels fake. I also did not like (as a previous poster mentioned) how the door to the crypt was not only not openable but was not even "frobable". It breaks the immersion to have a "background door" in the middle of an otherwise completely accessable area. One last point- I noticed you guys are using a self extracting rar file for this mission as you did with Thief's Den. There are some really nice free installation programs you can use which are professional looking and could take care of making the proper shortcut with the right information in it and everything so the end user does not have to worry about that. The only thing it would require is that the user knows what directory they have Doom 3 installed in. Personally, I have used Inno Setup 5 before and it's really simply to use and works great. If no one on the team has the time to fool around with it and you guys would like it done, I'll offer to help out with that as it's very simple to do. Great work guys, I can't wait to see what the finished product is like! (I hope you guys decide to make a campaign at some point as it would be a shame in my opinion for you to have invested years of work into this and not at some point have a true "game" people can point to and say look what they accomplished.) EDIT: I forgot to mention that I noticed a few bugs as well. When carrying a guard over my shoulder, I was still able to pick up loot, which made the guards body icon disappear and be replaced with the newly collected loot. It was then impossible to either drop the guard or move through the inventory. A separate bug I noticed was that after dropped a guard's body, my inventory opened and went to the last item, even though it had been closed before picking the guard up. Lastly, I also forgot to mention that currently when you pick up an arrow, you have no idea what arrow you just picked up. I think Thief's solution of making the arrow you pick up make that type of arrow active as a weapon was a bad one, but there has to be a better way than not giving the player any type of notice at all as to what he just collected.
  7. @ Crispy The crux of your argument is basically that it is in Apple's best interests to remain a niche company. Do you really believe that? I think mathematically my point speaks for itself. You just glossed over the entire fact that there is no way a person could do the numbers and not see Apple making astronomical profits from releasing OSX on non-Macs. Yes, there are a lot of hardware configurations. Yes it would cost money. Can you honestly tell me you think it would cost more money to adapt an already existing piece of software to different PC hardware than the potential slice of a 16 billion dollar industry? To say that it would is simply ludicrous. Not to mention, it is equally ridiculous that if a 15 year old kid in his basement can get OSX to work on his PC currently, that Apple engineers would have such a tough time at it. Another point you make is that it would piss off all the die hard Apply fans. Yes, it would piss them off... for a few months until they got over it. Just like they always have. For a niche company, Apple has screwed that niche over more than once in the past. Just look at when the iPhone was released for example. All the die hard fans went out and bought it immediately. Then only a few months after release Apply cut its price by $200, completely screwing those early adopters over. Apple's response? Give them all a $100 rebate they could only spend in the Apple store anyway. Apple has made it pretty clear that as much as its fan care about it, it could care less about it's fans, it's the bottom line that matters most. You also contend sales of Macbook hardware would tank. As you yourself say, many people feel their hardware has a sleek elegant design and they believe it is more reliable and a status symbol. Suddenly that would change simply because any PC user could go out and buy OSX? People who like and buy Macs will continue to buy Macs; as pointed out already in this thread they do so for many more reasons than just the OS that is on it. It is not in any company's interest to remain a niche company. It is a good way for company's to start out and get their foot in the door. It is not a good way to grow a company once it clearly has potential to be so much more.
  8. @ Crispy I think you are missing my point about the UI design. Microsoft's is superior in so far as the fact that they have a 90% market share. 90%. Nowadays that amounts to easily over a billion people who are familiar with the Windows UI and the Windows way of doing things. For better or worse, that is the reality and Apple should realize that and make there OS more approachable to Windows users. And as for the argument about how 'hard' it would be for them to put their OS on PCs because they'd have to support so many different hardware configurations... I've heard this many times but frankly I just don't think it holds water. Apple is a business, and their objective should be to make as much money as possible, regardless of whether it would be a difficult transition or hard or whatever else. Microsoft Windows makes something like 16 billion dollars or more in revenue a year. That is a lot of money. If Apple released their OS for PCs and took say, just 1% of that in their first year alone, which is clearly a vast underestimate of how well they would do, they would still be making an extra 160 million dollars a year. And over time they would obviously be doing better than 1% of Microsoft's sales. The cost for Apple to support some extra hardware for an OS which is already designed and fully functional would be nowhere near their potential profits. There is just no way you can make the argument that it would cost Apple more money than they would potentially reap. I think for all of Apple's success in recent years with the IPod, their computer division remains tragically mismanaged and stuck in the 1980's.
  9. What exactly do you mean by "an aesthetic standpoint"? Do you mean that the cases are nicer to look at? I think it's understandable how people feel about Macs given the perception that Mac users give off about the superiority of Macs and the actual experience people have using them. Personally, I also think Macs are far behind PCs/Windows in a lot of ways. For all the supposed reliability you always here about Apple products, every time I find myself in the position of having to use a Mac the keyboard or mouse is broken. The amount of times I've had problems with a keyboard or a mouse from any other company is essentially zero. I also feel Apple is very arrogant in keeping a UI for their OS which works completely counter-intuitively to a Windows user. Microsoft has stolen plenty of ideas from Apple over the years, I think if Apple just made their UI more like Windows, it would help their user base tremendously. Not to mention, now that OSX is for an x64 processor anyway, they should release it for all machines, not just their own. This would really make a true competitor to Microsoft and might give Microsoft some real motivation to get their act together after the disaster that is Windows Vista.
  10. I would think you would want to build as large an audience for all your hard work as possible; regardless of how persistent someone may be in following the project.
  11. Well no one else has created a topic yet so I figured I might as well. I'm glad you managed to get one in during August! It sounds like significant improvements have been made. I like the video too. I think clouds passing in front of the moon could add a significant realism to the game.
  12. I don't think the player would want to steal from a building with such massive safety and building code violations anyway.
  13. Is it just me or has the main website been down for days? I've tried several days in a row and get a 404 error when trying to go to thedarkmod.com . Has anyone else noticed this or what?
  14. I have to disagree with the majority sentiment here. For me, games are rather dull without a story, no matter how well the atmosphere is pulled off. For example, Doom 3, the engine that TDM is based off of. It's undeniably a very moody, game, with environments perfectly suited for what they intend to convey. But in the end, I found the game boring and disappointing, because the story was complete garbage. There was no sense of any real accomplishment, and it didn't feel like anything new even happened in the story after the first 10 minutes of the game. I think the main problem is that for the vast majority of video games, story is always a secondary concern to graphics and gameplay, which is why it so often is lacking compared with other mediums. Games however, have the potential to have far superior stories to any other media, because they have the potential to let the user actually participate in something, rather than sit back and consume it from the sidelines like TV or books. I don't know how many of you played KotOR, but for me, and many others, the story of the game, a story which only could be pulled off in a video game, was superb, and critical to the greatness of the game. For any Star Wars fan, it was the ultimate experience of actually living through events set in the universe rather than just watching them. And not just rehashing what has already been done in the movies, but having a unique, compelling storyline. I think the cohesion and immersiveness good stories create are essential for the best games, and it is a shame that story will always be put on the sideline for substance-ess crap that appeals to the great masses (like the Halo games).
  15. I think adding a section to the wiki when the time comes about how to write an appropriate readme would be really helpful. I've found this to be one of the worst aspects when using mods, is that people often given little to no thought to the readme. Just like when you browse through a library, you often do judge a book initially by its cover, when you use a mod, the readme is really essential to getting an idea of what the author tried to accomplish, (un)installation instructions, etc.
  16. Legally, you have nothing to worry about. As has been pointed out, just because this game is in the same genre as Thief doesn't mean anything. Anyway, I just wanted to say again how amazed I am everytime I watch this video. It's hard to believe all the fantastic work when you compare everything you see in the video to what comes with Doom 3.
  17. The video looks absolutely great. Incredible work guys. A couple things though I'd like to ask/point out. Why hasn't this video been mentioned on the main Dark Mod site? Usually that's where I check for updates and its been over a month since the last update there. Also, if you still need more help for the Dark Mod, maybe you should be a little more aggressive with the PR and try and get your name out on gaming sites a little more. Your mod is at a very advanced stage, much farther than most independently made games I've seen ever get. Maybe you could try getting one of the big gaming sites (Gamespot, Gamespy, IGN, etc.) to do an article about your mod or an interview with someone on your mod team. Or you could even try to get mentioned on Slashdot for that matter (people with talent would definitely take notice if you were mentioned there). I think that there is a lot you guys could do to promote yourselves more and show the world all that you've accomplished so far and how close you are to completion. Anyway, good luck with the rest of the work you have ahead.
  18. Well I decided I'll put in my two cents also. I've been watching this mod for a long time also, and it looks really, really great guys. Also, I mentioned this mod to Emil Pagliarulo, who worked on the original Thief games (and now works for Bethesda) on another forum (bloodandshadows.com) he goes to talk about Oblivion, and he said he thinks it looks great. In case you didn't know about that I thought it might be a little further motivation that one of the original designers knows about and follows your mod. Good luck!
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