Melan

AluminumHaste: neat! It looks very hardware-intensive, though; there is no way you could visportal that thing any way.

That's usually done as a gameplay concession to avoid guards walking continuously into obstacles in a futile pathfinding attempt (which I suppose they would do in TDM just like TDP/TMA games).

That's a bit hazardous from a design standpoint, though, since when you are going down along a steep street, you have to answer the question of "what do I see behind these buildings?" The higher the player can get on a vantage point, the harder it is to preserve the illusion of a logical* environment behind the immediate scenery. This is where polycount can explode, or you have to raise really high "walls" or facades which then poses other problems. * Logical from the perspective of the game environment, not necessarily conventional reality.

Actually, I am pretty damn certain the (positive) examples I cited would work in DarkRadiant; I have designed one and used the other as one of my main case studies to learn Dromed building methods (the other being Assassins, a TDP OM that would also make a functional TDM mission). The reason they would work as TDM missions is that both FMs are highly compartmental; individual scenes are often detailed by engine standards but they are always self-contained areas separated from others by relatively narrow tunnel or window type transition segments; moreover, both missions use convoluted architecture to neatly break up space. This fulfils Goldchocobo's points 2) and 3); I would argue that 1) and 4), while good practice, are procedural issues - what matters instead is the end result*. There are engine differences - the main issue in Dromed is to keep polycount under the dreaded 1024 threshold, while DarkRadiant can push a lot more polys but you have to watch for open portals. This is the reason Return to the City is flawed from a design perspective - it was made with the old mindset, and while it hides long sight lines more or less well, portals remain open in ways that were unforeseen and unintended. In comparison, Patently Dangerous uses a lot of unassuming tricks to close portals, while Saint Lucia is a textbook case of compartmental building - although if I had to criticise it, I would say it does it all too transparently, and feels a bit "tunnelly" as a consequence. _____________ * - Granted, Bad Debts at least was made according to a drawn schematic, although it turned out to be much more sprawling than first intended over the design process.

Return to the City is probably the example to use in the "how you shouldn't do it" section. What's more embarrasing is that people came up with a lot of good ideas on how to fix its problems, but I was then flooded with IRL tasks and couldn't do the actual work. All I can think of as examples is Thief maps - e.g. Calendra's Cistern and Bad Debts (smaller self-contained areas separated by "corridors" or small rooftop connections) yes, Calendra's Legacy and Disorientation (continuous cityscapes mostly built in larger boxes) no. I have actually wanted to write a big tutorial on building city style maps for a while (most of which could be applicable to Dromed as well - both theory/philosophy and practice), but again, IRL. I promise I will do it when I can get things together.

Please keep in mind that the mod team has spent close to five years now building the thing, from textures to models to all the subsystems that go into it, and this seems to have involved no small amount of thought about gameplay as well. There are bound to be some raised eyebrows if someone comes in and suggests a slew of changes, some quite significant (as a non-team member mapper, I can see how your proposed change to mantling alone may change the play dynamics of a mission - any mission! - where climbing is involved; not necessarily for worse, but definitely for a way potentially unintended by the designer who labours from the perspective that this subset of the mod works this way and not that). WRT modding experience, you may or may not have it; the Internet, sadly, is a place where every claim to a skill is worth as much as the person who raises it can demonstrate on previous work (which J.C. Denton did recently with his HDR shaders). The second issue is that a lot of people can talk the talk, but much fewer actually sit down and do something: if this wasn't the truth, we would be living in a world where many more ambitious mod projects came to realisation. Not to flame you, but your posts come across as slightly arrogant.

HalfKaztBoy:

The Seventh Seal: Ingmar Bergman at his best. Beautiful shadow and light, iconic scenes, and while tremendously depressive, it offers a hint of hope that is just beautiful.

Those are some impressive shots, and I agree with Goldchocobo that it increases the "liveliness" of the engine. Well done, and keep going.

This is a cool thing. I may need it in the future, but considering the IRL work I am swamped with, editing has had to become such a low priority that you can really take your time with it.

Good shots, Bikerdude. Some texture alignment issues on the arches on the last small image (in the background), but otherwise you are getting into this. Serpentine, those doors could use some grunge, and maybe darker textures (the latter would be pretty easy to add too), but I think once done, they would fit right into an official release.

Furthermore, a "TDM 1.1 released - look at these new AI types, objects and textures... and look! a new level!" is more impressive than "we have released 1.018 - rat shouldering is fixed; the next version will address footstep sound volumes". Some marketing hype would be very much welcome at this stage.

Good to hear that!

That may be a good resolution to the issue. Major updates to mods are eligible for the awards, and if there are one or two like that in 2010, with a nice amount of maps (maybe another contest in the fourth quarter to close the year?), TDM may get an editor's pick.

How about terminating your Internet connection before you load the game? Did you try that?

I solved this problem by disconnecting my Net and inputting my CD key when prompted. Curiously, it was accepted then (I have a legit copy, so it should have worked in the first place).

It is a bug; the guard sometimes does not progress through the door for some reason. In some cases, you can nudge him to go on by opening the door yourself. Of course, there are also two other ways into the storehouse, so...

Imagine that.

Don't get your hopes up; if anything, the public vote is bound to be even more skewed towards the usual stuff.

Baddcog is right, and should of course be silenced at once for endangering the livelihood of the researcher community!

Review's from January 2, so it's pretty straightforward why.

I am not sure it is all "mainstream appeal". After all, The Nameless Mod is a complicated immersive sim built on an almost decade-old engine (and a very strange one at that), making TDM's omission even more puzzling. Granted, TNM has the all important "Something Awful-frequenting ironic hipster" demographic to vote them up, but still. Editor's choice should be less populist somehow.

Looking at the sample images, they look rather "fantasyish", and, although that may be the light, sort of "washed out" and too bright. I am not sure this would be such a good idea, but again, initial impression and personal opinion.

Yes -- I mean, a choice between an editing platform like TDM and a beautifully crafted full game like The Nameless Mod was never going to be straightforward, but really, a bunch of "survival horror in yet another scientific complex/abandoned town" mods taking Editor's Choice? Good grief.

On the other hand, it's not exactly positive that TDM didn't even get an honourable mention in MODDB's editors' choice for the best 2009 single player mod. Bah.