encomium

HAhaha, Crackhead Robin Hood Yeaah, I know Oddity likes the pure stealth mish. I like stealth'n myself, but storywise, and restrictions wise I don't want to have to beat around the bush cuz i'm too pusy to go through the balls out break and enter. I'd like to see cash/rewardsystem for stealth, but at the same time.. i dislike when my avatar seems like a wimp. this guy could RUN it as a theif. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=51...bing&pr=goog-sl nuff said on that topic from me. dont wanna stir up any hornets nests.. lol.

BAHahhahaha!! WTF?!??! HAhahhaha. I agree with Oddity, Garrett's had his day. the LAST thing i'd wanna see is Garrett running around in TDM. Quite honestly, he always seemed like a pussy to me. See, haha, going back to the james bond example... He never necessarily OPTED for a fight, but when he was presented with the beef, he always stepped up to the plate. I like the idea of having a theif that is trained similar to a ninja minus the honor. He doesn't want to be detected. less work. but if he is, he can handle himself because he's trained physically, and is effective with his weapons.

Any chance of an in game video? hahhahahaha.

if you want to bookmark a certain page, 1. go to the main page, and right click for the menu on the button that leads to the desired bookmark page. 2. click on 'copy shortcut'. 3. go to favorites, and use the current page to add it to list (it will be default as you mentioned [www.thedarkmod.com]) 4. now go to your favorites list again, and right click on the bookmark, and go to properties. 5. under the URL section, paste in the 'copied shortcut' from step 2. 6. hit ok, and there yah go.

I'm all for the grappling hook. I think Rope Arrows would be pretty useless unless your charaters weights about 50 lbs. Then again, they are much more versatile when trying to attach your rope and climb. I'd say that a rope arrow would be more 'fun', but less realistic (which almost balances out the fun factor).

HAhah Oddity, yer the greatest! I agree with sxotty. If there were more than 1 way to accomplish missions, that'd be amazing. It would obviously require hella more work and planning, which I'm not sure is what this team needs at this stage.

I wasn't trying to convince you to remove them. I was just giving my opinion, and was curious as to what other's thought about them. And Spring, gimme a little credit. I could practically feel the sarcasm slapping me in the face while reading that post. I didn't say the theif series didn't have any fantasy elements. I said the arrows add an element of "CORNY fantasy". But again, it's all my opinion which I stated from the get-go. You all are def on the right track in terms of creating a mod which is built to bring back the same look and feel as the 1st and 2nd Theif games, with enhanced tools & engine. As was mentioned, it can always be moded again once the foundation has been released.

Yeeeah. Getting the models created, rigged, and ready to go is quite a process. But the result looks so damn nice (ie. the posted screenshot of the noble woman). Well.... good luck with the modelling man. High detail character modeling is not my strength, although I'd like to get into it a little more. I wouldn't offer my assisstance in that area. ha ha ha. just to give everyone a small comparison in regards to animation expectations: at the studio here, each animators is responisble to create 20 seconds a week. at a studio like pixar for a project like The Incredibles, the animators (which are uber pro) are required to create 3 - 4 seconds a week.

fine ass noble woman.

hahaha, nah it wouldn't destroy it necessarily. I had a feeling a few if not a bunch of people would really like them, which is unforunate. I think they are pretty noobish. (The arrows) They dont add to the realness and importance of stealthy gameplay. I feel they take away from it by adding elements of corny fantasy & contradiction. feels like a great concept gone all wrong.

yeah - it's useful for using broads, noise and rope. hahaha. Oddity's point about the noisemakers is very true. I think more than anythign I just like the firecrackers. hahaha. stones or an object would be a much better alternative. But be honest, when have you EVER needed to take out a torch from a distance that's greater than what a skilled theif could easily cover with a throw? Usually you are pretty close to the torches you need to extinguish. Just outside the light radius of the torch. As for the broads... I like to think of my character as a theif / assassin. Very useful for a stealthy kill when you don't want blood on your new gloves. You just can't beat a lightning speed arrow to the face. It's good for taking out guards at a distance as well. I agree with Grim though. If you can aim it nice enough to hit them in the face, or neck... that should be it. When they are alert, they should be moving around enough that it would be quite difficult to pull off a shot to the face, or neck area. Depending on their level of alert, their amount of movement could be increased or decreased. Right now they sorta look around like idiots, into the dark areas they can't see, and stand still pretty often. Also, I think armor type, and placement of armor should definetely play a role in how many arrows it's gonna take to make the kill. A mangey peasant should only take 1 arrow anywhere from the waist up to kill.

Dude, am I ever happy you brought this up. Last night i'm lying in bed (where I do most of my important thinking) and I'm pondering over just how retartedly stupid the water, moss, and fire arrows are. I want all of you to think back to the very very 1st time u opened the first Theif game you played, where you were presented with these lamer arrows. I obviously came to accept them, because they are such a huge part of the game but honestly, i wouldn't be the least bit upset to see them go. In my opinion the only arrows worthy of such a great MOD as the dark, are the broad, noisemaker, and rope arrows. I can't STAND the others. I've never liked them.. they always seemed pretty corny. water arrows - could easily be replaced by some sorta container or vial which holds water, that the theif could toss at or pour on(if he were close enough to reach) a torch to extinguish it. Same principle, no lame 'water arrow'. wtf is a water arrow? haha. moss arrows - moss should be taken from a bag or pouch on the theifs belt, and thrown down on the area that is particularily noisy. The idea of shooting an arrow that would make 10x the amount of noise as a skilled theifs footsteps on the surface, and then watching the spectacular little moss tip explode into a HUGE area of mossed surface is just about the most retarted thing in the game. alksdfjlkajsd fire arrows - are these damn these even necessary? i think they are extremely lame. personally I'd rather have a little sac of gunpowder or something that i can place, or throw which detonates and causes damage for an area (a.k.a. multiple target damage). As for 'relighting' torches... could you be any more hurting? Give the poor theif a match or something damnit. i hate how i can't relight the candles n stuff. it's sooo blasted annoying. gas arrows - these are definitely cool, but again why from an arrow? why not a vial or something more realistic? heh heh. The distance at which the player is going to be able to accurately target an enemy from could easily be reached by a hand thrown vial. I dunno. Eliminate the cheese-ball elements i say. Yes it will take more animations and models (instead of reusing and recoloring the tip of the arrow), but it's so worth it. Comes back down to being a matter of opinion though. Does anyone actually like those hokey magical arrows, or would you rather see a cool animation of your character lobbing a glass vial at the wall above a torch, or a gas vial in the midst of a group of guards? opinions plz?

Bahaha, aww man. You guys should not of mentioned the whole belief that saving every 5 footsteps is cheating. Now i'm gonna feel really bad when I do it. I must confess that I tend to use the quicksave key pretty often, but that's only because it's available to me. If i were forced to (or at least given the option to, at the start of the game) vaule my save points, I'd feel much better about completing the level. This is important, especially in a 1 plyr game. At the same time, you don't want it to become annoying. Balance is everything yeah? Another thing I'm wondering is how hard do you think it would be to integrate an option for co-op missions into your editor? Is that adding a whole new element of difficulty, or is it fairly straight forward?

What the hell am I looking at here? Those screens pale in comparison to what is happening all throughout this dark mod communitiy... It's 1 dood, who doesn't know if he's gonna wait around for quake 4, or create an entire multi-player mod himself. HUH!?!?!??

Ishtvan, (LOL @ vanilla) you've semi-confused me with your talk of perspective. The only thing I can relate to what your are talking about was my ability to change my persepective view in Quake 3 Arena. I increased my degree of perspective so i could see more fragging opportunes on my screen at once. Will the guards look for you while you prowl about on the rooftops or nah? heh heh. I think having the guards somewhat intelligent in regards to running towards exits, and/or important treasure items is a really good idea. Again, it adds to the realism, and leaves the player with nuthin to carp or laff to themselves about. Why do we play video games? A challenge yeah? Or do we play them for entertainment? Personally I'd watch a movie if I wanted to be entertained. A good movie is WAYYYYY more entertaining than some dumb video game. I dont care what u say, it's true. Gaming is the perfect mix of both a challenge, and entertainment. Does a greater challenge within the realm of possibility add to a game, or make you all the more frusterated? ( ie ) How do you feel about having to reload your saved game from about 10 minutes or possibly 20 minutes prior to your current state because u funked up? What do you think? my answer is that I hate the fact I can save so often in the "Theif" Series. There is absolutely no penalty for your carelessness. You should be able to "buy" saves. That'd make finding loot all the more glorious.

nope, not personally. I got a request though for yah Oddity. I was always a big fan of the Princess Leia (side bunz) hair style for the nobel women in TDS. Hook it up man. Dem bunz is sexy.

Oh, another thing I was wondering. I am assuming that you will be making use of Normal Mapping, is that correct Oddity? Wierd shadow on the in game render of the woman at the ground near her skirt.

Hype! sounds really exciting. I'm sure you have been waiting for this moment in time where it's all starting to turn from concept to a testable scenario. I didn't expect you would of had all that together yet.

Yuuup. Good ol' T.O. I wasn't refering to the modelling actually. I know that can be done in a day or two, but to do all those animations is a diff story all together. I think the animation could REALLY help make this MOD stand out from the rest. There are soo many MODS out there that have absolute crap animation... and it' ruins everything. Making sure the animation is as solid as the rest of the game elements is really important. I dont' know if you've heard of this but there is something called "The Uncanny Valley" theory, which basically explains how some animation, while aiming for a realistic look, but falling short of it can cause an uneasy feeling for viewers or in this case 'gamers'. Usually, (a Producer would hope) if the animation is really shotty, the gameplay and sound will make up for the player's experience, and distract them from the horrible animation/movements. You can imagine though how much it would add if the animation were there to begin with. It's going to add a lot to the game, and attract more people from the get go if you spend the time required to make it nice for the release. Quality over quantity, obviously. I know, I know, you are just working towards the very 1st release, and not everything is gonna be perfect to start with. But you guys seem like a really talented and committed group, so i'm just basically rambling in hopes you will take stuff like this into consideration. Here's the link for "The Uncanny Valley (translated from Japanese)" theory, in case any of you are interested. http://www.comicon.com/thebeat/archives/20...ncanny_val.html

Will do. Is the coding basically the main chunk of what is going on right now for you guys as a team? I mean -- if Oddity were to have some models together, some sounds were ready, and there was a house or some random building created with textures and all, how long would it take to have that house/building ready to play/test? Is that a loooong way's off? How far along are you with the editor?

Dude, you realize that's flipping impossible for just you and one other guy to do right? bahahahaha. Let me know if you need some help man. ALso -- i've asked this question sorta indirectly a FEW times now. Maybe you can clarify.... CAN I USE MAYA to model / UV map / Texture / ANimate, and then export from there into whatever editor you are using? If so -- Please give me resource links, and/or a brief explanation of the pipeline you are using.

1) How many people do you have working on the animations for this 1st release? 2) Approx how many animations are there (on average) for an NPC and/or Guard character? also, I was wondering how come the News hasn't been updated in a month. Do you guys all work on this consistantly, or is it sorta up and down? Must be pretty hard with full time work on the go as well as keeping up with this project. Are you all interested in a job in the industry, or is this just hobby for some? I'm asking because for me, after a day at the office, pure problem solving, and melting my brain doing t.d. work, i find it hard to sit down at home and work in Maya. I'd much rather game, or go outside especially now that spring is here (I'm from Toronto) *jus curious...

Yup

Right. Perhaps later then...

Well, I could get some really nice looking dog animations together for you if you ever wanted to use them. That sparks another area of production I'm interested in knowing more about.... Animation.