Sotha

Welcome! Keep up the good work and don't mind the nitpicking.

-Really? We should write some kind of glossary to get our terminology right, as I thought ghosting means that no one sees you. It would be a bore if there was always a guaranteed no-tools no-trouble entry in our maps.

One should use marble realistically: such stone surely gets awfully cold during the night and especially during the winter. That's why there is usually carpets on the stone. Some non-living areas might not be equipped with rugs, but probably there aren't many guards there. (So gameplay-friendly choices can easily be realistic ones.) I don't think every mission should be ghostable as such. It is, however, good if the players cleverness can yield a ghostable result. For example luring the guard watching a map-bottleneck door away with a noise arrow. Bottleneck areas should be commonly avoided, but is very uncommon to have a high-security bank vault with multiple ways in, so surely those bottlenecks will be present in many maps. And it is okay.

WARNING: ConvertLWOToModelSurfaces: model models/darkmod/nature/trees/tree_dm.lwo has too many verts for a poly! Make sure you triplet it down

-Heh. I'm going to directly violate this rule. TEASER @Springheel: Those are the words of wisdom.

-Agreed. He rocks!

-I think this problem has a suprisingly easy solution. Use common sense. If you put a monster puzzle to solve with an illogical answer and very little amount of good clues to solve it, it is a mapper's design error. If the puzzle is really tough, place vague clues in obvious places and place a good clue in a well-hidden place. If the player gets bored with the puzzle and starts to explore the map, he'll find more clues to make the solving process easier. Always give the player options. If a player cannot solve a clockwork puzzle locking the door to the master's bedroom, let him smash the door. He'll cause an alarm and will definately not attain Master Thief -rank from the mission, but he's still able to continue the mission. Generally, solving puzzles should not be bottlenecks stopping the player making progress, but they should reward the player for solving them in some way: silent entry, loot, gear, way to avoid guards... The mapper can use bottleneck puzzles, but then he should really think it through, and use them sparingly. Getting absolutely stuck on the third 10x10 button puzzle in the same mission, without a way around it and with insufficient clues can be very frustrating. I'd be a shame for the mapper too, if his great work was abandoned simply because of a too difficult puzzle. I'd like to comment some other replies in this thread with the following: This is not about being right or wrong; winning and losing an argument. This is about opinion. Everyone has one. People should respect each other's opinions. They can agree or disagree to your views: there is no reason to get twitchy. Present new ideas. Discuss previous ideas. Refine old ideas into new ones. Add an explanation for your opinions. Don't get personal (you can get personal in a nice way, if you want.. ).

As a mapper, I'd like to have both static and moveable loot since it offers more possibilities. All the objects in the real world are (more or less) moveables, but still some of them can only be moved with fine manipulation, for example a trophy caught up in a fishing net. Firing an arrow on it will not make it come loose, but a moveable loot in the game might fall on the ground. However, we should include a recommendation to generally use moveables in our modding instructions.

Yes. Let's leave the factions in peace (if you want, you could open another thread for it) and go back towards the original topic: the recipe for a good mission. We mappers might get excellent ideas from each other, or from the community eagerly waiting for TDM. Ladies and gentlemen, the floor is yours!

-I definately wouldn't like to be able to break in every house of a map, so we are mostly in agreement. What I mean by realistic loot placement is the following: -Loot is relatively where it should be expected: * in a display case in a place where visitors can envy the collection. * a decorative vase on a table in a corridor. * coins inside a locked chest. * expensive wine in a locked wine cellar. * a pouch of gems hidden in the corrupt guard captain's quarters. -Loot placed unrealistically: *fabulously expensive diamond in the raggy beggar's home. *diamond ring inside a barrel sitting on a city street. *lots of gold in the servant's quarters. *coins on a table in a general corridor leading nowhere. *expensive statue placed on a insignificant windowstill. Unrealistic loot can be made realistic by adding a reason why they are there. Maybe the diamond ring was left in the barrel as a payment for some heinous deed. Player who found a blackmail note describing the deed can find it. A FM author shouldn't use too much unrealistic loot. I find it rather immersion breaking in -lets say- a shooter game in which I do some exploring and finally reach a small niche in the rooftops, where I locate...... ...2 pistol clips!

-Agreed. Give the player a map. Let him/her plan her route. Reward intelligent decisions. "Hmm. The map shows the main gate in and a servant's house. I could break an unattended window to enter, but that makes too much noise. I'll go through the servant's house, because the main gate is probably well guarded." Don't tell the player to go through the servant's house. Make options, let The Player choose! Reward going through a more difficult alternative: the player might hear the guards at the main gate talking about security systems, or might steal a key from the guards. -Agreed. I love to hear/read about the poor butler's bitter hate towards his master, but alas his daughter is in love with the master's son and he cannot but swallow his rage. However, stumbling into terrible secrets over and over and over again in the same mission takes away the realism. Subplots are to be placed carefully, as most of the people live normal lives, one terrible secret in the main plot is the maximum. Intelligent searching should -again- be rewarded. If there is slight hints that the builder priest is corrupt, player might locate a hidden treasure in his quarters. But not always. -Agreed. The City should have history, and the mapper should think about it. A central square or other kind of significant place should have a background. It is not just The Kings Square, but a square that was used for executions by the kings' command sixty seven years ago. -Yes. Give a few hints of things to come. Corrupt the clues, do not give anything outright until the moment is correct. -No. Sometimes a break-and-entry mission should be just a break-and-entry mission, with challenging and entertaining guards of course. It's rather boring if the player should always expect the unexpected. -I don't know. If so, the author should be very careful and think it through. And no, I would probably be bored if every mission introduces a new bunch of factions. Too much is too much. -Sometimes mixing zombies with humans is cool. T2 Thieves highway mission's necromancers tower. But not always. -Agreed. -Loot should be placed realistically. It shouldn't always be behind loads of trouble. Most importantly: Keep the missions diverse. Give the player options, with consequences. Reward cunning players. Do not lead the player by the nose.

I liked the newspaper -type debriefing in the latest Hitman. After a mission the game described how the mission went in a form of a newspaper article. Too bad our timeline won't allow this. And to make it feel diverse and realistic enough, it would need a lot of work. Maybe if it was some kind of city watch report? "The taffer knocked out 3 guards and stole XXX worth of valuables. Guards spotted the thief, sounded the alarm but couldn't catch him. Praised be the builder, for no one got killed during the villain's attack." I like the idea of an overall performance grade, since it rewards careful and skillful gameplay: Grandmaster Thief: 0 KO's, 0 kills, max AI alert level 1, 90% loot. Master Thief: 0-1 KO's, 0kills, max AI alert level 2, 80% loot. [...] Petty Thief: >5 KO's, 0 kills, max AI alert level 4. Thug Assailant: n KO's, >1 kills... Murderer Lunatic Of course, these limits should be set by the mapper individally for a particlular mission.

WARNING: ConvertLWOToModelSurfaces: model models/darkmod/waterworks/bathtub01.lwo has too many verts for a poly! Make sure you triplet it down

Congrats! Keep in mind, the older you are the faster years pass by. Soon you'll be a zombie like the rest of us...

-Yay! Tested it. Nice, intuitive and fast decal adding system, very good. Thanks for bringing it available so quickly! I've got another suggestion, but it is probably of relatively low priority. Some kind of WYSIWYG -readable editor. When writing readable books, there is the difficulty of estimating how much text fits "page1_left_body" and you have to change to "page1_right_body" and so on. It very slow to make this kind of readables and always check in-game if the amount of text is correct. The editor would let you select the gui you want, and then write in it. You could add pages into the editor and easily see, when a page is filled. The system would allow saving the data straight into the wanted xdata-file.

-So you stand behind your claims only to attempt to win another argument, with no interest to discover real insight from this discussion? Arguing about this is then futile, as no one is probably going to change their views or bring anything new to the table. I recommend us to cease, since there is clear evidence that this "discussion" has now caused people to start denounce each other's personal traits or contributions to the discussion. This is the moment when one of the discussion's participants have failed grieviously.

Recently, I've been decalling my map, and I noticed it is a very slow job. Could it be possible to get a special decal placer tool for DR? Some other editor I've used previously had this kind of feature (HL or FarCry, don't remember which). You selected a decal texture and simply clicked on a wall in the editor with a decal tool to get a decal placed on the wanted spot. Very convenient. Is it possible to write an automated process, which places a mesh of selected size and texture just on top of a clicked wall? The decal tool could have a box in which you could type the size of the new decal mesh, to get exactly the kind of decal you wanted, only with one click.

-Okay. -Anyone see a contradiction? You speak about irresistible enticements, and intellect easily overriding any instincts. I'd still say we are hugely affected by our instincts. Humans are as programmed to have sex as animals are. Sure, we can select celibacy, but the programming is still there, governed by our instincts.

-And then we could discuss about human intelligence more generally, since I'm very sure that our instincts still give us clues and affect us all the time. I wouldn't say that this kind of decision is purely intellectual, as it never is. The human intellect will never be free of instinct's effect. Sure, many women decide not to have kids, but probably they still have dreams of it, silently affecting their disposition to the idea. I've seen many women who first claim that they'll absolutely never will have kids. And -bam- couple of years pass, and suddenly they are absolutely baby-sick (Broody). But here we are. A bunch of guys talking about women getting kids. This discussion definately requires female input for any credibility.

One shouldn't forget that females of many species have also seem to an irresistible enticement to nurse their young, and they probably do not regard it as a grisly job. It is unknown to me how strong this enticement is, but usually you see women wanting to have kids more often than men. Surely this feature is hard-coded in the genes and like you've said it, it seems like an automated process. I wouldn't underestimate it's effect on history, before the evolution of the society.

I started to write something to this, deleted it, wrote again, deleted it again. I'll just say that you've an interesting point of view. I'll also present a speculation that maybe the women you mentioned prattled about their pregnancy mainly due to the new and exciting behavior they experience because of the pregnancy, on a personal level. And the "big deal" with having children probably comes from the fact that people have other alternatives nowadays: they could stick with their careers or do something else. You can choose to use birth control. You do not need to produce children who take care of you when you're old and weak.

-I've played DE1, and it was excellent. Good plot, your actions mattered to some extent on a long scale. The player was presented with interesting moral decisions. You could play the game the way you wanted. (I liked to sneak and avoid killing people.) I would recommend the game to almost anyone. I also player DE2, which was crap. They kinda improved the graphics and physics, but ruined everything else. I hardly bothered to wade through it. DE2 felt like a hollywood version of a good movie (DE1). Simplified, more predictable, more boring. I've lost my faith in the gaming industry, as sequels almost always turn out to be crappy attempts to haul cash with the name of the previous game. It would seem that all "big" games suffer from the simplification: oblivion dragged you by the nose through the plot, you couldn't figure things out yourself, the journal told what to do and pointed where to go. But I guess it is the demand: if they make a good and clever game, nobody buys it. Nowadays, most games are single-use entertainment (doom3), not classics that last for many years (UFO:Enemy Unknown, I still play it!). Augmented refers to cybernetically improved humans.

I'd like to inquire that when do we get DR to show the speaker radii in the map? It would make sound placement much more straightforward and faster. Actually I do not want to do sounds until that kind of feature exists. Thanks.

Respect and congratulations!

I must comment about jd_hand -font. I played with readables, and I noticed that the f-letter is also terribly displaced. In a title written in jd_hand, word "curfew" looked like "curf ew." It looked a bit unacceptable to me. Maybe, when selecting fonts, we should look at a sample text with the whole alphabet, so we can easily spot if the font contains badly displaced letters?