Nico A.

Okay, I really want to leave my impressions here. All in all I loved this (rather small) mission and can't wait for the other ones in the series. It felt a bit like TDP, but it only looked nicer <3 + I loved the voice acting. It felt really professional. + I usually don't like weather effects in TDM, but the rain was very well done. + The introduction to the mission was really good (the fence). Also, I liked how the mission built up from the dark sewers to the noble mansion. + The difficulty and the length of the mission was really good for a tutorial/beginning mission. For this, the balance between linearity and complexity was about perfect. + I found the textures brilliant. Some negative things I want to add: - Only 4 missions in this campaign? I'd love to see at least twice as much! Is there any possibility to extend the storyline, maybe adding an unexpected twist? Because I think this is the best campaign's first mission so far. - The trailer was atmospherically the best introduction to a TDM mission I've seen so far. So why isn't it included in the actual mission?! I love the voice acting and the images! Please include it! - The font of the loading screen should probably have a bit higher resolution. - Some things were unexpectedly not frobable imo. For example, the carrots were, but the apples not... also, I'd like if all doors which look the same are frobable, even if you can't open them... - another entrance into the building would have been great, but that's not so bad for a first mission imo. Keep up the good work!

I just have to get something off my chest, and this thread seems appropriate for it. Whoever did the spiders, you've done a magnificent job. They are disgusting as fuck.

As long as it occurs only sometimes... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage

Oops... I definitely should be a lot more aware. Really stupid mistake I made. Thank you for the thread suggestion, that seems like the right spot for me.

Am still at the very beginning of using Dark Radiant. Somehow I cannot seem to select a single surface of a brush, so that I can change the texture only for that surface (or manipulate it individually in any other way). I can only select the whole brush in 3D view. I tried it some months ago and iirc, I didn't have problems then. Today I downloaded version 1.8 of DR and now I can't figure out how to do it. If you need more information to help me out, please tell me.

I didn't read the answers to this thread yet and I didn't test this mission either... I only skipped through a youtube let's play*. From what I've seen I have to say I find the aesthetics ratings here still very underestimating. From the around 10 missions I played/watched so far that has to be the one with the feel closest to Thief, only with superb graphics. It is especially not too bright and all in all the atmosphere fits perfectly. I'm eager to play this mission when my bachelor thesis is done. *the one four posts above mine.

It's good I don't meet her in person, I would instantly fall in love. And no, I'm not proud of being so simple-minded...

Here's something I was wondering about already, but after seeing the top comments of the following video, I couldn't help but ask for your opinion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJLEtMaYKOg Now I loved the sound of Garrett walking on stone or wood in the original Thief series. Yeah, I didn't like the consequences, like alerting the guards, I just liked the sound of it. And tbh I was a little bit disappointed when I heard that the Dark Mod's thief running on stone wasn't all that loud. I can't help but like to hear the footsteps I'm making. Does anyone else feel that way? BUT - it's kind of ridiculously loud. When running on stone, you can hear a horse, not a thief. And even when running, it shouldn't be so loud as if you're wearing hooves. So... what are the excuses for it being so loud? I mean, even if they are quieter, the steps in TDM are still unrealistically loud, people here often state how important immersion is. Is it maybe just because it is nicer for the player to hear himself - even more when he doesn't see himself? Maybe the thief indeed wears wooden shoes. But why would he/she do that? Or is it psychologically more correct? (a thief would presumably pay a lot of attention to the sounds he/she produces, so maybe it would seem louder) Or, at the worst, is it the nostalgia, that we simply want to keep some things from the old games which were, due to insufficient technical capabilities back then, highly unrealistic? Let me know what you think.

That's an interesting read. I wouldn't complain if I'd have to create a big solid brush before carving out rooms from that. But as far as I can see, Dark Radiant doesn't allow anything like carving out geometry. I don't know if it's necessary to add that in DromEd's substractive mode you could also add solid brushes. That means you can add geometry in a hollow form that has been substracted. Again, I don't know if that's obvious, I'm a layman!

I have an issue when starting a mission... The time to load a mission takes extremely long for me. For the Tears of Saint Lucia mission, it took about six minutes every time I loaded the mission or a saved state. I have a ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5165 graphics card and tried the suggestions in the FAQ. After these fixes the loading times for the two missions were: Winter Harvest: 1'58'' (after closing Dark Mod and starting the mission again: 1'18'') Tears of Saint Lucia: 2'11'' (after closing Dark Mod and starting the mission again: 2'20'') When loading my own attempt at Dark Radiant (two rooms, a door, two AIs, few small things) it takes 30-40 seconds, which is, I guess, still kinda long. Has anyone an idea what I could do to reduce the loading time even further?

I'm very new to using Dark Radiant but what I found strange immediately is the lacking possibility of building the geometry of the level in a subtractive mode. I remember when I played around in DromEd I found it WAY easier to use subtractive geometry to carve out the rooms than to build every wall of a room individually, and even with the "make room" command the handling seems more complicated to me... - the wireframe mode looks far more complicated this way - in the 3d view with texture mode, you can't look inside the rooms when the camera is in the void - making holes in the walls requires changing the wall itself, in contrast to just placing the next room/corridor on the side of the room - in a subtractive mode, one wouldn't need to consider whether the world somehow has a hole into the void Could you explain to a layman like me why Dark Radiant doesn't allow building in substractive mode?

Absolutely awesome. I can't understand how I missed this project. I wish everyone who works on this the best of luck, sadly I'm too incompetent to contribute anything. It's a shame I know nothing about making cutscenes, because I'd love to help out with that. I loved the cutscene style of the first two Thief games - not just the still images that are scrolling, but also the text lines and the blurred, dreamlike animations paired with the threatening industrial music. Just beautiful. To be honest, I really don't like the default cutscenes for The Dark Mod compared to the "original" ones. And can I dare ask a question about this campaign from a consumer point of view? Is there a tutorial level planned? The introduction level, interwoven with the story line, is one important aspect that made The Dark Project superior than The Metal Age to me.

Fantastic! This works just fine. Thanks! edit: @Lux: Didn't see your extensive answer at first. Thanks for explaining so thoroughly to a newbie!

Thanks for your suggestions with the config files, although I don't know which files you are referring to. Are they in the darkmod or in the Doom 3 folder? And why should deleting a file help with changing controls? I feel stupid. The original setting is forward = w run = shift which means that I can only run when I press w and shift together. If I put it like this forward = shift run = w I move forward when only pressing shift but don't move forward at all (let alone run) with w. Now what I'd want is running with only pressing w and moving forward when pressing w and shift together. Somehow it just doesn't work. Why would I want to have it like that in a stealth game? Well, mostly because I'm used to play in this way. I also played the first two Thief games this way and want to keep that experience in TDM. Also, I feel uncomfortable knowing that I can't change the controls as I like.

Thanks for the overwhelming number of responses, it's really an interesting read. Especially since I'm now at kind of a crossroads, and have to plan my future.

That's how I feel too, but I think TDM could only succeed if there would be a campaign of 10+ missions and cutscenes to play through without having to install all the seperate missions. Because otherwise I think only the modding community will notice TDM. But maybe I'm just unaware that such a campaign already exists or is in the making... I'm still very new to all things about TDM. I completely agree that immersion is not created so much if the screen shows everything that would fall onto the retina of the thief character. For example, I feel more immersed when I don't see the thief's legs when walking or the hands all the time. Rather, the screen should show the psychologically relevant information. Therefore, I don't have any problems e.g. with the highlighting of usable objects, even though it's not what the eyes would actually see; but the highlighting represents the focus of attention perfectly fine. And there's the immersion. Yet, I would have to disagree with the HUD elements being as minimalistic as possible. My opinion is, if they have to be there, let them at least look aesthetically pleasurable. I dislike the minimalistic light gem in the Thief reboot, I find the ones in TDM or Thief 1-3 way cooler. What's the point with a minimalistic element that doesn't capture the atmosphere of the game? In kinda the same fashion I noticed in TDM that obviously the aim was to hide the inventory and the weapon icons as good as possible. But for me it doesn't look nice that way, too 2-dimensional and the text ist difficult to read for me, whereas I liked the inventory symbols in the first two Thief titles waaayy better. But I fear it is, as I said, an aesthetics issue and you can't really argue about that.

I'm a student of psychology right now and it takes me a lot of time. I really am not sure how much I can allow myself to get involved with The Dark Mod. 1. Only install TDM and play a little around? 2. Play seriously many of the missions? 3. Even try to play around with the level editor? 4. Try to make an ambitious mission on my own? 5. Make my own assets? 6. Try to change TDM a little bit to my own likes? Like changing the menu style, working on physics an so on? 7. Become an active member with posting regularly on the forum and working on TDM and missions? Now, when I'm honest to myself, maybe I can only afford to reach the second step. Long, long ago I played around with DromEd, a little later I tried free modeling tools and editors such as Blender and UDK. Still, this was years ago and there'd be too much for me to do. So how much time do you have? What do you do besides working on TDM or your own missions?

Hi, I'm very new to The Dark Mod - I just played around a little in the training level. My hats off to everyone who have worked on this, it's great. Even more now when words can't express how disappointed I am what we see about Thief 4. Although there are some minor things... for example, in the game I really want to run with "w" and go slowly with "shift+w". But I have tried every possibility in the menu to change that. It seems running somehow always requires the "shift" key. Am I missing something? What I think also lacks is the possibility in the menu to go back to default settings for the controls or even have some different premade controls settings (e.g. "Thief I style", "Thief II style", "Doom 3 style", ...). Or did I just miss it somehow?

Hi everyone, I'm new here. I didn't want my first post to be off topic but I'm still waiting for my Doom 3 game. So, I'm all for progressive/experimental music. Here are some of my favorites (many of them disbanded): the great King Crimson: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9IQnDRYIYU Sleepytime Gorilla Museum (rather weird and somehow metal, but very emotional): The Mars Volta (comparably happy music) (somehow am I not allowed to post a link)