obscurus

The Unreal Engine 3 (and 2) (IMO) is the easiest engine to work with for mappers, as it has a very powerful and mature editor with far more features than any other game editor available on the market, and a very pleasant interface (I'm biased though, UnrealEd is the only editor I've used extensively). It is very easily moddable, and can be used to create a very diverse range of games. It is however, very expensive and they don't release the source code unless you pay for it (about $2 million for a sourcecode licence, IIRC). http://www.unrealtechnology.com/html/technology/ue30.shtml It uses some middleware itself, such as SpeedTree RT, and you can plug different physics middleware in if you want, though I belive it uses it's own physics engine by default. Most game devs seem to buy the sourcecode licence and change things to suit their specific project....

Does the Doom 3 engine support real time forward Kinematics? That is mostly all you need (OK you need a bit more but that would get you started). AFAIK naturalmotion software works in realtime. Obviously you can't incorporate it into Doom 3, I was more pointing out that it can be done, and that it might be possible to code something passible in Doom 3 (not that I have a clue how you would do it). EDIT: gildoran is correct as far as I know, you don't bake the animation, you save the heuiristc data of an "educated" AI, and it behaves in real time and reacts to physical forces and other AI/models. Apparently you can even set up a virtual soccer match and teams will play soccer in real time (hardware permitting), and the virtual players improve with experience.

Oh jeez, I didn't mean to start WW3... Look, I just made the assumption, that since you a ) are promoting TDM as a freely available toolkit for making stealth based games and b ) have a public forum where non-contributing parties may discuss the mod, that there was an implicit invitation for ideas, comments, suggestions and criticisms, which I have obviously been making. Now if I am wrong in that respect, it begs the question as to why you have a public forum at all, after all, if you have discussed it all internally and made final decisions, discussing things on a public forum would seem to be a waste of your time, and you might as well close the public forums and just post progress updates on the website. And as Sparhawk says, why would I wan't to go through the process of putting a team together and starting my own project from scratch when there is a free toolkit in development which looks like it will fulfil most of my needs? And since you appear to be inviting public input, why wouldn't I make suggestions for things that would mean less work for me? I don't expect you to follow them up, but it would be nice if there was some serious discussion, not out of hand dismissal, or deliberate misinterpretation of what I am suggesting to avoid a properly considered response. @Domarius, at the risk of causing you a great deal of offense (and I promise you I don't mean to, I really have nothing against you personally), I have to agree with Sparhawk in so far as to say that you do come across as someone who has been formally educated in the creative arts, and it has been my experience that this type of education instills a certain mindset that does come across in your comments. I dropped out of a Fine Arts degree and switched to Science very quickly when I realised how quickly the formal Artistic education was eroding my creativity and ability to think outside the box. This type of education teaches you The Way as though you could formally define artistic works using a formula. this is why most of art, music and computer games come across to me as being formulaic. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say that a formal education in Game Design (for example) is inherently bad, just that it teaches you a certain skills at the expense of some other skills, which are often more important for certain endevaours than the ones you may have been taught. I'm not saying that this applies to you, I don't know you, but I can only go on what you have written in these forums, and all I'm saying is, your comments are consistent with a certain school of thought which I have some difficulties with.

Oh fine. I'm obviously pissing everyone off so I'll quit it with the grandiose schemes, OK? I'm just saying body carrying is immersion breaking for me... Sorry for any offense caused. I really didn't mean to upset anyone (well, maybe ZylonBane ).

There should be no body related goals, but if there are, dragging should be sufficient. If the body gets stuck, that isn't unrealistic - if you are dragging a body in RL you should expect it to repeatedly get snagged on things. Sure it would be an abstraction, but not such a silly one a shouldering. I also think the player should have to walk backwards while dragging (more realistic). You are taking things far too far, as though you can disprove my argument by pretending I am arguing for a far more extreme appraoch than really I am. Obviously there is a limit to how much depth you can put in the game, but that does not mean you cannot have a reasonable abstraction that has a level of realism that is generaly consistent with the real world. If we assume our thief is a known wanted felon, he is unlikely to be setting up businesses or doing all of the things you have described. We can assume he is one of those people hred to steal, not one of the ones doing the hiring. We can assume our theif likes to work alone, not wanting to share the spoils with anyone. There are plenty of such thieves around in RL. We can assume our thief has a few people willing to do business with him, but generally most people will recognise him as a thief due to 'wanted' posters, bounty ect. There are lots of people who have different strategies for theft. Our character is a cat burgler. Perhaps he just likes the thrill of it - such people exist in real life. Perhaps he has no interest in whiote collar crime. Hostage taking amost always fails as a strategy for theft, almost all hostage takers have been captured and/or killed as a result of their stupidity. Cases like the one you mentioned are extremely rare. You are just throwing up red herrings, but in no way have you demonstrated that threre is anything inherentlly wrong with my idea, although, I do like the idea of throwing in bribing guards etc as an alternative in situations where stealth might be impossible (although there should be a big risk to the player if the bribe is not accepted).... @Domarius You are starting to sound like one of those naysayers, like the people who thought that if you traveled too fast in a steam train that you would die, or that it was impossible to break the sound barrier. Come on. It is getting easier and easier to create open ended, free form games that have few set ways of completing them. Thing is, I don't want a specific experience per se, I want a highly generalised game where a palyer with specific attributes has a bettter chance of success if they play in a certain way (e.g stealthily). I want the players experience to be different each time they play the game, with multiple branching story lines, etc, not another one of those games that when you have finished it it gets proptly deleted. Have a look at Assassin's Creed for example - a game that has all kinds of features that you guys seems to think are unworkable or impossible in a game (granted, it does use next gen hardware). There are a crop of games due for release soon that completely refute most of your naysaying, "it can't be done" "it is no fun" "no professional game dev would do that" nonsense. Open ended, free form games that blend elements of RPG, FPS, action, stealth, RTS, artificial life and economy sims are the way of the future. @Springheel: If you want assistance with mapping, story, in-game readables, modelling (but not character modelling, I'm crap at that) textures, sound design I might be able to help, although I probably won't have a much time for another 4 months or so, I have other projects on the boil. IIRC, I offered to do readables a while back, but there seemed to be a lack of interest in that.

Hmm. You seem to be only capable of levelling childish verbal abuse in lieu of a cogent argument, and I don't know what your rambling references to Greek philosophers was supposed to be in aid of. Did you think it made you sound intelligent? You miss the point entirely if you think I am talking about "blind application of realism". You have got everything arse about face, and you are barracking for blind application of gameplay, to use your terminology. Like I say, if you set up a realistic simulation of a quasi Victorian city and give the player the objective of stealing things without being caught, and give the player realistic (or at the very least plausible) abilities and limitations, good stealth gameplay will inevitably flow as the path of least resistance. The main reason game devs have not been taking this path is purely out of fear derived from giving control to the simulation, having unscripted events unfold without their stamp of approval, and giving the player the freedom to decide their own fate without letting them act like a demigod. It is all about fear of the unknown, and fear of losing control. As it happens, I play games fairly regularly, and for the most part I find them enjoyable. Perhaps it is because of my scientific background and broad general knowledge about how reality operates, but everytime I come across an aspect of gameplay dynamics that is completely at odds with what is even vaguely plausible in RL, it breaks immersion to some degree for me, and detracts, sometimes quite heavily from my enjoyment of the game. It is different if a game makes no attempt in any way to be realistic - I have no expectation that Sonic the Hedgehog will be at all realistic, but in a game like thief, where many aspects of the game are quite realistic, the ones that aren't screw it up for me. I need consistency to fully enjoy a game. Now, Thief (1, 2 & 3, but especially 2) are three of my favourite games overall, but I nevertheless disliked many of the gameplay aspects that either seemed contrived, silly or just plain preposterous. Given the limitations of game engines and computing power at the time it was released, some of those things were forgivable, but some had no reason for being there, and I found them just plain irritating . Body carrying in the way thief implemented it was one of them, and I never liked doing it, and I was very annoyed when the game made it an objective to complete. Some people evidently seem to derive some kind of puerile delight from aranging virtual corpses in amusing positions, but that was never my cup of tea... For the record, I have been working on a game for some years now, but I am waiting for the technology to reach the point where it will do my ideas justice (not to mention the time and the money to invest in it). It is getting close with some of the newer game engines, but I plan on using TDM as a testbed for some of my ideas, which is why I am pushing for certain features....

yes, I agree you have to make an abstraction of reality to a lesser or greater degree, but the aim should be to model a consistent game universe that operates under predictable rules (which may or may not be 'realistc' per se), and if the game appears to generally operate under a similar set of rules to reality, then large deviations are going to be immersion breaking. Gameplay will evolve from the rules of the virtual world, if you try to create gameplay first, you are actually putting the cart before the horse. If you have a relatively realistic model of a mediaeval/victorian city, with relatively realistic rules of physics etc, relatively realistic AI, and give the player certain abilities and limitations, and the objective to steal things, gameplay will naturally follow its own path, without the FM author or the developers having to intervene. You first create the model of your virtual world, then you run your simulation, not the other way around, which seems to be how a lot of game devs play it.

That has happened to me before - turned out the Motherboard had fried. The circuit that switches on the PSU was working, but that was it. I'd say you're up for some expenses - when my Mobo blew, it took the CPU and RAM with it. Fortunately my hard drives and PCI/AGP cards were all fine... Hope you have better luck

Actually, there is middleware such as http://www.naturalmotion.com/pages/products.htm for example that is enabling game engines to do the very thing we are discussing (might not be able to get the D3 engine to do it though). There are a number of real-time animation solutions that use realistic physics and AI to animate, rather than being manually animated. So instead of animating a walk cycle, software like the above will start with an IK chain than will literally learn to walk by itself using physics and AI based adaptive learning, without any intervention by an animator. This middleware is making an appearence on some XBox 360 games, so it can't be that hard, you just need enough free CPU cycles for the AI to operate (obviously you would "bake" most of the animation data in game to conserve CPU power, but you could use it to tween between a limp ragdoll and a standing, animated character as well). There is so much procedural and automated content middlware software coming out now, and it will lead to a massive reduction in the development time for games, as well as a large increase in in-game realism at the same time. All good. It also means that small game production teams will be able to get back in the business - once you have licences for a bunch of middleware, you need a fraction of the number of animators, programmers, texture artists etc. Procedural is the way to go. http://www.gamemiddleware.org/middleware/index.html

Domarius: regarding combat, I was more trying to make the point that a consistent, interactive game universe is better than one with bizarre limitations in one area and a bizarre lack of limitations in another, especially when they both relate to the same underlying quality. I can understand perfectly (and agree) that TDM will have limited focus on combat, since the focus should be on avoiding it at all costs, but if you are going to have it at all, you might as well do it well. I am quite happy for a game to deviate from realism where it is impractical or impossible to simulate within the limitations of computing power or computer interfaces, and for little fudges to make up for the defecit, but it is quite another thing when people reject it solely on the grounds that it would make the gameplay less "fun", when it is quite easily implemented in game, and there is no argument to suggest it would be less fun other than some reference to some outdated "professional" game design dogma formulated in the 90s for Nintendos. And I am intersested in games that have a consistent level of realism - it doesn't have to be so realistic that you can't tell where the game ends and reality begins, it just has to have consistent rules across the board. It isn't consistent with the idea of a thief to have the training and stupendous strength to move bodies around as though they were Arnold Schwazenegger, and it is too great a deviation from what is reasonable to be worth including in the game IMO. And you can have some fantastic gameplay without it. It is dispensable and makes no sense, so why keep it?

Really? That must be why I find the vast majority of computer games to be unmitigated crap. Professional computer game designers design games primarily for consoles, and even when they don't, they have dragged a lot of the baggage and dogma from these areas over without consciously realising it. Most games are designed to be completed within 10 - 20 hours and have absolutely no replay value so that you immediately go out and buy a new game when you have finished it - it is a purely commercial objective to avoid games with depths and realism, because such games take much longer to play, and have much more replay value. I have very little respect for "professional" game designers given the general poor quality of their work. For me at least, realism IS the gameplay to a large extent, and only serves to enhance it. A realistic limitation on how much loot I can carry (for example) would greatly enhance my enjoyment of the game because it would make me think more strategically about what items I picked up. Every game I have played that puts an emphasis on realism has been more fun and enjoyable for me to play, so the argument that realism would detract from the fun of a game is a purely subjective opinion. Some people like simplistic games that don't require complex thought, or don't take months to finish, or lack depth, or rely on cheesy gimmicks or silly plot devices; I am not one of them. I'm sorry, I just don't buy the religious doga that realism is bad for games - unless you can make a highly realistic game for me to play and I then don't enjoy it, I'll take your view as a load of bollocks. Yes, petty name calling constitutes a valid argument.

I am of the view that if you base everything as closely as possible on reality (as far as current computers will allow with decent framerates), everything will pretty much fall into place by itself. It will then be up to the FM author to simply create geometry, lighting and AI placements that are navigable by the player. If you want to prove me wrong, make a game according to the above principles and I'll tell you if I enjoy it or not, and if I am the only person who likes it, or evenI turn out not to like it, I'll shut up. People seem to be considering features on their own, and not in context with everything else. If you strive to make everything at least equally plausible, if not quite realistic, you don't need to worry about balance - it will be self balancing. But throw in unrealistic things like the ability to carry unlimited loot without slowing down or making a lot of noise, or carry bodies for an unlimited distance etc, and you quickly wind up with a Pamndora's box of issues to resolve, which simply wouldn't exist if attention was paid to even a moderate level of realism. I guess I get that a lot of people like the idea of playing a superhuman thief with extraordinary abilites and some peculiar weaknesses, but I prefer a bit more depth than the old Thief series provided. Thief is a pretty primitive, basic game that was fun for a while, but you need to do more than just spiff up the graphics to improve on it. Here's an idea: instead of giving the player the ability to carry unlimited loot, give the player a strict limit, and then make it a game of finding the most valuable loot the player can carry, instead of the largest quantity loot the player can carry. the player has to decide if they want to take the risk of making lots of noise carrying a sackfull of metal trinkets and draining their stamina, or make off with a single very valuable item, or something in between. It adds a bit more depth to the game than simply running around collecting everything that isn't nailed down, and is much more what real thieves normally do - they go after specific, high value items that can be easily fenced, not everything bar the kitchen sink. A thief normally has an idea what they are looking for when they enter a building, and if they don't find it, they will often leave with nothing.

It was originally using the Vengeance Engeine, which is a heavily modified Unreal Engine 2.5. It has been modified to support normal maps and dynamic lighting, amongst other things, but it is nowhere near as sophisticated as UE3. The screenshot with the suspect lighting may have been from the game running on the older version. They have now switched to a modified UE3 with a completely rewritten renderer.

You only have to sit and wait if you do silly things and run out of stamina - if you manage your continuously recharging stamina properly, you won't need to stop and rest very often, if at all. I am talking a stamina system like in Morrowind here (except without the rest or wait option), where it recharges if you slow to a walk, or drop the body, it won't prevent you from doing anything, just make you act more like a thief and not superman. Anyway, it seems you've made up your mind, so I won't press the issue. OK. Not my preferred option, but hey, I'm not the one doing all the works so I can't complain too much. That depends on entirely what combat system you use. I would prefer that there is a melee fighting system similar to the one which was used in Die by the Sword, where success is almost entirely dependent on the player's skill with the mouse, not some kind of computer generated lottery system. There would be no need to model specific "crappy" combat skills for certain weapons, all you need to do is: 1) have a combat system where the player's skill with the mouse is what determines how good they are in combat - they must attack and block their opponents blows using their own skill; 2) Have the players weapon set up as an IK bone system where there is no need to code specific animations, or very few of them anyway. 3) adjust the weight etc of various weapons, and translate this into the speed of attacks etc. Eg, a broadsword swing takes longer than a dagger stab, but causes more damage. In this way a player has a steep learning curve when it comes to using weapons, but they can practise in game if they wish, you don't have to create some kind of fudgy D&D type combat system. You should also note that it takes a lot of training and skill to move unconscious bodies (even if you are quite strong) - just ask any fireman - and I don't see why a thief would realistically be spending time practising this skill. A thief would be practising at evading detection above all else, which means not having to create bodies that need to be picked up and carried. Of course it is equally ridiculous for the thief to be carrying twenty pounds of metal loot without making any noise, which is why you shouldn't let the player do it. Same goes with arrows in the back - you should give the player a message saying "you have been fatally wounded" (even if that wasn't strictly true) and kill them if you think it would detract from the fun too much if the player slowly bled to death internally. You don't need to create a reality simulator to do this at all. I am not proposing a reality simulator, I am proposing a game with depth, instead of a primitive consolesque characiture (not that I think that is what TDM will be, but you run the risk if you dumb it down too much or make too many concessions to the "we want a Thief clone" crowd). You are jumping to an extreme conclusion there that isn't supported by any conceivable argument. @ ZylonBane - which is why quicksaves should be dispensed with in favour of checkpoints/objective points. OK I know I rehashing stuff that has already been discussed. It's just a cold monday morning and I'm cranky.

I'm 5'9" (175cm) and 220 lbs (100Kg) (I was into bodybuilding/powerlifting until a couple of years ago, so my muscle mass is slowly shrinking and my fat mass is rapidly expanding due to lack of excercise, but that is another story), and I have no trouble shouldering a conscious person who weighs about 120Kg (264lbs), is not completely limp, and walking a few metres with them. It is quite another thing to get someone who is completely relaxed onto your shoulders - it takes a lot of practise to learn how to posiiton the weight, and it requires much more effort to keep them from flopping onto the ground or losing your balance. I'd prefer a stamina system over moving slowly for an indefinite distance. @Ishtvan: If you are going to have shouldering, it is frankly ridiculous to not have some kind of stamina system. You can still have the same puzzle solving elements you are talking about, they would just have an added dimension which the player would need to consider. Those puzzles would have a lot more depth if you had to periodically put the body down and rest, and would really IMO be a lot more fun than just being able to move slowly for an unlimited distance. An arbitrary limit on how far you can carry a body before running out of steam is far better than no limit. Carrying bodies also unduly unbalances the game in favour of the player, as it puts the AI at an unrealistic disadvantage if the player can pick NPCs off and easily move them several hundred metres to a spot the AI won't find them. The player should really have to consider if it is worth it or necessary to KO someone and move their body, or just find a way around them without disturbing them. Thief actually had a stamina system for arrows - if you notched an arrow in your bow you had a limited period of time in which to fire before your aim went haywire. It is a shame they didn't implement a stamina system in general; it would have been a better game for it. I can only remember a couple of parts of Thief where carrying a body was essential, and I thought it was frankly a bit silly. I want a game where I get to use stealth to rob people without being detected, not bash them and slowly cart their bodies around. No argument there. This is where the Dark Mod seems to be taking an inconsistent approach. Never one to flog a dead horse, but it is just silly to say the player can't use swords or hammers or shovels or whatever weapon like thing happens to be lying around because it is too heavy for the player to use, but to then say that they can cart people around on their shoulders over indefinite distances. If having a stamina system that means the player must drop a shouldered body every 30 ft or so (we'll be generous with his strength and endurance) makes carrying bodies less fun, then so be it - it will add spice to the core gameplay and discourage players form excessive violence. I'm really not sure why people are getting hung up on body carrying puzzles, they seem like a pretty daft form of gameplay to me, and I certainly wouldn't miss them.

Sure a person can carry another person who weighs more than they do (for a limited distance), but there is a huge difference between balancing a limp unconscious body versus a more rigid conscious one. I have no problem with a stamina system (in fact I think it is a very good thing to have as it would add another dimension to gameplay, in many ways, not just in reference to carrying), but if you have no desire to implement it, perhaps you could have the player take health damage if they shoulder a weight too long to simulate the damage to their spine (if you insist on giving the player that ability). Are we going with the idea of the player being a slightly below average sized male, around 60 - 65 Kg or so? If so, it is unlikely that they would have the strength to carry anyone much bigger than 80Kg more than a few feet before they lost their balance and crupled in a heap. Olympic weightlifters can lift a very heavy rigid bar over their heads for a few seconds, but give them an unconscious person only marginally heavier than them to lift and I think you'll find the story quite different. And the carrier would be exhausted by the intense effort involved, and would need a while to rest, so a stamina system should be your first port of call if you are going to allow shouldering. On the other hand if you feel that the player is built more like Vin Diesel, will you then be allowing the player to pick up a Builder's Hammer and wield it with devastating force, as would be appropraite for someone strong enough to carry limp bodies around effortlessly? You need to be consistent and balanced here, and once again, don't do something just because that's how it was in Thief

@Demagogue Well, I am in favour of thieving without resort to tools that give the player away - the guards should ideally have no idea you were ever there until they realise what is missing... Look, I've been saying for a long time that just because they did X in the original Thief series doesn't mean it was good or that it should be carried over to the Dark Mod, and KOing people and carrying bodies are such things. To me, a stealth game is about avoiding direct NPC interaction at all costs (although if you consider carrying an unconscious body NPC interaction I'm a little lost for words). If you want NPC interaction, play Morrowind or something... And you can't on one hand say "the player can't use weapons like swords and hammers effectively because they are too weak and small to do so" and then say "but they somehow have the tremendous strength required to carry bodies around like were a small bag of potatoes". You have to be consistent. If the player is strong enough to carry bodies around, even up ladders, it follows that they should be able to pick up a hammer or a two handed battle axe and attack any NPC with ease. For me, carrying bodies is so unrealistic that it shouldn't be included, only having dragging as the option for body transport. If an FM author has a mission involving the transport of a body, then they could make the map so that any obsticals were navigable, and that they provide mechanisms (eg a functioning hoist) to elevate bodies where otherwise not possible.

You have kind of missed the point there. there are no true homosexuals or heterosexuals - human sexuality an dbehaviour is too plastic for such absolutes as you have described. Humans are sexual, period. Any prefix you add to it is essentially irrelevant. Previously hetero identifying men in prisons frequently form deep emotional and sexual relationships with their cellmates - it extends far beyond the odd blowjob, and upon release they may or may not seek out relationships with women again. Regardless of whether you are talking about an emotinally intimate long term relationship or raw sex it makes little difference. Humans are sexual, social beings, and the two are rarely easily separated. Is a man who has a long term marriage with a woman, but only has sex with men gay or straight, or is he bi in an unusual way? Relationships are rarely that simple. Or a man who has an extremely intimate relationship with another man, but who seeks out sex with women? People seek different things out of different relationships, and rarely are they so cut and dried. Statistically, exclusively homosexual realtionships are very seldom long-term or monogamous, even less so for lesbians than gay men, but this always depends on the individuals involved. Personally, I don't care how people wish to define their sexuality, although I do find it irritating when people feel the need to flaunt and parade their sexuality (why people feel the need to have gay and lesbian mardi gras is beyond me). I choose to ignore labels such as "gay" or "straight" when dealing with people, as such information is almost always entirely irrelevent to me, and I just don't care.

It should seem dreadfully long so as to discourage you from doing it all the time. As far as body carrying objectives go, well that is entirely up to the FM author, and if the player can't carry bodies, obviously there won't be many FMs with that as an objective. Personally I think the "carry the body from x to y" type mission is pretty boring and not worthwhile. Just because people like doing wierd things that are tangential to the main gameplay mode does not mean that a great deal of effort should be spent on doing it, unless not doing it would detract from the realism of the game. Since carrying bodies around for long periods of time, & up ladders etc is highly unrealistic (I'd like to see you carry a heavily armoured guard up a ladder, or even lift them onto your shoulders for that matter), and given that the PC is supposed to be a fairly small, thin, not overly strong person, it makes it even less realistic for them to be transporting hefty limp bodies around, and even less reason for the player to be able to do it. Dragging bodies is much more realistic in the context of the PC, and with ragdoll physics, it would add a nice touch of immersion to the game, if not fun. BTW, IIRC, T:DS did not allow you to jump with bodies or carry bodies up ladders. Just to give you an idea how unrealistic it would be for the player to be carrying bodies: In most parts of Australia, the critical requirement for recruitment into the urban fire department is the ability to carry an 80Kg unconscious body a distance of, IIRC, 50m. The number of applicants who fail this test is around 95 -99%, and it is for this reason that there are almost no female fire fighters in Australia (excluding the Bush fire fighting services, which have a somewhat different requirements). So few women with the necessary strength apply that most (if not all) fire departments are an all-male environment. Most active fire fighters are exceptionally strong, muscular men, with strength in the top 0.05 percentile of the population. Now, take our 70 - 80Kg average male, add 20 - 40Kg of armour and the number of people with the strength to even lift, let alone carry them any significant distance drops to a vanishingly small number. It would therefore be completely unrealistic for the PC of the Dark Mod to be able to carry bodies. If you make the player strong enough to shoulder corpses, you might as well give them a claymore or a battle axe, because they would be one of the few people strong enought to wield such a weapon successfully. Carrying=totally unrealistic, Dragging=plausible to realistic depending on the size of the body vs the strength of the player.

OK, I'm just gonna dive in with my $0.02 here. Humans are sexual, and any prefix you wish to add to that is largely and artificial and imaginary construct that does not reflect reality (oviously this excludes the 5% or so of the population who are asexual (no interest in sex of any sort with anything)). Sex in humans, as it is in quite a few other species, is secondarily for reproduction, and is primarily a form of social bonding behaviour. Evolution often results in one adaptation being co-opted into a new function like this. Males of most species are generally not that fussed over their outlet for their sexual urges - if a female is not available, males (of most mammalian species at least) will act on their urges with the nearest next best thing, if the urge is overwhelming. Dolphins (particularly males)for example, are highly sexual and will hump just about anything, animate or otherwise, for no apparent reason. There are some types of invertebrates that actually are homosexual and mate: for a few species of beetle for example, it is usual for males to mate with each other. Their sperm mixes in their body, and when one of these males eventually mates with a female, that female will recieve the sperm of several males, most of which were almost exclusively homosexual. People can be omnisexual, asexual, homosexual heterosexual, bisexual etc, and for the most part this is a result of a combination of genetics, the hormonal environment they were in as a foetus, and to a lesser degree their upbringing. When someone claims they are exclusively gay or straight, I normally assume they are lying - humans are sexual omnivores at their core, and while we have our preferences, they are not set in stone by any means. Quite a lot of men who would claim to be gay have still fathered children naturally - maybe they just thing of some naked bloke while they are knocking up females, but very few people, whether they are prepared to admit it or not, are really that inflexible when it comes to getting their rocks off. Some people don't seem to understand what the word "preference" means. It does not have any implicit connotations of exclusivity contained in it.

Is it possible in the Doom 3 engine for part of a model to be ragdolled, while the rest animated? I know there is at least one game engine out there (can't for the life of me think of which one it is right now, I think it is the one used by Painkiller) that allows animation and physics to be blended quite seamlessly, and handles ragdol transitions quite well. Just curious.

Quite, and in my view this is exactly why you should put such a delay in, as it makes the process irritating enough that it will discourage the player from doing it except when they absolutely have to. I think one of the most powerful method available to focus the gameplay onto a purer form of stealth is to make other methods of gameplay possible, but nowhere near as fun by putting in annoying (but realistic) penalties for activities involving ecessive violence, or dealing with the aftermath of said violence. On a slight tangent, one of the best ways of discouraging the player form getting into fights is to give him/her a limited amount of health, and absolutely no healing potions or health packs, or any other means of recovering quickly from injuries (you could have health restore itself very, very slowly if you can't handle having health packs taken from you cold turkey). This would mean players would either have to be very skillful in avoiding combat, or very skillful at surviving it. No doubt there would be howls of protest from those who would find fun in bashing people with impunity, but it would put the gameplay focus where I would argue it should be for this type of game.

Not sure what you mean. Ishtvan was making the claim that penalising shouldering as a means of balancing it with dragging would make for non fun gameplay (eg, he felt that a delay where the body is picked up and shuffled was not interactive enough and therefore not fun (I hope I'm not misprepresenting you there, Ish)). Int TDS there was a noticible delay of this sort when picking up a body, which I felt was more or less appropriate. It was a little annoying, but that was a good thing in my view, because it was an incentive to avoid having to move a body. It was relatively realistic, and since there is no way to really simulate the balancing act and effort of hoisting a limp, unconscious body onto one's shoulders with a mouse and keyboard, a short non-interactive moment where the activity is simulated for you seems quite acceptable to me. In either case, dragging or shouldering, it should certainly impose a heafty speed penalty if nothing else (since this was how Thief 1/2/3 did it, I will assume you are also going down that path), and moving a body should be just as annoying in the game as it would be in real life. One of the ways you could differentiate the two methods of moving bodies would be to make dragging a quick release method, with no major delay in grabbing or releasing the leg/arm of the body, so that the player can easily make a run for it when dragging, while shouldering enables more varied options for body placement. Perhaps.

"I'm sorry sir, but have you paid the licensing fee for building those nice round wheels for that chariot? No? Then I'm sorry, but I will have to launch patent infringement proceedings against you for unauthorised use of those wheels. See you in court."

@ Ishtvan: Personally, I think dragging should be the only option for moving bodies, unless the bodies are of maidservants or similar. It just isn't realistic for the player to be shouldering heavy armoured guards around, especially if the player is loaded up with loot. I have no problem if a penalty is imposed on shouldering that takes most of the fun out of it, as I would prefer to encourage the sort of gameplay that does not result in bodies needing to be disposed of or secreted away. And again, for me at least, the fun in stealth type games is derived from weighing up risks and dealing with the consequences in situations that model reality as closely as is practical in a computer with limited power, not having superhuman lifting capabilities etc..