Gildoran

How do you suggest that be accomplished? Making a movie/video-game/etc is often an expensive process. You say rich fatcats should be done away with, but what would be a good way to fund art without them? At least with the current model people have a choice about which art to fork over their hard-earned cash to support. Admittedly, I think that most players have poor taste. For example, I hate how most competitive FPS gamers prefer mindless reflex battles to strategy; I prefer to be killed by a camper any day rather than some twich-happy gamer jumping around like an olympic gymnist. ...but hey, if that sort of thing entertains so many people it can't be all bad. Just realize that during Shakespear's time, he was thought to be pandering to the penny-knaves, and producing mindless entertaining crap that catered to mass-markets rather than intellectual high-brow poetry and art. And now we see him entirely differently. Maybe a hundred years from now, Counterstrike and Halo will be seen the way Shakespear is. *shudder* Oh well... If that's the price to pay for having so many games to choose from (even if they're all clones of eachother), then so be it. So long as we don't outlaw people from writing their own games, I'll be happy.

I don't know to what degree beta maps are supposed to be "final" (or not), but if beta-mappers have mantling, it could make it easier to make climbable walls or piles of crates or support beams, etc with a lower chance of needing to redo them later. (since we can easily test whether or not they're in reach in-game) Also, I like to romp around areas I make to get a feel for what needs to be changed and mantling is a pretty major part of moving around levels in a Thief-style game. PS, since this is being discussed in my application thread, I'm assuming it's ok to voice my opinion. If I'm mistaken, please accept my apologies.

Wouldn't completely lighting up the player balance it being unlimited? Although it would be a complete pain to program, if guards could notice and investigate moving lightsources (or ones that aren't supposed to be there) that would also help balance it. The way I see it, is that a portable light-source increases a mapper's options for lighting, more than it increases a player's abilities. Heck, it could make life harder on the player because hiding loot in dark corners suddenly becomes a little bit more legitimate if the player has a light source. BTW... this seemed like a good place for the following request... Some games have a calibration picture by the gamma slider so you can play the game how its creators intended. Usually they say something like "You shouldn't be able to see the word 'dark' but you should be able to just barely read the word 'dim'." Could the DarkMod include something like that? Although stealth/gameplay and the light-gem should probably prevent maps from diverging too wildly, it's still not hard to imagine someone who always plays with the gamma up making darker maps, or someone who plays with it down making brighter maps, each person having done so under the assumption that the player will use a similar gamma.

Edit: This is in response to obscurus, not SplaTtzZ. I dunno... I think the only problem with magic, is if it feels like an excuse... Person A: How is it possible that torch is still able to burn after such a long time? Person B: It's magic. Person A: Oh. On the other hand, it probably wouldn't bother me to read about how "a long time ago a necromancer discovered a way to construct a 'torch' that relies on the presence of spirits to stay lit with a blue or green flame. Unfortunately, this requirement meant that such torches could only be used effectively in catacombs or places where many people had died." Admittedly, I'm not great with plots/writing, and something like the above isn't very "thief-ish" in how it presents history, but it doesn't break my suspension of disbelief the way the former example does.

Yeah, D3 scripting is great... it would be very easy to do that.

I love the idea of torches because of how they're realistic and the notion of walking through a wine-cellar or some catacombs holding up a torch is very atmospheric (and I think atmosphere was Thief's best attribute). I also like it because it makes it possible to limit where the player can take the light (impossible to take it through water and difficult to take a lit torch through an area with lots of guards). On the other hand I worry about a player running around tossing all the torches they can find into a puddle of water and then being unable to complete the mission due to lack of light (and not having a fire to relight the torches from). Also... it makes it difficult to come up with good lighting schemes for caves where the player has to go underwater often. Would it be possible to allow mappers to choose whether to give the player a "light pendant" or something in addition to allowing some torches to be pickup-able?

I was just thinking about underground lighting and a few questions about theme/gameplay popped into my head... I figured these questions could be fun to discuss/debate. How are areas that are deep underground typically going to be lit? The classic mushrooms and glowing crystals? If there are glowing crystals, then how come nobody mines them and uses them as a safe alternative to torches (ie a light-source without a fire-hazard)? More importantly, if they're not common enough to be mined, wouldn't the thief want to pry them loose with his/her sword and sell them? What if the player puts out all the torches in an area or there's no good thematic reason for a certain room to have any light in it? Will there by any kind of flashlight-ish item for such cases, so the player can look around in the darker areas of the map when nobody is nearby? (could they use a fire-crystal as a torch or something?) On the topic of lighting and underground areas, an idea occured to me... What if undead creatures could see in the dark but were blind in light? It could make for an interesting reversal of gameplay compared to standard human guards. I don't know if it's good or not, but I figured it might be worth expressing.

Ok... now that school has been out for almost a week, I've been playing with the Doom 3 editor, and here's a quick little room I managed to make. Granted, I still have much to learn about Doom 3, and the texturing in many places is poor, but I wanted to have something to quickly show off. With time I could improve the quality of the room (the ceiling in the catwalk area could probably use some support beams, and the electrical tress could be improved at the edges where it meets the walls, etc), but I'm hoping this might be enough so far to show that I'm capable of learning. delta.pk4 The idea behind it, is you're an engineer on Mars, and your boss walked in on you while you were showing off your talented impersonation of him, so he decided to move your office to a storage closet... well, not so much of a storage closet so much as a tunnel access point that's being used to store stuff. Then you find out that you've been volunteered for the Delta Experiments, so you need to find a way off Mars. It's just a single room, not a whole map. To view it, just do the following: 1. Put the pk4 file in a folder. 2. Play Doom 3 and select your folder from the mod menu. 3. Pull down the console (CTRL+ALT+`) and type "map volunteer". As for optimization, I've tried to keep most surfaces lit by 1-3 lights, and only a few small areas lit by 4. There are also some tiny slivers lit by 5 lights. Also, although I haven't used area portals yet, I beleive I understand them just fine.

They were hiding weapons of mass destruction under the launch pad I tell you!

Yeah, Radiant allows you to hollow a brush by doing a CSG subtract. In game, I don't think constructive solid geometry results in any more polys than the method Unreal takes. I think it's just a matter of taste. Personally I've always had a hard time wrapping my head around Unreal's/DromEds method, especially since in RL people make buildings by putting together peices of material rather than carving them out of a single block of wood. I have to admit that it's an ingenious way of making leaks impossible, though.

Yeah, although a lot of people seem to think Doom 3 sucked, I really enjoyed it. Admittedly, the middle part is a little bit boring, but the beginning and end are great fun, and hell was wonderfully done. The only thing I didn't like was how predictable/repetitive it was. (Hint for ANY part of the game: Don't take that item that's out in the open. It's a trap. Instead, grab the items that are under the nearby stairs.) Never the less, before Doom 3 I thought the only way to have a beautiful world was tons of polys. I was surprised how effective the textures were at making the world look complicated and 3 dimensional.

As far as I know, that's the simplest way, since brushes can't be concave. Admittedly, I'm very new to editing for Doom 3 though.

Pyrian: Did you read my suggestion for an auto-deleted saveslot upon exit? That would prevent quicksave abuse without harming people who only have a short amount of time to play. (again I wish to note that it's as easy to turn on god-mode as it is to back up save files) Edit: I decided to add this instead of doing a double post: Also, taking out quicksaves shouldn't make the game more challenging via an "out-of-game mechanism", if its difficulty is properly balanced and playtested... The problem is that currently the game is being made too easy by an "out-of-game mechanism". I want to fix that. Games shouldn't be hard based on random chance. They should be hard because they pose interesting puzzles.

I haven't heard anybody say "look at me, I'm a badass because I don't need to save". But there are people who think it's all-too-easy to get into the habit of unconsciously quicksaving every 5 seconds and reloading whenever something goes slightly wrong. That's not to say we should make it hard for players to do that. That's just saying that there's are many people (such as myself) who find the game more fun and immersive if saves are restricted, and would like the option for code to restrict it. Am I saying I'm a badass? No... quite the opposite... I rely on saves too much if the game doesn't prevent it. I think levels aren't scary/tense when character death will only set you back 20 seconds. Does that mean death has to be frustrating? I argue that it doesn't. How many people thought death in FarCry was frustrating? The checkpoints were well-placed, and the fact that the game used checkpoints forced you to use your equipment and not worry about if you wasted a bit too much of it... you just wanted to survive. (whereas in T1/T2, I found flashbombs almost useless, because I could inevitably find a way to lure a guard into a dark corner if I reloaded enough) It's true that there were places where FarCry was linear, but does that make it impossible to design a good non-linear level that uses checkpoints/savespots? I think we should leave it up to the level designer to find out, and not prevent them from trying just because you don't think it's possible to do well. Some people worried about what happens if you walk across a check-point when your health is low, or if a guard sneaks up on you right after you get an auto-save. To use FarCry as an example again, it doesn't have a single save-slot per level. There's a save-slot for each checkpoint. If you die right after you get to a checkpoint, you can just reload from the previous checkpoint as though you had died before getting to it. Also, limiting saves doesn't prevent people from playing for short times or leaving the computer. Just use the idea I suggested of a save slot that can be saved upon exit and is deleted when it's loaded. If you die you have to go back to the previous checkpoint or saved game. If you need to leave the computer, you can exit and save, then next time start right back where you left off... of course, upon restarting, the save would be deleted, so if you then died, you'd have to start back from a checkpoint as if you had never left the computer. (sure the player could circumvent this by backing up the save file, but they could just as easily turn on god mode) And, of course, such a style of gameplay would be optional. Am I suggesting that we require all map builders to put save-spots in their level? Of course not. I think that if a map builder doesn't like the idea of save-spots or checkpoints, they should just be able to build a map without them, and the checkpoint/save-spot option would be unselectable if there aren't check/save-points in the map. I'd just like an option at the start of the map to be able to use whatever method of saving the level designer thought was appropriate for their level (which might end up being unlimited saves if that's what the author prefered). Of course, this option doesn't make it so other people who disagree with the author couldn't choose unlimited saves at the start of the level.

Just to clear up the idea, I wasn't suggesting that game-play modes or character classes or "realistic undead mode" or anything like that be part of maps or the standard campaign by default... Just that it be possible to extend the before-mission interface, so a map-maker could include custom choices if they felt like it. (game-play modes were just an example of why I thought that it could be useful)

Have you thought about allowing level designers to make "custom difficulties"? Not only allowing level designers to choose how many difficulty levels there are and what they're called, but also allowing them to create multiple controls that the player can select at the start of the level. For example, Inverted Manse renamed the difficulty levels to cut-purse, rogue and warrior if memory serves me right. Imagine if for Dark Mod, such a level could instead create a second control and call it "character class". This way, a player could choose both a difficulty and a character type. Maybe you could also allow check-boxes. For an undead mission, a level designer might by default have standard undead creatures but make a check-box called "realistic undead mode" (pardon the oxymoron), so at the mission breifing the player can turn it on/off. With it on, haunts couldn't be killed by backstabbing them, and ghosts could automatically sense the player if they're within 20 feet. (of course the mechanics of setting this up would be implemented in the level, or custom gamesys if Dark Mod has such a thing) You could use such controls to slightly alter the map to facilitate various playing styles/preferences that it would be hard to accommodate simultaneously. As another example, you could make a "ghosting" checkbox, and set up the Easy difficulty so it gives you some extra health-potions if the ghosting checkbox is off, and removes certain guards if it's turned on. Similarly, other difficulty levels might do different things based on the playing style chosen. You could make it so that such controls defaulted to whatever you chose the last time you saw them in the campaign. Just an idea I thought would be cool... I'm guessing you'd probably wait until v2 before considering it?

Those two descriptions about savaholics describe me perfectly. I personally prefer the game designer to limit saves for me, as otherwise I tend to feel like I should be playing perfectly, and I'll just reload as soon as I get any damage or anybody sees me or I waste a single peice of equipment. I find it more tedius and less immersive/fun to play games where I can save anywhere, at any time. Having said this, I don't like the idea of limiting saves by saying "here's 10 saves, use them anywhere you want", because I don't know how long the level is in advance, so I don't know how much I should be rationing saves. This is particularly troublesome when old objectives can be canceled and a bunch of new ones can be added part-way through the game. My personal preference is to have savepoints or checkpoints (a la Far Cry). As long as they're properly placed, you never have to lose much progress. And if you need to quickly go away from the computer, you can always just pause the game. However, I think which saving limitations are used (or not used) should be up to the level designer decide for their level, and DarkMod should be able to support most styles. If you don't like save limitations, then don't play levels that have them. Of course, the standard campaign should probably support any save-style and allow the player to choose which one to use at the beginning of the level. [Edit:] I just thought of another thing that could be done to allow players to leave the computer at any time without allowing wussy-saving. You could make a special save slot that is saved when the player quits the game, and is deleted upon being reloaded. That way, a player can quit the game and pick up where they last left off, but would be unable to reload the save after then (unless they backed up the file or something).

I don't think all unexpected board-creaking is a bad thing... look at Ominous Bequest. When you enter the reading-room type area on the upper floor, there's an unexpected creak which causes the guy sitting there to get up and walk over to turn on the lights. It puts you in a "think-fast!" sort of situation where you have to quickly decide whether to blackjack him or find a hiding spot. Of course, the whole thing was carefully designed so the creaking floorboard didn't put the player in any immediate danger, but it still goes to show that creaky floor-boards can make for interesting maps when used right. In Japan there's Nijou Castle, which has the famous Nightengale Floors... Although they look perfectly normal, they were intentionally designed to creak and sound like nightengales, to alert guards if an assassin ever tried to sneak in. Perhaps there could be a museum with something like that, where it behooves the player to read things and find out about it before approaching the giant well-guarded pedestal in the center of the room. Or maybe there might be a mission where most of the floors are randomly creaky, and the solution to the puzzle is to stay up in the rafters. Of course these are all special situations. For most creaking floors, I like the decal idea... It really appeals to me as a player that I might be about to walk into a room, when I notice the cracks by one of the boards are slightly larger than the rest, so I know I have to go around it. It'd make me feel like a smart and observant thief. One more idea... floor-board mazes! Then again, maybe I shouldn't suggest that, lest I get pelted with rotten fruit. I'm just trying to say that I think creaky floorboards could be a useful and interesting tool in the arsenal of (good) level designers.

Unfortunately, not yet, since school has been pretty hectic, and I had been concentrating on getting wearable items to work in my T:DS map before starting on the architecture. (I didn't want to get too far only to end up corrupting my gamesys) ...hopefully in a few weeks, though. Perhaps I'll ask again if/when I get a reasonably good map working.

Hi... This looks like a great Thief-style mod and I eagerly await it! I'd love to do anything I can to help out (well, once summer vacation starts) and/or get earlier access to the toolkit. I was trying to think of any excuse to apply to the team, and then it occured to me that maybe I could try making some kind of slightly Thief-ish ambiance music. I make no claims of quality, but I figured it couldn't hurt to try... Crypt/Catacombs Ambiance In truth my personal preference is usually for making maps and programming, but making some background-ambiance seemed like the least time-consuming thing I could have something to show for (also, my map-making experience is mostly limited to HL1, though I intend to remedy that once school is over). Hmm... that just reminded me I have a screen-shot of a map I had started for Day of Defeat a couple of years ago: (The tree textures are my own.) Bunker No hard feelings if this isn't what you're looking for. I just had to try. Thanks for listening!