RJFerret

I wanted to be sure to not break the immersion of the player, so didn't specify. "Window of Opportunity" takes place in a mountain range between where the previous FM the player played, and the next are located. "Inn Business" in any city large enough to have a wall and more than one inn, if the player previously played a mission in a city, that one. if not, then the city of the next they play. If none of those jive. then a city between previous/next. Whatever helps the player feel immersed, rather than dictated to in conflict with their personal experience and journey.

Camstudio

We have Sotha to thank for providing us that, erm, "flavor". :-) But nothing special there otherwise I'm afraid.

Well, I don't know if this helps or harms ;-) , but you have the right idea in mind actually... For anyone else seeking another secret objective and wants a hint, see Florian's spoiler above. I will point out that it's not that simple though, and not the only place required.

Somehow the "Like This" button doesn't seem suitable for that video share, perhaps "Cringe This"? Heh.

There's a button you can push to see if you are too far away, that has no ramifications other than telling you that you are too far away. Hit the same button when you are in range, and you knock out the AI. (Both require the blackjack be equipped.) I suppose a highlight would negate the need to use the button, but then why even require a highlight? Why not have the AI simply drop when you get close to them, and a menu option to disable that functionality for those who prefer ghosting? That would eliminate the need to push a button, and also eliminate the need to look at the screen.

Walled open areas can be tricky to be sure are completely enclosed. One things I didn't realize early on, was you can filter out Entities in DR, so only world geometry is visible. I also will segment areas with a big brush wall to discover internals leaks sometimes, or verify that is in fact the issue I'm trying to track down. Then you can simply move it further away to see when the visportal stops functioning as intended (presuming it does in the first place).

First, search visportals on the wiki, or go through the articles in that category. Your questions are all answered therein. However more succinctly, the ones that aren't working have leaks somewhere in that space. That means that although the visportal edge might line up perfectly with the frame, another bit of framing isn't lined up with other walls. See: http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Leaking_maps And for future reference: http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Performance:_Essential_Must-Knows Yes, a visportal will work in a high alley opening if it seals against the sky at the top (caulk may be useful for this, as it has a tricky feature that it will display func_static rooftops beyond it and seals). Since they not only control rendering, but also sound propagation, it's important to apply working visportals at openings that divide spaces, so doorways, open windows, corners of hallways, see the wiki articles for pictured examples.

Nah, vice-versa, often people focused on a task are less generally observant, particularly men. This happens in car accidents, the driver will be so focused on the car waiting while backing out of a driveway they miss that the car was waiting for a kid running into the street. The more stress, the more adrenalin, the more tunnel vision. There are videos on youtube that demonstrate this effect fabulously. You'll miss the totally preposterous thing while watching due to focus being elsewhere. It's also never a good idea to limit the player's options. For example, taking away the technique of shooting an arrow specifically to get them to stop and look, so you may pick pocket despite the higher risk. It would also break maps that require pick pocketing an item, if guards were alerted before the item was nicked. Just as reward should be commensurate with effort, similarly penalties should not be excessive, if high alert meant having to fail/restart a map, that would not be fun game-play. And I must say, he rocks, and is due significant appreciation.

Sorry, your life has been taken down due to DMCA claim. You'll need to file a counter claim in triplicate and provide a link to prior art from an objective separate unbiased source, with verifiable date/time stamp prior to April 8th, 2014, 17:01 EDT.

I believe some of the upset is helpful suggestions are being met with arguments instead of appreciation. It's easy in my opinion to see how far away you can be, just swing much earlier than you imagine you might reach, move closer if missed, do it again, once you hit, they'll drop like a bag of rocks and voilà, realization one doesn't need to be close at all, the area is huge, and there's no chance of getting close enough for them to hear, or bump into them. I realize I'm likely to be quoted and another argument will be made why my insight isn't as useful as a suggestion for someone to spend their time and money changing it. I imagine even if it were altered in some fashion, those who are making it hard on themselves and stubbornly refuting insights on how to adapt so it's easy, will continue to make it hard on themselves. Past behavior is the best predictor of future actions. The question is whether to enjoy playing the game, or spend time posting more of the same sentiments again, that have been repeated over and over, to the point of having lost credibility and/or compassion in those who might desire to help. In more useful info, according to the recent forum poll, about half people ghost, and half knock out or kill AI. Anecdotally, it seems many begin playing by knocking out, then realize it's not as challenging without AI around, so as they get more sneak skills might switch to ghosting. So apparently a majority of the player base has little trouble knocking out AI, but presumably enough challenge so it's fun instead of boring.

Any chance visportals are filtered out in DR? That will also filter anything with a nodraw surface. (You've probably deactivated all filters and verified all layers are shown and unhidden everything though, but you know, starting with the easy stuff/Occam's Razor and all that.) Outside of those guesses, I'd probably enable drawing the wireframes (r_showtris X, where X is 1-3 depending on how far) in game to see where it extended to, in case funky geometry wasn't telling dmap where a polygon is supposed to end, or something like that. As Grayman just posted I see... I'd try to find the origin. Then again, if it can't be selected in DR, you could select everything, export/import to a new map file for a quick fix.

"...something available just then" isn't limited to your inventory. ;-)

Best to create believable geometry preventing them reaching there. This avoids horrible fake invisible walls or ceiling and breaking suspension of disbelief. It's easy/cheap to create invisible walls to prevent it. Those are the most common solutions. There is a game-play solution, but it's a spoiler for my mission, so PM me if you'd like to know. It doesn't require much extra effort depending how many areas you have.

She was kidnapped by pirates. She was scrappy. She earned their respect as she grew up and took over. She killed them all and replaced them with women she could trust. She was raped. She fled humanity, took a rowboat out to a deserted island and lived off the land. A pirate ship came too close, she snuck on board, killed slit the captains throat and was too much for those that remained. She gradually replaced men with able women with each ship they attacked, freeing the slaves. Um, what else...daughter of a mage, she learned all his secrets, then set off from home to make her way in the world. Could also be a woman who believes women are more capable than men and has set out to prove it in the most testosterone filled field she could. Lost a bar bet? "I bet you can't crew a pirate ship ya' wench!" Haunting, ghost of former sex slave kills any male on board overnight, player be warned. Disease that didn't afflict women aboard, slaves had to fill in for missing crew as they were adrift. That's all I've got at the moment.

Slashdot.

Camstudio (audio depends on your system).

Sorry, I'd missed this edited revision after I read your message previously...I've focused on technical design, story and gameplay, not visuals so much yet.

Admittedly I never played other Thief games, but why would you say illogical to become invincible to blackjacking? If someone takes a swing at me, and doesn't take me out on that first one, I'm alerted to their presence, plan, and defend myself accordingly, they don't get that opportunity again. Gaining the upper hand, having initiative, first move advantage, all of these things relate to exactly this, that an unaware opponent is easier to overcome than one paying attention to you. I absolutely disagree, and feel it's completely logical. Similarly if it's just another night like dozens before for a patrolling guard, they might not be paying much attention, but when someone they trust says to watch out, as an intruder has been sneaking about, well, you pull your weapon, look around and check over your shoulder more frequently, probing the dark corners with your eyes, etc. It's not just logical, it's behavior any child playing tag exhibits! ;-)

Great plan, and I agree with starting small, very important to not get overwhelmed to begin with, as there are all sorts of unforeseen things to deal with. Also realize investing a ton of time in conversations and videos will appeal to some players, but many will simply knock out the AI or move on while they are occupied and assured of no interference while they, you know, play the game. Players don't load up the game to play when they want to watch TV, they watch TV. Putting passive entertainment into what users expect to be an active experience contradicts things a bit. I groan whenever I see a mission start with a video and hit escape to get on with playing the game. The purpose of videos used to be to cover loading from disk and disk swaps, then later loading from slow CDs, none of which apply nowadays. The only reason I bring it up is because your awesome design plan seems to focus on some stuff that should be enhancements to a game experience, not the core experience, if that makes sense? But yes, it's easy to add other female or child characters to a mission if you never meet them. There's a child, and a female inventor, in one of my missions that the player hears about, sees evidence of, and indirectly interacts with, but never crosses paths with them directly. Also ship crew could be female led, and have male conscripts to round out the duties. Not only may you have extra NPCs, or differently equipped AIs on higher difficulty levels, you may have different attributes to them, as well as different all sorts of things. You'll need a way to communicate that to players beforehand though, as many play on the same setting, or choose their setting based on loot requirements, since few FMs vary the objects/details/objectives much between levels. Oh and don't expect players to read the mission notes before they play, most don't. So you might want to budget your designing around what provides the most bang for the buck, sure, I provided a lot of extras in Inn Business for players who would enjoy those extras, a minority, but it didn't take a lot of time for me to do so. As long as you are prepared that a lot of players don't do optional objectives and expect that, hopefully it'll be a rewarding experience for you too.

My condolences Sotha, but the things you mentioned were tested, through multiple revisions, and obviously plenty of others have not suffered your issues. One thought though, which might help ease Kyyrma's worries regarding the alarm, perhaps try on Easy difficulty...

It'll be restored, just the first part of the process is the take-down, and in this case, ironic. This has been an issue for a long time now, and it gets media attention, but until the legal situation and process is changed, it will continue. I was more impressed that Pomplamoose's mash-up video that was taken down the other day got restored fairly readily (apparently, I have no idea what the behind the scenes involvement was), which is literally the "little guys" going up against the giants. The system is actually working as designed.

Yes, how Biker? Also another reason to make them models would be to avoid the SEED system crash bug from save/reloading with func_static.

Cross posted, obviously in agreement with the first part, however no need to do all the work of a workaround, if you went through all that, you'd probably find the same thing happening still. ;-) PS: Have you also tested targets with the new script? Might simply have a typo. Edit: In case you haven't seen it yet, I posted about an AI with missing target in your beta test thread, don't know if it's the one you're having issues with here, or same version.

I obviously did this a lot in Inn Business. It works flawlessly, but as you describe, which makes me think something else might be going on? For example...AI has: target0 path_corner_64 target1 path_corner_66 Path_corner_64 has: diff_1_nospawn 1 diff_2_nospawn 1 So it only goes there on "Easy" since it doesn't exist for Med/Hard. Yes, AI select between all available targets, the only reason they might not go to one is if it's outside of the AAS or there are no viable targets in my experience. You can also use a atdm:target_changetarget, which I did even more in that mission. In fact, it's important to use them, as if you just use a func_remove to take away a target that an AI is in the midst of pathing toward, you may cause a crash. So, both of the things you describe I've not had any problem with, which indicates to me something else might be going on? Especially since you have two different methods both having problems. Does your AI just stand there if you only provide it the suspect target without using any level/target change abilities? (If this is on your beta test map, I'd be happy to take a look if you point me toward the right AI/path node.)