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Oktokolo

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Posts posted by Oktokolo

  1. Thanks for proving Poe's Law correct.

    Poe's Law is indeed as correct as it is trivial - but you did not prove it. You proved, that it is hard to verify a law about unlikely extremes without using unlikely extremes.

    Obviously, what you think of as an unlikely extreme is what sells to millions of players every year - wich is the opposite of having a low expected probability of acceptance.

    You basically tried to prove Poe's Law by suggesting selling sliced bread. Yes, they sell sliced bread and yes, people are buying (and only a subset of them because of lazyness).

     

    Also keep in mind, that most TDM players probably also play games like Dishonored, Styx, Splinter Cell, Metal Gear Solid and Deus Ex. Some of the mechanics seen there are indeed nice to have (wich ones depends on whom you ask, but mobility enchancements and interaction options seem to surpisingly be the favorites).

    Also, most (all?) posters did indeed detect the satiric intend but would like to have one or the other feature in TDM regardless.

    There also are some features, that none here seems to like (wich would serve to disprove Poe's Law - but i know, that there are people on the internet liking quest markers and microtransactions, and one of them is enough for "there exists at least one..." axioms).

     

    Objective markers of course! Wouldn't want players getting lost in all those new fancy graphics and UI features.

    Well, they would actually be usefull in your missions...

     

    Were only a few fixed auto save points instead of free saving already mentioned? Of course they need to be at the beginning of important cutscenes so you have to watch them over and over if you failed! And none near really critical portions of the game...

    Obsttorte implemented save restrictions (Wiki page)

     

    :P

    • Like 1
  2. This thread is a joke and I really want you all to understand that because I am a firm believer in Poe's law.

    You might be joking, but i would like to have the following in the game:

     

    - Ledge grab kills & kills from above. Please also add a knockout option.

     

    - The ability to knock out guards by throwing bottles at their head. I know, that it already is possible with crates. But i never found the opportunity to do so, because crates are heavy and therefore have to be dropped from above. Most missions' geometry makes that way less easy than just knocking out the guards with your trusty blackjack. Throwing bottles or even shooting blunt arrows would introduce some variety.

     

    We already have snap-to-cover though - at least in my playthroughs, the avatar always is behind cover when needed. ;)

     

    We already have very limited blackjacking and sword usage for a reason, and arrow usage from either angle is just fine as is since it requires the use of at least one form of ammo/resource.

    Did you know, that you can recollect spent arrows as long as you have hit the soft stuff off an AI?

    Also, if you kill an archer, it becomes dead-easy to get the single lootable arrow, he carries in his quiver.

    So kill-alls with no startup equipment except picks and a single broadead are relatively easy to pull off in most missions not containing undead or elite guards.

    But i prefer nonlethal playthroughs. So if i use broadheads at all, i mostly waste them on distraction and non-reachable guards. They are also cheaper than water arrows for dousing candles.

     

    Procedural generated rogue-like missions.

    Would be great too. And as i replay most TDM missions every few years, i would definitely profit from having a new map on every playthrough.

    Would a (partially) procedurally generated mission possible to make in current TDM? Can we move around AASed and visportaled geometry by script?

     

  3. chinese hardware isn't worth the silicon its printed on, they pass all chips whether they've failed testing or not.

    had several memory cards that have never worked due to faults in the chips, all stamped with made in china. land of crappy chips.

    If it is too cheap to be true - it probably isn't. Ignore the products with impossible prices.

    You can get quality stuff from China if you follow the same precautions that you need to follow to get quality stuff from any country:

    Be careful, control your greed, and buy from a well-known store in your country (or any EU-country if you live in the EU).

  4. Basically nothing won't ever change in our lifetime.

    I am tending to be an infinitesimal step on the pessimistic side at times too. But i actually did see improvement in the society around me during my lifetime:

    - Women may now decide themselves whether they want to work or not - they do not need to ask their husbands anymore.

    - Beating your children has become illegal.

    - Beeing gay is no longer a crime - they may even legally marry eachother and get the same tax benefits as couples of different sexes.

    - Beeing a whore is not a crime anymore.

    - The evil and bad in the world became drastically more visible due to the rise of the Internet (knowledge is a good thing even if its sad).

    - Banner blindness became a thing and evolved to animation blindness (not for me, i am probably too old - but the young generation can block out animated ads too) - guess that is due to the Internet too.

    - TDM has been made... and a ton of other good FLOSS too. This might or might not hint at societal evolution to a less greed-based economy.

    - Leaded gasoline has finally been banned. The forests are not dying because of acid rain anymore. And Lucky Luke has quit smoking (and you may not even advertise smoking to adults anymore). So obviously, environmental consciousness increased a bit (still a long way to go though).

     

    You have to look for the expected small steps. Expect improvements in human rights, public backlashes to the surveillance state/economy, basic income research projects, questioning of the ethics of wasting resources on bullshit jobs (okay, i made that one up, nobody will ever question bullshit jobs), giving shelter to immigrants (yes, we bombed them first, but you have to start small), maybe even the closing of guantanamo bay (or at least a fruitless discussion about the ethics of having black sites and torture in the computer age).

    And always remember: Humans don't live that long. So whoever is the next Hitler or Stalin - he will not be there forever and the overall trend over thousands of years is still pointing up (it got a bit volatile in the recent past though).

    • Like 1
  5. I agree with most of what you say, Abusimplea, except possibly 'every non-competitive system non-sustainable.'

    So-called communists have tried hard to establish economies wich are not based on competition and all but Cuba failed quite hard or switched to full competitive capitalism by now.

    The problem with the lack of competition is, that humans are not only greedy but also sloppy as hell. They cut corners whenever possible. If they get away with not doing something right, they will just not do it right.

     

    Competetive economies provide an implicit fitness test: Your product is either perceived as being at least as good as the competitor's - or your company goes extinct. That is why monopolies and cartels are so bad in our current economy. If someone achieves a monopoly history has shown, that that one will cease to innovate and start rising prices while lowering quality until a new competitor emerges.

     

    In theory there could be non-competitive economies and they would feature a fraction of the current overhead. But if humans where more compatible to such an economy, than the current one - we would already have it by now. Some have tried hard and even killed people to get the remainder behave - it did not work.

     

    Don't forget: Humans did add lead to gasoline, and therefore to the very air they and their offspring breath, knowing about its toxicity. They (again: in general) will not do the right thing if there also is a wrong thing wich is easier to do or gets them more wealth in the short run.

     

    The state buys out all three companies and keeps exactly the same rules but without the competitive strategies thus saving money. The experts and workers are paid exactly the same bonuses and pay increases as before. Eventually the companies are merged into one nationalised industry for more efficiency, less waste on competing, and more profit all round. The only competing might be for a greater share of customer wealth from other markets but is that necessary? Why tempt the public into choosing between a new car or a luxury holiday - let them decide for themself. Especially if the state owns both industries.

    State-owned companies definitely work for well-defined and non-subjective goals like "reliably get water to and from every building in the district" or "when something burns, quench it as fast as possible", wich have a high need for reliability. But state-owned companies come with a surprisingly high overhead cost. Workers and management seem both to get less work done in state-owned companies so you need more of both. It could be the lack of risk for going bankrupt - and therefore the lack of a percieved need to be productive.

     

    The other idea I had I've already mentioned: private companies controlled by a quality incentive tax (QIT.) They all continue to strive for wealth but in a different game. The goalposts have been moved. To increase profits they must improve products and services thereby reducing their taxes.

    That could work if quality is measured accurately. But that in itself seems to be surprisingly difficult - even when it comes to the milage and pollution production of cars which i expected to be rather easy...

     

    I don't think, it is possible to really change economy much without changing the humans first. We need better education for our children, wich after some generations will then change the economy gradually because they themselves socially evolved to beeing less greedy and corrupt than our generation.

     

    I hope, they will also find a cure for the antibiotics-resistant pandemic that made them live in the domed cities...

    They surely will agree with us, that giving all sorts of antibiotics to chicken to make them survive mass-production facilities long enough to get them to market weight was totally worth it.

    • Like 1
  6. I would not call TDM's movement "smooth" - it is quite the opposite. And that exactly is what makes it superior to any of the AAA title's. No circling around or animation blending that we would have to wait for. The avatar instantly reacts exactly as commanded like expected in an FPS engine. That is what allows us to turn on the spot and walk the smallest beams with ease.

    Only thing missing are some visible feet to better show the distance to the abyss...

  7. In an ideal world "earnings" would always match the need of the individual.

    But most humans are absurdly greedy, wich makes every non-competitive system non-sustainable.

    Also, humans are morally corrupt to the bone in that they are happy to destroy the environment needed by their kids tomorrow for some extra coin today.

     

    So we need to keep the market-driven economy but somehow have states assume the role of regulators protecting the environment and redistributing capital (taxes) so that stuff, that is needed by the society as a whole but is not fitting a market-driven economy, gets done too.

    Earnings can't ever be proportional to need for the majority of the individuals because their perceived needs are always some levels higher than what they already have - to the point where ten houses and twenty cars aren't enough...

    Spendings of a state can perhaps be proportional to the need of the society as a whole. So stuff wich the market can't provide (like public wellfare or reliable infrastructure) is provided by the state using money it takes from whoever accumulated more wealth than the median of the population (someone has to pay for it and a huge part of the population has barely enough to keep themselves alive and healthy).

     

    In the free market-driven economy, earnings seem to most often be in inverse proportion to the actual provided value for the society as a whole. That surely is a terrible metric to value work with, but it seems to be the gold standard out there and it does not look like it is currently changing.

    Sadly, that metric seems to be used by states a lot too. But everyone who can vote, can change how their state values work. Vote to get the work you want to get done, payed accordingly. Want public healthcare or raise average education levels - then vote for it.

    • Like 1
  8. The issue i have with threads like these is that i just don't feel as if they're about the actual topic announced. Rather, generally, anti-business.

    Yes, some like this seem to be anti-business. But the current state of our capitalist system really makes me feel that that is just fine. Most businesses seem to try really hard to get the most hate possible.

    The very step this thread has in its title is that absurdly obviously evil that i have to assume that the dude in charge at Google (in this case) just thought "Well, we try and if the backlash is too much we can revert and sheeple will forget about that in a week".

     

    Again, if you don't care about Google, Microsoft, whatever, there's alternatives.

    I don't think, it really is about that corporations, but more about the human society that shaped them. If only some north american corps would be insanely fucked up - it would still be fine. But you can't easily ignore the leading culture of the very society you have been born into. "whatever makes money now is the right thing to do - screw everyone who gets to use this planet when im gone and i don't care about anyone's rights if i can get away with it" seems to be the lead doctrine of our culture and some feel more sad about that than others (there also seem to be plenty who like it or are able to ignore it though)...

    For some, talking about bad corps make them feel less bad (although it seems to be the opposite for me, so i better stop now).

     

    Imagine how i had to laugh when Google announced an adblocker in Chrome. An adblocker. In a Google browser. How perverse can it get? :laugh: The company which is responsible for 90% of the advertisement on the net, whose whole business model is based on advertising introduces an adblocker in their browser. Really, this world is extremely nuts for the most part of it these days. And that's not because of the companies.

    Well, statistics show, that the more educated target groups (wich also in general are the more lucrative ones) are increasingly going the adblocker route.

    Guess, how much money an advertiser makes with someone who does not see any ads. And now guess how much an advertiser makes with someone who sees ads wich are not annoying enough to get him installing an adblocker.

     

    The point is, that Google wants to sell ad placements - wich will get very hard if everyone uses an adblocker. So they try to avoid that outcome.

    Google failed miserably in the past with convincing the advertisers to stop making users install adblockers by serving them absurdly annoying shit they just can't bear. So it now tries to just include a selective "adblocker" wich will block out what they think is the stuff making users install real adblockers.

    They will of course not give their users anything that makes it impossible for them to sell ad placements. But if they have to make an "adblocker" themselves to keep beeing able to indirectly get money from their users by getting it from the advertisers - you can be damn sure, that they will do that.

     

    Naturally, the advertisers would come up with ideas to prevent the ongoing burndown of their market first. But there are millions of them and more annoying ads sell more products in the short run than less annoying ads do.

    None of them can act first without losing their customers (companies that actually have something to sell) against their competition.

    But there is only one Google. And as ot has a quasi-monopoly it can indeed act first without having to fear the (almost) nonexisting competition. So Google does what it has to - and includes an "adblocker" into his browser to force all advertisers to stop burning down their very own market - wich also is Googles market too.

     

    You are right: This indead is nuts. But it also is probably the only way of working, a really free and solely greed-based economy can converge to. Anyone who shows more morale or mercy than is absolutely needed to not affront their users, is loosing against the competition and becomes extinct. Because in reality, humans mostly give a shit about humanity. It almost is like in the TDM missions - but with less honesty and less good intentions.

     

    Hope, the concept of an ad company that integrates an "adblocker" into its browser makes sense now.

  9. No, where did i say that?

    Looks like i misinterpreted "I can only repeat what i wrote in that other thread: You shouldn't use Chrome, if you don't care for Google, or their services. This seems like buying a Porsche, just to amputate the engine afterwards, and driving the thing with pedals." followed by the next paragraph ending in "I also wonder about the mass of similar threads here. Seems the whole offtopic section of this forum is there to make politics now. I mean, it's cool to have an opinion, and all that, but, why try to evangelize others the whole time? Just use Firefox, Windows 7, Linux, or whatever, and be done with it."

    Sorry. It really looked to me like you are arguing against using Chrome, then suggesting using Firefox while also making a point of beeing against evangelism in the very same post.

    English is not my mother tongue though...

  10. I can only repeat what i wrote in that other thread: You shouldn't use Chrome, if you don't care for Google, or their services. This seems like buying a Porsche, just to amputate the engine afterwards, and driving the thing with pedals.

     

    I also wonder about the mass of similar threads here. Seems the whole offtopic section of this forum is there to make politics now. I mean, it's cool to have an opinion, and all that, but, why try to evangelize others the whole time? Just use Firefox, Windows 7, Linux, or whatever, and be done with it.

    So evangelizing for a browser is bad but evangelizing against one is good?

     

    And there is no "mass of similar threads" about browsers or OSes. There is a mass of off-topic threads about pretty different stuff - but as this is the "Off-Topic" area, that should be okay.

  11. Seems completely doable but I have no idea what that looks like from a coding perspective. :huh:

    The TDM climbing works pretty well. Sometimes i get catched by a ladder by accident, but most often they just work as expected.

    A mapper currently only needs to add a brush painted with one of the ladder materials to make something climbable (the material also defines the climbing sound). The player just has to touch that brush to be able to climb it. So it looks to me like it already is as easy for everyone involved as it can be.

    Having to place special enter and exit nodes would make mappers' lifes slightly harder and someone would indead have to code that feature into the engine (wich seems to have accumulated quite a bit of history and looks like it is hard to maintain judging by the last pages of the TDM Engine Development Page thread).

    As a result you might only get a tiny improvement in some edge cases for the player at best - and it could also introduce shiny bugs (it would make the climbing mechanic more complex after all) and/or make the player feel less in control (because of the mentioned sliding).

  12. That's what i thought. Doesn't always work though. Kind of a hit and miss, like blackjacking.

    It works pretty fine almost always. When it fails, you most often only get a bark (well, if you get hurt by the fall, a nearby guard might also start investigating).

    The crouch-sneak-drop is much more reliable than blackjacking or even mantling. And for a long time i thought, that it makes no noise at all - until i tried dropping from a stack of crates on cobblestone immediately behind a guard...

  13. But seriously, whats up with this Mission.

    It is an old mission and has been made in two months for the Summer Vertical Contest 2010 (announcement thread). Some authors do update their missions after initial release - and so did Fieldmedic. But you never find all the bugs and also more bugs creep in over the years as the core game also is a moving target (although the devs try really hard to not break existing content). And most authors sadly also have a life outside TDM...

     

    Maybe we should assemble a detailed list of bugs and their locations (could also scan the release thread) - and then fix what we can after getting permission from Fieldmedic.

    I currently don't have much time for getting used to Dark Radiant but there is no time limit as the mission is released for some years now...

    I definitely could do monsterclip - maybe even try investigating that geometry holes.

    Betrayal is a good map after leaving the caves. Lots of verticality wich every wannabe Garrett loves. It definitely is worth fixing.

     

     

    P.S.: You never want to waste your equipment without needing to. Especially not something as costly as a gas arrow. Also pick up your used rope and broadhead arrows before leaving - some day you might need them...

  14. What i always wondered is how you jump down without making any noise. Seems to be a hit & miss in TDM. Sometimes crouching when falling down seems to help, sometimes it doesn't.

    Waste a moss arrow if you want to drop on marble right next to an elite guard.

    But for almost all other situations, just crouching while slowly sneaking (not walking or running) over the edge works just fine.

  15. One thing that continues to plague me is tool/weapon counts. I've never been able to master this aspect of a mission, so I just take a best guess and hope it works out.

    My experience as a blackjacker that finished all but a few missions available though the ingame downloader on difficult:

    Most missions are pretty okay at hardest difficulty if using only the blackjack, lockpicks and rope arrows. The spyglass and lamp improve life a lot and there really is no reason to not give them to players. The compass is rather useless in most missions but it also does not hurt giving it to players. Same for the sword - that is also used to finish off knocked out assassination targets (always knock out your targets first to avoid the insult *g*).

     

    When it comes to consumables, i would (on hardest) default to

    - three to five broadheads (they are lightweight, cheap and good for remotely triggering actions)

    - two water arrows (they are pretty usefull from time to time but look bulky)

    - one or two noise makers (for when someone wants to get through with a perfect stealth score - otherwise he could just jump or throw around stuff until the AI starts moving)

    - mission-specific stuff like rope arrows or holy water as needed (assume that the player recollects rope arrows after use).

     

    I would also add two odd pieces of equippment, that are not needed or even useless in the mission.

    - The flash bomb/mine (pretty useless)

    - A moss arrow (convenient sometimes)

    - A health potion (nice if rope arrows are scarce and targets are high above ground)

    - Another noisemaker

    - Another water arrow

    - Holy water (useless if there are no undead in the mission)

     

    More broadhead/water/rope/moss/noisemaker arrows could be stored at appropriate spots. Of other equipment one or two to find in the mission are more than enough most of the time. Also don't forget, that the player can reuse his broadheads used for killing AI. And each archer AI provides an additional broadhead.

     

    Gas arrows are only needed if there are elite guards or other unknockable AI. But if you play on hardest some ghosting abilities are expected - so if the elite guards are easily avoidable there is no need to hide more than the odd gas arrow in the alchemist's workshop.

     

    The loadout at start and what can be found in the map should obviously be more generous for medium and easy difficulties...

  16. Unfortunately the mission wont allow you to kill ANY LIVING THING :/se as i dont wish to restart the mission at this late stage.

    If you have no gas arrow, you probably have to noclip then. The AI is impossible to knock out at that position.

     

    The undead are particularly bad at pathfinding in the tunnel from the Mint through past the Lift Shaft to the mine cart railway tunnel. Its Only when you have been spotted and they chase you. I think if they leave there predetermined patrol route that the wall climbing occurs.

    I mostly try to avoid beeing spotted by hostile AI so i might have missed that. :P

    A mapper could probably fix that by adding some monsterclip around walls they try to climb.

     

    I also notice that there are textures or a vertice missing from the corner inside the Mint so you can see the interiour of the Mission Map.

    Might be a misplaced vertice or one of the "missing triangles" that seem to happen more often since the last TDM update. Don't worry, the game will not crash because of that (FPS might be lower than expected though).

     

    Ive just returned to TDM and dont recall how to use Noclip ? Can you eleborate further please as i dont wish to restart the mission at this late stage.

    The Wiki-Article about the console and usefull commands (including noclip) explains how to use the console.

    Open the console and type noclip followed by enter. Then close the console and fly around carefully until you passed the builder AI. Then, while hovering above the floor inside the tunnel, open the console again and type noclip followed by enter again. Continue playing as if nothing happened.

    You might also get stuck in some missions when traversing complex geometry (like piles of random stuff) if the mapper forgot to playerclip it. That situations can also be solved by using noclip.

    • Like 1
  17. My last playtrhough of that mission was 2015. But if i remember correctly, i also had the builder priest AI (wich probably represents the archbishop) stuck at some stairs and used a gas arrow to get rid of him. You could also just noclip around him if you already used your gas arrow and/or are on a no-kill/ghost run. Else, killing him could be an option too (don't remember whether that mission has a no-kill objective).

     

    The mission is from 2010 and AI always had some pathfinding issues in the tower and castle sections (but pathfinding was fine in the caves). I never saw undead actually climbing up a wall though. They just bumped into it and then turned around to go somewhere else...

  18. Maybe, having to decide whether listening (sidelean ear against door) or looking through the keyhole (forwardlean to get eye closer to keyhole) would not be that bad. It makes sense that you can't have your ear and your eyes touching the door at the same time.

    Also, you could listen for guards entering your room while looking into another room.

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