New Horizon
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Posts posted by New Horizon
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Can it just brighten the item like classic Thief and then subtly outline it? The thing that turns me off about what I'm seeing is that we're back to solid colors overlaid on items as they were in Deadly Shadows. In the early days of the Mod I figured out the whole material stage brightening to replicate classic Thief and it was then improved / modified over the years but of course all those material shaders are a pain.
My only request is to please not go the TDS style route. I think the outlines as springheel suggested would be nice.
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Well, obviously the textures are going to be higher res but still retain some semblance of the originals. Models could be higher poly count but not outrageous. I think with Thief, the look of the game was actually part of what made it work. I honestly think there is a market for it.
The engine still exists and New Dark has been updated quite a bit already. The main thing though is that all the proven systems...sound / visual...they're already in place. Improvements can be made...and the engine already had some unused enhancements that just didn't get ironed out before the release of Thief 2.
There was an early facial animation system in place, some early work on bump mapping...all kinds of tid bits that could be expanded upon and still deliver a Thief game will all the things that made it great.
It's an artistic choice in todays Market. It's no longer about all games must use the latest and greatest, developers can choose which style best suits the tone of the game they're trying to make.
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2 hours ago, chakkman said:
How many copies do you think will it sell with such an antiquated tech?
You say that motion capturing of Thief served no purpose. Of course it served a purpose. The vast majority of gamers these days are completely visuals centric. That's why you often have a gameplay which is thin like a piece of paper, but the latest awesome graphics tech. Games like Assassins Creed more or less play automatically while the player "enjoys" it like a movie.
Times change, and people changed. That's the main issue. But, frankly, I don't think Thief attracted the mig mass, even back then. You say it was a commercial success. The question is, on which scale? Highly doubt that it was as successful as stuff like Half-Life.
I think you missed my point.
What did that extra expense add to the Thief gameplay? Did it serve the type of game Thief is? I don't believe it did. It continued the Deadly Shadows trend of limiting player movement and choice.
They scaled Thief up to a AAA budget...a niche title...and in doing so watered it down to the point where it really didn't stand out anymore.
I test games for a living. I've seen all kinds come through our doors and there is a very decent market for games that 'look' retro but play on modern systems. I've tested games inspired by classics like Ghouls and Ghosts, Quake, etc. There have been some recent games built using 20+ year old tech that has been modestly updated to retain the aesthetic of those older titles but still be a modern game.
Basically, that look for a game is no longer seen as a limitation, it's an artistic choice. It's a style.
So, for the type of game Thief is...my suggestion would be to NOT scale it up to AAA costs but rather work within the style that best serves the game and the gameplay. The costs would be lower, production time would be shorter. The studio wouldn't have to push as many units to break even and they might even make a decent profit given how games can be more easily distributed on Steam now.
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On 3/8/2021 at 9:01 AM, chakkman said:
The question is, who in a sane mind state would publish something like that? Even the original Thief's weren't really financial successes, let alone in 2021, where the stealth genre is dead. Well, deader than dead.
TDM is as good as it gets in that regard. You won't see a new Thief, that's for sure.
Thief The Dark Project was definitely a financial success and a critical success as well at the time. The problem was that Looking Glass was already in bad shape financially and Thief's success was far too late to save the company.
The issue with making a game like Thief today is a studio like Eidos Montreal insisting that it be a multi-million dollar AAA title, when it's not really that type of game. It's more of an indie title. Can you imagine how much all that motion capture cost to produce? Did it serve the game beyond being eye candy?
I personally think a game like Thief is a prime candidate for a release that actually uses the original engine, updated somewhat, but holding onto the visual style of the original games. A retro look. It has been done in recent years and seems to have been well received.
I think we're past the point of having to constantly update the graphics and can instead focus on choosing a style that best suits the game. Thief just felt right in the dark engine, kind of a product of the time. I think when you take it out of that, it loses a lot of the character
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On 2/11/2021 at 2:01 PM, Zerg Rush said:
Just a little suggestion for the loot. Wouldn't it be possible to add when stealing something, not only the amount stolen until then, but also the total amount available in the mission?
This is how you know, if it is worthwhile to continue searching, before finishing the mission. It is a bit frustrating to finish a mission and only then know that only half of the available loot has been achieved.That has come up before. The reason TDM doesn't tell you what remains in the level is because there is no way the player would realistically know this. I dunno, I feel it adds to the replayability not knowing. There have been so many times in Thief that I've gone back to a mission years later and found a piece of loot that I had no idea I had missed.
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41 minutes ago, Filizitas said:
There is lots of info here and long texts that so mistake me if i didnt read it.
But is it true that we and the thief community dont have a modding codex?
Is there no context driven codex for tdm?
TDM is by now almost 12 years old, you could still set a codex of rules up for it.
I think that would help alot. Make every mission from that point on that wants onto the tdm list dependant on a codex.It has pretty much always been handled as it was in the Thief Modding community. Ask for permission to use and if permission is given, list your sources.
The issue here is really an edge case and not the norm. It really doesn't make sense to enact such protections in such a small community. We operate in good faith here.
It feels like a big ask to develop and incorporate such encryption into the mod as an option and to remove a very helpful export feature from Dark Radiant.
I don't mean to dismiss the concerns but given the small size and generally considerate conduct of this community, I don't think it's warranted.
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If the incident from Discord is what I think it is, that issue involved someone repeatedly making unapproved artistic and gameplay changes to other users WIP maps when they had only been given permission to do some performance optimization. We're talking major gameplay and map design changes and when those major changes weren't embraced, that user would become angry that their efforts, unwanted as they were, might not be embraced.
If this is more if an aesthetic thing, I would say just ask people not to use the high quality assets from you FM. Heck, add a Pop up screen after the TDM logo on mission launch telling people not to use these assets as they do not meld well due to their higher quality. Then release the lower quality versions.
The majority of the community is respectful and it's small. Thinking in terms of numbers here....we don't have hundreds of mappers.
This tiny community has lasted 20 years for a reason. Trust and mutual respect.
If you don't want your assets folded into the core mod for distribution, that's fine too but I stand by my earlier post. Encryption doesn't fit our model... outdated as openly sharing may be...it is the heart of our community.
Ask and the majority will respect your wishes.
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Just skimming through the topic here so I may miss some of the nuances of the conversation.
I've been part of the Thief community since 1999. From the very beginning, mappers have made use of existing assets and often modified them...for better or worse...for use in their own missions. Generally, most asked permission and mentioned original authors in their credits.
I've seen horrific modifications made, but those modifications have no bearing on the original assets...whether they were core mod assets or borrowed from an FM, the original versions do not magically get overwritten if someone butchers them for an FM.
If a modified asset looks bad, most people playing it are just going to assume the FM author made it...I don't think it will reflect badly on the original artist.
Having contributed work to the mod over the years in art, audio and code, the idea of preventing the sharing of assets makes me uncomfortable. It's counter to how we built and promote the mod.
The Thief community has always shared. That's why it's miraculously still alive today.
TDM is a cousin to the Thief community, we're smaller and I would say a tad more fragile. I would not be in support of doing anything that might create hurdles that weaken it.
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14 hours ago, JackFarmer said:
Erin: "I am better than you, you cannot teach me anything!!!"
Garrett: "It's not about how much you steal, but what and how you steal."
I stopped where you had to escape from a burning building.
To this day I have not understood how they could screw it up so badly. But then I remember that someone from the forum once mentioned he met with Eidos people in Montreal and some of them didn't even know what Thief was. That certainly doesn't explain everything, but quite a lot.
Yeah, Eidos Montreal was a train wreck. The Thief Source code was given to them twice in order to try and get the right people to approve officially releasing it to the fans. They lost it both times. Infuriating. They were just the wrong people for the job.
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12 hours ago, chakkman said:
Yes, he did. Not sure about the "could have had" though. I think I remember that he declined to do the voice acting for Thief 2014. Not sure now though, I might be wrong.
They had him. There was an unreleased Trailer that got leaked. He was brought in and considered but ultimately they dropped him because they wanted the voice actor playing Garrett to be able to do the motion capture nonsense.
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1 hour ago, JackFarmer said:
Perfect summary.
I'll add to that by saying they placed far more importance on quick time events, and motion capture than they did on making a 'game'. That's what irks me about a lot of so called 'games' these days. They're not games, they are moderately interactive, casual entertainment. They were trying to make Thief a AAA title. Had they narrowed their focus, reduced their budget and simply focused on a well crafted 'game', they could have pulled off something amazing.
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The sound propagation in Thief 2014 was pretty broken a lot of the time, as was the AI vision. It really didn't have the necessary attention to detail to qualify as a 'good' game, in my opinion. Visually, the game was very pretty but I really can't say it was very good at all...not for a AAA title, and especially not after the same studio did such a great job with Deus Ex. It's a shame the community wasn't interested in digging into the game and trying to hack it, to see if some things could be improved but from what I gather it was all so tightly locked down that it wasn't possible.
I have my issues with Theif 3 too, but the sound prop and AI visual systems both worked as they should in those games
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I really like it. It harkens back to Thief 1 and 2 but also balances a bit of the Thief 3 vibe in there without becoming as stylized as Thief 3 was. Very nice!
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Hadn't seen it brought up here before so thought I would mention it. The studio I work for has a game called Project Winter. It's a survival game of up to 8 players, survivors vs traitors but you don't know who is who.
I do QA on the game and I have to say, I enjoy playing it outside of work. lol I'm not much of a gamer these days so that says a LOT. If anyone is interested, it's currently 45% off on Steam for Windows PC.
Not my intention to promote the game just thought it may appeal to some folks here.
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Always blown away by the continuing improvements in DR. Thanks for all the hard work!
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Have to do some shopping tonight but will try to hop in discord when I get back.
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Sounds good. I'm just on my way to bed here but i will add you to my Discord tomorrow. I'm on Atlantic Standard Time by the way.
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I'm available and would be interested in taking part.
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Dark Radiant had the ability to change to dark colours in older builds, has that changed?
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There's also the issue of the D3 engine being an additive engine and the Dark Engine being subtractive. It's two different styles of construction. D3 you have a void and you fill it with solids, and in Dark Engine you have a solid in which you carve out spaces.
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I'm always up for more as well.
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It wouldn't need to be perfect. The model has no impact on the 3rd person movement or collision in TDM, as 1st person is a completely separate system. So if the animations in that mod could work with the TDM model, it would be a massive improvement.
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Can't remember the name of the mod but someone imported the garett model and animations from Deadly Shadows into their Doom 3 mod. If you could track them down it might simplify things
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1 hour ago, AluminumHaste said:
Yeah please no body awareness, while it's cool, in practice it sucks to be limited in what you can do by the player model.
It really made Thief 3 feel super janky when doing anything.
Yes. No body awareness please.
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Things that could be improved
in The Dark Mod
Posted
Is that still true if they're tagged to be on the same team though?