Bastoc

Fair enough But in reality nightvision googles shoudn't emit any light anyway! So it could have been coherent.

I recently got this game (PC version) as some people think it's one of the best of the series. I have to say I don't like it much but I found it insightful, about what breaks a game. Ill-thought-out gameplay There are some good elements: nightvision (avoids the Thief "I see them but they can't" paradox), sticky camera, whistle, optical cable, adjustable walking speed, rappel and zip-line,... But mostly: - "gadgetism": you have 2 or 3 different actions, but they have the same result (eg disable a NPC) or are hardly useful (thermic and "electrical" views). It's as if the developpers thought "Maybe if we give them enough actions, they'll forget how poor the gameplay is." - overpowered gear: the secondary shot on SC pistol that disables lights looks gamebreaking (so far) - Fisher has a huge broom up the arse that seem to prevent him from moving and mantling smoothly (common issue, even in good games: DX, Hitman,...). -3rd person view: common issue as well, everything's been said already. - the contextual action menu is not a bad idea, but it breaks pace and immersion when you have to scroll. Maybe adding a key to choices numbers would have been a good idea Poor level/plot design - Spacial linearity: most doors are not openable, there's no visual way to tell what's climbable or not, but anyway almost nothing is. - Chronological linearity: if you don't follow the steps, you won't trigger events and might go to the right place but NPCs won't have popped (probably the worst thing ever). Sometimes you have two different pathes to the same step or room, though. ...Storytelling Good stuff: in-game news and notes journal, ability to interrogate grabbed people, many conversations,native language option But: -while I believe it's good practice to assume players are not smart, I don't think you should show them how well you apply that. When you cannot read objective-stamped e-mails on computers and the HQ tell you what's inside, it's offending. When the guy I had to take down waited endlessly facing the fridge (to get a beer, supposedly), I felt sick. -the map is not really helpful -sometimes you cannot interrogate, when it would have been simple to add a few "tell me what you know"-"I don't know shit" dialogues. Conclusion: I think it was meant to be simulation-oriented, but if you don't feel it, nothing's going to save the game. IMO, it's far from being as good as Dishonored, TDM, Thief, Hitman, Deus Ex, or even... Assassin's Creed.

I just bought this game on Steam recently, and I really recommend it. Short review: It was released in April 2013 and now it's an enhanced version. Concept You are group of "dirty criminals" in Monaco that break into banks, embassies, grab quest items and loot and escape (ring a bell?) as quickly as you can (leaderboards). You can play 1-4 players campaign or featured FMs (at least) both online (there's a kind of matchmaking) and offline (need extra gamecontrollers for multi). And I think there is a PvP mode, not tested yet. Graphics The view is like a map from above. You have a field of view depending on walls and obstacles. It is pixel art, a lot of bright colors, static and popping icons. I find it beautiful, but some might not like it. Gameplay You run, sneak and interact with items. Once you have discovered them, they appear on the map. Every player has a basic set of interactions: lockpicking, deactivating lasers, climbing ladders, hidding in bushes, hacking computers, using disguise, reviving allies... You can choose among 8 characters: locksmith, pickpocket, hacker, lookout... They all have special abilities or/and can perform the basic ones faster. So, depending on the mission design, they can be more or less performant. You can use different items: smokebomb, guns, C4,... But ammo is scarce as you need to collect loot to have some. You can chat and talk in multi. There's a HUD to guide you through the levels. Storytelling The game is in English, but since it's Monaco, all the barks are in French, I think. But the icons warn you about alert state anyway. The campaign has a simplistic story, but there is a lot of humour (funny IMO). Some clichés I liked alot since I'm French myself My experience I played solo at first to learn at my pace. I played for hours without being bored or frustrated at any time. You can really play in a stealthy way, but because of the graphics and tone, it's more of a tactical game. I found it quite challenging after a few missions and even died. Then I played multi online with random ppl, and it was so chaotic! There was always someone who would do a mistake and we would trigger all the alarms and aggro the guards, running everywhere, shooting, trying to hide, reviving dead allies. I couldn't stop laughing. I think it's realy hard to do it properly this way but it's funny. Finally I played offline with my brother and we managed some good coop combinations (like I switch electricity off while he lockpicks the vault). I'm looking forward to playing 4-team with my friends! Just so you know you can buy a 4-pack with yours + 3 gift codes (what I did). And there is a -60% sale on Steam until january 2nd, on both single and 4-pack. But you have to buy it from Steam platform, not developer's website. Developer's website (for extra info): http://www.monacoismine.com/

FI stone/scupted/shields/ornament_shield_white_bendlets and any stone/flat/smooth with the right tone. But I was using DR fullbright mode camera preview, so I guess it was with maximum gamma. In-game it's completely different. Noob... I made a kind of palette to look in-game and I found stone/flat/smooth/marble_white_01 is a good match for the shields. Problem solved for now! Thanks anyway.

Hey, Is there a quick way to darken a texture? I want to match marble, alabaster or whatever with some sculpted panels/shields, and it's either too bright or too dark. I thought of creating a slightly dark homogeneous decal and use it over the marble.

Flanders has just posted a vid about this FM. Reminded me I'm looking forward to playing it (and the sequel)! Keep it up!

Oh! This was the second FM I played after St Lucia. Fun one. Good gameplay and as the title suggests, nice doing average taffing. I just checked again and indeed that hotel room sure is cosy . Thank you. I'm having a look at what you did. /* Generated by DarkRadiant's Particle Editor. */ particle tdm_glare_xmaslight { { count 10 material textures/darkmod/sfx/fake_haze_01 time 0.200 cycles 0.000 timeOffset 0.000 bunching 1.000 distribution sphere 0.000 0.000 0.000 direction cone 0.000 orientation view speed "0.000" size "0.010" to "5.000" aspect "1.000" rotation "0.000" randomDistribution 1 boundsExpansion 0.000 fadeIn 0.000 fadeOut 1.000 fadeIndex 0.000 color 0.200 0.120 0.000 1.000 fadeColor 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 offset 0.000 0.000 0.000 gravity 0.000 entityColor 1 } } With that, I should be able to figure it out. If not I'll ask you So far thanks to that I've discovered the built-in particle editor (good start!) and the magical entityColor flag that matches the particle color with the light I think. EDIT: I think you copied the tdm_glare_lamp_01 particle, removed the stage1 smoke particles, changed the radius of the stage0 fake_haze_01 and some other stuff. Some parameters are a bit cryptic, but the editor is a nice feature. I should be fine. Thanks a lot!

Hello, I want to create a custom light for a Chritsmas atmosphere: glass spheres with different colored lights inside. My first problem is that I don't fully understand what a light is composed of, so if anyone can confirm or correct the following it would help: Two categories (from mapper's POV): covered and uncovered Covered lights are "standalone". They have: - a model: .lwo or .ase files, what contains the light source - skins: .skin applies to the model to use different texture sets when lit or unlit Uncovered lights are attached to a separate solid model (eg a candle. NB: the model can have lit/unlit skins) - particle: .prt what looks to be emitting the light (eg flame/glare) Common spawnargs for both: - _color, light_radius, light_center (position of vertex?), etc. - noshadows, noshadows_lit, nospecular, nodiffuse - light texture: as I understand it, it's like a 1D mask with fading that makes things look more or less bright according to distance (applied to 3 directions -> 3D). Since it's a texture: other topic. - snd_shader: it can make a noise like electrical lights do (so it's also a "speaker", sort of) - visual flicker: I didn't find how to fiddle with that (I don't really need to anyway) -... So if I got it well, the main problem is that although you can change light color easily in DR, it doesn't change the particule's color or the model's skin, and you have to do it manually with external tools (maybe that's why some skins have a _colorme suffix). So question is, for what I want to do, do I really need to install Doom3Ed to create new .prt as described here: http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Particle_Editor ? Seems really cumbersome for a simple colored glare. Maybe I should ask Bikerdude or ShadowHide if I can use their fireflies particles. There's also the glass sphere that has a low maximum number of faces (maybe 20) so it looks awful, and you can't soften edges in DR, I believe. Any idea?

Yes, right, I overlooked you meant it only for electrical lights. As long as there are light types that can never be disabled left (say gas lights f.i.), I would like it then. I just meant it's good as it is that some lights force the player to find a smart way to get round it (find a switch, distract the guard, find another path,...).

IIRC there are density+volume, and mass spawnargs. Probably not useful though, as D3 physics is not like ours. And changing player mass sounds risky (water?), assuming it's even possible. Maybe you can update the collision spawnarg of the door when it switches to open so that it's solid only when closed. But I don't know if you can do that in a simple manner.

I like the idea. I built the outside of a house using pictures, but now that I have to plan the inside, I don't have a clue. If you have a plan for me I'll gladly start over and use it. Where do you find those, if I may ask?

While doing thief den tutorial I also noticed the zone approach is not smooth. Then I added a speaker outside up in the air in front of the door (in addition of the zone ambient sound). So the sound fades inside the building and the door has an effect. It's not perfect as the volume is rising when you are outside and heading to the door, but it makes sense somehow: water is supposed to flow from the rooftiles to the base of the walls (depending on your architecture of course). There must be a better way though.

I don't think you should be able to disable electrical lights with a cheap arrow, because if the mapper wanted that, they'd have used an extinguishable light instead. The utility of electrical lights is precisely that they cannot be disabled, for level design purposes. Why not, probably you can make smoke with a tweaked light fog texture (not sure if it affects the light gem though, negative lights?). It would be a good way to get rid of it when AI are upgraded to be able to notice moss blobs. As for the utility of the smoke, I'm not sure. Reminds me of the Dark Bomb topic I read, which came to talk about smoke bombs. IIRC, some people thought smoke was a good idea, since it's not exactly redundant with flash bomb. Anyway, lighting the moss would be awkward, if you need either fire arows or using a candle.