Albert

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I think Sofa has said it better than I. Basically, it's up to the mappers foremost. And for them, they wanted a different set of brushes to work with, than what TDM has given them. I agree, it feels that you've greatly limited yourselves. Hell, maybe I should just delete my mess of a last post. But, I'm tracing my steps and realizing that the best idea is to leave it. Leave it as an example of my evolution on this issue. I'm highly opinionated still, but willing to meet people halfway at least. If we can just get over the fact that entire projects must go about as they were originally intended, and go with that "chaotic surreal magic", as Demagogue said... Then just maybe, we can see things finally moving as we all hoped for.

Yes, well this is a community, mind you, that still is shell-shocked over the incident w/ the dark engine source. Nobody in this community is an actual developer, and even mappers aren't that informed on the workings of licensing. Just make it clear that you have no ill-will towards any forks. In fact, move this out onto a more inviting platform like github. Alrighty, now I gotta point something out to you. When I said those, it was within context to what I felt at the time. And again, you prove my point. I never said I disliked the feel of the game as in myself; I'm saying that from who I've talked to, and what I've gathered, PEOPLE are not universally in on this game (Me throwing myself into the mix was just stupidity of having been away from the writing desk, for awhile. A third person on top of that was a overlooked ambiguity on my part.). Again, people in the Thief community worked just as hard as you guys to create a feel and an identity around the Thief game. People threw new ideas into the pool, and others yet again proved that the Thief formula can go paces further... What I'm saying is basically, you guys might wanna clear that up with the rest of us. Even if you yourselfs have devoted as much as you have to the project (Which I personally commend you for), what I notice is that you guys are outsiders to most of TTLG's colorful, of both good and bad, members. Good intentions or not, what you've done is you've run with this well-developed idea, and have not exactly been on the same page with the TTLG community. Again, I'm speaking of this as in the nuances and the whole feel. The medium, if you will, which these people have spent equal sums of time in building up from a very small game into a very large one with tons of variety and experimentation on THAT feel which Looking Glass themselves had honed. Again, I might have been in the wrong to assume you guys weren't concerned with dovetailing the thing for when you finally kick it out of the way to focus on your personal lives... But, I'm at least certain that for as long as I've known the Thief scene now, that there's alot of honest things you guys aren't picking up on. Different strokes for different folks, if you catch my drift. Again, sorry if I'm being an ass about this. I care for TDM as much as you guys do, but I feel that in the process of it being developed, alot of veteran map-makers have felt opposed to the whole look and feel of the game which you've all crafted. I'm just saying... You are good off in that this was your work. Your creation. I just wanted to argue for the sake of what I picked up from the OP (Against, of course. I'm feeling that TDM has much to prove, yet. It's not dead quite. Rather, it's what I've brought across in these last few sentences: Just not what everyone on TTLG was hoping for). That people who you ideally wanna see in on the project, haven't been coerced into coming on in. Bikerdude being an exception.

Lovely how my idea of finishing the game up and labeling the whole kit & kaboodle under a GPL license to allow for any experimentation with the, admittedly, ambiguous buzzword called aesthetic -- yes, I'm personally quite certain that this is one sticking point -- got lost in all the butthurt feelings of someone trying to diss your work or whateve... If we are to go along with my idea, then we may, indeed, see more FMs. Albeit, there'll be dozens of interpretations with texture/sound/etc packs and whatnot but the ID Tech 4 engine is good for that. Mods. Like what TDM is... A MOD. If you guy's think the model is fine, then I won't complain, but I think it's petty to go on about it like I'm really trying to lambast you for it. As if the TTLG community has some conservative dogma. Don't become too hypocritical yourselves, and just get the damn thing out there. The game is fun, the graphics capabilities leave so much to be savored... Just let the community run with it and beyond. ... In the form of mod-friendliness. A meta-system of mod capabilities of swapping out entire texture-packs and AI, or whatever. That sort of thing.

I've been around on-and-off. I can't really speak for the whole community (And putting the mob psychology aside), but for me at least, the tremendous issue is aesthetic and compatability. The Doom 3 engine first-off, leaves some of the TTLG community behind, given it's system requirements being quite higher than the old Thief games. Secondly, and I feel this is why the mod should aspire to dovetail itself so it is freely modified by a second and upcoming team of different tastes or whatnot -- we'd see a boost in the potential FM makers. There's so much here, and yet I think there's this really underlying issue that we all dislike the feel of the game. It's a well-made mod so far, but overall, from what I've heard, it's just not Thief because it doesn't really evoke that mood. It's the whole "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink it" issue, because most people look at this waterpark of a game and feel cheated, in the particulars of asthete that the Thief games so wonderfully evoked. In short, if we fix all the bugs and such and make the game standalone, I would hope there would be momentum from a few people to modify the look of the entire system to possibly meet people halfway -- I mean, I figure there would be some competing clans on that sort of thing. And all the better for the end-players, with a variety of good FMs like you all hoped for. Following me here guys? (Pardon my terrible grammar; I've been couped up all summer with little to do and it's made me completely stupid at writing again. )

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