Skaruts

They might react differently depending on the importance of the item they were carrying. A money pouch is a big blow, but guards may earn enough payment that it isn't the end of the world. The key to their Lord's off-limits study, on the other hand, might mean having the rope for breakfast... That might be an issue with what I was thinking: On top of your suggestion that they might turn and look for it, in the case of important items, it could trigger the AI to be looking around for the item at all times from then on, meaning the AI might suddenly stop walking mid-patrol (and potentially face some other direction) as if looking for his lost item. This would effectively make the AI more dangerous without seeming unjustified and without triggering an alert. But might also be too unpredictable. On top of that, again in case of important items, the AI might start mumbling a set of lines such as "Why did I have to lose that" and "I'm going to be fried tomorrow", so as to not seem so gimmicky to the player.

I don't think this is something other people can help all that much with. Different monitors have different brightness levels, and some monitors have better blacks than others (some have horrible blacks). And some monitors (like mine) have "gaming mode" and stuff like that, which alter the brightness levels completely, and if I give you a screenshot of my brightness settings, they'll be darker than what I see when in "gaming mode" (because gaming mode gives me slightly brighter darks). There's also the preference factor, where some people may like the dark areas pitch black, while others (like me) may prefer them slightly visible, enough to not necessarily need the lantern (I do this because if I don't have the lantern I find it eye-straining to look at the dark areas, otherwise I'd go with near pitch black). In my monitor, with "gaming mode" on, I use the default brightness of 1, and around 0.73-0.78 contrast (to compensate gaming mode), if I recall correctly. I don't know how useful that willl be to you... Although, as mentioned, the training mission can help, even if it didn't help in my case for the reasons I mentioned.

Usually, I go with the flow. If I complete all objectives before the loot objective, I go hunt the rest of what's required to finish. If I don't, then I just keep gathering and hunting loot even if I already reached the required minimum as I walk through the rest of the objectives. I do like to explore the levels, but, normally (in large maps, at least), I don't find the willingness to do it unless I have to (or unless I find a document with some interesting proposition (side/hidden objective) that sounds tasty enough), thus I end up leaving the extra loot behind. If I'm playing a full campaign where money carries over to the next mission, then perhaps I'll try to get some more than required though.

Indeed, I believe that was the one.

Nah. There is a fundamental difference. Sports games usually have more to them than just the core mechanics (i.e. fine tuning the car accordingly to a track). At least the ones I enjoy which are mostly simulators (I don't particularly enjoy Burnouts and stuff like that). But I can think of a game that could have revolved around one cool feature, yet it didn't: Rollcage. It's a racing game where the selling point could have been that cars can turn up-side down and keep going. Instead the selling points are that it's a reeeeaaally speedy game where cars can turn up-side down and keep going and they also have weapons and power ups to spice things up. Turns out the "cool feature" isn't overused, nor overly depended on (and required skill to be used, in fact). They've managed to balance it. That's not what I find in most of these games. I can hardly think of one game like that that I enjoyed past the second level... Well, for some reason I enjoyed Osmos a lot, go figure (though I can't be bothered replaying it). Usually (and osmos is no exception) these games are really lacking in variety. I find them pretentious, really. I usually think people might do their ideas more justice by reserving them until they could compile more ideas in a more versatile product, or until they had more content to prevent overusing their "cool features". Often I see games with great potential in them, but I find them laid to waste by their hastiness to make something of "that cool feature"... I don't mean to say people shouldn't enjoy them, by all means do. I just have a real hard time doing it myself. Still, I understand what can attract people to this game in particular. I used to be a jump maps looney in HL2 and Quake Live, and it can be extremely fun stuff. At the same time, I have a hard time enjoying a game that only does that. I played a CSS mod once that was made specifically just for that, and for some reason it just felt like an empty game to me (maybe for not having the weapons that ensured some versatility to jumping - or maybe because I knew I was stuck on jump maps while playing it). But jump maps and surf maps usually attracted a whole lot of people.

For some reason I have a hard time feeling compelled to enjoy games that just revolve around one or two gameplay features (even if innovative)...

I like the idea, as long as no one thinks it's a good idea to force the player to look at the wall and not be able to look at the way out, as I've seen done somewhere I can't remember (Outlast?), which is just stupid, unless the character has a problem with his neck...

This isn't exactly what you ask, but it's something I always thought was ambiguously funny. Quoting Dr. Neil Tyson on something he almost said once: "Your dog smells better than you".

Either it was already reworded or I don't see anything wrong with it. This is not more than a semantics discussion, but I'm that much nit-picky to engage in one. Some time ago you might call it a mod, and that would be the correct definition given that it was in fact a mod, as the name implied, as it was dependent on the main game from where it was modded from to be played. The engine is a whole different story, and the devkit part of it was and is part of the project's essence, not part of the resulting product's essence. What is a mod, though? Is is not a game within a game? Or a game built from the parts of another game? Did DotA magically became a game when they reproduced it in Heroes of Newearth, or when Valve reproduced it in DotA 2? Of course not. It was already a game on its own merits. Damn I hate those games.... Anyway, you can blur the definition of "game" all you want, but a game doesn't require much more than a challenge to be accomplished within a set of rules, to be defined as such. I would understand if you were having a dilemma when considering whether something as Dear Ester is a game, but TDM is far from such a concept. Still, even if one is to try to draw a line between mod and game, TDM is a standalone application now. It still has many remnants of its mod status (noticeable in DarkRadiant mostly, the common player will neglect to notice this), but I would assume time will progressively lessen them. The key differences between TDM and say, Half Life 2, currently, are merely that TDM is free to play and that TDM was intended to be a community driven project as opposed to HL2 which was intended to be a fully released closed project driven by a corporate business model, which, in part, explains and justifies why TDM doesn't come with a full gameplay campaign by default (though it comes with a mission or two). I would have to rely on the devs' word to really come to a full conclusion of whether to still call it a mod or not (apart from the name), but that'd still have no bearing on it being a game.

It's funny though, that despite all the dissenting opinions the dark mod is the most voted, as of now. I have to wonder though, since the dissenting opinions I've noticed on a cursory look belong to moderators and such, if they aren't letting their own bias take over, or if they aren't falling for a... what should I call it... like not wanting to favor non-EM works too much. I would understand them saying "I don't like TDM, I voted <whatever>", but their insistence that TDM isn't a game seems fishy. And by the way, yes, TDM is a game. Their confusion lies on neglecting the notion that the toolkit is DarkRadiant, not TDM. TDM itself has some development tools, but so do most other moddable games. TDM is the fully fledged engine where the content produced from within the toolkit can be tested and played, much like any Doom/Quake/Source content created from within their respective toolkits can (or any other moddable game for that matter).

This isn't a bad thing. It's a good thing to have loading screens camouflaged in a way that doesn't interrupt gameplay. At least that principle is good. The fact in this case it may be no more than an animation where you just sit back and wait for it to finish is the bad thing. And the reason why they are where they are: because maps can't be larger (probably because they're overly detailed) is a bad thing.

You missed the link I provided.

I was just about to post that one. Oh well, since I got no videos to post now, here's a funny (piggy related) pic then. http://i.imgur.com/riEtH.jpg

You can play dishonored , as opposed to AC, where you just can't. The game never lets you have your way with stealth, since whenever you get close to your objective it forces you to reveal yourself. For some reason the game still doesn't seem very interesting to me...

I didn't say anything about only allowing negativity being a good thing either. The reason why I chose to participate more on this thread than the other is that I don't want to participate in any thread that is one-sided and close-minded, be it positive or negative in its intentions. The intentions are irrelevant to me, the discussion is what I'm interested in, and I want to hear everyone. There's lunatic views on both sides, every time. As long as people aren't just saying "This sucks!!1" or "This rules!!1", I'm ok with anything. And don't take the origins of a word at face value. Their meanings tend to change. fan noun an enthusiastic devotee, follower, or admirer of a sport, pastime, celebrity, etc.

I believe Arx Fatalis had some stealth elements too. Yea but it's a bit like the kind of stealth that any game ends up featuring: "choose the path where guards aren't" or "hide behind the thing"... I could do that in quake if it gave me sufficient paths to follow... Apart from the Blend feature which doesn't serve many purposes (and is a bit of a dumb feature considering how blatant it would be in reality), it seems to be just that.

@Xarg, people have different views on the game, and whether a thread is intended for a positive view is always going to be kind of irrelevant to what comes of it. Especially when pertaining a game that bears some controversy and whole-hearted franchise fans around it. I certainly didn't intend to bring that positive attitude down, in fact I'd love to be able to have a positive view on this game in particular, more than most others, but despite all my efforts I unfortunately found, so far, no good reason to feel positive about it. If a negative view bothers you there's not much that can be done about it. Given what I've seen and read of the game, positive views bother me and I'm not whinning about it. I'm open to receiving reasons to change my mind both ways. There was once a thread on steam about DNF, intended to be addressed only by people who were positive about the game. Do you know how it turned out? It became a shallow (and hollow) praise fest with little thought in it, where everyone presented their blatant and unsubstantiated bias, and as soon as someone came with a constructive criticism they stoned him out of there. It became a thread populated by the close-minded part of the community. That's not what I call a discussion thread, and much less a productive one, and much less one that should even exist. By all means be positive about what you feel positive about, but try to understand that not everyone will agree with you, and the same way you may be annoyed by some level of negativity, so too will someone be annoyed by some level of positivity. We can still, hopefully, discuss things like adults, regardless. Conveniently.

I have to contest this one though, I have a safe at home, and doesn't need resetting. Though, it doesn't rely on numbers but letters, a key and a valve-like wheel to finally turn the locks open. What I did notice was that the safe in thief doesn't have a handle of any kind. I have to wonder how does garret manage to pull such a supposedly heavy door open, supposedly by fitting his nails in the thin gap.

I think it may still be too soon to criticize things that are likely to be on the todo and tofix lists. Besides, cel shading isn't a bad thing. At most it's your subjective taste. I personally like it. I prefer Dishonored's, Brink's and TF2's art styles, but cel shaded looks nice too.

The guard might think, at first, that he's been pranked by other guards. From there he might go ask them about it, or he might go and turn (verbally) hostile towards that usual prick that keeps pranking his co-workers, or at some point he might believe everyone's innocent and something fishy is going on, alerting the whole nearby group.

Did you ever have water spilled on your face while sleeping? It's the best way to turn a human into a kangaroo.

Metro 2033 and Metro Last Light. Maybe Outlast too, but I'm not sure about it. Only ever saw a few gameplay videos. Maybe, if you want to include older games too, Jagged Alliance 2 (not sure about 1). It's a tactical strategy RPG, but with the right Mercs and the right equipment, stealth missions are very viable. And to my judgement, this game never quite gets old. I always get a little amused to see Assassins creed listed as a game that features stealth...

So the game is a complete gimmicky interactive movie, as every action you take is predetermined to be so. The drawers seem to also only be accessible in such a way that there's no leaving drawers open. So much for expecting wide areas to explore... It's just zigzagging corridors and doors are getting locked shut behind you.

I agree with this to no end. It might be justified if the character was Gordon Freeman, or Artyom with the gas mask on. It's not justifiable in any game that doesn't have a visor or any type of "screen" in front of the character's eyes... I actually get irritated when I see someone praising them for any of that kind of effects, and even more irritated when I confirm that a game has them, and completely frustrated and disappointed when I can't turn them off, which happens 99% of the time with AAA games. Not just rain drops and dust spots and that stuff (which in reality makes you close your eyes to get it off with urgency), but also almost everything else (I can't help but compulsively rant about it...) - Light/dark eye adaptation - (which makes my eyes strain to the point of tears and my Arma2 getting dusty - fortunately I found a mod for Skyrim that mitigates it, else I wouldn't have played Skyrim at all either...) This effect could potentially be well done, but never is. It's always totally wrong (I'd need a long paragraph to expand on that). Yet, even if well done, it would still be a large distraction that slightly hinders smooth gameplay. - Sun glare... I can only facepalm at this... The movie industry removed it from movies because it denounced the presence of the camera, taking away from the immersion and the realism of the human observational perspective. Somehow, someone in the gaming industry at the top of their ignorance, thought realism was the inverse... and made it a trend that everyone in their ignorance bought into. - HDR - A misnomer. Or at least a fakery, and hardly ever looks any good, anyway. Besides, if you don't have a HDR monitor (which no one does), then you don't have HDR, period (even if HDR in games was anything close to actual HDR). - Motion blur - Can be well done, but I don't remember ever having seen that. In reality we barely notice this effect. In a game it's only a gimmicky distraction. - Depth of Field - It already occurs naturally in our eyes even with 2D images, no need to have it happening twice... If you look at THIS word you can notice that the rest of this page is slightly blurred to your eyes, the more you look towards the corners of the screen. It's also a distracting mechanic, and slightly hinders smooth gameplay (you have to move the mouse instead of simply looking at something... pfff). - Bloody screens - WTF?! No comments even... I've been pointing this out for years almost everywhere I go, but... no one seems to care. If only I was a big name on a big company like Bethesda... And if a game doesn't have these, then it's "not realistic" or is "under developed". Ironically. I noticed them too. That and the late-20th-century styled compound bow Garrett has now...

As far as I could tell they played more than just this level. I believe it was a timed thing, a few hours or something. "Each chapter I played of Garrett's new journey revolved around stealing a particular closely-guarded object and getting it back to the clocktower. But on the way to each heist, you have the option of stopping off around the city for a bit of off-the-clock thievery to line your own pockets." - PCGamer I didn't read a lot of them, but those I read/heard actually did talk about quite some useful stuff. Lightning does seem to affect the light gem.