Taquito

You judge me as if I were a COD fan. lol I'm a big Deus Ex/System Shock fan and both these games are excellence in Rewards and Lasting Appeal. Why does it need to be different with this game? Of course I would love to be able to sell my stuff and buy new equipment. That's part of being greedy and greed is a huge element in this game. I would also love to see progression of my character, see him grow in experience, climb faster, move faster, being more agile overall. How would these elements harm TDM if THE DARK MOD ALREADY HAS A SOLID GAMEPLAY BASE. A VERY SOLID GAMEPLAY STRUCTURE. Any other addition would not affect this rather make it more rich. If you already have a solid structure I don't think adding those features would affect the game in such a way that would detriment the whole experience.

Tears of St Lucia has a big Achilles Heel and that's the guard at the beginning who serves as a roadblock. Which is a subtle way to force the player to take a certain path and as rabid Deus Ex fan I got pissed by this and stopped playing for a long time. This to me wasn't a great first impression for the game. Why would a guard stay in the shadows at night instead of below a light source just a few steps ahead? besides he was hidden and forcefully placed and it's just follows the path of modern games in a way. I would like to pinpoint the fact that TDM is a free game, therefore everyone and their dog will download and try this game, whether they played Thief Games before or they like the mechanics or the concept or not. And they will pass judgment like that. At the same time TDM is protected by the fact that it's free and many people will show countenance when criticizing it.

Well of course the Dark Mod is not a game! LOL Obviously if you're a fan of the New Thief and you see people comparing both, you're gonna use the best excuse to exclude the strongest competition right off the bat. The Dark Mod is a non related Mission Based game with a veeeery SOLID GAMEPLAY and no one can wash that off. Please don't feel discouraged by this. These people are simply looking for ways to avoid the comparison by ruling out TDM cause it's easier than defending NuThief. Having said that, this game could really use something to tie the Missions down. Because as good as TDM might be it suffers from two problems, lack of long term rewards and lack of sense of progression as you feel like you start all over again with each mission and that can slowly diminish the lasting appeal. Since creating an official campaign that can be compared with other Thief or Stealth games can be two much of a Challenge for a small group and doesn't seem viable right now, I think the possibility of creating a Store withing the game that the player could sell loot and buy equipment that applies to all Missions would be a way to add the elements of of Long Term Rewards and sense of Progression. Also giving experience points depending on difficulty completion could work as well in exchange for who knows what.

Hopefully we could see some of these additions in the game Deadlove. Here are some ideas for new weapons: - Holy water arrows, instead of having to apply the holy water to arrows, having the option to buy holy water arrows with twice the cost of regular water arrows. The whole Holy Water+Water Arrow was a element I never understood in Thief. It's pretty tedious in my opinion. -Silver Arrows: Used to deal with Vampires, Werewolves or Demonic Creatures. Just to be there in case someone plans to include them in a Mission. -Oil Arrows: If a guard is carrying a torch, simply set him on fire! Or to be used in conjunction with the fire arrow to create a fire wall or make a trap. -Back stab: This is not a weapon but rather a gameplay change by turning the back of a guard as vulnerable as the head, so it can be back stabbed with a frontal thrust or poke with a sword. I don't think it's necessary to add a Dagger if you can do it with the sword.

As a beginner myself I took the advise of a forumer here and played Knighton Manor. The map is less confusing and more logical than most and the gameplay is fun and varied.

Well, the idea was actually quality rating displayed as well as the difficulty setting of the mission. It's true that both parameters are quite relative and non of the Missions really has a quality or difficulty ranking right now. But it could serve as a way for the player to Filter the missions they want to download based on quality or difficulty of the map. Your vision makes more sense cause it pinpoints the difficulty. Maybe the stars could serve as a way of incentive to the player to finish the map at a certain difficulty.

Perhaps something like this? Or: (The pics above are just examples).

I would like to add one suggestion to improve the game experience. (probably was suggested already). Marking a mission as complete in the list after the player finishes it. It could make the available missions list much less confusing if you have already downloaded most of them.

Thanks for the advice Springheel. Now I know you can also hear the sound of the next room if you lean to a door.

That's great! I also recently discovered you can blow candles by pressing Enter. lol I usually threw them to the floor and waited for them to turn off. This game is actually more interesting that I initially though.

Thanks. Good to know. I guess I need to practice a bit more.

I was thinking about body weight rather than aerial take down using the blackjack. After all if you fall from a roof top or a chandelier in a interior map you should be able to take down or even kill (depending on height of the building) a guard if you fall on top of his head. I though I was able to do this or throw an object from a certain height to knock out a guard in "Return to the City" but failed every time. :/

Sorry to ask again (and if it was already mentioned before). But, can the player knock out a guard by falling on top of him from a roof top?

I learned that flipping the gamma and brightness against the default setting works best for me. I darken the shadows in a way i can still define the texture behind the dark areas, but just slightly.

I guess it does. It would only serve as a variation. I think this weapon was implemented in the new Assasins Creed Game. Another idea would be to use the player's body as a weapon when jumping on to a guard from a rooftop. Is this already possible in the game? Good to know. It would be nice to have a campaign along with the game to make it feel more complete. But it would indeed take a lot of work to create a big segmented city. I could only help with some Art Direction and some storyline and side quests ideas.

I think the handle is kind of tricky as it sometimes go down all the way, but then continues and it makes it somewhat unreliable. Sometimes I fail more if I watch the door handle and end up only relying on hearing the sounds. But nevertheless you're right. Both elements are there.

Oh I forgot to add another recommendation in case making a big campaign with a huge city is not possible. Making the missions unlockable. First divide the missions by difficulty, then only allow the easiest ones to be downloaded and depending on the difficulty selected by those mentioned Missions. The player unlock other ones and so on. It gives the game a feel of continuity even if it's artificial as well as it eases the learning curve since new player could only access easy missions and go along they learn. It's a bit controversial.

I would like to give my impressions after playing this game and with just a little experience playing thief in general. (Played a bit of T1). So I'm pretty much new to the Thief Franchise. Hope this helps to further develop this game and make it much better than already is. First Impressions: - The first thing I want to pinpoint is that this game has a LEARNING CURVE! More specifically with the club as well as the lock picking system. It took me a while to get used to rely on hearing instead of a visual way to unlock doors and chests. It also took me a while to get to properly use the club as I failed many times trying to hit guards in the head. This invisible learing curve can make the game a bit frustrating at the begining if you're not used to the Thief Style Gameplay. Recommendations: Some recommendations for the game itself as well as future FMs. -The lock picking system is fun at the begining but it can get tiresome pretty quickly. I would like to recomend to add a visual way to open locks to go along the hearing style of lock picking. - The already disscused idea of adding guard dogs sounds really interesting. Even with it's animation flaws could add another dimension of gameplay. Dobermans suit better for the setting. I think. - More Puzzles. Instead of simple locks, it would be nice to see more puzzles implemented in the missions. There are countless of puzzles (good and bad) implemented in many games. It could serve as reference. - Another level of difficulty by dying if being seen by a guard, as a hardcore option. It could finish with a clip of the Thief being hanged at the city square. -More security systems to protect property from theft, like traps: Moving walls, spikes coming out of the walls , use of fire, etc. Used if the thief fails to open a lock. - Better animations for the AI. Like for example, if a guard see you approach he would go "Huh!" and stop for two seconds giving the player a second to hide before the guard reacts. Sometimes being too realistic is not neccesarily more fun. - The only weapon I can recomend is the Cerbatana. A wooden tube used with a feather dart with poison or tranquilizer, for a more silent long distance offensive. And finally and most importantly I would like to recommend to make a whole campaign to go along with the Game with a new tutorial stage included. This time instead of making a lineal map with a story. Make it a Huge City divided by districts similar to BGII map (Temple District, Trade District, Slums, Catacombs Sewers etc). The Art style of the city could be a Venice style of City. A city filled with water canals, bridges, rich people, poor people, sick people, Prostitutes, bandits, guilds etc . And then work in one main story line along many mission style stories to go along or could be included after in chapters. I don't have much experience with making maps or animations or anything of that sort. But I do have plenty of ideas that could fit well as missions or side quests that could work well within this setting of game. Hope my impressions and recomendations is somehow helpful. And thanks to the developers for making this beautiful game. Which I think is the best Free game so far. Sorry for my bad grammar. (Not too good in English)