chakkman

You're spot on. Arx Fatalis and Ultima Underworld. And some Thief. Nice ingredients.

I'm aware of it. I just think that the default settings (which is what I'm playing with) are not optimal. And, a lot of people who get into the mod are not aware of the settings, or might not want to change them until they're familiar with the game. That's also why I always cricitized the blackjacking. Because I think it is not very beginner friendly. I get it. This mod was created by veterans, and, a lot of mappers also take the veteran approach. In fact, I haven't come across a single mission which, in combination with the difficulty of the mod, could be described as having the same difficulty as the original Thief's. It's a lot tougher.

Just wondering if any of you is as looking forward to this game as I am. https://store.steampowered.com/app/908360/Monomyth/ I just hope it doesn't end up in development hell, with all the small things the dev is implementing (which are very cool though). It actually, as usual for crowd funded games, was set to be released years ago. But, it looks like it will be released this year, at least. The demo is awesome, by the way. Highly recommended.

Walking won't work on most surfaces either. I had it loads of times that AI's turn around if I just walked up on them, and, obviously, weren't KO'able in the process. What I usually do now is observing the guard path, and just wait until they cross me, and blackjack them hiding in the shadows. Or, I wait in places where I only need 1 or 2 foot steps to reach the guard, or use lean. That's the thing: KO'ing moving guards is simply too hard/impossible. The game penalizes this approach too much.

It's nice to see some movement towards improving the blackjacking system. I don't know how relevant it is to the thread (probably not much), but, what I found out in the last few months taking a bit closer look on what makes me miss most blackjacks: It's not really the system itself so much (even though I had issues with it as well, before I absorbed the several tips I got, like, not BJ'ing when I'm too close, or aiming for the neck instead of the head). It's rather the alertness of the guards. On most surfaces, they simply will notice your foot steps, and go into an alert state which makes them invulnerable to the BJ'ing, when you walk a few steps behind them, to catch up when they're walking before you. That's just totally different to the original Thief's, where you could even ran towards them, and knock them out on the dead run. They simply shouldn't be in that alert state, just because you walk 2 steps up to them. It makes KO'ing very hard, e.g. if you're walking through tight spots, corridors etc. (probably more of a case of adjusting the default alertness of the guards, I don't know) That said, it's highly appreciated that you try to revise the actual BJ'ing system as well though. It's been my primary issue with this mod pretty much since the beginning. It's totally alien when you come from the original Thief's.

Alberic's Curse was nice, but, it's a bit pale compared to some of the missions which came out in the last 7 years or so. I just played it some weeks ago, after playing some of the missions I named, and, it showed its age a bit. Still a great mission though.

My top 3: 1. A House of Locked Secret (near perfection that one) 2. Volta 2 3. Written in Stone Honorable mentions: Northdale Act 1 and 2, Volta 1, Requiem, Snowed Inn, Crucible of Omens. Especially in the last 7 or 8 years, there have been a lot of excellent missions. Still have to play Iris, and, I'm really looking forward to it, if it's so mighly regarded here.

No issues with that. They had some really good giveaways for a time (which cost them millions, as far as I know), but, that time seems to be over. It looks like they don't believe in the success of their store anymore themselves.

Is it just me, or are the Epic Games freebies becoming more and more lame? Haven't gotten one in many weeks... Well, fair enough. They eventually had to do less expensive ones, as they all just were there to boost their store. Which obviously failed. I wonder what happens to the games when they will (potentially) close down doors. Luckily, I have most of the ones I really want already on Steam.

I just finished this mission. Very moody mission, I liked it.

The climate of Game of Thrones differs from the actual climate of Great Britain as well, but, so does the world map. There are a lot of similarities though, cold in the north, warm(er) in the south, and, there are also a lot of references to actual locations. It strikes me as if, at least, some thought has gone into which real world location would be best suited. That's the point I am hung up on. South France doesn't make too much sense to me. What I've usually imagined: Bridgeport being a seaport in south England, a warmer, not well known region to the south, across the sea, and the more cold, snowy cities up north, where it gets more and more montainous. Maybe a vastly unexplored region even further north, where more of the barbaric tribes reside.

Apart from the geography and climate, shouldn't the ingame characters speak... like... French then? Or have French names. Or anything typically French to them. They don't seem like Frenchies to me. Also, regarding the time frame, this is from the TDM wiki: (The kingdom of) France existed back then.

One consequence could be that, for consistency, all mappers use that map for world reference. Would be kinda weird if a mapper came up with his own imagined world map in one of his missions now, when everyone thinks Bridgeport is located in France (yes, the future France). Well, maybe that's what the creators of the mod wanted. I don't know how old that asset is, and who did it originally.

... assuming that the universe isn't some kind of parallel universe, where similar regions actually exist. I always thought of the Thief universe as a parallel universe, considering the locations, factions, and things happening in the world are purely fantasy. Anyway, who am I to suggest what the creative people here do. If you want Bridgeport in France, then it is France. I just say that I wouldn't have thought that it is in France, and that I wouldn't have put it there if I was doing a map. I guess the whole point of orientating on real life regions is because it's easier than imagining and creating a whole new world.

Yeah, Westeros is clearly "modelled" after Great Britain. I always imagined that the Dark Mod universe would be as well. I think it's a great idea to create a general map, but, I think the location shouldn't be in France. The climates already won't fit. As far as I know, the north is supposed to be pretty cold, and mountainous, e.g. If you want to orientate on a specific region, I'd suggest the British island. Maybe north France as the warm desert region where the meditarranean types hail from.

I didn't deem those relevant enough (who's still using a CRT in 2022?), and projection is no display panel tech. Feel free to share what you are using though, independent of the poll's options.

I gave this game a hard time a few times on this forum (and in this thread), because I didn't care for the Deus Ex comparisons, but, having tried it a few hours, now that I have a PC potent enough, I must say that I'm quite impressed by it. Nice game world and atmosphere, and the stealth is a lot of fun. I'm a bit overwhelmed by how much is going on on screen (just like in a lot of modern games...), but, I really like what I see. Have to play a bit more to form a final opinion, but, it's much better as I thought it would be. Actually, the first time I played it was on my Xbox One S, shortly after the released, when the game still was in a rough state, and, the way the graphics were scaled down on the Xbox was very bad (everything looked mushy, and... horrible really). I have most on high to max details now, and get 50 to 70 FPS. Quite a heavy game, considering I "only" play in full HD, and have a decent mid tier system.

I don't know if it is related, but, I had that with a cage a few weeks ago as well. When I closed the door and opened it again, I could frob the content.

It works better if you stand when you unshoulder. But, it has its limits then too. Not as much as when you're crouched though.

William Steele - In the North. It leads to some pretty odd stuff though. Like, 4 or 5 guards entering the same place after a while, making it hard to hide bodies. Apart from that, any kind of unpredictability (also in the guard routes) makes it hard to knock out enemies. Apart from being unrealistic. Guards should have a set path, and not intervene with other guard paths. Also, how many guard shifts can there be, when the player plays a mission, for, like. 2 to 4 hours? And, different players take a different amount of time in missions. Some rush through, some explore every little corner of a map. For timed events: I strongly dislike them. Especially as the mission and the objectives must be very well designed, otherwise the player could stumble across the map, not knowing what to do and where to go to reach the objective before the timer ends. I also don't like the hassle. I like to take my time, and enjoy exploring a lot of the map, and, timed events make that impossible most often. There is a reason why none or only the least missions feature all this.

Not that I want to dicuss this here in any way, but, that doesn't seem very healthy to me. Rather the exact opposite. Unless you call saving people from themselves healthy. Anyway. I think it's great that he still does mapping.

I finished this the other day, and I really liked it. Nice, round mission. Maybe a tad packed full of stories (NPC's and readables), due to the small size, that felt a bit exaggerated. Overall, really solid mission, especially considering that it has been your first mission.

I read about it. Think I rather do it in real life though. Although that already isn't the most fun...