kingsal
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Posts posted by kingsal
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I am little late to the party but congrats @greebo , thanks for the dedication and keeping DR rockin!
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2 hours ago, demagogue said:
To be technical about it, "nosound" is a script function to stop a speaker. "Silence" is an actual sound .wav file that plays nothing, so you can still have the speaker "play" an arbitrary .wav file, e.g., for the ambient system, then use that to easily not get a sound, as you might do in the popping case as mentioned... Or that was the theory. (The popping problem was fixed after I added that, but I was never 100% sure that was the fix that did it.)
Oh interesting, I assumed nosound was an actual shader because it shows up as one in DR- I guess that's just a placeholder for the script.
I know that using silence.ogg instead of silence_stereo.ogg for stereo ambient tracks used to mess up the bit rates. I haven't tried removing the silence line all together to see if the popping effect still persists in 2.10. Good to know! -
On 6/27/2022 at 1:15 PM, snatcher said:
I can very well be wrong but I think Kingsal expected players to play his mission in a particular way. Just like any other author that spends a good deal of time building a map, creating new objects and textures, thinking of a story, programming new mechanics, publishing... In TDM at least, I find it hard to believe that author's desire is for players to first kill each and every entity there is and only then explore a soulless arena.
Haha, I would say that's definitely not the intended experience, but its a valid one no doubt.
I for sure fumble my way through building these missions, so its not always crystal clear what my *exact* intentions are despite all the effort. Maybe ill do a kind of post mortem write up on this mission. The deadline forced me to streamline my process a bit and have slightly more concrete goals up front.
With regards to how I intend a mission to play out- I definitely have some idea of a loose fantasy I'm trying to sell (in this case some mix of Indiana Jones, Resident Evil and DnD dungeon crawling). However, I try not to be overly controlling in how players experience that fantasy. Its a weird dance; it feels like being a hopeful shepherd sometimes; "Please find this key, please use a rope arrow here, please sneak around this guard
" There are definitely tools in the author's toolbox for wrangling a player, but in the spirit of Thief, I think a lot of TDM missions try to obscure the author's hand. They strive to showcase the player's actions, creativity, or skills while funneling the player towards a goal. This is a good reason for why I wouldn't spawn more monsters in this particular mission. I want to keep the player focused and feeling like they're making progress. Not saying spawning monsters is bad by itself. I actually think it would support parts of the fantasy in Hazard, but I suspect it would require reworking huge parts of the mission to make it work. Like changing the main objective to kill all the zombies vs collect all the loot. You know what I mean?
All that being said, I actually love watching people play missions in crazy ways I never expected. The mission still needs to *work* on some level which is a whole other topic, but I love that a mission can be approached in so many different and even whacky ways.
Once again, thanks for playing and making suggestions. I'm taking away a lot of thoughts and ideas from this.-
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17 hours ago, datiswous said:
Wouldn't it be better if only one "word" would be used for both? So "nosound" also for ambiant tracks?
It would, but they require different properties in the sound shader and therefore need unique names. The ambient tracks need a silent "buffer" sound played when the player transitions from one location to the next. This prevents audio popping.
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Hello! yeah you can use the following spawnargs:
"snd_open" "nosound" = when button is activated
"snd_close" "nosound" = when button reaches its destination (probably nosound by default)
"snd_move" "nosound = when button is moving (usually a looping sound, probably nosound by default)
Just for future reference: "nosound" does not work for ambient tracks. Use "silence" instead. -
In this mission it takes 1 headshot to kill a zombie on normal/ hard and on expert it takes 2 ( or 1 to the head and 1 to the body). I appreciate the discussion, but I'll be keeping the headshot rules as they are.
As for adding new mechanics and AI to my missions- I like doing it and will continue to do so!-
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8 hours ago, datiswous said:
I did report the save crash before, you can read it in this thread. On that occasion a reinstall had no effect.
You're on Linux though. So they could be two unrelated issues.
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Congrats ! I can't wait to play this one!
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@McPhisto2051Hmm I'm stumped tbh. I would suggest doing a clean install of TDM, delete it completely and reinstall just in case.
@ObsttorteThanks for looking into this!
@snatcherThanks for giving it a try and giving notes on the save mechanic. I'm thinking of making a sequel someday where I refine and balance the idea
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8 minutes ago, McPhisto2051 said:
ofc, I upgraded from 2.10beta to 2.10 release before I downloaded new missions...
also looked for some kind of crash report but didnt find any...
And yeah, I could play on lower difficulties but I always play on the hardest ^^Alright just double checking.
Would you mind PMing me those save game files (unless they are both 0kb) and your fms/hazard/qconsole.log if it exists. -
12 minutes ago, McPhisto2051 said:
ofc not
on a normal Win10 PC with more than ok'ish specs. If I can save every 2 minutes its no problem but if you're limited and then it crashes it kills the mood
Yeah sorry about that
. The only reports Ive had about corrupted saves where on Linux. It's odd that its 0kb. Unfortunately, there isn't much help I can offer here. If you have the energy you could play it on Normal or Hard. Thanks for giving the mission a shot though.
EDIT: Something is definitely broken- the mission should not be creating saves named "Save_1" - Just double checking you are using TDM 2.10? -
@McPhisto2051Ah damn. Are you playing on Linux? There is a known bug with the save system. The saves should be labelled and not generic names like "save_1"
Otherwise, I am not sure what happened here. The save system is still very new to tdm. -
1 minute ago, chakkman said:
@kingsalFair enough. It's your decision. I won't play it. No hard feelings.
None taken.
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6 hours ago, chakkman said:
E.g., I think save rooms as done in Kingsal's mission are absolutely horrible. Even if it's only on expert difficulty. What if I want the expert objectives, but don't want to be restricted to only saving in save rooms? Yeah, bummer.
Well, guess its a bad mission then since bad games restrict players
EDIT: In all seriousness, I've had lengthy discussions about the save room mechanic. The only way to really do it is to commit to it and balance the level and objectives around it. Or find a clever way to make it optional- through items bought in the store, optional objectives, whatever. I like some of @snatcher's suggestions.-
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Thank you! Glad you liked them.
You know that sound might be a part of the ambient track. To be honest- I didn't really know what I was doing with ambients back then. Also send me your save game and Ill have a look.
2 hours ago, Trueblue1878 said:Thoroughly enjoyable though and could easily have been designed by LGS. Do you have any more missions planned?
Thank you, thats very high praise. I have two more volta missions in the works; one should will be done by the end of summer and the next probably late this year depending on my schedule.
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3 hours ago, Trueblue1878 said:
I can't figure out what the first secret in Volta II is about? Surely too elaborate for just 25g and a Fire Arrow! Any hints?
Thats it! Its just to hint at a faction you'll encounter later on in the campaign and give another little area to explore.
Big vibrating noise?QuoteMaybe the horn you blow at the end?
A lot of the secrets and extra items are there for additional replays- I don't expect players to find everything in one play through. That key should unlock the gate if its the one I am thinking of. Might be a bug actually -
It's definitely something worth exploring imo. I played around with this in Hazard Pay- it was kind of a mixed bag of players that liked and didn't like it. To be honest, I learned a lot and made some mistakes, but I think it can be a lot of fun for some and gives the mission that extra level of intensity and survivalist feel.
I did something similar to resident evil. Save rooms with save items that you collect throughout the level. I ended up only doing it on expert and to be honest it was difficult to test and balance. However, I'm always up for playing missions with more options for difficulty, including save restrictions. -
@marblemanAgreed, I don't think we should change the core functions of the ladder, especially if its going to change the stealth gameplay (probably to some peoples dismay)
18 hours ago, Daft Mugi said:I decided I probably don't have anything else of value to contribute to this topic, since I would just be repeating myself a lot. So, yeah, I felt frustrated repeating myself a lot. And, because I felt drained from so much disagreement with my contributions thus far, I thought it would be better to not participate anymore on this topic and to let everyone know that.
I feel ya there, for what its worth I 100 percent support adding a toggle crouch on release feature. We just need to be diligent about changes to core movement as they can have a cascading effect on the mod and its 100+ missions. You've already shown the path forward its just going to take some time to make sure it all dove tails with the core mod.
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On 6/20/2022 at 1:59 AM, Obsttorte said:
I never intented nor wrote that.
I never said you did, bud.
By "usability options" I mean things like crouch toggle responsiveness. Not gameplay approaches.
@stgatilovI did some further testing, we should probably allow players to grab ladders/ ropes while in a crouch position or we run the risk of breaking missions that allow players to climb to a ladder in small space, like a sewer or attic.
EDIT: Ill do more testing, but I am pretty worried about the effect this will have on missions if we change the rules around when/ how a ladder can be grabbed.
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I dont see a problem with adding those cvars, however we should not default to the new behavior, especially without thorough testing. It might satisfy a few players, but has the potential to irritate a whole swatch of people who are used to it being the current way.
The best case would be a toggle crouch behavior setting in the settings menu. Players can then customize from there using cvars. -
3 minutes ago, Daft Mugi said:
Do you have tdm_crouch_toggle_hold_time set to a really high value?
What is the penalty?
I agree. Earlier, I mentioned real life versus game life in this thread.
Mine is set to default "tdm_crouch_toggle_hold_time" "400"
Its a speed penalty, just like when crouch walking, which actually makes me wonder if it also reduces climbing sounds. -
On 6/19/2022 at 1:43 PM, Daft Mugi said:
Regular-crouch players cannot attach to a ladder while crouching, because they will immediately slide. They must stand before attaching to a ladder.
Incorrect. https://www.dropbox.com/s/l5m3j6ks5nc2dw5/The Dark Mod 2.10_64 2022-06-19 13-50-29.mp4?dl=0
On 6/19/2022 at 1:43 PM, Daft Mugi said:Why penalize the player for using ladders? Ladders felt awful in TDM until I learned that regular crouch felt normal. I fixed the speed issue for toggle crouch by making it the same as regular crouch.
I don't think you read my response. There is a speed penalty to being crouched on a ladder when you grab it in a crouched position.
On 6/19/2022 at 1:43 PM, Daft Mugi said:Regular-crouch players cannot be crouched on a ladder. Also, people cannot exactly "crouch" on a ladder in real life. Why make toggle crouch this way?
Regardless of what you can and can't do in real life, TDM is not a real life simulator. Our goal is to make the game fun while still offering as many usability options as we can manage. We'll make toggle crouch on press, but we'll need to do it with the least amount of wake on 100+ missions.
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29 minutes ago, stgatilov said:
Note that the lightgem indicator does not reflect whether player is currently crouched, it shows "crouch intent" --- whether player wants to be crouched or not. For instance, when you go through a pipe, you can toggle crouch and the indicator near lightgem will toggle too, but the player will stay crouched all the time.
Huh interesting, I didn't realize that. I don't think that changes my thoughts much, but its good to know there is an intent there.
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This is an interesting problem. I played around with ladders a bit today.
@stgatilov I agree that we should not dramatically change the current ladder behavior if we can help it. To @Obsttorte's point, it is unrealistic to climb a ladder while crouched. However I think the speed penalty there is fair and the alternative solutions really suck:
- Not allowing players to grab a ladder from crouch will break expectations and likely break some stealth encounters.
- Arbitrarily popping the players head up when they grab a ladder will be doing an action without an input, which is typically not desirable and also might break stealth encounters.
Here are my observations:- The interesting thing is you can "stand up" on a ladder, but cannot go back to a crouch (however the lightgem says otherwise). Unless there is a reason for this, I don't see any harm in animating the players head back to a crouch position to match the light gem response. Once again, the speed penalty there seems fair and mimics the core movement mechanics.
- IMO - Toggle crouch should always keep the player crouched. So with it on, ladders and sliding both happen in a crouched position. At some speed penalty
- I agree with @stgatilov having an undesired crouch/ stand state change at the end of sliding sucks. Can we negate that key release all together? Crouch toggle of course will just keep you in a crouch state regardless?
Fan Mission: Snowed Inn by Goldwell & Kingsal (2019/12/25)
in Fan Missions
Posted
@chakkman @Shadow Glad you liked the mission!
Hiding the items in this mission was definitely tricky, we obviously want players to find them but not feel like we just gave them away. Tough balance there.
I agree the Bag World is tough because its full of giant loot.. and you need to figure out what you can steal and what you cant. The idea there was you can only take "normal" sized things out of the bag , but we couldn't figure out a great way to signal that. Thanks again for playing.