demagogue

Heh, I'm still regularly using my first Paint Shop install from like 1998. It's just a really small portable program that I know inside-out, and I can do a lot of things faster & just as well in it than the monoliths we have today.

There are so many things that have probably fallen through the cracks. If you ever look through old threads from TTLG or here, probably even most of the links and screenshots will be broken. I guess it's the nature of working through an online digital medium. Practically whatever platform you pick is going to be unreliable over a long period in one way or another. It's really good that you found the code for this at least & that you seem to be getting back on the horse, so to speak, as far as being a fan contributor.

That might be a fun exercise to try. You have a part of the city hub, with your apartment, a store to spend loot, and a job list where you can pick the next mission, either linearly or maybe you can have several FMs to choose from, and when you finish the mission, it brings you back to the hub with the loot added to your total to spend. I wonder if you could do that without needing to change the source code. It'd be really interesting to try out! But if it did require source code change, maybe you could put it out as a patch and the hub mission. It's worth looking into.

You're using a dark theme & he copy/pasted black text in. You could click-select or cntl+a higlight the text and probably read it that way, or copy & paste it into a text doc. I wonder if the forum could have code that converts text color appropriately to the forum theme, although it's not the highest priority issue anyway. Anyway, to respond, database errors happen sometimes, and it's usually fixed by the time the admin sees the alert and has some free time to fix whatever the issue is, which usually isn't that hard. The forum is back up now anyway. Edit: I say that and now it's down again. Well hopefully whatever the problem is gets reliably fixed soon!

Well in the campaign I scripted, Inventors are pulling a lot of strings behind the scenes and they have a very old lineage, Keeper-like. I think of them like the Illuminati or maybe Masons or Templars in real world history, or anyway the mythic version, not necessarily the real version, or a public face of a group like that for Bridgeport. I'm just saying, like everything we have for mappers to work with, or like comic book characters, they can be whatever a mapper want to make them within a kind of boundary of people buying it, which depends on how well the mapper can sell the story. I think their potential is bigger than one might think at first. Well the main point is that they're the best placed faction that could play that role, compared to any of the other factions. You work with what you've got. Okay, you can come up with your own faction and throw it in too, but it'll probably hit harder to work with what we've already got.

TDM has its own kind of mystery cult in the Inventors, although FMs haven't really developed them in that direction. When I scripted my campaign, portraying them as a mystery cult was an important theme in my story anyway, which my released FM just hints at as a prequel.

Al_B, the admin, explained the reason in a post on the Facebook page that they were being overrun with bots and scans, so he shut the main portal down until they subsided. But anyway it's fixed now. Edit: It was more than that. He put in some kind of bot scrubber code to ... I don't know, do whatever bot scrubber code does to ward of the bots.

Campaigns take a ton of work, even more so for an individual or very small team, and we're a small community. There are a lot of half-made campaigns that never got released. And actually we usually tell new mappers to start with smaller missions just to learn how to make a good mission. It takes a lot of work just to get to the level where a mapper is ready to make a campaign too. That's why when there is a good campaign that comes out, it's a marvel that it actually gets released. I agree it'd be fantastic to see more of them, including the fact that missions are even better when they have that continuity and things like being able to spend your loot for the next mission, for sure.

The official releases of System Shock 1 & 2 and Thief 1 & 2 also include fan patches in them. Well typically these games have a clause buried in the license that they own modifications too, so that's gonna be the reason why, and they're going to quietly presume they own the whole thing without digging into it, which might not be really kosher, but nobody disputes it -- except I recall the maker of the SS2 patch Kolya was a little miffed that his patch was put into the commercial release, or rather that they restricted it's use outside of the product while integrating it, since he wanted to keep it freely available & not to make a company money, although he granted that they had the legal right to do it. TDM is a little special just because it's a non-commercial game, idTech4 was open sourced, or anyway GPL'd, and about the only thing we restrict is that assets are under a CC license. The disputes we sometimes get aren't really about the license so much as tact & courtesy, e.g., to not recycle or change someone else's map as one's own, or at least you should get their consent first.

Practically speaking, to get on to Steam you also need to formalize the team as a legal entity, which brings up stuff like tax filings, a board of directors and executives, reporting requirements, etc., that I think nobody was keen to take on or hand over to others to take on. To begin with, it'd change the whole character of the team & the project a lot, I think. I forgot the issues with GOG and Itch now. I think everybody admitted it sounds good in principle at least. It's just herding cats when you get into the details, and half the cats are missing. That's before you even get to the actual mess with all the licenses. --- I noticed in the credits of Blendo Game's Skin Deep, when I played it recently, that there's a credit for the TDM Engine, from which he evidently lifted some things for his game. Brendon has long been making his games with Doom engines, so there's a reason he did that. I'd say he's also a friend of the community. He's visited the forum & is known for his games & thinking on immersive sims. But the point is that there's an example of someone branching off the TDM engine for a commercial project (that's also on Steam BTW). So if you have questions about it, that's someone you can contact to ask about it. I'm sure it matters that probably none of the assets carried over, though, only the game engine, or parts of it.

Cool. I remember back in the day I was advocating that the team should release asset packs that combine fan-contributed assets in a map like this, laid out kind of like an Ikea, which would make it so much easier for mappers to grab what they want and plug it into their own maps than have to trawl through threads searching for things. The idea never really took off, but it's good that convergent evolution led others to having the same idea at least for their own assets anyway. Oh also, these chests all look great, so good work on that!

I saw an announcement for this and I thought it was some little fan project, but this is a legit new game. The aesthetic was respectable but a bit too "clean". How is it that modern graphics can never quite capture the dingy authentic look of the days when light was baked in? I don't have experience with VR, but in principle the hands gameplay is an interesting innovation. Well, I'll give it the same hope I've given every Thief game since TDS.

I don't think I'll use it, or at least as it is now, but it looks like you've executed the concept pretty well. Congrats on the good work! It does add a layer of immersion or feeling of being embodied in the world. If I were working on this, I'd probably pour a crazy amount of time on polishing the look and feel of the models and animations, and in that frame of mind, these videos strike me as more proof of concept waiting for that polish. But I also recognize the challenge of that. I remember those videos showing a third person view of the Mirror's Edge player character. That's a case where the visible arms was done very well, but when you see the 3P view, it's really obvious how exaggerated and unnaturally the models and animations were made to fit the view to the player camera, and look completely bizarre from any other angle. It gives you an idea of how much fine tuning goes into it. But of course there are different levels this could be at, and some people may already really like how it is now, or you have a target look & feel you're aiming for. But anyway, overall I think in terms of executing the concept, you've done a great job, and if I have any push-back or constructive feedback it's on the look & feel of it in this version. Edit: Well, one other thing, if you're not specifically using your hands--in idle, walking, and running--I don't think one's hands are just hovering in front of a person. It actually looks tiring. I think they'd periodically swing slightly into view while walking and running, and maybe a little in idle.

No not our group, another Game Club group for playing and talking about games. They've been making icons for all the games they've played, and they wanted one for Darkmod, since that's one of the games we played, and I helped them find it. I was thinking, now that they've made it, we ought to give it to the Darkmod Discord group as well, or anyone else that may want it. I don't really know anything about Discord, but I figure I can just give an admin (or anybody else that wants it for any other reason) the raw file, whatever it is, and they can do whatever it is they do with it. Anyway I'll ask them for the file and attach or link to it here so anyone can just take it. I'll try to remember to do that at some point. I've hung out in the Darkmod Discord sometimes, but I'll grant it's not often, it's been a while, and even when I visit I won't be really posting. But I'm not really spending much if any time on any Discord group I'm a member of, not just that one.

As a quick update, the one I found, which is basically what datiswous posted as well, does the job perfectly fine. The icon ended up looking great. Actually it's for Discord. We have a Discord emoji and sticker now if anybody else wants them. So I don't need anything more. But I like the discussion y'all are having about a 3D version for future uses like this. It's not something I need now, so not something I'd work on, but if someone ever did make one, I'd be happy to see it.

Hi, I'd like to use the golden clock icon of this website, the one in the corner up there, as an icon for TDM stuff. Does anyone know where I can get a high resolution image of the full clock that I can use, or just attach one to a post here or something like that? I tried searching for it and couldn't find it actually, just either partial versions or versions covered with text, etc. Cheers. Edit: This is the best version I can find but still has text in front of it. Edit2: I found this version https://www.steamgriddb.com/grid/416897 which comes from this page: https://www.steamgriddb.com/game/5252610 That may work if I can't find one better. But if anyone knows where a better or more HR version is, let me know.

I meant it's not the team's responsibility to ensure backwards compatibility, at least if it's some special case (they use a deprecated system in a weird way that breaks, which is how it usually if very rarely happens). It's just managing mapper expectations that there's a small chance their FM may become broken in the indefinite future if they do that. But I basically agree with stgatilov that this, and the other things he mentioned, aren't really the job of the TOS but some "Read this before you submit an FM" note. Edit: Oh one thing about disgruntled mappers though, in my own org we'd have some term that if there is a dispute between the mapper and the organization, they agree to good faith private negotiations and failing that arbitration instead of going to court. But we've never had any dispute to that level. By the way, I don't do IP law professionally (although I took the class). I work in a different area. So I don't necessarily know anything anybody couldn't learn with a few hours online research. But it makes sense to have a statement that our terms disallow illegal or infringing material so there can't be any claim that the forum / team condones or invites it, mostly as a formality. If I were tasked with making a TOS, the first thing I'd do is find a number of other TOS's out there for similar projects and use them as a template or starting point. The bigger the org, the more likely it was vetted by their lawyers. If there are terms they almost all share, that's a sign they're the important ones. There's also the part about creating or modifying a TOS mid-stream, after 100s of FMs were released under whatever terms they were at the time (I haven't looked at it recently).

Yeah the reason you'd mention no illegal or infringing material is for us to be able to say we're acting in good faith, if somebody finds their IP in an FM, they can't or it's not as straightforward to want to sue us for it. In practice I think it's more of a formality. As for FMs that don't finish or have buggy elements, there are demo-like or novelty FMs that might have both of those. Somebody mentioned the Tutorial itself. I wouldn't want to discourage somebody being creative, and I'd probably word it differently. Something like FMs should be "complete" before being submitted, but leaving it technically open what "complete" means. I guess it might give some examples "... including but not necessarily in special cases ..." that it starts and ends, is not egregiously buggy, does not consistently crash, etc. But I think even here it should be an encouragement instead of a hard rule, like we encourage mappers to get their FMs beta-tested, confirm that it starts and finishes, doesn't consistently crash, before submitting, and we may ask that you work on an FM more before uploading it if it is manifestly broken "without justification" (to leave open the possibility of "broken" FMs with a justification, like a novelty FM). Some of you might remember that TTLG ran a "buggy FM" contest once where broken FMs was actually the theme, and it was an amazing contest. Some of those FMs were broken in very creating, fun, and interesting ways, and it might be good to have FMs like that sometimes. The intentionality part was important though; you could have something broken if that's part of the artistic intention, so language that could leave something like that open may be good, or again encouraging people to always betatest and avoid unintentional crashing or broken FMs, etc. Because of past experience, we might also have language to give expectations regarding possible changes after they submit. Like an alert that while we make every effort to make sure future changes to the game are backwards compatible, it's possible a change breaks an FM. Also other people may want to take assets or things from the FM for their own FM, so we should say that technically, when you submit, you agree to the license we have for our assets (I forget exactly, CC-nc something something). So under that license people can use those assets. If you don't want that, you might make a personal appeal in the readme... The other worry is when people just take big chunks of the map itself, or make their own levels in the same maps... I wonder if we could have people make explicit what they consent to having done to their maps post release, if they allow the translation file, other people to use their map work, etc. But make it clear that the map is under the CC license, which allows people to use anything from it, and they can make a personal appeal that isn't binding, but people may be moved by it. And then we might have our own internal standards what seems egregious enough not to allow, like if someone completely takes another person's map and basically tries to recycle it under their own name, or when it's a team made map and the team disagrees what happens to it. Anyway, whatever we think, it's good to have language about it here to help manage expectations about what might happen, so it's good to think about what we should say to minimize conflict later on.

Another seasonal must-play is Snowed Inn. I'd recommend it as a great bite-sized FM even aside from the snow.

I take it this is the reason why my browser just said there's a security risk visiting this site and stopped me from visiting until I approved it, and that will go away when this certificate is reset.

He's right though. The first step in any feature request is to make an entry in the bugtracker, so it's in a list, and it gets discussed and developed from there. It just gets buried and forgotten about if it's only in a thread. I was going to do it myself, but it apparently takes some time to dig through the entries even with the filter.

If I were designing it from the ground up, I'd have a top row of small boxes designated for weapons ordered numerically, actually now that I think about it, with the ability to rearrange objects into those boxes so the designated object pops up when you push 1-9 on the keyboard, Minecraft style.

The info_location location can cover multiple portal rooms though, and often times can be quite large, such as an entire mansion or neighborhood if the mapper wanted the same ambient playing for it. It'd probably be better to get the portal room, the internal number dmapping gives to that room, if you were going that route, although that's more complicated to work with. But actually I'd recommend just a simple radius value from the object, then it's the same amount of space in every case.

First of all thanks for the contribution! For the record I'm a fan of these kinds of fan patches that change some fundamental parts of a game, because I think people have moods that play to different sides of games sometimes. But I don't think changing or adding to the core game is the way to cater to most of them. (Games usually have a natural tendency towards some norms to the exclusion of others, and a good designer respects what their game is telling them it should be.) But having a fan patch with these other styles is the way to do it anyway because we can, and freedom is power. Save restrictions is a good example of this. We do put the number of re-loads in the debrief stat screen. I still agree that that's the best way to deal with these kinds of meta-game things in this kind of genre, so if a person does ghost or ironman a map, the stat screen will verify their claim with a 0 Stealth Score and 0 Reload stats. Having a save room actually changes how the player approaches the gameplay, so it's not just a meta-game thing. It puts it more in the territory of a rogue-like, not quite no-save permadeath, but it raises the stakes. I think that'd be a nice vibe sometimes. I still agree I don't think it's great for the core game because it puts meta things into the game world, which isn't our core vibe. But again a fan patch for it when you're in the mood is a good way to play in that way anyway. I don't know if I'm going to try it any time soon. I might. But in any event I'd be really interested in seeing someone make a let's play video to see it in action.

For T2 FMs, this list from a post is pretty good, starting with the ones in bold, but it leaves out a lot of the top rated ones on CheapThiefMissions, which covers classic FMs. At least the top 10 on that site are also must plays. (I think the link already takes you to the ordered list, but click the "Rating" button to make sure it's ordered by rating if it's not already.) And for recent FMs, there's the Thief Guild's top rated list.