MirceaKitsune

TDM contains three weapons: The blackjack, the sword, and the bow. Since the main focus is stealth rather than combat, and each weapon has its well defined purpose, I believe this is a good setup which shouldn't be heavily changed. At the same time however, I find the existing weapons a bit monotonic and rigid, and you get used to them pretty soon. Another problem is that the AI can wield a few more weapons compared to players... for instance, guards use either a sword or a hammer, but there's no hammer for the player. It's occasionally disappointing to find objects around the world that look like weapons, but using them only lets you move them around, not actually equip them. So I wanted to suggest a modification, which new maps could use to make weapons more varied without changing their meaning. The idea is to have not three fixed weapons (blackjack + sword + bow) but instead three categories of weapons (melee knockout + melee lethal + arrow launcher). By default, they would of course be occupied by the existing weapons, so normal behavior doesn't change. However, mappers could define objects in the world that match each category, and can be swapped with the weapon of that type the player is already carrying. Alternatively, there could simply be a limited number of weapon and arrow slots, which players can fill with whatever they wish in any order they desire... but this might require heavier changes and different inventory handling, and I'm not sure if missions could define their own weapons entirely. In regard to functionality, different weapons could have slightly different traits. For example: A short sword could swing more often but deals less damage, while a long sword would "refire" slower but cause more harm. Being longer, a long sword could also block a greater amount of damage when parring attacks. To compensate, a short sword could draw less attention when held (1 less light-gem level increase). Some maps could also offer a wooden crossbow, which replaces the existing bow when picked up. It of course works with all arrow types, but can shoot further and reload faster. Random practical example: The player begins a mission and starts with the existing default weapons. At some point however, they find a crowbar in an obscure area on a street. If clicking this crowbar to use it, the player drops the blackjack and replaces it with the crowbar on the same slot (key #1). The crowbar works exactly like the blackjack and knocks players out, but could have slightly different traits in comparison... such as a slightly longer range (advantage) but making a bit of noise and potentially attracting attention if other enemies are nearby (disadvantage). To be clear: I'm not suggesting this because I consider the existing weapons or balance bad, quite the contrary! I just think that having the same 3 weapons all the time, in contrast to such a complex and varied world, gets a bit boring and limited. Since TDM is so much about interacting with your environment, finding and using more variations of the existing weapon types would add an extra fun element. Overall, a more flexible weapon system of some sort might be welcome. Would anyone else like this in some form, and do any of the developers agree with such an idea?

Done, thanks for the suggestion.

This is an issue with this forum, not TDM itself. I didn't find another area to report this, so I hope it's still the correct place. I was just surprised to see that for some odd reason, specific topics on the forum cannot be accessed due to a server error. In essence, all topics work fine... except one, which tells me "The page isn't redirecting properly" when I go to it. How can this be, and can an admin look into the issue please? Here's a link to the topic in cause: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/12894-fan-mission-#48-a-score-to-settle-by-springheel-20110701/ [EDIT] Renamed this into a general thread for forum bugs introduced by the software upgrade, as suggested below.

I know... my fear of spiders can lead to silly things, and will certainly give me a hard time with many TDM missions And thanks, I'll consider that hint and might look again later.

Ah... I see now.

I read somewhere that the code for interactive surfaces is part of the engine, and accessible via scripting. Does this mean that even a map for the existing game code could use them, via a custom map script? Or would TDM require some changes to re-add support for this? What about cameras mounted on walls, and the ability to see a live image feed on a screen from a different point on the map? Otherwise I personally think 90% of the effort would be new assets only. Since apart from the simple weapon system and limitations to interactive computers, the existing functionality should be perfect as it is: Guards would still patrol the area and navigate geometry the same way, doors would still be unlocked or lock-picked all the same, objectives and loot would be handled as they are now, etc. It's mostly a matter of changing animations, models, textures, and sounds... or at least it seems like that should work. And I'm not sure if this would mean an entire fork of TDM... I hope not since those usually divide a project. I was thinking they could simply be a new pk4 archive, which people who want modern missions can download separately and add to their darkmod folder. Problem is that, if modern missions would be distributed via the mission download menu, this package would have to be included with TDM. And that could be considered as changing its theme and direction, so I imagine this would involve rather major changes. Namely that TDM would no longer be considered "a platform for stealth games taking place in a medieval setting", but instead "a platform for stealth games"... meaning it wouldn't be related to a specific environment and could be more generic. If this wouldn't ruin its image or upset anyone, it doesn't sound like a bad thing to me really... of course it's not something for me to speak about, as such would be a sensitive admin matter.

I haven't finished playing all TDM missions. But at this moment, this is my absolute favorite! That's because it's the mission with the best story and action, and the best sense of something going on. It actually felt like I played an entire original game (of Doom 3 length), not just a single mission for TDM. Whether it's a sequel / prequel to this or something completely new, I can't wait for the next mission you will be making! You're very skilled at making not just good looking maps with good gameplay, but also giving missions a purpose and vivid or surprising elements.

This was a nice mission. Difficult and pressurizing, but not excessively. It is however a bit confusing, and you can easily end up in a bad situation which renders success impossible:

The first thing I absolutely loved was the forest. I haven't seen an outdoor environment of this scale and detail in another TDM map, so certainly a huge +1 to that! As for the rest... well it did a fantastic job at creating a very scary and morbid and claustrophobic environment. The worst part was when I got to the underground area... which contained giant spiders, for which I have a phobia IRL. To get through that area, I had to take on the challenge of playing from 3 meters away from my monitor (yay for wireless keyboard + mouse) with sound off and the window sized down to 800 x 600... which overall was fun and a sight people would have probably enjoyed seeing for laughs

Just played this one yesterday, so it's fresh in my memory. It has everything you'd expect from a good mission: Proper detail, moderate length, as well as a few secret areas to jump around and find. As with most missions however, I would have loved seeing an outro as well, not only an intro.

I recently found TDM, and this is among the missions I got to play so far. I can't say it had a great appearance or story, and it was kinda short. But it did a good job at being scary, so thumbs up at that

Between the two, I only played Exhumed so far. I can tell you it gave me some good scares... so +1 to that I shall certainly try Briarwood Cathedral as well soon!

I saw this and voted during the last hour before it closed. Curious what the result will be

I don't have a Rift yet, but plan to get one next year or later if I can't then. I do however have red-cyan glasses, and would be happy if stereoscopic rendering was implemented for them as well. In either case, support for VR headsets is totally something I'm interested in!

Nice, that seems to have fixed it. Also the wxWidgets error is gone, and DarkRadiant compiled at last! I hope the solution you added will go into the mainstream branch too.

32bit libraries have to be installed and maintained separately for Linux... which can sometimes be a problem, especially when compiling the engine yourself. There are many threads about Linux users having issues running x32 software on x64 OS'es. 64bit could also be faster in some areas, which I know it doesn't mean performance magically getting better in all regards but still. I additionally imagine that 32bit could stop being supported on some Linux distributions or even some hardware within the next 10 years, and a 64bit engine could become a requirement for people with a modern computer. It is after all an outdated architecture which nearly all ongoing programs have replaced by now (still offering both 32bit and 64bit versions). I also suspect that some issues with sound getting cut off are 32bit related. Currently I need to run TDM via the "aoss" wrapper... and if I press esc to go to the main menu while in a game, the sound becomes a mess and I need to restart. I searched about the problem, and from what I understand it might lie between PulseAudio and the architecture.

It doesn't seem to compile for me either. Apparently scons doesn't detect the 32bit libraries, although they are there. For example, it detects /usr/lib64/libGLU.so, notices it's incompatible, but doesn't find an /usr/lib/libGLU.so. This appears to be because for some reason, openSUSE names the symlink for "lib64" libglu.so but the one for "lib" libglu.so.1. As for the other one, lib64/libglu.so versus lib/libglu.so.1.10. Likely improper packaging, but since I don't wish to hack system files this can hopefully be fixed in the scons settings so it detects the libraries differently. I am now able to compile the mainstream engine from SVN, so I imagine the issue is specific to this fork. /usr/lib64/gcc/x86_64-suse-linux/4.8/../../../../x86_64-suse-linux/bin/ld: skipping incompatible /usr/lib64/gcc/x86_64-suse-linux/4.8/../../../libGLU.so when searching for -lGLU /usr/lib64/gcc/x86_64-suse-linux/4.8/../../../../x86_64-suse-linux/bin/ld: skipping incompatible /usr/lib64/libGLU.so when searching for -lGLU /usr/lib64/gcc/x86_64-suse-linux/4.8/../../../../x86_64-suse-linux/bin/ld: cannot find -lGLU /usr/lib64/gcc/x86_64-suse-linux/4.8/../../../../x86_64-suse-linux/bin/ld: skipping incompatible /usr/lib64/gcc/x86_64-suse-linux/4.8/../../../libGLEW.so when searching for -lGLEW /usr/lib64/gcc/x86_64-suse-linux/4.8/../../../../x86_64-suse-linux/bin/ld: skipping incompatible /usr/lib64/libGLEW.so when searching for -lGLEW /usr/lib64/gcc/x86_64-suse-linux/4.8/../../../../x86_64-suse-linux/bin/ld: cannot find -lGLEW collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status scons: *** [build/release/core/sys/scons/doom] Error 1 scons: building terminated because of errors. real 4m37.949s user 8m43.874s sys 0m36.100s cp: cannot stat ‘thedarkmod.x86’: No such file or directory cp: cannot stat ‘thedarkmod.x86’: No such file or directory rm: cannot remove ‘/usr/include/zlib.h’: Permission denied mv: cannot stat ‘/usr/include/zlib.h.bak’: No such file or directory mircea@linux-qz0r:~/Games/Quake/TheDarkMod/darkmod_experimental_GIT/src>

Nice! Would love to help test this... but I'm on Linux, and don't see a Linux engine provided in the post. I can't compile it from GIT either since there's always some error at one point... the usual ballad of software compilation. If I find some way to get the engine though, I'd like to test... especially since I run the free ATI drivers (MESA & Gallium) where things might always be a little different.

Ouch... I hope that won't pose a problem, and that they can be adapted at some point. Physics at least sound like something that shouldn't be too architecture dependent, but I never worked with idTech 4 so I'm not an expert. 32bit support will be eventually going away I believe, and I hope TDM will still be around and as lively by then.

By "open world" I meant cities like the existing ones, but maybe with more NPC characters and interactive things... so you meet more civilians in various locations and get multiple objectives about different matters from each. I played several missions and TDM handles large maps impressively well... if you learn to bare the huge loading times that is. So size and complexity don't seem like a limitation thankfully. And I thought I heard that Doom 3 went FOSS as a whole, sad to hear it didn't. In either case there are good texture packages under a free license, like the ones I referenced in the first post. Simple objects and map details should be a piece of cake to find or model... if other people get involved in this effort I could attempt that part myself. Creating new weapon and player models would however be some work, and unless there's enough people who want futuristic missions on top of TDM no one might bother. But just like Thief, DeusEx was also pretty popular and loved, and there are hopefully other DX fans here who I can call to

TDM and most of its players relate a lot to the Thief series. I only remember briefly playing what was probably the first Thief game, over approximately a decade ago... although I agree the idea and series are nice. I did however play a similar series from the same company since my late childhood: DeusEx. In regard to gameplay it's almost exactly like TDM... just that instead of a medieval setting, it's a futuristic one. You use electric batons instead of a blackjack, bullet and plasma weapons instead of a bow, notes you find around the world are digital instead of paper, there are often keypads instead of mechanical locks, and additionally computers you can hack or log into. Just like Thief fans created TDM out of a dream to make a FOSS game similar to it, I've been dreaming of creating an open world with stealth elements where the action takes place in a futuristic city during a modern dark age. TDM already has the layout for exactly what I seek! Just one problem: There are no assets of this sort. No modern weapons, no computers or keypads, no robots to patrol the streets, so on. Obviously it's meant to take place in a steampunk setting, and I wouldn't suggest something as radical as changing that by default. But I was wondering if maybe, it could be possible to create a sci-fi package containing models / textures / sounds / entities for a futuristic city setting, alike to DeusEx - Invisible War. Which could be distributed as a mod, or even included if simply having the assets as part of TDM wouldn't ruin its theme. Apart from having the right assets, there's also an additional problem: Some mechanics for modern worlds don't exist in the code itself. First of all this affects weapons: There's only one bow which shoots different arrows, and no way to implement a taser + pistol + shotgun + machine gun + sniper. Second problem is computers and keypads: There are currently no mechanics to make a monitor show an interactive window when used... in which you type a username or password to get a list of emails, a menu from which you can lock or unlock doors, activate or deactivate bots, and especially see images from cameras mounted around the map (which would involve the engine rendering from perspectives additional to your first person view). I imagine that a few of these things could be fixed via scripting, but not all. Still, even with the current game code, a modern city environment would be somewhat possible. The model and animation of the existing bow could be replaced with a metal crossbow, and arrows given a metallic body instead of wood. The blackjack could look like a police baton, while the sword could be turned into a modern combat knife. Computer screens could simply act like existing books, and use a screen background while printing text you can scroll through. And until real keypads you can type on are introduced, the lock picking sounds and door animations could resemble hacking a digital lock. The rest is a matter of replacing leather clothing with modern civilian clothes or armor, gas lamps with modern street lamps, and adding modern props like trash bins + cars + vending machines + soda bottles + etc. The good part is that there are already a lot of assets that could be used. Famous texture packages include trak5, philipk, ex, and possibly more (those can be found in Nexuiz / Xonotic). Example 1, example 2, example 3. I'm not sure under what license the Doom 3 assets were released under... since being able to use the weapons and marine characters there would certainly be fantastic! In either case, what are your thoughts on this, and who else wants it? Would a modern environment be possible, and has anyone considered a TDM mod to allow for DeusEx style maps?

Cloned. It doesn't however seem to configure properly, and has a new problem which I'm not getting on the main branch; mircea@linux-qz0r:~/Games/Quake/TheDarkMod/DarkRadiant> make CDPATH="${ZSH_VERSION+.}:" && cd . && aclocal-1.14 -I m4 /bin/sh: aclocal-1.14: command not found Makefile:517: recipe for target 'aclocal.m4' failed make: *** [aclocal.m4] Error 127 mircea@linux-qz0r:~/Games/Quake/TheDarkMod/DarkRadiant>

Sure. What is the repository / branch I should try?

Radeon HD 6870. But I heard that MESA had issues supporting 7xxx and 8xxx in the past, and was only guaranteed to work properly with 6xxx cards. I'm not sure if that's still the case with latest MESA version, 10.3. I'd like to know when the latest ATI cards will work well with the free driver, since I'd like to not upgrade my video card until I'm sure. Since I'm clearly into TDM, it would help to know when it works with an 7xxx or 8xxx card.

Thank you for the info! I know that 64 bit over 32 bit doesn't always improve performance visibly, or does so by a small amount in only specific areas... still a good thing however. As for moving more code to the GPU, I hope that doesn't require openCL or a version of openGL greater than 3.1. I use the free video drivers for ATI (MESA / Gallium) over the proprietary one (fglrx), and it tends to have issues with some complex code. So far TDM works perfectly with it, and FPS is as high as I'd expect it, although it could of course be even better.