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Destined

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Posts posted by Destined

  1. Hi all,

    after a longer hiatus, during which I was not very active on the board and only occaisonally visited, I wanted to start up The Dark Mod again (and continue to work on my current map). Since time has not stood still here, I wanted to update first, but when I run the updater, it tells me, that all files are up to date? Have there been bigger changes that require a fresh install, or can this have other reasons?

    If I need a fresh install, could you remind me, hwo to transfer settings. I know, it was not very difficult, but I would like to avoid to miss any files.

    Thank you very much in advance!

  2. On 12/28/2022 at 11:39 PM, MirceaKitsune said:

    I'm trying to help another mapper with an issue, and since this is something I may use personally in some circumstances I wanted to know if it's possible. Can you place an animated model on a map but have it show a static frame from a specific animation? There exists func_animate which I played with a couple of times, but using it this way would need to things: First a way to stop the animation, possibly by setting its speed to 0... also a way to pick which frame you want, possibly by choosing a custom starting frame. Does that entity or any other currently allow this?

    You could try to play around with frame commands: https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Frame_commands

    These commands require you to alter the animation files (so you should create a copy and rename it for this project). Unfortunately, the pause command is listed as "not used yet", but maybe you can circumvent that through a trigger, which then pauses the animation via a script command. Maybe this helps you.

  3. I bought  a set of lockpicks some time ago and tried some time to learn how to use them. After some time I could open easy locks quite reliably, which saved some students of mine the money to buy new padlocks for their lockers, where they locked in the keys. But I never got the hang of opening more difficult locks. I have one five pin door lock, that I can open more or less reliably, but never magaed to open anything with six pins. I think it is fun to try, but usually lack the motivation to practice on a regular basis for more than a couple of days in a row.

    Like Abusimplea I can recommend the Lockpicking Lawyer. Especially his 1st of April videos are hilarious 😄

    • Like 1
  4. On 12/22/2021 at 10:41 PM, Frost_Salamander said:

    Yes I'm doing this as well in HITS2 and my 'other' map.  My main gripe is the lack of options for interiors (wallpaper and plaster), so it would be nice to have a few more options there.

    I read your other post, and indeed it sounds pretty complicated - I was hoping it wouldn't be 😞

    One way to introduce more variability with only medium effort would be to create skins that allow for the use of the "color" spawnarg. I have already done that for a couple of Spingheel's modules, but unfortunately lost the files in a hard disk crash some time ago. Here is the thread about this topic:

     

    • Like 1
  5. But it was transferred to the English language and is used there, like other German words, e.g. kindergarten or schadenfreude. As a German I sometimes stumble on texts or shows that use such words and usually it takes a couple of seconds for me to realise that it was actually German 😅

    • Like 1
  6. In one of Sotha's Thomas Porter Missions (I think Lich Queen's Demise, but am not sure) you had to brew a potion by using items on a kettle. A similar system could be used for crafting, if it could be advanced a little further. E.g. you have a container into which you have to drop the items you want to use to craft. A script checks, if these items are suitable to create something and if they are, they are created. If not, they could removed again from the container. You could place a manual on how to use this (written by the Inventor's Guild if it is supposed to be mechanical or by a Mage if it is supposed to be magical) near it and even spread a couple of recipes around the mission. This would be kind of like the new Prey, where you can create different elemental cubes from scrap and then combine these cubes to create items. You could even consider to use the element part as well: A script checks, which materials are used on the model dropped into a container to create the respective elemental cubes (or spheres or something like that). For crafting the elemental items are used. It could also limit the use to certain moveable items: If they are too big to fit into the container, you cannot use them. This way, you would not affect any earlier missions, while the setup could be saved as a prefab for use in future missions.

    19 hours ago, Abusimplea said:

    As someone who barely uses any single-use equippment, i obviously would have no use fgor crafting in the missions we currently have...

    I think some crafting system would decrease the hesitation to use single-use equipment. I am also an RPG-player, who usually finishes the game with hundrets of potions, because I always keep them for the right occation, just to realise later on that I could have used tons of them without affecting my game later on. I found the Witcher games to have a nice workaround for that. You had a limited amount of potions that you could use at a given time, but could produce them quite easily. This way you could use them without having to fear that you would miss them in the next fight, but still had to give some thought about which ones to use.

    19 hours ago, Abusimplea said:

    - Currently almost no social stealth exists in TDM. Disguises could change that. Maybe steal some clothes, adjust them to your measures and then be recognized as someone else (like in Hitman, but you have to alter the clothes somehow before you can use them successfully).

    There already are some scripts that check if the player is allowed in specific areas (e.g. in Fieldmedic's "No Ordinary Guest"). These should be quite easy to modify to check for certain items in the inventory as an addition to the current location. As usual it would just require a mapper willing to implement it...

  7. Obsttorte made a script some time ago, which emulates the older Thief version of highlighting the room the player is currently in and marking the ones already visited. I cannot really search the forums right now, as I am only on my phone, but it should not be too difficult to find. If I remenber correctly this script uses the location system to achieve the effect and has to be set up by the map author.

    Personally, I agree with people that a mini-map doed not fit TDM. In general, the decision should definitely lie with the map author, so a map generated from the map geometry would be too much and could give too much information. Displaying the ingame map in the corner would be fine, but is also not really necessary in my opinion.

  8. Heilung is actually mostly German (at least the home country of the band members is), but the themes and languages they use are ancient European (and mostly northern). I like them, but it is a kind of music I cannot listen to too much. Especially the poems and spoken passages are quite strenuous at times.

    • Like 1
  9. 13 hours ago, MirceaKitsune said:

    I can see the point and comparison. One thing I'd point out there is that flash arrows are meant to be very different from gas arrows or knowkouts for that matter. They only blind an enemy temporarily so the player can sneak past in a window of a few seconds. No damage dealt to the AI, only a way to incapacitate them for a few seconds.

    If anything I'd find it more similar to the noisemaker in that regard. Though different from that too: This incapacitates the AI instead of drawing them away, though also for the purpose of helping you sneak past them. The flashbomb and flashmine by comparison are tools of escape when you get caught, not usable to get an AI out of the way at a distance which is the gap having an arrow version of it is meant to fill.

    I still cannot really see the need for an arrow. If the guard is so far off that you cannot throw the flash bomb in front of him to blind him, it seems to me that he would also be too far off to require blinding at all. The only advantage of an arrow I could think of would be more preicision, but I think if you practice throwing the flash bomb, you should also get the precision you would need to blind a guards.

    • Like 2
  10. I immediately recognised the first from Fallout 3. Great irony playing the song on a radio in a wasteland after a nuclear blast; I loved it 😄

    Don't know other games using one of these, but the style would fit to Bioshock as well.

    • Like 1
  11. @joebarnin Depending on what exactly you try to achieve and if the teleporter is activated by a script, it may be possible for the script to check if the player is currently climbing? If so, you may be able to delay the teleport until the player has stopped climbing, which in turn would avoid the problem you are having. Not sure if or how this is actually possible, but it may be worth looking into.

    @MirceaKitsune The first spawnargs that would come to mind for me would be "team", "personGender", "personType" and "AIuse", since these mainly affect how AI interact with an entity. However, this only changes how AI interact with the entity, not the other way round. I would assume (at least I have seen no spawnargs that suggest otherwise) that the behaviour of your entity with other AI is hard coded in the entity class. This means you would have to take one of the AI entity classes and manually change all physical properties to match the werebeast/manbeast (e.g. model, animations, skeleton definitions, ik definition, etc.). If you want to try that, I would suggest you the open the def file of an AI entity (e.g. a guard or a civilian) and copy paste any spawnargs from the werebeast/manbeast that appear to have anything to do with animations, models, or other physical interaction. Which ones exactly you need, would be trial an error. It is a lot of work and I am not even sure if this works, but it is the only thing that I can think of.

  12. 2 hours ago, OrbWeaver said:

    Good catch. I never really thought of it like that, but I guess it is inconsistent not to demand evidence for restrictions on direct calls for violence. I suppose I'm not so bothered about this because specifically calling for violence is easy to identify, not likely to be confused with anything else, does not have any fundamental value in terms of discussion[1], and laws against it cannot so easily be abused to forbid dissent from an ideology in the same way that generic "hate speech" so frequently are.

    But there are forms of expression which could literally be interpreted as calling for violence (e.g. "#KillAllWhiteMen") which I don't think should be criminal acts, so perhaps it is better to keep an open mind even in this category.

    [1] Although this is a dangerous argument to make — some people would argue that dirty jokes and porn don't have any value in terms of discussion, but that isn't a good reason to outlaw them.

    I think here we need another distinction according to intent of a speech/medium, etc. Dirty jokes and porn do not have value in terms of discussion, because their intent is to entertain. They never claim to contribute to anything like a public discourse. A call for violence (at least in the context of a public speech) does not intend to entertain, but tries to reach people and get them to act. It is similar for other media. Your example #KillAllWhiteMen can be meant as a provocative way of advertising, but looking at what is happening in South Africa right now (where they literally are killing white farmers), it could also be seen as a literal call for violence. I think this is similar for "hate speech". In a calm situation, it will not do much. Maybe be seen as provocative or as someone simply venting. But in an already tense situation, it will pour oil into the fire and may have negative effects.

    • Like 1
  13. 16 hours ago, OrbWeaver said:

    I think we're basically in agreement then. Speech that directly and explicitly advocates violence should not be, and generally isn't, protected as free speech.

    Linking other forms of speech to violence is too unreliable to form the basis of legal action, for the reasons you mentioned. Removing speech after the violence has happened is too late to protect the victim(s), and prosecuting the person who made the speech would be unjust because you would be punishing them for the behaviour of somebody else. Trying to censor speech in advance, on the other hand, involves guesswork and speculation about what might cause violence, which is unprovable and subject to the particular biases and prejudices of the censors.

    Indeed. This is why correlation fallacies are so dangerous. It's often the case that A happens before B but B could still have happened without A, which is why a mere sequence of events can never prove a causal relationship.

    Even using the claims of the violent criminals themselves are not reliable, because criminals very often try to blame other people for their actions. I've seen this before with anti-porn campaigners, who sometimes talk to convicted sex offenders who say "the pictures made me do it", then the campaigners accept this as fact and use it as justification for more censorship, without ever considering whether people in jail for sex crimes might have a strong motivation to find somebody else to blame.

    Yes, I think we are in agreement here. I would still say that there is one case, in which the person giving such a speech should be liable: if malicious intent can be proven for the person that gave the speech. However, it is very difficult (if not impossible) to prove malicious intent, if the person is not stupid enough to admit to it himself. But there may be people whose egos are so inflated that they get overconfident and to do so.

    • Like 1
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  14. 1 hour ago, OrbWeaver said:

    There seems to be some contradiction here (or maybe I just don't understand what you propose).

    On the one hand, you don't want to censor actual source material or media, such as religious books, films or video games. But on the other hand you want to censor "speeches that trigger violence".

    By "speeches" are you exclusively referring to actual public speeches made by politicians? What if the speech is recorded in a book, or posted online? Is Mein Kampf a speech or source material? What about Protocols of the Elders of Zion? At what point does a speech (worthy of censorship) become media or source material (which should be given a pass)?

    And what would be the test for whether a speech actually triggers violence? Hopefully not yet another correlation fallacy, like "a violent attack happened after a speech therefore it was caused by the speech". Would you restrict the scope of the law to speeches which directly advocate violence ("Go out and beat up these people, they are scum!") or is it sufficient to argue that criticising some group of people might encourage violence against those people (as modern hate-speech campaigners often do)?

    This is a really good and difficult question. I consider myself to be a rather rational person and as such, I would consider even books like "Mein Kampf" as source material. I was taught in school that the book, while present in almost all households at the time, was actually read by only a very small portion of the populace. If more people had read it and understood what was proposed in the book, Hitler might have had far fewer followers than he actually had. Protocols of the Elders of Zion was unknown to me before your post. This is more difficult in that it is based on fake and fictional texts, but the intent of the book seems to be furthering the antisemitic narrative. I am not sure in how far this book calls for violence, so I cannot really tell how I would classify it. Books are generally more difficult to classify, because they have to be read and interpreted and especially the interpretation can vary from reader to reader. Ideally, during their discourse people would notice that a book calls for violence and decide against it; finding a reason why the call is in there and realising that it contradicts a respectful together and/or human rights. This is at least how I would handle books. Unfortunately, as said before the interpretation can go other ways as well and further an aggeressive reasoning.

    As for a test whether a speech triggers violence, I have none. The correlation would be the only suggestion I have, but this has two important faults: it can only be done in hindsight, so it is too late anyway and you cannot transfer this to other speeches and, as discussed at length here, a speech alone is never the only reason for violence. It can be a factor that added to the general atmosphere of aggression, but it will never be the sole cause. For the examples you brought up: speeches, which explicitly advocate violence, would definitely fall under this label (and if I am not mistaken are already covered by the law). Critisism is much more difficult, because in this case the question how it is delivered is very important. It makes a huge difference, if you say "Child marriage is bad and should be abolished by this group." or if you say "These people are child fucking pedofiles and don't deserve to live." In many cases you can see a difference between critisism that tries to start a dialogue and critisism that wants to antagonise the other side. The latter is of course more likely to further aggression and violence against the other side, but as I said it can only be a factor, never the sloe reason.

    EDIT: I just thought of another reason, why it is so difficult to correlate speeches and violence: You can never verify that the violence would have occured without the speech. You are stuck with the situation that includes the speech and cannot see the outcome of the same situation without the speech. In some cases (like the video Lowenz posted) the violent people will cite the speeches or name the author of the speech, which clearly shows a connection, but as said before the speech will always be a factor of many.

    • Like 3
  15. 16 hours ago, OrbWeaver said:

    Do you or do you not agree that "The Koran causes terrorism" involves the same logic as "Hate speech causes violence against minorities"?

    If you agree that they are the same, why do you support censoring "hate speech" but oppose censoring the Koran?

    If you don't agree that they are the same, what is the important difference between the two arguments which makes the first one invalid but the second one valid?

    I agree with what was said later on: "The Koran causes terrorism" and "Hate speech causes violence against minorities" is not comparable. It is the agressive interpretations of the Koran (which can be interpreted as similar, if not the same as hate speech) that causes terrorism. So, I would give the books a pass, the same I would give violent games, films or other media a pass. It is not the source material, but rather people interpreting it in a way that causes violence, that is the problems. This can be the Pope that incited people to go on the Crusades for Christianity or Imams that incite Muslims to terroristic acts. In a more secular context, it is public figures that blames certain groups for everything bad that is currently happening and inciting people to attack said groups. For me these are all comparable as well as condemnable.

    Al Andalus mentioned by Zerg Rush is a nice example that religions can live side by side in peace, if they respect each ohter. I am not sure what the reason for the attack by Christians was, but I would suppose it was either secular lust for power or a more violent interpretation of spreading your faith (which again I would interpret as inciting by religious leaders).

    Having thought more about it, I would agree that hate speech alone will not be enough to cause violence. You always need people that listen to it and heed the message. This works best on a fearful, frustrated, and insecure (?) mass of people. In the 3rd Reich Germany was recently destroyed in a war and had to pay reparations to other states. People were poor and frustrated and then a person appeared that told them that it was the Jews' fault and they are bad and should be eradicated. If the people would not have been in such a bad place, it is likely that the whole thing would not have worked. Similarly, today the target audience for hate speech (that actually causes violence) are mostly the poor, the unemployed, and/or the poeple frustrated with the current government (for whatever reason). Coming back to the question if, when, and how hate speech should be prohibited, I would say it is very difficult to say. It would be better to change the circumstances that cause hate speech to lead to violence, but in many cases these are very deeply rooted and cannot be changed on a whim. So, the next best thing to prevent violence is to remove speeches that trigger violence.

    • Like 2
  16. 16 hours ago, joebarnin said:

    In general, I feel it's best practice to extend an existing definition, rather than copying it and modifying it. Say, for example, in a future release of DM, the developers make a change to the tdm_player_thief.def file. With my original technique, anyone playing my mission won't see that change (because my mission is using a cloned version of the old tdm_player_thief.def file). With my preferred technique, that change will be maintained, because I'm just extending the existing definition.

    Ok, this concern I can understand. I am not sure, when the player entity was last changed or how often (if ever) this currently occurs, but I understand that it may cause trouble.

  17. 48 minutes ago, Springheel said:

     

    It's ironic that this is the same argument used by those who blame Islam for terrorist attacks like 9/11.  "His religion told him that what he was doing was right.  The Quran's command to "make war on the unbelievers" was not the sole reason, but it contributed and may have given the final impulse he needed." 

    I guess, by extension, you would be supportive of making that religion illegal?

    Far from it. I believe in religious freedom. Just as I believe in other human rights (which also includes the right to life and the prohibition of slavery and torture). Consequently, I would not support making Islam illegal. However, in order to provide a peaceful together, I believe that certain aspects of the religion should be changed. E.g. the forceful spread of the religion. As someone mentioned before in this thread: the freedom of one person ends, where the freedom of another starts. This includes that I have the same right to my religion as a muslim has, and consequently, no muslim has the right to force Islam on me, just as I have no right to force Christianity on a muslim. So, I reject your black and white view of "accept it as it is or make it illegal". There is still a compromise possible, if all concerned people show some respect to one another.

    I have never read the Qur'an, so I cannot say how much of the required violence is actually stated in there and how much is interpretation. If the forceful spread of the religion is an unchangeable part of the religion, then yes, a religion like this has no place in a world that wants to provide human rights to all people. I am aware that this a dilemma: if I want to respect all human rights, I would have to accept this religion, but at the same time I cannot, because it contradicts the human rights. But as Zerg Rush stated in his last comment, Christianity also had a (violent) missionary phase and was able to change to respect other religions, so I hope that this is also possible for Islam.

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