LEGION

And I provided it, still not perfect though, but I´m not skilled enough to make it perfect, so...

Only four pages for this über-mission? Before I forget: If I would´ve been a beta-tester for this map I would´ve suggested to create an objective for Before I get into my voting, first the quoting! (hey, that rhymes!) ROTFL I´m with you with all of this, Sotha! Damn, after I couldn´t find that damn at the beginning I thought "This is going to be very frustrating, so I better take out everyone. And so I did. I played on Hard too and I´m eager to ghost on Expert, äh, Difficult. Are there more AI´s on Difficult? Or any difference besides the objectives? Hey, screenshot please!! Well, I only found the mentioned window from the inside, but the autoclosing-time felt near perfect! "Could´ve also been the wind I guess..."F.e., the autoclosing-times in Cathedral of St.Alban were much too short. Well, that key I found very quickly: I blackjacked the patrolling guard in that hallway and dumped him into that room. And at that moment I spotted the key. Alright, now my voting: Gameplay: Excellent This is one of or the most/best balanced FM´s I played so far for TDM and I played nearly all of `em! While ghosting apparently is very hard, blackjacking wasn´t. Enough spots to hide, believable/atmospheric Gameplay/areas, also not one frustrating map-caused element besides the starting area: There I felt lost. Great that there was a map provided, but sadly only for the stronghold itself and no indication for an possible entry point. The briefing spoke of the but that confused only more because that area is not accessible from the streets. (the player will find out why later though) Sotha´s mapping philosophy provides lots of keys without the need for really finding (most of) them, that alone is a standard that should be taught in the wiki (if it isn´t already in the meantime) for making great non-frustrating missions. The puzzles were hard, but the hints were very good too, and not too easy but still I managed to solve it without scanning this thread after some searching time. Also to mention that it´s possible to solve an objective while failing the puzzle related to it, at a cost of course. This is great for replay-ability and non-puzzle-likers. (is that a word?) If I would´ve ghosted this mission I could tell more about Gameplay I guess, but I didn´t, but will soon. GREAT MISSION, Sotha! I adore you for your talent. There was no flaw to be seen, without the tricky start but well, three ways to get in with each providing different difficulties is more than most missions offer, right? Appearance: Excellent This is the first mission I really played in TDMv1.03 but looking at the other votings it must´ve been nearly a blast before as it was now! (Yeah, I´m late, as always) Everything looked damn believable, I can´t complain about nothing (not even that 'infamous' vent, I don´t noticed that). The different lighting made it a showcase-mission with one downside: The dynamic ambient lighting. It only made sense (and was very good indeed) in the . But the really dark setting for the inside-areas made me re-adjust my gamma-setting again though I had tweaked it for nearly three days recently. The outside-area in the streets felt right, but as soon as one gets into an inside-area (stronghold or apartment) the ambient light was nearly pitch black. I ended up binding a key with 'toggle r_gamma 1.25 1.12' to solve that issue. If the light-settings would´ve been better tweaked it would´ve added for the atmosphere, no question. (still glad you used it, never noticed Dynamic Ambient Light before) The switching-time felt also too short. Only for the the time-period was fine. Felt like the eyes are getting used to the new surrounding light. Some architectural spots were even stunning, you don´t have to hide behind Bikerdude, the optical quality of this mission is awesome and mixed with the excellent gameplay/story, well ... Story & Text: Excellent You deserve an extra praise for you hint-writing! Felt perfectly balanced. The Conclusion: Show-case-Mission for TheDarkMod that everyone should play as one of the first TDM-FM´s. The design should fit most if not everyone´s needs! :all-available-thumps-up: Extra-note: Sotha, so far you´re the master of Ambiance! Not even once I could hear the fan of my GPU! That concludes that there was NOT ONE silent boring unbelievable moment! I THANK YOU for that! The Ambiance-tracks were damn well chosen and the best were the 'random-ambiance'-setups, you should write an wiki-article about that technique if it doesn´t already exists! Really, even as I reloaded after I got aware that I forgot the , I was instantly sucked in again! Great Atmosphere, very nice selection of ambient-sounds and it never felt too much/less! I as an Ambiance Addict can´t thank you enough and I hope that this praise will influence other mappers to learn from what you´ve shown here... (That must be the second or third time I use this smiley for you, and I HATE that smiley...) To make this an even more spamming post: The Notes-section: (to avoid that my post fills one single forum-page I put the notes into a spoiler. But actually, there are really spoiler in here!) Phew, if I had lost this post I wouldn´t had wrote a single word I guess... *I´m still hoping that I can post this and nothing happens, damn Windows* edit: Yeah, success. Now I have to reboot and I´m hungry. And don´t ask me how long it took to write all this... *damn-non-existing-social-life*

Sounds good, but really, it´s only 'showCursor "1" ;' that has to be put into 'windowDef BriefingStateEnd', that´s all and yes, I tested the briefing in every clickable way, all fine. But to save you time (and because you´re indeed one or THE greatest TDM-mapper), here it is: mainmenu_briefing.gui.txt Just delete '.txt'. Hmm, maybe take a look at my gui for the german Crown-version, it´s your gui but the pictures fly in more nicely and overlap with two text-pages. Also nice to have as a 'one-to-choose-from' I guess: mainmenu_briefing.gui.txt Note that you need four pictures for this GUI named: crown1.tga, crown2.tga, crown3.tga and crown4.tga or better change it in the gui itself to your needs, he.

Another two nice shots from Beleaguered Fence. But I better put them into spoiler-code...

The following four shots I made tonight in Beleaguered Fence. The new stunning look of bricks and the wood-floor in front of the fire in the second shot, is that 'Edge-detection'? edit: On the last two shots: why does not every wall look like the left one?

Hmm, okay, here comes my last but most powerful argument: It was possible in Thief1/2 (I can´t tell for TDS). It´s not really the block itself but the aspect that I can´t raise the blackjack for defence at all. Who cares if it´s not effective, let players find out themselves. Hey, even record guard-laughter so they can mock the player sth like "Hohohaha, what are you gonna do with that you silly wannabe?". Sound like a good idea? And about my blackjack-hit-cancel-script: Does someone already looked at it and has some tips what can be done to make it better? At least that repeating-animation when block is hold I want to get away. And also isn´t it sth for the mod to cancel the attack? How often did you raised your blackjack and sth stupid happened that made you want to cancel but instead you hit the wall? What the hell , are you serious about this?

Well, what FM does not have this behaviour? I thought it was in every mission because I rarely hit ESC during the briefing. Maybe other mappers found out and fixed it for themselves like me and haven´t told anyone (like me).

Yeah, it´s definitely what I said: (and nobody listened, not good for my ego... ) Open beleaguered_fence.pk4 with zip-program and extract the gui-folder into the Doom3\beleaguered_fence-folder. Then open mainmenu_briefing.gui (located in gui-folder) in text-editor and search for the following: (it starts at line 57) // Called when the MainMenuModeSelect script switches states. windowDef BriefingStateEnd { noTime 1 onTime 0 { set "cmd" "log 'BriefingStateEnd called.'"; set "Briefing::visible" "0"; set "BriefingAnimation::visible" "0"; set "BriefingAnimation::notime" "1"; set "notime" "1"; } } Then add showCursor "1" ; somewhere inside the inner brackets, so it looks like this: // Called when the MainMenuModeSelect script switches states. windowDef BriefingStateEnd { noTime 1 onTime 0 { set "cmd" "log 'BriefingStateEnd called.'"; set "Briefing::visible" "0"; set "BriefingAnimation::visible" "0"; set "BriefingAnimation::notime" "1"; showCursor "1" ; set "notime" "1"; } } Save the file and that´s it. The cursor is back when you hit ESC.

Hey, did you even noticed my post?

Arg, I knew it... Of course it should be less effective than the sword, hell, even give the player (decreased) damage. But I don´t like it that I can´t raise the blackjack for defence at all. The blackjack wouldn´t fall apart like the bow would, would it? But at least help me out with the 'cancel attack'-script, please? Please!!

Hey, I saw this kind of behaviour too in Cathedral of St.Alban with the sitting/patroling guard by the cells. As I came down he sat in the wall by the staircase. No alerts before and it didn´t happen on my first playthrough(-attempt).

Again for the Blackjack-hit-cancel-with-block-key-feature: I couldn´t help but looked again at my script-attempt from yesterday that I dismissed and now I got it working, well, it´s not perfect of course. Make sure that you hit the block-button very short, else the hit-start-animation repeats itself. Since you all know that I´m not very skilled you can imagine that it was mostly trail&error and I can´t think of what to do else, so hopefully someone skilled enough can perfect the script and even put in a real blocking-feature? Sth. like the Block from Thief1/2 would be cool. I loved to hit block just to look at my tools... Anyway, here it is:zzz_bj-cancel.pk4.txt Remove the '.txt' from the end of the filename and put it in the DarkMod-folder. The script is inside. And before someone says it: No, I don´t think it´s unrealistic to block an attack with the blackjack. One simple block should make it less effective as the sword.

Ah, is that the guard who also likes to sit on thin air? By coincidence I planned to play exactly this FM, Beleaguered Fence, right now, I´ll report in my experiences. (most likely in a couple of hours...)

More description please, that shot definitely tells not more than 1000 words. But I think I saw once what you could mean, but only on AI´s that were not patroling? Or it´s 1.03-related and I haven´t really played a FM in 1.03, but I plan to do so in a few minutes... edit: Aaaah, after screenshoting, brightening and resizing the shot I finally see that the AI is sitting on thin air. What mission is that? I´m sure I haven´t played that. Anyway, I´m also sure that it can be fixed...

That´s a bug in the briefing-GUI. There is somewhere 'set mousecursor=1' missing, wait, I fixed that in my german translation for Crown of Penitence, I haven´t loaded it up now, but I´m sure it´s this: // Called when the MainMenuModeSelect script switches states. windowDef BriefingStateEnd { noTime 1 onTime 0 { set "cmd" "log 'BriefingStateEnd called.'"; set "Briefing::visible" "0"; set "BriefingAnimation::visible" "0"; set "BriefingAnimation::notime" "1"; showCursor "1" ; // UNhide cursor set "notime" "1"; } } I added 'showCursor "1" ; // UNhide cursor'. But now, as we have Sotha´s GUI it´s not that important anymore I guess. I´m sure Sotha´s code can be improved to experience Briefings almost like the old ones and everyone will use it for his/her future FM. I´m very happy with what I did for my german version for crown to reconstruct the original briefing, well, you´ll see when I/we (me & 7upMan) finally release it along with another FM-translation...

I just want to report that I love the new visuals and the performance cost is barely noticeable!! Also the Bloom-setting seems more 'accurate' as far as I can judge. Also the lighting feels more atmospheric with enhanced settings. I bond a key with "toggle r_postprocess 0 1" and the difference is stunning. So, GREAT THANKS @ JC and everyone who helped to achieve it!!! I´m sure you will come up with more terrific stuff in the future with a low Performance-cost. That fog-banding f.e. is sth I hope you take a look at... However, I haven´t tried to be underwater yet...

Oh no, after I tried that with my old GeForce 9800 GT I got OpenGL-errors while working on my Doom3-mod-merge. Meaning I started Doom3 several times for short periods about 2-5 minutes for testing changes and after, say, 5 startups the OpenGL-error came and I couldn´t start any 3D-app anymore and had to reboot OS. Also sometimes I noticed that Doom3 started, but didn´t loaded everything out of my pk4´s. So, I´m really afraid of overclocking. And: Oh yeah, much better, about 3 degrees!! After system start its 67° and after a long DarkMod-test-session with max AA-settings and such it was at 68°. The Fan really is dynamic. F.e. in Cathedral of St.Alban I hear the fan kicking in when I look at detailed spots or at the top in the belltower. Really loud, so that strongens my need for FM´s with lot of ambiance... I´ll send you a PM with more details, sorry, should´ve done that days ago, but this damn Xmas-thing, you know...

Hmm, I would love to hear the ambient tracks, but it´s forbidden. What did I do to deserve that? Oh, I know: I love the stuff you posted and I could hear. I have no complaint´s about the voice-samples. I´m eager to hear them in-game some time soon. And I´m even more eager to hear ambient-tracks...

Can you describe that 'Micro-lags' more please? Mission? Mission-spots? Actually I tested my ATI-settings in Biker´s Cathedral of St.Alban in the spot near the tavern, in that little garden with the gate there you can climb up on leaves. There FPS drops either to 30 or between 45-5x depending on my settings, wait, that´s wrong. I put AA, Supersample, AF and Adaptive AA to maximum (but also Vsync with TB), no difference at that spot! Well, not more than 5 FPS. What makes big difference is the resolution of course. I would like to play in 1080p(1920x1080), but on some spots it´s down to 30 FPS, even when I disable all other stuff like AA and even Vsync. Still 30 FPS. But in 720p(1280x720) it´s constantly over 50FPS, even with AA and such at maximum!! How do you call that gates before the room-fires Biker used in the houses? They look horrible in 720p, even with my new fov-setting (70) I have to step half to the room until they look right. In 1080p they´re fine, but also it´s slower. It sounds odd (for me), but under 50 FPS it´s too slow to look around smoothly. I use ATI 4870 HD btw (Thanks to 7upMan ). And I can´t play without Vsync! That tearing tears me apart, I can´t stand it, never could. Ok, I play on TV, that maybe makes that tearing more visible, but in the old monitor-days I never turned it off too. In case you already forgot: more details on that 'Micro-lags' please , I wonder if I encounter them too...

Hehe, I adore your effort! But with 1.03 there came definitely new player-footsteps, at least for 'stone', but my impression tells me that 'dirt' sounds better too. To be honest, after testing I like 1.03´s stone-steps more than yours. Yours sound too 'soft' for my taste. I guess you got used to them via SVN? (the 1.03-ones I mean) Or was there a bug that the guard-stone-sounds were played for the player before in 1.02??? Or was my install corrupt? Anyway, right now the player-footsteps sound damn good. I´m not sure for 'slade', that bothered me before, I´ll have to test again later. The guards are the ones that would need more attention for the loud sounding steps. That´s really hard because it really seems that the ogg´s are sounding better in OS than in the game. Maybe it´s my sound-setup... Again, thank you very much for your effort for the footsteps!!! Those are very important (´cause you gonna hear them for the whole mission...) !

Very cool indeed, ocn!

Well, but there is no WEAPON_BLOCK-feature for the blackjack and also no animation...

Hey thanks!! But 1.03 came also with newer and nicer footstep-sounds for some ground-types. For the stone I can´t decide now which ones are better. I guess I´ll give some the guards because I can´t stand them, however, listening to the stone-sounds out of 'sound\sfx\movement\ footsteps\human\', they sound way much better as in game. Though, annoying are only that loud ones like on the steps in the town-part in Cathedral of St. Alban. Also in Fidcal´s Sound/Blackjack-trainer guards do stone-sounds on wood, but I saw now that there are already wood-sounds for the guards and the soundshader-def is correct too, so it must be a bug in the trainer... Anyway, why do I have to delete files from the original pk4? (don´t need to rename to zip, just open with zip-program like 7-zip) Ah I see, I remember that from my Doom3-modding, the engine loads both sound-shaders and the old ogg-defs don´t get overridden by the new wav´s, so both are conflicting, took me a whole week to find that issue back then... Well, now, when you run the updater you would have to delete the ogg´s again because of the stupid soundshader-handling... From whom came then the new stone-footsteps that were shipped with v1.03?

That sounds great, gimme that!!!

Yes, in DR I changed that, I tried with the first two tracks and the one from the citywatch. I also tried 0 but nothing changes. (Every time I adjust the slider which is full from the start) I also made RunAAS just in case, no luck. I don´t know what it is and give it up for now. What missions are there else with lots of several custom ambients besides NHAT? Can also someone please confirm the barely hearable music in Cathedral of St.Alban? BTW: the new visuals are stunning and I can feel no performance impact at all!!