[Ugly Sounds that Ruin the Atmosphere]

Sounding a critical note here, reflecting my own experience but perhaps resonating with other TDM players.

There are some missions that create excellent atmosphere with all the visual elements and most of the sound, but then spoil the immersion with gratuitously ugly and intrusive sounds.

Perhaps the most obvious example is that awful moaning/shrieking drunk personage often used as "background colour" in various urban corners, seemingly taken from a real-life recording of some tragic low-life street altercation.

It completely ruins the game for me and these days any mission that thrusts this repulsive sound on me usually gets abandoned quite quickly.

The other most common example: howling and barking dogs. Far from adding anything of value, these sounds tend to cut right across any atmosphere the rest of the game has managed to establish, leaving the player cursing and dashing for the nearest corner in which the dogs SHUT UP.

This shouldn't surprise us, because it's how we react to intrusive dog noises in real life. They're not atmospheric, they're extremely irritating.

The otherwise excellent mission The Warrens is spoiled by dogs in this manner, which is a damn shame.

So I would ask mission creators (bless you all) to try to be more sensitive to the way intrusive and unnecessary background sounds alter the general appeal of the environment - do they really enhance the atmosphere you've worked so hard to create, or actually work against it?

[Fan Mission: The Warrens (by grayman) (2018/9/1)]

Beautiful atmosphere in this one, thanks grayman. I hope we get to explore the Warrens again, with more buildings open for interiors.

 

I'll be peeping in to the diseased waterfront again some time to enjoy a glass of wine and a picnic while listening to the seagulls

[FM: Flakebridge Monastery by Jesps]

"Fred and Adam

We're queer!

We're here!

Because of it!"

What's that supposed to mean?

Does TDM endorse homophobia?

[Saves Won't Load - Just Restarts Missions Instead]

This is pretty standard for games. (saves made in an old version don't load on the a new one)

I suppose I was just confusing TDM with Thief fan missions, in which my saves have seemed to survive various upgrades over many years.

[Saves Won't Load - Just Restarts Missions Instead]

Damn, I didn't know that.

 

That's a pretty major drawback. Anyway, ta for filling me in.

[Saves Won't Load - Just Restarts Missions Instead]

This may be a known problem, but I didn't find it in a scan through previous topics.

Suddenly when I install old missions and try to load Saves, it just goes to "Press Attack to Start" and restarts the mission instead, on every Save. Apparently I can do new Saves but not load any of the existing ones.

Anyone know how to rectify this? I've tried downloading updates, restarting the computer etc.

[Loud electric light sound tones in certain missions]

I was having this problem too - the crazy intense OOO! from lights in too many missions was making me abandon them as the sound makes me feel physically ill. Pretty sure this could result in actual hearing damage if you were exposed to that sound for too long.

 

But thanks very much to HMart - I followed his editSounds procedure on the console (required exiting from full screen mode) and set the sound of the yellow lights in Full Moon Fever (one of the worst offenders) to -50, saved it, and now they're completely silent. Should work whenever you encounter overly intense noises from lights or other sources.

[Fan Mission: In the Black]

Tried it going through the Steinberg audio interface and Kurzweil speakers - it's still there, but not as intense as with the Soundblaster and Altec Lansing MX5021s. It's coming from the spherical white lights and is presumably intentional.

Maybe I'm just particularly sensitive to that sound, but I find it hard to bear.

I'll try to avoid the lights....

[Fan Mission: In the Black]

Encountered a problem on this one which I've also had with a few other missions. There's an intense "OOOO!" type of hum, sounding like very loud feedback, which kicks in when I enter the entrance hall and then hangs around various rooms, and also remains when you go to Settings etc. I can't believe that the sound as I hear it was ever deliberately chosen, as it's simply unbearable.

Is this a known problem? Presumably it has something to do with how my soundcard (SoundblasterZ) interprets that sound file.

In Thief you can just remove offending sound files from the folder, but this doesn't seem to work with TDM.