ChronA
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Posts posted by ChronA
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12 hours ago, Wellingtoncrab said:
the layout is very grid like with at the most clean 45 degree angles and this is a an aspect I don’t like about the mission. When I was making Iris I didn’t have the confidence that I could carve the amount of interiors and vertical elements without being very uniform and grid conscious and I hope I can do better in the future.
I think that actually added to the atmosphere of the mission. The hyper-regularity of the geometry enhanced the surreal, dream-like character of the level; like you were walking around in the platonic ideal of a city rather than an organically evolving community.
That's not to say you should rest on your map-making laurels
... but I do think what you arrived at is a legitimate style with real artistic merit. Especially in the context of such a cerebral narrative, it works.
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23 hours ago, snatcher said:
It strikes me that the original developers implemented all these rules that increase the failure rate but didn't provide an escape route to prevent save scumming. In example: blackjacking takes training and practice and it is challenging but if the player fails the KO the AI will get dizzy and confused giving players a chance to get out of the situation.
This is a very, very good point. I hope it will get more discussion.
Realistically, I don't think the most common human response to being ineffectually surprise bludgeoned or stabbed or shot by an invisible shadow man is going to be turning around and trying beat the crap out of him with your sword--irrespective of how well armed and armored you are. When facing an unknown threat, the safe response is always flight not fight... at least until you get an idea of what you're dealing with.
For simulation verisimilitude then, the universal human-actor reaction to being attacked by an undetected player ought to be to run away. This would give the player an opportunity to effect their own escape or enact other contingencies without the automatic resort to save scumming, as you say. For guard actors it would make sense for them to revert to attack mode a few seconds later, although if one wanted to make the response more sophisticated there is a great deal of latitude. For instance when the player shoots an unaware sword guard with a bow it would probably make more sense for the guard to keep running. There is a high chance they will not be able to path back to the player, and will be at a big disadvantage when all they can do is throw rocks. However that calculus might change if they have a bunch of friends nearby... and so on.
The point is, this could be a relatively low effort option to significantly deepen TDM's immersive simulation. There is a reason ghosting is the near-universally preferred style of play among expert Thief/TDM players. The reason is not that blackjacking and sword fighting are unreliable or clumsy, because it's actually been well demonstrated that in the hands of an expert they are quite the opposite. (See the meme-worthy video of AluminumHaste Errol Flynn-ing through an entire prison of guards.) Rather it's because violence degrades the engagement of the simulation rather than improving it.
TDM's stealth gameplay is like a game of chess: a complex interplay of predicting opponent actions and developing your own hand of contingencies. Combat gameplay is more like tic-tac-toe: once you learn the trick, the outcome is literally determined from the moment the game is played. Making blackjacking more predictable with new animations or simulation logic would help make this handicap mechanic more accessible to newcomers, sure, but it doesn't change the real problem that knockouts are just the absolute dullest way of interacting with other actors that the game supports.
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28 minutes ago, Xolvix said:
feels bad since it's at the expense of a (former) user member. But then again they were the one who lashed out at basically everyone and the project itself, so maybe I'm just being stupid.
That guy obviously had no prior experience with hobbyist game devving/modding. If that episode was TDM at its most cliquish and acrimonious, then you are all seriously a bunch of saints. This forum put up with a torrent of abuse before getting defensive and eventually threatening the ban hammer, while even then always providing constructive criticism and reasonable off ramps for the offender to return to good graces. He was the one who decided never to de-escalate. I've followed a couple of similar gaming communities and I don't think any of them would have handled that as gracefully.
TDM really is exceptionally among FOSS gaming communities I've encountered by being so welcoming to newcomers and open to experimentation and critique. I bet if someone came along and wanted to make a full-on Hexen clone or even an RTS in this engine they would be able to get help achieving their vision. The more common practice I've seen is to stonewall would-be contributors who do not align with the project vision. However, for the sake of maintaining civility and preserving the integrity of the software, lines do need to be drawn. You can't just risk breaking back-compatibility with hundreds of legacy missions, even for the sake of making FM creation more intuitive to newcomers. That is not a winning tradeoff. Nor can you just ignore repeated warnings that your approach and behavior is out of alignment with community practices.
IMO, this community deserves to have some fun with these memes. They are very funny and honestly more self effacing to the TDM community itself than they are mean spirited against the originator, who I very much doubt would ever have afforded us similar consideration. Common courtesy is just a quirk of social clubbing after all!
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I think without clear character development, the player avatar defaults to almost a pure ludic abstraction. They are a sort of experienced, hyper-competent, obsessive-compulsive, entirely amoral kleptomaniac. They exist to flawlessly execute whatever plan is set out for them by the objectives, steal ever single piece of loot that has the slightest value, and to see or interact with every unique set-piece and interactable the mission maker went to the trouble of including. They have no real wants of their own besides accomplishing their objectives and not getting detected.
The real danger though for the mission-maker is that if their character writing is not interesting and self-consistent enough to overcome this bias towards ludic abstraction then players will default to just ignore the story entirely: supposing that it is meaningless set dressing. For some missions this works. E.g. In Volta and the Stone, we do not care why the thief wants to steal the stone, or how the course of his career brought him to that point. (We don't actually care about who the Voltas are either for that matter.) It is all just an excuse to explore a cool manor as a half-invisible cat-burglar-man.
For missions though where the characters and story is supposed to be one of the draws this means there are a lot of stakes for the effectiveness of the mission resting on the strength of the narrative hook. There needs to be a clear and ever-present narrative arc from moment one, to draw the player into the role playing experience and keep them in that frame of mind. Every event needs to logically connect to the next.
For your missions described so far, to do that successfully, here's how the essential flow that I see:
Mission 1: the PC is an inexperienced pretender at being a gentleman thief, (he probably has never actually stolen anything of value before,) who in his eagerness to prove himself plans a dangerous and unprofitable heist. The job goes badly wrong, and it is only by a lot of luck and a little bit of natural talent that he escapes with his life and barely enough loot to afford to make another expedition. However being a natural thrill seeker he is undeterred, and considers the adventure a great success.
Mission 2: using the lessons learned in mission 1, the PC plans a more sensible second job and takes away a tidy haul. However being sobered by success (and perhaps, being less overcome by adrenaline and having paid more attention to the somber circumstances of his surrounding this time), he decides that it's time to quit while he is ahead and return home with his fortune.
Mission 3: with home in danger, the PC must now use his skills not for his own naïve dreams of adventure but in defense of family. (He has truly grown as a person.)
and maybe Mission 4-5: the PC recognizes that he cannot return to the farming life just yet. There is other business he must handle before it will be safe to return to his old way of living... and perhaps in the process he recognizes that his skills as a sneak are more valuable to himself, and the life he imagines returning to, than is the purer calling of being a simple farm hand.
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19 minutes ago, datiswous said:
Also it is actually a serious question. I am curious about this.
My reaction too, but thinking on it there are some legitimate reason to want >60.
For one, I've noticed since I've started configuring all my games to be locked as much as possible at 60 that if I have the frame rate drop down to 30 it causes me immediate motion sickness. But when I was playing at 30 fps on the regular it did not bother me at all. I think my brain has become accustomed to the higher framerate and now interprets anything lower as uncanny. If Aluminum is used to playing at ultra high fps it might be uncomfortable for them to play at a lower rate.
Also higher frame rates legitimately add to the fidelity of the image even if they are not strictly necessary to play the game. The eye can better pick up extra details on moving objects or when panning. Fast moving objects are visible without distortions. And don't forget it makes feedback from any control inputs more responsive (regardless of whether that is necessary to play the game well).
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1 hour ago, The Black Arrow said:
in regards to giving you better detail about this "Eric", it's actually very simple:
He is based on a real life friend of mine, who has a similar but sadly much more boring story, he was a farm boy that hated his farm boy life, he decided to go to the city and he realized he hated it, but strangely he enjoyed the "decadence" around it [...]
So, the idea in essence is to make a "bored youngster" with a tendency to be quite the rebel.
Yes, he is naive, very much so, at least everything about it says so, but there is one thing you should know; in our youth, we're all thought to be incredibly stupid and naive, but I'd love to dare to defy that.Ok! Your intentions become clearer. That is not the direction I thought this story might take, but I still like it; better even than the more cynical or ribald interpretations I was imagining. There is an element of Stoic wisdom (in the sense of the formal philosophy of antiquity) in the character fully dedicating himself to something he know is dangerous and unproductive because it expands and gratifies his spirit. (The Big Lebowski is a popular film that explores similar territory, although maybe you intend a less cynical resolution for your protagonist than befell The Dude.)
That being the case, I think it is even more important to strongly set up that theme in the first level. As you can see, I missed some of the hints in your write up that pointed in that direction. The key to making this work is setting up a clear cycle of the protagonist's grandiose expectations, those expectations being crushed, and then the character adapting and coming out (slightly) ahead anyway. E.g. in your mission 1, Eric descends into "the underworld" only to become trapped, and then discovering the place has already been looted of anything majorly valuable, but never-the-less managing to meet his very modest loot goal off the scraps alone, before escaping. That I think should be the real core of that level's narrative, more-so than overworld capers that may proceed it.
2 hours ago, The Black Arrow said:it could be more likely than not that this "Library" of mine is my own waste of time
I think my comments above reveal where my sympathies reside concerning that matter.
Ultimately all the evidence of our works in this world will be utterly erased by the inexorable march of time, down to the very last atom. That is the nature of being alive. If there is any value for us to find during this farce, then it is in enjoying the journey. Time spent in a pursuit that gives you fulfillment is never wasted. If anything I commend you for having the courage to share the products of your imagination out here where we can all nit-pick them! -
12 hours ago, The Black Arrow said:
I'm sure some of you mappers might have the motivation to make maps, but no idea as to what to make
I think that is (unfortunately?) extremely unlikely. I'd wager that for every mission that gets released for TDM the author has a ideas for another 5 packed away in their brain-closet that will never see the light of day (usually because they are too ambitious or run up against some practical limitation, like needing to recruit a voice actor).
Realistically there are only two ways to midwife an idea like this into actuality: 1. you must first complete about 2/3rds of the work yourself, and then people will come together to help you across the finish line, or 2. substantial amounts of money must be involved. Otherwise prepare to be ignored.However, even if you have no way of bringing your idea into reality, it is still commendable to share it.
You might give someone else the inspiration they need to develop a project of their own, or overcome some hurdle that is holding their work back. Just be reconciled that the fruit of your labors are unlikely to be recognizable as a derivative work. Alternatively you may realize that your own project is not so impossible for you to follow-through-on as you thought, in which case any critique your preview attracts may save you a great deal of time and frustration.
In that spirit, here's a bit of feedback from me about what you have shared so far:
SpoilerFirst, I like the setting you have conjured for these missions. The derelict-post-urban aesthetic is so evocative and powerful, with is connotations about civil decay and ethics of survival. I wish more TDM FMs dabbled in it. (In Remembrance of Him is an old TDM FM I recently discovered and thoroughly enjoyed, despite many serious flaws, largely on the strength of its derelict Romanesque architecture.)
I also love the idea of needing to persistently delve down through a decaying modern layer into ancient crypts below. That organically produces an arc of rising tension that will benefit the level pacing. The only trick is to not make climbing back out more frustrating than getting in, which would produce a dragging falling action and a mission that overstays its welcome.Another concept here that I like is needing to steal some of your most important equipment from off the person of a boss enemy. That is a neat twist on the resource gathering gameplay loop that I don't recall seeing in TDM before. Even more interesting if it would be possible to lure the boss into conflict with other enemies in the environment in order to dispatch both.
One thing that is not working for me yet is your thief's backstory as set against the thematic content of the missions described so far. Yes, this quixotic farm boy is more interesting than another generic career cat-burglar, and he fits in better with the idea of needing to find gear and preferring tomb raiding over targeted crime. But I do not see how we are supposed to feel about him and how he is supposed to evolve over your story.
FPS games are not generally a super efficient vehicle for narrative storytelling. Elements that do not support the larger themes at play are best discarded to not confuse or distract the player. Why should we care about Eric? He sounds naïve and in over his depth, but that is not reflected in the level summaries so far. Everything seems to work out for him just like it would for any real master thief.
Compare to some examples where backstories work to the advantage of the in-game narrative. William Steele is not a thief but a former soldier; his FMs are all about never backing down and going into danger to settling score against enemies of his friends and family. Bolen from Requiem is an honest laborer, a longshoreman, who only resorts to burglary when money becomes tight. That shows he is a naturally lawful man who embraces extreme acts of defiance against the depraved forces in society only when backed into a cornered. (Guess what his mission is all about.) Garret is a renegade apprentice Keeper, and the plot across all 3 of his games revolves around the tension between circumstance and destiny--how being too invested in a mundane past can keep one from acknowledging their full potential.
Maybe your character's backstory better reflects later missions in your campaign, but I suggest such things should be foreshadowed early.
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(I say this as someone with no relevant experience at all...)
@Nort you might also want to take a 30 minute walk and ask yourself what about your artistic vision and/or workflow is making this deficiency of your medium so problematic for you. Then ask yourself whether there is anything you could do to get around the issue. Maybe you can adjust your vision, or approach the problem differently. That's not to say the problems you bring up aren't valid, but there may be more effective ways for you to remedy your own problem than to jump on a forum and demand changes that probably won't be coming in a hurry, if at all.
The most important any artist must learn is how to keep working despite adverse conditions, because if you are only capable of creating when everything is perfect, chances are that you will simply never create anything.
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@LifthrasilI'm playing The Painter's Wife currently and was stumped for a while by that same chest not too long ago.
A hint:
SpoilerThe key is indeed in the bishop's room. He keeps is close to his person.
A big hint:
SpoilerIt is laying on top of his bed board, right above his head near the lit candle. It is almost exactly at standing head height, so it is easy to mistake as just part of the bed geometry no matter how you look at it. There is no way to see an actual key silhouette unless you climb into the bed with the bishop! A little piece of the handle does stick out past the frame if you look up at it while crouching though.
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Does this need to happen?
Title:
The Hot Spring of ChaosDescription:
And lo, the master perv shal'th pass unseen into the fertility temple of the Pagan women, and he descend'th into the very Hot-Spring of Chaos where Succubi bathe without the modesty of the Builder, and he shall shame'th them as it was fore'written!SpoilerBut the succubi were all super into it! Happy [Valentines Day / April Fools]!
Content Warnings: suggestive themes, sexual innuendos, and whole new connotations for the "Mission Complete" chime
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4 hours ago, Nort said:
I wouldn't mind playing as a simple perv, compared to playing the usual killers in games, or thieves for that matter.
This is true. On pretty much any mansion or city level, chances are you will be pilfering some impoverished servant's or trades-person's life savings in order to meet the loot goal; money they probably need to feed their families. But it is treated no differently than stealing some oligarch's silverware or finding some gems in a cave. There is a bit of a moral double standard at work, considering how much Thief and all its derivatives revolve around themes of retributive justice and avoiding indiscriminate carnage.
It would be interesting if more FMs played with the concept of moral forbearance. Maybe have an optional objective on expert to not harm any innocents, and stealing the wrong bits of loot would make you fail it (until you uncover evidence of wrongdoing).
Anyway, I personally appreciate missions that aims to be like Myst but with stealth. (Although, for my money, Riven is the one to emulate in terms of sublime puzzle walking simulators). To me, knockouts and ticking up the loot counter aren't that rewarding compared to the pure joy of exploration and discoverable storytelling. It might actually be easier to make a really fun level without having to worry about loot placement or combat balancing. Plot-wise there is a lot of well trodden ground for detective scenarios and escape-the-house/cave type thrillers in that mold. A rom-com (or ero-com) would actually be a really different and interesting framing device for such an FM. (But it would have to be released on Valentines day! That's just the law.)
Of course you should just do what you want to do. Take the ideas and advice of the community for what you can get out of them, but in the end always make your FM (or any other hobby project) for yourself first. That way at minimum one person will always be happy with it (even if it is never finished).
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This made me imagine a mission where the player character is a perv trying to sneak into a bath house. Thanks
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Also now that I think about it, that exact FM almost certainly already exists...
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This stuff is basically just resume bling... like an unpaid internship at a prestigious law firm... or a college diploma.
Jumping on dumb "cutting edge" trends like this is a way for the people involved to establish themselves as "movers and shakers" in the tech world, which will make them a hot commodity for a) clueless corporate hiring managers who don't actually know anything about the business, b) tech illiterate
con-artists"tech" entrepreneurs looking to make a lot of money by inventing the next dumb cutting-edge trend, and c) other would-be "movers and shakers" in need of some extra legitimacy for their own cutting-edge project (usually meant to pull the same trick).None of these project need to make any money, or even deliver a product to pay off for the people behind them. Ultimately they will collect at some point down the road thanks to the the generosity of lazy/elitist corporations and fraud victims. It's an entire global industry of wearing and selling the emperor's new clothes, continuously playing out on multiple layers. And it is one of the pillars of our entire modern technological civilization...
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13 hours ago, Wellingtoncrab said:
I admittedly not sure what constitutes the "main mission" - do you mean the non-optional objectives?
SpoilerI think what they mean by the main mission is specifically the task of retrieving the painting. In other words (unless I am forgetting a dependency on lockpicks somewhere along the line) the main mission boils down to: 1. Raise the quarantine door that lets you get into the plague district. 2. Retrieve the painting 3. Return to your home.
Personally, having now completed a first playthrough where I did not accomplish much except for that main mission (plus a lot of very preliminary exploring and looting), I did come away with the feeling that this was not actually the "intended" objective of the level. Grabbing the painting and returning home the way I came in felt very anti-climactic. I am not sure that was entirely your intent, and might be down to technical limitations--namely the absence of custom voice acting for this mission. But I do think the message that there is more to this level than a story about looting a painting is very intentional.
To my mind the real "main mission" of Iris is to discover the player character's whole deal. Who is he in his old age after losing of Iris? How do the goings on in the district mirror parts of his character? That's what I will try to do during my second playthrough. If that take is correct--and the stated main objective is effectively an irresolvable red herring (narratively speaking)--then that is an extremely bold choice, and understandably not going to be to everyone's taste. (And that is okay.)
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12 hours ago, Nort said:
I heard they stripped Thief 4 of the material noise mechanic. Huge mistake. At least have that, FFS.
I sometimes wonder how much hearing/vision-impairment accessibility considerations factor into some of these choices.... Of course we all understand the main reasons developers (or rather their pay masters) cut corners like this or try to shoehorn in trendy features in their place. (E.g. using detective vision and awareness flags instead of audio cues as the primary way to track enemies' locations and awareness states.) Greed and ignorance are certainly the major driving forces here, not magnanimity and egalitarianism.
But if you follow any current discussions about disability friendly game design, you will notice a trend that calls for the homogenizing of UX designs and removing any sensory skill checks imposed upon the player. It's hard not to see the move away from analog material noise and alarm barks in modern stealth games as an extension of this mentality.
Personally I am in two minds about this. One the one hand, it is not nice to arbitrarily exclude people from experiences they would otherwise enjoy just because they can't see, or hear, or perform quick/dexterous control inputs, or orient themselves in simulated environments as well as other audience members. Indeed, I myself have advocated for improving accessibility options for players with motion sensitivity in TDM. But on the other hand it is equally unjust to keep people from accessing unique experiences or discovering stories that they would enjoy, just because other people exist who are not so fortunate.
Thief and its progeny are fundamentally niche products. The demands they place on the player's skills of sight, hearing, and spatial orientation are the core of what make them appealing. They defy the idealistic motto that games should be for everyone, and that is just one more reason they have been pushed out of the mainstream market.
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1 hour ago, Netos said:
I ended up killing nearly all enemies in the [spoiler] place, [...] because, yeah, I need to figure things out and I can't be bothered to stealth from one place to another anymore, lol.
Yes! Written in Stone is/was one of the missions I am currently playing, and this was the conclusion I came to as well. I think the story (what I have found of it) even supports this course of action. These are clearly not happy people. Killing them is a mercy.
However it seems I am just not good enough at combat to kill all the enemies with the resources I had collected to that point, so I ended up putting Written in Stone on the back burner in favor of other FMs.
At some point I'll return to it and most likely finish it up using notarget. The world geometry itself is lovely and I want to take my time to admire it without having to worry about enemies.
In terms of trying to diagnose what made the balance between exploration, puzzle solving, and enemy presence not work for me in this mission I'd draw a comparison to Iris and Hazard Pay, which presented similar challenges for exploration and puzzles but did not make me want to genocide the entire map.
The first useful thing they did was prominently signpost important locations for the player, often with actual sign posts in the game world, and in Iris's case with markers on the map.
Secondly they provided lots of safe corridors (that were easy to find) for efficient traversal between key locations. These safe spaces also often included overlooks or vantage points with clear views of the hostile areas so they player can get an understanding of the layout and plan their next moves without time pressure.
And lastly in places where the player does not have the benefit of signage, maps, or prior visual scouting, these FMs revert to a much more linear level design. (Like a vine with side branches, instead of a spider's web or tree like labyrinth.)Now that I think of it, a lot of my most favorite TDM FMs follow these rules: Requiem, William Steel In the North and Home Again, Volta 1 and 2... That's not to say I think being lost or needing to make your own safety (Rambo style) have no place in TDM. (Perversely, Down in the Bonehoard has become my favorite T:TDP mission, and it breaks almost all these rules at various points.) But in those cases where being lost or ultra-violent is the intent, I believe the change in playstyle should be supported by tailored story beats and a generous equipment loadout.
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Also...
An interesting thing about the existence of TDM, and the contrast between it and the relative misfire of Thi4f, is that it should make a perfect road map for Embracer Group if they have any interest in properly reviving the Thief franchise:The first lesson is to go small.
SpoilerThis is not a franchise that is greatly improved by ultra hi-res, hi-poly graphics or heavy handed cinematic direction. Better to embrace an indie development model: a very small, multi-role development team; low development budget, low price point; and a tight (max 10-15 gameplay-hour) main story. Provide accessible, effective modding tools and a community will form to provide unlimited future content in perpetuity and give the title a long sales tail at ZERO ongoing cost.
Second, understand that the star of the show is actually the levels’ navigation and lighting geometries.
SpoilerEverything else flows out of the way the player avatar interacts with them. Besides informing the expertise required by the dev team, that means the most important thing after the level design itself is getting the movement and stealth detection systems right, since those are the tools that you use to interact with the maps. Free mantling, climbing, and swimming (if there is to be any deep water to be found) are core to the experience. Weapons and tools, story, and voice acting should only be added near the end of the process based on the emergent requirements of the built gameplay environment.
Third, we do not need to play as Garrett.
SpoilerIn fact the game can be better for not trying to recapture all the unique quirks of that iconic character. For one thing, his personal story arc definitively concluded at the end of Deadly Shadows. To continue his story the best approach is to provide an entirely new perspective on how his decisions and actions in the old games have reorganized the world of The City.
Maybe give us a player character aligned with the Hammers, Pagans, Mages, the City Watch, or the mundane under-classes who will be compelled to seek out Garrett and the legacy of the Keepers as part of their own journey. (Obviously with some of these one would need to be very creative to justify the "Thief"-ing...) Maybe have a character who never meets Garrett at all but is profoundly affected by new magics seeping into the world after the dissolution of the Keeper glyphs. You could even have multiple player characters...And the fourth lesson: innovation is not bad, but it needs to be driven by the needs of the gameplay environment and story, not by market trends.
SpoilerTDM has seen some amazing new concepts in its FMs. They work, where Thi4f's dalliances with RPG-dom did not, because they fit into and enhance their own gameplay ecosystem, rather than trying to transform it into another type of experience entirely.
A true Thief 4 should try to innovate in some way, (otherwise why not just continue replaying the originals) but it must be focused and disciplined in its scope. Obviously modernized lighting tech is a strong option. Maybe complement it with a more sophisticated elemental propagation/magic system like in Breath of the Wild? Maybe expanded inventory management and a tightened resource-collection play-loop would elevate the game? Maybe teleportation between worlds/dimensions or time periods? Set the entire game in one seamless open level? Metroidvania-like ability progression? There are many good options. -
Personally I think Moonbo's Requiem FM is about as good as one could wish for in terms of a spiritual successor to the Thief trilogy. The story hits all the important notes, and the level design is uniformly top notch across all the expected axes of stealth gameplay. And there is even a sequel that trailblazes entirely new territory from its predecessor in gameplay, story, and tone. That's just icing on the cake.
Indeed there several FMs for TDM that I believe equal or even surpass the quality of the original games' levels. The trouble is how do you discover them in that giant downloader list? Are there other great missions in there that I have yet to find? That is undoubtedly the greatest current weakness of this project. The ability to sort FMs in the game client (i.e. both the downloader and the mission launcher) by date, size, and author would be a great help. Search by keywords or tags and support for grouping missions into collections would also be very useful.
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9 hours ago, Apache Fiero said:
From the looks of it, a lot of modern games involve running around different arenas where 500 alien robots are firing machine guns from every direction, also everything explodes every 5 seconds and everything’s on fire and the MC can fly in midair Matrix style and runs and bounces round at 200mph and has more weaponry than an entire army and sprays the walls with bullets as 94 monster trucks do back flips and explode and if you die you have to start all over again because you can’t save where you want because reasons.
Then you cut to a melodramatic cut scene because the main character is also in a soap opera.
You might find exactly that sort of thing (complete with the badly-voiced melodramatic cutscene) in a modern Doom mod, because hobbyists have mad ambition and no restraint. Your average AAA would be more like:
First you cut to a way too long melodramatic cut scene because the main character is also in a soap opera. Then you're dumped into a random arena (that's really just a single room with one staircase and some boxes in it) with
50010 alien robots are firing machine guns from every direction (because the one guy who somehow made the 500 aliens work in the demo quit after management verbally harassed him), also everything explodes every 5 seconds and everything’s on fire and the MC can fly in midair Matrix style (in certain contextual locations and in the cutscene that plays in the middle of the fight) and runs and bounces round at200mph15mph (because someone in the focus group said the fast movement made them feel disoriented and they got lost in the identical linear corridors--and the movement was was obviously the only reason) and hasmore weaponry3 (console friendly but also somehow egregiously unbalanced) loot-box unlocked weapons with more ammo than an entire army and sprays the walls with bullets as945 monster trucks one of your co-op player unlocked in a loot-box back flips and explode and if you die you have to start all over again before the first cutscene because you can’t save where you want becausereasonsthe pre-teen-male console demographic aren't used to manual saving. Then you cut to a melodramatic cut scene because the main character is also in a soap opera... and the game ends there because the developers could not meet management's holiday launch deadline. But don't worry they will sell you the real ending (96% of which was already in the game files on release day) as paid DLC 6 months from now.-
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3 hours ago, Xolvix said:
Thing is, do people actually expect super-duper graphics from every single game nowadays? Or is it more than the gaming industry itself has built up their own expectations about what a game needs to sell?
Both.
Next level graphics are THE reliable way to get large numbers of consumers on board with new franchises. It is true that there are a lot of indie hits that buck the trend of more graphics = more money, but they are the occasional islands in a sea of flops. There is really no way to pick out surefire winners in the indie scene ahead of the actual release. There are certainly companies that try, but those efforts do not produce the same consistent quality of profit margins and product launch benchmarks as the AAAs. Even if they produced the same or greater return of investment on average, they are much more volatile, and that is frightening to investors.
Conversely, major graphical downgrades are one of the few ways to poison the AAA well. Consumers expect predictable graphical improvements from their AAA franchises. That's what the AAAs market their products on. So if they don't see those improvements, it is taken as a sign of deeper problems with the product. Players will hold off buying and critics will be harsher. Even if the title fully recovers its reputation later (e.g. a game like LoZ: Wind Waker), investors will pick up on this one episode of short term underperformance and may end up being spooked for years after the rest of the world moves on.
So yes, companies have built up their own expectations about what can sell, and then get locked into a demented cycle of self one-upmanship by their own marketing. But it is informed by real consumer preference and (to an even greater extent) by secondary market forces that dictate what kind of development gets monetarily rewarded.
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Holy cow, everything they said about this mission is true! I've only just managed to get to the other side of the wall and I'm already thinking about starting another playthrough in order to keep exploring more of the starting area! You really have created something amazing here.
I'm so glad to hear you are planning to make make more content for TDM. You really have shown you have a profound talent with this mission, and not just because of its size. In terms of interconnectedness, navigable verticality, variety, and verisimilitude I think this might be the absolute best free-roaming level I have ever encountered in any 3D game. Period. (Previously I split that honor between TDM's Sir Talbot's Collateral, and Metroid Prime's Chozo Ruins.)
Personally I think there is so much you could do here even if you limited yourself to just reconfiguring areas and objectives within this one map. I believe Goldwell is onto something with the idea in Shadows of Northdale of a reusable hub area that would form a setting for multiple missions; but this is the very first TDM map that I feel one could easily use to do that--without any major alterations or creative compromises.
I mean, even as I've been exploring the decrepit tenements, haughty mansions, and brutal fortresses of Red Rook and reading about its sad history, I cannot help but imagine another story: A district in strict lockdown and quarantine against the remnants of a zombie plague. A murderous authority more interested in preserving its own veneer of power than protecting its subjects. An innocent populous walking the knife edge between rebellion and starvation. Then a downtrodden thief comes across a certain piece of incriminating evidence, and they must deliver it into the right hands to end the madness and bring the villains to justice! (Maybe the allusion to recent events in certain corners of the world is a little crude, perhaps even offensive some might protest, but I would play the hell out of that mission. We need power fantasies in these dark times.)
Anyway, before I jump back in, I'll leave a bug report for you on the off chance that it may be useful:
I too have run into the problem of the level crashing to desktop whenever I try to drop an item from out of my inventory. I have a personal rule that I must drop a health potion any time I reload from a save. (It keeps me from save scumming.) There were no problems the first 2 potions I discarded, but now it has started crashing whenever I try to drop that particular item. I think this was after about 3-4 hours of play time, incase that is significant. Luckily for most players I'm sure this will not be an issue, but for me it is a bummer.-
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This was an excellent mission for me to start out my adventures in TDM v2.10. You did a great job of showcasing new features from the update and of your own creation. I enjoyed the new looting animations and sound. I found them pleasantly immersive but never intrusive. I wouldn’t mind seeing them again in other missions. I also enjoyed collecting the generic food, and I didn’t think the mission suffered at all for only having one lock pick (which surprised me).
The big show stopper though was your new protagonist! I loved her peppy character--such a contrast from the classic sarcastic thief. But I never felt she was too flippant or overly saccharine (and you guys walked that edge). She read to me as someone who is relative newcomer to the TDM life and has already learned the tropes of her own game second hand. Now she is bemused to be encountering them in person. I hope we will get to play her or meet her again in future FMs. Having another very different PC perspective like that really enriches the setting.
SpoilerI did once run into the minor audio glitch others have noted where NPC character’s use the player’s sounds, but it did not bother me, and NPC voices changing between lines in TDM is so common I would not have taken much notice had I not read about the issue. I also feel like early in my run there was one time where Clara made a male pain grunt (...possibly after stepping on a mine, or was it while swimming/drowning?) but that was over a week ago now and I may be misremembering. Anyway I felt the technical execution was just about top notch, especially for a non-official feature.
Overall I had a great experience, and my dad who watched over my shoulder while I was visiting him liked it too!
There were a few things that confused me or caused me problems though. For your consideration:
1. key hunts
SpoilerBeing that I prefer playing a non-violent style of thief when I can, discovering the document to get me past the checkpoint and the tap to get into Volta’s secret area gave me a lot of trouble. I completely missed the checkpoint key from too hastily looting that (very illuminated) room before the guard came back; and with Volta’s key I guess I thought it was a way to loot some really good wine or something and the way to the objective must be elsewhere. I ultimately had to seek clues for both on the forum. I think it would have been nice if there was one other way to circumvent both blocks without needing the key items (like some really gnarly climbing or vent spelunking). But I don’t know how long it already took you to make all this stuff... so meh, it’s ok.
2. bonus objectives
SpoilerI interpreted the “clear out the guests from the factory” quest as referring to the monsters, not the thieves! The supplies on offer did not seem worth dealing with all those terrors, so (playing non-violently) I didn’t discover my mistake until I went back later to hear the Corbin easter egg. It wasn’t a game breaker, but maybe encountering some strong evidence of the thieves before the monsters would have primed me to understand better the first time around.
3. characters
I find my self wondering whether the bird-mask boat driver guy is supposed to be an established character in the TDM lore. By his few voice lines, I assumed he and Clara are an allusion to Garret and that girl at the end of Thief 3 (you know, the one who never featured again in any other thief games); but maybe you had another PC in mind as bird-mask? I hope we might get to see more of them and their relationship in the future. A thief partners duo, done well, and maybe helping each other out of jams in the course of a mission would be cool.
4. setting
SpoilerWas there some piece of exposition I missed about why the factory was processing human bodies? I assume it was another reference to one of the more striking set pieces in Thief 4, but was there any more to it than that? Once I stopped to think about it did not feel like it fit in the setting, even with all the other horrible stuff going on in other parts of the level.
5. canonicity and diegesis
SpoilerThe Corbin easter egg was very funny, but the discovery does kind of undermine his competence and raises questions about how Clara recognized him. Should I ask how TDM thieves magically know the names of people they incapacitate? Anyway, this and the factory thing left me feeling that the totality this mission might be one big contest inspired 4th wall break rather than an actual even in the TDM-verse, which is probably someone's jam, but for me it was a bit off putting.
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A few final comments on this topic that might be useful to someone in the future:
1. Don't use ' seta pm_runbob "0"; seta pm_walkbob "0"; or seta pm_crouchbob "0" ' to disable head bob for any of these three movement states. Apparently this also stops you from making walking/running sounds! Someone with more engine knowledge than I will have to diagnose whether this is only cosmetic or if it actually removes the tap shoes from the simulation. Either way I would call it subtly game breaking.
2. It doesn't look to me like pm_runroll or pm_runpitch actually have any effects on running head bob. Is this a glitch or are these vestigial? (It doesn't really matter, but for someone trying to customize their experience, it's confusing.)
3. If there is any chance of getting settings menu presets for this, I would suggest if possible giving a choice between three states: head bob On, Off, or Run Only. Even as someone who does pretty well with VR and simulations (unlike my guest who kicked this whole thing off), I find the walking and crouching head bob in TDM a bit excessive, and I'm now finding I can play a bit longer if they are turned off. However running is such an uncommon and transient action in most TDM missions that it really has no effect on motion sickness (unless one is supremely sensitive), but it does contribute greatly to immersion. So my preferred setting would be for head bob during running only if that was available.
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@Wellingtoncrab Hm. I just double checked Iris and it seems like it is only losing my motion settings when I load older saves that I made before I began messing with these variables. Starting the mission over from the beginning or from a save made with the right settings works correctly. I think you are okay.
(And its good to know going forward that these variables are apparently attached to save files too!)
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An updated list of the best TDM fan missions?
in Fan Missions
Posted
@polygroveCheck out this thread:
Also the mission list on the wiki (https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Fan_Missions_for_The_Dark_Mod) is very helpful for finding things to play; particularly for sorting by author or mission type.
Personally, I would suggest Kingsal and Moonbo are the two mission authors you must look into if you are new to TDM. They really raise the bar in terms of consistently crafting artful, innovative missions with a particular penchant for outstanding level design, storytelling, and atmosphere.
(Iris is very similar in that respect. So if you liked Iris you may also like work by those two authors.)