Wellingtoncrab

[This is a repost from the TDM Discord - meant to post it here as well at the time but the file size limits didn’t allow for a direct upload - thus the download link directs to the discord mirror which hopefully remains up and doesn’t seem to require discord credentials to access, but let me know if anyone encounters issues] Stop losing sleep over one of life’s most important questions with the book_sp1 skin pack, featuring six new cover variants including silver, gold and jewel treasure bound tomes with full normal/specular maps! The archive is ready to drag and drop into your TDM project, though all images are derived from public domain sources so really they are free to use however you like without restriction or attribution required.

This is a very cool mission! I would be also happy to give it another go around.

@ChronA Interesting, I would have to double check when I get home later but to my recollection I don’t think I ultimately needed to edit the player def so I am not sure if it’s even in there - if I did it would be in that same def folder in the mission archive - hopefully I didn’t just leave it in there unmodified or something. But if I am understanding it sounds like edits to the core player def don’t influence the mission at all? I did edit several of the weapons defs for the blackjack and arrows which do impact the animation rates for those, though I don’t think these animate the camera at all, rather just the first person models. Sorry to hear it if it’s preventing you and cohort from playing the mission, would definitely want to get it figured out!

@GEPGUNgood catch on that one! Thanks!

I would be happy to give it a test run.

Not necessarily - it just means there is a lot more to the tenement than could conceivably be modelled in the mission - I think there are probably about 5 inoperable doors in the area.

@KurshokI absolutely condemn everything you said and sincerely hope at some point you receive the help you need.

@maxrenn8spoilers for Tobin's door below

100%. After careful consultation with the dictionary I can now confirm this theory.

The moddb write ups which accompany new versions are very thorough: https://www.moddb.com/mods/the-dark-mod/news/the-darkmod-210-is-here

https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/21207-210-x-rays/ Another big gameplay addition in 2.10 were the improved security cameras. Other features which indirectly impact gameplay were things like removing the entity limit (my mission would not function without substantial compromises if that was not done) and the productivity boosts which came from compile time optimization and the connection and collaboration features added to DR.

@CountMorillonitethanks so much for playing! I am glad to hear you enjoyed it even after so many false starts.

No I have no insight there - but I made sure to include the X-rays in my mission because I was worried about the exact opposite problem. Since I had no idea about WiS being developed I was worried it was a really cool feature the developers spent time on that potentially wouldn’t be well represented at 2.10 launch. Very glad I was wrong. But again the only reason I was aware of it all was because it was publicly announced as a 2.10 core feature. It also cannot be understated how much the under the hood improvements themselves you are worried about the developers focusing on influence gameplay. At several points throughout 2.10 development I was able to vastly expand the scope of areas in my mission, add additional shadow casting lights and the ai scripting in my mission was not only enhanced directly by a member of the development team but it also includes a script event which is brand new to 2.10. I think you are absolutely right to point out things that are important to you and that could be easily incorporated into the mod. I also think there is a lot of value to fm authors in you finishing some of these unfinished mechanics and making them available. If I ever get to make another mission I will probably take a peek at them. I just find I have to disagree with a statement like “the gameplay does not get considered at all” because they have not focused on the exact things encompassed in your patch. In fact could not the same thing be said of your patch, that there is a lack of consideration for gameplay given it does not consider the design intent of the author before it coerces features into their missions? Seems like rather a matter of perspective to me. I have no insight about 2.11, but pretty much all of the public discussions I have seen here or on the discord have been about improving mechanics and the experience for new players. I have even seen asset integration mentioned as a way to contend with ballooning archive sizes and duplicated data across missions so we may see some of that. Who knows what is coming or what will make it in the end. I just think we can probably ask for things and also accept that we won’t necessarily get what we want without implying people don’t care about aspects of the game.

Yes. X-rays and the save restriction fixes are features added to the core mod which enabled entirely new (for the mod) gameplay mechanics. The very thing you described as never being considered by the developers.

Yeah as a casual player I admit I barely noticed the xray features in Written in Stone or the save rooms in Hazard Pay. I can’t imagine how either of those leveraged features which were fixed or added to the core mod. I agree with you about the frob highlight, but the developers also listened to yours and others feedback at the time which was often quite negative if I recall. So I am not certain what more we can expect from them than that. I do think it is perhaps time for a clean break so the developers could play more with the mechanics of the game without being so precious about it. Perhaps the very thing that allows your patch and the level of customization fm authors have to work, the modularity of the .pk4 system, could allow legacy mechanics to be walled off and preserved and a new era to begin. But again something easily uttered, but not our call. But on my end when I see something new I am typically like “that is cool!”, but I stop somewhere before “That is cool! How can I force this into St.Lucia.” and I think that very modularity, which is so often typically handled at the fm level, will result in more inconsistency and conflicts with players using your patch. But more power to you brother, god knows I would never play bloodlines without your patch work there, and it’s cool that TDM makes this kind of thing so easy.

I think typically definitions in the fm archive override the base game - even if the base game itself has been overridden - this seems like an issue with “patching” the game in general - if a mission for example has its own overrides for content in the scope of patch the patch won’t have any effect anyway or in the case of the invisibility potion it might even duplicate mechanics - in that way it’s probably better in my mind to provide the “patch” as a “tool kit” for mappers sort of like the startmap.pk4 who want to use and design around the revised mechanics instead promoting it as “fix” to the core game, which I would point out is in active development. To each their own, though.

Sounds pretty complete to me! Would you like a clue for Ursine’s vault?

Sure:

What “suitable item” would be replaced with the potion that is somehow prevalent in most existing missions, but somehow also not too prevalent and is inessential enough to be completely replaced with something as potent as an invisibility potion? Doesn’t seem like something that can be integrated in such a way - I imagine most mappers put some thought into the pickups available in their missions. Again the effort to get the potions working seems great - seems like they could be really cool to incorporate into new missions or make available for authors to patch into their missions on their own. I just don’t see how forcing it into an experience which was not designed with it in mind works at all.

@mango777thanks for taking the time to play! It is gratifying to hear you enjoyed the mission.

What even is a high end PC really? I have an intel quad core and 1650 - both mobile chips. While arguably modern, most games released in the past couple years run like absolute crap. I admittedly never perceived any performance issue in Written in Stone. It runs noticeably better than my mission for example, or even classic missions like Penny Dreadful 3, but I wasn’t profiling the mission while playing so perhaps I just slam into a GPU bottleneck well before the CPU becomes an issue.