Fidcal

Crispy: I'm with Komag on this. You say "Forcing a playstyle on a player is generally a bad thing." My view is that forcing a writing style on a level editor is wrong. He/she should be free to write absolutely any kind of game they wish so long as they make it clear in the readme so the player can choose whether to play it. To have a constraint, pressure, or bias applied to any creative art is wrong in my opinion. I generally like semi-ghosting but the notion that nobody should write an all-out combat mission without being criticised (for play style alone) is repugnant to me. "I don't like xxx because it is not Thief-like" is fair comment; "xxx has no right to be so unThief-like" is not. Yes, a mission can be annoying; I've abandoned many a one with a curse - but I defend the freedom of the mission author to produce the level THEY want and not just write for the majority.

TWO updates in one month? Nice going. Good to hear about the improved leaning - something I value especially after the disappointment of the phony TDS substitute. Will the light gem be affected by leaning out into a bright area? Sometimes is in T2, sometimes not - don't know the 'rules' there, remind me somebody. And the AI throwing stuff at an out of reach player - much better than just fist shaking. Will this rely on bottles and stones that happen to be lying around or will AI carry stuff. Will their accuracy be changeable by level editors? Seems if they have this ability that presumably you have some AI planned to throw some kind of weapon like a dagger? And AI searching just gets better and better.

Yes, go for it. If you produce some 3D models they are unlikely to be wasted as even if not suitable for the official resources the community will always be hungry for new objects to put in their levels eventually.

Good point. Now you draw my attention to it I guess I just jumped for the robotic stereotype when I made the voice. I was happy in my ignorance but now I'm even wondering whether to keep the damn thing in my own mission. But then, even though it may not fit the pure Thief 2 world, and therefore the Dark Mod 'world' which is based on it, both T2 and TDM can be (and with T2 are) used to build all kinds of fan missions that deviate from the norm. Again, one can argue, what place do robots or even electrics have in a medieval/Victorian setting? It's a fantasy. So although not suitable for the main missions or 'pure' fan missions, it will still be acceptable to many to deviate from the standard setting in their own FMs. Be a shame if it were not so. So I'll probably keep it in mine. Certainly, the robot itself adds interest to the gameplay and a Karras-robot type voice made less sense with this humanoid robot to me. I'd prefer no voice to a Karras-type. Mmmm... not too late to make a non-robot difficulty level I guess to stop purist's groaning...

Fair enough. Be interesting to hear what the Dark Mod robots will sound like. Thinking back, guess the Karras ones were meant to be sequences of mechanical recordings of a human voice.

OK. No won't feel insulted if they are not suitable. I made them for my own mission and this was just an afterthought. Incidentally, even if not used by the team, they will be made freely available anyway so anyone else can use them in anything whether it be a Dark Mod map or Thief 1,2, or 3. Here is are 5 samples anyway.... OK ... NOTHING ... NOT RIGHT ... LOST CONTACT ... STRANGE

Think that is Stallone actually. Anyway, just to repeat... pm sample links or public?

Just make me a temporary honory member of the team (robot voice division) and no rules need be bent!

NH: Do you want me to PM you with links to a sample of the wavs or post them here publicly? The voice files were created using an old quick and dirty text to speech generator but this was ideal because it makes no pretence of being human but gives really robotic-sounding monotones. Extra robot statements can be made if necessary to meet any additional requirements of Dark Mod or even custom ones for specific missions being planned. I have produced only a single voice (with almost 100 wav statments) but there is some provision for adjusting the pitch, etc so another slightly different robot voice might also be produced in the same style but I have no plans for this myself. I'm using it with the one humanoid robot in the Thief 2 Dedex gamesys.

That's OK. I'll make them available soon.

Just completed new non-Karras, generic robot voice files and schema for my Thief 2 mission and it occurred to me it might be of use with Dark Mod Development. Are robots still going to be included in TDM? I'll post a few more details if so, maybe even post a sample.

Great work Gildoran. Like the real game time reading without pausing. Looks flawless. Will all readables be take-away or some nailed down so have to be read in situ? Any thoughts on T2X type books which open at first frob then are readable. One advantage is you can see at a glance if you've already read them. Though I thought T2X had too much unnecessary reading so that was probably a good thing!

Some years ago I planned out an almost totally robot story line, led by humanoid bots, but shelved it as too ambitious for a first T2 mission. Kinda reversal of the T2 story with a few twists. Probably not original now but might look at that again when I see what bots are available in TDM. Stories don't HAVE to be original to be worthwhile so I expect I'll first try a simple, short mansion heist first. Trouble is, as ideas flow it could develop into something more like my present project. Currently racing to finish a T2 3-mission campaign this year while also dabbling with the Doom editor to get the feel of it. I hate empty rooms and corridors where nothing much happens except to pass through so I try to pack in lots of interest everywhere the player goes. I'm especially interested to see how much one can get in a scene in TDM without worrying about frame lag. A very small mission (terrain-wise) choked with stuff at every turn might be a target.

And it somewhat spoils some textures too in T2X. Nothing like washed out flat ambient light to make textures look like stone wallpaper. Pity as the scenery is beautiful. I did manage to tweak my gamma in the config and get max contrast on my monitor to make it look half-reasonable but hard to tell what corner to hide in. One of the first things I look for when entering a new location is somewhere to duck in case of emergency.

That kind of explains for me why those cats were placed where they were. Level developers probably were told the animations would be improved later otherwise they might only have used them say walking in a straight line on top of a distant wall with the moon behind them. At least I like to think so. Might have been acceptable and hid their woodenness. No cats is better than wooden cats.

Yes, this is mostly a matter of level design even in T1 and T2 but especially in TDM if it is to be not central character dependent. Seems to me that the minimum things needed to change from man to woman player are the mantling grunts/death shouts etc, and a girly weapon arm/limb model, etc. Perhaps the main character could be given unisex hands etc, not big and hairy, so could be taken either way. The rest is storyline apart from special thought speech such as 'must be a way up there...' though I think these are mostly regarded as training aids and not popular with everyone. Or have I missed out anything? I'm looking forward to a diverse range of storylines and characters in TDM missions! Maybe you should not emphasise the character you put in the TDM campaign so he's(she's) more bland and forgettable (the man with no name) (Ah! I see your smilies work for me in Opera 6; they don't at ttlg)