fllood
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Posts posted by fllood
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We also should agree what season we aim for. Or in other words: would be strange someone use snow while some other go for some summer feel / setting
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What you guys think about the idea about haveing everyone some free share-desktop software (like netmeeting just a better tool) if two or more people want to meet for some hand-on help or showing a technique?
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will be cool if i can fanagle the player to slide down rocks and drop for starting position
I read somewhere on the forum that there is slippery ice. You might to use that if we go for an autumn/winter theme. There may some other technical way making a texture/surface slippery. Feels advanced though.
There will be many cracks, and holes in the wall/door leading out of the cave, and there will be lots of sunlight flooding in, including some sunbeam particle types with floaty dust.
sounds beautiful.
Right now to emulate bright light outsidea dark cave, I'm just using a big flat patch textured with _white behind all the gaps. It looks great for now, but later I might try a cubemap with some foliage/rocks outside the cave.
ehh ok, now you've lost me, leaving noob stuff behind ...
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I just figured it would be more of a summary of what's being said in all the other threads. It'll be a new thread; I won't be closing any of these existing ones.
Guess everyone will start it's own thread sooner or later for the mission he does for screens, progess info, questions, get feedback, whatever... . I will once there is really something to say about my mission and then will post progess in that FM thread. Breathen can take infos from there into the sticky.
I expect many chances for the setting of most peoples' maps in the beginning phase (mine included)
regards ungolinat other thought: It don't make much sense for me already thinking about a map sequence before we have a rough main story. As well as a decision if we do hub some or most all missions or have them all in sequence.
Have we made up our mind about one person directing main plot?
And if yes if it's ok for everybody having ungoliant writing the main plot once we agree on a general idea??
What's your oppionion guys?
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magnificent imagery
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well ... WH isn't polished and ... lets say unique ... but aleady playable and not that bad in the idea. It has a very good use of ambient lighting to give it a "fantasy" feel in setting. Though lacking in design (imo) SH did add a huge amount of skillfull advanced scripting and an ice wiedling mage.
Did one of us played all FM so far (I don't)... we should avaid to come up with sth. as main story that was done in some TDM FM before ..
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Greek fire is a liquid chemical that burns in water...there's no obvious connection to mines.
I miss the connection between a Greek fire and the mines Spring. Please enlight me
If the story won't actually include much about the Inventors, then why have it be an Inventor secret at all.
Because if we decide to go for ungoliants "player steals secret formular with chain of things follow that" idea it's logical the Inventors did invent the formular. I like that idea. But there may be other good ones we still come up with
Second I would love to see the campaign bring in a TDM faction in the main story plot that wasn't widely used so far like Inventors or Pagans. (personally I'm not so fond of fire or ice wielding mages like seen in Winter Harvest)
Please note: I don't have a clue how much assets are given for any faction. So I do not take this into account with any story considerations I say. If there is nothing / not enough AI & entities to use for a faction focusing on such make no sense of course! One of you guys who know the TDM asset library well has to estimate and then say so...
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10-15 rooms can be a lot bigger than you think. Also, as few restrictions as possible would be great. considering the estimated time of 1 year to release the campaign
I think 10-15 rooms sound not that bad to me considering the A-Z had 5. I would like to hear one of the senior mappers both for a rough suggestion for a good aim to a small and small-medium map regards room & entity count?
Thought we aim to a end of year / beginning 2012 release? did that change?
My estimate is we should expect roundabout 2 months for clue the FM in campaign format, balancing & polishing and beta-testing time. what is your guess?
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Good thoughts so far.
I like the idea of some Inventor's formular being stolen.
Stealing the best-guarded secret in the entire city of Bridgeport might be a little too ambitious for new mappers making "small" missions.
The Inventors needn't much assets in TDM if the storyline is well built. We even don't need to use a high security Inventors location at all. Example:
1st map:
Some high inventor member - maybe even the head - ambitious, with too much self-esteem and thus have got careless - sometimes takes his work at home. Just in RL
Protagonist get info about this and break into his mansion which is not that high security guarded as the guild itself. Just some hired guards and a normal safe (maybe even using Sotha's safe system if he allows us?) or something like that. and maybe a few weird stuff here and there decorating the mansion but more for feel being in an inventors home. but needn't have any gameplay relevance.
After finding out the formular being stolen the Inventors might not want to include city watch to not to get ill repute by the city majors for the shame their formular had been stolen for being just uncareful. That could be also good for a mission for the protagonist to blackmail the Inventors (which fails at the end of the mission just as all seamed settled) before trying to sell the formulat to anyone intersted. (2nd map)
(however maybe blackmail is to close to NHAT ?)
Instead Inventors hire the assassin / thief guilt to chase the protagonist - could be fine to introduce a famous and feared master assassin (and his thug troop) as recurring antagonist always close breath to the player or hinder getting the stuff sold e.g. for some fence in coalition with them setting uo an ambush the player can flee at the last moment. (3nd map)
Next after finding some fence not in coalition with or fear of the assassin (maybe a shaman in the pagan map one like to create?) this guy tells the protagonist he need proof that the formular REALLY works. To do so the player need to steal some ingredients for proofing the formular. This ingredients could for example be found in a mage labor / pagans woods / in a bank safe / undead remains from crypt / holy water from builders / werebeast hair from cave ... whatever a FMA want ... and any AI / enemy type a FMA want to focus on can be added. (map 4-6)
After the protagonist got all he need when making proof in the final 7th map - for example having to break into an inventors or mage labor, meet the fence, putting all ingredients together in a labor some unexpected happens / goes wrong (whatever surprise we come up with) and the protgonist must find his way out while the city watch rush the place. hmm ok, not that spcial - sure someone comes up with something more original
well ... maybe builders, inventors, mages all show up as the last ingredients is added start fight for the formular. Leaving the protagonist only chance to survive to flee while the fractions being distracted about getting the secret formular for themself. or being betrayed the fence being the master builder himself using the protagonist finding ingredients he couldn't get his hands on so far. ... well, whatever we come up with and do work technically... We also need to decide who our protagonist is going to be. We can come up with someone completely new, or we can go with someone already listed in the Dark Mod wiki.
I think we shouldn't use one of the others people protagonist but invent our own as want him to be and needed for our story...
the new 1.06 campaign loot feature?
do you mean the carry-over the loot from FM to FM?
The carry-over make balancing in a FM hug system maybe difficult. We at least would have to take care that there are no balancing issues regardless the sequence a player choose to play the maps in a hub: e.g the same loot cap to take over for all hub mission 4-6 in my example.
Does a hub system work technically? Regard the wiki campaign support seam only work in FM sequence. Doesn't it?
I'm very pro for one main story director like I made clear in the novice thread. Both ungoliant and demagogue are OK for me for the job. Whoever do it please take a look at my thought about a good story setup. Yeah I know... that might well be too ambitious questions and aims for a noob campaign - anyway, it doesn't hurt to think about these game design story guidelines when building up the characters and while the main plot thickens
hhmm, while thinking about which formular of existing player tools could be stolen I have some idea: wouldn't it be cool using the formular for the mine. And the campaign having the protagonist fail at the end and the story end explaining why the mines never work in the world of the Dark Mod as designed from the Inventors guild
- being our protagonist the culprit so that might be a nice lore addition for the faulty mines (so far).... if the TDM team make the mine work one day, well, some placates on the walls of later FM might explain that the Inventors figured now - at last
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yes but only 1 poll per thread, which seems terribly inefficient to me.
Maybe we should then consider using http://doodle.com/
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Hey I'm fllood, sry guys for chime in late. been some days off on vacation with no net access at all.
I got in touch to Thief with the Bafford demo '98 which came alongside a German PC magazine. I immediately was struck by that kind of unique briefing, the sounds, mood and revolutionary gameplay. Thief II did perfect this concept to me. I discovered ttlg and FM's and been registered on ttlg since 2002 (with my former nick until 2010 which I changed to be in synch with my TDM nick). Since I had played many outstanding FM's and always returned to Thief after having travelled other lands and shores inbetween: home is where the loot is I guess ;-) ... While I still have to catch up with a few of the high profiled Thief FM's (like ANIR, Melan's Night Watch or Seven Sisters) the FM that did impressed me most so far are the ones of Saturnine, Gaetane and Purah: dark, atmospheric FM-bliss with great ideas and mood.
I don't know why I never been tempted with mapping in dromed in the early FM years. Later on my interest grew to build an own FM. But I just wasn't tempted to dig into what felt to me a "yesterdays" technology of dromed. Until TDM came along. I decided to give DR a try and started learning mapping at the beginning of this year. And it's really much fun. That much I meanwhile do spend more time in DR than in playing FM's. Indeed I still have to catch up with half of the released TDM FMs. I haven't started a real map so far but did some "sandboxing" and playing around with some stuff and completed the A-Z tutorial resulting in that small A-Z"Thief's Den" map I spiced up playable for my young daughter. Good to see that she got sparked and "doll-housing" with DR meanwhile as well. maybe I can tempt her doing a few interiors for my map
I was about to start some map for real as Brethren's noob campaign Initiative came up. I'm tempted by the novices collaboration idea for I hope sharing ideas and helping each other within a noob setting will help everybody learn mapping techniques much better than anyone on it's own. Also I hope it help me to stay basic and not much carried away with advanced ideas or experimenting resulting in burnout or a discarded map.
I have not yet any precise idea how my map will be. I like to experiment with horizontal and vertical ways for the player to move (like you find in "Too Late"). The story and protagonist I had in mind for my map before the campaign came up won't fit in here. So I put it aside for later and will start thinking about some new ideas and concepts. For a campaign setting make it possible I might make my map quiet very non-linear in location and objectives. In that way a player has not to explore every room to finish the map (if the player for example find the room with the objective early on by chance). It would be uncool to miss half the map on a stand-alone single FM. But I think that's quiet OK and should be possible in a campaign. Also I might not include any loot objective at all. So in my map it might be up to the player how much loot he want to find to benefit from it in the shop for the next FM of the campaign. - That's something I didn't like in some OM's: regardless what the objectives say it just was "do explore all rooms"
Said that everything is open at this point so far...
My available DR and Online time is somewhat limited as for my job, RL and family. But I hope to be able to spend one evening per week for mapping on average during this team project. I do plan making a small map as a start. maybe extend it to medium if things go well. I intend to concentration on gameplay, light, sounds and mood (rather than sophisticated visual details). And may I be heretic to say I like the simple blocky geometry of the dark engine
I intend my map being mainly interior: either an old mansion, underground crypt, a secret builders place or similar. Maybe a spooky abandoned builders hospital reminiscent of "Silent Hill" or "Blackstone Chronicles"!? With a secret for the player to be found why it had been desolated. And some item from a former inhabitant or supervisor? guess in the end my map setting will depend what's possible with the stock TDM assets (unless any of you guess like to texture or model stuff for me). And what will fit the main story arc ...
It seam that I am the only non-native English speaker in the team. so well, I hope you'll be kind to my grammar and misspellings, if it take me some time for formulate an answer or if there will be language based misunderstandings
Looking forward to the experience with you guys!
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GMT+2, Germany
Can this forum do checkbox polls (multiple answers)? for things like finding available days and times for chats for example.
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I've created my own DR tutorial video on the basics (and not so basics) of using brushwork for you guys.
Great brushwork video tutorial ungoliant. Well done! Continue doing that vid's man...
Komag's are also great. A pity he didn't made more.
To me video tut's are the most effective way to learn things seeing someone doing and taking hands on about mapping techniques. thanks for that one.
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I recommend doing Fidcal's A-Z tutorial before using the stuff from the startmap.
The startpack have a lot things ready-made to use. But I think it's beneficial - if not essential - to learn the background of the "how's" and "why's" things work in DR/TDM.
While it takes some more time to dig into things then just using them I think it will help a lot later to avoid errors and come up with cool ideas and possibilities. Think of it like mathematics. You do not need to understand a formula to use it. But if you understand how the formula was build it help you a lot later on understanding and using more varied and complicated stuff
.... and sooner or later you want/need to build things a little different than in the startpack or tutorials... -
Most excellent addition grayman
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Since FMA's make their missions for the audience, it is good to know what people want and expect.
I don't agree here Sotha, FMA's best should make mission just the style they like themself.
Rule of thumb: If you really like your own FM (and you're being honest with yourself), then there's going to be people out there that will like it for the same reasons you do. So I usually think you can't go wrong making it the way you'd most like it. Just be sure you actually play through it as a player and not just assume you yourself would like it.
Yeah that's my oppinion as well.
So it's really great TDM having many authors which have various preferences and liking how they do things in their maps (same is true beyond readables).
Personally I like readables that add to the gameplay, have infos to reach an objective or secrets - thus have some information of importance. And texts that add and deepens the story, setting, lore of the TDM universe or characterize people and their attidues so I can connect, sympathise or hate (both good) people or fractions. Also a library without any books to frob or just the one with the important clue might be worse than a library with a couple of general flavour tetxts added ... I usually don't read Builders sermons, however a builders place without some sermons texts to see feels wrong.
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or did you mean you dont know the name and werent in my picture thread until now ?
*lol*
in the next days i sort all my started maps out...give some screens in my box of this one i give free...where to post / send the started ones than ?
Herr Burock please PM me a link to download the started stuff you want to contribute. possibly along with a few rough infos if you like (see first post). I do archive all you send on Fidcal's server as backup and put up any info you provide me in the main post of this thread.
My magic glass ball tells me Biker you sure want to have a look?! I'll forward the link/s to you as soon Johannes did send them.
Big tumbs up both to you!
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Nbohr? fllood? nosslak?
Back on topic...
Anyone out there wavering a bit, tempted to join but not sure, something like that? C'mon, there must be other newbs out there itching to get their first level finished and released, and willing to work with a team.
Put me to the lines "tempted to join but not sure".
I like the idea. not sure for I don't want anyone or a project (possibly) slow down because me.
I'm able to distract myself some minutes to the forums in low times during work hours here and there, like Nbhor. And I'm just about to start my (real) first map. However available DR time is somewhat limited for me as for job, RL and to keep Mrs. fllood happy
- to give you an estimate of my available map time based on the last months: one DR evening at an average a week. so important to me is to spend that mapping time well. Within a collaberation frameset sharing ideas, experiences, opinions, helping & beta test each other ... is a tempted way to do so. just unsure if ~20 hrs a month might be sufficient to a team project.so lets say, if you can't fill the ranks or adding a part that the campaign won't very much depend on?
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I guess if somehow I got a nice couple of days to myself I could start to build up the skill to map more quickly. Then I could trickle out small map sessions like the rest of these over-worked veterans.
hrhrr, I eat a bootlace if you're noob @ mapping Nbhor
but some points on your list rings a bell in me
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Johannes ??
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happy
really excellent Bikerdude ...!
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Good ideas here Breathren & Demagogue!
... and good tips and advices from the Darkmod Veterans.
My advice about setting up a successful campaign story: Take a close look how the TV-series (with season meta plots) do it! Babylon 5 being a good example.
To do so:
Create a overall rough arch with the main characters: protagonist, antagonist and a few important interesting personas along the way (like producing the meta arch of a TV seasons). With involved fractions, personas, their distinguished characteristics and motivations being most important in setup advance to starting everyone mapping.
This setup should be able to answer following questions:
1) How do the main story and characters connect the missions.
2) What are the joining element in every missions of the campaign
3) How do story and characters hold player interest with gradually increasing elements of gameplay tension (see classic Greek drama for example which setup is used in most films stilll today for good reason!).
Don't waste time and energy in creating the main arch and characters democratic: have it your part, responsibility and decisions (or one other story director person's). Set it as frame for every participant and the campaign. Be open for advice or changes as the project proceed. Don't be afraid to bend/change stroy parts later for gameplay or tech reasons.
With the campaign meta plot being set give mappers the freedom to come up with any theme and sub-story as they want for their own map (like writing and directing a TV episode of a season). The pre-setting to their creativity: integrating the main story cornerstones, fraction(s)/settings and characters that connect the missions. No special mention needed that you obviously won't like having everyone do a manson or were beast level
Generally some good questions to ask yourself while scripting a story setup usually are:
+ What aspect(s) of the plot might hook player interest immediatly?
+ Want you the objectives to increase with difficulty and/or story progress?
+ Are there map locations that players can relate to and might be especially eager to visit?
+ Should the meta plot have any drastic change / surprise?
+ What obstacles should he deal with and why/who/what should he care about? What are the motivations of the player character? What does he feels about the world and people he must deal with?
+ Should the protagonist be an uncharacterized John Taffer Doe (so that every player can make his own character projections to him) or a person with characteristica being setup.
+ What history that matter does the player character have? How much and in which way do you turn these into gameplay.
+ If the protagonist is no "Taffer Doe": What positive and negative traits do emphasize him?
+ What motivations and characteristica do the antagonist(s) have?
+ What are the player characters connections to the antagonist(s) and the fractions?
+ Should the protagonist change throughout the campaign? In what way? Are these events and decisions interesting and surprising? Are they at the right moment?
+ Should be other interesting characters in the campaign a player would be eager to know about, see, avoid or defeat?
+ Have the main story, places and people within the campaign a good gradually rising tension curve?
+ Have you set up anticipation for a climax or special location during the course of the campaign or map? T3 succeded here very well with Gamal (on meta story level) and The Cradle (on map level).
+ Do you want an exciting first mission bang to draw people in? And an climax finale mission?
... and so on. These are some thoughts in the setup Thief (all three) did design and implement really, really well !!
Some of these story considerations might be too ambitious / out-of-scale for a Novice campaign of course. But they are very advisable for a campaign focused on promoting the Dark Mod ... like Demagogue's idea.
Breathren your idea sound very basic democratic if I don't mistake your posts. A campaign project is in general well adviced having one "Campaign Director" doing the organisation (discussions and dates), keeping things and people focused and having the final say. Ideally (but not necessarily) he/she is also being the main story director. That director's moderation and decisions are very important when things are undecided or when too much time is wasted in detail discussions or coordination - and that will happen very soon in projects scaled like these
Hope some of these thoughts will be of help.
Keep the enthusiasm guys ...!
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After an TDM quiksave crash a few weeks ago I experienced that as well. No big prop. But also the DoomConfig settings had been reinitalized with no key binds and defaulted gfx settings. Can't say 'cos of the crash or the D3 key inquiry. But felt everything had been reset. Ijust assumed the crash did forced the reset and key inquiry.
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well.. you know, it's like if you place a button in a map and a sign next to it labeled "don't push!" hh
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Posted · Edited by fllood
too bad