fllood

Cannot mark an X on the spot why but to me FM from female authors have sometimes a really different feel (for good). maybe that's just a subjective impression? Most games build on id Tech 4 aren't typical games usually attracting female players. A pity none from the Thief community got attracted so far. +1 I would also love to see Gaetane give TDM a try. but I think it is very unlikly she'll do any more mapping after finishing her Magnum Opus, The Black Frog.

yap indeed. Exactly that! My daughter is not at all speaking English or much experienced with anything PC. That a young child just observing is capable to do basics with ease tells much about DR as a intutive fine toolset! Who knows ... If I will come up with anything nameable I gladly will let her do interior decorations etcetera ... she's already my toughest critic if a texture and deco fit a scene or not. Speaking of potential female mappers... I always found it very remarkable that there had been so many female Thief FMA's. Is there any one female TDM mapper already?? Some female author(s) wouldn't hurt, eh guys??

I like to add a little anectode ... A few years ago when my daughter had been about five years old she catched me while I was playing the "Overlook Mansion" in Thief 3. Natually I decided not knocking out poor guards on their heads while my little daughter was watching. So I ghosted the mission telling her a nice fancy story why Garrett has to reach that lady at the top of the mansion. And we weren't a Thief of course but a good guy not to be seen by all that bad guys... She had been very impressed by all of that experience. And since asked me once in a while "when we do play that game again with that Garrett??"... What you guys build is a really huge archivement, even getting better with every new version and FM release... so recently I decided to choose Biker's "Business as Usual" to play with her as this is a fine small ghostable mission without any creepy undead or forced violence. okaay this time after finishing the FM a few guards had some swellings on their had. but heeey my daughter grown older meanwhile and can stand it by now being a "good" Robin Hood type thief and enjoyed giving the city watch some headaches Why I'm telling you that? It tells something that I did choose TDM to showcase taffing fun and not T2 (still being a huge Thief fan). And DR is one of the reasons for that. A big Thumbs Up to everyone involved in the mod and FM mission building... Keep the spirit guys!! Ohh.... by the way, my daughter did get so impressed by Biker's FM that she now prefer and enjoy building rooms, decorations, pools, etcetera in DR instead of doing so in Sims 2. Nothing wrong with that change for me, not at all ...

Good to know Tels. Thank you guys for looking into this! So ... in most situation the property won't do the trick I want and disussed without odd AI behaviour I made some more tests with a chest (chest_wood.pfb) 1) One light in line of sight doesn't trigger the alert state of the female AI for the open chect (light entity has brightness 100, radius 100, 40 units away). A second light set further to the back finally triggers the female AI :-) but strangly sometime now not for the male AI. Do the AI have different awareness levels for light / line-of-sight? or may it be about the head movement? 2) But what really breaks AIUSE_DOOR for my use case: If the chest is closed the female AI now opens it (why?) and as soon AI does the spawnarg triggers the alert state of the AI by increasing 18 points. This make it a self-alerting intelligence The same self-alert if true for a fully lit closed door marked "shouldBeClosed" within AI path. (see details in spoiler for AI path and lightning) This makes the spawnarg rather pointless to set for gameplay to AI's to react on chests and doors left open by the player.

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=lWdG8NoFXY0

It's by design, I see. Thanks. In my opinion that doesn't make much sense though. It's very unrealisitic if an AI don't notice that a unlit door is open it knows it should be closed. Also it limit reasonable usability for mappers setting this AIUSE arg for gameplay. Probably something to think about to change? She is in a different team (team 4) Maybe that (very old) issue bring some idea back to mind?

Thanks Sotha! That feature seam to be broken.

Use case is: AI should take notice of some doors and open chests. Testing doors with property hash "shouldBeClosed" value "1" to alert AI for doors and chests that aren't closed by the player do fail to trigger as long as a door is placed in a shadowed area. Only when you light a door the flag do properly tigger. I tested with a female AI: atdm:ai_guard_female_rogue and atdm:ai_pagan_common_armed. Both behave the same to AIUSE_DOOR . Testing with a chest on the atdm:mover_door: No AI reactions if the chest is in a fully shadowed area like with the doors. If slightly or fully lit behaviour is different regarding which AI is used: While the pagan AI do notice the open chest, close the mover_door and goes for a search as expected the female AI does not take notice of the open chest at all even if fully lit. Talked to Sotha and he think that certainly is a bug. Please can you guys double check if AIUSE_DOOR is broken?

How do I do that? I fail finding the info on the wiki or here. (suspicious triggers seam not to work on doors or chest lids unless I do something wrong) btw. I like that planed control settings in the initial post grayman.

I would also love to see this for containers. It always annoys me in T1/T2 that AI's don't take notice of treasure chests being open. Would be cool if AI's in TDM could take notice and start search. Or is such AI behavior already possible but up to the mapper to implement and not used so far?

I really like the graphic design of the website. Problem is the out-of-date or unfrequently updated FM-related content on www.thedarkmod.com What happened to the plans of implementing a lightweight PHP/MySQL blogging solution?

nbohr that calls for a coop FM called "Monsters of Rock Build" between Sotha and Biker Congrats' for the release Sotha!

Thanks both of you!

Which good torrent client do you suggest Sepentine?

Thanks NH, yes I'm aware of that My intention to say is that I think many people are more skilled in that discipline. Or in other words: If it's easy for me to blackjack a guard in TDM, anyone can do I do not speak about guards on high alert partrolling with sword drawn. The situation is: The guard is unalert before I start my attempt. With been detected I mean if I fuck up in sneaking in proper position for a blackjack strike behind a guard because he hear or see me in that attempt. If that happens the guard rushs toward me and draws his weapen. If I try to hit the AI within seconds after this detection I had like a one out of four chance to knock him down anyway in 1.03 (the reason I used to rather run and hide). In 1.04 I succeeded every time but one unharmed - also knocking from front - in about a duzon test I did yesterday.

yep, that is. not good. ... which also can be meant to be risky as part of gameplay option by the mapper I like it following way: if a note has an important clue for an objetive or secret it should be pickable. If has just "ambient" or story information don't clutter and mix with the important clues in the inventory.

Tested in 1.04 now. First let me tell you I really suck in knocking out AI's in Thief ... also I never ever did or do a "run up" to AI and blackjack. I'm a Thief and not being called Sam by name ;-) In TDM on stone sturface it's not always easy to approach unheard. Which is absolutly fine and works as it should. that's what grass, carpets and thief tools are for. But if detected I can knockdown every Unhelmet Guard with just a quick hit on his head regardless which side facing. Even if he is facing me. Or worse just simply hitting the mouse button mindlessly a few times which also prevents the AI having any chance to even strike and hurt me. IIRC I couldn't that in such way in 1.03. For game mechanics I think it's not a plus being able to knock out unhelmet guards with no risk being discovered while trying to do so. ah and yes, Helmet guards are about 1/3 success for me to both approach safely and knockout. that's being absolutly OK. in my opinion helmet guards should be hard to knockdown (if able to at all) ! A question: Is it static set in TDM or up to the mapper how sensitive the AI's are aware of player noises and sight distance on each difficult level? The same question for the differences in the AI awareness level between the different AI types??

+1 I have fun blackjacking unhelmet guards while exploring. But like ungoliant I like helmet guards be very hard to blackjack - if possible at all! A suggestion to address knowing/learnig the "proper" blackjack handling: What about including a small blackjack room in the training mission - instead of the seperate Blackjack Training map - right from the start? Add the different kind of AI and visually highlight the area to hit on that AI (only in the training mission of course!!). ... That way people immidiatly could learn and train the differences in blackjacking different AI's and regards to Thief.

Sotha, actually I prefer people build their FM look natural if realism spoil atmosphere, gameplay or need to much build efforts being worthwhile or better spend elsewhere.

Much promising Trailor ocn! ... just take a break ... the Spring sun will take away the blues for your contest or non-contest building - keep faith ocn!

oh yes indeed. ... and add a crosshair to that breaking immersion reminding us every second "hey pal you're in a GAME!!" and I will stick to playing good ol' T2. Blackjacking is absolutly fine as it is! (and already had been made more easy since start of the mod) TDM really shouldn't dumbed down to Console game practices.

Yes, an additional "seasonal use" category make absolutely sense. I like Bikers' ranking he used for Lockdown: Tolerable, Good, Very Good, Excellent, Near Pefect. ... there is no such things as a poor FM!

Thanks jaxa, then I'll give Yandros' one a go.

That's exactly I do not like it in games Briareos. And TDM really shouldn't be limited how bow mods had been done in Thief/T2X. I like feedom of choice, not to be forced with things that are simply matter of taste like graphic settings or GUI choices. Coping Drams mod to the darkmod folder is fine for me personally. But my point is: Things aren't in the menu options won't be easily found by any newcomers. Two major keys for games to succeed are usability and players choice (among others). ... That's why I think TDM would benefit including options like this one lots people may benefit. And what's the disadvantage?! I don't need the option to disable the lightgem for just an example. But I can see it's cool for people who like to do so. And don't tell me having many menu options overwhelm the intelligence of players. Like so many Console game producers try to tell us

For anyone having taffed through these new missions already: Which one do you most recommand to check? (my free time is very limited these days to check them all)