[Fan Mission: A Night in Altham]

@joebarnin @pax-downunder I'm on Linux too (Debian 12 64 bit), and

Spoiler

while I've experienced the already known problem of seeing only pitch black in the holes on the wall, I could move that brick, crouch and pass through the passage without any problem.

 

@Heuli

Spoiler

check better the room with the big lion, and make sure to read completely the hints in the garden.

 

[Thief Gold Campaign: The Black Parade]

On 12/4/2023 at 7:15 PM, marbleman said:

Correction: skacky did not work on Dishonored or Dishonored 2.

I don't know him personally, but he has a quite long history in Quake mapping, too. I played various Quake custom maps by him, and they were excellent.

I didn't know he is a level designer at Arkane now. Wow.

[Trying to recognize a couple of fan missions]

33 minutes ago, nbohr1more said:

Those are screenshots from the "work in progress" mission by "Spooks" who previously released the excellent "King of Diamonds"

Thank you very much, I had this curiosity for a very long time. Indeed, those screenshots are impressive.

[Trying to recognize a couple of fan missions]

Hi everyone, I hope this is the correct section (in the Fan Missions section there are mostly topics by mission authors on their new missions).

I started playing TDM a few years ago, I completed and replayed a lot missions, but I still have to play a good amount of content, and I would like to find the names of two specific missions...

Can someone tell me the name of the mission portrayed in this screenshot and the name of the mission portrayed in the background image of the main page of the TDM website?

Thank you in advance.

[Fan Mission: A Night in Altham]

21 hours ago, joebarnin said:

Crap. That’s a bug alright. There is another way out. Or, noclip through the obstruction. Sorry about that.

I just logged in to say that that wasn't necessary to

Spoiler

close and reopen the grate, it was sufficient to simply pass it and look behind

to trigger the bug, but I see that you've already fixed it! 

Spoiler

I also found the "other way out", it was one of those "Ohh!" moments 

Spoiler

Technical question: I inserted this spoiler by error, how do I remove it from the smartphone interface?

 

Now I'm way deeper into the mission, it's really a great one.

[Fan Mission: A Night in Altham]

Hi, happy to post again in this forum! I presented myself a couple of years ago, if you can remember, and now I'm quite an experienced player. I hope that I'll be able to post more frequently now, if it's well accepted as I probably will never find the time to directly contribute to this project...but never say never.

Spoiler

I'm halfway playing this behemoth of a mission with the highest of the three difficulty settings available at mission start, and I'm having a lot of fun.

Maybe on the purely visual level the outdoor city sections (at least the first ones, those I visited at the moment) are more old school and a bit simpler than some of the new releases, but I think it's an aesthetic choice, given the percentage of the pure, old school brushwork used. I also played Now and Then in the past which had the more modern visual apperance of many recent missions, probably because of the use of modules, so I think it's a matter of tastes and aesthetics. I like this simpler aesthetic, even if in my opinion it gives its best with the static lighting and the pixelated graphics of old school shooters played with nearest texture filtering.

Gameplay-wise I find the mission really, really fun, not too hard, not too easy (I went for the almost-ghost playstyle with stealth score 0 in my mind), the occasional puzzles are fun and easily solvable, which for me in a game like TDM it's almost always a big plus. And it's huge, I don't even know if I'm really halfway through it...

I also appreciated what I think are little literary citations here and there.

I'm finding it a really fun and quality mission overall, congratulations for this (and for Now and Then too!) 

I also found what I suspect is a bug:

Spoiler

I opened the grate (only openable with its key, frobbable from a patrolling guard) which ends the first city section after the warehouse, passed through it and closed it behind myself. If I try to open the grate again, this time from the other side obviously, the grate opens, but the inner part of another similar grate appears behind it, blocking me and preventing me to come back to where I came from.

I'm playing on Debian 12 Gnu/Linux 64 bit with the highest of the three difficulty settings available.

 

[A little presentation and a huge thank you.]

7 hours ago, Zerg Rush said:

Well, it's not that complicated either, perhaps the most that requires some training is lockpicking, the rest is simply being patient and careful to stay in the shadows and keep your eyes and ears open.
But this with an excellent training mission everything is learned quickly. Even if you want to go deeper into the skills, you can try the Blackjack Training mission, to train stealth on different terrains and the Swing mission, to train climbing and jumping
Then you can relax with Builder Blocks, or grab some popcorn while watching different AI's fight each other in the Arena mission.

Yeah, it's not that complicated, it just requires some time to adapt but that's it. Maybe it was just me, I have to say that I still have to play Thief...ok now I suppose in five seconds I'll get a lifetime ban from here 

But now I'm decent at it, I play most missions at the highest difficulty without much trouble, sometimes I even try to ghost some missions at first try but very rarely I maintain the ghost style to the end.

I was terrified by the idea of ghosting in my earlier playthroughs, but when I finally understood the pleasure of not having corpses to hide behind me, I changed my mind. In "ghost mode" it's just about you and nowadays I like this.

[A little presentation and a huge thank you.]

7 hours ago, Wallace said:

I fully agree with OP. I don't post much but keep a close eye on the 2.10 release. I'm so grateful we have such awesome fanmade games available for free, which trump most AAA hand-holdy garbage that pass for games nowadays.

Not to hijack the thread, but OP if you like imsims (free ones at that) make sure to check out STALKER: Anomaly. Fanmade + standalone just like TDM.

https://www.moddb.com/mods/stalker-anomaly

 

 

Thank you! I didn't know Anomaly. If I ever get some time and the determination to recover my Windows HDD I'll try, I guess it doesn't run on Linux...

I played Shadow of Chernobyl and Call of Pripyat multiple times, probably at least 2 times each, loved them, even if they scaried the shit out of me in some of those labs...

[A little presentation and a huge thank you.]

4 hours ago, Zerg Rush said:

@Dave the Taffer, welcome to TDM, and yes, I think the same, since I tried TDM some time ago, with the first standalone version. It is certainly a game that stands out from all the other games that you find as OpenSource, what's more, it don't even have to be ashamed compared to commercial games.
Adding a pleasant and friendly community, where it is a pleasure to participate. what more could you want?

Really, one can't ask for more, it's already something incredible as it is right now.

12 minutes ago, nbohr1more said:

Thank you for the kind words and praise!

I can probably speak for the team when I say that we are always striving to make people happy with this project and it is cool to see positive feedback once in awhile in comparison to endless bug reports, wishlists, and complaints ( we value those too though ).

Yes, I definitely wanted to report some very positive feedback and experience. I really wanted to write this for a while, I felt like I couldn't play all this good stuff without (at least) saying to the devs how good it is for me. Glad to see the feedback is appreciated!

[A little presentation and a huge thank you.]

12 hours ago, Nebrekker said:

This inspired me to download it again and get my butt kicked in the training missions

Oh, great!

I'm trying to introduce some friends to TDM. The only "problem", one I believe is implicit in this type of games, it's that (as with all the good things) it is necessary to go through an initial phase of learning the various systems, movement, light/shadow, noise/silence, lockpicking, and all the rest. It required some initial pratice for me. Even when I played Dishonored I needed a lot of learning, and Dishonored is a much easier game compared to TDM, because Corvo is basically a demigod. I was used to Doom I and II, games in which you can outrun your own rockets ahah, and to Quake III, where I would strafejump like crazy while timing items and so on. So I had to learn new rhythms and mechanics.

But once the first step is made, the payment in terms of fun, emotions and enjoyment while playing the TDM missions is huge.

[A little presentation and a huge thank you.]

Good evening everyone, I hope this is the correct section.

I'm writing and posting this just to say THANK YOU for this beautiful game, thank you so much. I'll say a lot of obvious things that all of you know much better than me, but I can't understate what I feel about this.

The Dark Mod is far beyond what I believed to be the limits of free software/open source and community driven game development. Sure, there are massive (and successful) open source projects out there, the Linux kernel itself, and a lot of great gaming related stuff, but nothing in free/open videogame development (in my knowledge) seems comparable to this.

A free, open immersive simulator (basically a new Thief) based on evolved id Tech 4 technology, seems far too good to be true, but it's done and it's real. And it's evolving and growing!

I can't even start to comprehend how much work, passion and love had to be put into this, both engine/tools side and art/mission creation side, especially with a complex and advanced technology like id Tech 4. And I'm so impressed by the advances in engine technology and by the sheer amount of high quality art and missions, when I think about this I shake...

I loved and enjoyed a great number of missions (still have to play most of the older ones), got (almost) lost in giant parts of the City, and experimented some of the most beautiful emotions I ever felt playing videogames.

There are so many beautiful missions and campaigns out there, Shadow of Northdale, William Steele, The Painter's Wife, Penny Dreadful and many more, so many that I can't name all of them right now.

I always was that guy that played Doom and Quake I/III, then another videogame (like Stalker), then return to Doom and Quake and their community works, repeat for n times...but at some time the videogame in the middle of the process was the first Dishonored and its DLCs and after that I was ready for understanding and loving TDM, which I started to play about two years ago.

Now TDM is, in pratice, the only game I play and it's free and open source, and so good that's crazy. 

So, really, a huge thank you to everyone involved and a huge "wow" to programmers, artists, mission authors, and all the others. Can't say "thank you" enough.

P.S. Not to mention that right now I'm in quarantine, isolated in a room with covid, so TDM basically saved my mental health and let me feel some freedom :) and so finally I've found the time to write this, I wanted to do this for a while.

[Things that could be improved]

I would have a couple of observations/suggestions for this beautiful game, hoping that they're not silly things to say. I also hope this is the correct thread for this kind of suggestions, and please forgive me if this has already been said by someone else.

Right now, the main folder of a The Dark Mod installation (even new ones) isn't very clean to the eyes. There are a lot .pk4 and text files everywhere. It's true that the executables are easy to find, but a great feeling of confusion remains. It's also true that probably most players use some kind of desktop launcher and rarely/never open this folder. But my question remains: there is a reason for this specific directory structure? Couldn't those files be put in some subdirectories? Obviously I'm referring to future updates, I suppose that the engine needs to be updated for this. Maybe these subdirectories could be called something like "assets" (or "base"), "docs", and so on. Would something like this be a sensible thing to do?

Ok, now I forgot the other question/suggestion if I can remember it I'll post it later, excuse me. What a broken brain I have!

[Fan Mission: The Hare in the Snare, Part 1]

Hi,

I re-played this mission between yesterday and today. I had already played it some time ago, but I didn't complete it to the end; this time I finished it with all side objectives completed except for the loot one, 4/5 secrets and about 4500 loot.

I enjoyed this mission very much, and I am really eager to play the sequel(s), which, to my understanding, is being worked on. I want to post here a couple of thoughts that came to my mind while playing it; obviously I know that what follows is my very humble opinion.

I loved so much almost everything, the story, the characters, the design, the readables, the little details and all the rest. But, both time I played this, I didn't like the overly sensitive light gem. From the literal start I've had the impression that I could do nothing to avoid making the guards suspicious, and even later I felt that playing though this without causing suspicion was difficult in an unfair way. As a consequence, I have lowered the AI's hearing and vision sensitivity to the very minimum, and I had never done that before. So I want to ask to the creators: please consider the option of using the normal light gem sensitivity in the (eventual) sequel(s), sequel(s) that I desire very much.

Another thing I felt was that the

Spoiler

hidden switches that opened the secret room and the secret passage in the two main houses

were too small.

Last thought: yes, the loot objective was very high, maybe too high, but it was optional, so I haven't felt that as a problem, I was okay with that.

For the rest, as I've already said I really loved this mission, and I really want to know how the story continues.

P.S. As I've already said in another thread, I am new to this forum, but not new to The Dark Mod, I usually play on the highest difficulty, sometimes even ghosting the missions. Sure, I'm not and I'll never be the best TDM player out there, but probably I don't completely suck either.

Anyway, excellent work!

[Beta testing 2.10]

1 hour ago, stgatilov said:

beta210-08 is available.

Please everyone who had crashes with previous version (e.g. on Written In Stone), try again.

Hi everyone,

I installed 2.10 beta 8 updating over beta 7, and now even with shadow mode set to "Stencil" Written in Stone no longer crashes near the start on my system.

I add that yesterday evening I played and almost finished Written in Stone with beta 7 and shadow mode set to "Maps" without any problem.

[Beta testing 2.10]

@nbohr1more That's really interesting!

@Amadeus That's for sure the next thing I'm going to do this evening! Thank you and the others for the mission

[Beta testing 2.10]

Ok, changing shadow mode to "Maps" worked fine and the mission no longer crashes for me! I did try changing some video settings before posting here, but I didn't think about shadows.

As a side note, I did try executing TDM in GDB as suggested, and when I encounter the crash, the TDM window freezes but doesn't disappear, and it seems that a big part of my entire desktop freezes. I still can change GNOME 3's virtual desktops with Ctrl + Alt + Uparrow or Downarrow, but other things seems to be frozen, including the mouse, forcing me to reboot the PC with its On/Off button. I tried two times and this happened two times. Very strange. So I couldn't copy the contents of the GDB console, because I had to reboot. Anyway, this is not needed anymore, as the problem is resolved.

As another side note, even the first problem (the one about frozen aim during the charge of a shot) seems to be gone! I tried with different missions, even with my original settings and I couldn't reproduce it anymore. Computers will never stop surprising me

So, another time, really huge thank you. I hope my posts have been (or will be) useful in some ways for this game.

[Beta testing 2.10]

Thank you again.

I followed the steps 1), 2), 4), and 5), trying after every one of them, and the crash still occurred every single time. I'm uploading again those two files, if they can help, especially crash_written_2.txt.

I have to say that (in 2.09b) my GT1030 handled well The Painter's Wife, Behind Closed Doors and every other mission I ever tried at 1080p and with the settings you can see in the first Darkmod.cfg file I posted. I honestly can't remember if she could reach stable 60 fps with those huge missions, but the game was smooth enough and it never crashed. I literally never experienced a crash with TDM before this one.

Concerning point 3), I'm pretty sure I installed the correct version of the proprietary Nvidia driver that is available in Debian 11 standard, probably I could get a more recent version from the backports, but I don't want to do this.

I don't really understand what I have to do exactly with GDB, it doesn't happen anything when I run that command in Bash. If I can offer more help. I'll be happy to do so. Thank you, again.

Maybe this evening I'll try to do a clean reinstall of TDM and see if the problems go away, but I doubt it, this one already was a pretty recent installation.

crash_written_2.txt Darkmod.cfg

[Beta testing 2.10]

Oh, sorry, I didn't think about Darkmod.cfg. Here it is, together with the other file you requested.

I don't know if I've done this correctly, I started TDM, loaded Written in Stone, got the usual crash, and then I rebooted the game and invoked that command. Have I got it right?

Howewer, thank you!

crash_written.txt Darkmod.cfg

[Beta testing 2.10]

Good afternoon to you all,

I'm a new user of this forum, but I play TDM since a couple of years now.

I just registered to ask you about a couple of issues I encountered while trying the new 2.10 beta 7 version, that I installed in my computer updating over 2.09b and following the official instructions. I'm using Debian GNU/Linux 11 64 bit on a Intel i5 PC with a Nvidia Geforce GT 1030 and the proprietary Nvidia driver.

The first problem is: I cannot aim anymore while "charging" a shot with the blackjack or with the bow. So, if I "charge" the shot holding the Attack button, I cannot aim with the mouse until I release it (but I can move with WASD). This wasn't happening in 2.09b. I haven't tried the previous 2.10 beta versions.

The second problem is: in the new mission Written in Stone, the map loads regularly after the cutscenes, I can move in the little starting area but as I approach what I suppose is a larger square nearby the game instantly crashes to my desktop. This happened every time I tried, both with loading a savegame and restarting the mission from scratch. With the other new mission Iris I've not encountered this problem, and with 2.09b (and 2.08 too), not with Written in Stone of course, the game never crashed on my computer.

I tried to modify various settings but nothing solved these two issues. I hope that this post actually helps and that there are not stupid things or English grammar horrors.

Sorry for the really direct and short presentation, I hope that this isn't too rough, maybe I should introduce myself a little more after this.