snatcher

Forgot to say that during testing I once noticed that shouldering a body in a rush didn't work. I experimented and understood that this happens when I move the mouse at the same time I frob the body. I guess I will have to train my brain to stay still to master the mechanic.

Here are my thoughts on version 20-Oct: Consideration: as a general rule, the vast majority of players will never know what a cvar is, much less how they work. I don't consider cvars an option because after a while, people forget what they changed, how and probably why. - Snuffing out candles feels very natural and I don't personally perceive players could unintentionally put them out often. The risk is there though, especially for people with especial needs. - In my opinion, the probabilities of unintentionally dropping bodies while operating doors is considerable, specially when the frob distance of doors is reduced. - Moving a leg of a body aside is ok but dragging or toying with bodies is no fun anymore therefore the feature is gone for (old and) new players. I personally see more cons than pros and I don't feel I can do anything new, faster or better. It actually is a little confusing that I can do a same thing in different ways now. I am convinced this is a missed opportunity and a common place exists but... Having said all that, if I was a new player I guess I would have to do with what I am given and there's no way for me to tell if I would have felt that something was off or missing therefore: if this change is to take TDM to new heights I will rewire my brain. I would just appreciate that the shortcomings are properly and honestly acknowledged, instead of telling tales. Fun fact: we now have three different keys to drop bodies.

I can reproduce the issue with "Open doors on unlock" on and off so I am fairly certain this issue has nothing to do with the setting. Just open and close the panel slightly a few times and you will see the item sometimes is frobable and sometimes isn't. I would say the trigger box gets in the way of the panel (or the other way around) and the game sometimes freaks out.

@ChronA In TDM we can shoulder bodies. In Skyrim we can't. Object manipulation in TDM is decent. In Skyrim is s**t. I don't know why you bring all this, sounds desperate.

Emotion won over reason.

You will grow wiser and stronger! And a long grey beard. We cannot just get rid of the "Use" key, we need it to deal with the inventory: drink potions, read notes, throw flashbombs... TDM was built with two independent keys in mind (frob to touch and use to interact) because Thief was limited in this regard. In Thief the devs opted to hide the inventory after a period of time to prevent players from using items unintentionally too often. Did they solve the problem? They kinda solve their problem, but how frustrating it is to look for that item that many times "Use" is not going away anytime soon in TDM and new players will have to learn of its existence no matter what.

I can't find any topic where this new feature is being described or discussed so allow me to create this one. I tested Auto-Search Bodies and I like it a lot, to the point that it may very well become my default someday. We all know how hard is to make that purse, key, scroll... highlight, so this is, in my opinion, a welcome addition to the game. Thanks to those involved! My only concern is that if a body has more than one item you grab them all in one go, preventing me from knowing I just acquired more items than the one showing in the HUD. If a feature is not to be trusted then I don't see the point in this exercise and I would like to know why the current approach was considered superior over one-frob = one-item. Regards!

This may very well be the solution to the riddle: Since there is no visual indicator of any kind long key-presses are subject to peripherals, software configuration and physical needs or preferences. If we want to prevent unintended actions players should be able to decide how long a long frob is. A slider that goes from 0ms (off?) to 1s should suffice. Regardless, I still think the most reasonable approach at this very moment is to shoulder (and un-shoulder) bodies on long frob. See it, if you like, as a compromise that allows the introduction of a neat improvement that has a minimal impact and satisfies most parties. An intermediate solution, subject to further changes or improvements.

@Daft Mugi I just found a dead sleeping rat. The mechanic goes in line with the design but, is this the optimal result for players or do we make an exception?

Mods is the answer. The scripting system in TDM is like nothing I've seen before. I hope it expands further and further... Mods can bring new blood, new ideas, new mechanics, new sounds, new models, new textures... and who knows, new core features eventually.

I see TDM as its own thing in its own world so any other game would do but sure, I was dismissively referring to vocal players stuck (in a good way, I don't care) in the Thief 1 and Thief 2 universe. I haven't played Thief 3 or 4 so I will not comment about these game or its players.

@MirceaKitsune, I haven't tested yet your new mod but please please please carry on working on it This reminds me, we have to figure out a way to make different mods work alongside.

Shouldering bodies on frob is a legit proposal worth discussing. I won't however take as a valid argument that "players" are dismissing TDM because "you cannot shoulder bodies in TDM" or "shouldering bodies in TDM requires two clicks". We know what kind of players we are talking about and these players won't embrace TDM for what it is for as long as they have a place in their current universe. It is my impression that all this started on the wrong foot with a single goal in mind. No second thought or regard for anything else.

Are you guys getting your core mechanics right or do I (as a player) have to decide everything? It's getting out of control:

These are great ideas.

I thought @stgatilov's debug executables could help in narrowing down the issue and I somehow expected a third version.

@CountMorillonite You are using a version of the mission which uses "Rhand" instead of "Righthand". This version seems to be quite old and no longer supported. I tracked down a copy of your version to taffersparadise.co.uk. Perhaps there are other copies of this obsolete version out there in other sites. Close TDM, delete the fms/flakebridge folder and re-download the mission from the built-in downloader, which is the most reliable source. Cheers!

Because of the latest reports in this topic I just re-played this mission in TDM 2.11a and I didn't run into any issues. For some reason though the map is duplicated, which is annoying but apparently harmless.

I see what you see (red), plus something else (yellow). Major or minor issues can be anything, anywhere. Is there any way we can detect an author / pattern and somehow check missions / locations where the issue can be truly relevant to the point of making a scene look completely broken? I would like to help.

I understand and assume @stgatilov's optimizations are a leap forward (or go in that direction). Having two or more ways of doing things means mappers can still get away with the "old ways" (the ball keeps rolling). Although deprecated, the devs must take into consideration alternatives that were left behind. Maintaining backwards compatibility can sometimes hinder development in the long run (I rather not go down the rabbit hole). Letting things break sometimes is the best solution: somehow, someday, someone will fix it. We must assess the impact and then assess potential solutions. I am impressed by your capabilities to detect these issues @Daft Mugi! How do you do it? Do you somehow sense where or what to look for?

Many thanks for supporting The Dark Mod, @FenPhoenix ! Web searches narrow results by site ttlg.com, you could make an exception for TDM FMs... EDIT - Ouch, my bad: it can be configured in the settings. Regardless, perhaps this is the time to have per-game search results settings with some defaults.

I have been using FMSel in Thief2 for years because (I think) it came by default with NewDark and since FMSel allows me to rate missions it just works for me. I never bothered checking for alternatives but I just gave AngelLoader a go and I got it up an running in a breeze. What's more, the Import > FMSel option made its magic and my FM ratings along with the rest of details are all there now in AngelLoader! Very impressive piece of software! I am sold. Thanks for your work. Of course what caught my attention in the first place is that an application developed by fans of similar games that already includes all the bells and whistles we may wish for suddenly and out of the blue supports The Dark Mod? This is beyond cool. I have been toying with AngelLoader for a few minutes now and and I'm loving it already. This event deserves its own, dedicated topic.

Much better now, thanks!

I see what you did in there and how you fooled the game I think you made a little mistake somewhere while packing the Patch, though:

I raised a concern elsewhere and I would like to raise it again here since I now have more details. Something is off with the Modpack in the last Development Builds. Once again, I don't expect support for Mods but this is something that might impact missions hence I bring it here for analysis. With the Modpack enabled if "Uncap FPS" is set to "Off" two mods slow down considerably: Loot Animations and Blinking Items. None of these scripts do anything that I can detect and tag as special or irregular and missions could perfectly make use of similar scripts for other purposes. What puzzles me is that mods are ok when "Uncap FPS" is set to "On". Everything is fine in the current TDM 2.11a regardless of the Uncap FPS setting. My Max FPS is always set to 60.