Professor Paul1290

Just though I'd post about this since I remember a couple people mentioning they liked tactical shooters here. It's a kickstarter for a hardcore tactical shooter, specifically a room-to-room CQB style tactical shooter a lot like the earlier Rainbow Six series and SWAT. It's from a former Rainbow Six modder and developer who worked on Ghost Recon 2.

There used to be a show on the Discovery channel called "It Takes A Thief", which involved a former thief breaking into homes and other buildings to demonstrate the need for security. Sadly it's not on DVD as far as I know and there aren't many videos of it floating around out there anymore. Anyway, one of the things that the show's thief tended to do in most episodes was improvise or acquire containers on site to maximize how much loot he could carry away with him. These would often be things like trash bags, suitcases, handbags, boxes, or whatever else would be available. Perhaps TDM could have similar movable containers to make large numbers of lower value loot items more viable. Perhaps you could pick up and carry the container with you like a corpse or an unconscious body, and while you are carrying the container perhaps you could rapidly stuff large numbers of normally "almost loot" items into it by just holding a button pull them in like a vacuum (which would be like using your arm to shove them into the sack) for some extra loot. That's probably a bit far-fetched for now, but something that might be interesting.

While not quite as offending as the issue with the "get out" objective, there is something else in the mission which doesn't make sense. As far as I know, the main door to the crypt does not work at all from either side, and I think it doesn't even frob. Maybe there's a trick or switch to opening it somewhere, but if there is I have yet to find it. It's not really mission breaking as you can get in and out of the crypt using the elevator but it doesn't quite make sense considering that the door is as decorated as it is and has a keyhole next to it, which strongly suggests it should do something other than act as a wall. I think you should at least be able use the door or keyhole to attempt open the door even if it never works, at least to maintain consistency with the other doors.

I'm not sure if this has already been addressed and I might be thinking of the wrong mission, but I remember my only problem with The Tears of Saint Lucia is that it has this odd issue with the last objective where if you don't go to a certain place on the way out of the cathedral it won't count as completed. This would be fine except there is an exit that bypasses this specific area gives you a clear way to the beginning of the level, which doesn't seem to count completing the "leave the vicinity of the church" meaning that the player has to go back towards the church in order to complete that objective, which runs counter to common sense as well as to the way the "get out" objectives work in most missions. I don't know if maybe I didn't update the mission properly or if I'm thinking of the wrong mission, but if I'm thinking of the same mission then I really think that's something that would need to be fixed before you include it with the mod.

I like Knighton Manor because it does present what would be believable scenario in the TDM universe. You're a thief, you have to get this valuable thing in the house, and everything else kind of grows off of that scenario. I think nbohr1more said it really well in that it takes more of the "sim" route. It makes you feel like you are playing the game rather than the game playing you. It doesn't have too fancy of a story, but it doesn't really need one. It's relying on more on being believable than dramatic. It's strength is that it feels more like it presents you with a situation and leaves you to deal with it instead of treating you like an actor in a play. It's not really the "best mission ever" by any means, but the focus on the sort of qualities I want to see in more TDM missions. I think I should also mention that I like missions to be replay-able, and while other missions may be better put together overall not many of them are as replay-able as Knighton Manor.

Knighton Manor A Score to Settle The Heart of Lone Salvation Mandrasola Flakebridge Monastary

Don't cheat when playing cards with the elite guards! It would be nice, but it might look silly with certain objects. Unless they pick things up, anything they throw will look like it's coming out of their pockets. Rocks seem right because they can fit in pockets. I'd think anything else they throw repeatedly would also have to be things that are often thought of as "pocket-able". Common bits of metal like screws and bolts come to mind, and perhaps even some eating utensils like knives or forks. I think small bottles and such could work if they threw them the first time or two then reverted back to rocks or something else smaller to avoid looking odd.

This isn't really broken, but the AI's rock throwing behavior is occasionally quite hilarious. I remember in one mission a guard wandered into a room to look for the source of a sound I made and I was standing on top of a bed. He looked in my direction with a blank expression and I thought he couldn't see me. Suddenly, he throws a rock. Another time was playing while someone else was watching, and another guard was chased me into an elevator. I got to the elevator and pressed the button to make it ascend. As soon as the elevator started going up the guard stops and watches the elevator rise out of his reach. "Oh good, he can't catch me now!" I said. Suddenly, as the gap between the ceiling and the elevator floor was closing, the guard throws a rock right through the gap with the utmost precision hits me at the last second. "Oh goddammit I forgot they could do that!". My friend almost keeled over laughing.

For the most part I'm just thinking that a quality gameplay video that we can show whenever someone asks how The Dark Mod plays would already be a significant improvement over what there is now. Just get someone who can play well and can record a playthrough without any noticeable framerate drop to record some gameplay that demonstrates some of the nice features along the way. There are already gameplay videos out there, but as I said they don't show up immediately when searching on youtube and a lot of them are outdated. I think there are already a few missions that would be nice to record, The Knighton Manor and A Score to Settle come to mind. Something along the lines of a trailer would be nice, but that would take quite a bit of extra work and I think something easier to do that would do something to fill the gap would be nice in the short term. I get some stuttering when recording to the point where I don't think it would be that presentable, so I'd probably have to wait until after an upgrade in a few months to take a stab at it.

I think something that The Dark Mod really needs is more easily visible gameplay videos. I still get the sense that a lot of people know that The Dark Mod exists and it has something to do with Thief, but have no idea what it's about. They sometimes think it's something like Thievery or something like that. I tend find that showing people a good gameplay video of The Dark Mod is more effective than anything else at getting them to try it. There are some videos already out there of The Dark Mod being played, but searching "The Dark Mod" on youtube mostly brings up videos demonstrating specific mechanics or gameplay videos that outdated by now. It gives the impression of a mod that is not playable yet. On the other hand, it might not have to necessary to record one specifically for the purpose, as there are already some pretty good ones out there even if they don't show up immediately through youtube search. Having a collection of links to some nice TDM gameplay videos somewhere on the site would be nice. If not on the front page then perhaps in the "media" section of the site as that doesn't have much more than some screenshots and concept art right now.

As I've probably said before, I replay a lot of missions anyway. I almost always play a mission again whenever it gets an update of some kind, so I support the idea of updating old missions whenever it is convenient to do so. On the other hand, new missions take priority of course.

I was curious as to what sort of odd miscellaneous tricks some of you like to use when you play. I sometimes use broadheads to knock over candles from a distance when NPCs aren't sitting right next to them to save on water arrows. I sometimes leave doors partially open or closed so that if I come back and find them completely shut or open then I know there's a good chance an NPC still passes through that door along their patrol. I also sometimes leave an extinguished candle or some other small object out in the middle of a hallway so that an NPC would knock it over to help check they still pass through there on a longer patrol. The reliability on this is rather hit or miss though. A bit of a question: Do you leave doors open or closed when you search a room? I sometimes have trouble deciding whether to leave the door open or closed while I search a room for goodies. Leaving it closed obviously makes you harder to see from the outside but leaving it open often lets you hear NPCs better as they come near. I usually leave the door closed if there is a significant amount of light in the room and leave it open if there isn't, though I haven't had enough guards walk in on me to work out how effective this is.

Dang, somehow I knew even typing in the word "realistic" would bite me somehow, yet no matter how many times it does I never seem to learn. Of course you have to build around engine limitations, which is why I say "at least attempt to build" and "within reason". If you've made the map so that it has severe performance problems or can't be navigated by AI then it has already gone beyond "within reason". I don't think it would turn out well if someone tried blindly recreating a real-life setting, and if that's what it sounds like then it's definitely terrible wording on my part. I think would be especially terrible if the mapper made a map that the AI couldn't navigate effectively because one of my pet peeves about the linear nature of some maps is that it doesn't just limit the player, but does not allow for AI and objects to flow through the map well either. The guard isn't as threatening hearing me from the next room over if he has to pass through ten other rooms and get to me the long way around (OK that's a bit extreme but you get the idea). You're probably right that making it "non-linear map design" would probably be much clearer and more to the point. However, I hesitated with that somewhat because it is rather subjective and different people have different ideas on what it means to be "non-linear". Some people add a few vents and open-able windows somewhere and some people think you need a hub with little objectives scattered all over the place. I guess that could be one way of thinking about it. I agree that A Score to Settle, whether intentionally or not, does seem to achieve some of the ends that such a contest would shoot for. It does at times feel like a chunk of Bridgeport the mission takes place in. I like the map in The Alchemist despite its problems because I keep seeing all sorts of cool things in my head that could happen in that map aside from the mission it has. Just the idea that stuff can happen in the place makes it interesting despite the plain buildings and such. I also like Knighton Manor for this as well. There are some mission-specific pieces like the attic and the alarm system of course. However, I could see other possible missions with the layout of the manor going on if things turned out differently, like if the manor was passed on to another character who decided to remodel it to his/her tastes. Not sure whether that would actually make for an interesting FM, but just the sense that something like that might possibly work helps make the map feel more immersive.

Well, it's not so much about resembling real life as it is about avoiding having the map feel too tailored for the task at hand. I'm not exactly that knowledgeable about historic architecture, and I might not be getting the point across saying "realistic" here. In games with a modern day setting I prefer a realistic setting just because there just so happens to be lot of modern day real-life locations that really lend themselves to this. They're not really inherently better because they are real, a lot of them just so happen to be that way by coincidence so I'm used to using real life as an example for this. All the time I see every day neighborhoods and public areas like malls, airports, offices and large houses that I think would make for nice gameplay. Architecture from time periods resembling TDM might not offer the same convenient coincidences that a modern day setting would. I'm not much of a history expert and you probably know more about this than I do. However, in that case following real-life architecture wouldn't really achieve the desired ends at all and departing from reality may very well be a better alternative. I mention making more than one mission for the map because I think that's a good test to see if the map isn't too specifically made for the mission, and I think that should work regardless of architectural style or time period. I guess rather than "realistic" it would be better to say that the maps should try to make logical sense in the reality they are set in, even if that reality might not be our own. Again, it's more important that the setting feel like it was there before the mission rather than made for the mission.

This may be a bit of a long shot in terms of feasibility but here's something I think would be interesting to eventually attempt sometime in the future. Contest Concept: The House Was Always There Size Restriction: None Time Restriction: None The idea of this contest is to promote the use of more open and realistic environments in FMs. If you've ever played the Half-Life 2 mod series called "MINERVA", or games with realistic maps like the first three Rainbow Six games, this would apply a somewhat similar philosophy. The mapper would build, or at least attempt to build, the environments as actual environments with gameplay worked in later. Having the map and the mission designed by separate people would be encouraged, and it would also be strongly encouraged that more than one mission is made using the same map/setting in different ways. Maps must be somewhat more separate from the mission than usual in that maps must not be made specifically for the mission that will take place in them. The map should seem like a setting for the mission to take place in rather than a setting created specifically for the mission. In order for this to work, the map would have to be made as if it were an actual environment, within reason of course. Houses should theoretically function well as houses, with front doors and back doors where appropriate, openable windows where possible, basements and attics, and so on. The mission designer (which may or may not be the same person) will not be allowed to make serious structural changes to buildings or terrain to fit his/her mission that cannot be carried out without major construction or demolition work (adding furniture or installing lights is OK, digging out whole new basement complex is not). Because of this it will be up to the mapper to make the maps as natural and open as possible to give the mission designer room for possibilities. Difficulty would be controlled through elements such as NPC patrols, locking of doors, setting of traps, and other security measures that would believably be set up in such an environment. Hopefully this would result in a more natural and open ended environment that will not feel as "set-up" specifically for the task at hand. The maps would naturally lend themselves to multiple approaches to achieving mission objectives in a way that seems reasonable for the environment. More importantly the map would feel like its buildings and terrain have existed before the mission and will continue to exist after just like how real-life buildings and terrain are often static or slow to change while their owners and purposes change a lot over time. It would be as if "The House Was Always There".

There's an option to turn off the highlight if you like. Most of the time it's not too bad even when on since it seems that most objects only highlight when they're near the middle of the screen. As for the clipping bugs and jerky animations, I haven't noticed them too much. Some of the character animations are a bit odd but I haven't seen anything too bad yet. The controls on the PC are just fine. Your mouse works as expected in the menus and such, keypads let you click or type numbers in, you can adjust X and Y sensitivity for the mouse, and that sort of thing. I think it feels more "PC" than Oblivion or Fallout 3 did.

I think it would be nice if the flashbombs temporarily prevented the NPCs from tracking you with sound to make them more useful but I would stop short of actually adding a deafening bang to them or making them too flashbang-like. It would seem kind of odd for something loud enough to cause temporary deafness to not make every guard in the building come in running to see what the explosion was.

I usually re-play my favorite missions several times, usually after a week or two. Occasionally I'll decide to re-play a mission completely at random, and by that I mean literally coin flip or roll of the dice type random. I find it interesting playing through missions again when you're not mentally prepared for them beforehand. Sometimes you get a new perspective on a mission you only played once and didn't think that much of the first time through. Of course, it's a bit tricky having the willpower to follow through with what you get sometimes, but it's pretty fun once you get into it (for me at least). I think I find missions very replayable because I refrain from memorization somewhat. Whenever I replay missions I prefer to rely on tactics and methods that I can apply to new missions I haven't tried before rather than memorization of guard patrols and the map layouts. Basically I look at a situation again and play as if I'm missing information I already have, then come up with a way to deal with the situation without that information. More on topic, I think building missions a certain way because you think players will only play them once is self-fulfilling to some extent.

I do too, to a point. I also enjoy Thief when things go wrong for me. My favorite memories from a lot of games tend to be when something doesn't go according to plan, when something shows me my understanding of the situation is flawed, and when I have to adapt and work around it. If I go through a whole mission and everything goes as I expect it to then I get bored. I like having a plan, but I also like having one that I can quickly revise and adapt as the situation changes and I like it when a game challenges me to do so. If everything always goes my way and I already know the layout, patrol paths, and obstacles then there's not much more for me to say about it.

I think it would be nice if climbable vines and chains were standard across all FMs, but there's the issue of it possibly causing problems with with already existing FMs. I can't recall any specific ones off the top of my head though. I often do try to climb vines and chains only to find that they aren't climbable. This isn't the only thing that feels inconsistent at times, openable windows and grabbing readables are also features that feel inconsistent between FMs and within FMs as well. Different FMs can have different requirements with these and it should be the author's choice, but it still feels awkward sometimes to run into them when you're not expecting it. I think what could help the problem would be to have a page somewhere with details regarding what players are going to expect so that authors know what is considered "standard" in these cases. It wouldn't stop anyone from doing what they want, but it could help authors be more aware of the issue and try to keep consistency within their FMs when possible.

Sure not everyone re-plays missions, but I think more dynamic patrols can have significant enough effect on those that do at all. I think enough players are going to memorize where things are to some degree, at least enough to know which rooms are safe and which ones aren't in later playthroughs. Even if I replay a mission I haven't played in months I may not memorize exactly where the guards go, but I still have some semi-conscious memory of which spots are "safe" and which ones aren't. I already fall into a sense of security when going through certain hallways and rooms in missions because even if I don't memorize the guard patrols exactly, I am likely to remember which rooms don't get any guards at all. The thing is, players don't really need to conscously acknowledge whether the guards are "random" or not. All they need to know is that there is the threat that they will encounter a guard where they might not think they would, and by accomplishing and reinforcing that you've already influenced how they play. Going back to the SWAT 4 and Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield example. When me and my friends play a mission in either of these games we often don't think about the fact that the hostiles are randomly placed as much as we think of the fact that a hostile may come from any doorway or be in any position they can reach at any time. That in itself really affects how we proceed through the mission. We're always careful about rooms we haven't gone through yet and even rooms that we have already been through but have not checked within the last minute pose a significant threat to us. The threat that a hostile might come into the room or be in position to pose a threat to us affects how we play the game even when they don't actually do so. Amnesia: The Dark Descent is also a good example of this. Many players don't know this, but a few of the monsters in Amnesia aren't always there, and may or may not be there on a given playthrough depending on chance. This only applies to a few of the monsters and most players don't actually know that they may or may not show up, but that doesn't stop them from occasionally getting the crap scared out of them when they run into a monster they somehow didn't remember was there, in some cases they really weren't there the first time. Guards in The Dark Mod have a just as great or greater effect on the player than terrorists or suspects or monsters in either of these games just by being where they are, so I don't think there has to be quite as much randomness in this case to achieve a similar effect. The point is that the players don't necessarily need to know which guards are random nor know all that much about the patrols themselves, though it would be nice if they did. You don't necessarily need the player to consciously know the guards are random. You just need to make it clear that a guard may become a threat to them when they aren't expecting it and that they should prepare for such a scenario. The threat of a guard walking in on you while you are reading or looting is enough to affect the way you play the game even when they don't actually walk in on you.

The player does have to be willing to accept some level of unpredictability with this. Inevitably some combinations of routes are going to result in a much more difficult or much easier playthrough depending on which routes end up being used. On the other hand, if they don't result in some noticably varying difficulty then it could be argued that there isn't enough variety in the routes. Given that I don't see players comparing exact stealth scores all that often in The Dark Mod I don't see this being that much of a problem. I feel the biggest thing this would add is some degree of uncertainty that requires the player to prepare for what "might" happen rather than what "will" happen. I feel that not enough games have this. As I mentioned earlier, a lot of depth can come out of trying to deal with somewhat unpredictable threats. In many games this gets subdued by the fact that most missions/levels can be played through a certain way that's always best. When you start trying to prepare for what "might" happen rather than what "will" happen I think it encourages a different way of learning the game. Instead of coming up with ways to conquer a specific missions, you take commonly occuring situations and find ways to best deal with them. You focus less on making a walkthrough in your head and focus more on developing tactics. Such methods are much more versatile and can be applied to many missions, so you're more likely to carry these lessons with you when you play a new mission. Learning from failure becomes more about improving a set of tactics that you've carried with you and have been refining over the course of several missions rather than figuring out how to beat that specific mission.

I prefer dynamic patrols where they make sense. Obviously guards assigned to certain places aren't going to deviate very much, but not everyone would be be tied down as such, like guards on break and random civilians. I think there is an issue in that many players won't be expecting the NPCs to deviate from their routines, but if it is eventually present in enough FMs then players will learn to prepare for it. Personally I think it would be nice if something was there to pressure players into trying to leave themselves more room for the unexpected whenever possible. When you have to "prepare for the unexpected" it can lead to a very different style of play. I think it's worth mentioning that many missions in tactical shooters like Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield, SWAT 4, and the ArmA series benefit from a LOT of replayability just from semi-random placement and behavior of hostiles. In these games it works very well because individual enemies have such a significant effect on the player. A single bad guy in the right place can cause a lot of damage if the player isn't careful. Because of this the player must always leave themselves room for error whenever they can and maintain "security" as best they can in case of hostiles coming from unexpected directions and this leads to much more cautious and tense gameplay. While it's a completely different genre, The Dark Mod presents some similar conditions such that I think it could also benefit from semi-random placement or movement of NPCs. Like a tactical shooter, a stealth game like The Dark Mod has enemies that have a significant effect on how the player approaches a situation just by where they are, and again a single enemy in the right place can make things very difficult for the player if the player doesn't prepare for them. If there exists the possibility of NPCs coming from unexpected directions then that would make things very tense for the player and cause them to adopt a much more cautious style of play. Devices like mines, noise arrows, and perhaps even random junk items that make sound when stepped on would probably see much more frequent use. Player will start to pay more attention to whether they leave certain doors open or closed, how they "inspect" rooms they cannot see through sound and other means, and other such subtle details. I suspect that if dynamic patrols became more common in The Dark Mod then it would spark a lot of deep discussions of tactics among players, especially regarding how to deal with such unknowns. Should you leave doors behind you open so you can better hear or see approaching guards or should you close them to keep concealment? When should you break away from lockpicking? How can you best locate a guard you cannot directly see? How can you best place small noise making object mines in a given common hallway configuration to ensure maximum safety for yourself before proceeding? Dealing with an unpredictable threat can cause your tactics to become much more sophisticated than they would be otherwise. On the other hand, while having more dynamic patrols would change the gameplay in a way that I would personally find very appealing, I'm guessing not everyone would agree with me. I'm the sort that would take failure due to a random guard walking in on me not as unfair but as a sign that I need to improve my tactics to minimize the probability of such failure. Not everyone is going to take the random guard walking in on them quite as well.

As others have mentioned this mission could have benefited from more testing. Also, it feels a bit awkward the way the objectives change so many times and it feels like there isn't enough notification or warning about it. Others will probably strongly disagree with me, but I thought the daylight stealth was a rather interesting change of pace. I liked having to approach it differently than I would if there were less light. However, while I think they should detect you this easily, I think the NPCs are too quick to attack you when they do see you. I think it would help make it more comfortable if they didn't jump to completely alert as quickly when they see you. I mean, just becuase someone is standing where he shouldn't doesn't immediately mean that he intends to do harm or even if he does that doesn't necessarily mean he's a threat worth using lethal force against. It would be nice if there was an alert level for less paranoid situations where the AI will approach and attempt to force you out of an area without using lethal force, though I'm not sure whether that's doable or would fit with The Dark Mod since most missions don't need it.