STiFU

I guess you know this one already, but here you go: Steampunk LCD and Keyboard Also check out the other projects there, like the steampunk guitar. (Not that cool, but still awsome ) But of course this is not so much of inspiration, since there shouldn't be any computers in TDM!!

I was a little biased towards those mechanists at first too, but in the end I really loved them. And I wouldn't say, that those creatures would fit into any real time period... =) I mean Robots whose energy sources are heat (or smoke?!) created from little ovens inside them?? And I just wanted to add: Ominious Bequest sure was the greatest FM ever... =)

Yeah the problem was, that you had to place the portals yourself and if those portals are too big, it hurts the performance instead auf increasing it...

Yeah, but we have to admit that the leveldesigners were also limited by the crappy engine here. Big open air areas are simply impossible if you want to stick to the normal level of detail (especially amount of lights). When I started working with T3ed, not knowing shit about the engine, I planned a classic thief style map, much freelance, a lot to explore, but not THAT big, since it was my first map with the editor... Of course that project died due to huge fps problems.

Yeah, but that's what happens to nearly all of today's commercial games and I guess we have to life with it. The times of Big labyrinths and absolute unlinear gameplay are as good as over! Anyway, don't wanna turn this into a "modern gameindustry" discussion, so please don't react on this post...

They were really the standard zombies? I didn't see that at all, mostly because the animations were totally different and I was so scared of them that I couldn't take a closer look. Damn, was I shocked when I knocked down one of them the first time (You should not read further if you haven't played the cradle yet, it's damn fun to experience it the first time)

Hmn. It could be fun, but it seems way too unrealistic to me. I mean such a camera is really huge and the playercharacter is probably not Guybrush Threepwood, who can fit anything no matter which size into his trousers... But hey, I just got an idea. Garrett has a kinda High-tech mechanical eye and also the camera-eye was introduced to us, so why shouldn't this camera be upgraded with a "picture saving" function. If you give a nice hint that some friend of Garrett has modified the normal camera-eye to take pictures now, that would definitely work for me. Of cours this implies, that the player character would have to be Garrett or at least someother guy who had a mech-eye procedure! =)

It was surely a great mission and it really gave me the creeps (in a nice way), but it wasn't really the classic thief experience. It'd rather fit the setting of games like Silent Hill or The Suffering. I'd really love to play another one of those missions for thief anyway though, so mappers, start working!!

Hehe, I will definitely enjoy the game and I can't wait for its release. But seriously, a futuristic hud in a kind of medievil setting?! I guess the first fan mods will replace that designmistake. How would you like if Crysis came up with a Thief-style Hud? It's the same problem!! It just kills the good atmosphere. Aside from that I think Assasins creed is coming along with a really great Atmosphere and definitely great gameplay...

Nope, I have to correct myself. I looked it up. There were no detailmaps in Doom 3, which is kinda suprising. So that was actually a good question of you. Will you guys include detailmaps or is it even possible at all?

You could always keep some keysettings customizable. Since it's a singleplayer experience anyway, everyone is allowed to tweak/cheat as much as they want. But I personally was never too picky about that kind of stuff. As long as it fits the whole experience I am fine. (Unlike Assasins creed with that super futuristic hud. Total dealbreaker!!)

Hehe yeah, I though so. Of course you can alt+tab Doom 3 in windowed mode. But I only enjoy my gaming at it's full pleasure, so I didn't even get to that idea... Also Quake 3 always had to reload the level when switching between fullscreen and windowed, so I am used to not doing so.

You just mean detailmaps, right? I think tripple buffering is something different. Didn't Doom 3 have detailmaps by default? I mean even the unreal 2 engine had them or Serious Sam. But in general I am absolutely of the same oppinion as Vadrosaul. So every computer game should be super realistic now?? Ok, then TDM would have to remove many of their arrows (like the vinearrow) and ban every kind of mystic stuff, like magic and undead etc. . Since when is the quality of a game linked to its realism. I am sorry, but this is total nonsense. I guess in a few years we'll only get to play games like Counter-Strike and I can tell: I am happy that I am old enough to have played many good classics!! Ok, now I read the article!! The realism that that guy is talking about, is not what was mentioned in the discussion before and it's nothing the DM-team could realize in their mod (only to a certain degree). He talks about realistic character animations and the "Game worlds [which] must not just look lifelike, [but ...] must also react in a realistic manner". For example, if you walk along a big leaf it should bend physically correct. This is nothing the Doom-engine can handle and I am assuming that you guys don't have the money for motion capturing, so ultra realistic animations will be hard to do too... But I trust, you'll do a great job on them.

Yeah, minimizing quake 3 wasn't possible without an additive tool. But in the early version of Doom 3 it was like that too I think. At least I tried to switch to the "doom 3 advanced graphics mod" readmefile while ingame to check for other commands and it didn't work, so I thought to myself "Id-software crap again" ... I guess they have fixed this issue with an update. Wow, I am really suprised. First they altered pk4 handling and now this... =)

You should also mention that the Radiant is the editor, which is easiest to learn editor and comes along with the possibility of a really fast workflow. Anywho, since when can you alt+tab doom3? And also, why can't you compile the map from within the editor dropdown menus? It should be no problem at all normally... I mean it should be just a simple exe file with parameters you are running there isn't it? Haven't been mapping for Doom 3 yet, so I don't know this stuff.

Gameplay mode? So you mean you could actually jump into the game directly, like in cryengine sandbox? This is definitely not possible with any Radiant. You can't even render it within the editor, like you could in T3ED. (Or have you guys changed something about that in your fork?) I guess, since it's a public beta release of the editor, you'll only get the basic editor and nothing else like textures and/or models, so you'd have to create your own stuff for now, if you woun't sign up as a betamapper...

Wow... L34t h4x0r sk1llzzzz!! To those who don't know me, no i don't post stuff like this in a serious way!!

Ahhh, now I see. Sorry. That prefix thing is definitely good, but of course most mappers should already do it by default... Since we learned that the pk4 of the map has priority, it isn't needed that much anymore though. But still, better safe than sorry!! About that pk4 name. You can still just rename it. No problem!! You just have to hope the bsp files aren't called the same. With a bit of luck yes. To make sure it works, we'd have to achieve that that special file is loaded at last so that the files inside overwrite the beforeloaded files. But again renaming the pk4 could help out...

Wasn't the intention of TDM, to make a non-crappy Thief 3? That would totally answer your question I guess. Or was it just the at first missing T3-Editor?

Fidcal, the filename of a pk4 does only matter for the loading sequence. You can even save one on your TDM folder under another name. What matters are the filenames inside the archive. Also, if you just change the difusemap (or anything else) of a shader you can still refer to the original texture files. No problem at all!! But cheers to ID. I was as suprised to hear about the "map based pk4 priority" as New Horizon, but in the end, they did a really great job on this one. Although this implies, that modders/mappers may not include map-unrelated content into their fm, like a new mainmenu, because this would be loaded before the map and could possibly overwrite the tdm-default files. (To protect this from happening TDM could prefix their pk4s with an "AAA") [bTW, nice interesting discussion here]

It does, but wouldn't you need some kind of installer for that too?? Since you need an installer either way, I got a different idea. FMs that substitute TDM-defaults could be shiped in zip format instead of pk4. A frontend tool would list both though and if it's a zip-file, simply unzip it in the TDM directory and start the mission. If it's a pk4 it would just start the map directly. Very simple and no complicated implementation...

I couldn't have said that any better. Oh wait, I did!! No, just kidding. You hit the problem on its head!! @Fidcal: Even if the file exists unzipped, the file in the pk4 has priority. It took me quite some frustrating time to notice that back in the old q3 editing days. I had my map pk3ed to sent it to a friend for testing purposes. Then I wanted to change some things but didn't see the proper effect ingame. That was really mean!! So do yourself a favor and delete those pk4s now if you test your map from time to time in that TDM install!!

I guess that will just depend on the extent of the mission. If it's just a simple map it shouldn't be a problem to launch it from a menu or even the console. But if someone decides to create his own hud, new menubackgrounds and other thief-common stuff like that, things will get more complicated, because the files in the pk4 of the mission could possibly "replace" existing ones, so that you would have the custom hud in all other FMs. (Of course, it doesn't actually replace the original files, if you delete the new pk4 again, you got your old files "restored" ) That is the only flaw of the otherwise very good pk3/pk4 system. =) I once wanted to include custom weapon skins into my quake 3 trickrun-map, but I decided against it, because the default skins would've been overwritten by mine. ID Software should really have fixed this problem by adding tag-files (or something similar) to those pk3s. Then, that system would be perfect!! So I guess, some Garrettloader kind of thing would come in handy, at least if you don't come along with a different system or proove me wrong in any way. The only thing that tool would need to do though, would be to copy the concerning pk4-file into the TDM-base directory and launch the mod with a maploading parameter.

The most amazing thing would be to map out a small-/medium-sized city which contains several missions. The player would work as a freelancer and get the missions by overhearing conversations, reading notes or just entering a certain building. Just like in a RPG or in the game "The Coup". For example, you're currently visiting a museum and see a crown which would be worth a big bag of money. So you get the objective "Find a way to enter the museum at night", which would lead to more objectives while you proceed. A dreamworld for every thief... "Find a way to blow-up the bankvault" ; "Meet XY to acquire information on how to enter the secret tunnels of YZ" I know, what I am describing here is basically a mixture of Oblivion and Thief, but it would be simply awsome in my oppinion. When I played Oblivion (as a thief of course), I always planed a coup at daytime, how to rob this and that at night. It was actually kinda fun, but the stealth elements of Oblivion were way too wonky and the movement was not ninja-like enough... (It was also really cool sometimes that you planned your coup and then at night, while performing it, you notice that you were just hunting a mockup (e.g. valuable items at the Warrior's guilds). Hehe, I laughed my ass off, when I experienced this the first time...) << Sorry for offtopic post!

Yeah, but those were small mostly...