RPGista

Well, you are doing some amazing work there. If we can iron out these remaning mistakes, with the translated training mission, thief's den and (soon) saint lucia, we'll have a pretty good set up to introduce the mod to the portuguese speaking community, for sure. If there's nothing to be done regarding in game exotic characters (like the mentioned accented letters and such), it would be more acceptable to just replace them for the default letters (c instead of ç, a instead of á), its not correct but understandable, and better than a square. Should I do that for now? I have a couple of ideas as to how to shorten many strings, without any real loss of meaning (was over cautious when first translating), so that coupled with a smaller font = success. I was making myself a list of all visible missing strings and odd translations, I'll edit the latest english.lang file with all the updates I think are needed, and then send it your way.

Thats great, I knew I was missing something, thanks for the short description, as Im not getting the time to sit down and read all the wiki articles on this. I got the Saint Lucia file and will work on it. Im still unsure how to go about correcting the current TDM Gui translation though. You said you would upload a file with the missing portuguese strings, but I believe we got pretty much all needed strings already? The point is that there are some mistakes in the actual version used right now (Im playing in portuguese, so I can spot them), probably due to the merging process, and I wonder if I should give you a list of mistakes, or just edit the file myself and then send it to you (in which case I need to know how to access the current translated TDM gui file). Examples of mistakes/missing portuguese strings include: Accented letters are displayed, in game, as squares (á, ó or ç); On mission load, we get the default "loading 70%" instead of "carregando 70%", the random tips and context comments are still in english, as well as "mission loaded, please wait...", and a bunch more of such cases; Also, many adjustments in meaning are needed (words like Quit were translated literally as Desistir, but in game it is actually more correct to say Sair (Leave) instead, and I also need to make many lines shorter because they are overlapping others, that is the case for many Settings options as well as in game item descriptions.

Great, I figure I should start with Lucia anyway, one of my favs and it seems highly likely its going to be one of the community picks. I will take care of all needed graphical changes just as I did with a Thiefs Den. Just a question, once Im done, whats the procedure for sending it over to you: should I rename english.lang as portuguese.lang? What about images like maps or briefings, should they be originalname_pt.tga or something?

Thats pretty cool, I saved a few of your posts by now about variety on AI path maps, I look foward to more missions with strong sentry networks! The Beleagiered Fence is one of my favourite maps because of that. By the way, whats the mission scenario, if I may ask?

Thanks, that part is basicly done by the way, and I think it looks quite similar, fortunately.

Regarding the importance of concept drawings before actual mapping, I thought I should share some of my own here, and assure anyone feeling the same that I am utterly unable to create anything directly on a computer, I find that it takes me a LOT more time to come up with stuff on the fly, and they generally lack any sense of direction, simply because there was no planning. I would again suggest anyone having trouble creating shape like that to take some time to sketch your ideas freely on a piece of paper, it gets much easier then to register, by trial and error, that feeling you wanted; putting it into DR afterwards is a much simpler and faster task. At least, thats how it always work for me.

Brilliant, that is going to make things a lot easier, thanks for that Tels. I guess I'll just wait a bit more for the community picks and translate from there, as those are the missions that will probably get more attention in the near future. EDIT: As for the missing strings in portuguese, I just mentioned I wanted to take a look at the current merged file because I'm 100% sure I translated text that isnt present in the mod translation as of now (= you maybe merged a previous, incomplete version instead of the latest one). I dont know what would be better, to send you the final text version again for you to replace the whole thing or just update the existing one and send you the corrected text. Wait, now that I think of it, there are also a bunch of corrections I mean to do (text I want to make shorter, stuff that I only noticed when seeing them in game), it would in fact be better to just send you a new text version I guess, so I could revise everything and implement the needed changes.

^ Shadowhide, he probably means something useful as far as your answers to him go?

There's in fact a rare kind of guard (elite) that has a body plate and a full helmet (looks a bit like a spanish conquistador kind of helmet), which makes him damn near impossible to beat unless a) you are able to hit him with an arrow perfectly through the helmet bars (done that myself on No Honor Among Thieves, lucky shot), or b ) you are pretty good in sword play and is able to outlast him by blocking and hitting the few open areas (arms and legs). The one knight you drew is nice but would be literally unbeatable, maybe with another set of armor you could probably have more exposed areas one can hit between plates, even if covered with mail as they generally are, they would still be vulnerable (because mail protects quite a bit but lets some damage through). But yeah, a new model is an insane task. With some decent knowledge and using the existing ones as base, and probably free models on the internet, you could get something good, but I must warn you, 3d modelling is damn hard...

Im afraid I still didnt have the time to sit down and study how to use the script to do the translations now. I also need to look for all the missing strings on the merged portguese translation that is currently installed on the mod to report you, or maybe you could point me to where the file is so I could manually correct/replace them and send it to you to install on the mod again? We have Thief's Den, I wanted to translate maybe Saint Lucia next, or I might just wait for the community mission picks and focuse the work on them first. EDIT: While waiting for maps created with the separate pak files for texts strings, whats the best/official way to go about translating existing FMs in a way that will be easy for you/the team to replace and upload them? Again, all I did on Thief's Den or the Training Mission was to edit the files, keeping their original names, and then I sent you the zip or pak renamed to something like map-portuguese (if I rememder correctly). Whats the proper way here, or maybe I overlooked this particular information on the wiki articles?

Fiasco at Fauchard Street The Tears of St. Lucia A Score to Settle No Honor Among Thieves Heart of Lone Salvation

If you want to take a detailed look at the AI functionality: http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Category:AI or here http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=What%27s_new_in_TDM_1.07

Again, it seems to me you (and probably many others) are not really aware that the Dark Mod is in fact a creator's tool for developing Thief-like missions and realising your ideas of a steam punk stealth game environment, NOT the missions that are available right now. The story provided in the Wiki is merely an example, everyone is free to take what exists and create their own world, stories and plots (even breaking the limits of what exists, if you know how to create your own assets). A LOT of your wants could actually be achieved by a dedicated mapper (things like scripted events, new sounds and specific AI behaviours), and are not something that is lacking from the mod itself.

I think you would get a better idea of what this mod is about if you take a look at it's map creating tools (that ARE the mod, basicly, not the missions themselves); a whole A grade game engine is offered, complete with tons os assets (ready made textures and models, animations, effects, behaviours, etc, etc), just waiting for your idea to be realised - what is really "lacking" now are more and more missions taking these assets and features to their extreme (I say "lacking" because there are many sophisticated missions already); by now, from what I can see, TDM's abundant assets (like textures and models) have been thoroughly used over and over on its more than 50 missions, the ball is mostly on our court now (people willing to make maps) to come up with new, exclusive material and situations, creative content and good production values to really achieve what the mod already allows. Just take a look at the tutorial A-Z Beginner Guide (http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=A_-_Z_Beginner_Full_Guide_Start_Here!); you'll see how fascinatingly easy it is to create a basic TDM mission in like an afternoon.

Siege Shop has a very interesting beginning/first act, a creative way to get into the fortress, but after that it becomes quite linear and sometimes frustrating to advance due to always having only one way to go foward (the passage ways are also generally very well lit, to add difficulty), so it takes patience... Some very cool machinery there (patch models I believe), but might be a bit too hard to demo to someone sucessfully (havent played the others yet).

Yes, there are many good missions, of the ones I played, I would probably single out Saint Lucia, Fiasco at Fauchard St (smaller ones), Heart of Lone Salvation and A Score to Settle (bigger ones) to get your started. I think you'll see much of what makes TDM so great in there, but there are many very good missions on offer.

I think Sotha described it very well, map design can solve most of this difficulty - the core of the thief games has always been about manouvering inside a tight (though unsuspecting) survaillance network, and not about overcoming any one foe, which has always been easy to accomplish (as you would expect by playing a master thief/assassin). Regardless of the method you use to take out the opposition, if there are no intersecting routes, no random encounters, no variety of situations and tough spots you would do well to avoid, any innocent AI will be easy prey to a hiding player with tons of weapons.

Sorry if I gave that impression, I dont even ghost myself - the point was not to harshly punish take downs, but just to make them a bit more realistic with more relevant consequences based on sounds (and possibly increased awereness between guards); in practical terms, KOing an AI is the same as killing it (he's out for the remaining of the playing time), so it's just as easy to kill them all as it is to ko them all - you clean out the map of opposition, which seems to be what most people here is concerned about. I just think there are still some more interesting tweaks to be made on the difficulty levels and on more accurate consequences (like ungoliant's suggestions), before really talking about wide spread no kill restrictions, IMHO.

A possible way would be to have the path corners emitting alerts only when their respective AI's state has changed (from alive to dead or KOed), not necessarily by the time passed since he used it. Some amount of time would still need to exist before the alert goes "off", simulating the time other AI would be "willing to wait" for the KOed guy to come back. A possible consequence would be to have the suspecting AI go look for the missing one, instead of staying put, even if alerted. But again, just suggestions, I dont know how much work this would mean for you guys.

I also completely agree with ungoliant about increased volume for fight sounds, and of falling (armored) bodies, regardless of death sounds if any - any possible unbalance could be reduced by making the voulme levels gradual according to difficulty (normal=current levels). That would apply to killing AND KOing; I never got why it would work differently, I know the game motivates you to ko rather than kill, but a falling body is a falling body and there should be a consequence for taking out an enemy in any way. All those problems would make it naturally preferable to ghost your way whenever possible, keeping the freedom intact.

I disagree with the point that you can still kill on easy and that higher difficulty should have mandatory no kills - maybe you want the challenge of harder settings but still want the freedom to take out enemies when needed. And I would also argue that mission design alone can make it very hard to kill everyone with abandon - there are points in Score to Settle or Heart of Lone Salvation for example that are so well guarded that you would have to go really out of your way to be able to kill people without setting off a general alert (small sounds to separate them, etc), and it is the mission design that makes it an advantage to actually move stealthly and avoid confrontation, not necessarily an abstract restriction. I think that is the ideal way, personally, and all it involves is a good strategic eye from the map maker. New additions to the AI seem to have made it more taxing to kill - there seems to be more general alerts, and thats brilliant. The biggest frailty is still, in my opinion, the lack of awereness between guards, but that can still be simulated by good, hard to breach group placement. Think of the main patio in Heart of Lone Salvation, you simply can't take out the guards there, they are too well covered by one another. Thats also a very fun nut to crack, by the way. My "vote" goes to optional objectives too, if you want to max out your performance, dont kill or KO anyone, sure, but I still think killing is a valid strategy sometimes and one should be able to do it (even the moral question), if one feels the important thing is to go to the point and get the job done. Being an archer is really fun in this mod, killing should indeed be easy, thats realistic, I think its just a matter of working on improving the consequences of killing enemies in the game and missions.

Awesome, you guys deserve this.

Pusianka, I really like the idea of having more interesting architecture details as models, and the arch looks good, "reminds" you of a historical facade arch without really being specific about which style. As far as shape though, I must say that the relation between arch volume and opening seems to be too drastic - the outer and inner rings are too wide, and the total width of the arch shape is about one and a half that of the opening, which seems to be too much. Its not that you cant find facade archs that are really wide, but you would need many more "rings" or layers to it, like the pictures below:

Yeah man, good luck, would be a great way to end the year.

This is going to be unbelieveable, Im sure! A campaign is going to be a fantastic bonus for this mod, amazing as it already is. Good luck guys!