melrief

One of my favourite missions of all time. The beginning of the mission is unforgiving, then it's easier. I appreciated most the graphical and sound details.

The first game was really nice because, differently from other RPG (who said The Elder Scroll?), it has an interesting real-time fight mechanic that is both funny and challenging. I played as a pure fighter and it was delightful to pick the right tactic for the enemy that I was facing. I've just bought the second one but on my laptop doesn't run. I hope to play it soon and then play the third. The story is amazing.

Exactly! City missions are the soul of Thief.

"Playthrough" is the same of "Let's play" and "walkthrough" is more a guide for the player. I have to find a better name but I have no ideas right now .

Uhmm I don't think to be able to do it and I have good reasons: this means being under lights many times. Exposing yourself for the joy of challenge could be nice, but it's not my style. Too many variables and even if you calculate the timing correctly every time, there will still be moments in which you have to, for instance, pick a lock under the light just because you have decided to not use water arrows. I don't understand this. Some levels are designed to support this, but for me this is just unrealistic. If there is a lock and a light, you have three possibilities: find another route to what's being the lock, remove the light or remove all the opponents in that area. Besides, the idea is to play without reloading and that includes dealing with your mistakes. In this context, you must be crazy to play without rope, moss and water arrows.

It does? If so I have to change the title because my English is terrible

OT: the TDM team is amazing, thanks. I hope to find some time in the future, I've almost finished my studies, to help the project somehow.

TDM hasn't been developed full time for 5 years by a professional studio with the background of Eidos. Said that, TDM AI is still more consistent than Thief 4 and I can hide bodies in the dark without problems. In one of my recent gameplay I fall from a roof, a guard sees me and I have to knock-out it to avoid the alarm. After that, I left the body of the guard in the dark (real dark) and nobody noticed the body: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=TwB4GVVVe6E#t=2077 The problem with TDM sometime is the sound (in the video I fell from a roof...), but nothing too bad. It's just a little bit inconsistent depending on the mission and what you are doing.

I'm not saying that after sometime you can get used to the light system of thief 4. On contrary, it becomes quite clear at the beginning of the game where you are invisible and where not. Being able to use the shadow system of thief 4 doesn't mean it doesn't suck. With more realistic engines like the one of the new thief, also a better AI detection system should be developed. I repeat it: when you are under the moonlight and there is an enemy at 1 meter from you, there is no way he doesn't see you. That's unrealistic, in particular for a game like thief 4 in which in shadow you can actually see everything (there is no real dark in the game IMHO, everything has a gray/cyan light). My conclusion the first time I saw the game was that Garret was so used to the shadow to be able to see in the dark and the game reproduces that (dark vision). This would be ok but raises another problem: why everything is so fu**ing dark? Outside ok, but why inside more than half of the levels are dark? I'm sorry Obsttorte, while I understand you enjoyed the game I still think it sucks. Indeed, it's a personal opinion, I hope you will understand my position. For me, instead of making a more realistic and brutal but satisfying thief experience, they made a game for kids. And I hate when good games, and Thief was a really good game, are rebooted into easier games because they need to sell more. That's my opinion and I honestly agree with all the rants about this game and with the metascore score. This is not thief, it has nothing of the original thief and that's a shame under every single aspect apart maybe how the city looks like. You don't want to make a thief game? Fine, call it with another name but don't ruin thief. I waited for this game for years, I don't deserve this. This is how I feel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7e91zzb1M0

Agreed on that, but the light in that game is horrendous. True that in a thief game you have a light gem but maybe in 2014 we could have an engine that properly shows lights/shadows such that you know when you are invisible without the need of the light gem. Just to be clear: when you are outside the night, unless there is a storm, you are not completely hidden no matter how good you are. It's just not realistic and quite clear from the videos. In particular when your body casts a shadow! That means "there is light!". If you add the fact that you are at 1 meter from the enemy... Besides the light gem, the video is still funny: fences everywhere that can be used to climb (to "promote thievery"), Garret's feet that move without friction, your hands everywhere (no, you don't move like that when you are crouching), Erin that *jumps* on a guard by hitting him and the other guard doesn't hear anything, the "but again, I'm not just a thief" WTF, the birds etc...

"Woaaaa the birds!" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUsYCyiLers

The best rant is Gopher's: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PZbrYVlzzk

Honestly, I also like the idea of hideout, even if I perfectly understand that it doesn't fit TDM. In a more realistic thief game, I would like to do a mission to get cash to use to buy equipment for the next mission. More stolen stuff means more equipment, better maps, clues about loot positions and maybe even the possibility to bribe some guards. The thing that I like most is that for complex and difficult mission you could do before some "secondary missions" to generate more cash to better prepare for the "real mission". If there is something that I really miss in thief games is the possibility to prepare and study my next mission. Right now, some TDM missions have the possibility to buy stuff at the shop before entering the map but the money that you have is decided by the mission itself. For people saying "what if the mission starts in a prison": somehow you have entered the prison. Ideally, other missions could, at the end, move you to another location that is not necessarily your hideout. Basically, they "trigger" the next mission enforcing you to do it. Moreover, we already have this difference (mission starting or not from a "hypothetical hideout") in TDM: missions in which you can shop are probably the one that starts from your hideout while missions in which you can't shop are the one in which the starting point is changed, probably forced. For the prison, it would be nice to "go in prison" if guards find you instead of being killed. Guards shouldn't kill thieves, guards should kill assassins or rapist (except for some particular cases of course). If you have just stolen stuff, then you go to jail. That triggers the "prison mission" in which you must escape and the more you stay in prison the more...they take your money from the hideout e.g. (ok, this is a silly idea). Let me reiterate that I know this isn't the TDM style and I really enjoy to "change my skin" and play as a different character every time. I'm not saying current missions should change (and please please please continue the current storylines because they are amazing), I'm saying that sometimes (often) you feel restricted in a very unrealistic way. For instance, finding clues during the missions feels like being unprepared, but a thief should always plan its next move (IMHO) and only in some extreme cases be unprepared. Again, this is my personal idea of how to have a nice thief "sandbox" game. Also finding missions and informations could be interesting, like searching in taverns or talking with some people. Not sure how feasible this could be, of course, but..hey, dreaming is cheap and nice !

Ghostable means with score 0? I'm not sure to be able to do that. Some FMs can be tricky and I don't think to be able to be a ghost without reloading. I prefer to play with my usual "thief" style. I'm considering the possibility to let the subscribers to choose my next mission, what do you think?

I have started a YouTube Channel with title "Let's Play The Dark Mod" in which I play one of the fan missions available. My plan is to play all the missions at the maximum difficulty without reloading (too much ).

I've made a video of the mission at maximum difficulty. Very nice (and easy) mission. I would suggest this mission as first mission for beginners.

I'm stuck

Thanks Obstorte for the nice missions. In Shadow it's amazing, difficult enough to make you think every single move and how to deal with guards. My only complain is that also for me the code didn't work! I searched the entire map twice before searching in the forum.

Really a nice mission, I've enjoyed many parts of it. The safe code wasn't that difficult , but some loot was really difficult to find. At max difficulty is really difficult because the guards keep turning the light on or go crazy if they find a door open. Nice, that behaviour was really realistic. My only complain is that once you are so realistic you should also add a way to destroy the lights or to switch off the energy somehow (generator in the basement?). There should always be a way to turn off a light source (with consequences depending on what you have done: it a light has been broken then the guards should start investigating...). In the end nice mission, a bit different from the average thief missions and that's good.

<rant> Oh my god...that's not Garret, tell me it's not Garret and they used another name. WTF?! It steals because it's what it does? What that even means? I'm so disappointed not only by the game itself, not being free to move in a stealth game is like not being able to shoot when you want in a FPS, but and in particular how they have ruined Garret. If you don't like the nature of a character just change the fu**ing main character and leave it alone. Even the past story of Garret has been changed! What, the Keepers weren't not *emo* enough? Oh, I've just found the right adjactive for Thief 4: it's an emo game made for children. Fu*k the new game, Garret was one of the best character ever made. One last thing: if Garret, for some strange reason, has to choose an apprentice (why? Why? What were they thinking?), he would NEVER choose an emotional driven and istintive person. Just no. Part of being a thief is to be patient and clever, acting like a ormon-crazed teenager IS NOT the best way to go (unless you are in a stupid game). </rant>

Sadly even if I'm a programmer I have two major problems that prevent me to help with TDM code: 1) I don't know C++ at all because (luckily) I have to use languages with a garbage collector and 2) I don't know anything about game development. For what I can understand from some code that I have read, game programming is real-time event processing that requires a lot of optimizations and tweaks plus physics and AI. That sounds quite difficult to me. I have cloned https://github.com/FrictionalGames/HPL1Engine and I can barely read (some parts of) the code but I have no idea, for example, of where the interaction with objects happens. I am ashamed about that . No, that was just a feedback about doors plus an idea for improvements, Sotha. If it is not feasible I understand completely.

True and I did it many times. My advice was on the mechanic to do that, in Penumbra is very natural IMHO. Also because pressing again is not very user friendly for me: the speed of the object and the type of the object can really make difficult to understand when to press again the button. It is like moving object in the desktop but instead of doing drag-and-drop you do one click, then move the object and then click again. You could do that but it's not as easy as drag-and-drop I think. It's subjective , I know, it just felt more natural in Penumbra than The Dark Mod for me .

Hi guys, first of all thank you thank you thank you and thank you for the 2.0 standalone version of your impressive game! Really, the dark mod (that now is a standalone game, no more just a mod, you could adapt the name like "the dark game" or "the-real-thief-legacy" ) is, in my opinion, one of the best game out there. Just thank you. I recently have played the Penumbra games and one thing that I have really appreciated of that game was how your character interacts with doors. It is a nice mechanism that gives you realistic controls over doors. In my opinion it is perfect for a game like The Dark Mod, where do you have a very nice control of object but not over important components of the game like doors and windows. Do you think it could be a good (and feasible) improvement for the game? I see many use cases for it like open a door just a little bit to see (and hear) what's behind it and then open it completely when you are sure. Below a little example of Penumbra and how do you interact with objects and doors: Again thank you for the game. I'm updating the missions right now...

Finished it in hard, fantastic map Jysk. One of the best I have ever played (I love open environments). I have a few questions: I loved the map. There is only one thing that isn't too much realistic for me: By the way, thank you again for the great map!

Nice mission, I liked it. IMHO it was too much easy because if you can kill then why you shouldn't? And there are a lot of arrows in this mission, so it is very easy to snipe every single guard.