simplen00b

If you've seen the UK 'Office' and want to check out the US version, I'd recommend skipping season 1 which is pretty much just a remake of the UK season 1. It's in season 2 that the US version really starts to take off.

Glad this thread got a bump; I'll just list the movies I've got on DVD: - Saving Private Ryan The Incredibles Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (the first big-budget 'kung-fu' film I ever saw & still my favourite) Children of Men Apocalypto (after horribly overdoing the slo-mo in Braveheart & Passion, Mel finally gets it right) An American Werewolf in London The Godfather 1-3 (but only watch the first two) Die Hard 1-4 (dislike #2, but the others are good to great fun) Twelve Monkeys The Host (Korean monster movie; the monster appears in full view, broad daylight about 15 minutes into the film and is brilliant) This is Spinal Tap The Pianist (superb, and IMHO gives an insight into why Polanski grew up so strange) Unforgiven (an amazing story - nearly every action has consequences further down the line)(usually not that great) Also have a few techno-thrillers (Hunt for Red October, Clear & Present Danger, Under Siege) but believe it or not, they're mainly for my 80-yr-old mum (in fact, she's the reason I bought the Die Hard quadrilogy - she loves 'em) More recently, really enjoyed Source Code, and Thor was entertainingly mindless (while the Avengers film I ended up finding just irritatingly mindless).

Finally getting the chance to spend some time on this. Really, really struggled at first to get to grips with the way they implemented stealth, but remembered how difficult I found it to learn Thief-style stealth in the first place and stuck with it. So far: mostly enjoying it, sometimes a great deal, especially the outdoor missions (yes, the vertical gameplay is great). No, it doesn't have the burrow-into-your-bones, total immersion, I'm-not-just-playing-this-game-I'm-in-it quality of Thief, but - it's fun (albeit quite dark, twisted fun at times). I'm happy. Confession: I sneered, scoffed, scorned and derided the very concept of DarkVision when I saw a video of it in action; after continually getting busted on indoor missions when I just couldn't tell whether a guard was in sight of me taking down another guard, I relented and now can't live without it. IMHO: - Dark Vision = hiding in the shadows/I can see you but you can't see me (but only on level one; see below) Blink = rope arrow (but can be misused) Agility = great fun all round, despite feeling like I'm tied to a giant invisible kangaroo at times. I got almost to the end of the masked ball mission but then decided to restart from scratch. Reason: I had got the Dark Vision level two upgrade. Awful. Like having TDM show_loot on permanently. Seeing living things - fine. Seeing every single 'useful item' - too hand-holding. (Maybe there was an .ini file tweak that would have downgraded it without restarting, but couldn't find anything on any forums. No-one seemed interested in downgrading any powers for some reason.) Playing on hard (I'm a slow learner), gonna see how far I can get with level one Blink, DV and Agility and no other powers. EDIT: Just found this on the TTLG DH thread. I cried laughing: http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/12/24/the-text-adventures-that-never-were-dishonored/

This looks great! I did try something similar in DR, going for something very organic, twisty and messy. Unfortunately, my poorly organised thinking/planning meant I successfully achieved only the third objective.

Me too. (**gazes glumly at twisty turny tunnel that took hours to build badly and resulted in 15 secs of utterly tedious gameplay**) On the topic of recreating TDS missions, you might be interested in this: Child of Karras at TTLG has spent ages building (or starting to, at least) a T2 version of the city hubs in TDS, i.e. the whole thing - South Quarter, Stonemarket, Auldale, Docks etc - but without the loading zones. Re copyright, the consensus seemed to be that just rebuilding the cityscape in itself wouldn't be a problem; trying to recreate the gameplay so people could 'play TDS' without buying it might be. Apparently there have been a couple of copyright issues with FMs and TTLG stopped hosting them, but this one is still available. The thread's here: http://www.ttlg.com/...ad.php?t=129213. (CoK has handed it on now; he was starting to reach the limits of DromEd but that was before the New Dark patch so someone else may be working on it again.) But, like Sotha said: doing an 'inspired by' mission is probably safer and more creative.

KO everyone, quick save & load as often as I remember/need to. If I get busted I'll try to run & hide - I'm useless with the sword - but that doesn't work too often (certainly not as often as it did in TDS ). Forced ghosting I usually find unenjoyably tense - Obsttorte's two missions are the only exceptions I can think of. Usually play on 'Easy' first time round, but will look at the medium/advanced objectives and try to achieve them if possible. Never kill unless someone's a total pain or an undead. Undead I will happily spend ages clearing out of the way if possible. Can't stand them even being around. Don't usually miss with water arrows (he bragged) but I nearly always quicksave before firing a rope arrow. Got into the habit playing T1/2 FMs when I'd often make a mess of it (wrong angle usually), and never got out of it.

Another +1 from me (but that isn't to say your graphics are poor). Both your missions have hit the "Wow-I-only-just-escaped-by-the-skin-of-my-teeth" sweet spot for me.

Finished this last night - initially I managed to miss the priest's room which held things up a bit, but once I got in there, the rest of the mission unfolded fairly straightforwardly. Some general comments in no particular order: - 1. Liked the use of a caption appearing to give helpful info (re the two guys in the bar area). I wonder if captions could be used more often as a way of the character commenting on particular situations/problems (like Garrett's voice-overs in Thief, but you can imagine whatever voice you want ). 2. The mist effect in the cellar was absolutely beautiful and the screenshot doesn't do it justice. 3. I hate forced ghosting. Hate not having a blackjack. Hate it. So please consider it a great compliment that I enjoyed this mission so much I'm actually trying it in Thief mode. (I guess that being "seen" means alert level 5 - yes? I've already survived an alert level 2 anyway.) 4. The grass looks nice but is a bit weird to walk through - more like walking on top it, and sometimes I get stuck. A TDM issue I guess. Looks good though. 5. I had one of the best "Can't believe I didn't just get busted" moments ever: - It's moments like that that make Thief/TDM my favourite game ever. 6. Playing in Taffer mode, I wondered if the guys in the bar were on some sort of 'slow alert' mode. Reason I wondered is that 7. Just on its own, it's a really good mission. As a two-week build, it's pretty awesome. Well done, Obsttorte, and many thanks.

I kinda want to have my cake and eat it with this - most of the time I'm quite happy to bumble around cluelessly carefully explore the environment and see where I end up, but if I do get lost/stuck, then by heck there'd better be a map or else. So I think option 2 is the right one for me. In case any mappers are reading this and thinking, "Oh great, now I've got ANOTHER thing to add to the to-do list", a hopefully encouraging suggestion: this is a job that someone else could help with. I made up some (fairly basic) maps for Deceptive Shadows - my approach was to open the map in DR, take screenshots of each level on its own, open them in Fireworks and trace over them on a separate layer. IIRC, it took an hour or two (I'm not a fast worker), but in some ways Deceptive Shadows was a fairly straightforward map - one location, three floors, done. (In other ways it wasn't at all straightforward, which is why I made the maps in the first place. ) If a mapper had an FM that was at the stage where all the structures were in place and he was focusing more on details, grime, AI etc, he could send that map to someone (the mapmaker? This could get confusing) who could start putting something together using the above method, ideally with some direction from the mapper on what kind of map he'd like (level of detail, any particular style, etc). Maybe there could be two versions for sale - a low detail map (cheaper) and a high detail one (dearer). Anyways. Jussan idea.

...and RPG is being modest by not mentioning his own 'In Remembrance of Him' - small mission, but with an affecting kind of 'doomed romantic' set-up...

Looks really good to me. Thanks Springheel.

Just looked at some YouTube vids and started getting motion sickness in less than a minute. How do people play that AND type messages at the same time? I'd last three seconds tops.Re the MarbleFX trackball - it is generally recognised* that it's the best trackball Logitech ever produced and second-hand ones can still sell for $80-100. Someone's trying to sell an apparently new one on ebay for nearly $500. No, I'm not joking. *Source: some people on the internet.

They look great, Grayman. Pic #4: **wipes spidern00b drool off chin** Pic #5: Looks like you've been spotted (but I'd like to see him throw stones from all the way down there)

Seriously genuinely honestly - I have no idea what kind of game Quake is (I assume FPS, but whether sci-fi/horror/fantasy/warfare/medieval - not a clue). Still suspect I'd get less fun out of playing it than other people would watching me play it. Yup. Adapting to it surprisingly well. I have the basic Logitech trackball, and the two small buttons above the big buttons I never really use due to being v. fiddly - ideally I guess I'd have a model that has easier access to other buttons so I could attack/interact with the mouse as well, but not being a full-on gamer, I don't really care that much . Re arm-ache - left arm does ache slightly with the remapped keys but nowhere near as much as it did using the WASD keys. However (another exciting story coming up), my first ever trackball was the classic but now defunct Logitech Marble FX (which I still have connected to my work PC). After two days of using that, my right arm was in so much pain I gave up using it. Didn't touch it for two weeks then thought, 'ah well, give it another go', and - absolutely no problems. No arm-ache at all. (Told you it was an exciting story.)

@woah - I think watching my gaming technique would make many people cry with laughter. Or just cry. @psychomorph - yeah, like Obs said, I'm now starting to use my trackball. May need to adjust the settings as you advise - mostly it's fine but while playing Glenham Tower last night, I was running away from a pursuing revenant; went to turn a sharp corner but in my panic I turned 360 degrees and ran right back into his welcoming skeletal sword-wielding arms. @jaxa - maybe it's because I have big hands/long fingers, but after 30 mins of trying WASD with Dishonored, my whole left arm (up to and including the side of my neck) was aching very unpleasantly. (I think it was mainly from having to hold left-shift/ctrl down with my little finger while moving.) Really didn't enjoy it. At the risk of making anyone keel over with excitement, I shall list my remapped LH key settings. You may want to sit down or hold onto something secure: - Frob/interact - X; Attack - Z; Crouch - C; Use - F (guess where I got that from? ); Cycle lockpicks - backwards slash (on the left of the Z - got fed up reaching over to the P). I think most of the other controls are unchanged. Been playing TDM for a couple of hours with the new settings and given I'm changing a style I've used for about five years, it's mostly working really well - I get the occasional regression and start tapping the arrow keys and then wonder why I'm blundering around so clumsily. The trackball rules.

Thanks for the suggestions guys - on reflection (and after doing a bit more research) I think trying to master a gamepad would drive me potty (and headtracking gear would be overkill for my limited needs). What I've done is allocate move forward/backward to mouse buttons 1 & 2 on my trackball - yes Obs! I have a trackball too! They're great! - and remapped LH keyboard keys for attack/interact etc. I've given it a go in TDM (so I can try it without having to learn a new game at the same time) and - well, wow. Moving around already feels loads more fluid, and as long as I can get used to the remapped LH keys I think it'll make my previous touchpad technique look pretty clumsy. I actually did a mantle while moving backwards, which I don't think I've ever done. Say 9-10 years - it was included with Doom 3 after all, which came out 2004 - but otherwise, yup, you've hit the the nail on the head; 'looking outdated' pretty much sums me up gaming-wise. Well, I've been using my laptop touchpad for years. Very happily too. But I think the trackball thing is going to be better. Hey, it only took me five years, but finally I may be starting to learn how to use a mouse properly in gaming. Yay! Woot! etc etc

Um. Er. Well. If laptop touchpad = mouse, then yes, I use a mouse. Arrow keys to steer in RH, touchpad/spacebar/other keys in LH. Never could handle steering with LH via WASD and up till now it's never been a problem. I have a wacom tablet but whenever I tried to use it in Thief I just span round and round wildly with no control at all. Maybe I should experiment with the settings. And yeah, apart from Thief, sidescrollers and point&click are pretty much it for me too gamewise. But hey, Raptor still holds up for me I was about to have a WHY OH WHY vent about the Death of Turning as a Keyboard Option in Modern Gaming, but I'm going to go to bed instead.

Force feedback I don't really care about but 'suited for large hands' sounds good. (I think this is why standard WASD-style playing doesn't work for me - I have to contort my fingers to hover over the right keys and it's Quite Painful.) Anyway, have started a separate thread about this (which hopefully won't descend into a KBM vs gamepad flame war)

I finally got round to trying to play Dishonored and Mirror's Edge last night, and I've realised that I'm really out of touch with modern gaming (surprise surprise). It looks like having keyboard controls to 'turn' left and right (rather than strafe) isn't an option any more, so I can't use my usual Thief keyboard controls. Tried the WASD settings and, apart from hating having to strafe instead of turning, my left arm ached horribly after 30 mins. So it looks like the only hope I have of playing these games is with a console-style controller for Windows and I wondered if anyone had any recommendations. I've never used a console and I'd be surprised if I play anything much other than DH and ME with whatever controller I get. (Skyrim, Oblivion, Minecraft, CoD etc have no interest for me.) I'm inclining towards the Microsoft Xbox 360 Common Controller, while Obsttorte's suggested the Logitech F510. Any other recommendations? Or should I try something else entirely? All & any advice gratefully received!

Glad it's not just me who misses keyboard turning. This & Mirror's Edge are the first 'modern' first-person-pov games I've bought for years so I'm evidently out of touch with these new-fangled gaming conventions. Re joypads - I did look at the Microsoft Xbox controller for PC on Amazon last night. May start a thread asking how others play games on their PC/laptop and see what suggestions they have.

Is there any way to turn/rotate left & right (as opposed to strafe) using keyboard commands? (Given that both this game and Mirror's Edge have only 'strafe' as a keyboard option, I suspect I already know the answer but hey, you never know....)

I think there's a small (but, iirc, very tricky) bank section as part of jysk's 'Rightful Property', but nothing on the scale of the T2 bank mission. To be fair, not a lot *is* on that scale.

Welcome to the forums Nightrider! Short answer - can't be done due to copyright issues (you can read more at this thread: http://forums.thedar...-and-thief-tma/) Don't be disappointed - there are loads of great FMs to play. For me, some of them have done more to capture the immersiveness (sp?) of playing the original missions than any other Thief FMs I've played (after a bit of a learning curve).

My sentiments exactly