Search the Community

I wrote earlier that I owe this masterpiece a review, so... Here is my detailed review of this groundbreaking and seminal Mission Fan. SPOILERS ABOUND ! TDM PLAYER BEWARE, YOU'RE IN FOR SPOILERS AND MAYBE EVEN A SCARE ! This mission... subverted my expectations. Starting with the briefing video. Not since the days of Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Westerns have I seen such daring subversion right at the start. You're expecting one thing... then, bam ! I tried everything to infiltrate the mansion from the outside ! No luck ! Well and truly, expectations subverted ! NPC dialogue heard from the inside... stellar ! Brought a tear to my eye. Or was it just one of the raindrops that fell on my head ? What else brought a tear to my eye ? The senselessly slaughtered guard at the courtyard ! Clearly, a cautionary story that he who grabs a sword... and yet, forgets to dim his lantern, the fool... shall die by someone's sword or arrow. Figures ! That you hid the masterful sidequest of collecting the pennies-for-a-thought from the rather racy fountain, in order to later thoughtfully redistribute them to the poor and hungry street urchins of Bridgeport, is nothing short of design brilliance worthy of at least a two hours long, detailed GDC lecture. I'd watch such a lecture on a loop, 24 hours a day, twelve times a day. Brilliant stuff ! Ah, the side-yard, with steps and a basement entrance that looked and felt straight out of Thief II's opening mission, Running Interference... Could the cunning TDM homages to the classics get any better ?! Could they ? Well, soon enough, I discovered that, yes, they could get even better ! There was an even more amazing homage that I didn't expect ! Read on to find out what... The chefpick was... indescribably cool. I now yearn for it to be included in every single FM. The classic lockpicks feel completely passé. I knocked out both NPCs and... what is this unexpected social commentary ?! The knocked-out have names ?! I applaud your deeply incisive observation, worthy of a skilled chef with a kitchen knife, that the NPCs in games are not mere fictional constructs, but fictional beings with names, hearts and souls ! I confess, upon this moving revelation, I started shedding tears so uncontrollably, I nearly had to quit playing the mission. Yet, I pressed on, heartened and refreshed by such displays of humanity in a work of stealthy interactive fiction ! The commentary was no less subtle and stealthy, I tell you ! As subtle as the protagonist's gritty, grounded accent ! Two different entrances into the local vent system... I... I can't even... So many possible routes of entry. Truly, in the grand tradition of the TDM immersive sim design philosophy ! The choice of giving the intrepid protagonist a temporary rat companion, bribable by cheese, who fetches priceless hidden loot, was equal parts innovative and a hard-hitting social commentary on the abuse of animals for theft and burglary, and people "ratting out" their fellow tenants by revealing the hiding places of their priceless belongings ! I was deeply impressed ! I was thoroughly amazed ! You even had my 'stalgia sense tingling ! Why ? That minor element of your FM even reminded me of the old but gold Thief II FM campaign The Flying Age: The Abominable Flying Machines of Dr. Zeppelinger, where you escape a prison cell by giving a mouse a bit of cheese you've managed to find, and the mouse then provides you with a means of escape. I have scarcely ever seen such a wonderful duo of homages to other past LGS missions and fan missions ! Of course, the shocking revelation with the undead in the freezer was an even more biting commentary on the undead precariat of today, and their ruthless and dehumanizing exploitation by The Man, maaan, the snobby culinary establishment. Undeadkind merely want to roam their abandoned tombs and catacombs in peace (pieces ?) and get a bite or two out of a stray vagrant or drunk guard every now and then, no big deal. Society needs to be more charitable to undeadkind ! And you've even included a gas arrow up in the rafters ! You well and truly know your audience, as I'm an old, die-hard gas arrow collecting enthusiast. I am a sophisticated, yet simple man: I see a gas arrow in Thief or The Dark Mod, I immediately grab it, owing to its rarity. Thank you for such generous mission design. To cut a long story short, I have had a thorough, engrossing and moving cultural experience with this short-but-dazzling mission ! In the shadowed alleys of TDM fan mission sites, I have crossed paths with missions that were ruthlessly difficult and confounding, yet rewarding, but never have I played a mission this... authentic... avantgarde... thought-provoking... It even made me feel hungry ! Riveting, simply riveting. Like working on the skeleton of a 1930s Art Deco skyscraper. Ultimate verdict: 22 frommages out of 20, with a happy cheese-filled rat as the cherry on the top. (But what kind of frommage ? Cheddar ? Swiss cheese ? Gouda ?! I dunno. Don't have a cheesemaking degree.) In other words, I cannot rate this mission other than with the Chef Excellence Award for... Excellence ! *chef's kiss* Le Mission Légendaire Magnifique ! Roll over, Requiem ! Roll over, Crucible of Omens ! Roll over, Iris ! This, this... is the pinnacle TDM fan mission of all time.

Author Note: Shadows of Northdale is a new campaign that takes place in a city called Northdale that is situated up in the mountains of the western empire. Across the campaign the player will traverse through the varying districts of the city with each mission featuring it's own unique location as well as different locations in the city hub to access. ACT I is the first mission which is designed to introduce the player to the city hub area and the new mechanics available to them. During the first night in the city hub section there are a couple of places to explore however this will expand and open up further as you progress through the campaign's missions. This mission features some aspects which are different to the usual dark mod FM experience which are: - Food is an item that is picked up and stored in your inventory, pressing the use key with the food item highlighted will cause the player to eat it and gain 5hp - There is an ingame fence where you can purchase gear using any loot you may have found during the mission, you can visit him as many times as you wish but do be mindful of your loot goals - Also inside the fence's shop are contracts, these are readables which detail tasks that a client wishes you to complete for an agreed sum of gold. Upon completing them you will be rewarded with the designated sum immediately - Because you are not a wanted criminal (yet) the citywatch will only attack you if they catch you breaking the law or find you near the scene of a crime - Candles are pinchable in this mission, frobbing them causes Corbin to pinch them to put them out rather than pick them up The mission was designed and tested on 2.05, if you are playing on any other version there may be bugs present. If you enjoyed the mission please feel free to leave a review, I enjoy reading them and it gives me inspiration for my next projects. Tell me what you felt worked and what you felt could be improved for next time. Have fun taffers! - Goldwell. 2.06 UPDATE INFO: If you are experiencing any path finding issues (AI walking around in circles or getting stuck) on 2.06 then please enter the following console command to resolve these issues cm_backFaceCull 0. Thanks goes to Nbohr1more for solving that! Testers Crowind Epifire Kingsal Random_Taffer Skacky SquadaFroinx Voice Actors AndrosTheOxen Goldwell SlyFoxx Custom assets Andreas Rocha Bentraxx Bob Necro Dragofer Epifire Freesound Kingsal MalachiAD Tannar And a very special thank you to the following people without whom the mission would not exist: Epifire for creating some amazing detailed custom models that help bring a unique layer that wouldn't be possible without it. Seriously go check out his modeling page! Dude is very talented https://sketchfab.com/Epifire Grayman for helping to debug a lot of critical bugs in the mission, without him there wouldnt be a mission Kingsal and Skacky for helping out with excellent tips on level design, flow and lighting Moonbo for lending his writing talents to help optimize the briefing video script Obsttorte for making the majority of the scripts featured in this mission, and for dealing with my constant nagging about issues and bugs, you are awesome! SlyFoxx for lending his vocal talents and making the fence character come to life and sound great SquadaFroinx for providing thorough beta reports (that are equally hilarious as they are useful) And finally a huge thank you to Tannar for drawing the fantastic looking ingame map Available via in-game downloader MIRROR File Size: 295 mb

DarkRadiant 3.9.0 is ready for download. What's new: Feature: Add "Show definition" button for the "inherit" spawnarg Improvement: Preserve patch tesselation fixed subdivisions when creating caps Improvement: Add Filters for Location Entities and Player Start Improvement: Support saving entity key/value pairs containing double quotes Improvement: Allow a way to easily see all properties of attached entities Fixed: "Show definition" doesn't work for inherited properties Fixed: Incorrect mouse movement in 3D / 2D views on Plasma Wayland Fixed: Objective Description flumoxed by double-quotes Fixed: Spinboxes in Background Image panel don't work correctly Fixed: Skins defined on modelDefs are ignored Fixed: Crash on activating lighting mode in the Model Chooser Fixed: Can't undo deletion of atdm_conversation_info entity via conversation editor Fixed: 2D views revert to original ortho layout each time running DR. Fixed: WX assertion failure when docking windows on top of the Properties panel on Linux Fixed: Empty rotation when cloning an entity using editor_rotatable and an angle key Fixed: Three-way merge produces duplicate primitives when a func_static is moved Fixed: Renderer crash during three-way map merge Internal: Replace libxml2 with pugixml Internal: Update wxWidgets to 3.2.4 Windows and Mac Downloads are available on Github: https://github.com/codereader/DarkRadiant/releases/tag/3.9.0 and of course linked from the website https://www.darkradiant.net Thanks to all the awesome people who keep creating Fan Missions! Please report any bugs or feature requests here in these forums, following these guidelines: Bugs (including steps for reproduction) can go directly on the tracker. When unsure about a bug/issue, feel free to ask. If you run into a crash, please record a crashdump: Crashdump Instructions Feature requests should be suggested (and possibly discussed) here in these forums before they may be added to the tracker. The list of changes can be found on the our bugtracker changelog. Keep on mapping!

Flakebridge Monastery In this mission you will visit a Builder outpost to steal some valuable books. It is the first in what I hope will be a series about Selis Woderose. I would like to take the opportunity to thank my beta testers: Aprilsister, Bikerdude, Chiron, lost_soul, and prjames. As well as Fidcal for his starting map, and Melan for his texture pack. Known bugs: A small number may appear at the bottom left corner of your screen when the mission loads. Press sheath weapon to make it disappear. As already mentioned this is the first mission in a series. When you have completed it you may know what you'll be going after in the next mission. You may even know where! Enjoy! And please use spoiler tags where appropriate. A couple of screens: (thanks lowenz) http://2.bp.blogspot...0/shot00001.jpg http://3.bp.blogspot...0/shot00003.jpg

I'm happy to present my first FM, The Spider and the Finch. There may be a spider, but no ghosts or undead. It should run a couple hours. It's now available on the Missions page or the in-game downloader. Many thanks to the beta testers Acolytesix, Cambridge Spy, datiswous, madtaffer, Shadow, and wesp5 for helping me improve and making the mission to the best of my abilities. This would not be have been possible without Fidcal's excellent DarkRadiant tutorial. Thanks also to the many people who answered my questions in the TDM forums. Cheers! 2023-12-13 Mission updated to version 3. Fixed a bug where the optional loot option objective was not actually optional. Updated the animations for Astrid Added a hallway door so the guards are less likely to be aggroed en masse.

Hello fellow mapper comrades! The briefing wiki article has been updated and now it gives simple instructions how to create Text-only BriefingsButton Controlled Animated BriefingsTimed Flowing Animated Briefings The article also contains a simple packages to edit in order to easily create animated briefings of both types. Note that the briefing_flowing package has a .gui-file which has been fixed against the ESC-press-no-more-mouse-cursor -issue (thank you LEGION!). Animated Briefing Creation has never been this easy! (And fun.) Enjoy! http://modetwo.net/d...?title=Briefing EDIT: I have linked from the wiki article to the briefing package creation .zip's which are currently hosted at mediafire. Would it be possible to have them in a more stable place? I am talking about two .zip files weighing approximately 100kb each. It would be nice if we had these easily accessible from the wiki article. I tried to attach them to this post but alas I cannot.

Yes. Sure, I will change it, but I do mind. In addition to changing the forum title, I have also had the name of the pk4 changed in the mission downloader and the thiefguild.com site’s named changed. It's not just some "joke". The forum post and thread are intended to be a natural extension of the mission’s story, a concept that is already SUPER derivative of almost any haunted media story or most vaguely creepy things written on the internet in the past 10 or 15 years. Given your familiarity with myhouse.wad, you also can clearly engage with something like that on some conceptual level. Just not here on our forums? We can host several unhinged racist tirades in the off-topic section but can’t handle creepypasta without including an advisory the monsters aren’t actually under the bed? (Are they though?) I am also trying to keep an open mind, but I am not really feeling your implication that using a missing person as a framing of a work of fiction is somehow disrespectful to people who are actually gone. I have no idea as even a mediocre creative person what to say to that or why I need to be responsible for making sure nobody potentially believes some creative work I am involved in, or how that is even achievable in the first place. Anyway, apologies for the bummer. That part wasn’t intentional. I am still here. I will also clarify that while I love the game, I never got the biggest house in animal crossing either. In the end Tom Nook took even my last shiny coin.

I've seen fun workarounds like that in other game modding as well. Years ago, maybe even a decade, some fella who was making a mod for Mount & Blade over at the Taleworlds forums revealed that he put invisible human NPCs on the backs of regular horse NPCs, then put the horse NPCs inside a horse corral he built for one of his mod's locations/scenes and then did some minor scripting, so the horses with invisible riders would wander around the corral. The end result was that it looked they're doing this of their own will, rather than an NPC rider being scripted to ride around the corral slowly. Necessity is the mother of invention. I don't know about the newest Mount & Blade game, but the first generation ones (2008-2022) apparently had some sort of hardcoded issue back in the earlier years, where if you left a horse NPC without a rider in its saddle, the horses would just stand around and wait and you couldn't get them to move around. Placing an invisible rider in their saddles suddenly made it viable again, at least for background scenes, of riderless horses wandering around, for added atmosphere. First generation M&B presumed you'd mostly be seeing horses in movement with riders, and the only horses-wandering-loosely animations and scripting were done for situations when the rider was knocked off their horse or dismounted in the middle of a battle. Hence the really odd workarounds. So, an invisible NPC trick might not be out of the question in TDM, even though you could probably still bump into it, despite its invisibility.

Here's my first FM. A small and easy mission, inspired by Thief's Den and The Bakery Job, where you must find and steal a cook's recipe book in order to save a friend from going out of business. Download: Mediafire (sk_cooks.pk4) TDM Website's Mission Page The in-game mission downloader Thanks to: The people who helped me get this far, both in the forums and on Discord. The beta testers: MirceaKitsune, Mat99, Baal, wesp5, Cambridge Spy, jaxa, grodenglaive, Acolytesix ( Per the author in the beta testing thread. ) Skaruts has given permission to the TDM Team to add Subtitles or Localization Strings to this mission. (No EFX Reverb.) If anyone from the Community or TDM team wishes to create these we will gladly test them and update the mission database.

This post differentiates between "gratis" ("at no monetary cost") and "libre" ("with little or no restriction") per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratis_versus_libre * A libre version of TDM could: ** Qualify TDM for an article on the LibreGameWiki *** TDM is currently listed as rejected https://libregamewiki.org/Libregamewiki:Rejected_games_list because "Media is non-commercial (under CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0). The engine is free though (modified Doom 3) (2013-10-19)" ** Qualify for software repositories like Debian *** TDM is currently listed as unsuitable https://wiki.debian.org/Games/Unsuitable#The_Dark_Mod because 1) "The gamedata is very large (2.3 GB)", and 2) "The license of the gamedata (otherwise it must go into non-free with the engine into contrib)" and links to https://svn.thedarkmod.com/publicsvn/darkmod_src/trunk/LICENSE.txt Questions: 1) tdm_installer.linux64 is 4.2 MB (unzipped), which is far from the 2.3 GB which is said to be too large. Yes, the user can use it to download data that is non-libre, but so can any web browser too. If the installer itself is completely libre, does anyone know the reason why it cannot be accepted into the Debian repository? 2) If adding the installer to the repository is not a viable solution, would it be possible to package the engine with a small and beginner friendly mission built only from libre media/gamedata into a "TDM-libre" release, and add user friendly functionality to download the 2.3 GB media/gamedata using "TDM-libre" (similar to mission downloading)? 3) Would such a "TDM-libre" release be acceptable for the Debian repository? 4) Would such a "TDM-libre" release be acceptable for LibreGameWiki? 5) Would the work be worth it? * Pros: Exposure in channels covering libre software (e.g. the LibreGameWiki). Distribution in channels allowing only libre software (e.g. the Debian repository). * Cons: The work required for the modifictions and release of "TDM-libre". Possible maintenance of "TDM-libre". I'm thinking that the wider reach may attract more volunteers to work on TDM, which may eventually make up for this work and hopefully be net positive. 6) Are there any TDM missions that are libre already today? If not, would anyone be willing to work on one to fulfill this? I'll contribute in any way I can. 7) I found the following related topics on the forum: * https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/16226-graphical-installers-for-tdm/ (installing only the updater) * https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/16640-problems-i-had-with-tdm-installation-on-linux-w-solutions/ (problems with installation on Linux) * https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/17743-building-tdm-on-debian-8-steamos-tdm-203/ (Building TDM on Debian 8 / SteamOS) * https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/18592-debian-packaging/ (Dark Radiant) ... but if there are other related previous discussions, I'd appreciate any links to them. Any thoughts or comments?

2 Ideas: 1. As a temporarly workaround would it be possibe to override the mainmenu_debriefing_video.gui file ? Since it's just a gui it might be possible to place a different kind of briefing gui there. 2. An idea is to place a debriefing button in the mission succes screen, so you can replay the debriefing.

Yes please: I've wanted something like this for a long time! One thing that always makes me sad in TDM is when a mission just... abruptly ends: Obviously every FM has an ending, but I never liked just transitioning to a stats screen as if nothing you did in the world mattered. I'd absolutely love a debriefing GUI just like the briefing one, where you can either have text or an image slideshow with music and voice-over which would be even better! Maybe some old FM's can be updated to use this too, I'd totally replay them just for that. One additional idea: Since FM's with multiple endings are something I always wished for and would love to do myself, support for multiple debriefing GUI's would be ideal, so the kinds of objectives you completed can execute a different one or skip / add certain passages. Absolutely hope the team can consider this, should be just a GUI execution hook to implement it so why not

The real St. Alban was a pagan who became a celebrated religious personality, this All Saints Day 2010 The Dark Mod places its own spin on this mythical figure. Screenshots: Intro: "'Business' has been slow lately, even more so after most of my gear got snatched during a Watch raid... I've since been forced to hit the streets and pick pockets for a living. But my luck was about to change, last night I was approached by a red hooded figure with a proposition... As we sat down in a dark corner of a nearby inn, he told to me that the Builders of St. Alban's Cathedral in the Old Quarter had recently unearthed a discovery that might lead to the final resting place of some saint." " But before I do anything, I need to get my tools and stash from the evidence room at the local watch station." "with the hawks, doves will congregate they will drop honey from the cliffs wine will surge over the earth the sheep will wander harmlessly with the wolf then the wicked will rise, but to retribution" - 'scripture of St Alban' There is a new version out now, see the following thread St Albans Cathedral version 1.6 Build Time: about 2-3 months. Thanks:- Huge respect to the Dark Mod team for such a great mod and for all the hard work they put into it and continue to put into it. Special thanks to Fidcal, Serpentine and others for their help on the forums and to Testing:Ugoliant, Baddcog, Grayman, Lost soul, Bjorn and Baal (for doing all the Vp work in the town. Readables: Ungoliant and Mortemdesino for all awesome work on the readables. Resource: Fids, Grayman, Ungoliant - guis, models & images. Misc: Loren Schmidt - the author of the map I based the cathedral on. Info: # Like Thief2, some things are climable, pipes, wall vines etc.. You can also drop some of the keys, some door that are frobbabe mean there is another way inside - explore u taffer! # Due to TDM being a lot more of a resource hog than T2 I have been forced to limit the number of Ai in the mission, but they have better placement than my last mission. # On all difficulty levels the player starts with vertualy no tools/weapons, there are weapons to be found - read, read, read! # For the love of all that is holy, read the briefing otherwise you will problems completing the mission. Known issues:- # This mission will have less than optimal fps at a few points on the map, mid range DX9 card(X1900/GF7800) or higher required. # On low end PCs I recommend, V-sync is off, AA is off, Aniso is 4x or lower and that any and all background apps are closed.

The Alchemist is a full-size city and mansion Dark Mod FM, the fourth in the Thief's Den series in which you play Farrell. It follows on from Heart of Lone Salvation so you should play that first. The main build of this FM was by Sotha who was unable to continue work on it. I (Fidcal) could see the potential so completed it, somewhat roughly and quickly, so it could be enjoyed rather than abandoned. Even so, it exceeded my original estimate! Read the notes below while you ... DOWNLOAD HERE. (27MB) Sam's death hit me hard and I've not been feeling so good. I'm worried I didn't get rid of the Heart of Lone Salvation quickly enough. I don't want to end my days like Martha Edridge. A health potion is too weak; I need something stronger. Only a holy healing potion will lift a curse so I need to find a good alchemist. But the city watch have been tipped off and the district is alive with guards searching for any intruder they find on the streets. I have no choice: I must get that potion... This FM needs Dark Mod Update 1.02 or later. TIP: You cannot drink the holy healing potion if you are perfectly fit! As said in the briefing, the city watch are already ALERT right from the start and much more likely to notice you in the dark. You'd better be ready to move! ALLOW 2 TO 4 HOURS PLAY FIRST TIME AROUND Players with low end machines will find this slow in some places especially when there is an alert. Hide. Let things calm down. Closing doors behind you may help. In Dark Mod some glass is breakable using any weapon. It may require several hits. But there is also toughened glass which cannot be broken. Only one way to find out which is which! Do not use Esc during the briefing or the cursor becomes invisible. (You can still select blind though looking for highlights.) You can skip the briefing with the left mouse button. If you miss anything you can use the back button to show it again. Above all, Enjoy! [EDIT] updated with debugged combination lock script 5 June 2010. If you had a previous version installed make sure it is totally removed first, ie, doom3/alchemist and darkmod/fms/alchemist. [EDIT] If you get strange crashes there is a known bug caused by the spiky balls. This is fixed in Dark Mod but I think not released until 1.03. Try my patch from http://www.fidcal.com/TEMP/alchemist_patch2.zip It makes the spiky balls passive - they don't do damage - but apart from that no difference. Close Dark Mod Unzip the patch into your game folder doom3\alchemist Start the FM afresh, don't use earlier gamesaves.

Ah, pity I wasn't reading the forums back in February. I'm fond of that game, along with Bugbear's other early title, Rally Trophy. I was never too good at FlatOut, but it was always a hoot to play.

Inn Business It's business, at an inn, over three nights. Development screenshots: Download: https://drive.google...dit?usp=sharing Update 1.48 uploaded March 8th, 2014, one change: patches key rarely not being frobable in one of its possible spots Big thanks to my beta testers: Airship Ballet, Kyyrma and AluminumHaste! Development supporters of note: Sotha, Springheel and Obsttorte. Also thanks Sotha, for urinating in my mission. ;-) And thanks Kyyrma for the title screen! My appreciation to all forum/wiki contributors, without whom, this wouldn't exist. Thanks to positive commenters on my previous mission too, extra motivation helps! :-) Note this uses campaign features, what you use the first night, impacts subsequent nights. And to quote a tester, "...the level is maybe best experienced in more than one sitting". If you do pause between nights, please be sure to save, you can't begin partway through effectively. (If you accidentally start a night you already completed, just fail the kill objective to switch to another night.) If your frame rates are too low facing the cemetery, please reduce your "Object Details LOD" setting. It was designed with "AI Vision" set to "Forgiving", to be able to sneak through with minimal reactions, if you want more/less, adjust your settings accordingly. There are several random, conditional aspects, and ways of going about things, so others might have slightly different experiences. Post here if you discover hidden objectives for extra points! My condolences to loot completionists, I made a bit on the third night hard, you've got your challenge cut out for you! Speaking of which, there's a TDM bug that mission complete totals too high, here are the real amounts per night: 2026/970/202. Oh, there is something that in the U.S. would be rated PG, in case you play with kids in earshot. I hope you enjoy playing it, feel free to let me know you did, and I'm glad to respond to inquiries (like how stuff was done, nothing was scripted). (Note which night you are referring to if it's something specific.) (Please remember spoiler tags to not expose things meant to be discovered by playing.) Like so: [spoiler]secrets[/spoiler] Developed for TDM 2.01. PS: Thiefette, good news, no spiders! Springheel, if you find an optional objective you can skip...you might find it immersion breaking. Others, no undead! There are a couple other interactive critters though. :-) Edit note: Some posts below were from users of an unreleased version of TDM 2.02 which broke several things, they do not reflect regular game-play.

Hidden Hands: The Lost Citadel ============================================================== Title: Hidden Hands: The Lost Citadel Filename : hhtlc.pk4 Authors: Jack Farmer with Amadeus & Joebarnin Date of release: 18.09.2020 Latest version: 5 (released June 2021) EFX: Yes ============================================================== Hidden Hands series: I - Initiation II - Vitalic Fever III - The Lost Citadel ============================================================== Available via the Dark Mod Mission Downloader (Version 4) ============================================================== Jack Farmer: Mapping & drafts Amadeus: Editing and revising of all texts for readables, narration and dialogues, testing of gameplay and gameplay mechanics, all alpha testing & performance optimization joebarnin: Beta testing lead, debugging and debugging reports Beta testers: Krilmar Joebarnin Cambridge Spy manzanita-crow Shadow Voice actors: New Horizon: The educated Builder & Brother Gilbert (Briefing video) Goldchocobo: The naive Builder, guard (A union of its own) Jedi_Wannabe: Two guards (Of monsters and master guards) AndrosTheOxen: Jonus, guard (A union of its own) Boy Lag: Guard (Evolution of the peasants) Malasdair: Narrator (Briefing video & in game comments) Special thanks to: - Springheel, Sotha, and Fidcal for the tutorials - VanishedOne, HMart, Destined, Grayman, Joebarnin, Dragofer, demagogue, AluminumHaste, STRUNK, Geep and ERH+ for patiently answering my questions and solving in-game issues - All voice actors & beta testers for their great support - All others not mentioned here who answered my questions in the Newbie thread or via PM Pilfered items: - Setup for the main menu animation originally developed by Goldwell for "Snowed Inn" - Portal sky with trees originally developed and arranged by Dragofer for "Down By The Riverside" - Selected cliff sections originally developed and arranged by Dragofer for "A Perilous Refuge" - The scary, red-eyed Builder ghosts that have been originally developed by Bienie for "Longhorn Lodge" - Floating boat set-up originally developed by Bikerdude for one of his missions Contributors from the Inventor's Guild: - STRUNK created a prefab (S.T.A.R.S) used for various puzzles and mechanical items, he also helped with models - Dragofer supplied the experimental func_mover entity (modified by STRUNK to fit the mission purposes) - Joebarnin provided the script alteration for the mechanical locks - Grayman adjusted the switch/door mechanics for all sliding doors and fixed several AI problems Additional ambient sounds by gigagooga All other new ambient tracks and sound effects produced and mixed by Jack Farmer Explosion sound taken from freesound.org produced by tommccann Drowning man sound taken from freesound.org produced by muses202 Engine room machine sound taken from freesound.org produced by Astounded Electric zap taken from freesound.org produced by Joel_Audio Briefing video by SirSmokeALot "Walk On Roses" (title screen reprise) RC Deickler - Drums & loops R. Recum - Keyboards gigagooga - Additional ambient outtakes This mission is dedicated to all past & present Dark Mod and Dark Radiant contributors - thank you for all of your hard work over the years. ============================================================= Listen to another crazy inventor and learn more about his sick brain! Marvel at the latest inventions from the Inventors Guild! Sneak through long forgotten ruins and face (yes. I know, once again) the unspeakable evil! Show the undead that the living are not to be trifled with! Solve puzzles the complexity of which would even melt the brains of Nobel Prize winners!

Introduction A project is underway, led by Geep, to eventually provide English language subtitles (or if you prefer, "closed captions") for all the non-story phrases (e.g., barks) of the stock AI characters. The non-story phrases are identified by the "verbosity speech" subtitle tag. The hope is that these subtitles would be distributed as part of the future TDM 2.12 core and so available to all FMs, both old and new. Since there are 5-10K such phrases in total, this project will take a while. Let me know if you'd like to help. This forum thread can be used for project coordination, and to provide info about - What subtitle sets (e.g., for particular AI) are underway and completed Emerging tools or methods for bulk testing Style guidance for TDM subtitle authors. To support this project, a style guide will be developed as experience accumulates. While motivated by providing some consistency to English speech-tagged subtitles, it may be of some interest to FMers creating story-tagged subtitles, and those subtitling in other TDM-supported languages. Potential improvements to TDM's subtitling system - particularly those that would involve engine/GUI changes - can be discussed in this companion thread: Subtitles - Possibilities Beyond 2.11 Current Status - Subtitles for Barks All TDM vocal sets planned for TDM 2.12 have been delivered. New: Fixup Needed to Run These Under 2.12 Beta 3 The Thug - Update May 6, 2023 released as testSubtitlesThug2 FM. This takes advantage of new 2.12dev features and changes to style guidelines. The Lord - Update May 4, 2023 released as testSubtitlesLord2 FM The Wench - Two postponed April versions - Nov 25, 2023 released as testSubtitlesWenchOriginal and testSubtitlesWenchPatched FMs. Two versions because of Bugtracker 6284. IMPORTANT: See final version at end of this list, released Jan. 14, 2024. The Young Builder (Builder 4) - Update May 30, 2023 released (again) as testSubtitlesYoungBuilder FM. (Corrects error in briefing syntax of original May 17 release.) Average Jack - June 8, 2023 released as testSubtitlesJack FM. The Pro - June 23, 2023 released as testSubtitlesPro FM. The Maiden - July 8, 2023 released as testSubtitlesMaiden FM The Grumbler - July 24, 2023 released as testSubtitlesGrumbler FM The Mature Builder (Builder 3) - August 15, 2023, released as testSubtitlesMatureBuilder FM The Lady (aka Noblewoman) - Sept 9, 2023, released as testSubtitlesLady FM The Moor - Sept 14, 2023, released as testSubtitlesMoor FM The Commander - Sept 30, 2023, released as testSubtitlesCommander FM The Simpleton - Oct. 21, 2023, released as testSubtitlesSimpleton FM Builder 1 & 2 (shared vocal set) - Nov. 8, 2023, released as testSubtitlesBuilder1and2 FM The Critic - Nov. 25, 2023, released as testSubtitlesCritic_FM Manbeast - Dec. 10, 2023, released as testSubtitlesManbeast FM NEW! Lady02 - Dec 21, 2023, released as testSubtitlesLady02 FM. Assisted by datiswous. NEW! The Drunk - Jan 6, 2024, released as testSubtitlesDrunk FM. Assisted by MirceaKitsune. NEW! The Cynic - Jan. 13, 2024, released as testSubtitlesCynic FM. Incorporates early demo subtitles by Dragofer. NEW! The Wench, Final Revision - Jan. 14, 2024, released as testSubtitlesWenchFinal FM . Assisted by Dragofer. See also original May version (released in November) in the list above. All TDM vocal sets planned for TDM 2.12 have been delivered. Thanks, @nbohr1more, for integrating these into the release. All AI vocal sets, including additional ones for future consideration - perhaps as "verbosity effects" - are listed here. Current Status - Utilities buildSubtitleShader.exe - Latest release of April 10, 2023. This program fabricates a TDM sound shader file specifically for the testSubtitles... series of FMs used here. It does so by wrapping each sound file name in a directory into a sound shader with uniform incremental naming. While limited to a single directory, the latest release simplifies merging runs from multiple directories. @datiswous reports that this Windows console program also works under Linux/wine, where it is used with similar "testSubtitle..."-derived FMs for verbosity "story" subtitling. checkDurationsInSRT - May 6, 2023 Update (bug fix) This Win/console program scans a directory for .srt files, examines the subtitles, and warns about those phrases/messages that are potentially too short or too long in time, or that seem to require too high a reading rate, expressed in characters per second. It also looks for within-file subtitle messages that overlap in time. soundDurationsCSV.exe - March 7, 2023 Release This Windows console program scans a directory of sound files, reporting their names and (using pre-installed ffprobe) durations with millisecond resolution. The resulting .csv file can then be imported into a custom Excel spreadsheet for subtitle editing. For more, see also Feb 20th comments . findTooLongSubtitles.exe - Minor update, June 23, 2023 Release This Win/console program scans a directory for .subs and .srt files, checks the length in characters of each subtitle line, and reports those that exceed a specified maximum. analyzeFieldWidth of April 27, 2023 (release not scheduled; too idiosyncratic). Used to determine, for 12pt Carleton font, and a representative sampling of bark subtitles, how many characters might reasonably fit within a given gui field width. Later, parts of this code were used to build calcStringWidth.exe discussed next. calcStringWidth.exe - Oct. 11, 2023 Release. Calculates the display width of an input string, for 4 candidate subtitle fonts Carleton and Stone, uncompressed or 16:9 compressed. statsForSubtitles - June 25, 2023 Release. Starting with The Pro vocal set, this Windows console program automates the gathering and reporting of the basic statistics included with the announcement of every vocal set release in this forum thread. Current Status - Spreadsheets and Related Explanatory Documents, including Workflow and Templates Work by Geep on each vocal set starts with instantiation of a pre-configured Excel spreadsheet. This is used for subtitle editing and to do automatic calculations to help manage constraints and decision making. The announcement of each AI subtitle release here includes a link to the corresponding spreadsheet. At first, the spreadsheet's columns, formats, calculations, and highlighting (and its distillation into template form) would change quite a bit between each AI. As of June, 2023 and AverageJack, it has largely stabilized, and is now documented: June 10 Documents Explaining Workflow and Excel Spreadsheet/Template (for AverageJack) The v5 template was used for vocal sets from June's Average Jack to November's The Critic. Further clarifications are now available: Dec 7 Update of the "Explained" Doc for Spreadsheet Template v5 Subsequent vocal sets, through to 2024's The Cynic, use template v6: NEW! Jan. 10, 2024 "Explained" Doc for Spreadsheet Template v6 Current Status - Style Guide for Barks As of Sept 2, Subtitle Style Guide - Part 1 is now available. NEW! As of Jan 16, 2024: Subtitle Style Guide - Part 2 with more discussion and references. Current Status - Third-Party Tools For editing of "story" SRT files, datsiwous found "kdenlive" particularly helpful [to do: link to how-to below]. Geep has been working with the simpler, audio-only "Cadet" for barks.

Merry's Magnificent Mapping Co. Delivers Again! Chase Mercantile Screenshots Title: Chase Mercantile Theme: Bank Release: 2015/02/04 Mapper: Airship Ballet Special thanks: Nobiax for the custom loot models and textures, Melan for his textures and Xarg, Kyyrma, Oldjim, Phi, Melan, Cookie and Bikerdude for beta testing the map for me! Vault and courtyard ambiences made by me using this and this respectively. Build Time: 1 month and 13 days. Well, here it is! We're about 2/5 through the campaign provided I don't decide to extend it. While going back to change things with La Banque I was really enthused to see how much better I am at mapping already, so hopefully you will be too! This is the same deal as La Banque but bigger and better. It's physically about twice the size and a fair bit more complex with regards to objectives and the like. As a result, you get a ton of notes if you buy a lot of things! Having the notes in your inventory is integral to the system itself working, so hopefully you won't mind reading then discarding a bunch of pieces of paper. I've got plans for a somewhat cooler way to introduce the notes to the player, but you're stuck without for now. This is, of course, bundled with La Banque so all that gold means something now! It'll be on the mission downloader as Chase Mercantile so delete La Banque from your FMs folder because it's obsolete. I tweaked the former mission somewhat, spawning some new guards on expert and implementing a 500G/1000G KO/Kill penalty to your loot total across all difficulties. I also wrote a new briefing that hopefully doesn't show how bad I am at English anymore. It was only ever intended as a tutorial, however, so don't expect crazy difficulty there. There's tons of loot to be had, but even more if you're sneakier about it! The same goes for Chase, albeit far moreso: expert difficulty has pretty much 100% guard coverage, so good luck with that. Erm, what else... oh! I recorded the building process, so if you're curious or just fancy zoning out to some timelapses, you can see the map's construction from start to almost-finished here, although hold off until you're done to avoid spoilers. Note - Noclipping around like a mook will skip triggers that change things based on what you bought. It will completely negate the system in some cases and often brick your playthrough. Don't do it unless you've no desire to be able to finish! - As the note you start with says, you can bag up the loose loot in the vault into bags. Dropping these out of the starting window in the basement or at the alternate loot drop (if you buy it) will net you 3000 per bag, which translates directly into 3 gold for the next mission's asset shop. - Knocking people out will cost you 500 gold on Expert, and killing them will dock you 1000 on Medium and Expert. - Optional objectives will pay you gold immediately on completion. - It is impossible to acquire all of the loot in the map: there are variants of some that get swapped around depending on what you buy. Don't sweat it: there's tons anyway! Cheats Come to the thread because you can't find something? Look no further you casual! Obviously don't expand spoilers if you don't want spoilers. Where are the vault keys? How do I get into Chase's vault? How do I turn off the steam? What about the electrified gate? ...and the gas? Where is the sword? Where is the necklace? Where are the client records? Where are the financial records? Where's Turk Malloy? Look, you made a system I despise. The least you can do is tell me what to buy. Download links The Campaign Available on the in-game mission downloader as "Quinn Co." The Single Mission chase.pk4

When talking about a possible libre version of TDM (https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22346-libre-version-of-tdm/) it seems we believe all media/gamedata included in TDM is licensed CC-BY-NC-SA. I am not familiar with how the process of adding new media/gamedata works today; I have seen files uploaded to the bugtracker which developers then commit to SVN, but I don't know if there are other ways. It may be a good idea to implement a process that when new components (media/gamedata included in TDM) are added, the contributor is asked to be explicit about the license (a choice which may defaults to their previous preference, for usability). It won't fix the past, but it may help in the future. This will make it easy for contributors to add future data under a more permissive license if they choose. Libre media can be added and its license can be tracked, rather than assumed to be CC-BY-NC-SA. I suggest looking at how Wikimedia Commons has implemented this: the contributor state the source and license at the time the data is uploaded. This can be done either by providing urls or by saying "It's my work and I choose this licsense". The first step could be to add a way to keep track of each filepath in SVN, author, license, sources. Start by setting the value for each file's license to "(default/legacy CC-BY-NC-SA)". Possible implementations for a user interface for new additions are: * Use our own wiki, which runs Mediawiki (same as Wikimedia Commons). I see several benefits of this, but we also need a way to accept uploads of batches, not just single files. * Look at how other open source projects have solved this. There may be more appropriate solutions available. ... but I'll leave the implementation open. Suggestions are very welcome! If the author of each file already in SVN can be tracked, then it may be possible that the author is willing to give a blanket permission for all their past files in one statement, and all their files in SVN can be updated in one commit. A productive contributor willing to release some of their work under a more permissive license could make a big change. If Dark Radiant would support letting mappers search media/gamedata by license (does it already?), it would make it easier for mappers to create a completely libre mission, which would help facilitate a TDM-libre release. If I understand things correctly. This post does not address all details and it may contain misunderstandings or assumptions, but it's a start. Also relevant: * Is there a compiled and maintained list of recommended or deprecated resources for mappers to use? * https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/20311-external-art-assets-licensing/

@snatcher I understand that when you feel your work doesn't live up to your goals that you don't want it out in the wild advertising your own perceived shortcomings but that leads to a troubling dilemma of authors who are never satisfied with their work offering fleeting access to their in-progress designs then rescinding them or allowing them to be lost. When I was a member of Doom3world forums, I would often see members do interesting experiments and sometimes that work would languish until someone new would examine it and pickup the torch. This seemed like a perfectly viable system until Doom3world was killed by spambots and countless projects and conceptual works were lost. I guess what I am trying to say is that mods don't need to be perfect to be valuable. If they contain some grain of a useable feature they might be adapted by mission authors in custom scenarios. They might offer instructive details that others trying to achieve the same results can examine. It would be great if known compelling works were kept somewhere safe other than via forum attachments and temporary file sharing sites. I suppose we used to collect such things in our internal SVN for safe keeping but even that isn't always viable. If folks would rather not post beta or incomplete mods to TDM's Moddb page, perhaps they would consider creating their own Moddb page or allow them to be added to my page for safe keeping. Please don't look at this as some sort of pressure campaign or anything. I fully understand anyone not willing to put their name next to something they aren't fully happy with. As a general proviso, ( if possible \ permitted ) I just want to prevent the loss of some valuable investigations and formative works. The end of Doom3world was a digital apocalypse similar to the death of photobucket. It is one of my greatest fears that TDM will become a digital memory with only the skeletons of old forum threads at the wayback archive site.

Congrats on the release! Remember to check ThiefGuild as well as the DarkFate forums (via Google Translate) for additional feedback.

Just curious, based on this discussion: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/19239-soft-r-gamma/?p=427350

Complaint From Players The player must pick up candles before extinguishing them, and then the player must remember to drop the candle. The player must drag a body before shouldering it (picking it up), and the player must remember to frob again to stop dragging the body. The player finds this annoying or easy to make mistakes. For players who ghost, some of them have the goal of returning objects back to their original positions. With the current "pick up, use item, and drop" system, the item might not return easily or at all to its original position. For example, a candlestick might bounce off its holder. (See player quotes at the bottom.) Bug Tracker https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=6316 Problems to Solve How can the "pick up" step be eliminated so that the player can directly use or interact with the item where it is in the game world? How can so much key pressing and mouse clicking be eliminated when the player wants to directly use an item? How can candles be extinguished and lanterns toggled off/on without first picking them up? How can bodies be shouldered without first dragging them? Solution Design Goals Make TDM easier for new players while also improving it for longtime players. Reduce tedious steps for common frob interactions. Make it intuitive so that menu settings are unnecessary. Do not introduce bugs or break the game. Terms frob -- the frob button action happens instantly. hold frob -- the frob button is held for 200ms before the action happens. (This can be changed via cvar: 200ms by default.) Proposed Solution Note: Some issues have been struckthrough to show changes since the patch has been updated. Change how frobbing works for bodies, candles, and lanterns. For bodies: Frob to shoulder (pick up) a body. Second frob to drop shouldered body, while allowing frob on doors, switches, etc. Hold frob (key down) to start drag, continue to hold frob (key down) to drag body, and then release frob (key up) to stop dragging body. Also, a body can be dragged immediately by holding frob and moving the mouse. For candles/lanterns: Frob to extinguish candles and toggle off/on lanterns. Hold frob to pick it up, and then frob again to drop. Frob to pick it up, and then frob again to drop. Hold frob to extinguish candles and toggle off/on lanterns. For food: Frob to pick it up, and then frob again to drop. Hold frob to eat food. For other items: No change. New cvar "tdm_frobhold_delay", default:"200" The frob hold delay (in ms) before drag or extinguish. Set to 0 for TDM v2.11 (and prior) behavior. Solution Benefits Bodies: New players will have less to learn to get started moving knocked out guards. With TDM v2.11 and earlier, some players have played several missions before realizing that they could shoulder a body instead of dragging it long distances. Frob to shoulder body matches Thief, so longtime Thief players will find it familiar. Second frob drops a shouldered body. Players still have the ability to both shoulder and drag bodies. Compatible with the new auto-search bodies feature. Dragging feels more natural -- just grab, hold, and drop with a single button press. There is no longer the need to press the button twice. Also, it's no longer possible to walk away from a body while unintentionally dragging it. Set "tdm_frobhold_delay" cvar to delay of 0 to restore TDM v2.11 (and prior) behavior. Candles: New players will have less to learn to get started extinguishing candles. With TDM v2.11 and earlier, some players didn't know they could extinguish candles by picking them up and using them. Instead, they resorted to throwing them to extinguish them or hiding them. Hold frob to extinguish a candle feels like "pinching" it out. Once a candle is picked up, players still have the ability to manipulate and use them the same way they are used to in TDM v2.11 and earlier. For players who ghost and have the goal of putting objects back to their original positions, they'll have an easier time and not have to deal with candles popping off their holders when trying to place them back carefully. Set "tdm_frobhold_delay" cvar to delay of 0 to restore TDM v2.11 (and prior) behavior. Solution Issues Bodies: Frob does not drop a shouldered body, so that might be unexpected for new players. This is also different than Thief where a second frob will drop a body. "Use Inv. Item" or "Drop Inv. Item" drops the body. This is the same as TDM v2.11 and earlier. This is the price to pay for being able to frob (open/close) doors while shouldering a body. Patch was updated to drop body on second frob, while allowing frob on doors, switches, etc. Candles: Picking up a candle or lantern requires a slight delay, because the player must hold the frob button. The player might unintentionally extinguish a candle while moving it if they hold down frob. The player will need to learn that holding frob will extinguish the candle. The player can change the delay period via the "tdm_frobhold_delay" cvar. Also, when the cvar is set to a delay of 0, the behavior matches TDM v2.11 and earlier, meaning the player would have to first "Frob/Interact" to pick up the candle and then press "Use Inv. Item" to extinguish it. Some players might unintentionally extinguish a candle when they are trying to move it or pick it up. They need to make sure to hold frob to initiate moving the candle. When a candle is unlit, it will highlight but do nothing on frob. That might confuse players. However, the player will likely learn after extinguishing several candles that an unlit candle still highlights. It makes sense that an already-extinguished candle cannot be extinguished on frob. The official "Training Mission" might need to have its instructions updated to correctly guide the player through candle manipulation training. Updating the training mission to include the hold frob to extinguish would probably be helpful. Similar Solutions In Fallout 4, frob uses an item and long-press frob picks it up. Goldwell's mission, "Accountant 2: New In Town", has candles that extinguish on frob without the need of picking them up first. Snatcher's TDM Modpack includes a "Blow / Ignite" item that allows the player to blow out candles Wesp5's Unofficial Patch provides a way to directly extinguish movable candles by frobbing. Demonstration Videos Note: The last two videos don't quite demonstrate the latest patch anymore. But the gist is the same. This feature proposal is best experienced in game, but some demonstration videos are better than nothing. The following videos show either a clear improvement or that the player is not slowed down with the change in controls. For example, "long-press" sounds long, but it really isn't. Video: Body Shouldering and Dragging The purpose of this video is to show that frob to shoulder a body is fast and long-press frob to drag a body is fast enough and accurate. Video: Long-Press Frob to Pick Up Candle The purpose of this video is to show how the long-press frob to pick up a candle isn't really much slower than regular frob. Video: Frob to Extinguish The purpose of this video -- if a bit contrived -- is to show the efficiency and precision of this proposed feature. The task in the video was for the player to as quickly and accurately as possible extinguish candles and put them back in their original positions. On the left, TDM v2.11 is shown. The player has to highlight each candle, press "Frob/Interact" to pick up, press "Use Inv. Item" to extinguish, make sure the candle is back in place, and finally press "Frob/Interact" to drop the candle. The result shows mistakes and candles getting misplaced. On the right, the proposed feature is shown. The player frobs to extinguish the candles. The result shows no mistakes and candles are kept in their original positions. Special Thanks @Wellingtoncrab was instrumental in improving this feature during its early stages. We had many discussions covering varying scenarios, pros, and cons, and how it would affect the gameplay and player experience. Originally, I had a completely different solution that added a special "use modifier" keybinding. He suggested the frob to use and long-press frob to pick up mechanics. I coded it up, gave it a try, and found it to be too good. Without his feedback and patience, this feature wouldn't be as good as it is. Thank you, @Wellingtoncrab! And, of note, @Wellingtoncrab hasn't been able to try it in game yet, because I'm using Linux and can't compile a Windows build for him. So, if this feature isn't good, that's my fault. Code Patch I'll post the code patch in another post below this one so that folks who compile TDM themselves can give this proposal a try in game. And, if you do, I look forward to your feedback! Player Complaints TTLG (2023-01-10) Player 1: TDM Forums (2021-03-13) Player 2: Player 3: TDM Forums (2023-06-17) Player 4: TDM Discord (2021-05-18) Player 5: TDM Discord (2023-02-14) Player 6: Player 7: Player 8: