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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?

The gamepad implementation allows for a great degree of flexibility to personalize settings, aside from a few minor issues that I mentioned here: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22337-gamepad-bindings/ I would say that playing TDM with a gamepad works very well, especially considering that it was implemented as experimental and hasn't been changed since then. If I could, I'd go back to 2021-you and congratulate you on buying that gamepad. I notice that your DarkmodPadbinds.cfg looks very different from mine...

It seems like more and more "thief" and "thief players" is becoming a short hand to dismiss community members earnest desire to improve the game - which happens to be a barely legally distinct "thief style" game which was made by thief fans for thief fans and is "designed to simulate the stealth gameplay of Thief". Who is the predominant player base of the game supposed to be beyond fans of the thief games? Is there some better avenue to find feedback for the game beyond this forum? FOSS and linux forums? I have seen maybe half a dozen posts from that segment. I am a thief fan, I play thief fms, my association with those games is what drives me to play and make things for this game. Are we supposed to pretend the original games are not a huge reason why most of us are here at all? TL;DR version:

Thanks! 1) Doing LONG_PRESS PAD_A (what I, for lack of knowledge, call "jump-mantle" or "_jumpmantle") differs from doing PRESS PAD_A ("_jump"). "_jumpmantle" differs from "_mantle", so they must be mapped to different button-calls. "_jumpmantle" differs from "_jump", so they must also be mapped to different button-calls. This appears to be the case, but it is not evident (or changeable) in DarkmodPadbinds.cfg. "_jumpmantle" seems to be hard coded to always connect to the same button as "_jump" but with a long press. It is as if bindPadButton PRESS PAD_A "_jump" is not actually just binding PRESS PAD_A to "_jump", but rather interpreted as "link PAD_A (regardless of button press time) to behave exactly like keyboard SPACE for short and long presses". I would have expected the default DarkmodPadbinds.cfg to explicitly read: bindPadButton PRESS PAD_A "_jump" bindPadButton LONG_PRESS PAD_A "_jumpmantle" bindPadButton PRESS PAD_B "_crouch" bindPadButton LONG_PRESS PAD_B "_mantle" ... but neither LONG_PRESS PAD_A or "_jumpmantle" is listed in the file. If there are actions "_jump" and "_mantle", I suppose there must also be an action "_jumpmantle" since it is possible for the player to do all those movements: * "_mantle" does the movements "crouch on the high surface, then stand up" * "_jumpmantle" idoes the movements "jump slightly forward, then land standing on the high surface" * "_jump" idoes the movements "jump up, then land exactly where you started" If the actions "_jump" and "_moveup" are not synonymous, then perhaps the action "_moveup" is what i call "_jumpmantle"? 2) Thanks for the link! It was useful in more than one way. I'll link to that page from https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Bindings_and_User_Settings#Gamepad_Default_Bindings if I can get an account on the wiki, which proved more difficult than i thought (https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22327-how-can-i-create-an-account-on-the-tdm-wiki/). However, it does not answer my question how to find out the name ("<button>") used for a button on my gamepad. Basically, I would need to press the button on my gamepad and some program could tell me "That button is called 'PAD_A'". In my case, I have a gamepad "Logitech F310" (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Logitech_F310_Gamepad.jpg) which has a "Logitech button" (see image) that I want to use. I was hoping to find out the "button name" for that button and then edit DarkmodPadbinds.cfg to map it to a function. 3) ... but if that button has an "unusual name" that TDM does not recognize, then it may perhaps not work. E.g. if that button is called "PAD_LOGITECH" and TDM cannot recognize that name, then I cannot map anything to it via DarkmodPadbinds.cfg. Using QJoyPad I can map any keyboard key to it instead, as a workaround, but I cannot map MODIFIER to it (since MODIFIER cannot be set to a keyboard key). If current implementation is still called "experimental", then I must say it works very well; @cabalistic: kudos for that! I may not have continued playing TDM had it not worked with a gamepad.

It is possible that this is a setting that needs to be activated to work: https://mantisbt.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=23221

You steal a book from the library and go to an attic to read it (does this sound familiar?). You read 2 books that tell stories in different times of the church. You play these stories as the character in the book. When you get back there's a cutscene of you presenting the information or something else happens. You could do this via a campaign structure, or just teleport to different sections in the map. This does mean you have to make 2 copies with some changes in them. It might for example be that in the first book (mission/story) you find info about a secret entrance, which you can look for in the original world. Ironically A house of locked secrets has a nice example of this idea.

I am going to sort-of reveal that this is loosely like the nature of my upcoming mission. I noted it here when JackFarmer asked about things that are coming along in this post: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/profile/37993-jackfarmer/&status=3943&type=status It too is a builder church. The player is requested by a hopefully famous character in another mission to handle some business that is affecting the congregation. I am looking to invoke some info and history laid down in other missions as a hook story.

Then the characters that you removed the pixels from would be less-well shaped. The right solution is to change the metadata around character spacings. That's deep in the weeds. And probably better pursued as part of generating a 12pt Stone image. If you want to take this on, I can send you some links. I did some prelim research on this last year, related to computing the width of a Stone string, but never tried to do a font edit or gen, because a lot of steps seemed unclear. EDIT: Some of my thinking here is that maybe the scaling down from the available 24pt Stone image to a desired 12pt is introducing artifacts. Also, backing off a bit from what I said above, maybe not removing pixels, but shifting any problematic character glyth sideways within an image, would fix things well enough. EDIT2: These are the main forum links I found helpful The "Stone Print" source font in ttf form is available, e.g., from www.fontpalace.com. Useful Doom 3 tutorials are #10 "Using custom fonts" & #11 "Editing fonts". Tools include "Export Font to Doom3 - v1.02" and Q3Font. Some of this stuff comes from the wayback machine of the internet archive. I can get you copies. Sorry, can't help much with DDS editing tools.

I created the page: https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Lightgem In the source I placed the following text: <!-- Page text made by forum user Fiver: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22327-how-can-i-create-an-account-on-the-tdm-wiki/&do=findComment&comment=491145 --> Personally I think the page isn't really necessary because the info is already present under HUD.

@stgatilov, I likewise think that the chosen source image would be the same for 0.24 and 025. In the case of Stone, that would the 24pt (corresponding to 0.50 textscale), since no 12pt source image is available. And agree that scale factors of 0.24 and 0.25 should render character sizes slightly differently. As long as it was purposeful, even at the potential cost of minor blur, that's fine. As you imply, such blur may be unavoidable anyway, since the otherwise-desirable aspect compression would also inflict it. Just need to think of the 0.24 scale results as 11.5 point size instead of 12.

The subtitles of The Cynic (aka Bernie) vocal set, are now available for eventual incorporation into TDM: testSubtitlesCynic.pk4 This male character is often snide or crabby. In addition to general barks, there are phrases for a guard of the city watch, and for a trader. Note for Integrators This release incorporates and supercedes the TDM 2.10 subtitle demo, provided by @Dragofer, with its version of tdm_ai_cynic.subs. Likewise, it obviates the need for the distribution's fm_test_subtitles_ai_cynic_dragofers_dozen.shdshd Statistics In file fm_root.subs there are 301 inlines, including: 40 with an explicit linebreak, intending 2 lines 261 without 23 of these have explicit duration extensions, as follows: 16 from 0.25 to 0.49, for 17 cps 7 capped at 0.50 seconds, for 17-20 cps none with more than 0.50 seconds, for 20 cps There are 12 SRTs, including: 10 with 2 messages 1 with 3 messages 1 with 4 messages Of the 27 total SRT messages, there are: 17 with an explicit linebreak, intending 2 lines 10 without In all, there are 313 voice clips with subtitles, showing 328 messages. Corresponding Excel File TheCynicSubtitles.xlsx This is based on Version 6 of the Excel Template for TDM bark subtitles. The "Script Subtitle" column contains Dragofer's original subtitles. About the GUI Like The Drunk, subtitle backing fields for The Cynic uses the "tabbed widget" design, with reduced main field heights, one of several design alternatives that were being discussed. For the sound source widget itself, it uses snatcher's white sector oval provided by beta3.

In the first post of the other topic Geep proposed: Then Stgatilov's answer: But I think applying subtitles in different languages shouldn't be too hard I would think, but I don't know how the current translation system works. The engine should apply the correct subtitles based on the applied language setting, this doesn't need a whole new language system I think. Not sure who's going to write those subtitles though. I can only do Dutch and English and nobody needs Dutch I think. I suggest further discussion of this to take place in topic https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/21741-subtitles-possibilities-beyond-211/

Yeah it would be cool to see some more detailed statistics and it’s a shame they aren’t really captured. Since we are talking about fan mission platforms, where players also make the content for the game, I feel like the best thing we’ve got is you can look at the number of content releases for the games. Keep in mind the graph counts campaigns as single missions - so for example NHAT and TBP both count as 1 mission. A good year for TDM has has approaching maybe 50% - mostly we’re 25-30%. https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=152494 You could also look at the number of ratings thief missions get on https://www.thiefguild.com/ vs TDM ones, but that is pretty iffy in that you could chalk that up to more awareness of the site in the thief community than TDM Out of curiosity is there a reason a thief player can’t be a new player? I kind of think a player is a player and new players would be ones who are playing the dark mod who weren't? Is there disagreement the base of players most likely to pick up the game are fans of the thief games? They are certainly the most fruitful place to find feedback on the game beyond the sphere of this forum that I have seen. When we were trying to finish up SLL there was a lot of discussion on the forums about how long it had been since there was a release for the game. I am thankful that the stats show at least some stability over the years in terms of releases for TDM, but the trend for all of the games is decline. Not doing anything is a valid response if that’s what the devs want to do - it is not possible to provide evidence that any effort will slow that inertia. As a player and content maker I would just prefer trying to find feedback where it is offered from players who were willing to try the game but ultimately could not engage with it and see if there is anything that can be done within reason to ease them into the game. The game has a lot to offer imo. All those players are potential contributors - contributions in turn attract players - it’d be nice to see the cycle go on as long as it can.

Most of all it should be considered that our character is wearing leather armor, also a sword, a bow and other stuff...

Realism is for simulators and even then, there must be compromises. Reasonable is the right word for TDM. Regarding player movement it really depends on the character and how you want players to feel in his shoes. Is this a vulnerable veteran thief or a sneaky young cat? In this regard the increased mantle speed and the (single) grunt sound convey opposite connotations, imho.

What I found is that changing the color of the text by using the escape character [^] is a feature of the Doom 3 engine and not something created for the subs in TDM. What is happening in your "extremely bolted" example is that when using a color other than the default we are also rendering all eight "shadows" in that other color, hence the bold appearance. The above solution doesn't solve a thing and I cannot think of anything other than having the source code deliver a copy of the subtitles stripped from color escape characters. In any case, imagine for a second you are watching a TV series and each episode comes with subs in different colors...

The subtitles of The Drunk vocal set, with the assistance of MirceaKitsune, are now available for eventual incorporation into TDM: testSubtitlesDrunk.pk4 This male alcoholic character has a rough, gravelly voice, slow and sometimes a bit slurred or halting. Besides general barks, there are utterances as a guard of the city watch. Statistics In file fm_root.subs there are 405 inlines, including: - 59 with an explicit linebreak, intending 2 lines - 346 without Of these, only 1 needs an explicit duration extension (in the range 0.25-0.49, for 17 cps). There are 32 SRTs, including: - 27 with 2 messages - 5 with 3 messages Of the 69 total SRT messages, there are: - 23 with an explicit linebreak, intending 2 lines - 46 without In all, there are 437 voice clips with subtitles, showing 474 messages. Corresponding Excel File TheDrunkSubtitles.xlsx This is based on Version 6 of the Excel Template for TDM bark subtitles. Change to GUI New features of testSubtitlesDrunk to advance TDM 2.12beta: The oval ring showing sound source direction is now in a raised tab above the caption backing field (and matching it). That field is not as tall as it used to be, being somewhat tighter around the caption text vertically. The ring, with snatcher's sector design, and its red dot are also positioned better.

I'm a huge fan of those games, but I'm putting off getting BG3 because I'm a bit too worried they'll be too much like the Divinity games (from Larian). Those were good, but a bit too cartoony for me and I never came close to finishing them. I just didn't feel compelled to invest the time into them. If you don't want to manage a party in Baldurs Gate games, just go solo. Your one character gets all the XP instead of it being spread out among the party members . If you feel you are missing out on companion quests, you can just take them in your party while you do their quest and then ditch them.

I know this is semi on-topic and likely guaranteed to never happen. But I still can't help dreaming of TDM someday getting a cinematic dialogue system like in DeusEx: If you get close to or frob an important character that has something to say, movement is blocked and you go into a third person view staring you both down while the music changes, every few lines the angle shifts so you see yourselves from a different direction as you talk to each other. The most awesome thing would be dialogue options still, those I'd dream of seeing even more. Imagine being able to tell different things to a character in a prompt, changing some choices based on what you say! Could be used both as a simple store for street corner vendors... or to tell friendly AI to take different actions like waiting or following you or fleeing, I know TDM doesn't go for those types of missions but I still see it as a worthy possibility. Technically both could be done with a script. So if I ever need it I might put together such a dialogue system myself in a custom entity. Would definitely be fun to see someone else experiment with this through the new subtitles though.

Creating a new thread for this as it was being discussed in an old beta-testing thread starting here: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/21822-beta-testing-high-expectations/&do=findComment&comment=490751 I suppose the main questions are: when should this spawnarg be used, if at all? why was it introduced in the first place? Can we get it documented properly on the Wiki so misuse isn't propagated? @stgatilov @Dragofer

I wonder if you could test 9x versus 4x-diagonals and 4x-non-diagonals? Maybe the extra 5 renders don't add much. There probably is some minor performance effect. I think you're still showing the widget too high, so it seems to be associated with the wrong subtitle. I prefer @stgatilov's original vertical positioning, even though it pushes the widget's lower edge against the top of the caption lettering. I wasn't sure what you where trying to point out as a problem... was it the word wrap? Yeah, the automatic word wrap with centered text can look ugly at times. An FM author can choose to insert a manual line break in that case. I do that routinely all the time for barks. Since padding is part of the background box, sure. It occurs to me now that maybe, to improve the appearance of text centering, the background box should also have equal-size padding on the left. That is, the location and size of the inner box is unchanged, but the outer box is wider and its origin shifted left, so the inner box is centered horizontally within. The padding can certainly be made smaller. I imagine the seed value of 17px was for a worse-case character like "W", that was then rounded up to 20. We could shrink it by: - choosing the seed character as the widest that might actually be at the end of a line followed by space to cause word wrap. Probably "w" or "A". - not rounding up - scaling by the compression aspect ratio I'll try to come up with a new number. No problem here with having the background by default. But recognize there's a compromise between world visibility and text readability. Can't we make it possible to turn the background off for people who hate it so much that they avoid using subtitles because of it? "...visible in all circumstances" may be too high a bar. The simple implementation would be a single CVar that toggles the background on/off and possibly, conversely toggles fake drop shadows off/on.

Padding on the right is necessary because text rendering engine allows one-character overflow. And trying to fix it breaks many readables in many missions. So unless background is disabled, padding will stay. As for how large it is, I think it was minimum plausible at some moment. But then the font was changed and maybe it can be reduced now --- history digging is required here. I believe background will stay by default. There is no other simple way to make sure text is visible in all circumstances. As for size and spacing, I doubt you'll be able to reduce anything without making font even smaller and potentially less readable (especially in Windowed mode).

There's the inner box to constrain the text, and trigger word wrap, and the outer box to show the backing field. These are identical in size and location except the latter is a bit wider, by 20 px. A comment in the .gui code says: // #5914: engine allows overflowing textbox size by one character // maximum character width is 17 at textscale 0.25, so leave horizontal padding 20 on the right So the motivation is to keep the text from never visually exceeding the backing field. However, that extra padding can not be considered when the engine decides the point about which to center text in the inner box Probably a padding of 20 is excessive, even more so now that a width-compressed font is used. That said, there may be something else dominating the anomaly. And the sound location widget is also off-center.

There can be up to three blocks and each block can contain up to two lines of text, right? Plus the graphic at the top when appropriate, correct? If that's so then the new sample attached should be ok. I take the assumption that it is not possible to measure the length of each character and have a background that fits the the length of the text and as such, I once again removed the background but now added a kind of outline (fake drop shadow). Unfortunately the current font is sometimes thick and sometimes thin and the outline would be more effective if we had a typeface with a more consistent, thick outline. Subs are displayed by limited time and the more clear the font the faster we scan the text. I know you want the background because you are concerned some words cannot be read in some situations but my main concern is about those players that wouldn't mind having subs but end up disabling them simply because they find the whole approach too obtrusive. In my sample I went from pure white text to a light grey shade. Yellow color works quite well too for the subs. I understood what you were going for but it didn't land here. I haven't thought of alternatives for the graphic but I am impressed with some of @MirceaKitsune's gui/hud work so perhaps he can come up with different ideas. EDIT: Download removed. Check this post for the latest version.

Looking at the code, the originals were "pm_mantle_pull 750" and "pm_mantle_pullFast 450". The new "pm_mantle_pull" value is "400". A "pm_mantle_pullFast" value of "450" would be slower than regular pull, not faster. With both being set to "400", they are at least similar. Other than that, it's subjective and the feedback from playtesters was positive. Also, referenced internally here: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22256-movementcontrols-settings-in-main-menu/&do=findComment&comment=489158