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Hello Dark Modders! Firstly, sorry for my English. I hope it is at least comprehensible. Secondly, I would like to buld another FM (I've done some demos and FMs - Old Comrades, Old Debts among them - in the past) and right now I am wondering whether I should use T3Ed or Doom3 editor. I've been using T3Ed for the last few weeks (since it was released) and, frankly, I do not like it. Or perhaps I should say: I like it less than I liked DromEd. That is why I started thinking about the Dark Mod. I hope you will find some time to answer some of my basic questions about the toolset you're going to release. 1) I make my own textures. In T3Ed it is very easy to use them in the editor (one just needs to place pictures in proper folders)... if you owe 3ds max (each texture is some kind of "material" assigned in max). How is it in Radiant? What do I need to make custom textures for this editor? What file formats you use? 2) And what about custom meshes? Is it easy to place some standard format files (like .3ds) in the editor? Do I need some special tools / plug-ins to texture models for Radiant? I could ask the same about sounds... 3) When do you plan to release this toolset? Of course, I am not asking for precise date. And I know it is probably very difficult to tell, but... Will you be able to release it in the next year? Next two years? 4) I heard that there will be functional water and rope arrows in the editor. Is that correct? Do you plan to include ALL features (water, fire arrows, scounting orbs, mines etc.) that can be found in T1/2 and TDS? If not, what features are out (I guess climbing gloves are out)? 5) I guess there are some DromEders and users of T3Ed among your team members. Could you tell me if Radiant is more or less difficult to use than T3Ed / DromEd. I was able to learn Dromed quite well. Do you think I'll be able to learn Radiant? 6) Is Radiant at least as "flexible" as DromEd? Will I be able to create - for example - new arrow types, new AIs with specific behavior, objects interaction (making one object of few gathered parts), new scripts that allow some puzzles (the simplest one: pressing some buttons in proper order makes the door open) etc? And what about objectives? Can "anything" be an objective (like in TDS)? 7) Will there be such sound propagation as in DromEd or TDS? 8) Will I be able to create levels as big as the ones from original Thiefs that look and run well on standard computers (512 RAM, Radeon 9800 etc.)? Thanks in advance!

I don't know if this is the right place to ask, but I would very much like to make an System Shock edition of The Dark Mod. Would anyone be interested and would it be ok with the devs to use The Dark Mod as base for this.

I downloaded the most recent version of GTK Rad but I cannot find any textures or anything. Do I have to download these separately? Secondly, the manuel is for an older version of GTK, its got some holes in it, is there an updated manuel available? Thanks, Max

It seems that every time I go to the ttlg forum there's another Dark Mod mission available. I can only congratulate those authors who have been so industrious. The U-Tube clips make the system look wonderful. If only I could try it myself! Trouble is my broadband connection only manages a top speed of 0.4 Mb (when it's working that is). My system tell me it will take over 7 hours to download the Dark Mod. The chances of the connection staying up that long are remote. I'm sure I can't be the only person with this problem! Are there any plans to issue a DVD? It's possible I could go to an internet cafe in Barnsley (8 miles away) where 8 Mg speeds are available. Trouble is I would need something more user-friendly that the current tdm updater. Could someone write a simple program to make remote downloads easy and straightforward? Until that time I will just have to look on enviously!

So MODDB (Mod DataBase) has a new statistics tool which shows more information on how your mod has been affected by news and updates and such. Here is the code for an embedded version for The Dark Mod in case anyone wants to try it out in their own browser or add it to their Thief or Doom related fan site: <object width="600" height="400"><param name="movie" value="http://www.moddb.com/statistics/embed/visit/mods/4000/downloads-videos-images-articles"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.moddb.com/statistics/embed/visit/mods/4000/downloads-videos-images-articles" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="600" height="400"></embed></object><br /><a href="http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-dark-mod">The Dark Mod mod for Doom III</a> (Can this work on the forums or only on a normal webpage?) It's interesting to see the HUGE spike (in all categories) after Saint Lucia's release!

First off, this is fantastic work. Beautifully crafted, atmospheric, interesting gameplay. I feel redundant saying that, because so many others have already said it more eloquently. Perhaps some of my suggestions will be redundant also, but I wouldn't feel I had done the right thing unless I brought them up. As a long-time thief fan, the dark mod is very exciting and important to me, and I want it to be the best it can be. So here are the things I noticed could use improvement. 1) You can't knock over candles by running into them. You can pick one up and toss it, and knock over another one with it, but they might as well be brick walls when you run into them. I think small physics objects should be knocked around when you collide with them. This would add to the realism factor, and it would also add to the gameplay, because you'd have to be careful not to bump into things and knock them over, making noise. Remember the cool (but kinda cheap) moment in the T2 FM Ominous Bequest, when you're sneaking up behind someone dozing on a couch on the second floor, and suddenly the floor creaks and they wake up? Instead of scripting the floor creak, put a physics goblet on floor for the player to kick, and now the moment is both cooler and less cheap (because it's avoidable), and also more integrated into the overall game mechanics (there are lots of kick-able physics objects instead of one unique scripted floor creak). 2) You should be able to put out candles by hand, without a water arrow. This is a great addition to T3 (and some T2 FMs). Maybe have the flame of the candle frobbable as a separate object, which puts it out instead of picking it up. 3) Picking up physics objects sometimes moves them, or at least it appears so. When you grab something, sometimes it immediately hits the surface it was previously sitting on and makes noise. As a thief, it's important to have a "light touch" and not have to worry about a candle immediately making noise as soon as you touch it. 4) You can crawl on ladders. Meaning, if you're crouching and start climbing a ladder, you'll climb slower, whereas if you're standing and start climbing a ladder, you'll climb faster. You should climb the ladder at the same rate regardless of whether or not you were crouched when you started. This is a small thing, but I found it pretty annoying when I got stuck in "slow ladder mode". 5) You can run while swimming. Sure, a person can swim at different speeds, but as a gameplay element, this seems pointless. You don't make any less noise swimming at a slower speed (contrary to walking at a slower speed), and I didn't notice any lack of control with the faster speed. Why would you ever not want to swim at the faster speed? People will just end up habitually holding down the run button while swimming, so why not do it for them? 6) You have to hold down the run button and the walk button at the same time in order to run. I much preferred the classic thief control scheme of 2 separate buttons, one to walk and one to run, plus a creep button you can hold down at the same time in order to slow down further. I can sort of understand the logic of making walk the default speed in a stealth game, and making you also hold down another button to go faster. But let's face it, even in a stealth game, and especially in thief-style levels in particular, a lot of people are going to spend a lot of time searching through large areas full of already-knocked-out enemies for whatever McGuffin they've missed. True, the stealth part is what the game's all about, but in reality people spend just as much if not more time running around looking for things. They'll just end up habitually holding down the run and walk buttons at the same time, so why not give them an independent run button? 7) Guards don't drop their weapons when they're killed or knocked out. This was a nice touch of realism in T3. It's jarring when the hammer remains glued to the model's hand and sticks up at a funny angle. 8a) Door opening is not realistic. This has always been a problem in the thief games, and most people have probably gotten used to it, but why not take this opportunity to improve things? When you open a door into an unknown room, what you'd want to do in reality is first peer through the keyhole if possible, or open the door only a little and peer through the crack. What you currently do in thief is stand out of the path of the door and open it, then lean around the edge, and guards on the other side don't bat an eye when a door opens to reveal no one there. They also don't seem to care if they come across an open door, and then it closes without any visible cause (because you're hiding). Here's what I think should happen. If a guard sees a door begin opening or begin closing and doesn't see the person who made this happen within some short period of time, the guard should go and investigate (but not for as long as if he'd actually seen you). Also, if you open the door part way, the guard should be less likely to notice. Keyhole-peeping would be a cool addition also! 8b) The current method of interacting with doors, while more precise than the classic thief way, is still clumsy and not terribly realistic. The ideal thing would be to do it like Penumbra, where the door is a physics object on a hinge, and you can grab it at any point and drag that point to move the door at any speed you want. This might be more trouble than it's worth to implement with doom 3 physics. A good compromise might be to do it like Rainbow Six 3, where you frob a door and go into "door mode", and you can then use the mouse wheel to gradually swing the door open or closed. This would parallel how picking up objects already works in the dark mod, where you frob an object and go into "pick up mode", and you can then use the mouse wheel to gradually move the object closer or further away. 9) In some way, the dark mod should address the chronic thief ladder problem, that is, the fact that you can climb ladders but enemies can't. This has always been such a popular, obvious, effective way to escape from enemies, and at the same time it's laughably unrealistic. I can see how it might be a difficult problem to implement enemies climbing ladders in an intelligent manner, incorporating this into their path-finding and making them go about it in a smart enough way so as not to make themselves easy targets for your attacks in the process. I don't have a solution, except to encourage a mission-design philosophy that prefers stairs instead of ladders, and only uses ladders in situations where you won't have enemies on your tail. 10) You can't change your weapon while climbing a ladder. I understand why you can't use your weapon on a ladder, but you should at least be able to change the icon at the bottom left that indicates which weapon you'll start using once you get off the ladder. 11) Physics objects and water don't mix. After picking up an apple core, I was able to move it underwater using the mouse wheel, but as soon as I turned with free look and the core touched the water even the slightest bit, it went flying out of my hand and splashing off through the water. 12) You can grab stuff through walls. Get in the fireplace in the kitchen and try grabbing things on the counter. 13) The water splash effect is blinding, and should be toned down a bit. When I fell in the water, the whole world looked white-tinted and washed-out with odd edges highlighted - should get multiple opinions on this, it may just be my graphics card (ATI Radeon X850). 14) The game does not have focus when it starts, by which I mean on the start screen I don't get any sound and the mouse cursor doesn't move until I click. This may be something particular to my installation. 15) There are AI path-finding problems, which you may already know about. The guard in the tunnel that leads to the front of the cathedral kept rising several feet off the ground while he search around for me, as if he thought he was standing on a surface at a higher elevation. Maybe he somehow got up on the edge of something sticking out of the wall? Later, the same guard came into the vestibule, and got stuck on the front, right corner of the altar (facing inward from the church front doors). He spun around and around on the same spot at the corner of the altar, until I alerted him. 16) The enemy door-opening animations are a cool addition, but sometimes the enemy's hand stops a few feet away from the door knob. 17) Body dragging is clumsy. Cosmetically, the model twitches too much, and control-wise, it's too difficult to make the body go where you want without losing hold of it. It would be nice to be able to pick up bodies like in T3 (but with a more liberal rule for determining where you can drop them - I always felt like I should have been able to drop the body when T3 told me I couldn't). 18) There should be an option to auto-search bodies like in T2. In the dark mod, it can be especially hard to get the key off the back belt-position of a knocked-out guard laying on his back, and you can't turn him over. 19) Drawing and sheathing your sword is a slow and cumbersome process compared to T2. It's a small detail, but it's constantly in your face. 20) You always lean in the same direction when you climb. Another small detail, but such a ubiquitous part of the experience, I can't help but notice. It shouldn't be difficult to make the player randomly lean one way or the other. 21) There's an inventory item stacking problem. When I used up my last flashbomb, the flashbomb icon was still in my inventory. When I cycled to my next inventory item and tried to cycle back, then the flashbomb icon was gone. 22) Flashbombs drop straight down, instead of being thrown forward in a small arc. This greatly limits the situations in which you can use them. Many times, I found myself wanting to fling a flashbomb into the path of a guard, but was only able to drop it at my own feet. You already have the perfect system in place for using flashbombs, that is, the same system you use for manipulating and throwing physics objects you pick up or items you decide to discard from inventory. Unfortunately, when you try to throw a flashbomb this way, it becomes inert and does not go off when it hits something. Then you can find it and pick it up again, but I can't think of a situation where you'd actually want to do this. When you throw a flashbomb, it should go off. I hope my humble suggestions are helpful to you. I'm offering them with the greatest respect for what you've accomplished so far, and full appreciation of how difficult it is to implement all this. Any feedback from anyone is welcome! P.S. How is the lock-picking coming? Have you already planned out how it's going to work? I have a system I've come up with if you're interested. It's a simplified version of modern lock picking, and I've made a little flash game to illustrate.

(My apologies if this is an ancient topic...) (All this came about from some TTLG folks whining about a lack of a strong protagonist...) While there is a "Universe" wiki that outlines characters, factions, settings (etc), there is no official "Tale of the Thief". I know that at one point a Campaign was planned that would spell-out things thematically but even if that is still "in the works" some sort of prequel story that sets the stage for FM's might enhance the experience. Especially for story oriented players. I didn't really have that much vested stake in the story concept as I have always played the mod as it I were "entering the Holodeck and pretending to be an old-timey thief" but Sotha's excellent story work has made me realize how much this adds to the experience. Maybe a story writing contest and the winner's "prequel story" goes on the TDM Front Page? Unless you guys already have something like this behind the scenes and are waiting for some milestone?

Jeez, I'm really loving the forum community for TDM. I mean, the replies I get for my topic is damn amazing. I jus post a topic asking about a release date, and I get 50 replies talking about wether or not we should add a bloody sword to the game(I personally think you should, as it came in handy when I got cornered). And im getting tired of people saying "If you get caught, or if you run out of flashbangs to use to run away with you dont even deserve to be playing the game" or something like that, I mean, not everybody spends so much time playing a damn stealth game so that they never ever get caught, plus a sword, and (my favourite weapon by far in any theif games) the bow, added more replayability, so you could always replay the game and just try to rampage through the level, or sneak, but be a bit more brutal, using the aggression to pick off your enemies in the dark with the sword, or bow, or (I almost forgot another useful tool) the blackjack. If theres one this that I dont like about the forums its that I cant figuire out how to reply in a topic... or maybe thats just my problem for being so stupid, but either way, can somebody please tell me before I have to start a new thread everytime I want to say something?!

After a few minutes, the training mission crashes and never in the same place: so far object room, lockpick room, archery range, central room, and even outside. The game however, doesn't actually crash, it just hangs for a second, goes to black screen and I have to go to the task manager to end the game (without the use of my mouse as my pointer refuses to move). I have the correct Doom version (followed the patch link on the Dark mod wiki) and I have steam loading up dark mod directly (-applaunch 9060...). I am running a gateway PC with Vista 64 bit OS, intel quad core, Nvidia GeForce GTX 285, and I think 4 Gb of Ram. I've already tried dropping the resolution down to widescreen (16:10) 1080 x 600 and standard shading with all of the other setting off or low. Any ideas what the problem might be? Conflict between Doom and the quad core or the drivers of video card? Edit: updated my video drivers and no luck, still crashes PS From what I have played so far, I love it. Esp. the jumping and mantling mechanic, a far side improvement over T2, but similar enough that I don't have to adjust hardly at all to jump effectively.

Just a curious question I'd like to ask, so straight to the point, will multiplayer ever be added to The Dark Mod... sorta the same style as the UT mod "Thievery" was [Thieves vs Guards]..? I'm sure not anytime soon, but would this be considered for the future? I'm sure many thief players would literally worship something like this.. but hey, regardless if its added or not, I still love TDM .. heck, I bought Doom 3 off steam just to play tdm- so no worries, tdm still rocks even with single player only.

THE DARK MOD STARTPACK 3 by Fidcal The Mappers' Startpack is a set of components that can be used as the start of any Dark Mod map. it has all you need to both start and finish off your FM. It is a complete, installable, finishable pseudo-mission already packed in the correct TDM FM format. It does not include any useable terrain but sets up other elements that are common or essential. Instead of developing from new the mapper can simply modify these which is far easier. The mapper can thus begin with this seed FM and focus on building. The entire startpack can be customised by the mapper to form a nucleus for all their future FMs. Full details including download link at: http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Startpack_Mappers%27_Guide

Ok I'm at the library using up their bandwidth to download this mod. I am using tdm_updater to download the mod and so far only 4 out of 62 files have downloaded. I am getting a little hungry and I would like to get something to eat... Would I be able to close the download and resume it later on or would it start all over again? Don't suggest using bit torrent since it won't work in the library, thanks in advance!

Looking at a review for the nvidia 3D pack @ http://www.legitreviews.com/article/889/1/ I wondered if it would work with Doom3 - it wasn't in a list of games I was looking at on Christmas day. But this post seems to indicate it will. http://forums.cclonline.com/showthread.php?t=13655 Whether it will or not it seems 3D is the future. Sounds awesome.

Sorry 4 bad english Hi everyone Possible run dark mod with another game that use Id tech 4 engine ? (id tech uses in Quake 4 Prey Wolfenstein)

Hi there, I downloaded Thief's Den and Tears of St. Lucia and started playing these missions. I really, really love them! Actually, I have nothing to complain, except this bloom problem (good things the forums exist so I know there's a solution) ... The Dark Mod has a true Thief-like feeling. I'm looking forward to try creating FMs...

I apologize if a topic along these lines has been submitted before... I am interested in creating a Halloween theme-ed FM... I used make Jack-O-Lantern chalk sketches in High-School and the lighting system in Doom 3 has re-ignited my interest in the shadows (especially since the release of TDM). Would it be appropriate to include elements like Ghosts and Witches in a TDM FM? ...or would that be considered to be a different mod type? I was also thinking about a hallucinogenic FM where the player had eaten moldy bread and Ergot poisoning induced visions of Goblins and Fairies cause all sorts of mischief (so lots of small humanoid characters...). The character would have to try to figure out whether they were really interacting with the real world or if they were drawn into an illusion. If they failed to distinguish these episodes they would end up in a nasty jail/asylum (whatever they called 'em in this era). I know that rats are present in DR are any other small animal types present that could be replaced with those types of models? Would either or both of these themes be objectionable to the TDM community? Does anyone have a recommendation for "easy" 3D sculpting software to make the Jack-O-Lanterns, etc (Blender?)? I know this is a bit of a pipe-dream for me as my free-time is limited. If someone finds the above concepts compelling I can supply hand-drawn artwork for motivation or illustration. (But I will look into doing it for myself...).

If ever it were possible to summon such motivation (and funds/hardware/etc.), wouldn't it be at least a little bit cool to see this mod on the Crytech engine? I know it sounds a little far-fetched at this point, but it's still cool to think about... Besides that, using a BCI for this mod would be pretty sweet, too, if not slightly complicated. mike EDIT: Before you say anything, I'd like for you to know that this topic was written playfully and not intended to spark anger/frustration/exhaustion/negative-energy. I knew from the beginning how far-fetched this idea was and if I had meant it seriously, I would have written my first post differently. I love TDM the way it is and couldn't be happier with it's outcome. A lot of time's been spent working on it and I admire the dedication. I admire it so much, in fact, that I'm even offering my animation skills and sound-proof audio studio privileges for women voices. So, please don't take this all the wrong way, I have good intentions. I've also recently been informed of how tired this topic is, so rest assured you may hear no more of it from me.

Hi there, I've found a couple of japanese videos that looks like some sort of review of the dark mod, but I have no clue of what they're talking about. So if anyone knows japanese, why not help a curious taffer

After some fund raising we were able to get a IPB perpetual license which makes us able to upgrade from an unsecure 1.3.x board to a fully updated 2.0.4 board. Feel free to poke around and look at the new features etc. The skin is reset to the default IPB one, because the old one won't work on this version. We'll get working on it ASAP. Happy posting!

Forgive me if this has been covered elsewhere on the forum. I've just downloaded the latest update using the updater and my darkmod folder in Doom now contains about two GB of data which took a lot of downloading . Given that I've already had one crash and had to download it all over and have limited monthly downloads anyway with my current ISP , is there a proper way of saving all this precious data? I have an external hard disc. Will it be sufficient just to save the folder to it in its entirety and would the data inside it then work if I had to reload Doom etc thus avoiding another lengthy download session? Thanks for any guidance on this.

Hello all, I just got Doom 3 installed and patched and I got The Dark Mod installed and for the most part it works. However, there's some graphical type errors I keep seeing as I wander through the training mission. At various spots throughout the mission(most of the time in the outside areas) the textures aren't displaying properly, they look black/white with some specs of color here and there... I've tried everything I can think of to fix the issues, I've looked through the FAQ, made sure to update both my graphic drivers and direct x, and I've even reinstalled TDM, but to no help... My System Specs: Nvidia GeForce 6600 GT AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ 2.6GHz Dual Core 2GB Ram

Hello, I have created a new folder in the 'Doom3' folder, have followed directions on how to create a 'Dark Mod' folder but I cannot get it recognized by the computer. I have done this in the folder's tab,'C:\Games\Doom3\darkmod' When I press the 'Enter' key to put the path on the folder, I get this error msg: 'Cannot find file:///C:/Games/Doom3/darkmod'. Make sure the path or Internet address is correct.' I'm stuck at this step. Please help me get through this part. Thanks, L. Blackthorne

Hi, Not wanting to spend too much ~ 160.00 I've been focusing in my LCD searches on the response time: is 5 msec good enough? I would prefer 2 msec, but my choices are much fewer. I also pay attetion to Pixel Pitch being less than 0.3mm Any other important specifications I should be aware of? Your experience with LCD and Darkmod viewing? THANKS! M

Have installed TDM and having a blast with it. IMO the best iteration of Thief yet. Have a bit of a problem though. I have changed save game to F8 and quick load to F10 with the in-game settings and these work fine. However when I hit the default setting of F1 for flashbomb, F2 for flashmine, etc, the only one that works is F4 which is the health potion. I tried to manually add it in the Doomconfig file but it's already in there. Any suggestions and thanks.

Maybe it was a fault: I started the DarkMod from the Doom3-Mod-Menu, cause I played Doom3 before and just wanted to look at the darkmod. All went fine, but when I installed the Training Mission I only see the console in big and a false "Doom3.exe"-command, it seems it can´t handle the blank in my gamepath. (the path is: 1_Games\Doom 3\DarkMod\) I thought the pathname is up to me? Same when I start with the darkmodlauncher. When I start the Training Mission from Doom3-Mod-Menu it just loads the original game. (the fourth difficult is now available) I deleted the Training Mission-folder in the Doom3 Mainfolder and tried again the launcher, the same, but without the warning message, that is included in the screenshot. I see the DarkMod-Logo and then the console. I can only access the DarkMod successfully from the Doom3-Mod-Menu. But after I installed the Mission, it only appears in Doom3, not in the Darkmod. Again: the warning on the screenshot came, when I started the DarkMod-Training Mission out of Doom3. When I try the DarkModLauncher, there is only the message about the "3\Doom3.exe"-thing. I included another Screenshot from the TDM-Update-Download, because it seems not right, maybe because of this "ambient"-issue I posted in another thread. http://modetwo.net/d...d-ambient02pk4/ I fear the solution is to re-install everything in a certain path!?