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Recently revisiting the forums after a longer period of time I wanted to check the unread content. I don't know if I am doing this wrong since.. ever... but on mobile (visiting the unread content page on my smartphone) you have to click on that tiny speech bubble to go to the most recent post in a thread. If you don't click correctly you'll hit the headline and end up at post 1 in the beginning of the thread. It's terrible on mobile, since not only the speech bubble is really small and was to miss. But also the thread headline is just millimeters away from it so you go right to the first post that was ever made instead of the most recent ones. Am I doing it wrong? I just want to go through u read content a d the to the newest post from that topic.

...wow, such a beauty - Gameplay, graphics, design, story - looking forward to part 4! One issue though: What i liked most:

A@datiswous Ah yeah, well sorry, I was quiet busy and only visiting discord. First time here on the forums since months now I think.. Thank you for the subtitles. I encourage everyone who is interested in using them to download it from here as I'm not sure when I'll be able to implement them myself into the mission. Again, thank you for your work.

Personally I applaud your approach. You take care to to lay out all your premises, inferences, deductions, and conclusions in a comprehensive and well organized sequences. Yes it takes a bit more time to read, but I don't think some of these more complex proposals could be broached any other way. And despite my digression, I think this idea is a good one. As far as I know, much smarter guard behavior is unexplored territory for FM design. There could be some really cool opportunities for smaller FMs that focus in on the experience of being hunted by a reactive enemy force. (And opportunities for smaller FMs to make waves is something we need, since not every one can make an Iris or a Volta for their first mission.) I'm with what seems to be the prevailing mood that this behavior should be customizable by the FM author rather than applied across the board. Otherwise you could destroy the difficulty calibration of a lot of old missions (although conversely, some old missions might get an injection of new life from some difficulty tweaks). But either way the first step is to make sure there is engine level support for the options. This is a good point. Single player games using online infrastructure pisses me off to no end. It's a preservationist's nightmare. But... this might be one case where an exception should be considered. TDM is non-commercial, so it wouldn't be some nefarious dial home to play situation. If someone wants to make a single FM that requires plugging into an online AI service to work that might be considered a worthy experiment...

Here is an article on game design, which is an interesting read: http://tynansylvester.com/2013/06/the-simulation-dream/ FMA's might benefit from the part dealing with apophenia. Also, for improving storytelling, a list of emotional triggers is given here: https://memetechnology.org/2013/06/13/emotional-triggers/ Reading these might give some food for thought.

I think it's probably right that the game doesn't presume when to check objectives or not, but it's really up to the mapper to design it. I think the simplest way to do this IIRC is to have the objective logic just fulfill the objective when all of the other objectives are fulfilled, but of course still irreversibly fail if the player kills. That should do the job.

Good logical layout of the map for the sequence of objectives. Nice atmosphere, that includes the design of the map and the background music for me. Difficulty, meaning it should be fun to play, and don't overwhelm you with loads of elite guards. Variety. There should be different tasks which make sense in the context. Regarding the last point, I like city hubs in missions, like in Goldwell's Shadows of Northdale part 1, which also add optional side quests. Speaking of Goldwell's missions, I think they're perfect in terms of difficulty as well.

I think it is a good idea! Our ingame mission downloader and mission view has long been subject of multiple improvement suggestions. Due to the sheer mass of missions that have been released in the last 15 years, things got really cluttered and especially newcomers will have a hard time finding what they want. However, improving the ingame guis is quite a task, so a web-based application might really suit this scenario well. Maybe we could even add a linke to it from our ingame menus, so user can access it quicker. Some more things to think about Would users be able to add custom tags and downvote / upvote certain tags, much like the system of Steam? This would also allow to add tags like "beautiful", or "difficult". Actually, the more users can contribute to this system, the better, because it will be automatically maintained then. The browser should also contain a flag for whether the FM belongs to a connected series of FMs or not and have the capability to go to the previous or next FM in that series. There should also be a flag for fully fledges campaigns. Some might like a flag whether or not an FM is "ghostable".

DarkRadiant 3.7.0 is ready for download. What's new: Feature: Skin Editor Improvement: Script Window usability improvements Fixed: Hitting escape while autosaving crashes to desktop Fixed: Def parsing problem in tdm_playertools_lockpicks.def Fixed: DR hangs if selecting a lot of entities with entity list open Fixed: Float Property Editor's entry box is sticking around after selecting a float key Fixed: Spline entities without model spawnarg are unselectable Fixed: Entity window resets interior sizing forcing resize each time it is opened Fixed: Spline curves should not be created with a model spawnarg Fixed: Newly appended curve control vertices aren't shown at first Fixed: Light entities are zoomed out in preview window Fixed: Entity inspector spawnarg fields not always updated by UI windows such as Model Chooser Feature: Skin Editor (see video) Windows and Mac Downloads are available on Github: https://github.com/codereader/DarkRadiant/releases/tag/3.7.0 and of course linked from the website https://www.darkradiant.net Thanks to all the awesome people who keep using DarkRadiant to create Fan Missions - they are the main reason for me to keep going. 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!

Yes, it does. Which makes it interesting that you yourself explicitly said that it's interesting nobody had complained here on the official forums: I did, which is why it stood out to me so much that even though you yourself had personally been involved you would reply claiming nobody had complained here on the official forums. I'm not colorblind at all. Does that make people pointing out that almost no modern games have proper colorblindness support hyperbole? Just because it doesn't affect you, or you choose not to pay attention to the discussion of something, doesn't make it hyperbole. Pick pretty much any modern FPS and you will find plenty of discussion about the near universal disregard for FOV and camera movement as accessibility issues. Denigrating those as hyperbole because you personally don't feel the affects is as bad of a look as demeaning people who bring up the importance of valid allergen warnings like gluten or colorblindness and deafness support.

https://www.neowin.net/news/mozilla-stops-displaying-full-screen-vpn-ads-within-firefox-after-backlash/ Only having an option to say "Not Now", and not to say "No", is so slimy. It implies that they can ask you again a week from now, whereas everyone understands what "no" means. It means I don't want it, and if I change my mind, then I will let you know. I find this design aspect more offensive than the advertisement/interruption itself.

Hey, Every time I've try to use the Full Editor when PM'ing someone, and every single time I get an error. Whoever is in charge of the forum, is it possible that this could be fixed? Thanks Neon

Ignoring is somewhat inadequate as you still see other members engaging in a discussion with the problematic user, and as Wellingtoncrab says such discussions displace all other content within that channel. Moderation is also imperfect as being unpleasant to engage with is not in itself banworthy, so there is nothing more to do if such people return to their old behaviour after a moderator had a talk with them, except live with it or move away. I'd be more willing to deal with it if it felt like there were more on-topic discussion, i.e. thoughts about recently played fan missions or mappers showcasing their progress, rather than a stream of consciousness about a meta topic that may or not have to do with TDM. I guess the forums already serve the desired purpose, or they just compartmentalise discussions better.

I just don't get it. While having more VRAM on the GPU is an easy solution to improve performance and resource issues, GPU architects have known for ages that the best solution is using some sort of hierarchy where you page out to system RAM once you are low on GPU RAM. AGP Aperture was designed around this idea. When PCIE came out, it was meant to have a flexible memory aperture natively but somehow IHV's never optimized that? Then Nvidia created PCIE "TurboCache" and AMD created HyperMemory. Issue solved? Apparently not? id Software pioneered the use of virtual textures in id Tech 5 and that became a standard graphic feature called "Partially Resident Textures" How in the world is a graphic shader hack more effective than hardware solutions like TurboCache? Anyway, it works but it seems to be cumbersome to implement so it hasn't caught on I guess. Then the AMD Vega architecture launched and AMD began touting how great it's Cache Hierarchy system worked? As if the same idea was not in play per all the above previous examples? Also when Vega launched, they made a branded version of "Resizable BAR" which conceptually is the same idea as PCIE's native flexible aperture but apparently even though we made a flexible specification somewhere in the bowels of the graphic hardware specification we still had harded coded limits that needed to be fixed? Then PS5 console proposed Direct Storage which also has a graphics memory hierarchy design. We have all these tools to use system ram and even SSD \ NVMe for video memory yet we are still designing game engines to front-load all data into VRAM and acting like it's "impossible" to have good performance when dedicated video RAM is below X amount. This should be a solved problem by now.

This depends on how the mission is setup. Surely, in the current way missions typically handle loot your statement would be true, but the way loot should be handled has always been a flaw in TDM mission design. In the original games there is no loot to be found in the last missions, simple due to the fact that the player wouldn't have any use for it. In TDM, due to the single mission setup we have most of the time, the player also has no use for it (besides some missions featuring in game shops), but still he is required to gather it. Mappers have thus far haven't come up with creative ways on how to deal with that issue or haven't even tried to deal with that at all. And just making the loot objective optional is not what I consider creative So it makes sense to think this concept through eitherways considering how crucial it is both for gameplay as well as the whole setting (you are a thief, so it is a basic part of your character) and I personally think that a design that does not rely or require the player to gather as much loot as possible, but instead tries to get the player to weigh the risks and the effort against the potential benefits, could indeed lead to a fun and extremely rewarding gameplay, if done right. Another benefit could be that if the part of the existing loot the player is supposed to gather is way lower then in usual fms, the risk of the player getting into the situation of not beeing able to finish the mission although all the main objectives are done, just because he is missing that few pieces of gold, is much more unlikely.

Shouldn't a direct impect on gameplay and immersion have a higher value then some artificial score? It is believable that guards recognize stolen item, if in prominent spots, which adds to the immersion, making the world more believable, and it adds to the gameplay if the player is put in a spot where he has to decide on whether and when to steal an item, or whether and what measures he performs to avoid the item to be missing (like creating darkness, if possible, or taking out nearby guards). The whole "but it messes with my stealth score, it's unfair" argument sounds like if we were talking about Doodle Jump. Besides the fact that an uniform scoring system does neither take the missions size nor the overall setting into account, which is very individual among missions and can make the difficulty in reaching a specific score differ vastly. You notice whether or not you cause a mess when playing a mission and how often you get spotted. Do you really need a piece of code to tell you how well you've done? In regards to what @demagoguewrote: It is always a good idea to question an author decisions in regards to what said author was aiming for, to which extent this was reached by the measures applied and whether and how the specific design goal could have been reached better by applying those measures in a different way. IMHO TDM is heavely lacking such discussions. But changing something just because some players say they don't like it and for reasons that have nothing to do with the original design intent is a terrible, terrible idea. But if the player understands what you wanted to achieve and can give reasonable arguments on why he thinks a different approach would work better, it is worth thinking that through and see if there are ideas worth adopting.

No. The Aeden's staff optional objective is the hardest of the game. To point out directions here, though, is getting into an area of heavy-duty spoilers ... so I'm constrained in my response just as I was constrained in my responses to the "endless keyhunt" complaints because to show the rather simple direction would be a huge spoiler. So I had to bite my tongue and take it. Aeden's staff is different, though - harder. I've never tried a no-KO ghost playthrough. Because I'm clumsy and have slow reflexes. I think it might be possible to do a stealth no-alerts playthrough. Are you allowed to KO? I think I've gotten the staff a few times in my playthroughs without alerting the builders in that room. The only switchable lights in the FM are table lamps. The cylindrical style wall lamps aren't extinguishable. The other fire and gas wall lamps are extinguished by water. In the Ox all waiters and commoners in the common room and outside are friendlies - except for the waitress in the upper lounge which is filled with enemies. You need water arrows. Moss arrows. Rope arrows. I've never used a gas arrow in a playthrough of the FM but one would make things easier, for sure. I'm going to replay the area and check through the locations that you mentioned - the loop etc. - then if it's OK with you I'll PM you with some info, tho' I'll ask you if you want the info first. So's not to spoil it for others who get that far in the game (few and far between!). I find it almost impossible not to click the "reveal spoiler" tags and read the info ... and, y'know, spoilers do spoil the real deal.