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Played Grounded difficulty a couple of times and could not get past the school in Bill's town. My first attempt I got stuck on first entry into the school. I couldn't sight the bow properly and I now think that was a glitch or a setting I couldn't figure out because this second attempt it worked normally. Oddly, whereas in easier levels I seem to get two uses out of each arrow, in Grounded it seems randomised and a new arrow might get 1 to 3 (more?) uses. I definitely got three uses. Anyway, this first area in the school took a lot of stealth takedowns every one of which needed a lot of trial and error because of the need to preserve ammo etc for the Bloater in the next area - and that's where I'm stuck. In lower levels, I always enter the gym with 3 nail bombs, 3 molotovs, and plenty of shotgun shells. I'd typically lob all or most of the bombs and molotovs at the Bloater right at the start and then run round like hell waiting an opportunity to blast it with the shotgun. In Grounded, despite HUGE effort to preserve resources, all I have left is 1 nail bomb, 1 molotov, and 6 shotgun shells. I also have just enough resources to make EITHER a health pack OR another molotov. That's when I discovered my health was near-zero! I gave it a lot of thought and decided I'd have to restore my health. So 1 bomb and 1 molotov. I knew this wouldn't work. Sure enough, I ran out of ammo pretty quick and died from a single hit. Has anyone ever got past this scene with 1 bomb and 1 molotov (on ANY level?) Presumably it must be possible because it seems impossible on Grounded to ever get enough resources to have more than 1 bomb (the one Bill gave me) and maybe 2 molotovs (the first one found on a corpse.) Believe me, I scrape the barrel for resources in EVERY scene and there is almost NOTHING anywhere! Every single bullet is precious. And almost no shivs so none ever to spare to open doors so how much resources did I miss that way? All I can think of is a crazy race run perfectly and never taking a hit and hoping to pick up dozens of shotgun shells from bare-fist punching of runners. This sounds near-impossible. (Although Bill did finally get off his fat arse and kill 4 infected in the final surge outside just before climbing that bus to get in the school. (I did that by racing around madly for a long time then suddenly forced to bare-fist a runner I was astonished to find it was the last one!) Maybe if I could survive by running round the gym he'd take down the Bloater? There are far more difficult battles beyond this so I doubt I'll bother.

I know from experience with Bloodlines that something like this will make finding bugs much more difficult, because if people use different mutators and then report issues with a mission, the mappers need to bear that in mind when looking for the reasons.

Congratuliations on the release and what incredible quality for a first-timer. The story was really neat and felt very authentic. Gameplay-wise, I also had a lot of fun, although it got really messy at times. You see, I like to play with the rule to only reload when I am dead, so I am forced to play through my mistakes, which can be really fun. A mistake in this mission often meant, that almost all the guards got alerted because a huge portion of the mansion is connected without any doors. And with so many guards, trouble often snowballed, which made this mission pretty difficult. So many guards in one spot also very frequently lead to AI misbehavior like continuously running into a wall etc. For your future missions (hoping there weill be more), I would suggest to split up areas more so that not so many guards come flocking on you on a single mistake.

Had a problem with the web server yesterday that led to a crashed table in the forum database. This has now been repaired and things seems to work again. I was on travel so it took a while before I was able to fix it. Merry Christmas!

I can get on the main forum now but still get an error when trying to load posts. Anyone else?

It is quite litigated in the thread already whether it is particularly important or common in games for a context sensitive input be "consistent" or whether this inherently means something is intuitive - so I won't repeat my thoughts on it. I will say It seemed like it was quite difficult to get this change as it is into the game, so while I think anything can be improved I am not sure anyone wants to go through another 10 pages, polls, etc. So I hope I don’t sound short or dismissive, it’s really not my intention, it’s just been a very long thread. I will say if an object is frob highlighted, ie subject to an interaction prompt, if frobbing it then does not do anything or provide any feedback the game immediately feels very strange and broken. I do not think it is good a idea to have objects which can only be interacted with via long press. The current design is around primary interactions being on short press and the secondary more situational actions being on hold, while also retaining compatibility with all legacy interactions. There is some disagreement as far as what is a "primary" interaction, but I find it pretty intuitive in practice as it is today. There are some exceptions that did not work out in testing. I will the example of candles/lanterns - having extinguish as the primary interaction makes a lot of sense, but in practice didn't work very well. The game is full of extinguished candles, empty candle holders, etc that are now simple physics objects that require a long press to pickup and have no primary interaction - see issue above. You also have to handle lanterns differently, which can be toggled off/on. You could code in the TDS method which is extinguish a lit candle on frob, then it becomes a physics object (“junk” in the parlance of your table) so the primary interaction should then be grabber. There seemed in general to be a lot of concern about keeping the code clean. Being able to grab moveable inventory objects on hold without having to do the current dance of bringing them into inventory first and then “dropping” them - like keys and tools - could be a nice addition. Many loot objects are not moveables so these might be a bit of issue?

Yes, you are still viewing The Dark Mod Forums I've just finished the upgrade of our IPB Board Forums to the latest release. Packed with new features, rewritten code and all that. Have a look around. The skin is currently the default one, but will sooner or later be converted to a darker skin, to fit the Dark Mod universe. Also note that the forums have been moved from http://modetwo.net/darkmod to it's own sub-domain: http://forums.thedarkmod.com - all forum links will still work tho, thanks to Apache's rewrite-plugin. Please report any bugs, requests and comments in this thread. PS: The forums will run a bit slow the first hours as the cache is being rebuilt.

New script for mappers: my flavour of a fog density fading script. To add this to your FM, add the line "thread FogIntensityLoop();" to your map's void main() function (see the example in fogfade.script) and set "fog_fade" "1" on each foglight to enable script control of it. Set "fog_intensity_multiplier" on each info_location entity to change how thick the fog is in that location (practically speaking it's a multiplier for visibility distance). Lastly, "fog_fade_speed" on each foglight determines how quickly it will change its density. The speed scales with the current value of shaderParm3, using shaderParm3 = 1000 as a baseline. So i.e. if shaderParm is currently at 1/10th of 1000, then fade speed will be 1/10th as fast. Differences to Obsttorte's script: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/14394-apples-and-peaches-obsttortes-mapping-and-scripting-thread/&do=findComment&comment=310436 my script uses fog lights you created, rather than creating one for you. Obsttorte's script will delete the foglight if entering a fogfree zone and recreate it later more than one fog light can be controlled (however, no per-fog-light level of control) adding this to the map requires adding a line to your void main() script, rather than adding an info_locations_settings entity with a custom scriptobject spawnarg in my script, mappers set a multiplier of fog visibility distance (shaderParm3), while in Obsttorte's script a "fog_density" spawnarg is used as an alternative to shaderParm3 smaller and less compactly written script fogfade.scriptfogfade.map

Just a heads up that the header images are now missing from the top of the forum. I suspect due to domain forwarding or something like that?

Have I been hacked or is the site being rebuilt or hacked?

Just wanted to say, Hello! From reading through various posts in the forums it seems like a great community and I hope to become a part of it. So I got the hankering for some Thief as of late and stumbled on TDM through some googling. After purchasing Doom 3 through Steam and instaling TDM, I have been nostalgiacly playing through many of the FMs and have also decided to d/l the Radiant editor and start making a mission, maybe many, we'll see. As it turns out also, I just started (today!) my 1 week vacation from work and intend to dive in to the Radiant editor and am currently going through the A-Z wiki on it. A bit of background on me, I 'used' to work in application support till the economic crash a couple years ago and was laid off and am now running a machining center at a local machine shop, using Mastercam daily, 2D/3D stuff and have always wanted to make a mission/game, and decided since I've always enjoyed the Thief series and stealth gameplay so much, this is where I would start. After getting to my third year in Mechanical Technology I changed my major to Information Technology (should have went with straight Computer Science but ahhh hindsight). I've always loved building things and designing things and also really enjoy computers, art, audio, and the entire visual experience as presented to a user. I have created a couple playable maps before using the older source engine editor so I'm vaguely familiar with 3D modeling, skyboxes, lighting, AI pathing, etc. That's been over 10 years ago though. I got familiar with 3dsmax, ProE, Autocad, and Mastercam in my first major during school so that helps a bit when familiarizing with a new editor and as previously mentioned I've dabbled around in the Valve Source editor. I'm also very much looking forward to the Crucible of Omens campaign created by the marvelous talent at TDM and would like to help in any way I can once I'm familiar with the Radiant engine. I can also do many many voices, I've often thought about moving out to Cali from Indiana and finding work in voice-overs, voice acting, etc. All this started as a youngster with little friends, time on my hands, and imaginary friends. Wow that's hard to admit. So anyway, I've been working on a shadowy Garrett voice, and can do guards and some women characters with old, old english, gruff, slippery, sneaky, terrifying, voices and personalities. Just thought I'd mention that as it may be a way that I could contribute early on and would also enjoy. So anyway, too much about me and not enough A-Z wiki, back to the tutorial! Glad to be here and hope for good things to come.

I will update this list as we go, re-arranging info based on severity - Ongoing privacy concerns The trade-offs between privacy and features is not a simple black-and-white decision, even Windows 8 has an “Advertising ID” that follows you around. Ars Technica revealed that, even with all of the Win10 security settings on Off, Win10 still sends some data to the Micro$oft Mothership. The simple fact is that Microsoft hasn’t told us what data it’s collecting. With the release of Windows 10, Micro$oft have stepped up there 'illegal' data capture of private user data - http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/17379-microoft-data-slurp-now-not-just-limited-to-win10/?hl=windows M$ is now via the latest update, monitoring how long your Win10 session's are and how long you use various apps - http://betanews.com/2016/01/04/why-is-microsoft-monitoring-how-long-you-use-windows-10. At release ALL Win10 (home-to-enterprise) users could not disable telemetry, but as of the latest update now enterprise user's only now have that option - http://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-10-telemetry-time-for-level-playing-field/ But it seems some enterprising user has created a tool for home/pro users - http://winaero.com/blog/how-to-disable-telemetry-and-data-collection-in-windows-10/. But the article points out that tere is some telemetry being sent back to M$ in Win7/8 - http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/17379-microoft-data-slurp-now-not-just-limited-to-win10/?hl=windows Another renamed service that needs to be disabled - http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2015/11/24/windows-10-automatic-spying-begins-again/ Another example of fresh install, on a PC that wasn't used for 8hrs - http://betanews.com/2016/02/06/windows-10-phones-home-a-lot-even-with-all-reporting-and-telemetry-disabled/ More and more tools are coming out for Win 10 to try and block all or most of the telemetry traffic, here one I have come across - DisableWinTracking Advertising it wasn't in at launch but there are reports of 'recommended' apps appearing in the start menu, WTF! -http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/windows-10-start-menu-advert/ Stability and Compatibility I tested the retail version, its IMHO its still not stable enough to considered a daily OS. I tested on release and wasn't impressed. I found if I enabled (fairly modest) whitelist outbound blocking on my internet router, Win10's internet responsiveness would fall through the floor. All browsers would takes ages to resolve sites and the OS itself would actually become lumpy/laggy. Broken Video drivers, its so widespread that even a few on here have been affected - http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/17665-windows-10-why-you-shouldnt-upgrade/?p=384905 The Graphical user interface M$ white-washing of the interface in Win8 and office 2013 and have refused to learn from user feedback. Forced updates Not being able to control what gets installed on "MY PC", is a massive NO! NO! Patching remains Windows 10’s Achilles’ heel, all Windows 10 Home machines, and Windows 10 Pro machines that aren’t hiding behind an update server (such as WSUS or WUB) will get all patches applied according to Microsoft’s time scale. All three of the first Cumulative Update patches have had problems with reboot cycles. KB3081424 on Aug. 5, KB3081436 on Aug. 12, and KB3081438 on Aug. 14 all crashed a bunch of Windows 10 systems. The installer stops mid-installation, flashes an error message, rolls back, and reboots. Then you guessed it -- the forced installer kicks in and crashes Windows again. Rinse, lather, repeat. Getting out of the mess involves editing the registry. We haven’t yet seen how Micro$oft will recover from a really bad update, the experience to date with the three Cumulative Updates does not instil confidence. We don’t know if Microsoft will start documenting its patches again. We don’t know if much effort will be directed at fixing and improving the Microsoft-supplied Universal apps. Windows 10 installer takes a look at your system and based on the hardware and software it finds, assigns your request to a bucket of similar upgrade requests. The guys running the upgrade system, prioritize your request based on their assessment of how likely your system is to bomb out on an upgrade. Key apps, such as Mail and Edge, STILL aren’t ready yet Some of Windows 10’s key apps simply half baked. Mail has a nasty habit of putting notifications in the upper-left corner and leaving them hanging forever. There’s no combined Inbox, so if you have multiple accounts you have to jump from Inbox to Inbox. And it crashes hard -- for a lot of people. Edge, the new browser, similarly has all sorts of rough "edges". There are no extensions yet, thus no AdBlocker. Changing the search engine is tortuous, moving tabs onto the desktop and back again doesn’t work and you can’t pin tabs. In short use what ever mail/browser you wrere using on previous OS. Not much in the way of Universal apps Don't believe the marketing bollox about all of those wonderful Universal apps in Windows 10, whether it’s on a desktop, notebook, phone, Raspberry Pi, it ain't happening. The Windows Store is still by and large a wasteland, with crap apps galore. Win10’s Tablet Mode broken First, there’s the menu on the left that tucks away the entries on the left side of the Start menu. It collapses fine, but when it’s collapsed it rarely shows any more tiles than when it’s not collapsed. What’s the point, eh? Universal app windows have that pesky taskbar permanently tacked on the bottom, while the window bar at the top auto-hides. Edge, when running full screen, doesn’t support any of the old Metro IE swipe commands. You can’t swipe through running apps. The apps themselves? The irony is M$ Office on the iPad is better than M$ Office on Windows 10. OneDrive regression This concern applies only if you use OneDrive in Windows 8.1, and if you put a lot of stuff in OneDrive. For those of you using OneDrive in Windows 7 (and Windows 8), there’s no change in behavior with Win10. But if you’re accustomed to seeing all of your OneDrive files in Windows 8.1’s File Explorer, you’ll be in for a bit of a shock. Windows 10 makes you choose which OneDrive folders you want to be able to see in File Explorer. Once you’ve made that choice, the other folders aren’t accessible in File Explorer. The only way to see what files you have in OneDrive is by venturing to the OneDrive website. Missing Media Center and DVD player For those people that run Windows Media Center, its gone in Windows 10 PC. Instead Micro$oft wants you to use/buy an Xbox. Ain’t broke, don’t fix it The old adage comes from experience and it’s as applicable now as it ever was. If you’re using Windows 7/8/8.1, and it’s properly patched up and working for you, and you’ve stopped using Internet Explorer, you really have to consider whether it’s worth the effort to upgrade to Windows 10. Carefully consider whether the warning signs listed here. Still to many questions For example, when you upgrade a “genuine” Win7, Win8 or Win8.1 machine to Win10 and run the upgrade in place, Micro$oft records a hardware ID that says, “this machine has valid license” At that point, you can install either Win7 or Win10 on that machine, and your license will be validated. Its believed that the only version of Win10 that you can disable ALL telemetry and fully control Windows update in, is the enterprise version. Smells like Teen Spirit desperation Microsoft Marketing chief Chris Capossela explained that users who choose Windows 7 do so “at your own risk, at your own peril.” It is particularly myopic to rubbish one of your own products that way. Put simply Capossela is a complete cock, Windows 7 is no less secure than Windows 10 (it will be supported until 2020 and Windows 8.1 2023) and is no less compatible with new hardware and software. Also at the moment Win7 has a bigger market share, so easier work for developers. Micro$oft has bad been caught forcing the upgrade on some users, http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/15/pushy_windows_10/ and http://www.fudzilla.com/news/39479-microsoft-raises-the-upgrade-pressure As this is a very bad and its only getting worse, another link to the forced upgrade/update issue - http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/17665-windows-10-why-you-shouldnt-upgrade/?p=385115 Nagware being rolled out the business machine - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/14/get_windows_10_business_pcs/ Now blocking support for the latest CPU in windows 7/8 - http://www.techpowerup.com/219316/no-enterprise-support-for-older-windows-versions-on-the-latest-processors-microsoft.html More marketing desperation Malware - KB3035583 http://news.softpedia.com/news/microsoft-updates-infamous-get-windows-10-patch-kb3035583-502117.shtml Compatibility issues If you have any old games that use really old forms of DRM or SafeDISC your fresh out of luck - http://www.geek.com/games/windows-10-doesnt-run-games-with-securom-and-safedisc-drm-1631383/ Various apps and games (even The Darkmod) has had issue's running on Windows 10, see - http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/17310-windows-10-support-thread/?hl=win10 and http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/17551-gamma-broken-in-windows-10/?hl=win10&do=findComment&comment=381800 Upgrade NagwareMicrosoft is still coming up with way to try and force users to upgrade from 7/8/8.1 - if you like me want to block 7 prevent this crap checkout GWX control panel or Never10 16. M$ deliberatly blocking the installation of some applications http://news.softpedia.com/news/Microsoft-Blocks-Classic-Shell-in-Windows-10-Build-9879-465429.shtml 17. Windows 10 installing UNWANTED Windows Store apps without user consent https://www.ghacks.net/2018/07/02/windows-10-installing-unwanted-store-apps/

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.

With TDM 2.12, after the credits finished, the "Mission Complete" screen did not display. I found that the screen was black and I could hear my footsteps when I tried to move around. I think the reason for the mission not completing successfully was that the "Do not kill or harm allies" objective was never marked as "1 = STATE_COMPLETE" instead it was left as "0 = STATE_INCOMPLETE". Note, I didn't use noclip throughout the mission. Same as: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/18054-fan-mission-the-accountant-2-new-in-town-by-goldwell-20160509/&do=findComment&comment=458491

How about using TDM automation framework (and maybe pcem/qemu)? More info see: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/19828-automation-features-and-discussion/

Sometimes I think I learned some lessons from the feedback I received from this FM, but other times I wonder. I definitely didn't make it 'difficult' on purpose, but I certainly didn't want it to be easy or not challenging. It's hard to tell what people find enjoyable. I guess my assumption has been that players expect stealth gameplay, since, well it's a stealth game. But it seems if it's too difficult to get a perfect stealth score then that might turn some people off. The funny thing is, I always write the FM with ghosting in mind (or at least, no blackjacking). With this one I didn't really test it with going around blackjacking everyone. It wasn't until I watched some playthroughs that I realised how easy that made it

A very nice and quality FM. The design is definitely interesting: I like how navigation is based on jumping between buildings and going through spaces connecting different locations, even if some are difficult to find and I needed guidance from here a few times. It's a difficult FM in general as spaces are tight and well lit, it's one of the maps I couldn't imagine going through without reloading nor getting spotted at any time.