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Minor criticism: I hope you include some backgrounds in the briefing next time. Only text is a bit of a boring read and it shouldn't have to be too difficult to include some background screenshots for example, but maybe it was intended to stay a mistery or you ran out of time.

Yeah it's not an easy to go option, more like an inspiration. There's always lots of artifacts and inconsistencies which take so much time to fix that it is nearly the same time to create images as painting them by yourself if you have an eye for detail. I tried it for creating textures too and it worked pretty well (I think it was dalle 2 back in the day last year). Most difficult part was making it seamless. I think the time it took for rerolling prompts was nearly the same as searching for stock textures though. But the results were as least as good as stock textures. A thing I couldn't say about artwork. There's no coherent style or consistent features for story actors. I would say you didn't miss anything of value. We'll see what the future holds.

After some amount of work I'm happy to be able to share my Christmas gift for TDM! Or at least half of it, considering the other half is still only in design phase. I created an addon that implements detailed player functionality, inspired by the first DeusEx game (The Conspiracy). It's NOT a mission script but an addon, meaning you place the pk4 in your TDM directory to enable the system and it will automatically work in each and every FM. Note that due to using tdm_user_addons.script / user_addon_init() it may disable or get disabled by other addons you have installed... this is a design limitation which can hopefully be lifted at some point in the future. This plugin will be included in my cyberpunk total conversion The Dark Module and automatically active with it, but first I shall design it and make it available as a small independent addon for vanilla TDM. In the current initial release it implements just per-limb damage; The upcoming plan is to add a skill / augmentation system, allowing the player to use loot as skill points to enhance various body parts and gain new or improved abilities. Due to the scripting system being very limited in what it lets me modify, I'm still gathering documentation on how to implement those skills and which I can have. So until then detailed body damage with penalties remains the only part that's theoretically finished so far (further improvements are required here too)... including a HUD component above the lightgem showing the status of each body part: Green = full health, yellow = half health, red = (close to) no health, black = no health left. The individual limbs available: Head, Torso, Left Arm, Right Arm, Left Leg, Right Leg... arms and legs work in unity however. They each take damage with the player as well as healing together with them. The more damaged a group is, the more a respective penalty is applied to the player. Groups and penalties include: Head: When the head is damaged, the player begins to get dizzy and has their vision impaired. Currently the only effect replicates the flashbomb, causing white dots to appear around the player and disrupt their view until the head is healed. As the player can't live without a head, reaching 0 will cause instant death. More effects are possible and pending. Torso: Damage to the torso translates to damage to the cloak, increasing the player's lightgem and rendering them more visible even in dark spots. As the player can't live without a torso, reaching 0 will cause instant death. Given script limitations I'm unable to simulate lung damage and decrease / limit the amount of air the player has. Arms: Arm damage makes it difficult for the player to hold items: In-world objects being held will probabilistically get dropped, more often the worse your arms are hurt. When both arms reach 0 health, the player can no longer pick up anything in the world without instantly dropping it... you also become unable to use any weapons. Due to limitations in the scripting system, I'm unable to decrease the speed or accuracy of the blackjack / sword / bow as was desired. Legs: As expected leg damage will make the player walk more slowly. It was desired that when one leg is lost the player can no longer jump, whereas when both legs are gone you remain stuck in crouch mode until healed... due to limitations in the scripting system this part is also not possible at the moment. A crude limitation is the fact that limb damage is primarily based on the direction the player is walking toward... for example, increased likelihood of suffering damage to your right arm and leg if strafing right the moment you take the damage. The script system doesn't let you extract the vector direction of the last damage event, thus I can't use the real direction the hit came from when calculating which body part should absorb the most health loss. This means that even if an arrow comes from above and hits the player's head area, the player will only take damage to the legs if they're falling downward the moment they got hit... for the time being this provides a bare minimum amount of realism but is a very bitter implementation. For this reason it would be greatly appreciated if any of the code developers could join this discussion and verify if they can help with adding the necessary hooks to external scripts: With 2.09 getting periodic beta releases at this point in time, it would be a great opportunity to make changes to the builtin player script that allow an external function to modify more player variables. This includes the efficiency of weapons, if the player is allowed to jump or forced to always crouch, and I'd also really appreciate a hook to manipulate the breath so air can be lowered as if the player is underwater. I understand other priorities exist or if the work may be considered too much, however this would help in being able to finish this mod with the proper functionality and planned skill set. In the meantime let me know what you think of this idea and how I went about it! So far no new assets are included except the GUI graphics: Everything is done with less than 250 lines of script which I'd say is a good achievement I've attached the pk4 and since it's so lightweight I'll also add the main script straight in this post. player_damage_1.0.pk4 #define DAMAGE_WAIT 0.0166667 #define EXPOSURE_ARM_LEFT 2 #define EXPOSURE_ARM_RIGHT 2 #define EXPOSURE_LEG_LEFT 2 #define EXPOSURE_LEG_RIGHT 2 #define EXPOSURE_HEAD 3 #define EXPOSURE_TORSO 1 #define PENALTY_TORSO_LIGHTGEM 4 player self; float damage_gui; boolean dizzy; entity dizzy_particles; float bound(float val, float min, float max) { if(val < min) return min; if(val > max) return max; return val; } // Range based probability: Calculates a probability per frame independent of wait time (0 - 1 range at 1 chance per second) boolean prob(float x) { return sys.random(1) > x && sys.random(1) < DAMAGE_WAIT; } // Directional exposure calculator float dex(vector dir, float ex_front, float ex_back, float ex_right, float ex_left, float ex_up, float ex_down) { float maxvel = 100; float dir_front = bound(dir_x / maxvel, 0, 1) * ex_front; float dir_back = bound(-dir_x / maxvel, 0, 1) * ex_back; float dir_right = bound(dir_y / maxvel, 0, 1) * ex_right; float dir_left = bound(-dir_y / maxvel, 0, 1) * ex_left; float dir_up = bound(dir_z / maxvel, 0, 1) * ex_up; float dir_down = bound(-dir_z / maxvel, 0, 1) * ex_down; return dir_front + dir_back + dir_right + dir_left + dir_up + dir_down; } void player_damage_update_arm(float dmg_l, float dmg_r) { float hl_l = self.getFloatKey("health_arm_left"); float hl_r = self.getFloatKey("health_arm_right"); float hl = (hl_l + hl_r) / 2; if(dmg_l != 0 || dmg_r != 0) { hl_l = bound(hl_l - dmg_l, 0, 1); hl_r = bound(hl_r - dmg_r, 0, 1); hl = (hl_l + hl_r) / 2; self.setKey("health_arm_left", hl_l); self.setKey("health_arm_right", hl_r); self.setGuiFloat(damage_gui, "PlayerDamage_ItemArmLeft", hl_l); self.setGuiFloat(damage_gui, "PlayerDamage_ItemArmRight", hl_r); // Penalty #1: Disable the weapon once the arm are damaged to minimum health if(hl == 0) { self.selectWeapon(WEAPON_UNARMED); self.disableWeapon(); } else { self.enableWeapon(); } } // Penalty #2: Probabilistically drop held items based on arm damage if(hl == 0 || prob(hl)) if(self.heldEntity() != $null_entity) self.holdEntity($null_entity); } void player_damage_update_leg(float dmg_l, float dmg_r) { float hl_l = self.getFloatKey("health_leg_left"); float hl_r = self.getFloatKey("health_leg_right"); float hl = (hl_l + hl_r) / 2; if(dmg_l != 0 || dmg_r != 0) { hl_l = bound(hl_l - dmg_l, 0, 1); hl_r = bound(hl_r - dmg_r, 0, 1); hl = (hl_l + hl_r) / 2; self.setKey("health_leg_left", hl_l); self.setKey("health_leg_right", hl_r); self.setGuiFloat(damage_gui, "PlayerDamage_ItemLegLeft", hl_l); self.setGuiFloat(damage_gui, "PlayerDamage_ItemLegRight", hl_r); // #Penalty #1: Make movement slower self.setHinderance("health", 0.25 + hl * 0.75, 1); } } void player_damage_update_head(float dmg) { float hl = self.getFloatKey("health_head"); float time_current = sys.getTime(); if(dmg != 0) { hl = bound(hl - dmg, 0, 1); self.setKey("health_head", hl); self.setGuiFloat(damage_gui, "PlayerDamage_ItemHead", hl); // Penalty #1: Without a head the player dies if(hl == 0) self.damage(self, self, self.getOrigin(), "damage_suicide", 1); // Penalty #2: Simulate dizzyness starting at half health if(hl <= 0.5) { if(!dizzy) { dizzy_particles = sys.spawn("func_emitter"); dizzy_particles.setModel("flashbomb.prt"); dizzy_particles.setOrigin(self.getEyePos()); dizzy_particles.bind(self); dizzy = true; } } else { if(dizzy) { dizzy_particles.remove(); dizzy = false; } } } } void player_damage_update_torso(float dmg) { float hl = self.getFloatKey("health_torso"); if(dmg != 0) { hl = bound(hl - dmg, 0, 1); self.setKey("health_torso", hl); self.setGuiFloat(damage_gui, "PlayerDamage_ItemTorso", hl); // Penalty #1: Without a torso the player dies if(hl == 0) self.damage(self, self, self.getOrigin(), "damage_suicide", 1); // Penalty #2: Torso damage negatively affects the lightgem self.setLightgemModifier("damage", (1 - hl) * PENALTY_TORSO_LIGHTGEM); } } void player_damage() { sys.waitFrame(); self = $player1; damage_gui = self.createOverlay("guis/player_damage.gui", 1); float health_old = 100; // Init by sending a heal event filling the limbs to full health player_damage_update_arm(-1, -1); player_damage_update_leg(-1, -1); player_damage_update_head(-1); player_damage_update_torso(-1); while(1) { // sys.waitFrame(); sys.wait(DAMAGE_WAIT); float health_current = self.getHealth(); float dmg = (health_old - health_current) / 100; float dmg_arm_left = dmg * EXPOSURE_ARM_LEFT; float dmg_arm_right = dmg * EXPOSURE_ARM_RIGHT; float dmg_leg_left = dmg * EXPOSURE_LEG_LEFT; float dmg_leg_right = dmg * EXPOSURE_LEG_RIGHT; float dmg_head = dmg * EXPOSURE_HEAD; float dmg_torso = dmg * EXPOSURE_TORSO; // If this is damage and not healing, apply directional damage to each limb if(dmg > 0) { // Currently we estimate damage direction based on the player's velocity, we should fetch the real direction of a damage event when this becomes possible vector dir = self.getMove(); vector ang = self.getViewAngles(); // Protections based on the player's position and relation to the environment // protection_look: 1 when looking up, 0 when looking down // protection_low: Higher as the lower part of the body is exposed float protection_look = 1 - (90 + ang_x) / 180; float protection_low = 1; if(self.AI_CROUCH) protection_low = 0; else if(self.AI_ONGROUND) protection_low = 0.75; // Use the dex function to calculate directional exposure patterns, direction order: Front, back, right, left, up, down // Arms: Somewhat likely to be hit, no added protection // Legs: Somewhat likely to be hit, added protection when the player is crouching // Head: Unlikely to be hit, added protection when the player is looking down // Torso: Likely to be hit, no added protection float exposure_arm_left = bound(sys.random(0.375) + dex(dir, 0.5, 0.25, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 0.25), 0, 1); float exposure_arm_right = bound(sys.random(0.375) + dex(dir, 0.5, 0.25, 1.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.25), 0, 1); float exposure_leg_left = bound(sys.random(0.375) + dex(dir, 0.75, 0.5, 0.0, 0.5, 0.0, 1.0) * protection_low, 0, 1); float exposure_leg_right = bound(sys.random(0.375) + dex(dir, 0.75, 0.5, 0.5, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0) * protection_low, 0, 1); float exposure_head = bound(sys.random(0.25) + dex(dir, 0.25, 0.75, 0.5, 0.5, 1.0, 0.0) * protection_look, 0, 1); float exposure_torso = bound(sys.random(0.5) + dex(dir, 0.75, 1.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0), 0, 1); // Apply the exposure to damage, multiplied to simulate the sensitivity / resistance of each limb dmg_arm_left = exposure_arm_left * dmg * EXPOSURE_ARM_LEFT; dmg_arm_right = exposure_arm_right * dmg * EXPOSURE_ARM_RIGHT; dmg_leg_left = exposure_leg_left * dmg * EXPOSURE_LEG_LEFT; dmg_leg_right = exposure_leg_right * dmg * EXPOSURE_LEG_RIGHT; dmg_head = exposure_head * dmg * EXPOSURE_HEAD; dmg_torso = exposure_torso * dmg * EXPOSURE_TORSO; } player_damage_update_arm(dmg_arm_left, dmg_arm_right); player_damage_update_leg(dmg_leg_left, dmg_leg_right); player_damage_update_head(dmg_head); player_damage_update_torso(dmg_torso); health_old = health_current; } }

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

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

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

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

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

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

The fisheries have had a bad year. Unemployed roam the streets and crowd the pubs. The merchants sleep with one eye open and keep a tight grip on their property amid the unrest. A thief, even a skilled thief like myself, has a hard time finding good, worthwhile work. I began looking for more... unusual tasks. I set my eyes on Thornton Hall, remote and cut off from the outside world. These outlying manors are difficult to find, let alone reach, but they're bound to hold precious trinkets and family heirlooms untouched by anyone. Not few are said to be haunted by one dreadful apparition or another. But it's common for the lords themselves to spread these rumours, to keep unwanted visitors away. This mission is in two parts. Once youre done with the first, on to the next. Download Dropbox- river3In-game downloaderClick continue at the bottom of the login screen if you use the Dropbox link but don't have a login, then place the mission archive in the fms folder of your Dark Mod installation. Changelog, v3, December 14th, 2016: Changelog, v2.5, November 23rd, 2016: Changelog, v2, October 27th, 2016: Notes In response to a question about the relation of this mission to One Step Too Far: This mission started its life as a standalone mission for a Halloween contest, so it takes place in a different setting and begins with its own story. There is, however, a strong link thatll become apparent during the mission. From a mapping perspective it contains areas and ideas that I had originally intended for Of Brambles and Thorns, which is the bonafide sequel, but realised that they wouldn't have space there anymore. So this could be described as being neither sequel nor prequel, but certainly a part of the series that began with One Step Too Far. Solutions Part 1 Part 2 Credits - Inspiration, Story: The Terrible Old Man by H.P. Lovecraft, a short story which leaves much to the imagination. - Inspiration, Setting: Right Up There in the Mountains by Troutpack, a fan mission for Thief 2 which left its mark. - Betatesters Round 1: Abusimplea, ankai, Ryan101, Oldjim, bikerdude - Betatesters Round 2: nbohr1more, bikerdude, crowbars82, jaxa, dunedain19 - Custom voice work: AndrosTheOxen, bikerdude, Goldwell - Custom models: Atheran, epifire, Dragofer - Custom paintings: Airship Ballet - Custom AI path setup: Sotha - Custom ambient tracks: gigagooga, spady, bottle_rocket_fx, dobroide, Dragofer, augustsandberg, bosk1, 01sound - Custom sound effects: kyyrma, cgeffex, speedenza, cabro, joelaudio, robinhood76, klankbeeld, benjaminharveydesign, vate - Bikerdude for not allowing me to stray from the highest standards and perfing troublesome spots - John Atkinson Grimshaw, Ivan Aivazovsyk and William Bradford for paintings used in the briefings and loading screens

As someone who tends to alert guards often and occasionally stir trouble when going through a FM, I noticed some major issues when it comes to AI realism and awareness during combat or when guards face difficult situations. Everything's fine when AI go about their usual patrols... once trouble takes place however, the illusion falls apart as guards act like they're less self aware than a toddler. Indeed AI realism can't be improved past a certain point as there's a limit to the effort the team can put into something so complex... yet I do believe a few improvements can make AI behavior much more realistic and exciting. After analyzing this issue for a long time, I decided to put it all it into a few main points... I apologize for their length as I wanted to go in a bit of detail on each one, hope folks have the time and patience to read them. Biggest issue is AI are unaware of where attacks are coming from. I recently made another thread on how I climbed on a table and blackjacked two guards to death as they sat there doing nothing, something that also happens when shooting them with arrows as guards only explore the nearby area. The issue seems to be that AI don't account for the direction a hit comes from, they only know something hit them but act as if it must be some mystical force of nature: If you're sitting in a parking lot and an asshole neighbor throws a tomato at you from his balcony, you aren't going to cluelessly investigate the road in front of you when the projectile clearly came from behind and hit you in the back of the head, instead you'll storm into the building and start looking for which of the neighbors facing that side of the road may be the culprit. Despite voice barks existing for this exact scenario, we never see AI running to get help from other AI. NPC's will do one of two things: If armed and with enough health they will attack or search for you nearby, if hurt or unarmed flee to a random location. I've never seen an AI consciously run up to another AI asking for help and bringing them to where they spotted me, even when fleeing the AI seems to go to a random location. They don't share knowledge with each other generally speaking: The only awareness AI spread to other AI is alert level, meaning NPC A becomes alert if it sees or hears that NPC B is alert too... beyond that there's no coherence or actual cooperation, the voices may indicate some form of searching together but friendly NPC's are never seen actually engaging. Another big issue is voices being played (or not played) in disconnect with what's actually going on. There are AI voices for most important circumstances but they're very rarely activated: It's a miracle to hear a guard say "someone's been hurt" or "there's a body here" when noticing someone who's unconscious or dead. What seems to happen is if AI was already alerted by another peculiarity such as a noise, they're no longer surprised by anything else and won't play the voices designated for that scenario, so they'll only mention a body if that's the first thing to alert them in any way. Furthermore AI don't actively talk with each other while searching together, everyone acts as if they're on their own and not a team. What happens after a conflict is over. For this discussion I won't focus on better permanent alerts, that has greater difficulty implications and I think I made a separate thread on it a while back. The problem I noticed is once the immediate alert has gone down, AI return to full normality and act abnormally calm: The idle voices change from saying things like "it's a quiet night" to "we've got an intruder" but that's about it. In any realistic scenario even a trained guard would be shocked after being in a fight or finding a body. Below I'll list the immediate improvements I see to those problems, which without having an understanding the code myself am presuming can be changed without too much effort: When an enemy hits the AI with any weapon, the AI should be alert to the estimate location of the shooter. If you're standing atop a tower and fire an arrow at a guard, the guard shouldn't draw his sword and look around their nearby vicinity like a fool, but instead run up to the tower where you're standing granted they can pathfind their way to that location. If the player is far away the destination should be fuzzy and a random location nearby, thus the guard won't run to your exact location but will still climb the stairs and enter a room near it. AI need to learn how to ask for help instead of fleeing to random places when not attacking. If an ally who isn't already alert can be found nearby, the scared AI should explicitly run to their location tell them where you are then have the ally either run to your location (if armed) or go to another ally to get them to your location (if unarmed). Even if an AI is already alert, finding a body or dropped weapon or broken arrow should result in the AI speaking the voice line for that circumstance, only being engaged in combat should suppress it. I'd go further and support repeating those voice lines: A guard yelling "we have a dead body" several times during the first seconds of discovery would make them appear more shocked. Similarly talking to a nearby guard shouldn't be done just once when the two first meet: When multiple AI are searching for you, they should constantly alternate between single voice lines (eg: "I bet you're right over there in those shadows") and looking at another guard to talk to colleagues (eg: "I know I saw him here keep searching"), this would be a huge improvement since guards currently act like they're completely unaware of each other during a coordinated search. Making guards permanently affected after an incident is a trickier one but a few tweaks could improve it. The most immediate solution would be changing the idle animations: Instead of stretching or blowing their noses or eating candy, AI should be seen randomly cowering or face-palming or even playing the scout animation to look around carefully. One suggestion I'd absolutely throw here: If the AI found a dead body from an ally, have them cry occasionally... I think that would be an interesting and unexpected detail, that will also get players to think and feel more about the consequences of their actions and how they affect the world. There are other ones I could get into, but some would be more difficult and likely not worth trying to solve. Most notable and worthy of at least a mention is how AI walk over the bodies of fallen friends as if they're doormats: Obviously there's no way to have them drag bodies to the side, but maybe an avoidance mechanism so they don't look like jackasses trying to profane their dead friends by literally stepping all over them could be a fix for that as well! Let me know what you think of those points and if there are other AI issues you've noticed yourself or better solutions you can think of: I'm not sure if I got everything here but I definitely believe the problems exist and we could make the world more natural and immersive with some simple fixes.

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

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

Oh no, that's not how the Steam Deck works. On a computer, each key is programmed to do only one thing.In any game, when you press "F", the system will understand that the "F" key was pressed. But on the Steam Deck, I have to assign functions to each key myself. For example, I can make the "A" button act as "space" and the left trigger as "right-click". That's why I'm saying that opening the console on the Steam Deck is difficult. Even though it has a lot of buttons, I have to temporarily program three keys for functions that are not really used.

TBF though, I've caught a lot of grief over at the Guild for my levels being on the difficult side. XD

Overall, your pack seems almost perfect to me!) Maybe it would be possible to add a frob outline like in the unofficial patch. I only play with the Steam Deck, and using the console on it is very difficult. After all, each button on it needs to be configured separately. Maybe if someone suggests what I can directly configure in the config, it will completely solve my problem. I haven't played many missions yet, and the ones I remember are the two standard ones and "No Honor Among Thieves." There are a lot of items in these missions. Adding new skills has become frustrating for me because it takes a long time to find the right item in my inventory, and this happens every time. I also wanted to say that I haven't found a proper use for the OBSERVATION, COMBINATION, DISTRACTION, and ALTERATION skills. I play on the highest difficulty and don't feel like it's too hard for me, and all these skills, in my understanding, are designed to simplify the gameplay. In theory, MANIPULATION should also be on this list, but I found a use for it.) But no matter where or how I use OBSERVATION, I always see blackness. Maybe it depends on the map? The main problem is still the inventory. I would like it to have fewer unused items.) I even throw away picked up books and scrolls after reading them to keep them from cluttering up my inventory. I also installed the original Thief games, and it feels like they have a lot fewer items. That's how it is.

I think only in your last mission it could be useful though. In Plain Sight doesn't have a map I think. It's interesting, I might give it a try. It's not actually so hard it seems. You just have to create a layer for every location that you paint over the map, making it semi-transparant in a specific color (in fm A House Of Locked Secrets it's light-blue), or maybe that isn't need, because it could be specified in the gui file I think. Then you have to export all layers as seperate files. Krita has an export command for this and Paintdotnet a plugin. Then you have to specify all the files with the correct (info-)locations in a gui file. I wonder if this could be scripted.. Edit: So it's not very difficult, but just a lot of work.

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

Knowing this series, they're going to be really large maps which take at least three hours for a hardcore stealth gamer dedicated to minimizing AI casualties like me to finish which makes dedicating time to making videos for them difficult.

TDM Modpack v4.0 This new version of the Modpack is intended to be a long-term release. The Modpack is mature and stable enough to stay for some time how it is today, right where I want it to be: the foundation on which you build your favorite set of Mods for The Dark Mod. Good care was put to make sure the mods included in the Modpack stay true to TDM and neither the missions nor the gameplay are altered in any relevant way. Yes, we have more tools and skills at our disposal but it is up to you, the player, to make use of them or not. Play The Dark Mod your way. Compatible with 2.12 ONLY If you have previous versions of the Modpack I suggest you start fresh: disable and delete old mods. Use the mods included in version 4.0 from now on. TDM 2.12 introduces a great new feature and we can now have different mods from different sources running in parallel. Thanks @MirceaKitsune for pushing! Thanks @Dragofer for opening this door! What's more for 2.12 internal resources for mods have doubled and we can now load more mods than ever before and we are grateful for this! Thank you, @stgatilov! What's new in version 4.0? Starting with this release I am getting rid of the individual versioning and all mods are now at the same version (4.0 in this case). "TDM Modpack" is now the name of the project and the previous main "pack" has been split into two standalone mods: "Core Essentials" and the "Skill Upgrade". (The Skills are further split into their own packages and if you don't want a particular skill just look for the relevant pk4 and remove it). SHOULDERING BOOST - Decommissioned In TDM 2.12 we can now mantle while carrying bodies and the "Shouldering Boost" mod is no longer relevant and it has been decommissioned. In this new release of TDM we can also mantle while carrying objects therefore double thanks to @Daft Mugi for these quality of life improvements. Truly appreciated, thanks! SIMPLE SUBTITLES - New! Work on the subtitles is in progress and for the next version of TDM it is expected that players will be able to customize how subs are displayed on screen but until then, this new standalone mod offers an alternative for players looking for a rather simplistic presentation. Enable "Simple Subtitles", go to the audio settings and set the scope you prefer: Story [default]: Story only On: Story and general speech (Give it a try!) Off: Disable subtitles You can find more details of the mod in the opening post or in the readme included in the download. We must thank @Geep, @datiswous and @stgatilov (among other contributors) for the good work on the subtitles so far! Well done, guys! SMART OBJECTS - Present and Future Sometimes it is difficult to tell if an object is being held or not and the "Smart Objects" mod (now part of "Core Essentials") gets a little update and whenever you manipulate an object three dots [...] are displayed on screen: These three dots are a placeholder for real names, something I plan on addressing as a separate mod in the coming weeks... Here is the relevant topic: Nameless objects... a missed opportunity Stay tuned. INVENTORY MENU - Reworked The TDM user interface suffers from gigantism in some areas and the inventory menu has been re-worked and it is now delivered in a more compact format: The menu is 15% smaller and while the text has the same size as before item names are sometimes cut and I added a tip at the bottom to make sure the full name is always available. The updated menu is part of the "Core Essentials" mod. MINOR TWEAKS In each release of the Modpack I always tweak something and in for 4.0 I changed many things internally. You shouldn't notice any of the changes but it is worth giving the improved Whistle Skill a try... Here is the full changelog: • v4.0 New release - Major reorganization and global revision: Compatible with TDM 2.12. - All mods now share the same version (4.0 in this case). - Previous "Modpack" split into "Core Essentials" and the "Skill Upgrade". - Skill mods presented in their own, standalone pk4. - CORE ESSENTIALS: New, re-worked inventory menu. - CORE ESSENTIALS: New high mantle sound for our protagonist. - CORE ESSENTIALS - LOOT ANIMATIONS: Added scroll animation for paintings. - CORE ESSENTIALS - SMART OBJECTS: Display onscreen a subtle signal (...) when holding an item. - CORE ESSENTIALS - SHOULDERING BOOST: Mod decommissioned (alternative included in TDM 2.12) - SKILL UPGRADE - MANIPULATION: Improved script, smaller footprint. - SKILL UPGRADE - DISTRACTION: New approach (again). - HUNTER BOW: Increased radius of gas arrow effect. - BASIC SUBTITLES: Initial release. That's pretty much it for now. Thanks site admins, developers, mappers, modders and members of the community but more importantly, thank you taffer, for playing and supporting The Dark Mod. The download can be found in the opening post. Cheers!

Author Note: This is a brand new mission and a new entry into the accountant series. There are some different than usual puzzles in this FM, so if you find yourself stuck try to think about your pathway forward in a logical manner. And if you're still having troubles then pop by this thread and ask (preferably with spoiler tags). This FM is brand new and serves as the first installment in The Accountant series, a few years back there was a small prologue style mission released however I felt that it did not represent The Accountant series so I decided to go back to the drawing board and do a whole new mission that's larger, has a better level design and has a story that lines up closer to what I plan to do with the accountant series. The mission is medium sized and you can expect between 30-90 minutes to complete it depending on your playstyle. Beta Testers Captain Cleveland Crowind Kingsal PukeyBee Skacky SquadaFroinx Voice Actors AndrosTheOxen Epifire Goldwell Stevenpfortune Yandros Custom assets Airship Ballet Bentraxx Bob Necro Dragofer DrKubiac Epifire Kingsal MalachiAD Sotha Springheel SquadaFroinx Available via in-game downloader File Size: 233 MB - Updated to v 1.1 (01.06.2018)

You'll be surprised to hear but I don't quite get it either. Based on my understanding, there are a few confounding factors that make this a challenge. 1. We did a lot of work to ensure that the "included missions" were made part of the install so first time players would have a curated experience. Moving the missions back to the mission database might require undoing that work. 2. It is entirely possible to add the missions to the mission database while also being included in the installer but doing this will invite a few problems: 2a. What if the user updates the mission and then finds that their TDM install is somehow borked. They might run the installer to repair it and this will revert the mission version. If they fail to update their mission after this revert they might have incompatible save games that cause crashes and confusion 2b. What if a user starts downloading a mission update and at the same time starts a TDM upgrade ? 2c. Users opening bug tickets for a base TDM version due to problems seen in the included mission that are no longer present in the updated one, thus making it more tedious to narrow down duplicate bug submissions. 2d. Players seeing the missions on the TDM missions download page and downloading the package to install in the FMS directory then seeing duplicates in the mission list because the downloads page renames the packages with hashed filenames. All the above challenges revolve around potential user error and even though it should be obvious not to do these things, we have to compare the above to the vast swaths of folks who are begging to include TDM into Steam because unpacking a zip file and running an installer executable within a folder is "too difficult and confusing". One thing that we have the ability to do is change the file in the 2.12 installer repo so that if users run the updater it will apply the new mission. This change would not be visible to users so they would not get any alert about it. We would just have to announce it and hope that players watch for TDM announcements. I am doubtful anyone would want to work on it but I suppose that there could be some way to pass some sort of signal to the mission downloader when included missions have been changed on the installer side so they get a different update indicator. Still would be kludgy because you'd either be telling the player to exit TDM and run the installer or making TDM invoke the installer internally. So that is my take on "why" based on my own knowledge. Of course, part of my inability to "understand it" is due to my incredulity that we need to cater to players who are so below the bar in computer literacy that they would inflict these problems on themselves in the first place. None of this is an official stance just my own take on why the proposal to "let two updater processes control the same files in the same folder" has been rejected ( other than that such designs usually horrify programmers on a primordial gut level and if you mention that any program that does this you will see any programmer in vicinity instinctively reach for headache or stomach medicine ).

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

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