Search the Community

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

0.5 is alright. I voted for 1.0 mostly because I'm used to seeing it, but with the new mantling speed I'll probably change it to 0.75. Having the option to customize it is great, everyone can set their preferred value.

Subtitle Edit ( https://www.nikse.dk/subtitleedit ) now has support for subtitle extraction via Whisper. See https://www.nikse.dk/subtitleedit/help#audio_to_text . This works well on Windows. In the extraction window you can download all the needed extra dependencies the first time you use it. After the generation of the srt files, you can use the editor to tweak the files, or move to a seperate editor of your choice (including texteditors). Aperantly it also works under Linux: https://www.nikse.dk/subtitleedit/help#linux If it doesn't, see info above to use the commandline in Linux. Kdenlive ( https://kdenlive.org ) now also has Whisper subtitle extraction build in. This works well in Windows, but I couldn't get it working in Linux. You have to go to Settings > Configure Kdenlive. Then go to section Speech to text. On top of the window you select option Whisper. Then you have to install some stuff by clicking on an install button (this doesn't work in Linux currently). The extraction via cpu is considered slow, but I thought it's not so bad using an 8th generation i3 processor during a test with a large speech file. You can afaik only do this one by one, so it's not as fast.

I don't know what you mean by that, but I got the impression that several of the latest changes were made to get the old Thief community more interested in TDM. In that sense this isn't really about "new players" and I would like to see some numbers of e. g. how many people download each new TDM mission compared to how many people do so with new Thief missions to learn how big our communities are. Anyway back on topic, the new mantling speed and roll are fine for me!

I'm fine with the new mantle animations. The only difference I even noticed is the increased speed. I didn't mind the old, slower mantling, but it is good the way it's now (my opinion of course). Concerning the view roll: In my experience, when moving around in real life, I do not really percieve small head roll movements. So exaggerated rolls "feel" off to me (that also concerns leaning). A default mantle roll of 0.5 seemed best to me.

The 2.11 (and prior) feedback came from TTLG and Thief discord servers. During early testing, several of these players and Thief FM authors expressed renewed interest in trying TDM and some have become regulars of TDM because of recent changes. I consider that a win for the TDM community, because more players and mission authors are good for us. More mission authors means more missions for us to enjoy; more players means a bigger audience for those mission authors. (I'm vague here about who the players are for privacy reasons, but you can find them by searching TTLG, Thief discord servers, and TDM discord servers.) As for the mission authors, the dev team got feedback from them during development of the increased mantle speed in 2.12. The main feedback that was listened to was that mantling should be faster, especially the overhead mantle. As for who they are, perhaps they can chime in here to let you all know.

All right y'all. We need some good ole data instead of 28 pages of -- well, you know. The "mantle roll" is the amount the view rolls or tilts during a mantle. So, if you could be so kind as to: Launch TDM 2.12 Beta Go to Settings -> Gameplay Set "View: Mantle Roll" to: 1.0 and test in game (100% of original mantle roll) 0.5 and test in game (50% of original mantle roll) 0.1 and test in game (10% of original mantle roll) Finally, vote for your preferred setting. The increased mantle speed changed the feel a bit and perhaps the mantle roll would feel better tweaked some to match it. (Edit: To clarify, this is about a potentially different default mantle roll value. The "View: Mantle Roll" slider in the settings will remain, regardless.) This thread is for your click-ity click vote on the poll at the top of this page. All constructive comments about the increased mantle speed in 2.12 are welcome on its own, wonderful thread:

Ok, I get it. You were talking about the mantle roll, and not the mantling speed. Regarding the mantle roll, yes, I don't really have an opinion on that. My issues are rather that the mantling seems too fast. I don't care which additional animation of the head is involved. IMO, the whole movement is simply too fast.

I don't think you really get my point. Of course, a game can't and shouldn't be realistic in all regards (unless you actually simulate something), but, if something feels too arcade, then it breaks immersion. And, yes, of course that's subjective, but, the new mantling simply seems too fast to me. Just like the old Quake and Doom games seem too fast to me, in terms of movement speed. Nobody runs that fast, not even Usain Bolt. And, by the way, if these movements are modelled on some real life videos, I suggest that it is also taken into account that the thief is neither a parcour artist, nor a strongman competitor. So, he shouldn't be as fast or as strong as these people.

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

No. There are limits to what a human is capable of, and, when a game like TDM, which is supposed to be a "immersive sim" feels too arcade-ish, then it's something I don't consider desirable, especially when the other movement (walking/running speed, swimming, diving, leaning etc.) or the use of weapons seems pretty realistic.

I am not really invested in realism being the criteria for a how a game should play, but it sounds like the devs modeled it using actual parkour videos - which would be people mantling in real life. Even if it was desirable I am not sure “realism” is an achievable result. The capabilities of people in reality is pretty diverse after all. I think what you are describing as "realistic" is just what feels subjectively natural or correct to you, which you can and should advocate for that. I am speaking specifically about the “mantle roll” - the tilting camera animation which plays at the last stage of the mantle. What I found is that the new mantle kind of clicks and feels subjectively “right” to me with the revised speed is a setting of .5 instead of 1. But that’s just me, so curious if you or others have any opinion on this menu setting.

You can try forcing vertical sync in Linux if using NVIDIA drivers with environment variables: __GL_SYNC_TO_VBLANK=1 ./thedarkmod.x64 https://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/535.146.02/README/openglenvvariables.html

I like the new mantle speed a lot. Though I find with the faster speed the default mantle roll of 1.0 looks rather exaggerated and can be a little jarring, so I have been dialing it back. This is pretty subjective, but I have been dialing it back to around 60-50% and find that feels like a good balance to me. Might be worth looking at adjusting the default value now that the fundamentals are different, but maybe somebody else has an opinion.

Download the "White" or "Geep" version from this post. Latest code by Geep can be found in this post (the second "visible" parameter from SubtitlesLocationBacking must be removed). Unless we are talking different things text must be rendered with 8 shifts, otherwise it doesn't look as good: top-left, top, top-right, right, bottom-right, bottom, bottom-left, left.

I really like the location ring image by @snatcher , the white symmetric one with a sector. I'd like to replace the current image with it. @snatcher, could you please share it for download? Thus far I can only see enlarged jpeg version, but I think tga/png version is needed. Also, big thumbs up for outlined font version. This was my first idea when subtitles were initially implemented, but I did not manage to make this outlining. I added "dilate" image processing function and applied it to the font atlas. But then letter boxes in atlas must be enlarged, and the whole atlas needs to be repacked because otherwise there is not enough padding. Rendering the text with 4 shifts sounds stupid but solves the problem in much better way. As for layout and spacing of subtitles, I think it would be everlasting discussion. Everyone has his own taste regarding this. It might be OK to shift the subtitles up and down. But all the discussions about making them narrower/wider or removing padding (basically, everything which may affect text layout) is potentially breaking, so I'd prefer not to do such changes unless it is crucial.

The newest version currently is 3.8.0. You could try previous versions (on Windows): https://www.darkradiant.net/download.html to see at which version you get the crash and to not miss too many features with your prehistorical old version 2.8. You can download a portable version of each, although the settings are shared, so it's not really portable.

Yes. I am using your download just as presented in the latest beta with no modifications or addons.

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

One last chance! In the two mock-ups attached to this post I am printing out each block of text a total of 9 times. In my humble opinion this is as close as we can get to a true outline. 9 times may sound excessive but I recall very complex in-game digital screens with tons of text and graphics in Doom 3 and I assume my approach cannot hinder performance in any way. I can be wrong, though. Download a pk4 and place it in your TDM root folder. Do not use quicksaves/loads, start a new mission when switching pk4. Delete the pk4 once you are done with testing. Some missions to give this a go: Seeking Lady Leicester: Intro Braeden Church: Beginning The Black Mage: Intro + Beginning A New Job: Intro + whole mission Here is a comparison in extreme situations (better to experience it in-game because of image compression): Outlined white [z_Subs_212_NoBG_Yellow_v5.pk4]: Outlined yellow [z_Subs_212_NoBG_Yellow_v5.pk4]: And also attached the original, improved version [z_Subs_212_YesBG_Geep_v4.pk4]: z_Subs_212_NoBG_Yellow_v5.pk4 z_Subs_212_NoBG_White_v5.pk4 z_Subs_212_YesBG_Geep_v4.pk4

And here is v4 "Geep", based on your code from four posts above. Background enabled Text centered New graphic White color (let me know if you want to test other colors) Choose between any v3 or v4. We will take your choice to @stgatilov for a sanity check afterwards. EDIT: Download removed. Check this post for the latest version.

Thank you very much, Geep. Not in my samples but mind you: I consider this a visual exercise to evaluate what looks best and decide what works and what doesn't. No guarantees in the code. Gui values must be properly reviewed once you settle on something. Find attached to this post v3 "Yellorange". Text is centered and the font color is a yellow leaning to orange, that looks like yellow in the game but it actually is more orange than yellow (for me anyway). EDIT: Download removed. Check this post for the latest version.

Yellow have an edge, yes. We definitely can't go wrong with white. Other than the graphic, which I think I cannot innovate further, I wanted @Geep to experience his work without backgrounds. To background or not to background, a tough call for different reasons explained. Fortunately this can be modded to an extent. I provided working samples. Download a zip, unzip it and place the "gui" folder in your TDM root. Delete the "gui" folder when you are done. No, I merely print the same text three times: 1x black a tad top-left, 1x black a tad bottom-right, 1x light grey centered. I think you better experience it for yourself, and draw your own conclusions.

Thanks, @Wellingtoncrab. Yes, @Geep, @stgatilov and @datiswous are doing a great job with the subs. Having no background to rely on one may argue yellow is the worst choice since yellows are supposed to be more common in the TDM world however, from my limited testing, I detected occasional interferences with both white and yellow colors. White feels colder and yellow feels warmer. I, for some reason, find yellow more welcoming and less out of place. We could try with different shades of yellow. Find below v3 in white color for completeness sake. EDIT: Download removed. Check this post for the latest version.

How about something like this (now in yellow for a change). v3 below. EDIT: Download removed. Check this post for the latest version.