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Some examples of when realism sucks: 1) Long travel times. I love to go hiking, but doing it in a computer game which can't possibly render nature in all its glory just doesn't do it for me after a few minutes. Realism would involve hours or even days. 2) Death. Realism would mean you install the game, play from the start for a while, and then when you die, you're done. No re-loading a past save-game, no more playing as Garrett (he's dead), no more playing that game at all. 3) Effectively impossible problems. This mission can't actually BE completed, for whatever reason. 4) Too easy problems AKA drudge work. Haggling over every item in a bag full of loot; carving elemental crystals into arrowheads; eating, sleeping, bathroom, and so forth. Heck, the thief universe is relatively forgiving in this aspect.

Oh well. I guess I'll have to code some stuff myself I s'pose if sillhouettes are too hard, that's it. But at least coding movement modes should be fairly simple for those of us who want't it to do. Like I said, if you add it, you can just choose not to use it and unbind the key for your missions if you don't think you can make a mission that would be balanced with it in.

Sounds like my kind of madness. Im new to editing, I got as far as the first floor of a family home with T3ED but since I discovered that GTK Rad is available for free plus VTMs Ive given up on TDS. Ahh dreams... Little touches like the ones you describe can make a big difference. I had a similar one on TTLG about recurring characters. e.g. I want to make a vampire character, one that the Thief encounters in different FMs, in different contexts. First FM, Introduction, two Masters of the Dark meet and briefly clash. A few FMs later, they cross in the night, a cameo appearence to keep the relationship err, warm. Then later a real humdinger, a mission where the two are allied, maybe against a Hammerite jihad against the undead and anything else creeping around. Doesnt have to be vampire, maybe a Drept type or another Thief, some big shot wizards or royalty. The characters could be made available for the community. Also, the characters history could be posted on a website for updating, the local Hammerite Undead patrols incident logs on the vampire or something. For an FM to be included in the official history, it would have to adhere to some guidelines, cant kill off main characters, cant change the storyline too radically w/o informing someone. Developing a rich storyline and world history opens up new ways of creating realism that dont necessarily require a ton of re-coding or scripting. Just seeing that vampire in the middle of an other wise unrelated FM will build a stronger sense of immersion, cause you saw him doing something evil a month ago in the same area.

I'd rather make the mission real difficult than failing - failing forces you to load. Making it difficult means it's possible to complete - you still have the option of living with the consequences.

No, you are quite right, as I remember it its a very pinpoint attack, you have to slip the knives between some muscle groups or something. In fact, Steven Seagal uses the move in one of his horrible movies Executive Decision. In the beginning, Seagal is sneaking up on some Eastern Euro. mobsters hideout. He sneaks up behind a guard and punches his knife into his neck. This is the move I described. Im no expert, the only thing I would attack with a knife would be a nice plump chicken leg. I just wanted to throw a bit of information into the mix not argue contra something you were saying. I prefer the no killing rule myself, with the occasionaly exception for some dirtbag who needs it. I think killing should be loud as hell too, MoF I think any guard hearing any really loud noise should kill the mission. I think BJing a guard should start a clock counting down to where his buddies say OK whats going on with Benny and start looking, seriously and unrelentingly, after say fifteen minutes.

Sparhawk, I can see your point about gameplay becoming unbalanced, but I think this could also be approached from the point of view of making AI more vicious and deadly - get spotted under a bed and they can stab you through the matress and there is no escape, that sort of thing. Enemies should have means of fishing you out of hiding places they can't get to. And I see no reason why a guard shouldn't be able to crouch and climb ladders and so on - if you can, they can and the balance is not so skewed in the thief's favour. I think that it would also come down to the level design - as long as you don't overdo places where thieves could go prone, you can still have balanced gameplay. Also, going prone should be a tediously slow way of moving around, so that its use is limited to necessity. After all, the advantage a thief has in reality depends wholly on their skill and the security of the place they are robbing - an abandoned bank with an unlocked vault will present no challenge if you go prone or not - it is how well the security is set up that counts for how difficult the mission will be. The AI in the Thief series always had some weaknesses that could be exploited very easily (in a way that made it feel almost like cheating), and I know some of those are unavoidable due to limitations on computer power, but again, I think the more realism there is all round, the more it will balance itself out. I guess some people dislike realism because of the complexity it adds to gameplay, and the can of worms it opens up for level designers - the more freedom the player has, the harder it is for level designers to guess as to what sort of things players will try to do. In the first level of TDS, I managed to push a couple of barrels around and mantle up onto a wall I wasn't meant to, 'cause on the other side was... nothing;) But as a level designer/mapper, I reckon I can balance out a map that supports going prone just fine

I don't think it necessarily stretches believability that much, after all Ninjas trained extensively in a wide range of combat techniques, and were able to master the use of a ridiculous number of different weapons, but their objective on a mission was usually to get so close to their target unseen that they would not need to fight - a good ninja was rarely seen and never caught, but if they did get caught it would take more than a few highly trained samurai to kill them, which is why they had the reputation (probably a bit exagerated) that they did (ninjas also carried shorter swords than Samurai, and held them in way that it was difficult for their opponent to tell just how long the sword was, and were masters of close quarter fighting, while samurai needed a bit of room, so a thief might have the upper hand in a tight corridor against one guard, but will be better off running away in open spaces). So I can see it as quite reasonable that a thief would practice combat skills as well as lockpicking etc, as it is always better to be prepared for something unexpected going wrong, and having to fight at least well enough that you can bugger off down a sewer with a few wounds. But I suppose in a gameplay situation, it can be better to force the player down a certain path. I find it quite tempting to just kill everyone on Thief missions rather than ghost them, purely because I have loads of arrows and a dagger, and it is all too easy to use them. I don't usually give into that temptation, but if I had no weapons the temptation would be removed, so I do concede that in allowing the player to use weapons effectively, you will have to adjust other areas of gameplay and level design to make combat undesirable.

A less permanent solution would be to use black electrical tape instead The brightness of it kind've bothered me at first, but got used to it a mission or two into it.

While having various factions and groups certainly adds depth to gameplay, why does the DarkMod have to copy Thief so blatantly? Especially since the T3 editor has been released. Personally I am more interested in a generic thief-style engine that lets FM authors create their own settings, whether that is a thief like mediaeval world, a futuristic scif world, modern day big city, feudal Japan or ancient Rome - get the mechanics of the gameplay going, basic characters that can be easily reskinned by FM authors (I don't have 3DsMax, nor can I afford it, so that kind of modelling is out of the question for me unless someone has any suggestions on budget modelling software!). So if you want to make a mission that sticks closely to the Thief series, with Hammerites, Pagans, Keepers etc, go for it, but also try to think outside the square and create something new and a bit different. You don't HAVE to copy Thief exactly!

I want to set up a loot system that gives diminishing returns on loot - the more loot you stuff into your bag, the more likely you are to be noticed, and the slower and noisier you will be. That way the player has to make a choice between getting enough loot to make the mission worthwhile financially, and getting greedy and getting chaught. If you think about crime statistics, most burglaries involve small items that are easisly fenced - jewelery, cash, small electrical goods, cds, dvds and so on, and real thieves don't carry lots of gear around (certainly not a quiver full of sundry magical arrows, a bow, numerous flash bombs, potions etc), that way they can hide in plain sight just as easily as in the shadows. Modern thieves carry things like screwdrivers, lockpicks, maybe a crowbar, pliars and wire cutters (usually a multitool or pocket knife with all of thes attatchments is enough) . they often dress as tradesmen so their toolkit doesn't seem odd. I think random unpredictable things like floorboards creaking unexpectedly add immensly to gameplay, to me having a visual clue is almost cheating - I want the thief to have to adapt to events outside their control. Like I said, I like a challenge, and this might not be for everyone... My point is, I want to play missions where the deciding factor is the skill and cunning of the player in as realistic a world as current computers can create, not the arsenal he/she carries - if you want that play Doom

We are currently refining our own new loot system for the campaign we'll be releasing. The player will be able to choose between the new loot system or stick to the old Thief inspired one. The new system will involve limits on how much loot you can take from a level, you will not magically know the value of the loot you're taking until you end the mission and sell it, so you have to apprasie loot and be judicious about what you steal, and there will be no enforced loot requrements tacked on to the end of the real objectives. (apart from special loot items) As always with these new ideas some team members are for it and some are against. I made a thread arguing for the broafhead arrows to be removed, since they are simply a ye olde snyper ryfle. THey are no good against undead in this game, so I see no purpose for them. Their main purpose would be to snipe unaware guards while you sit in the shadows. Our thief is small, so I also proposed limits on how long he can carry a body. Rather like the way you can only hold the bow sting drawn for so long before you automatically get tired and let go, the same should be true for carrying bodies. THis will add to gameplay since you'll have to make sure you knock people out near good hiding spots unless you want to spend half an hour picking them up and dropping them again to get there. IF there are no good hiding spots - well you'll eother have to sneak past instead or knock him out and leave him int he open, hoping he isn't spotted. Your choice. We'd be lynched if we left out rope arrows, but I've also proposed grappling hooks. Nearly everyone here hated the climbing gloves in TDS, including myself. I'm generally like realism, but not at any cost. If it can be worked into the game well, then it's always the best option for me. JHowever, realism cannot always be worked into game play very well.

I downloaded it from thief-universe with a download manager and it worked really fine. always around 128kb/s which is my max. downloadspeed. I'm now at the 3rd mission. ghosting everything on difficulty hard and it's quite fun however I hope the missions will get more difficult later - it's quite uncommon that I can find about 90% of the total loot when ghosting, when you consider that I even had to leave some stuff, because I didn't want to break any windows....

Just visiting the great outdoors! :lol: BTW-did anybody notice in the mission pack the dead marine outside that had bare arms instead of pressure suit sleeves? All that attention to detail and they miss out on one simple thing!

You know you want a mission involving a wagon trail or builder train or something... That'd add another element of challenge - actually getting onto a moving vehicle! Perhaps from a horse or something... I think perhaps my imagination's running away.

Since we're making a toolset, we will probably include the option of time based objectives. Just because one person doesn't like them doesn't mean we should ban all FM authors from doing that ever. Some people like them, and they make sense in some contexts. Even in Thief, if you fell too far behind people you were supposed to trail I think you failed the mission, that's sort've time-based in itself. We want to support as many options as possible in the toolset. Playing FM's is a fre market, so if you don't like time based objectives, don't play FM's that have 'em.

Ah, I loved the first mission. I never knew if the sequel was available yet or not. Thanks for the heads up (Not that I will get time to play it anytime soon)

It'd probably be about as difficult as an expert mission in our single player campaign. That is, robbing a large mansion would take a few hours, you couldn't save, and you'd probably get caught and killed. Players that own property could choose the placement of their guards, so there'd be less secret ungarded entrances to choose from. Guard placement in Thief missions are designed so that people can break in. If players placed guards with the purpose of making sure no one broke in it'd be much harder. You might need to pair up with another thief; one to distract the guards and draw them away while the other sneaks past to steal the loot. Also, much of the player's loot would be invested in the building itself, which couldn't be picked up and stolen, so it would be impossible to completely bankrupt a player with a mass raid.

There should be no invisible potions on the grounds that only a total idiot would build a seciton into a mission that required the use of them. Invisible potions are the antithesis of this game. LGS had some bad ideas as well you know.

Don't be an idiot, any normal person could hold his breath for at least a minute underwater, and that can be increased with training. A minute gives plenty of scope for traveling, and frantically trying to find somewhere to come up and breath towards the end of that minute is much more stressful that swigging your stupid fucking magic potion. Unlress some auther is thinking of setting his entire fucking mission at the bottom of the ocean, there's no need for breath potions in a game like this, they're just another pathetic hangover from Thief, which wouldn't have been though of otherwise.

I never used a forum before so please forgive my lack of edict ... is this the correct place... Can the dromed darkloader and other such tools be integrated into a DARK MOD STARTSMART that direct you to either one tool or another. Not having to hunt for one tool to view 3d models and one to pack you missions would be great. Having the FM mission loader, game dromed(like) reskining tools, and all other cool Tools all integrated into a single package so you can: build levels play others levels, and do all that funky FM making you and I love to do. Or are the tools all going to be loose separate little programs. could there be at least a shell that runs several plugin programs. with help integrated some

Really i dont have much experiance... but i have been meesing around with doomedit here and there and have been a long time dromed maper without any reall story line and without any clear idea of what do make a mission about i have been using the editors just to create when i am bord. you know just have nothin i think that i could do better if only i could get good theme going... mostly i have done lots of nothing... i have been messing around with this but never have a clear vision.. just maybe i try this or that and see what it looks like then format (computer gets messed up) my hard drive and loose all my work and then start all over... so i guess i have some experiance but i never really finished anything... want to with this project how do i send a sample map

If you want to create a mission, blocking out the map geometry is a good approach anyway, because this will certainly changed the least. One thing that we hope for is, that beta mappers will at least finish a fully functional map. The idea is not only to get some feedback (which is of course an important part of it), but also to already have some playable maps available as soon as we can release TDM to the public. Also keep in mind that you will not be part of the dev team, because we want to keep that seperated. The idea of the beta mapper is to have somebody who is using the tools just like users will use them once they are released. Therfore a beta mapper is not directly a team member (technically) because we want to prevent "mind pollution". If you are a dev you may approach something differently because you already know about something. Of course we are in close contact with the beta mappers so this is more a technical detail. TDM should be a black box to you and you don't need to have sepcific internal knowledge about the inner workings just to be able to use it (similar to Dromed).

Well, there can be other scenarios. A pagan territory in a run down section of the city. A mission where some secret transaction is about to take place in a ruined mansion and the player must prevent it. The place is sealed of with guards even though this place is assumed to be long abandoned. That's just two scenarios that come to my mind when I don't really think even about particular settings.

There wasn't a single mission in any of the three Thief games with paper walls or tents, so I wouldn't recommend spending any time at all on this. We can't create *everything* a FM author could conceivably want to include. Cutting banners down like T2 I'm all for, though a canned animation is fine there as you said.

Well... An ideal situation would be to include different types of bows, and you could then choose which one you'd like to use before a mission. I don't know how much work this is, but it surely won't hurt the gameplay.