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Hi, I'm new here and start a new topic as an introduction right away , but I searched available posts and found none that really covered my concerns. I'm an Thief/Thief fanmission - player for some years now (not uncommon here I think) and I fell in love with your DarkMod thingy right away. I read through the posts here on the forum and was impressed with the good ideas and ongoing work. There have been posted many new ideas for improving the thief experience, gameplay, realism and so on. I understood that many stuff that would be great to implement in the mod can't be implemented because it would take too much time and effort to program these new features - at least for the first more basic version(s) to come. As this is very understandable, I think that you should implement some new features - features that no thief/fanmission had before. Why ? All missions I played were mostly different almost only regarding story and (to a much lesser extent) textures/models/maps. The core of the experience - stealth - hasn't changed much. It's more or less always the same: stay in shadows, learn about guard routines, blackjack, ... I mean, well, that's great and all, and it's challenging (a bit) even to longtime players of the series if the map is made difficult, but ,well - I would like to advance the whole basic gameplay a bit - if only as a optional feature for the fanmission designers. I'm aware that those advancements have to be quite easy to implement, so the making of the mod is not delayed much. So I have two ideas - implementing stamina/endurance and the introduction of hypnotics as weapons : It alwayy vexed me that G. could sprint through the entire map, climb up a house in a hurry, carry some heavy bodies in the darkness and swim half a mile underwater - without having to breath heavily (loudly!) and being able to do difficult things like lockpicking right away. Gameplay could be improved (at least at harder difficulty levels) tactic-wise if one had to plan more : If you had a stamina-meter, and some actions (running, diving, heavy lifting...) would deplete it , a mission could be a bit more challenging and realistic. Hiding silently - only possible when at least half stamina is available, if not G. is breathing heavily - loud enough to alert guards close by. Lockpicking ? Not possible unless rested to some extent or it would take a longer time. When drawing the bow a longer time, the more your stamina depletes and your shots become less accurate. Roping up along way ? Forget about immediately having max. accuracy with the bow or being able to lockpick in a short time. Probably much more stamina dependent things could be added. I think that system could easily improve the gameplay / possible complexity of a mission in a positive way, and I think it could be comparably quick coded in. My second idea is about hypnotics. Well, we have gas arrows. But they are very powerful (dropping enemies instantly but nonlethal, and are very easy to use, too), so they can damage gameplay and are as a result usally very scarce. If one had an regular arrow, tipped with an hypnotic drug, things could become much more interesting. The arrow will not drop it's victim right away - it takes time, and the victim notices it, of course. So, the challenge for the user is to use this arrow in a way the victim has not enough time to alarm others or do some other unwanted actions (alarm bell, locking doors, ...) before the "dart" takes effect and the guard falls unconscious - which could spice up maps considerably. They could work more or less like the tranquilizer darts in deus ex, but with some more time to take effect. Also, I think this functionality is comparably easy to code in - just make an arrow that makes the victims hp to drop slowly - but could have a vast effect on the gameplay.

why are they so slow this evening..??

The forums have been upgraded, please see this thread: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/9845-forums-upgraded-to-ipb-3-0-3

Just returned from a 7 day holiday, opened up this forum, had at least 4 pages of "new content". Made it past page 2 (to about June 03), and then had to take care of a few things here. When I came back, the forum had logged me out (timeout?), and when you log out, it forgets all "new content". So you log in, and it says "there is nothing new for you". Great, now I never know what I missed between May 30th and June 03.... grrrrrrrrr With email, you would still have all unread messages *sigh* Is there a way to change this behaviour? It has annoyed me in the past, but not as much as this time.. Edit: It's even worse, there is "no new content", but when I go f.i. into the "off topic" sub-forum, it still shows me threads as unread that I definitely already did read an hour ago. So I can't even just look at all the "unread" threads. Oh boy...

Announcement: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=8900 Please post any comments, bug notices, etc in this thread. If you have any issues with the new forums, please try to refresh/remove your Internet browser cache. Thanks ~m2

I've just completed the upgrade from IPB 2.2.x to 2.3.6, the newest official release of IPB. This was done to stay ahead on the IPB version 3 that is currently in the beta stages. Please post any comments, bug notices, etc in this thread. PS: If you have any issues with the new forums, please try to refresh/remove your Internet browser cache. Thanks, ~m2

This may seem like a trivial question but I was wondering if the mod will allow the "leaning forward blackjacking" that is a feature of both T1 and T2. On balance I think I woud prefer it not to be included as it makes gameplay more of a challenge. It would also have the benefit of removing one of the more rediculous elements of Thief gameplay ie. standing in a dark corner making as much noise as possible and blackjacking everything that wanders blindly into the vicinity. Has this been considered and what do others think? Also, (just thought of this) will the guards have better vision. At the moment they are all seriously myopic.

The dark mod has come along way. with dark radiant released and many Thief FM makers out there along with the hype about this mod in the thief community maybe You guys should add in some new parts of the forums. For editor Discusion, and just general mapping. along with coding and stuff. so there is help here for the mappers that are at work learning and using the D3 editor. just a thought it would be a good move to create a really good base of DM editors for the release. it would help us solve the problems we are having and get better as we talk about it and learn the editor. also maybe a FM concepts forum to. to talk about ideas for good maps and for ppl to req mappers and coders for DM projects... i think its the right move. it would also bring a lot of new people interested in the mod's comunity on a daily bases. maybe we can steel some of the fm makers from the first two thiefs haha. hopefully. theres alot of amazing FM's out there for the first 2.

i love the stealth genre and i think thief tops the list. but there are aspects that are either don't make sense or just plain silly. like guards instantly knowing that those footsteps he just heard was a thiefs as opposed to one of his comrades. An example would be in t3 in the hammer factory trying to steal the chalice, alot of guards and metal plating, you don't see them jumping about if they hear their brothers making a noise but as soon as you do they go nuts. basically it's an ai issue, but there are other things than just the sound. visually as soon as they've seen you they know you to be a thief, ok sure the bow and arrow pointed at their head might give garret away but there are situations where guards should be a little more human. likewise you don't see guards attacking each other the minute they see each other. so guards shouldn't necessarily see garret as hostile unless he's doing something suspicous or hostile. you could do a meter to measure how suspicous your behaviour is, if it's low you could walk right upto a guard and he wouldn't attack you but might start questioning you, if it's high you got problems, disguises wont work as well or at all, your only option is to hide. if you were to make the ai smarter/more realistic in those two aspects you could introduce some hitman like gameplay elements. garret could dress up as a guard and walk in unobstructed however this may get him only part of the way for a guard couldn't get into a vault himself. you could also introduce more roleplaying to the game with dialog choices, persuasion, intimidation, bluffing, diplomacy all options the player has in discussion (noting that whether they work or not depends on what the character is trying to do). now that my rant is over, are you planning to exceed the boundary of thief 1/2/3 ai and gameplay elements? or is this factor still in discussion?

I will upgrade the DarkMod forums this Friday to the newest IPB version. This will hopefully help us stop the spammers from signing up so we can get rid of the manual authentication process. The forums will be unavailable for some time, and the skin might not look normal after the upgrade. Just a heads up. Cheers, ~m2

I realize this is essentially stealing the idea from games such as Dungeons and Dragons and the like, but I'm curious of what you all would think of this type of game play mechanic adding a little more to the formula. In games such as this, the rogue takes on a role that involves disarming traps for his party. He has the ability to detect traps which become marked on the map, either on a stretch of floor that when walked upon springs blades, or flame, or ice, and the like or the same deal except on an object. Yes, there have been traps in the thief universe in terms of puzzles, but I think this could present a much simpler type of trap. For a trap indicator there are many options for a good rogue. Perhaps the floor around the one that is trapped sounds slightly different, warning the perceptive player that he may be in danger. Perhaps it would be textured differently or have a glint to it of some sort? Trapped items may do the same. However, this "trap" wouldn't do anything more then to deal damage of some sort to the player, restricting the wary player's movements across a floor if they try to avoid the trap, and keeping the player on his toes about grabbing all the gold in sight if he sees that it has a shine differently then others. Grabbing the gold would spring the trap if left armed. In the case of a chest, perhaps the player might be alerted that the chest is trapped simply because the lockpicking sounds (clickety clackety) just sound hollow, different, distant. They might know that after they lockpick the chest, they may want to open it from the side as to not spring the trap on their person, but upon thin air, safe from harm. Disarming the trap could perhaps take a more unrealistic route and just require you to use your lock picks to "magically" find where the lock on the track is on the floor or the object and disarm it. Another route for disarming could be throwing an object that would spring it a safe distant away from ye. This may have been discussed before and if so, I apologize, but it could add some flavor to some missions if used correctly (sparingly enough not to make the player overly cautious, but a few well avoided traps would reward the player for his cleverness). Thoughts?

Hey guys. The forums have been successfully upgraded, although it took longer than I thought due to some extensive mysql queries that had to be run. This version of IPB is the newest, and it includes changes, new features and more. Please have a look around! IMPORTANT: Since a lot of the client-script files have been updated it is mandatory to empty your cached files from this forum. You can either empty your browser cache if you want to (check the settings), or you can do a hard refresh (this is usually done by holding the Ctrl-button while you hit 'Refresh'). Yes, the skin is currently toe default IPB skin, but this will be changed ASAP. It takes some time to update the changes in the original darkmod-skin, so please be patient. If you spot anything out of order (e.g. bugs) or you have suggestions or general feedback, please use this thread. Because of a new CAPTCHA (Completely Automatic Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart) system introduced in this version, I have now disabled the manual validation process of new members. Cheers, ~m2

Ok, to go along with our Mansion Pack, we're going to need the models that are required for basic play. Things like our lightgem, weapons and equipment. Just like the other thread, I'll post links to reference pictures and record who is doing what. Stars in front of the object mean it has already been spoken for. Completed objects will be highlighted in red once they are uploaded to the ftp site. Please sign up for anything you are interested in. (update: Jan 15th) HUD Elements: ** Lightgem/compass -- TYROT -- WIP Weapons: ** Short Sword -- DeepOmega -- WIP ** Bow -- oDDity Noise Arrow Rope Arrow Equipment: ** Flashbomb -- Deep Omega -- WIP ** Holy Water Flask -- TYROT -- Example ** Potion Bottle -- Fingernail -- Example #1 -- ** Explosive Mine -- TYROT ** Gas Mine -- Atti Flare ** Looking Glass (telescope) -- -- Fingernail -- http://www.scientificcollectables.com/page_telescopes.htm -- WIP Lockpicks

Alright, the forum has successfully been upgraded to IPB version 2.2.2. If you have any comments, bug reports, suggestion or general feedback, post it here. IMPORTANT: Since a lot of the client-script files have been updated it is mandatory to empty your cached files from this forum. You can either empty your browser cache if you want to (check the settings), or you can do a hard refresh (this is usually done by holding the Ctrl-button while you hit 'Refresh'). Cheers, ~m2

Composer to composer forum @ finalemusic: http://acf.finalemusic.com/ This fairly new & isn't very busy at all. http://www.music-web.org/forum/index.php Better organized & a lot busier. So this would be a great place to introduce ourselves It has music theory, composition showcase, music encyclopedia, & more.

cool i knew brown barn spiders are worth something.

I'm sorry this took so long, but I've just restored the forums from a backup I took on saturday. The forums were 'hacked' by a script-kiddie yesterday. I saw in the admin logs that he logged in with one of the admin accounts (probably after 'guessing' the password with some brute force script). He then edited all of the admin accounts and removed their access to the admin control panel (acp). Then he edited the forum description and wrote a text saying we would get acp access back for the total amount of $100. Right. Anyway, since I had to restore a backup of the database, some posts/threads/PM's and new users were wiped, but I couldn't do anything with that. I don't think this guy did anything other than removing the admin powers and editing the forum description when he was in the acp (all operations in the acp is logged), and he had no access to download the database. But just in case I urge you to change your password on this forum, and other sites where you've got the same account name and password. It's better to be safe than sorry. All admins are instructed to change their passwords to a hard-to-guess one. The password should; not contain any words found in a dictionary contain atleast 8 characters or more consist of characters, numbers and signs in a good mix consist of both lower- and uppercase characters/signs Also, always LOG OUT after you're done in the admin cp, and don't click on links in threads when logged into the admin cp. If an intruder fetches your cookie, he can access the admin cp. All admins have lost their acp access. They will get it back once they have changed their password. Please PM Fingernail when you have changed your password. Also, the acp is .htaccess protected with a username/password, and I've given the login info to Fingernail.

Jeez, I'm really loving the forum community for TDM. I mean, the replies I get for my topic is damn amazing. I jus post a topic asking about a release date, and I get 50 replies talking about wether or not we should add a bloody sword to the game(I personally think you should, as it came in handy when I got cornered). And im getting tired of people saying "If you get caught, or if you run out of flashbangs to use to run away with you dont even deserve to be playing the game" or something like that, I mean, not everybody spends so much time playing a damn stealth game so that they never ever get caught, plus a sword, and (my favourite weapon by far in any theif games) the bow, added more replayability, so you could always replay the game and just try to rampage through the level, or sneak, but be a bit more brutal, using the aggression to pick off your enemies in the dark with the sword, or bow, or (I almost forgot another useful tool) the blackjack. If theres one this that I dont like about the forums its that I cant figuire out how to reply in a topic... or maybe thats just my problem for being so stupid, but either way, can somebody please tell me before I have to start a new thread everytime I want to say something?!

After some fund raising we were able to get a IPB perpetual license which makes us able to upgrade from an unsecure 1.3.x board to a fully updated 2.0.4 board. Feel free to poke around and look at the new features etc. The skin is reset to the default IPB one, because the old one won't work on this version. We'll get working on it ASAP. Happy posting!