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You will grow wiser and stronger! And a long grey beard. We cannot just get rid of the "Use" key, we need it to deal with the inventory: drink potions, read notes, throw flashbombs... TDM was built with two independent keys in mind (frob to touch and use to interact) because Thief was limited in this regard. In Thief the devs opted to hide the inventory after a period of time to prevent players from using items unintentionally too often. Did they solve the problem? They kinda solve their problem, but how frustrating it is to look for that item that many times "Use" is not going away anytime soon in TDM and new players will have to learn of its existence no matter what.

Interesting, didn't think about that. Yeah the compass uses that trick, I could just use a model of the helmet instead. If it looks good and is worth maybe I'll consider that, though it might be distracting and not make enough sense. The heads are modeled that way: Hoods and helmets are part of the head mesh as they aren't attachments. This is normally a good thing since performance isn't wasted rendering the head or hair under the helmet, but complicates things for my approach as the only way is changing the head models at runtime which may break precaching and stuff. Only a few hats are attached as a separate entities, like the little red hat some merchants wear or the straw hat... those aren't ideal for disguises though and I don't plan on supporting both approaches. Technically I could try attaching the independent helmet model to the player head, but that would surely look awful and clip through the hood and stuff... only right way is to give the player the Citywatch head once that error is fixed. For AI there is no other way apart from also changing the head model: Stealing the helmet from a guard implies taking it off them, which means they need to switch to a helmetless head which can only be done by setting a different head mesh upon frobbing... no idea if that triggers the same crash as the player head, if so I'm out of luck till a dev can take a look at my report. The base disguise system can be used that way too, it's just not the theme I went for by default as I wanted them to be physical wearables. You can define a magical disguise too that implies creating an illusion which tricks other AI into seeing you as one of them. In fact I thought of including one for undead using a magic skull that makes them think you're also dead, might add that in the next version if others think it makes sense and is worth it? Note that the spawnargs are documented via editor vars in case anyone wants to make their own: As long as you have a moveable model and inventory icon it's just a few tweaks to define any disguise. Simply inherit from the base "atdm:playertools_disguise" entity def and customize the team and other spawnargs... remember to use the proper mass / friction / impact sounds. Let me throw them here for anyone who wants a quick preview: atdm:playertools_disguise { "inherit" "atdm:playertool" "editor_usage" "Don't use. This is the base class for disguise inventory items." "editor_usage1" "Individual hats and helmets will derive from this." "scriptobject" "playertools_disguise" "gui" "guis/tdm_hud_disguise.gui" //"model" // to be defined in subclass //"clipmodel" // to be defined in subclass "inv_name" "Disguise" "inv_category" "Disguises" "inv_icon" "" "inv_droppable" "1" "inv_map_start" "0" // Disguise "team" "0" "rank" "0" "personGender" "PERSONGENDER_MALE" "personType" "PERSONTYPE_THIEF" "regen" "0.25" "rate" "0.5" "rate_alert" "0.1" "distance" "500" "speed_move" "1" "speed_turn" "1" "overlay" "" "snd_wear" "player_rustle_short" "snd_remove" "player_rustle_short" "model_head" "head_thief" "skin_head" "" // Disguise editor vars "editor_float team" "The team the player disguises into when the disguise is active." "editor_float rank" "Rank while the disguise is active." "editor_var personGender" "Person type while the disguise is active." "editor_var personType" "Person gender while the disguise is active." "editor_float regen" "The disguise regenerates over time at this rate." "editor_float rate" "The disguise degrades at this rate when the player is seen by a member or ally of the team." "editor_float rate_alert" "The disguise further degrades by this amount when an AI is alert, increases gradually with alert level." "editor_float distance" "Maximum distance at which being seen by the AI can degrade your disguise, offsets with AI visual acuity." "editor_float speed_move" "Movement hindrance while wearing the disguise." "editor_float speed_turn" "Turning hindrance while wearing the disguise." "editor_var overlay" "Overlay image while wearing the disguise." "editor_snd snd_wear" "Sound to play when putting on the disguise." "editor_snd snd_remove" "Sound to play when taking off the disguise." "editor_model model_head" "The player's head changes to this model while the item is worn, can be seen in mirrors." "editor_skin skin_head" "The player's head changes to this skin while the item is worn." }

I think we might need a way to show multiple items when they get picked? Or just only allow autosearch for keys. Or only allow it when the body has one item attached.

Doing it in DarkRadiant sounds easiest: What's the best texture to put on a bush to screenshot the item behind, is there a fully white or black one by default? Main issue is cutting out the outline and getting the same consistent style across items, but I do lots of editing in Gimp so this shouldn't be a problem. As for the AI vis check it turns out to be a bit more complicated: visScan() only notices the player if they're an enemy to the AI, while the AI is friendly it stops working. findFriendlyAI() does work instead, but the name makes it sound ambiguous to use it to check for the player although it seems to work, also the documentation says it's costly and not to call it each frame which I'd have to do in my case, lastly it only detects the nearest entity so if another ally is standing closer to the AI than the player this won't report them. Am I out of luck with this one and need to not implement the check? I'm not seeing any other way to trace the AI's FOV cone.

These are my initial thoughts for possible use cases (copied from the linked bug tracker entry). 1) In the recent thread @datiswous asked if it was possible to develop a template for an enhanced type of briefing where people could specify a different background for each page of text (possibly by having different xdata items for each page) 2) It would also make it easier to develop a in-game journal type of readable which is added to when the player does certain actions. A current example of this is done in the first mission (Monastery) of a House of Locked Secrets but the implementation is quite cumbersome because a) Each xdata item contains the whole contents of the 'previous' xdata item plus the added text. b) The in-game actions have to be performed in a pre-determined order. 3) Readables could be made more sophisticated e.g. having tabbed pages (e.g. in a paper address book). 4) You could have dynamic entity guis (e.g. destination displays at railway stations which change when the train has left). I'm willing to expand on these if needed

What a beautiful FM! This absolutely rivals some of the best made recently such as Seeking Lady Leicester. It's filled with secrets and unique interactions, as well as a huge city divided into differently themed areas which is something I love about such city hubs. It was lovely to go through and offered quite a few days of fun, thank you! I suspect I found most secrets in terms of hidden areas items and objectives, though with how large and complex the world is I know I must have missed something and still would if I played for months. Other than that...

Not so long ago I found what could make a pretty good profile picture and decided to try it out on these new forums. But I couldn't find a button anywhere that would let me change it. I asked on Discord and it seems Spooks also couldn't find anything anywhere. So I logged into an old alternative account and, lo and behold, that account has a button. This is on the first screen I get when I: 1) click on my account name in the top-right of the browser -> 2) click on 'profile'. Compared to my actual account: Are you also missing this button on your account? It'd be very much appreciated if that functionality could be restored to any of the affected accounts.

I raised a concern elsewhere and I would like to raise it again here since I now have more details. Something is off with the Modpack in the last Development Builds. Once again, I don't expect support for Mods but this is something that might impact missions hence I bring it here for analysis. With the Modpack enabled if "Uncap FPS" is set to "Off" two mods slow down considerably: Loot Animations and Blinking Items. None of these scripts do anything that I can detect and tag as special or irregular and missions could perfectly make use of similar scripts for other purposes. What puzzles me is that mods are ok when "Uncap FPS" is set to "On". Everything is fine in the current TDM 2.11a regardless of the Uncap FPS setting. My Max FPS is always set to 60.

Thanks for the replies, gonna try those spoiler Tags again now for my short review (oh well it inserted one above my text now and I can't seem to delete it on mobile - this text editor is strange)

Just finished this mission and wow I gotta say in great honor to Grayman and of course the rest of the team picking it up, this was something I've never seen before in any other TDM mission, especially visually wise. I am so happy that grayson gave green light for other experienced mappers to finish his last mission. And what came out of this is really something special. I'll put my review in spoiler tags since I'm now referring to critical mission details. Edit - How do I put spoiler text here on mobile?? [spoiler] test [/spoiler][SPOILER] test [/SPOILER] [spoiler[spoiler [sfah

It might be possible, but the thing to realise is that for readables the text that is displayed in the readable's gui is set by the script tdm_readables.script. This, amongst other things. extracts each page from the xdata item and sets the corresponding items in the gui. The briefing text is similar but in this case the xdata item is read by the C++ code which then sets the BriefingText item. In other words, guis know nothing about xdata.

Public release v1.7.6 (with Dark Mod support) is out. Improvements since the final beta 14 are: Fixed a few remaining bugs with zip/pk4 support. Game Versions window now properly displays TDM version. Import window no longer has a vestigial off-screen TDM field (because TDM doesn't need or support importing). Web search option is now disabled if an unknown/unsupported FM is selected. If an FM with an unknown or unsupported game type is selected, the messages in the tab area now no longer refer to Thief 3 ("Mod management is not supported for Thief: Deadly Shadows"). The full changelog can be viewed at the release link. The de facto official AngelLoader thread is here: https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=149706 Bug reports, feature requests etc. are usually posted there. I'll continue following this thread though. Thanks everyone and enjoy!

I think it's reasonable to assume that players will think that a body behaves differently than a candlestick, or a bottle or whatever other moveable junk a player may find. Players frob arrows, health potions, all kinds of other inventory items; I don't really think players will worry about "frob consistency" when dealing with a body. I did try out Daft Mugi's NewFrob and it's quite nice. There are several FMs that require players to shoulder a body to complete it (Penny Dreadful 3, Volta 2, Painter's Wife) and there are no FMs that require fine manipulation of an AI's arm or leg.

It's very easy to change text in the tutorial mission, I did so for my Unofficial Patch and I even added items.

ooh my bad . "Peeking through door" is a poor choice of word to describe "poking your head around the door to see what is inside the room" . Ultraviolet(UV) thief detection powder is designed for theft detection and the identification of stolen or altered items but i think it's too advanced for an era in which TDM is taking place.

There's no conflict there, though. If you're aiming at the belt-purse, you loot the purse. If you're aiming at the body, you shoulder it. Just like you do in Thief. Shouldering is the most common action when you're deciding what to do with the body, not with the items it's carrying.

To me shouldering is not the most likely action. What about getting items from corpses or looking up their name using snatcher's improvement? And what about food, is the player forced to eat it automatically now?

Okay, I had no idea, I have googled it up now and you are right, to my own surprise. Done, I´ve put some paragraphs which were previously not in spoiler tags into spoilers.

The "external argument about exact duration" is not removed with double click. There is a setting in OS preferences for setting double-click speed, is there not? The challenge of setting the exact duration is the same for both long-press and double-click frob. Therefore, the confusion is not removed with double click. I tuned the long-press frob to be somewhere between "unintentional long-press frob" and "it being too sluggish." Early player feedback guided the current default value of 200ms -- it was originally 300ms. During more play testing, if players are having trouble, the default can be increased and tested. We need to follow the data from actual play testing. The player can adjust the tdm_frobhold_delay cvar to their liking as well. It's more likely that a player will hold frob while moving an item, because for most items, nothing different or bad happens. It's less likely that a player will unintentionally double-click frob an item during pick up, because they know that would cause them to drop it. Therefore, players are more likely to discover long-press frob to extinguish than double-click frob to extinguish, which is a good thing. We want the player to discover it (if they didn't read the manual or play the tutorial mission). Also, long-press frob is used in other games, such as Fallout 4. Getting double-click frob to extinguish to work well along with drop item would be troublesome, because there would always be a double-click delay before a single-click drop initiates. Long-press frob does not have a drop issue, because the player can long-press frob until they see the candle extinguish or quick-press frob to instantly drop it. To be clear, long-press frob also "does not change existing controls, only adds new meaning for" a longer frob press. This long-press frob proposal has already been play tested and agreed to be a good control scheme by several players. Double-click frob would need new code written, would need to be play tested, and would need to be fine tuned based on player feedback. Another rewrite of the code would be a distraction and may not bring us closer to the goal of "providing a better experience for new players as well as longtime players," especially since one has already been found and proven: long-press frob. For longtime players who are not satisfied with this new control scheme, "tdm_frobhold_delay 0" restores TDM 2.11 behavior. After 7 months of player research, code experiments, early player feedback, adjustments, rewriting code, and more player feedback, I believe long-press frob is good enough, given all of the compromises, imperfections, and its iterative design. It solves the problems stated in the proposal on the first page, and its design goals are met.

Thebigh is right. The pronunciation tripped me up too, but that is apparently how Leicester is pronounced. Also @TarhielI'm glad you are loving the FM but do you mind putting spoiler tags on your post please

Announcing the Release of 'Requiem' for The Dark Mod! Download Download the latest version of the Dark Mod here: http://www.thedarkmo...wnload-the-mod/ Download the mission here: Mediafire: http://www.mediafire...u89/requiem.pk4 Southquarter: http://www.southquar...ons/requiem.pk4 Fidcal.com: http://www.fidcal.co...ons/requiem.pk4 Create a folder in your Dark Mod install with the path "darkmod/fms/requiem" and place the downloaded .pk4 file inside. When you load up The Dark Mod, the mission will appear on the "New Mission" page. Requiem can also be found directly using the in-game loader. Gameplay Notes While this mission is playable in TDM 1.8, for an optimal experience please download and play in TDM 2.0 (or higher). Most inventory items in the game can be dropped, so no need to carry them around after they are no longer of any use. Note that If you use noclip or other console commands while playing, there is a good chance that you will break the intended flow of gameplay. Credits Mapping and Readables: Gelo R. Fleisher Voice Acting: Goldwell Additional scripting: Obsttorte Additional textures and assets: Flanders, Sotha, Grayman, Springheel, Bikerdude, Obsttorte Additional map optimizations: Bikerdude Testers: Bikerdude, Obsttorte, Gnartsch, AluminumHaste, Baal, nbohr1more, PPoe Custom Soundtrack: Leonardo Badinella - http://leonardobadinella.com/ Additional Music: Lee Rosevere - http://freemusicarch...c/Lee_Rosevere/ Marianne Lihannah - http://www.funeralsinger.net/ Vox Vulgaris - http://www.last.fm/music/Vox+Vulgaris/ A note from the author Hi all. While I've been involved in indie game development for a while now, I'm first and foremost a writer. My most recent project has been a novella that tries to capture the visual feel and tone of the Thief series (you can find the link below). As I was writing, I found myself playing a lot of Thief and Dark Mod fan missions, and got to thinking that maybe I wanted to make one myself, as a companion piece to the book. When I finished up writing, I had a bit of down time and decided to take the plunge. Having never done any serious mapping before, my plan was to make a small mission that I could bang out in a month or two and call it a day. Well, as sometimes happens, the project got a little bit bigger than I had planned. Ten months, and lots of elbow grease later, Requiem is finally ready for you to play. I'd like to thank everyone who helped pitch in to help make Requiem come alive, from those who took the time to answer my many questions on the forums to those who actively contributed to the FM. I especially want to thank Bikerdude who served as my mapping mentor, and Obsttorte whose clever scripts really turned what was in my head into the game that you are playing. Above all, I want to thank you for downloading and playing Requiem; I hope you enjoy it. Links of Interest Author's Blog: http://gfleisher.blogspot.com/ Companion Novella (Amazon): http://www.amazon.co...k/dp/B00BYEW02M Companion Novella (Smashwords): http://www.smashword...oks/view/298956

Good work! I enjoy short missions because things are nice and focused - you get in, you get out. Also I tend to do better with the loot amounts and I was able to get all the loot without too much trouble, which is rare for me. If I were to make a suggestion though - I found the intro briefing sequence a bit distracting because it was so obvious the narration was pitch-shifted to make a deeper voice. If you felt the original voice wasn't deep enough for your needs, I would either get someone on the forums to record it for you or just leave as is. That's my only real complaint and it's not even about the mission itself, so pretty good first start!

We will look at some of this stuff, but SPOILER tags, please!!!

Took a short break from the old block out to make some loot items:

This may make sense in that the performance impact of the volumetric effect can scale with how much of the effect is filling the screen. We shipped with a “performance mode” but had to setup the entities by hand to do it (so it’s not perfect). If you change the LOD detail settings to “Low” or “Lowest” this will disable certain lights, particles and such that can be very heavy to render. You can try these settings and see if you notice an improvement. If not sending us some pictures of heavy areas (with spoiler tags please) will be helpful with tuning these “performance modes” in subsequent patches. Thanks for playing!