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Mods can this moved again? @Acolytesix- can you make sure you post in the beta thread instead of this one please (this one is public, the beta thread is only for logged-in forum members): https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/21822-beta-testing-high-expectations/

Maybe there is a sliver of hope that will change in the next 10-15 years. Tech disruptions suck for established interests, but they do have a way of making previously unprofitable products suddenly viable. The problems for an authentic Thief modernization are 3: Such a project needs high fidelity art and sound assets to secure an enthusiastic audience, but such assets are currently too expensive to produce at the optimal budget point for this property. (In fact it's too expensive for most properties, hence why AAA games are so damnably risk averse.) Generative AI stands poised to change this problem drastically, either for the better or the worse. If AI makes it trivial to churn out high quality custom assets for pennies, that would be revolutionary for the viability of niche hi-fi games. But if the AAAs use it to increase expectations again in their pointless graphics arms race that could conceivably leave us still treading water or worse off. The modern standards for rich game worlds requires an army of exploitable labor to build and populate. That again constrains the range of budgets and even the countries such a project can get built in. Procedural environment generation has the potential to solve this problem, but right now the tech is still premature. If generative AI leads to an explosion in coding productivity and creativity that would change, but that's a big if. The tech is almost certainly capable, but the will to train it could fail to materialize. Modern commercial game engines are not built to support deep stealth because of a chicken and egg problem. Anyone who wants to make a modern deep stealth game needs to sink a bunch of time into building or customizing an engine to do good stealth (with little surety of success). That again boosts the budget into a commercially non-viable range. But then because deep stealth games are not viewed as commercially viable, engines don't support it out of the box, shunting the responsibility to individual devs who will always struggle with the job far more than if the engine makers would do it. If we anticipate an explosion in general coding productivity, plus increased interest in classic immersive stealth mechanics arising from the popularity of ray tracing, maybe engine makers will start giving a damn. But I admit that one is a stretch. And, even in the best case where all these factors come together ideally, I suspect it's true that Thief is viewed as commercially toxic. The IP owners are unlikely to let it out of their dungeon unless some sort of ultra faithful indie spiritual successor makes a huge splash first.

sure - I would only ask that you follow the thread to make sure you don't report stuff that has already been mentioned: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/21822-beta-testing-high-expectations/

heh i was thinking the same though it might just have been a glitch when writing the names are pretty similar. But for correctness it is called the dark engine and the newer version that allows us to run these beauties on win10/11 is called newdark. newdark is kinda interresting as it just suddenly popped up on a french forum some time ago by an anonymous developer with the alias le corbeau who allegedly got his hands on the original source code and started updating it for modern OS. this was the original thread i believe -> https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=140085 bikerdude was on that forum to when the patch hit i noticed hehe.

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.

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

This depends on my progress. If I can finish the world building for the last mission until the end of April, then a December release might be possible. Though, I am bit exhausted of mapping and thus did not do anything this week.

No, I'm always building with bends and vision breaking visuals in mind so the mission will not get bogged down. This "portal function" gives me more control over when and why a portal stays open as I would like it to, when there is sections where there is stuff beyond the portal that pops in, when using the auto closing function.

OK, after some more experimenting, it appears the texture scale is not the same. In DR my building wall is 25.5 bricks high, but in DarkMod, the wall texture is 34.5 bricks tall.

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

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!

Interesting, although I'm not sure what to make of that. One of my favorite games (The Chronicles of Riddick Assault on Dark Athena) was published by Atari, and, they don't even seem to care to keep the activation servers running much. Or remove/change the copy protection, which doesn't work at all on Windows 11. I really hope that Nightdive delivers at the end of May... I'm not one of the shit storm crowd (it's absolutely horrible on the Steam forums...), but, 7 years of development is a long time, and delaying the release obviously has become a bit of a habit, to say the least.

(I apologize for the odd poll question layout. I wasn't able to add five yes-no questions, because polls are limited to three questions.) Hi everyone, I've recently been working on some patches for issues that I've read about from players on the TDM and TTLG forums — and Discord. My goal is to make it as easy as possible for players, especially new players and those who need usability/accessibility options, to find what they need in order to have a better TDM experience. I've already written the GUI and game engine code for these settings, which I've been using in my personal build. The reason for this poll and discussion is to both guide the finalization of my work and collect data to help inform the dev team. Which patches I submit depend on the outcome of this poll, discussion, and what the dev team agrees to accept. Once decided, I can coordinate with the dev team. I've attached screenshots of what the new settings menu would look like if all of the settings are accepted. Below, I have detailed each menu setting, so you can have an easier time understanding each one. Very important to keep in mind: None of these settings change TDM default behavior. They are all opt-in. If you are already happy with the behavior of 2.10, 2.11, etc. and these menu settings are accepted, nothing will change for you. Rename "Always Run" to "Run Mode" with options "None, Always, Toggle" After 2.11 was released, @i30817 requested that "toggle run" be added to the settings menu. Its cvar is already in TDM as "in_toggleRun" (same as Doom 3). I propose renaming the "Always Run" setting to "Run Mode" with options: "None", "Always", and "Toggle". None = in_alwaysRun 0; in_toggleRun 0 Always = in_alwaysRun 1; in_toggleRun 0 Toggle = in_alwaysRun 0; in_toggleRun 1 Show Blackjack Helper @Wellingtoncrab suggested that the new blackjack helper be added to the settings menu. Its cvar was added to 2.11 as "tdm_blackjack_indicate". More info: It's the new blackjack helper added to 2.11. When the game detects that the blackjack can be used for a successful hit or KO, the blackjack will rise slightly. I propose a "Yes/No" setting for this. Slider for "View: Head Bob" @ChronA requested a way to disable head bobbing, because a viewer watching him play was having severe motion sickness. Also, there was a bug in TDM that made setting the head bob in the console not stick after loading a saved game. (Even with 2.11, if a mission overrides the "tdm_player_thief.def" file and sets "pm_bobroll", "pm_bobpitch", "pm_bobup", and other cvars, it will override player preferences.) As far back as 2008, players have had trouble setting head bob. Another one from 2018. At the end of 2022, @Shadowex3 registered just to voice the need for a way to control head bob. I propose that a slider be added to adjust the amount of head bob. This would use a new "pm_headbob_mod" cvar with a value between 0.0 and 1.0 (default 1.0, no change). The "pm_headbob_mod" would be a multiplier for "pm_bobroll", "pm_bobpitch", and "pm_bobup". The advantage to this approach is that missions like Volta 2 and Hazard Pay would not need to adjust their "tdm_player_thief.def" files for head bob to work properly. And, the player can still adjust "pm_bobroll", "pm_bobpitch", and "pm_bobup" as they like. Slider for "View: Mantle Roll" This is similar to head bob for those who are sensitive to motion. Its cvar was added to 2.11 as "pm_mantle_roll_mod". A Thief player on Discord said, "2.11 will have a cvar to tune down the mantling animation at last." I propose that a slider be added for "pm_mantle_roll_mod". Auto-Search Bodies @Zaratul requested the "auto-search bodies" feature from Thief 1 & 2. Its cvar was added to 2.12 dev16783-10307 as "tdm_autosearch_bodies". I did a poll on the a Thief Discord server and roughly 20% of players there use the Thief auto-search bodies feature. I propose a menu setting for this, so that players coming from Thief 1 & 2 can easily find it.

High rise hotel for Asian / Arabic city hub. Still in early stage with only this building done following two days of messing with stuff, it will be a heavily themed city. The elevator works great now and can be taken to any floor, though most only have the hallway and can't be entered for sanity's sake.

dont see a problem with it either should be fine as nbohr1 said it does support opengl 4.6. intels built in gfx can be a bit finnicky at times though but i only had problems with a few select games using them. for my own part i ended up using the older pc components for gaming while my threadripper now chugs along building msys2 packages and other general development projects, gfx is a 970 gtx. The 1080 ti i paired with the asrock z97 extreme6 which runs really well when not overclocking, my old asus x79 deluxe is used as a second gaming computer for when my friends come to visit, and used as a media pc when im alone. I paired that one with my old msi R9 290X gfx card.

As probably no one will dare to suggest it if i don't, i do it: Cyberpunk 2077 with Realistic Combat Overhaul (i also use 230+ other mods, but i might be a mod hoarder and you definitely can have a good stealth shooter experience with less than 30 mods) Obviously, that game isn't pure. You probably can ghost your way through a lot of the missions. But if you actually want to play nonleathal, you better play something else. Where it shines, is the world building and gameplay. You get a shit ton of exploration, a pretty diverse set of side missions some with exceptionally good story writing. And you can play most of it as a stealth game. While it is immersive, it isn't really a sim though. You can't use the environment in unexpected ways apart from some verticality (and even more verticality with mods). So yeah, it is more like Deus Ex if it where open world (world opens up after first main quest). But stealth was meant to be a viable option in the base game and with mods it actually is. P.S.: Also the two Styx games - they actually are hardcore stealth. And Arx Fatalis (ugly but aged better than thief).

my current phone is a huawei p20 lite but ill soon need a need one with a bigger screen (my darn eyesight is to bad for the small screen of this model) sucks getting old :P. godot 4 Oo well guess it is time for msys2 to upgrade again i guess, does it still use scons for building or have they changed to cmake ?.

Above 3 items are released now, on the "Barks" thread: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/21740-english-subtitles-for-ai-barks/&do=findComment&comment=483331

Man, that was WAY bigger than I expected it to be. Huge, even. Overall I liked it and it had lots of character, which I appreciate more than perfect polish. It's great when authors try something new. I liked the pagans. The pagans are great. I would like to see more pagans. The "parallel worlds" created by pagan shortcuts vs the rest of the city were great as well. Story was really nice. The keys were a solid idea. I wouldn't want all (or most) missions to be like that, but once in a while, why not, it provides a different experience, which is good. The only issue I have with it is that I think you may have underestimated how trivial it is to overlook a key even if it's not hidden in any way, and I think people have biases about where and when to seek keys from other missions. I think that from past experience (especially in various city missions) I'm not used to looking for relatively crucial items in areas that are not necessary for finishing a quest objective. Don't know if this is really your fault, but I'd say I'm not the only one this happened to. For example I missed the gate key completely because I simply forgot to look around in that particular small piece of the mission, I just discovered a different crucial key (that let me leave the area) pretty much right next to it and I didn't see any mission context that would suggest "this is the area where the map finally opens up and you should find the gate key". The key is not necessary to finish, but not having it makes the final part a lot less fun. I liked that some things that happened were pretty unique. Raiding the chief builder's quarters by just running through everything was an absolute carnage and funny as hell: Now some criticism: First one is really superficial, but I didn't look at your mission for a while because you chose one of the most generic names possible and I think I subconsciously assumed the mission itself is not going to be a great effort either (in hindsight: LOL!). If I had to say one single thing I actually dislike about the mission, it's the name. Some details here and there, like a door in the Ox 2nd floor (I think? across the street from the hypos) completely missing and only showing a wall and a levitating doorknob in the doorframe, some levitating vegetable garden on the farm or misaligned branches here and there, nothing important. It was also possible to look out of bounds in several places, but the only one where I think it was an issue was in the square where the pub is, next to the Builder's building - there's a scaffolding that you climb on, you can look through a semi-open window and there's a ledge nearby that you can climb on. For me the place screamed "climb onto this and see where it goes", only to show me an out of bounds view and a z-fighting texture. It was a tad too long and the pacing around the end was not great. Length itself would not be an issue I think, but after finishing the main mission it took me another hour to complete the medium loot objective. I approached the grand finale, fulfilled the main objective, and instead of victoriously arriving with the cure I had to roam around for an hour looking for places that I missed. And I did miss some, obviously, but that's simply often going to happen with a mission like this. That was more tiring than pleasant. The biggest problem for me: Lighting. Seems like there was light shining through walls everywhere. Light gem was shining in a few places that seemed dark. Places that should have been dark (no windows or other light sources) weren't and instead seemingly contained invisible light sources that didn't make sense (the room on the ground floor of the bleak house was like this I believe). I noticed that some light fixtures continued to emit a little bit of light even after being extinguished, which is not an issue, I'm talking about places where I could not find such rationale for the light. I'm surprised that nobody complained about this yet, almost makes me wonder if there's something wrong with my installation, so I took a few screenshots to show what I mean: https://imgur.com/a/JuO9sF5 If this is really how it's supposed to be, then this is the one thing I'd personally focus on improving in your next mission, which I'm sure is going to be great.

Instead of that, you could, in that time period, start learning your own missions and in doing so become more active on the forums, learning from others. It's also great to understand how things work in the engine, when you play. It might spoil some immersion though.. Or learn to build games with other engines, like Godot for example.

Keep in mind also that mission size, and complexity have increased dramatically since the beginning. For a lot of veteran mappers, it can take over a year to get a map made and released. The last dozen missions have for the most part been pretty massive, with new textures, sounds, scripts, models etc. We seem to be long past the point of people loading up the tools, and banging out a mission in a few weeks that's very barebones. We still do see some of those, but I noticed in the beta mapper forums and on Discord, that mappers seem to make these maps, but don't release them, and instead use the knowledge gained to make something even better. Could just be bias on my part scrolling through the forums and discord server though.

There is no SS3, how can they do a remake? And thank god they got rid of unity, that engine is total trash garbage on anything over 60 fps. Just spend 5 minutes on steam forums for Unity project games, and there's just thousands of people complaining about poor performance, stuttering etc.

Probably the .script file that's needed, but unfortunately can't be included with a prefab. Maybe there's a comment somewhere in the prefab (or in the wiki or forums) that says what script it needs and where to find it. (The similar combination setup I used earlier doesn't involve "slot", so clearly uses a different script that I what I have.)

Is this still true now that 2.11 is out with this feature? I've been wondering about whether this might open up the possibility to use larger models for things other than terrain, for example modeling a building at a time in Blender and then assembling them into a street in DR. I'll probably at least test it out someday...