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Relax @Näkki, it's great to hear you enjoyed the game. My personal expectations were just a bit different when I read the Steam page, although the various trailers should have been a warning that stealth maybe wasn't the biggest priority of the devs. From the Steam page: "Weird west legends meet eldritch horror in BLOOD WEST, an immersive stealth FPS." Also "Blood West is a stealth FPS inspired by the genre classics such as the Thief series (whose fans will be happy to hear the voice of Stephen Russell, the actor voicing the master-thief Garrett, returning here as the protagonist), S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games, or - from the contemporary catalog - Hunt: Showdown. The gameplay rewards the careful approach: scouting the area, stalking your enemies, and striking from the shadows. Can you figure out a way to clear a fort full of ghouls and monsters without raising an alarm?" From my personal experience I think the game is predominantly Hunt: Showdown, a bit of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and a very small portion Thief. Stealth is very unforgiving and makes it almost impossible early game when there are various enemies around, but hey maybe I just suck at it. I don't see Deus Ex in it, unless the skill leveling is the Deus Ex part for you and then I have to disagree with you, as that seems like the trait system in Hunt: Showdown. Edit: What I also understood from the Steam forums is that the original VA was dropped close before the release of the full version and replaced by Russell with no real explanation from the devs why this was done.

At some point today, for some unknown reason, the brightness of my SVN TDM menus has gone way up. I did not rebuild my SVN copy. My gamma and brightness settings inside the game haven't changed. 2.08 menus are fine. If I copy my Darkmod.cfg file from 2.08 to SVN, it doesn't solve the brightness problem. This suggests that menu brightness isn't controlled from the cfg file. Are there any other settings w/in TDM that control menu brightness? Thanks.

I've spent a lot of time recently submitting patches to fix some bugs and working on a few things that I think would really improve the feel of TDM for 2.11. They are very small changes, and they are meant to polish what's already there without changing or breaking anything for anyone. (Available 2.11 beta 7) Added player "tdm_toggle_sheathe" cvar and "Toggle Sheathe" setting (6232) (thread). Renamed "New Missions" to "Missions List" in main menu (6230). @nbohr1more cleaned up my original patch. Originally, proposed by @snatcher (post). Fixed initial difficulty highlight on Objectives screen (6229). @stgatilov cleaned up my original patch. Fixed Objectives title slightly cut off on low text scale (6234). @stgatilov cleaned up my original patch. Made it possible for the player to change "pm_noclipspeed", so noclip speed can be set (6237). (Available in next beta) Make "tdm_toggle_creep" work like other toggle cvars, and add "Toggle Creep" to the settings menu (6242) (thread). (Not available) Make the inventory parchment background (dds file) separate from the "Missions List" parchment background (dds file). Without the patch, if you change the inventory background, it will also change the main menu. Patch submitted (6241) to decouple the inventory background from the main menu. This is meant for players who want to edit the inventory background (dds file) themselves (e.g. reduce its brightness without affecting the main menu). When you drop a long distance and land in a mantle, damage is shown after the mantle animation is complete. Partial fix submitted (6231). I think I'll need @stgatilov's help on this one. Bikerdude was very kind and provided a test map for this, which helped to expose an issue with my original patch. ("pm_mantle_while_shouldering" cvar available in 2.11 beta 7) It was requested by Bikerdude one year ago to allow mantling while carrying a body. Due to feedback, I've submitted three patches each with a different behavior, starting in August 2022 (5892) (thread) : (Patch v1) Always enable mantling while carrying a body. (Patch v2) Only enable mantling while carrying a body if "pm_mantle_while_shouldering" cvar is set. This is already available in 2.11 beta 7. (Patch v3) Restrict mantling at the waist. There is no agreement about how this should work yet. I've spent over 12 hours of work and testing on (v3) so far, so it would be incredibly discouraging if a final decision is not made between versions (v1), (v2), or (v3) for 2.11. Personally, I think patch (v1) always enable mantling while carry a body is best. This matches Thief 1 & 2 and does not require a cvar. If (v3) is chosen, the rules need to be decided. These are the final issues / bug trackers I have for 2.11. I hope they can make it into the final release of 2.11, because I think it would make TDM feel more polished and give a better first impression for newcomers. And, Thief players would have a better first time.

That's a real head-scratcher! Is it possible for the menu-installer to not have the same version as the direct download link? If you check the read-me file it will show the version#.

Latest version from the main menu installer, just checked and no update (* symbol) available so it should be the latest.

Interesting Was sure it must have been something that either broke recently or was never discovered until now. I actually discovered it as I changed some of my default keys, then forgot what the key was to cancel my shot so I pressed escape hoping that would put the arrow down, then I returned from the main menu and noticed this occurs.

I accidentally found a bug that's easy to miss but likely also to fix: Select an arrow, in my case I was using the water arrow. Hold down the fire button to charge your shot, wait until it's fully charged but before getting tired and having to abort it. Press esc to enter the main menu without letting go of the left mouse button, then press esc again to resume. If you look and move around, the position of the hand and bow will no longer update until you let go to fire, you can see your first person hands floating in mid-air from a distance till you release the mouse button which will fire and update the hands again.

GAMEPLAY * Frob controls have been reworked completely. Previously players were annoyed by having to do three presses to extinguish a light. Also, some player didn't even know that bodies could be shouldered and were limited with dragging bodies. Now simply clicking the frob button performs the action player needs most of the time, and pressing-and-holding the same button performs alternative actions like dragging bodies and extinguishing candles (thread). * Several aspects of mantling has been improved: overhead mantling has become faster, mantling over low obstacles is allowed while carrying an item or a body. Also it is possible to switch weapon while being on rope/ladder or mantling. Pressing crouch button on rope/ladder now starts slide-down immediately. * Some aspects of gameplay can be further simplified. Auto-search bodies is for players who don't want to waste time searching for keys and purses on guard bodies. Lockpicking "Auto" difficulty now indeed trivializes lockpicking (thread). * Leaning animation has been improved with lower head tilt (thread). * Player footstep sounds have been rebalanced. Metal and water sounds were especially painful previously. * Further improvements of subtitles: revised location and font to avoid overlapping with other GUI elements, added directional cue, better slot allocation. Each subtitle is now displayed for at least one second even if the sound is very short. * More settings to reduce camera bobbing/rolling/shaking, which is good for players who feel motion sickness from default camera animations. * Now several script addons can coexist and work independently (thread). ENGINE * Optimized generation of light-entity interactions in rendering frontend. Also greatly optimized shadow processing, especially for moving lights. Unfortunately, many existing missions are not compatible with these changes, so you might see light leaking through walls (mainly with stencil shadows). Please report all such cases, we'll apply workaround on case by case basis (thread). * The "old" and "new" rendering backends are finally merged into one. It is as nice to program as the new backend, and as old-fashioned and reliable as the old backend. Single-pass shadow maps enabled by default and now respect noselfshadow. * Materials with polygonoffset now interact with lights. So static decals can have bumpmap and specular lighting. Note however: dynamic decals still don't interact with lights. * Revised parallelSky lights and marked shadowing parallel lights as deprecated (thread). * PNG image format now behaves equally to other supported formats. In particular, it is not required to explicitly specify its extension, and it can be referenced directly in GUI code. * Added functions min/max to material expressions, which can be useful for clamping. * Fixed minor culling bugs on animated entities and enabled entity scissors by default. * Reduced color banding for fog with some dithering at tonemapping stage. * Finally our C++ code can compress and decompress all texture formats we use, meaning that we no longer depend on occasionally buggy/slow vendor implementations. BUGS * Now both OGG and WAV sounds work the same way and stop playing while in main menu. * Fixed "gui::startSelect" as a feature that allows to choose player starting location in GUI briefing. * Fixed warnings in newspaper_bridgeport0X core readable GUI. ASSETS * Added automatic turrets, to be combined with security cameras (Thread). * Added more covered furniture models (6289). * Added wall models from Seeking Lady Leicester (6293). * New and fixed versions of atdm:lamp_electric_square_3_lit_unattached (6315). * Fixed UV map on Stove models (6312). * Fixed some issues with moor AI (6345).

So, if I understand you, no Thief Gold FM does sound and text notifications of completed objectives? The missions in The Black Parade surely did. I'm completely confused now. I was sure that original Thief Gold had those objective complete notifications (at least the sound). Reading this thread suggests otherwise though: https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=132977

Of course, it is one of the reasons for the decline of online forums, since the advent of mobile phones. Forums on a mobile are a pain in the ass, but on the other hand, for certain things there are no real alternatives to forums, social networks cannot be with their sequential threads, where it is almost impossible to retrieve answers to a question that is asked. has done days ago. For devs for internal communication, the only thing offered is a collaborative app, such as System D (not to be confused with systemd). FOSS, free and anonymous registration, access further members only by invitation, full encrypted and private. https://www.system-d.org

I think more accessibility and customization options should be exposed in the main menu. Even as a new player when you’ve gotten to the point you understand what a cvar even is, looking them up often when you aren’t sure what you are looking for is even available is not a good experience. Given just how much discussion and disagreement there has been about the blackjack over the years, offering the new feature (which again I like btw) but making it something you can easily disable if you prefer in the game menu is a no brainer imo. I also don’t like the idea that things which can give players motion sickness, such as camera animations, are not directly adjustable and accessible in the game menu. So I don’t really see a reason why any of these should not be included, given there is real estate available in menu.

Greetings everyone! I recently got into TDM and am already having a lot of fun playing through and ghosting missions. However, coming from Thief, I am mostly relying on the rules and my experience with that game, while there are clearly differences in how TDM works. Right now, there is talk in the ghosting discussion thread on TTLG to amend the ruleset and include clarifications pertaining to TDM. So I wanted to drop by and ask: is there an active TDM ghosting community already and have any rules for this playstyle been developed? I would also like to ask someone to take a look at the draft of this addendum to see whether everything looks correct: https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148487&page=16&p=2473352&viewfull=1#post2473352 Thanks!

Its not that people are dismissing the game because of lack of shouldering, but rather a combination of things. That would be a real argument that the following occurs; 1. People don't know how to keep from making noise when moving stuff around (holding creep). 2. People don't know when black jacking works and when it doesn't (general options menu toggle). 3. Blackjack hits overhead stone overhead archway or wooden foundation (was fixed). 4. Picking up a blackjacked guard should be easy and players should know how to do it right away (new). 5. Not know how to extinguish candles and lanterns (easier and new). 6. Not knowing about general gameplay tips specific to missions (new). 7. Not being able to use favorite addons together (new). 8. Being able to know how much loot is left in a mission and mission stats like stealth score mid mission to properly ghost w/o too much spent on replaying parts of a mission (pending and in a addon). 9. Guards either searching for the noise disturbance for too long, or giving up too quickly and thus making some small missions either really tough for small mistakes or far too easy to get through (difficulty changes proposed by some). Many of these are not fixable without a global tip system for first time players, a expanded tutorial mission, and quality of life changes (a general gameplay change is not always about accessibility, options and cvars exist for that reason, but sometimes its about making it so that a button press should do what most players intentions aim to do, 95% of the time.

A Problem Arises I've paused subtitling of the Lady02 vocal set, because of a problem with the voice clips described here: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/21741-subtitles-possibilities-beyond-211/&do=findComment&comment=490151 While a way forward is being determined, I'll work on a different vocal set. Maybe manbeast, for which Kingsal just provided me the voice script.

My own suggestion which I was thinking of earlier after this was brought up again: When a new mission is started, under the 3 difficulty options (Easy, Medium, Hard), why not offer a separate setting for save restriction independent of difficulty level? It could be a separate checkbox with which the map's difficulty setting decides how severe save restrictions should be. While initially I may have welcomed this as a map choice for the standard difficulty setting, I now believe restricting saves should be a separate user-controlled choice, which would oppositely also make it usable on all old FM's. I think there's one potential issue with this plan, correct me if I'm wrong: Some FM's implemented checkpoints where the map itself decides when to auto-save, and that can only be specified by maps themselves. If the two features can be separated, does anyone else think we can limit no-saving to a separate field picked in the mission briefing menu?

You are correct in that is a partially unfair example in that dishonored 1/2 use a lot of “modern” gui conventions like text elements, progress bars, etc for a lot of it’s interactions and telegraphs pretty clearly to the player what context sensitive action will result on frob. There is a delay on some interactions, including picking up bodies, but this is to prevent unintended inputs, not to enable something like multiple control layers. The primary function of using frob on the body is to “pick it up” ie shoulder it. No idea why this is material to an an argument that this should be the result of frobbing a body? No one is even suggesting removing this kind of manipulation from the game. The examples I can think of this kind of drag mechanic: the modern deus ex and hitman games, both of which are interactions exclusive to bodies and don’t feature shouldering as a mechanics at all, and the fine grain physics manipulation modes you see in Bethesda games starting with Oblivion, which requires long pressing the interact key on a physics object to allow you to move it around. Incorrect: TDM does not have the ability to move “anything” as physics object and all of those games have physics systems which include objects the player can move around. Also not material as to why a fine grain limb manipulation and dragging mode should be the primary function of the frob key. No one is advocating removing the feature from the game, and you can get the exact behavior you seem to want by disabling the hold commands in the main menu.

@wesp5 Make sure you skip thief, thief2, deus ex, dishonored, dishonored 2, etc. Not sure what military grade hallucinogens they were smoking but they all have physics object you can pick up and bodies you can shoulder - tied to the same input! It was quite the scandal - all anyone could talk about at the time is “why don’t the bodies just float in front of my camera when I pick them up just like this potted plant does?” What they didn’t have that the current build of TDM does was the ability for players like you turn this troublesome development off in the main menu. Thankfully I am absolutely certain you’ve been spared the pain of playing of these games, as it is seemingly the only explanation I can come up with for you to still be posting the same comments over and over and over again in this thread. Seriously though these interactions in the game were never really the same thing, you do not drag most physics objects in the game slowly along the ground, you pick them up kind of like how shouldering the body is a non goofy way to display you have picked it up, so no idea how it is inconsistent and even why that matter so much.

Black Parade is released ! https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=152429

Body awareness please. https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/20013-are-you-gonna-add-this/

So giving it none of those tags, but making the AI invisible, silent, non-solid, and on a team neutral to everyone would not work? Oh well, it was a horrible inelegant idea anyway.

I loved it. Awesome game. I faceplanted at the people who asked for quest markers in the Steam forums there... Herr, lass Hirn regnen. The game is so great, and so true to the original, because it doesn't hold your hand. When is the new breed of gamers gonna learn.

After a long time and a lot of delays, I'm extremely happy and relieved to announce the release date for my first map; Lords & Legacy, on Friday the 30th of August, 2013! Lords & Legacy v.2.1 Resume: Screenshots: http://imgur.com/a/Lj8UJ#0 Notes: Build time: 2013/03/30 - 2013/08/30 To install, simply put the .pk4 file in your fm folder and install from the in-game mission menu. It is a large mission with optional objectives, so make sure to save often. The ropes in the beginning have a 'slick' surface, to simulate being 'slack lines'. They are difficult, but once you get a hang of the slide they can be fun. A couple of the large areas can be a bit rough on performance, and can be improved by adjusting the LOD slider in video options. A few of visportals open only when you get close. This is to keep the frames smooth inside the respective building, due to early inexperienced design. If you find any bugs which affect the gameplay experience, then you're very welcome to post them here, but please use the spoiler tags. Big thanks to 'Obsttorte', 'Springheel', 'Greyman', 'Bikerdude', 'Sotha' and rest of 'The Dark Mod Team'for all the help, guides and tricks. Also thanks to the other TDM users who provided fantastic support and feedback during the build. Thank you for beta-testing: 'Bikerdude', 'TylerVocal', 'Simplen00b', 'nbohr1more', 'Briareos H.' Special thanks to: 'Danus', 'Dsx' & 'Stanleh' for testing, help and support. v.2.0.1 changelog: Bugs: -The "Master Thief" challenge was impossible to do for a while, due to incorrect values. Fixed. -Getting seen by "The Killer" now also fails the "Ghost" challenge. -The 3 cardplaying guards no longer float mid air, as their chairs are now nailed to the floor. -Fixed the sound of the furnace continuing after the flames were extinguished. -Fixed weird glittering on the power cables around the map. -Fixed some moonlight popping in and out. -Fixed openable windows in Commons, clipping into the frame. -Fixed a book dropping through a desk. -Fixed visportals closing too close in Lancel's Tower, slight hit on performance though. -Added more monsterclip to Service Tower and Robert's Tower's entrance. -Improved a few vis_portals with func_portals. -Replaced curbs in Slums and Commons with some more detailed versions and changed textures. And a lot more little unecessary tweaks. Gameplay: -Added new challenge: (Jack White) - Do not knock-out anyone. -Reduced the amount of starting gear, depending on difficulty. -Added cubemaps to most windows on the map. -Redid most func_statics in Commmons Quarter to reduce tris and increase performance. Draw count is still somewhat high. -Removed all transparent windows as they didn't have actual gameplay value, just a performance drain in exchange for glitchy visuals. -Lancel's safe can no longer be picked. Find the key! -Added a couple minor cosmetic details in the sewers. -Moved a coinpurse from a wealthy commoner's sleeping butt to his nightside table. Also adjusted his furniture so thieves can better move around. -Changed sounds for several doors across the map. Once again, a big thanks to 'Bikerdude' for taking the time help out and locate room for improvement! v.2.0 changelog: Bugs: -Fixed various textures and surfaces and a few minor tweaks. -Tweaked some sounds to be in line with TDM 2.0 changes. -Fixed 2 certain AIs being too sensitive rather than drunk. (Thanks to AluminumHaste!) -Tweaked LOD on some objects, to prevent windows "popping" in and out. Gameplay: -Added more monsterclip to the towers, so the AI can now run up and down stairs. Only the stairs in the small tower has issues still. -Added more monsterclip in the city so the guards can follow you up all stairs. -Added a few minor details. -Windows in the city now dims sound, resulting in less aggro from guards and more convincing soundscape. -Reduced 'draw calls' in all the large areas, increasing performance. The map is still heavy at certain areas. Another big thanks to 'Bikerdude' and 'Greyman', for taking time out of their own schedules to help optimize the map's draw count and other significant adjustements! v.1.0.3 changelog: Bugs: -Fixed 4 black chairs in one of the towers -Fixed a floating painting -Fixed several clipping objects v.1.0.2 changelog: Bugs: -Fixed zfighting in the library's bookshelves -Fixed a black window in one of the towers -Fixed several typos in readables Gameplay: v.1.0.1 changelog: Bugs: -Fixed an issue with the main objectives not being in "sync". -Fixed console spam from a script Gameplay: -Adjusted required loot for each difficulty from "3000, 4000 and 5000" to "2500, 3500 and 4500".

I know, it's just the only easy way I can think of. Fixed script names is what we have now, tdm_custom_scripts.script or tdm_user_addons.script: Every mod will use them up and thus take them away from other mods. We need something that's dynamic and unlimited. A better alternative is a prefix to indicate you want auto-running of that script: Anything called "scripts/include_*.script" would be a good one, just use an unique name and call yours "include_mod_something.script" which will work if no one else names theirs "mod_something". Even better: Have a keyword at the beginning of the script! Like how scripts in Linux start with #!/bin/bash so file managers know how to preview them: Similarly we could add something like #autoexec at the beginning of ours, though this approach requires the engine looping through all script files to detect this keyword. We could imagine making tdm_user_addons.script unique per pk4. But I haven't even mentioned this one as it goes against how the file system works: You can't have multiple files with the same name and different contents, the latest archive in alphabetical order must always override a file loaded by an earlier archive. What gets close to that is a special text file in each pk4 like a package.txt which references the inclusion script as a flag. FM's kind of do that with darkmod.txt: When each pk4 is iterated by the engine at startup, it could read a script name mentioned there and execute the file referenced. But this seems more complicated than necessary unless this configuration is used for more stuff, maybe to list loaded mods in the main menu with their title / description / author / version the same way missions are?

The concern that newcomers and players that play the game occasionally don't know or cannot figure out some features looks like a recurring topic. Since we cannot rely on the training mission alone I propose a "global tip system". First, we need a setting: In-game tips: Yes/No This setting must be easily accessible and therefore it should be included in the main menu or stand out in the settings screen. Now, when the setting is enabled players will get tips in ANY and ALL missions when triggering a condition for the first time. Examples: Player frobs a (shoulderable) ragdoll for the first time: To shoulder a body frob it and press "Use". Drop the body by pressing "Use" again. Player frobs a moveable extinguishable light for the first time: You can extinguish a candle by pressing "Use" while holding it. Find fire sources to relight candles. Player frobs a moveable switchable lantern for the first time: Press "Use" while holding moveable lights to switch them on and off. Player unlocks a door (or object) with a key for the first time: You can lock it again by selecting the appropriate key and pressing "Use". Player shoots a water arrow for the first time: Did you know water can clear blood stains and make moss grow stronger? Player shoots a rope arrow for the first time: Press "Attack" while hanging on the rope to swing. ...

Horror themed fan mission - exploration of seemingly deserted keep in the middle of swamps. Spiders, undead, darkness. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is the story about the fate of my family. My uncle, Ralph Mac Roberts, is the baron of a keep nestled deep within the Rahenaen marshes. It was once an important outpost tasked with guarding one of the few Builder roads that cross the marsh, but after the Inventor`s Guild built a system of nearby dams that flooded the whole land, the road closed and there was no longer anything to watch over anymore. The keep itself needed reinforcement against the raising water level and the trade routes become almost impassable, not only for the carriages but for lone couriers as well. There hadn`t been any messages coming from the keep for over a year and my father was about to assemble a caravan so he could go on an expedition to the keep himself. However, in the middle of the night before he was set to leave, a carrier pigeon landed on his windowsill. My father received the letter and read the apologies from my uncle and his family, excusing their long absence. As a way to make reparations for their extended silence, my uncle invited me to the keep to stay there for a fortnight or so. My uncle had instructed me to leave my horse three leagues away from the keep by the nearest charcoal burning hut and hike the remainder of the road on foot, as the trek through the marsh is treacherous for horses. The weather will be awful this time of year, but my father insists that I should go anyways to ensure that our relatives are okay. These plains become dreadfully deserted - to the point where you more expect to meet the dead than the living. And by the way - I think I`m lost. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Download link: https://1drv.ms/u/s!Aj1DVS465udZgVkXteBbr6cUxdPH Thanks: to the TDM team for great tools, and all the contributors for their assets, to betatesters: Amadeus, Bienie, Boiler's_hiss, Dragofer, Filizitas, Judith, nbohr1more, s.urfer, again to Amadeus for proofreading and text tweaks, and to all the players for their time! Few screenshots: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/10003-so-what-are-you-working-on-right-now/?p=434716 http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/10003-so-what-are-you-working-on-right-now/?p=429558 http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/19886-fm-marsh-of-rahena-beta-testing/?p=434507 Enjoy! Walk-through !major spoilers! Finding a way across the marsh area: Getting inside: Bed objective: Light sources: Maps: Enemies: Room objective: Hut objective: Sealed objective: Gold: Key: Bodies: