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Complaint From Players The player must pick up candles before extinguishing them, and then the player must remember to drop the candle. The player must drag a body before shouldering it (picking it up), and the player must remember to frob again to stop dragging the body. The player finds this annoying or easy to make mistakes. For players who ghost, some of them have the goal of returning objects back to their original positions. With the current "pick up, use item, and drop" system, the item might not return easily or at all to its original position. For example, a candlestick might bounce off its holder. (See player quotes at the bottom.) Bug Tracker https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=6316 Problems to Solve How can the "pick up" step be eliminated so that the player can directly use or interact with the item where it is in the game world? How can so much key pressing and mouse clicking be eliminated when the player wants to directly use an item? How can candles be extinguished and lanterns toggled off/on without first picking them up? How can bodies be shouldered without first dragging them? Solution Design Goals Make TDM easier for new players while also improving it for longtime players. Reduce tedious steps for common frob interactions. Make it intuitive so that menu settings are unnecessary. Do not introduce bugs or break the game. Terms frob -- the frob button action happens instantly. hold frob -- the frob button is held for 200ms before the action happens. (This can be changed via cvar: 200ms by default.) Proposed Solution Note: Some issues have been struckthrough to show changes since the patch has been updated. Change how frobbing works for bodies, candles, and lanterns. For bodies: Frob to shoulder (pick up) a body. Second frob to drop shouldered body, while allowing frob on doors, switches, etc. Hold frob (key down) to start drag, continue to hold frob (key down) to drag body, and then release frob (key up) to stop dragging body. Also, a body can be dragged immediately by holding frob and moving the mouse. For candles/lanterns: Frob to extinguish candles and toggle off/on lanterns. Hold frob to pick it up, and then frob again to drop. Frob to pick it up, and then frob again to drop. Hold frob to extinguish candles and toggle off/on lanterns. For food: Frob to pick it up, and then frob again to drop. Hold frob to eat food. For other items: No change. New cvar "tdm_frobhold_delay", default:"200" The frob hold delay (in ms) before drag or extinguish. Set to 0 for TDM v2.11 (and prior) behavior. Solution Benefits Bodies: New players will have less to learn to get started moving knocked out guards. With TDM v2.11 and earlier, some players have played several missions before realizing that they could shoulder a body instead of dragging it long distances. Frob to shoulder body matches Thief, so longtime Thief players will find it familiar. Second frob drops a shouldered body. Players still have the ability to both shoulder and drag bodies. Compatible with the new auto-search bodies feature. Dragging feels more natural -- just grab, hold, and drop with a single button press. There is no longer the need to press the button twice. Also, it's no longer possible to walk away from a body while unintentionally dragging it. Set "tdm_frobhold_delay" cvar to delay of 0 to restore TDM v2.11 (and prior) behavior. Candles: New players will have less to learn to get started extinguishing candles. With TDM v2.11 and earlier, some players didn't know they could extinguish candles by picking them up and using them. Instead, they resorted to throwing them to extinguish them or hiding them. Hold frob to extinguish a candle feels like "pinching" it out. Once a candle is picked up, players still have the ability to manipulate and use them the same way they are used to in TDM v2.11 and earlier. For players who ghost and have the goal of putting objects back to their original positions, they'll have an easier time and not have to deal with candles popping off their holders when trying to place them back carefully. Set "tdm_frobhold_delay" cvar to delay of 0 to restore TDM v2.11 (and prior) behavior. Solution Issues Bodies: Frob does not drop a shouldered body, so that might be unexpected for new players. This is also different than Thief where a second frob will drop a body. "Use Inv. Item" or "Drop Inv. Item" drops the body. This is the same as TDM v2.11 and earlier. This is the price to pay for being able to frob (open/close) doors while shouldering a body. Patch was updated to drop body on second frob, while allowing frob on doors, switches, etc. Candles: Picking up a candle or lantern requires a slight delay, because the player must hold the frob button. The player might unintentionally extinguish a candle while moving it if they hold down frob. The player will need to learn that holding frob will extinguish the candle. The player can change the delay period via the "tdm_frobhold_delay" cvar. Also, when the cvar is set to a delay of 0, the behavior matches TDM v2.11 and earlier, meaning the player would have to first "Frob/Interact" to pick up the candle and then press "Use Inv. Item" to extinguish it. Some players might unintentionally extinguish a candle when they are trying to move it or pick it up. They need to make sure to hold frob to initiate moving the candle. When a candle is unlit, it will highlight but do nothing on frob. That might confuse players. However, the player will likely learn after extinguishing several candles that an unlit candle still highlights. It makes sense that an already-extinguished candle cannot be extinguished on frob. The official "Training Mission" might need to have its instructions updated to correctly guide the player through candle manipulation training. Updating the training mission to include the hold frob to extinguish would probably be helpful. Similar Solutions In Fallout 4, frob uses an item and long-press frob picks it up. Goldwell's mission, "Accountant 2: New In Town", has candles that extinguish on frob without the need of picking them up first. Snatcher's TDM Modpack includes a "Blow / Ignite" item that allows the player to blow out candles Wesp5's Unofficial Patch provides a way to directly extinguish movable candles by frobbing. Demonstration Videos Note: The last two videos don't quite demonstrate the latest patch anymore. But the gist is the same. This feature proposal is best experienced in game, but some demonstration videos are better than nothing. The following videos show either a clear improvement or that the player is not slowed down with the change in controls. For example, "long-press" sounds long, but it really isn't. Video: Body Shouldering and Dragging The purpose of this video is to show that frob to shoulder a body is fast and long-press frob to drag a body is fast enough and accurate. Video: Long-Press Frob to Pick Up Candle The purpose of this video is to show how the long-press frob to pick up a candle isn't really much slower than regular frob. Video: Frob to Extinguish The purpose of this video -- if a bit contrived -- is to show the efficiency and precision of this proposed feature. The task in the video was for the player to as quickly and accurately as possible extinguish candles and put them back in their original positions. On the left, TDM v2.11 is shown. The player has to highlight each candle, press "Frob/Interact" to pick up, press "Use Inv. Item" to extinguish, make sure the candle is back in place, and finally press "Frob/Interact" to drop the candle. The result shows mistakes and candles getting misplaced. On the right, the proposed feature is shown. The player frobs to extinguish the candles. The result shows no mistakes and candles are kept in their original positions. Special Thanks @Wellingtoncrab was instrumental in improving this feature during its early stages. We had many discussions covering varying scenarios, pros, and cons, and how it would affect the gameplay and player experience. Originally, I had a completely different solution that added a special "use modifier" keybinding. He suggested the frob to use and long-press frob to pick up mechanics. I coded it up, gave it a try, and found it to be too good. Without his feedback and patience, this feature wouldn't be as good as it is. Thank you, @Wellingtoncrab! And, of note, @Wellingtoncrab hasn't been able to try it in game yet, because I'm using Linux and can't compile a Windows build for him. So, if this feature isn't good, that's my fault. Code Patch I'll post the code patch in another post below this one so that folks who compile TDM themselves can give this proposal a try in game. And, if you do, I look forward to your feedback! Player Complaints TTLG (2023-01-10) Player 1: TDM Forums (2021-03-13) Player 2: Player 3: TDM Forums (2023-06-17) Player 4: TDM Discord (2021-05-18) Player 5: TDM Discord (2023-02-14) Player 6: Player 7: Player 8:

The *DOOM3* shaders are ARB2 ('cause of old GeForce support) carmack plan + arb2 - OpenGL / OpenGL: Advanced Coding - Khronos Forums

I am astounded anew. I finished all of stated objectives as well as half a dozen hidden ones, and thought I did pretty well scraping up 5467 in loot, but as it turns out there's actually... ...in the game, soooooo yeahhhhhh. I was never a practitioner of the Lytha method, but that's just unacceptable. No rest for the wicked in the... ...just yet. Best. Mission. Evar.

Seems to confirm: https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=5718 does it happen in the latest dev build: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/20824-public-access-to-development-versions/

I just read@motorsep Discovered that you are able to create a brush, then select it and right click "create light". Now you have a light that ha the radius of the former brush. Just read it on discord and thought it may be of use for some people in the forums here too.

I just found this thread on ttlg listing Immersive Sims: https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=151176

Well I can see a situation in which a mission can have a general mission objective, but then do the different difficulties in a different way. But I guess it's a corner case and you could put the objectives in the mission (text or video) briefing (where you have control over it's design) and then skip the objective screen.

In the original Thief's, you could still choose the difficulty for every mission. It stuck to the difficulty you chose for the previous mission though. Well, you probably know that anyway, just thought I'd mention it. I like the difficulty choice. IMO, it gives the player a challenge and goal to aim for, especially when objectives are added on the higher difficulties. The only absolute no-go for me are no K.O. objectives. Those don't make the slightest sense.

Recently revisiting the forums after a longer period of time I wanted to check the unread content. I don't know if I am doing this wrong since.. ever... but on mobile (visiting the unread content page on my smartphone) you have to click on that tiny speech bubble to go to the most recent post in a thread. If you don't click correctly you'll hit the headline and end up at post 1 in the beginning of the thread. It's terrible on mobile, since not only the speech bubble is really small and was to miss. But also the thread headline is just millimeters away from it so you go right to the first post that was ever made instead of the most recent ones. Am I doing it wrong? I just want to go through u read content a d the to the newest post from that topic.

You're right, sorry I didn't notice. This skips the whole objectives/difficulty screen: #define ENABLE_MAINMENU_DIFF_SELECT 0 I tested it on multiple missions though and it throws you back to the main menu. Is there something else mission outhors have to do to make it work propperly? Edit: Setting: #define ENABLE_MAINMENU_BRIEFING 0 will load the mission, but currently it seems it's not possible to have a briefing and skip the difficulty screen. At least on some missions (For example Mandrasola, Who wathes the watcher, Thief's Den). Other missions (for example Accountant 1) load fine.

A@datiswous Ah yeah, well sorry, I was quiet busy and only visiting discord. First time here on the forums since months now I think.. Thank you for the subtitles. I encourage everyone who is interested in using them to download it from here as I'm not sure when I'll be able to implement them myself into the mission. Again, thank you for your work.

Currently mappers can't edit the objective screen gui. 1. But let's say you create a mission where you don't want any difference in difficulty, or set it in a different way, then I think you should be able to remove the 3 difficulty selections from the objective/dificulty screen. (Edit: Not possible yet, but objectives could be set in mission briefing and then difficulty selection screen can be skipped, See below.) 2. Also, maybe you don't want to list the objectives on an objective screen before mission start. Maybe you want to have a mission briefing, start the mission and after that give the objectives somewhere during the mission. Or maybe you want players to select difficulty inside the mission in some way. In this case there's no need for the objectives screen and you might as well skip this screen. (Edit: Already possible with #define ENABLE_MAINMENU_DIFF_SELECT 0 in mainmenu_custom_defs.gui )

I dislike this as well, especially if the path to the main objective is very linear. On the flip side, my FM's do have random AI paths depending on the area difficulty, ie: Armory with a ton of loot will have some guards that are unpredictable (high risk, high reward). Medium difficulty will have at least one, easy will have guards that are all predictable. All my objectives are optional, the FM can be completed without taking the risk. I find this method helps the FM's replayability.

I re-played this, and just finished it. Really nice, classic mansion mission. Again, I didn't really care for the K.O. limitation (I played on the medium difficulty, and I just knocked everyone, ignoring the failed optional objective), but, I accomplished all the other optional objectives. I like that this mission feels so polished, it seems well tested. Nonetheless, the one thing I'd definitely criticize about it is the K.O. limitation objective. It just doesn't make sense to limit the player's approach that way (and it doesn't make sense from the mission perspective either). Really can't stress that enough. Please give the player all the options to play his way, and don't force the player to play your way. Cardinal error in my opinion.

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

Oh my gosh: This is so one of my top favorite FM's of all time. I just loved everything about it, from the cozy watery city to the completely unexpected twists it takes that always leave you baffled. Technically I completed all objectives and explored everywhere I could think of, but I'm still playing as I haven't finished quite a few things. What I can say without spoilers: I found several special items that clearly go somewhere yet haven't figured out how to use them. Haven't found any of the codes for opening stuff that requires them either. Also something tells me... The top things that absolutely made me cheer and I simply applaud:

Ignoring is somewhat inadequate as you still see other members engaging in a discussion with the problematic user, and as Wellingtoncrab says such discussions displace all other content within that channel. Moderation is also imperfect as being unpleasant to engage with is not in itself banworthy, so there is nothing more to do if such people return to their old behaviour after a moderator had a talk with them, except live with it or move away. I'd be more willing to deal with it if it felt like there were more on-topic discussion, i.e. thoughts about recently played fan missions or mappers showcasing their progress, rather than a stream of consciousness about a meta topic that may or not have to do with TDM. I guess the forums already serve the desired purpose, or they just compartmentalise discussions better.

Hidden Objectives I've completed the mission with all 6 hidden objectives (The Completionist) ticked off, but I've only counted 5 Which one is not on the list ? EDIT I Forgot to check the very first post which contained info related to my question. So it looks like the 6th hidden objective is It also answered my "Rat" question, which I was about to query.

Okay, just finished this mission for the first time since the final release came out, so it took me a while to find all the secrets and complete the optional objectives. Could this mission perhaps do with some in-game subtitles, though?

TDM Modpack v3.3 (Maintenance Update) While trying to improve the Loot / Stealth combo I made a mistake and introduced a bug in the last release: Loot count does not update in real time when the loot inventory item is selected. Since this is an annoying bug it has been fixed in Maintenance Update v3.3. Apologies for the inconvenience. ---------------------------------- I take the opportunity to include some minor, experimental additions. If these additions are well received they will stay, otherwise they will be removed in the next major version of the Modpack. 1) A revamped and extended "Mission Complete" theme. I decreased the pitch of the original audio not to sound too loud and triumphant and then I extended the length to include an accompanying drum beat during the aftermath. I want players to get the feel that "the adventure continues" rather than a peaceful "game over" so I opted for an uneasy beat. You can listen to it by going inside the pk4 to sound/meta/game/mission_complete.ogg 2) Semi-transparent backgrounds for the in-game Inventory grid and Objectives screen. I am not sure what the best solution is but I always wanted these screen to have some depth. I applied a 30% transparency to: dds/guis/assets/mainmenu/invgrid_parchment_backdrop.dds dds/guis/assets/objectives/parchment_ingame.dds The download can be found in the opening post. Let us know your thoughts. Cheers!

Thanks for giving it a playthrough and leaving the detailed feedback. Regarding your supposed glitch, it's actually an intended feature to ensure the player stays inside the room while the NPC is talking to him to avoid missing cues and not seeing why the objectives were updated. The barrier should be gone afterwards.

For some reason I thought this FM was just released, didn't realize it's 3 years old already! Just finished it at last with 5100 loot and 3 secrets found, not bad for something of this scale. I was stuck on one of the objectives but finally found it so I removed my question. This has to be the most structurally intense FM ever made: I don't think a city of quite this size and complexity was ever done for TDM in one map before, the parkour and little hidden areas are insane! This is nice albeit mentally straining as it's impossible not to miss something or properly keep track; In many cases I had to noclip to discover how to get to certain areas, reloaded and went there without cheats afterward but don't know how I could have found some areas otherwise. Easy to get lost but this is compensated by the extremely useful feature of the map highlighting where you are so you don't have to guess using signs. Ran into a few bugs. Most noteworthy is a breaking glitch that makes it impossible to continue without noclip: Other than that nothing too significant: Managed to catch a case of a door that opens too wide and goes through the railing, there was a hatch that did it too but I forgot that one. I can also confirm the black box bug... first thought it's caused by my mod to remove spiders because I have arachnophobia, they set the entity to null however so it shouldn't be a box per say.

I don't recall a system for noise masking. It sounds like it'd be a good idea, but when you get into the details you realize it'd be complicated to implement. It's not only noise that that goes into it, I think. E.g., a high register can cut through even a loud but low register rumble. And it's not like the .wav file even has data on the register of what it's playing. So either you have to add meta-data (which is insane), or you have to have a system to literally check pitch on the .wav data and paramaterize it in time to know when it's going to cut through what other parameters from other sounds. For that matter, it doesn't even have the data on the loudness either, so you'd have to get that off the file too and time the peaks with the "simultaneous" moment at arbitrary places in every other sound file correctly. And then position is going to matter independently for each AI. So it's not like you can have one computation that works the same for all AI. You'd have to compute the masking level for each one, and then you get into the expense you're mentioning. I know there was a long discussion about it in the internal forums, and probably on the public subforums too, but it's been so long ago now I can't even remember the gist of them. Anyway the main issue is I don't know if you'll find a champion that wants to work on it. But if you're really curious to see how it might work, you could always try your hand at coding & implementing it. Nothing beats a good demo to test an idea in action. And there's no better way to learn how to code than a little project like that. I always encourage people to try to implement an idea they have, whether or not it may be a good idea, just because it shows the power of an open source game. We fans can try anything we want and see if it works!

Cannons actually EXIST in TDM; they show up in about 3 missions. One I recall actually gets FIRED - as part of the objectives. (nothing animated, blast-a-hole-in-a-wall gimmick) More obviously MINES too... so B.P. (or something LIKE it ) exists in-world. So either the Empire has banned all civilian firearms, or more likely: Nobody cared to create one as its not part of classic Thief/1,2,3... series game-play or Worse; I don't think any modders here even possess the knowledge to model, animate, script, code, texture, sound-engineer, script-more and create all the associated kinematic animations as well...need a real Doom3 expert for that. Also; Everyone forgets old Air Guns exist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girardoni_air_rifle The early ones even LOOK 100% steam-punk, with weird iron & brass spheres for pressure - fancy nickle-iron skeletal frames galore.

Bad fit for TDM, maybe not impossible for a mapper with good scripting skills to make happen. It might end up more like a list of fetch objectives before sneaking aboard some ship, rather than something meant to affect gameplay.