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Thanks for the welcome guys! Now to read all the new forums, get my stuff all set up for editing, and dive in!

Are there, perhaps, any Asheron's Call veterans around this forum? I use to play the MMO back in 2000 and 2001. In short, I loved the game, and I doubt there exists a game which I have enjoyed as much to this day. Asheron's Call (AC) was very unique. Every detail of the game seamlessly conformed to an utmost alluring and extraordinary fantasy theme, unlike any other. It didn't follow the depreciated "elves, trolls, dwarves, and dragons" cliche, but rather had it's own particular form of fantasy. AC had "Gromnies," the mysterious "Virindi," the simple-minded "Drudges," "Golems," the ever feared "Shadows," "Banderlings," "Sclavus," "Monougas," "Mattekars," the brutish, humanoid "Lugians," "Phyntos Wasps," and vast, countless other forms of inhabitants. All of these creatures resided in an enormous and seamless, 575 square mile large game-world known as "Dereth," a landmass extremely varied and mysterious. One could spend real-world days simply journeying afoot across its vast expanse of grasslands, forests, mires, deserts, beaches, rolling hills, mountaineous ridges, and snowy peaks (not to mention its seemingly unlimited magnitude of dungeons, catacombs, and caves), venturing about and perhaps stumbling upon unexplored areas. Each of the game's widespread locales had a particular atmosphere and dwelling of inhabitants. A newly arrived adventurer would find comfort in the relatively unscathed eastern territories of "Middle Osteth," harboring numerous consoling and populated towns of the likes of "Eastham" and "Cragstone," and with a wide variety of critters that gradually, but moderately grew more and more vicous the farther one distanced themselves from a trail. But those daring and battle-hardened could venture into the unexplored and feared "Direlands" in the distant west, where in the most ferocious and erratic creatures lingered and the refuge of fortress or commune did not exist for a hundred miles or more. Map A player had the choice of selecting one of three races, all of which were part of a congomerate "Isparian" race (essentially a human): The "Aluvians" (Caucasian), the "Gharu'ndim" (Negro), and the "Sho" (Asian), each of which had different inherent advantages, but which were generally insignificant in difference. In stark contrast to the "cookie-cutter" MMO's of today (IE: World of Warcraft), in Asheron's Call each and every player was unique. The facial customizations alone were so extensive one could go several years into the game without ever finding two players with the same set of characteristics (and there were different facial sets for each race), and this is not taking into consideration the varieties of skin tone, and hair color and style. Though, most importantly, not only were players defined unique in their appearance, but most especially in their player-defined attributes. The skill system is still probably the most extensive and well-designed out of all MMO's to date *1*, and there were so many forms of armor, weapons, gems, jewerly, clothing-attire, special-loot items, and other articles (5 years later, in this day and time, the item-set selection has likely doubled) that I do not believe I had ever come across a set of players who looked even remotely alike, or even two items that were exactly alike for that matter. Items were randomly generated in their appearance, worth, weight, color, special-affects, and usage-requirements upon defeating an adversary *2*. Overall, though, what I enjoyed most about this game was its challenge, longevity, and vastness, and this is the same area in which the game met its downfall. Early on in Asheron's Call (back when I played), it obliged at least two years or so to reach the maximum level--level 126. This estimation is solely for those who played in a mode of consistent hunting ("powerlevelers"), ignoring the many other features of the game, such as trading, questing, alchemy, spell research *3*, fishing, exploration, cooking, and "lore-research" *4*. In addition to these, one might also spend their pastime aside from hunting straightforwardly socializing with the wonderful community Asheron's Call had. AC's design encouraged socializing and cooperation between players of all levels, through certain personal benefits one could capitalize on. Aside from the obvious advantage of traveling in numbers, players who formed fellowships would be granted experience rewards. Likewise, the game touted a novel allegiance system, where in players could form patron/vassal relationships: Lower level players could swear allegiance to a higher level patron, in which they would thereafter become their vassal. The patron would be responsible for providing the vassal with items, knowledge, and personal assistance (all the while competing with the offers of other patrons), whereas they would personally receive a percentage of experience gained by the vassal in return. On the same token, Asheron's Call was just as suited to solo play as it was to cooperative. I know for a fact, as I personally enjoyed individualistic play in substitute to aggregate during my years. One was highly capable of perservering on their own means, not depending on the services of others. This was relatively more challenging, but, as a result, much more gratifying in the end--once accomplishing something. Though, this is not to say I never involved myself with others in AC. It's not often that you find an MMO in which a good portion of players have a friendly and non-rival decency about them, and a quality beyond a tiresome droning towards acheiving the highest level or finding the most popular, highest-experience hunting spots. For mellow players such as these (a good handlful of them were roleplayers), it would have probably taken much longer than two years to reach a high level like 126, but I do not believe such a feat was much of their concern. And, even so, the level cap did not have much significance *5*. This longetivity is one of the primary reasons I enjoyed Asheron's Call; the game seemed to never end. AC didn't necessitate a minuscule duration of two weeks to a month in order to "complete" the game, as is with many newer MMOs. And it was not as if level progression was a slow and tedious task without recompense. Had this been the case, there would have not been a point in dedicating so much time to the game in the first place. Rather, Asheron's Call was more of an adventure filled with much variety *6*, mystification *7*, and peculiarly random events *8*. And with the monthly content updates and live events the game received, in addition to the huge content base established at the release of the game, it would have been quite a feat (in other words, if you "have a life" outside of the game, outright impossible) to experience every bit of content the game offered to its players. But, alas, nothing this good could last for even a few years. The developers of Asheron's Call, insistent on ever improving their game, took to the likes of an aweful development scheme, in which they turned to their players for development/modification concepts. One might think this is a reasonable idea, but--as it turns out--players do not really know what they want. I can specifically remember the day when "Pyreals," Asheron's Call's form of ingame currency, became burdenless (Yes, characters were affected by the weight of items, depending on the level of their strength attribute). At first, this was a change that I didn't think much of. It was welcoming in that my character's movement was much faster, but, at the same time, it was surprisingly disapointing not having to worry about storing or carrying pyreals and my other various items strategically. I was oblivious to the motives of such a decision, and I didn't bother questioning them at the time as I had figured they were insignificant. Little did I know that this was the beginning of a whole slew of gameplay-altering changes that would ruin Asheron's Call. The next thing I knew, portals leading to virtually everywhere in the game were emerging all about the world of Dereth. Players had complained of needing to travel on foot to various locations in the game, and the developers--ignorant to the consequences--acted accordingly. Had they simply pondered the fact that eliminating any bit of necessary on-foot travel would render all of the inbetween land masses useless and entirely desolate, and dismiss all prospects of the once natural adventure that occurred in between such areas, I doubt they would have considered such decisions. I can recall traveling in fellowships across the huge Dereth landmass, depending on one another for "survival." It was quite an experience to say the least. But now all it took was one step into a swirling-portal and I was immediately at my intended destination. It was simply a shortcut to the prize; there was now no journey involved, and the "journey" or challenge--to many people's ignorance--is what makes a game fun. It was only a matter of time before other decisions and modifications of the same blazons arised. Players decided the extremely unique and intriguing spell research system*3* was only a nuisance, resolving that all spells should simply be bought at an NPC in the form of scrolls available in all towns. Persistent spell durations, previously lasting between five and eight minutes, uniformily began lasting twenty to even thirty minutes. The usage of ingame plugins were condoned, and as such "buff bots," non-player assisted "bots"--controlled by cleverly designed macros--offered all characters augmentations unintended for their rank, allowing them to hunt in areas not nearly intended for their level (this resulted in overly fast-paced character progression and unchallenging experience acquisition. Buff Bots are now treated as an ingrained "part of the game," and all new players are sadly encouraged to use them). "Double-Experience" weekends were introduced at whim if there was any sort of downtime (as the players could use this as an excuse). Drop rates of once rare items now surfaced on every other corpse. Many other miscellaneous and once challenging features of the game followed suit, and would either removed or castrated like the others. It was about this time that I left the game. As a result of all these nonsensical changes, the game had become rather boring and monotonous. There is no entertainment in obtaining a reward if there is no effort involved to obtain it. Three years after, I returned for a day or two to see what had become of the game, and it was even worse than before. Instead of the steady, yet enthralling leveling pace of two years to reach the highest level, give or take a few months, one could reach level 126 in a mere month or two--less if you were experienced in AC. As a result, 80% of the game's unique and classic content--of which had been designed for the previous gradual progression--could now be rushed through quite instantly. Much of the "hunting" areas, dungeons, quests, exploration, and great experiences once occurring in this content might as well have been removed. Pyreals, formerly having substantial value, were now a common place in that they dropped excessively on all creatures, and in that loot sold from creatures was amended with extravagant payback (whereas the price of items sold hardly changed). It was as if the developers really believed there was some merit behind the thoughtless rants of complainers, as though there was some public good beyond their obviously selfish intents to simply augment their alter egos. And from all of this, probably the worst of all changes transpired within the community: the Unattended Combat Macro (UCM). Expectedly, Asheron's Call--a once intriguing, immensily fun, and challenging game--had become boring. As a result, players decided that if the game was not fun, then why play it at all? In fact, why not simply run a program that would play the game for me, allowing me to continually advance 24 hours a day, without any effort? So, nowadays (as I hear anyways), 50% of the active population on each server is not actually "active," but more or less just some script repeating itself in a far off dungeon. Knowing what the game had once been, and what its further potential could have been, it is really sad to hear the cries of new players consistently complaining on the Asheron's Call forums about never once seeing another player in all their time in the game. It is estimated that there is about 150-250 players active, half of which are bots, on each of the 7 AC servers at high times. I can personally recall when the active server population rarely dipped below 1,800 on every server. 'Tis a sad story. *1*(In the year and a half that I played, there were more than 30 skills to choose from, including but definitely not limited to such things as "War Magic," "Missile Defense," "Life Magic," "Cooking," "Dagger," "Staff," "Archery," "Alchemy," "Arcane Lore," "Jump," "Deception," "Mana Conversion," "Unarmed Combat," "Sword," "Run," and on and on. The player had the option of training or--in a further advancement to training--"specializing" in any of these skills, depending on how they utilized their "skill-credits," and, afterwards, spending experience on whatever they preferred accordingly. In addition, the player was given "attributes," a base form of stats (in a different category than the skills system) which encompassed such things as "Strength," "Endurance," "Focus," "Coordination," "Health," "Quickness," and so on. All of these decisions based around XP and skill credit allocation affected how your character would turn out--not just in the beginning of the game, but all throughout. Your decisions affected, for example, further experience costs, special-items requirements, and such. There wasn't simply a "Sorcerer" class where every other "Sorcerer" was virtually the same character as your "Sorcerer," give or take a few minor differences. You were completely unique.) *2*(In addition, and most interestingly, recently I heard the developers introduced a "Rares" system, in which each player has the capacity to receive a randomly dropped "rare" loot item belonging to one of seven or so tiers of rares. The higher end tiers of rares, albiet quite hard to attain, are completely unique in the game, meaning they have entirely custom-designed models and special abilities, solely attainable by one player.) *3*(Initially, the role of a mage was quite novel in Asheron's Call. There were seven tiers of spells attainable in the game, and additional levels would render themselves usable as you progressed in a specific profession. From what I can recall, of these seven levels, for each of the magical professions of "Life Magic," "Creature Enchantment," "War Magic," and "Item Enchantment," there existed a vast collection of spells. Most were uniform across each of the seven levels in their type and affect, simply growing stronger and lasting for longer durations at higher levels (For instance, there was a "Flamebolt IV," "Flamebolt V," "Flame Arc IV," Flame Streak IV," "Frost Bolt VI," etc"). But there were so many variations and types--probably amounting to several hundred, and each had a tactical use. Far from generic or boring on there own, these spells were supplemented by special sets of entirely unique forms of spells, each of which had individualistic affects and animations. For every spell in the game, there existed "spell components" which would need to be combined in order to cast and learn a spell, and this is where "Spell Research" came into play. The spell components that founded these spells took the form of "Scarabs," "Herbs," "Powdered Gems," "Alchemical Substances," "Talismans," and "Tapers," each of which was compromized of a group of several dozen variations. Some types were extremely rare and valuable--naturally needed for higher-end, powerful spells, others were simply commonplace, and many were somewhere inbetween. Following a formal pattern of combination, the player would need to test combinations of components in order to contrive spells. The combinations for each of these spells were unique for every player, so one could not simply divulge their entire spellbook to their fellow. In addition, spells could also be learned by spell scrolls found in loot, though higher end ones were naturally rare. *4*(The game had its own arrangement of extremly extensive lore and story, in which players could attain texts and valuable information in the form of books, scripts, tomes, or straightforward NPC-communication, revealing the hidden facts about Dereth and its history/mysteries. Such findings might disclose secret quests, the whereabouts of a scroll for some unique and powerful spell, the appropriate combinations of extraordinary or seemingly useless loot in order to form some peculiar item, the secretive dwellings of a certain horribly powerful and legendary monster, or perhaps the lore divulged would simply be another piece of Dereth's expansive puzzle of history.) *5*(The level cap did not have much significance anyways, beyond the fact that one couldn't attain additional skill credits used in training new skills; you could still increase your skills and attributes with experience gained afterwards.) *6*(For instance, there were hundreds of different grounds of exploration and hunting. So many that even with the 120,000 large player-base in the game's peak, many far-off areas--aside from the popular and ever-changing hunting locales--were often almost or altogether abandoned, which would evoke a sort of mystical feeling of adventure--not knowing what might be around the next bend of a cavern wall or what treasure may have existed in a chest at the depths of some dungeon.) *7*(Often throughout Asheron's Call's history, developers of the game would hint at the fact that they would secretly implement much content kept disclosed from the regularly released patch's feature list. And indeed they did, as such peculiarities would emerge regularly. According to developer chats, even to this day--in addition to normaly adding such curiousities--some content back from the early 2000's has yet to be discovered.) *8*(I can recall such spontaneous events as monsters, having defeated several players, leveling far past their base level, becoming quite powerful of foes, or random raids of 30 or so of a certain creature on some town, for example.)

Oh you quoted me out of context, tsk tsk. http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=3768 That was in regards to applying the Elite guard anims to the standard guards. They share the same features - pauldrons, swords, that leather flap in front of them. Robes will require tweaking - I could apply the same run anim for the limbs, but the extra bits will need to be animating seperately.

Lurkers use those accounts to keep track of what they've read via the cookie. There's no rule that you have to post on forums, so it'd be unfair to delete them.

I was just browsing through the Member list, sorting different ways, seeing how many "applicants" there are, seeing the recently registered members, etc etc, and I've noticed (probabaly true of ALL forums out there) that there are an awful lot of people with 0 posts. It would certainly make the list easier to look through if they were just all deleted! I don't want to be mean or anything, but people who registered many months ago and never posted anything are surely long gone, right? Maybe it could be automatic - your account will disappear if there are no posts at all after 6 months. Even if you just have 1 post it will not disappear ever, but zero posts and you're gone! Or maybe there could be a sorting option added to the member list page to not show anyone with 0 posts. That way their accounts are still there but I don't have to see them filling up the lists. Ah, I probably won't give a rat's tail tomorrow, but a few minutes ago it did

I've been following Dark Mod all along (somewhat), but had been really trying to support T3Ed and surrounding stuff. Thus, I hadn't played any T2 FMs for a VERY long time, until last week I fired up and played the whole T2X. It was then that I again realized just how much better the movement and feel of classic Thief is over TDS, especially leaning, rope arrows, and water. I knew it all already, but it was a big reminder that just seemed to hit home harder this time. So I came back to read up on Dark Mod some more, and I noticed the forums for the first time. After reading a bunch of threads and stuff, I decided it's time to climb aboard and really focus more on TDM at this point, since it's the last best hope for a bright Thief style FM future!

The TDS forum was starting to slow down last year, but a turning point in my mind was when Krypt admitted that the engine was something of a fluke and the T3 devs themselves hated using it ... and from his and Randy's description of things, it was the main culprit behind most of the disappointing features and design-work of TDS, which just adds insult to injury. It just sort of officially confirmed everyone's experience that FM making on it is not only an uphill battle, but against the spirit of the original games even in the dev's minds. I'm happy that FMs are being made on it while TDM is in production, though, and with the minimalist additions I even hope they'll continue like T1 FMs come out on occassion ... adding spice to the mix (actually, better if they come out more often than T1 FMs, because the technology is more advanced). But, yeah, my chips are with TDM for the future. By the way Komag, I was wondering when you'd finally register on these forums and start posting. What took you so long? Or maybe the right question is, what brought you here now?

LOL, no Just saying good that you found a good price etc. I'm browsing 3 forums atm lol...

Someone on the OXM forums in the UK said they can configure me one with a top notch ATI graphics card for £800

ZB may have a point in that there is something to be said for the "default" to be with undroppable for core equipment, and then mappers can easily add a droppable feature if they want (I'm not sure if that's where he was going in his last post, but anyway that's the suggestion it implies). Anyway, I can see the use of giving mappers the choice, but it's the default set-up that I'm questioning here. I have an intuition that most mappers (maybe in need of verification) will want core equipment undroppable than droppable so they don't have to worry about whether it's there or not while building (in the same way as jumping functionality, etc, core equipement = core functionality) so e.g., they don't have to worry a player may have to cross the entire map to pick up a blackjack in placing things. Sure you can say that may be bad mission design, but then the argument is that undroppability as a default limits the chances for "bad mission design" problems to even come up. And since more mappers seem on that side rather than the other, at least ex hypothesi: one argument for default undroppability is for reasons of economy ... even agreeing with the argument that there can be real advantages if designers want droppability. I can agree that it's good that mappers shouldn't be pampering players, that's one thing, but maybe the default editor set-up also shouldn't be pushing harder work and more design-failure-worries onto mappers, at least not as a default feature. Mappers can still happily take on the extra responsibility/burden of tweaking with core functionality (and all the design worries it raises) if they want with the ability to add dropability as a property, and we can applaud those that do it well ... but *that* should be the *choice* they make (a proactive design decision), not the other way around I think, and having the default switched around is the way to accomplish that. (You might say that the change is as easy as a checkbox, although probably a quite buried one, but that sort of glosses over the fact that a lot of designers may not think about the design issues that in-game tweakability of core functions throws at them unless they are prompted to. There might be a learning curve here as TDM FM making matures, though ... it's hard to sense.) Edit: and to preempt a little here, don't think I can't hear Oddity's argument roaring in the background, "what you're saying is practically admitting we should encourage lazy/player pampering designing" (at least as I imagine it). One, I don't think it's true that it would encourage lazy or even necessarily pampering design. But anyway, I can also just stick with the "economy" argument, even aside from that issue. The idea there is: You get fewer, more resolute people coming to the forums to ask how to *add* droppability (to an undroppable default) when they want to proactively add a design feature that in-game takes away a core functionality to give more player freedom (sort of like coming to ask "how can I let players drop jumping ability" in-game) than the alternative of more people coming to the forums to ask how to revert back to undroppability (from a droppable default) because the default set-up is raising incidental design issues that actually block their vision of clean gameplay throughout their mission and give them something they don't want to proactively think about. Having the default set-up go with the flow is better for economy reasons.

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=10 Have you checked this thread? The FTP is tempermental sometimes.

Erm...I'm not sure what program you need to read .ASE files. Anyone? For most textures we'd need a diffuse and normalmap. A specular is really only needed if the surface is particularly shiny, like metal or cermamics. You should also check out this: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?act=announce&f=4&id=1

Ok, here are a couple models that need skins. You probably need to get the FTP login info from the Information forum first. Waterpump (dark, worn metal) http://208.49.149.118/TheDarkMod/models/pr...misc/WaterPump/ http://208.49.149.118/TheDarkMod/models/pr...PumpNormal.tga/ http://208.49.149.118/TheDarkMod/models/pr...misc/PumpUV.tga Wide Bookshelf (check out the tall one for reference http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=346&st=25) Rather than link directly I'll just give you the folder they're in--there is a highpoly model for constructing normalmaps and then the lowpoly for game use. TheDarkMod/models/props/misc/furniture/Wide Bookshelf/ And a City Well (worn and dirty is fine) ftp://208.49.149.126/TheDarkMod/models/props/misc/Well/ Those are three for starters. There are a few more after that, but those are a good start. Thanks Pink! Let me know if there are any questions/problems.

Or... If you'd rather, you could work on the Objectives gui. It's quite easy and I can give you all the relevant graphics. You'll have to import a new font though (but wait until we're sure which one). http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=3808 What's your preference?

After you have patched it to 1.3, you can apply my patch to update the functionality of the Doom e inspectors window. Just a simple fix to let you minimize it. http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=3086

Well, you could work with Ishtvan on the Mission Statistics gui. I posted the concept in that thread. http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=3800 It uses the same background as these main menus, but you won't really need the graphics in order to start it, right? edit: Don't you have ftp access? I think that's where drumple is posting the menus.

I don't have any particularly clever GUI ideas right now for a Mission Stat screen. I think once upon a time we had talked about doing something similar to a pirates-style summary, complete with graphics: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showt...=618&hl=pirates That might be a little overly ambitious now. edit: Actually, scratch that. I DO have a clever idea. I'll put a mock-up together shortly. Ish, what mission statistics do we record?

Here's the original thread that shows the comparison shots: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showt...roadhead++arrow None of the screenshots showed the fletching of the new arrows which was why I missed them. I do like the shape of the head better, but I'm more comfortable with the size of the original arrow model. Resizing Dram's model might be the best option.

FYI, we got a response from Randy in the other forum: http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?...488#post1462488 I've (or at least a post of mine) never gotten a direct response from a dev, so sort of cool. Sounds like he's not as bitter in retrospect as I had expected. E.g., he recognized that other guys had gone on to do successful things, so it wasn't so much an inevitable clash of personalities but more situational. (I get the feeling he's maybe talking about Spector here? I'd agree it's hard to pin that guy down.) Sounds like a healthier attitude, anyway. He really does come across as sounding like he was going to bat for the fans and the situation soured against him. Something to keep in mind, I guess. I get the feeling the team we have here, for as boorish as it can be at times, has a much healthier environment than was the case for TDS (not a high bar to top, maybe). Not having the market/time pressure and having such a better engine to work with I'm sure helps, but probably also not letting your ambition run away to lose track of what you're doing.

Hello, and welcome to the forums I'll try and answer a few of your questions: If you liked Thief 1/2 (some parts of 3) then you'll like this mod Generally speaking we all loved Thief and are trying to recreate something similar in the D3 engine. Basically, we're making a Thief-ish mod for D3. I'm not sure if we discussed this on the dev forums but I think that if we added shields it would be a bit too much (it's bloody hard enough to hit the guard in the face etc with an arrow as it is). We don't have the random deformation water ala HL1 but we do have water like in HL2. The water effect atm looks very nice and because you'll be easily able to modify the textures etc, you can change the water to look different if you wish etc. Also, there's several types of water, or "liquids". You can easily make your own and this will be in a tutorial. While most people did have swords or whatever in the medieval ages, to see a thief suddenly pop out in front of you is very unnerving, plus he might look like an assassin to you, so you might just get scared shitless. Otherwise, it might be law that no swords to be worn in the street, who knows? In Thief 1/2 there were the Hammerites, which forged their own hammers etc. They also DO swing their creations at you In the DarkMod, the similar faction is Builders. While we are making a campaign later on, we're first releasing a toolset, so it'll be up to FM authors to create levels. So it's up to the FM maker to decide what happens Though we will release a few sample maps to try out an play. I'd love to see some daytime missions, but again, it's up to FM authors to make missions once the toolset comes out Yet again dependant on the FM creator, though we will provide a vast variety of meshes etc that you can use, such as wheelbarrows, etc. It is very easily possible to make a large city map though, so you can easily have several missions happen in the same map. With the sillhouette, don't know how feasible it is or not. The guards' acuity also depends on difficulty, so if you choose Expert, expect nasty surprises > Well we discussed this problem and I believe we came to the conclusion that AI will not climb ladders because it would be a bad idea (in their mind), such as the Thief can wait at the top and kill the guard as he climbs up. There were arguments for it of course, but I think the main issue was balancing it, so we decided against it. Expect better then Thief AI > The mod will be open-source, so you'll be able to mod in whatever you like. Though it's of course limited to free projects, so you can't make money from our free work Hope that answers it all for you

Currently there is a problem with implementing items like torches as prefabs because names are preserved, thus messing up triggering. See: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?s=&sh...indpost&p=70114 Even if the torch problem is fixed in a programmatic way (*crosses fingers*), it would still be useful for other, non standard items, if DarkRadiant had logic built in to preserve assocations/relations, instead of names. E.g., a prefab made up of: torch_trigger_1 torch_light_1 would be "intelligently" duplicated as: torch_trigger_n torch_light_n Where I suppose n could be consecutive numbers within the map (perhaps the first lowest instance among all items within the prefab could be determined), or failing that, perhaps just a random number or string. For instance, "torch_trigger_356a" would rarely collide with another entity of the same name. If it did, the user would only need to generate another. Disclaimer: I don't know for sure this isn't already in GTKRadiant, as I don't currently have it installed.

Just for pak, the two ambients I posted in the Team forums: http://208.49.149.118/TheDarkMod/audio/amb..._greenhouse.ogg http://208.49.149.118/TheDarkMod/audio/amb...s_cementary.ogg

Spring already mentioned the problems with AI waking up, and it is very much a programming issue...as much as a mapping issue. In addition to those problems, you're further encouraging the player to kill..because if the AI won't stay down, they're sure as hell not going to dick around with guards they supposedly knocked out and have to knock out repeatedly. The guards who wake up, would likely also bring in backup...so again, the player is slapped in the face for being stealthy. Knocking out guards is supposed to be a gameplay reward, for using stealth...over..murder. It also throws a wrench into the whole 'no kill' objective that crops up in higher difficulties...what if you're in a heavily populated map and the awakening guards make it next to impossible to finish without becoming completely frustrated? Yes, I know that this can come down to mapping as well, but it's pretty obvious that the gameplay would become severely unbalanced with re-awakening guards. The choice you make...regardless of how miniscule it might seem, is the difference between you being a Thief and a cold blooded killer. Killing AI is louder, more messy and (at least in TDM) more of a hassle...for those who are a little more determined to be a killer, they will just try harder. Blackjacking can still be tricky, but it is encouraged more because it carries moral implications...and the stats will let you know it...or a Failed Mission screen on higher difficulties. At any rate, we discussed the pros and cons to death within our internal dev forums. It's bad for gameplay. Sure, the initial waking up might not be hard...but the introduction of such AI behaviour creates a veritable hell storm of 'extra' gameplay issues to balance. It changes the nature of Thief style gameplay more than you might think...and balancing the system we're already familiar with is going to be challenging enough. It's a 'cool' idea, but not necessarily a good idea for what we're trying to accomplish. Maybe for a different type of game, but not for a Thief game.

No it wasn't...I took it while playing around with the AI. (and it's there to show AI in action, not the map) There's discussion about head-turning here: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=3705

Oh jeez, I didn't mean to start WW3... Look, I just made the assumption, that since you a ) are promoting TDM as a freely available toolkit for making stealth based games and b ) have a public forum where non-contributing parties may discuss the mod, that there was an implicit invitation for ideas, comments, suggestions and criticisms, which I have obviously been making. Now if I am wrong in that respect, it begs the question as to why you have a public forum at all, after all, if you have discussed it all internally and made final decisions, discussing things on a public forum would seem to be a waste of your time, and you might as well close the public forums and just post progress updates on the website. And as Sparhawk says, why would I wan't to go through the process of putting a team together and starting my own project from scratch when there is a free toolkit in development which looks like it will fulfil most of my needs? And since you appear to be inviting public input, why wouldn't I make suggestions for things that would mean less work for me? I don't expect you to follow them up, but it would be nice if there was some serious discussion, not out of hand dismissal, or deliberate misinterpretation of what I am suggesting to avoid a properly considered response. @Domarius, at the risk of causing you a great deal of offense (and I promise you I don't mean to, I really have nothing against you personally), I have to agree with Sparhawk in so far as to say that you do come across as someone who has been formally educated in the creative arts, and it has been my experience that this type of education instills a certain mindset that does come across in your comments. I dropped out of a Fine Arts degree and switched to Science very quickly when I realised how quickly the formal Artistic education was eroding my creativity and ability to think outside the box. This type of education teaches you The Way as though you could formally define artistic works using a formula. this is why most of art, music and computer games come across to me as being formulaic. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say that a formal education in Game Design (for example) is inherently bad, just that it teaches you a certain skills at the expense of some other skills, which are often more important for certain endevaours than the ones you may have been taught. I'm not saying that this applies to you, I don't know you, but I can only go on what you have written in these forums, and all I'm saying is, your comments are consistent with a certain school of thought which I have some difficulties with.