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  1. jaxa

    2016+ CPU/GPU News

    Well, the 7600 XT is considered sus for putting 16 GB on 128-bit, but it clearly works in some scenarios. Also IIRC GDDR7 will have about +30% bandwidth over GDDR6X right out of the gate, rising to about +100% as the generation progresses. Big caches (Infinity Cache L3 for AMD, lots of L2 for Nvidia) have made smaller bus widths more viable, and I think they have improved compression techniques and other factors over time to help alleviate bandwidth demands. There's already a little bit of analysis of what we can expect to see in RDNA3+ and RDNA4, very technical though: https://chipsandcheese.com/2024/02/04/amd-rdna-3-5s-llvm-changes/ I am eager to see if AMD is bold enough to do (or allow AIBs to put) 32 GB on the top RDNA4 card, which has long been rumored to be slower than the 7900 XTX in raster, but will hopefully beat it in raytracing and other areas such as AI/ML perf. And I think that card will have a 256-bit bus and 16 GB memory normally.
  2. The fisheries have had a bad year. Unemployed roam the streets and crowd the pubs. The merchants sleep with one eye open and keep a tight grip on their property amid the unrest. A thief, even a skilled thief like myself, has a hard time finding good, worthwhile work. I began looking for more... unusual tasks. I set my eyes on Thornton Hall, remote and cut off from the outside world. These outlying manors are difficult to find, let alone reach, but they're bound to hold precious trinkets and family heirlooms untouched by anyone. Not few are said to be haunted by one dreadful apparition or another. But it's common for the lords themselves to spread these rumours, to keep unwanted visitors away. This mission is in two parts. Once youre done with the first, on to the next. Download Dropbox- river3In-game downloaderClick continue at the bottom of the login screen if you use the Dropbox link but don't have a login, then place the mission archive in the fms folder of your Dark Mod installation. Changelog, v3, December 14th, 2016: Changelog, v2.5, November 23rd, 2016: Changelog, v2, October 27th, 2016: Notes In response to a question about the relation of this mission to One Step Too Far: This mission started its life as a standalone mission for a Halloween contest, so it takes place in a different setting and begins with its own story. There is, however, a strong link thatll become apparent during the mission. From a mapping perspective it contains areas and ideas that I had originally intended for Of Brambles and Thorns, which is the bonafide sequel, but realised that they wouldn't have space there anymore. So this could be described as being neither sequel nor prequel, but certainly a part of the series that began with One Step Too Far. Solutions Part 1 Part 2 Credits - Inspiration, Story: The Terrible Old Man by H.P. Lovecraft, a short story which leaves much to the imagination. - Inspiration, Setting: Right Up There in the Mountains by Troutpack, a fan mission for Thief 2 which left its mark. - Betatesters Round 1: Abusimplea, ankai, Ryan101, Oldjim, bikerdude - Betatesters Round 2: nbohr1more, bikerdude, crowbars82, jaxa, dunedain19 - Custom voice work: AndrosTheOxen, bikerdude, Goldwell - Custom models: Atheran, epifire, Dragofer - Custom paintings: Airship Ballet - Custom AI path setup: Sotha - Custom ambient tracks: gigagooga, spady, bottle_rocket_fx, dobroide, Dragofer, augustsandberg, bosk1, 01sound - Custom sound effects: kyyrma, cgeffex, speedenza, cabro, joelaudio, robinhood76, klankbeeld, benjaminharveydesign, vate - Bikerdude for not allowing me to stray from the highest standards and perfing troublesome spots - John Atkinson Grimshaw, Ivan Aivazovsyk and William Bradford for paintings used in the briefings and loading screens
  3. aye the rtx 3060 was another weird one, it only has a 128 bit bus which is to low to effectively handle 12 gb so it did not really help with the extra vram in higher resolutions. sadly they decided to continue with the same eh "mistake" with the rtx 4060 16 gb model . id call that deception to make users pay more for a card which is not even rated for 4K... sadly. the 16 gb 3070 model was scrapped by nvidia because it would be a contender for the much higher priced 3080 non ti i guess as it has a 256 bit bus and hence would be a capable 4k card. the 3060 ti 8 gb was a much better card sadly. https://www.techradar.com/reviews/evga-geforce-rtx-3060-black-xc
  4. 2 Ideas: 1. As a temporarly workaround would it be possibe to override the mainmenu_debriefing_video.gui file ? Since it's just a gui it might be possible to place a different kind of briefing gui there. 2. An idea is to place a debriefing button in the mission succes screen, so you can replay the debriefing.
  5. Actually I think I found what's causing issues with my textures: DR changes the texture's Horizontal and Vertical Shift when a face gets slanted. E.g., my test door is facing -Y and sitting flat on the ground, which is at 0 in Z, so the v-shift is 0. When I move the bottom vertices of the door 8 units forward, and then re-fit the texture, the v-shift turns to 4 (3.97241). If I do the same but backward, the v-shift turns to 90.7035. But these values depends on the distance the face is from the world origin, and sometimes if I move the top vertices instead, the values don't change. I can't make sense of it... The other editors don't do this, so the plugin's import code doesn't account for it. Do you think you could help me understand the logic behind this? If I could understand it, maybe I could get the plugin working with it.
  6. The time has finally come for me to release my 5th mission for The Dark Mod. This project started sometime around 2015-2016 (couldn't find any old files to confirm) with me starting poking on a city mission and for some time I built quite randomly without a plan. I expected I could plot a story later; You can never go wrong with a city section, eh? I had a hiatus and did other projects in my life with model painting and skydiving and mapping became more and more scarce. Now and then I felt an itch to map and some kind of responsibility towards the mod team to produce something, to provide and give something back, if you will. At the start of the pandemic I started building more focused on this misson, but still no exact goal on what I wanted to achieve. Finally I decided I wanted a mission where you follow a person and the mission continued to grow in a linear fashion. I am not the quickest mapper and have severe problems on how to imagine a scene without building it first. This means that I often have to redo scenes and lots of stuff gets unnecessarily built just to be removed later, hence the almost absurd build time (about 1900 hours all in all). Betatesting came about and I got very good tips and feedback and decided to redo a lot of the mission. This need for a rework could have killed my motivation but fortunately, as the map was designed, it only required a modest amount of work and the mission became so much better for it! Sometimes I believe I'm somewhat of the uncrowned king of missions with a bit more unusual and experimental playstyles and this mission also have some elements that isn't used that much. In contrast to some of my other missions though, this one isn't depending on any quirky meter or sun shining down on the player (Reap as you sow *cough*). As mentioned, it is a sprawling city mission with lots of exploring that I hope will satisfy you! So DeTeEff gives to you: Who Watches The Watcher? ver 1.0 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YYoJJnxr2UbGxemTR-WoWmH64fbazusH/view?usp=sharing The night is creeping over Bridgeport. You squint in the street lights as you trot down the small alley to where you're about to meet your contact. As a man who straddles the line between lawful and outlaw, it's not often you have peaceful interactions with the City watch but as you're about to learn, this time they have more problems on their hands than to deal with petty thieves like yourself. You see the trademark silhouette of a City watch helmet approaching and you make a last take of your immediate surroundings, should you have to flee if things get awry. The guard presents himself as Albert and you listen carefully to his story and you quickly realise that you don't have much to fear from this man; The Citywatch has wrestled with some internal problems lately with missing reports and evidence that disappear. Albert strongly believes they have a mole on the inside that works for the Greynard RoughBoys; a band of ruthless thugs that doesn't hesitate to maim anyone who oppose them. You learn that he thinks the mole is no other than a Sergeant named Clerwick. Your mission will be to find this man, and collect intelligence on his doings for the night. And as it is payday, you should of course also help the inhabitants to carry some of their heavy purses. Mission type: Creepy elements? Undead? Spiders? Thanks to: My wonderful girlfriend who endures my constant talking about mapping and for helping me with readables and story design and some voice lines. Dragofer - Scripting help Springheel - All those modules Sotha - Hangman model Henrik Swenson for providing some ambients Digiffects Sound Library for some custom sound bites Betatesters: Acolytesix Datiswous Duzenko Jaxa Mezla Nort Prjames Shadow Thebigh Wellingtoncrab Wesp5 And a big thank you to the community for keeping the mod alive! I hope I haven't forgotten anyone... Known bugs: -The AI in TDM is inaccurate in some ways. They will sometimes behave strangely when returning to their original routes after being alerted, like sitting on chairs in weird ways or turning in places, especially if they meet another AI in narrow places. I have done my best to adjust these weird behaviours but with the complexity of everything that's going on and the player making different desicions/noise, it's probably impossible to adjust for everything. I believe I have ironed out the last wrinkles I can, with respect to my knowledge/skills. -Frobbing out of boxes/chests/drawers has always been a pain but I think this is largely an error within the code and how frobing works as the frob highlight wants to lock onto the box itself and not its contents. -There seems to be some kind of bug with the skybox, especially in places where there is water reflections present; The Sky/water volume switch between an opaque variant to a more translucent one. Neither is straight up ugly, but it's jarring to see the sky switch (as it seems randomly). I don't know what is causing this, and I have decided to let this one pass (if any players knows what is causing this, please let me know so can I squash this annoying bug. PLEASE POST ANY QUESTIONS/SPOILERS IN SPOILER BRACKETS
  7. TDM 15th Anniversary Contest is now active! Please declare your participation: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22413-the-dark-mod-15th-anniversary-contest-entry-thread/

     

  8. Conrad Turner's room. I am having difficulty with the cupboard and combination lock in one of the apartments. I can't find any books or papers giving any clues. I watched a walkthrough on youtube but no answers there. Can anyone help ?
  9. Ah, pity I wasn't reading the forums back in February. I'm fond of that game, along with Bugbear's other early title, Rally Trophy. I was never too good at FlatOut, but it was always a hoot to play.
  10. I modified the standard mainmenu_briefing.gui file to add an extra button in the center that directs to another page: Then If you click on button StartLocation, you get to another page, where I still have to add the starter locations and you have a Briefing button, to get back to the briefingtext: Code for only this part (might still have some unneeded code) : Question: How do I remove the up and down navigation-buttons that are still present on this page? I already tried: set "scrollDown::visible" "0"; set "scrollUp::visible" "0";
  11. Type of mission: Mansion/Estate/Horror Story: Lord Blackgrove recently purchased a rare expensive artifact. The whole family has now disappeared leaving the manor empty. Time to check out the manor and see if the artifact can be found. Build time: My first map ever, 300 hours (5 months). Credits: Kingsal - Breaker script for light switches and elevator Dragofer - Ambience Track 'Intent' Springheel and Sotha - Video Tutorials (those videos really helped) Feedback and testing: Cambridge Spy, Dragofer, nbohr1more, Acolytesix, wesp5, Shadow, Zerg Rush, AluminumHaste, prjames The whole community. Download (1.03): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wZc_nqHoX7kQvzfg08EpoRy2hyuH7mw3/view?usp=sharing Edit: Version 1.02 provides large performance improvements in the outdoor areas. Be sure to set TDM Object Details (LOD) to Normal (or lower) to take advantage of some of the optimizations. Edit: Version 1.03 further improves performance around hedges thanks to HMart's alternative hedge model. I’ve had a mission like this in mind for years. My main influences and inspirations are: Deus Ex - Chateau DuClare (https://youtu.be/9QLT_l8aH78) Clive Barker’s Undying - Main Mansion (https://youtu.be/t8PyXhCQB3Q?t=90) Thief Deadly Shadows - Shalebridge Cradle (Almost everyone should be very familiar with this one) (https://youtu.be/Rw4YZuRUgXA) In case anyone gets stuck and needs help, I’ve listed some questions and answers below that will hopefully help. FAQ
  12. That's what I was afraid of. After making sure the file I had in the base skins directory was correct, I managed to find it in the sea of skins. Well at least now it shows up. Thanks for all the help everyone. Now to figure out how to put skins into folders...
  13. Rest assured, I haven't received nothing but praise thus far. Most of the constructive criticism about this FM's design arose during beta testing, and Dragofer in particular gave me a very useful write-up about what can be improved next time. Some examples being that he FM is a bit too spacious at times, its difficulty is rather low (a sentiment shared by thebigh), and the house design is a bit strange or tubular as a result of the FM's more linear nature. It's all been invaluable feedback as I continue to learn DR, and I intend to write up a post-first FM release retrospective near the end of this week going over what I've learned. I'm quite overjoyed about all the positive feedback I've received thus far, but that's not because I'm afraid of criticism, rather I was afraid of how a less traditional mission would be received by the community. I wanted to make something a bit weird with my first mission, and I was wary of how a short, linear mission with a limited player toolset would be viewed. Fortunately, the community has been very welcoming and accepting of weird little ideas, and I intend to take what I've learned into my next project right after my eyes stop burning from all those late-night Dark Radiant sessions. I hope you enjoy the FM, Chakkman!
  14. Hi, I've tried to install the latest version of TDM four times now (no previous installation), each time I get the same error: ERROR: Unexpected CURL error 56 on URL The urls seem to change (examples are http://darkmod.taaki.za.net/release/zipsync/release/release200/tdm_textures_metal01.pk4, /tdm_models02.pk4, /tdm_textures_carpet01.pk4) but the installation always fails around 20% of the way through. Am I doing something wrong? I tried the default mirror and the German mirror (also version 211 just in case). I'm using Windows 10 (64 bit) and don't seem to be having any internet issues that would cause the error. Any help would be appreciated!
  15. The real St. Alban was a pagan who became a celebrated religious personality, this All Saints Day 2010 The Dark Mod places its own spin on this mythical figure. Screenshots: Intro: "'Business' has been slow lately, even more so after most of my gear got snatched during a Watch raid... I've since been forced to hit the streets and pick pockets for a living. But my luck was about to change, last night I was approached by a red hooded figure with a proposition... As we sat down in a dark corner of a nearby inn, he told to me that the Builders of St. Alban's Cathedral in the Old Quarter had recently unearthed a discovery that might lead to the final resting place of some saint." " But before I do anything, I need to get my tools and stash from the evidence room at the local watch station." "with the hawks, doves will congregate they will drop honey from the cliffs wine will surge over the earth the sheep will wander harmlessly with the wolf then the wicked will rise, but to retribution" - 'scripture of St Alban' There is a new version out now, see the following thread St Albans Cathedral version 1.6 Build Time: about 2-3 months. Thanks:- Huge respect to the Dark Mod team for such a great mod and for all the hard work they put into it and continue to put into it. Special thanks to Fidcal, Serpentine and others for their help on the forums and to Testing:Ugoliant, Baddcog, Grayman, Lost soul, Bjorn and Baal (for doing all the Vp work in the town. Readables: Ungoliant and Mortemdesino for all awesome work on the readables. Resource: Fids, Grayman, Ungoliant - guis, models & images. Misc: Loren Schmidt - the author of the map I based the cathedral on. Info: # Like Thief2, some things are climable, pipes, wall vines etc.. You can also drop some of the keys, some door that are frobbabe mean there is another way inside - explore u taffer! # Due to TDM being a lot more of a resource hog than T2 I have been forced to limit the number of Ai in the mission, but they have better placement than my last mission. # On all difficulty levels the player starts with vertualy no tools/weapons, there are weapons to be found - read, read, read! # For the love of all that is holy, read the briefing otherwise you will problems completing the mission. Known issues:- # This mission will have less than optimal fps at a few points on the map, mid range DX9 card(X1900/GF7800) or higher required. # On low end PCs I recommend, V-sync is off, AA is off, Aniso is 4x or lower and that any and all background apps are closed.
  16. Edit: Ok well I asked @greebo before (in this topic) if he could help out with this, because he made my wiki account, but that was a couple of years ago and he hasn't been around much recently.
  17. Okay... so... I'll be honest. The verticality of the first mission blew my mind, made me really pay attention, explore. But the verticality of this mission made me frustrated. It didn't help that I kept stumbling upon things, without context. Moreover, some areas didn't have anything, but were traversable, while others had a plenty and required not a clear and direct path but some convoluted route that wasn't obvious to me. And the size of the level... It took me 4 and a half hours to search every nook and cranny, find and complete all objectives and discover the loot. But that time was split between two days, because I could only play before work, and I experienced CTD whenever I'd draw a bow inside the manor. So by the end I ran around like a headless chicken, trying to remember where I've left this NPC and where is that NPC and where the safe is... Now... some things really gave me a pause. For example, the direction of our poor LT's life XD Or the fact that we had such a horrible person working for our Target. But I really liked the story here. All the twists, the clues (that little thing in the cabinet damn), I liked using Thief's Highway... but man was I lost there. I would like to know... how was I supposed to find the Barrel? I had no real reason to actually head there aside from "I see a window open". But since I was thorough, I found the Barrel there before the readable mentioning it in the same place. Was there a hint pointing me there to begin with? (Did I miss it, like the combination to the safe the first time?) Also - the Safehouse dude was freaking me out.
  18. I suppose your right. The Dark Mod was originally made to be a challenge for those familiar with the Thief games, in terms of difficulty and perhaps lower in accessibility to the newer players. It wasn't meant to be a re-creation of what its like to fight or sneak or stealth takedown enemies at all of those games or to mimick real life in anyway. Its just supposed to put all our skills to the test. With that said, I sorta wish the dark mod took a different turn and made the gameplay and difficulty more organic and natural, rather than always relying on bumping it up by forcing certain rules on myself when playing. Like no tools except lockpicks, no KO's, and no killing any human NPC's, put everything back where it was except loot, and keep being spotted to a minimum by only moving around when the enemies our out of sight if I can help it. Your mod is certainly a improvement by a significant margin because its got some consistency that I appreciate And its also got a whistle and peek through doors Great work of course.
  19. 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:
  20. Good day, I am the kind of guy who will say that he is incredibly busy and the like, but my actual excuse is that I don't have much motivation to learn how to make maps. However, I still have so many ideas that I think they might be good for "The Dark Mod", I'm sure some of you mappers might have the motivation to make maps, but no idea as to what to make or how, well this topic, hopefully, will help you greatly in making an amazing fan mission where we all have the fun we ALL deserve. I would like to organize this by one thread, many posts, because I think it would be best to have all my ideas in one thread instead of various, else people might get sick and tired of it, part of human nature to dislike the same ol' however good or bad it may be. So you may see some little bit of "disorganization", but rest assured I put keywords to easily find stuff. Also, there's probably gonna be "double post"...So I hope I'm exempt, at least in this here thread. You may ask whatever you want; suggestions, questions, a revision of my own idea, how should this be done...Etc etc, right in here, no problem. By the way, I have a feeling some of you may ask regarding trademark, ownership or credits, well... I do not care about them at all, as long as you don't do any commercial thing about it. If you get paid for making the mission, that's okay, you are the one making it, my idea is just an idea. For credits, I don't mind them, if you want to credit me you may go ahead, "Idea by The Black Arrow". If not, I am fine with that as well. I only care that you make a very good mission, I'm rather strict with that myself. PLEASE NOTE: This should be for mission-makers only, as there are a lot of spoilers
  21. As someone who tends to alert guards often and occasionally stir trouble when going through a FM, I noticed some major issues when it comes to AI realism and awareness during combat or when guards face difficult situations. Everything's fine when AI go about their usual patrols... once trouble takes place however, the illusion falls apart as guards act like they're less self aware than a toddler. Indeed AI realism can't be improved past a certain point as there's a limit to the effort the team can put into something so complex... yet I do believe a few improvements can make AI behavior much more realistic and exciting. After analyzing this issue for a long time, I decided to put it all it into a few main points... I apologize for their length as I wanted to go in a bit of detail on each one, hope folks have the time and patience to read them. Biggest issue is AI are unaware of where attacks are coming from. I recently made another thread on how I climbed on a table and blackjacked two guards to death as they sat there doing nothing, something that also happens when shooting them with arrows as guards only explore the nearby area. The issue seems to be that AI don't account for the direction a hit comes from, they only know something hit them but act as if it must be some mystical force of nature: If you're sitting in a parking lot and an asshole neighbor throws a tomato at you from his balcony, you aren't going to cluelessly investigate the road in front of you when the projectile clearly came from behind and hit you in the back of the head, instead you'll storm into the building and start looking for which of the neighbors facing that side of the road may be the culprit. Despite voice barks existing for this exact scenario, we never see AI running to get help from other AI. NPC's will do one of two things: If armed and with enough health they will attack or search for you nearby, if hurt or unarmed flee to a random location. I've never seen an AI consciously run up to another AI asking for help and bringing them to where they spotted me, even when fleeing the AI seems to go to a random location. They don't share knowledge with each other generally speaking: The only awareness AI spread to other AI is alert level, meaning NPC A becomes alert if it sees or hears that NPC B is alert too... beyond that there's no coherence or actual cooperation, the voices may indicate some form of searching together but friendly NPC's are never seen actually engaging. Another big issue is voices being played (or not played) in disconnect with what's actually going on. There are AI voices for most important circumstances but they're very rarely activated: It's a miracle to hear a guard say "someone's been hurt" or "there's a body here" when noticing someone who's unconscious or dead. What seems to happen is if AI was already alerted by another peculiarity such as a noise, they're no longer surprised by anything else and won't play the voices designated for that scenario, so they'll only mention a body if that's the first thing to alert them in any way. Furthermore AI don't actively talk with each other while searching together, everyone acts as if they're on their own and not a team. What happens after a conflict is over. For this discussion I won't focus on better permanent alerts, that has greater difficulty implications and I think I made a separate thread on it a while back. The problem I noticed is once the immediate alert has gone down, AI return to full normality and act abnormally calm: The idle voices change from saying things like "it's a quiet night" to "we've got an intruder" but that's about it. In any realistic scenario even a trained guard would be shocked after being in a fight or finding a body. Below I'll list the immediate improvements I see to those problems, which without having an understanding the code myself am presuming can be changed without too much effort: When an enemy hits the AI with any weapon, the AI should be alert to the estimate location of the shooter. If you're standing atop a tower and fire an arrow at a guard, the guard shouldn't draw his sword and look around their nearby vicinity like a fool, but instead run up to the tower where you're standing granted they can pathfind their way to that location. If the player is far away the destination should be fuzzy and a random location nearby, thus the guard won't run to your exact location but will still climb the stairs and enter a room near it. AI need to learn how to ask for help instead of fleeing to random places when not attacking. If an ally who isn't already alert can be found nearby, the scared AI should explicitly run to their location tell them where you are then have the ally either run to your location (if armed) or go to another ally to get them to your location (if unarmed). Even if an AI is already alert, finding a body or dropped weapon or broken arrow should result in the AI speaking the voice line for that circumstance, only being engaged in combat should suppress it. I'd go further and support repeating those voice lines: A guard yelling "we have a dead body" several times during the first seconds of discovery would make them appear more shocked. Similarly talking to a nearby guard shouldn't be done just once when the two first meet: When multiple AI are searching for you, they should constantly alternate between single voice lines (eg: "I bet you're right over there in those shadows") and looking at another guard to talk to colleagues (eg: "I know I saw him here keep searching"), this would be a huge improvement since guards currently act like they're completely unaware of each other during a coordinated search. Making guards permanently affected after an incident is a trickier one but a few tweaks could improve it. The most immediate solution would be changing the idle animations: Instead of stretching or blowing their noses or eating candy, AI should be seen randomly cowering or face-palming or even playing the scout animation to look around carefully. One suggestion I'd absolutely throw here: If the AI found a dead body from an ally, have them cry occasionally... I think that would be an interesting and unexpected detail, that will also get players to think and feel more about the consequences of their actions and how they affect the world. There are other ones I could get into, but some would be more difficult and likely not worth trying to solve. Most notable and worthy of at least a mention is how AI walk over the bodies of fallen friends as if they're doormats: Obviously there's no way to have them drag bodies to the side, but maybe an avoidance mechanism so they don't look like jackasses trying to profane their dead friends by literally stepping all over them could be a fix for that as well! Let me know what you think of those points and if there are other AI issues you've noticed yourself or better solutions you can think of: I'm not sure if I got everything here but I definitely believe the problems exist and we could make the world more natural and immersive with some simple fixes.
  22. I have the elemental issue. The first room doesn't need them for progress, but the second does. Not a single elemental teleports me. I used noclip to fly into the room to press the button and then ran to the exit. The third room had TWO elementals working. Orange and Blue, I think. But! In addition to the other two not working, the KEYS I need are missing in all four rooms. If I use "Show_Keys" command, they display them, but they're not even inside the pedestals. I bypassed that with Noclip again. The rest worked fine, every TP that supposed to work - does work, so I finally completed it. I liked it, but now I can't help but wonder what "piece of evidence" she meant On a fun (probably unrelated) note, when you get captured, you still have a blackjack and sword in your inventory, but you can't pull them out. So I thought my hands were invisible. Out of curiosity, I grabbed one of the knocked out guards and carried him inside the mansion... Yup, I still have him on my shoulders after waking up!
  23. Subtitle capabilities available in 2.10/2.11 are described in the wiki "Subtitles". For info about one new project using these capabilities, see the thread "English Subtitles for AI Barks". That project includes development of a TDM subtitle style guide. The thread here is mainly focused on ideas that would require future engine changes to implement. A. Automatic Switching Between Subtitle Languages Based on Settings This is a follow-on of a forum discussion between datiswous and Geep. It is desirable to have a standardized method for: subtitles to be authored in multiple languages, and so packaged and distributed as part of TDM and its FMs a gamer to dynamically select subtitles in a desired language The subtitle language choice might be controlled by the existing TDM language choice within Settings, or a separate "Subtitles Language" setting. B. Other Possible Improvements Requiring Engine Changes Most of these involve allowing the subtitle code to know something about game entities, and convey that to the gamer. Examples of useful knowledge: the ID of the speaker (or other source) the location of the speaker, relative to the player, the player's view, and other speaking AI. This type of information helps to disambiguate when there are multiple voices present. There are lots of ways such info is visually conveyed in other subtitle/caption systems, and might be added to TDM. C. Providing Subtitles for Existing FX These would have the "verbosity effects" subtitle tag. Beyond 2.11 capabilities, some of the location aspects of (B) would be pertinent.
  24. Those fire arrows are OP. I mean... don't change them, but maybe have them react with holy water to increase range? XD (Is that a thing?) You could, technically, make him either too parched to speak, mute altogether (hence why he lived, since he didn't scream and zombies didn't notice) or too shaken to talk. Maybe write a little lore piece where the PC recognizes the survivor as someone who was a good man (unlike our slave driver) and could incite the Player to help him (with an optional mission) Maybe have an option to bring him IN (if you found the other key) or bring him OUT (if you didn't) but you'd some food for both of you.
  25. Uploaded with ImageShack.us Infiltrate a keep and steal information. Took me a while to finnish this one, motivation comes and goes! I would like to thank nbohr1more and Pranqster for helping me test the mission and help sort out any problems. Bikerdude for fixing a lighting error. nbohr1more also made the awesome font for the preview att the missions section! And last but no least The Dark Mod team for making all of this possible! All your hard work is much appreciated! Errors and other dissapointing stuff No map Sitting ai will sometimes sit midair if alerted Sleeping ai might also sleep midair if alerted. Crouching on the balcony with your light on may/will cause fps to drop. No title on loading screen (Prefer it that way) Tell me if you spot anymore and i will update. Enjoy http://www.thedarkmo...ndetails/?id=56 http://www.gamefront...ftheo__2__2.pk4 http://www.4shared.c...theo__2__2.html /Theo
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