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Plot: Act 1: Player is a sneaky ratman or ratwomen breaking free from pagan slavers, finding all members of their enslaved family, freeing them one by one and bringing em home. Act 2: Builders raid the rat village kill some ratpeople and steal an artifact of immense religious importance. Player gets tasked to recover the artifact and follows the builders to their outpost. Player somehow gets hold of the artifact and brings it back to the ratpeople village. It is decided that the infinite growth of the human settlements endangers the rat people as a whole and that something has to be done against that. But knowledge about the enemy is scarce and player is one of the very few, who can speak "human" (actually pagan, but close enough). So player gets send to infiltrate the next city with a tinkerer (maintains the player's gear) and a granny which happens to be the only one available who can read and write human (she is supposed to teach player that skill). Player makes camp somewhere reasonably safe outside next non-pagan human settlement and does some reconnaissance and resource gathering missions. As new villagers seem to mainly come from an actual city, that city becomes the new exploration target. The three ratpeople travel to the city, make camp somewhere safe outside, find a way in, find a safe place in the sewers and make camp there. More reconnaissance and resource gathering missions happen. It becomes more and more obvious, that resistance would be futile. The humans are just too many. The three ratpeople travel back to their village and report to the council of the united ratpeople tribes. The decision is to mount a covert resistance with the intent to delay the human expansions until some more sustainable solution is found. Act 3: Player has most experience in human-controlled area, so it is them who gets to do business in the big port city where all the support from the human's mainland arrives. From the sewer base, reconnaissance, sabotage and support missions to strengthen the local gangs (which are hostile to each other) are done. This is the longest act. Shittons of different missions are done by the player. The city becomes more and more chaotic. Sometimes the player sets stuff on fire. Sometimes they steal extremely valuable items, sometiems they frame officials - or assassinate them... Places get heavier guarded and look more and more desolate. Gang contacts yield opportunities for missions too. Message arrives from home that a solution might have been found. Player is to find out of the whereabouts of an ancient artifact and recover it. Player discovers in missions that the artifact has been brought to a keep in the human's homeland. So player needs to somehow travel to the human homeland with one of humans' big ships. Player is in a huge port city in humans' homeland. Finds a new hideout in the sewers (seriously the only place humans don't like to lurk around) and does reconnaissance missions to find out where the keep is. At that occasion, some opportunity sabotage and assassinations can be executed too. Player finds out where teh keep is and travels there. Player finds a way into the keep, finds out where the artifact is, finds out how to get through the mundane and magical safety and security measures and steals the artifact. The artifact immediately takes ownership of the player and commands them to collect the other artifacts of its set. Player travels to other places and does missions to retrieve the artifacts. Player immediately knows where the artifacts are which aren't protected but also has to do missions to find out where the protected ones are kept. The artifacts are reunited, player does the ritual to combine them and the entity within them demands a new worthy body and a kingdom to rule over. Player finds out where the humans' king is and gets closer and closer, finally touching the king with the artifact. The artifact disintegrates, its former tenant moves inside the king, the possession of player ends and player immediately kills the king (there is a reason why that entity could have been captured in the first place) and the entity is gone (probably just died like a normal person) - but so are the artifacts. Player travels back to port city, finds a ship headed towards home, sets sail - and arrives at port city it rat peoples' homeland. the city is more or less like it was when player left - just a bit more run down. Player travels back to their rat people village and reports. Act 4: Missing other options, the rat council decides to continue the covert resistance against the city dwelling humans. The pagans have "joined" the resistance mainly by raiding weaker frontier villages. But they also raid more in general now. So the player is sent to investigate, why... But that is content for the first DLC. Gameplay: Semi-open maps (maybe even a whole village as "open world" but no actual open-world-sized open world). Mechanics that interact with eachother waiting to be exploited by players in (un)anticipated ways. Real shadows, real sounds, some parcour (plus sliding down ladders/pipes/ropes, hanging down ledges and procedural free climbing). The blackjack, the rat's claws, the rat's teeth, the broadhead (but none of the other arrow types). No mines or grenades in most missions (just an unlimited supply of stones for distraction). No potions (maybe holy water to throw on the ground or directly at undead), healing by eating (very slow regeneration). Lockpicks with various designs (the minigame is the same but you don't have to choose the pick or change it in the middle and for some locks a purely cosmetic tension wrench is used for immersion's sake too). Missions are selected from the main menu, from a menu when using an exfiltration point, from a menu that pops up when frobbing a map in one of the hideouts or camps - or by talking with other people. Where game world consistency allows for it, missions are playable in any order. Once-completed missions can be replayed at any time. You can save whenever you want like in TDM and there are autosaves triggered on mission start/completion, map change and at mission-specified events. Tech & development: Unreal Engine 5, SpeedTree, prerendered AI-generated voices (they are good enough now), game mechanics from TDM plus a bit more procedural parcour, better physics and a dialog system. The stim system is rad and has to be in there too. Missions are mostly like small-to-medium-sized TDM maps. Assets are made in Blender, maps are made in Unreal. If something is needed that is missing in unreal or Blender, a plugin for Unreal or Blender is created... As it is impossible to fund such a niche game completely in advance, the game is developed as early access with modding as first-class citizen from the start and all plugins are released as FOSS as they are made (hoping to establish a Bethesda-style long-tail business due to people still buying the game ten years after creation because they want to play the mods).

Are there any missions that everyone agrees are simply unmissable, and if so, what would they be?

There's now an editable fan mission list on the wiki, for the sake of tracking missions made for The Dark Mod. Please read and follow the guidelines, and help keep the list up to date! Direct link, but also accessible from the wiki title page: http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Fan_Missions_for_The_Dark_Mod Discussion of changes (format, policies, entries, etc.) can take place in this thread. --------------------------------------- There is also now a wiki page to track upcoming fan missions: http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Upcoming_Fan_Missions Submissions, progress, and any discussion for missions under construction can take place here: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/11639-upcoming-fan-missions/

Why can the official missions not be updated via the mission downloader? These are just fm's. This would give us players earlier fixes, instead of having to wait another year. This makes no sense to me.

So while testing the recent frobaction changes for the Unofficial Patch, I installed TDM 2.10/64 fresh from ModDB onto a new computer. Then I downloaded all available missions and I was a little surprised that at least 22 missions were not available from the server the game selected! I could recognize this, because for the patch I fixed some of the mission names and when I applied them, I ended up with lots of empty folders. Some missing missions are very old and basic, like the "Sound alert trainer", others rather new and recent, like "Lucy's Quest". Sometimes in a campaign the earlier missions were available (William Steele 1-4) while newer ones were not (William Steele 5-7). How can this happen? Have some of the servers not the complete list of missions available? If so, how can I select another server? How does the game choose these servers anyway? Both systems are in the same city in the same country, one is behind a firewall while the other isn't.

After several months of hard work, we are proud to announce the latest edition of "No Honor Among Thieves"!!! EFX EDITION!!! EFX reverb has been added to all missions! NHAT has never been more immersive. From the dry woody reverb of the local pub to the sonorous and lofty echo of the Cathedrals, prepare your ears for a auditory treat! PERFORMANCE!!! Several major sore spots that impacted performance in v3 and older have been substantially optimized. Players with less capable hardware will now be less frustrated traversing caves, courtyards, and forests. VISUALS!!! Many areas have been visually overhauled!!! Improved lighting, new scene geometry, new textures, new water effects ( thanks @Arcturus !!! ), more vertex blended terrains, and more. Some areas have been visually redesigned to better match the story and convey the key characters. GAMEPLAY!!! Some new play areas have been added. A little more rooftop action is available for climbers. A few new readables for side characters expand the lore of the mission. Improved AI scripted events in the final mission escape sequence!!! Other things: The ROQ videos have been converted to MP4 to make them more compatible with the latest TDM versions. This mission still uses 2.09 style API controlled videos, we will rework the menu gui to be 2.10 (beta) compatible shortly so that "Dev Build" players can enjoy the additional performance and improvements available in those builds. Credits: @Bikerdude for the majority of the mapping work in this overhaul @Dragofer for assisting with scripting and def setup @nbohr1more new cathedral textures and improved water material def setup, a few readables @Arcturus MD3 animated water and water textures Original crew: @Goldchocobo @RailGun @Mortem Desino who created the original version along with updates to versions up to v2.0. Thank you for permission work on this update! V4 Beta testers: @AluminumHaste @JackFarmer Screenshots: Hotfix release: Should fix two minor issues: Newest Hotfix: Gdrive - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1e_LHa4RdZ0a1AD3FhgLq7OwvBmWUchJZ/view?usp=sharing Onedrive - https://1drv.ms/u/s!AuwAFc1gTZzehn0z9PsAVEIH0iFn?e=Gj0p6O ( Some additional performance optimization to the forest and fixes to other items found by Biker and Aluminumhaste in another round of testing.) For those of you who are testing the Dev Builds ( 2.10 alpha ), here is a 2.10 compliant version: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xyPwDQjMQH1TAH98Vd29UUiB0Nki1-7j/view?usp=sharing

"Samhain... the festival of the new year, the harvest, the onset of winter, and celebration of the dead. The pagans who celebrate it are likely dancing around fires in the forest right about now. The Builders see to it that the celebrations don't take place in the city. The townsfolk mostly stay indoors this night. A good night for me to go looting. I have something special in mind this year... (more) ... (the tomb) houses a large Ruby which nobody has ever been able to steal, though every few years some taffer decides to try... ... I have never been a superstitious man, and nobody in this town has my skills. This year the ruby will be mine. Bugger their stupid curse. This should be easy. The town is quiet and the cemetery unlikely to have guards or many visitors this night. It should be a simple matter of entering the tomb, prying up the ruby, and leaving." Download Links: Samhain --- Version 3.2 Samhain Night by PranQster My second mission, third release 2011 Halloween Contest speed build entry Version 3.2 (updated) Build Time: v1: 3 weeks, Sept. 18, 2011 - Oct. 09, 2011 v2: 2-3 hours, Oct. 06, 2013 v3: a few hours spread out over 6+months Credits: The TDM community Special Thanks: Nosslak for the plague mask and Springheel for the jack-o-lantern packaged in previous versions Changes: 3.1 : Added openal/EFX support. 3.2 : Some texture and lighting changes and other minor tweaks. Known Issues: I see some patch shadows in a few places. Some AI sink into the patchwork a little bit. Lighting is goofy, but so is the whole mission.

Is "assets" synonymous to "media/gamedata"? And are you referring to the 2.3 GB media/gamedata included in TDM at install? If all 2.3 GB media/gamedata were removed from the "TDB-libre" version, then no license change would be needed. Say then we have a small fan mission that is entirely libre, built entirely from libre assets and created to intentionally avoid using any of the current 2.3 GB media/gamedata. If we wanted to play that mission using only the source code, what media/gamedata components would be missing to do that? * GUI graphics and music? * HUD elements? * Any in-game sounds? * Inventory objects? * ... anything else that can neither be included in the mission's own media/gamedata, nor avoided during mission design? I'm assuming here that a mission actually can include its own media/gamedata (textures, sound, models), but I may be wrong and I'm grateful for any explanation that helps me understand. If you ask me, the TDM-installer works perfectly already today, and the instructions are brief and easy to follow. Installation from the Debian repository would be somewhat easier, but I also see other (perhaps greater) benefits which I mentioned earlier.

There's something fairly unique in TDM, at least as far as I've seen in a user-made game. I remember when grayman passed away last year, it wasn't long before we started seeing missions that had memorials dedicated to him implemented somewhere within the missions themselves. I can't remember the exact missions I've seen with grayman memorials of some sort, but I've definitely seen at least three. Just small things, in most cases requiring a little extra work from the player to find them always tastefully done. Well I was recently replaying a bunch of missions and came across this within a recessed area in a mission called The Warrens, an area I hadn't discovered in previous playthroughs: Sir Taffaslot was another mission creator who made a handful of missions who also tragically died a few years ago. The amazing thing is not only is it a nice little memorial to just randomly find when playing, but the author of this particular map (The Warrens)? grayman. Hell the guy even made a dedicated mission as a tribute to Sir Taffaslot. So yeah. We may just be "nothing more than a cult posing as a game development project", but it does bring a tear to my eyes sometimes in way most other games don't.

Hey marbleman. Just taking the opportunity to thank you for your walkthrough vids of Thief 1, 2 and TDM missions. I found quite a bit of help with finding stuff in there. Thanks for your missions as well.

After taking a gaming break for 1 week, i decided to get back into playing games yesterday especially stealth game like TDM. Coincidentally, this new fan mission appeared in the online mission archive when i was clicking "download mission" button, so I decided to download & try playing it. I like this manor/estate fan mission so far. i like the starting point of this FM where you have to venture silently into small-scale spider-infested forest. On a related note, i have sporadic spider phobia and again this mission helped me to desensitize myself to spider. I usually find the entry point to the manor disguised as a wall with loose bricks or covered with tall green grass but i have to find stone walled key for this one

New script for mappers: my flavour of a fog density fading script. To add this to your FM, add the line "thread FogIntensityLoop();" to your map's void main() function (see the example in fogfade.script) and set "fog_fade" "1" on each foglight to enable script control of it. Set "fog_intensity_multiplier" on each info_location entity to change how thick the fog is in that location (practically speaking it's a multiplier for visibility distance). Lastly, "fog_fade_speed" on each foglight determines how quickly it will change its density. The speed scales with the current value of shaderParm3, using shaderParm3 = 1000 as a baseline. So i.e. if shaderParm is currently at 1/10th of 1000, then fade speed will be 1/10th as fast. Differences to Obsttorte's script: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/14394-apples-and-peaches-obsttortes-mapping-and-scripting-thread/&do=findComment&comment=310436 my script uses fog lights you created, rather than creating one for you. Obsttorte's script will delete the foglight if entering a fogfree zone and recreate it later more than one fog light can be controlled (however, no per-fog-light level of control) adding this to the map requires adding a line to your void main() script, rather than adding an info_locations_settings entity with a custom scriptobject spawnarg in my script, mappers set a multiplier of fog visibility distance (shaderParm3), while in Obsttorte's script a "fog_density" spawnarg is used as an alternative to shaderParm3 smaller and less compactly written script fogfade.scriptfogfade.map

The attribution ("BY") part of the CC-licenses requires: 1) You must give appropriate credit, 2) provide a link to the license, 3) and indicate if changes were made. The TDM license provides a link to the CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0 license, so part (2) could be said to be fulfilled. For (1) I would expect that each asset author is somehow credited by name and a link if the asset was found online, and for (3) I would expect a comment saying something if a change was made to the asset before it was added to TDM. Correct me if I'm wrong, but there are currently no core assets licensed as anything else than CC-BY-NC-SA. If there are, please tell me how to find them and how I can read their respective licenses. I don't think there is a way to track licenses on a per-asset-basis. I raised that question in this topic. Given the thousands of hours of work put into this game, I wouldn't want to leave it to chance... This licensing stuff may not be the hottest topic, but it may be worth talking about to prevent unpleasant surprises. Agree. And that a mapper working in Dark Radiant can see the license for each asset when they choose which asset to use, as suggested in the "tracking licenses"-thread I mentioned above. Yes, a mapper who wants to create a libre mission will have restrictions on which assets to use. If they don't require their mission to be libre, it will work as usual. If there is a way to add libre assets to the core assets, then it will get easier with time. Under current circumstances, a libre mission will not be nearly as good as any of the few missions I have played so far, but I wouldn't go so far as to call it pointless. I think it would be good enough to qualify the mission+engine as a game and get it into e.g. both the Debian repository and the LibreGameWiki. It's a starting point and hopefully it can attract the attention of more people wanting to work on the game. "def files" are CC-BY-NC-SA according to the TDM license. Does anyone know which license the core scripts are?

DarkRadiant 3.8.0 is ready for download. What's new: Feature: Support new frob-related material keywords Improvement: Mission selection list in Game setup is not alphabetically sorted Improvement: Better distinction between inherited and regular spawnargs Improvement: Silence sound shader button Improvement: Add Reload Definitions button to Model Chooser Fixed: Model Selector widgets are cut off and flicker constantly on Linux Fixed: DarkRadiant will not start without Dark Mod plugins Fixed: GenericEntityNode not calculating the direction correctly with "editor_rotatable" Fixed: RenderableArrow not drawing the tip correctly for arbitrary rotations Fixed: Light Inspector crashes on Linux Fixed: Models glitch out when filtering then showing them Fixed: Skin Editor: models not centered well in preview Fixed: "Copy Resource Path" includes top level folders Fixed: Skin Editor: internal test skins are shown if Material Editor was open previously Fixed: Changing Game/Project doesn't update loaded assets correctly Fixed: Model Chooser: initially hidden materials aren't revealed when enabling them Fixed: Choosing AI entity class 'atdm:townsfolk_commoner_update' causes crash Fixed: Sporadic assertion failure on shutdown due to LocalBitmapArtProvider destruction Fixed: Prefab Selector spams infinite error dialogs on Linux Windows and Mac Downloads are available on Github: https://github.com/codereader/DarkRadiant/releases/tag/3.8.0 and of course linked from the website https://www.darkradiant.net Thanks to all the awesome people who keep using DarkRadiant to create Fan Missions - they are the main reason for me to keep going. Please report any bugs or feature requests here in these forums, following these guidelines: Bugs (including steps for reproduction) can go directly on the tracker. When unsure about a bug/issue, feel free to ask. If you run into a crash, please record a crashdump: Crashdump Instructions Feature requests should be suggested (and possibly discussed) here in these forums before they may be added to the tracker. The list of changes can be found on the our bugtracker changelog. Keep on mapping!

The only parts I struggled with was finding my way through the sewers and into the apartment with the elevator. Aside from that I remember this being a mission that contains everything I love about fan missions.

What a masterpiece you people have created!!!! Is surely on the very top of the missions I have played so far. The docks area was absolutely lovely, so much that I hesitated to enter the mansion, even after fulfilling the optional loot goal on expert, as I wanted to keep searching the area for ever. All that crazy mandling all around!!!!! And, then, here came the mansion!!!! Thank you all for your great work!

Thanks, that would be one of the issues down. Could you also make it so when both creep and run are set to toggle, toggling one on also turns the other off? This way whenever you come out of running or creeping, you know you'll be back to walking instead of jumping straight to the other mode. Currently creeping blocks running entirely, you need to manually turn it off before the run toggle works at all which can be inconvenient if want to just jump to the mode of the key you pressed. I've always wondered if the HUD and menu graphics could be modernized to be a little more high resolution: We could surely have a nicer looking lightgem, one that actually looks more like a gem and maybe makes light level even clearer. I've tinkered with the HUD and could technically look at it, but I'm working on several projects now and don't even know for sure what changes would be accepted in vanilla. Hope someone else can provide more feedback and maybe take a look! Can't say I'm a big fan of the current crouch indicator in general: It's two decorations on the side of the lightgem that stretch to the bottom of the screen, makes the point clear but looks kind of ugly. I can't readily think of anything else that wouldn't be distracting though. Normally we could use an icon indicating posture as a silhouette of the person, but that might be too large and distracting and modern looking... the later issue can be fixed by making it more like a symbol carved into a rune.

Background Eastbound is a FM created for the Christmas Connections contest. Although it was not ready in time to meet the contest deadline, its original inspiration is still present. This FM will be the first in a series following the Thieves' Guild member and protagonist Samuel Wilson in the events following a heist gone wrong. What will now be the second mission in the series was already nearing beta testing when the contest was announced (and it already featured a few "connections" of its own), so this presented an opportunity to fill in the backstory even more. Credits The TDM core team for all the hard work they do creating all the features, assets, scripts, and tools that we can all use in our FMs YOH and others for the custom sounds Everything else within the FM was created by me or modified from either stock or CC0 assets Special thanks to nbohr1more for organizing the contest Special thanks to thebigh and Wellingtoncrab for their valuable feedback during alpha testing All the beta testers, whose efforts led to many fixes, playability improvements, and general polish: Acolytesix, Cambridge Spy, datiswous, nbohr1more, prjames, thebigh, Shadow, Wellingtoncrab, wesp5 Technical stuff This FM requires TDM 2.10 or newer as it makes use of some of the latest features. The mission will look its best if you have shadow maps enabled instead of stencil shadows (Settings / Video / Advanced, Shadows Implementation = Maps). The mission will sound its best if you have EFX enabled (Settings / Audio, OpenAL EFX = On). Screenshots

Btw. https://www.thiefguild.com/ has outdated links for mission downloads (Sneak and Destroy got outdated with this update, for example). I think all missions there should link to the mission page here https://www.thedarkmod.com/missions/ for the download.

Dear community, I've been working on porting The Dark Mod natively to FreeBSD. I'm happy to report that at this stage, I have a working thedarkmod.x64 and tdm_installer executables on FreeBSD 13 amd64 (x86-64) with SVN revision 9889 and 2.10 game files. I've been able to play through both default missions as well as several contributed missions. There were minimal changes required to get a working port, including: Fixing the build with Clang, FreeBSD's system compiler (committed in 9889 by Stephan) Fixing up header files and #ifdef's for FreeBSD (attached here) Fixing up header files for zipsync (attached here) Modifying the CMakeLists.txt to use FreeBSD system libraries instead of the pre-built libraries for Linux (working, but still cleaning this up before upstreaming the changes) I hope the portability changes will be accepted upstream. I'll also look to see which CMakeLists.txt changes would be appropriate to upstream, but it is not too much of a problem for me to maintain it locally for FreeBSD. Once most of the changes have landed, I also plan to create a package ("port") with a thedarkmod and tdm_installer binary. Regards, Kevin patch-FreeBSD2.diff patch-zipsync.diff

Story: Thanks: Thanks to peter_spy for creating the wonderful Builder Complex module set used in this mission. Thanks to my beta testers: Cambridge Spy, Mezla, kingsal, Amadeus, manzanita-crow, Kerry000, Shadow and Suave Steve. Downloads: Gallery: Thank you for playing! What did you think of the mission? I look forward to your honest feedback! Hints, Tips, Walkthroughs, Spoilers(!): - This mission will greatly reward those taffers who like to explore a mission thoroughly. It is possible to go directly for your objectives, but you will be missing a lot of content. - Many windows are openable, leading to new areas or private residences. - If an area seems hard to navigate due to patrols, chances are you can circumvent it. - Those who like a challenge and some extra replay value owe it to themselves to visit the cultist's apartment on Vicolo Torcere.

Penny Dreadful is a new fan mission series dealing with the exploits and misfortunes of Gerald Foxley, lowlife and common opportunist. To stick with the theme of lurid and disreputable pulp literature, I plan these missions to be nasty, brutish and short. I will work on them when I get burned out with the campaign, or after we finish it. The Grail of Regrets "A few days ago, I received note from a man by the name of Grimy Morgan. I have bought the odd trinket from him before - he is one among the hundreds of workers labouring to keep Bridgeport's electricity supply going, and his kind always finds the most unusual things... Morgan rigs water arrows in his underground lair, and occasionally, he is able to palm the odd piece of wind-up machinery when his superiors aren't looking... and most aren't looking too hard. This time though, he promised something more, a passage he'd discovered below the power junction he works in. Morgan hasn't contacted me again, and I am starting to think he may be looking for other offers, or thinking of getting his hands on whatever's there on his own. So much for gratitude... Whatever this is, he should have learned to keep his mouth shut. My name shall not be Gerald Foxley if I cannot claw my share from his hands - the only question is how much punishment he is prepared to take before paying up... Download links: MEGA (24 MB) ...and the mission downloader! Notes: There are usually multiple ways to reach your targets - although some are less obvious than others.There are no lockpicks in this mission, as Foxley can't use them; also, he is no master thief when it comes to stealth - be careful!There is no poll to rate the mission because I do not believe in them. Your comments are welcome in writing, however!Special thanks: to my testers, Bikerdude, skacky, TylerVocal, nbohr1more, Springheel and Premier, for detailed and thorough feedback. Springheel for the custom GUI, loading screen, and much appreciated criticism. Bikerdude for several performance and aesthetic fixes. All mistakes remaining are mine. 1.1 note: This mission has been released in an updated version. This update contains minor bugfixes, and cuts down on file size by removing duplicate assets which have been incorporated into the TDM core since the mission's release (24 instead of 72 MB!). Thanks are due to the betatesters of this new version, Bikerdude, lowenz, nbohr1more and Oldjim.

@stgatilov I'm curious why this solution was chosen: "forceShadowBehindOpaque" "1" on an entity means it will always cast shadows from any light, even if it is fully behind wall/opaque brushes. "forceAllShadowsBehindOpaque" "1" on worldspawn causes all entities to get forceShadowBehindOpaque flag automatically. This requires all of the missions to be playtested to discover issues and then updated. A seemingly impossible task. Why not the following solution?: "enableShadowOptimizations" worldspawn This is something that DarkRadiant could add automatically to new missions. For existing missions that could benefit a lot from the optimizations, such as The Painter's Wife, Written in Stone, Iris, etc., they could be edited to include the optimization worldspawn.

True, but, 1. this thread is called "Western stealth FPS with Stephen Russell", and, 2. nothing you said changes anything for me. The gameplay still doesn't look like something I'd enjoy. And, if you really think this forum is cynical, then you don't visit forums much. Actually, the majority of the users are are pretty mature, unlike in other forums.