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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

@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.

OLD HABITS Hello everybody. I'm very happy to present my first FM for The Dark Mod. Bridgeport - city of fortune and wealth they said. It's been a while since I've arrived here, looking for some work to accomplish and the fortune and wealth to enjoy. Hadn't had much look until now. So I spent my nights in the local taverns, hoping that the next day will bring me a little bit more luck. Until one week ago. I was just sitting in my favorite tavern, drinking a bit, eyeing up the barmaid's assets, as I saw a familiar face. Jimmy, an old pale of mine was also stranded in this part of the world it seems, also having no luck like myself. We drank one or two and what he told me than, was really interresting. The last couple of weeks he was working for some Lord Aaron, he said. A really disgusting person, who sacked Jimmy for really petty reasons. More interesting was the fact that Jimmy often worked in the basement, and there he saw that the wall behind some crates didn't seem to be too solid anymore. And leaning forward he also heard ... water. It seems that the sewers are running right behind this old wall. It seems like fortune and wealth were knocking on my door. A plan grew in my head. So I asked him to draw me a map of Lord Aarons residence and to explain me how I could get to the right point in the sewers. I've spend the last week digging through the wall, and now I'm lurking in the darkness of my self-made tunnel, well hidden by some crates, waiting for my chance. I've also asked Jimmy for something that may be worth getting hold of - and he told me: a valueable, maybe ancient scepter, laying in his ceremonial hall, waiting for me. So there you are, you taffer. Now go to work. Build time: 3 months or so Betatesters: Radiant, simplen00b, Xarg, Bikerdude Language correction: simplen00b Additional mapping: Bikerdude A big thank you to The Dark Mod Team, the people answering my questions on the forum and to my betatesters. Enjoy! EDIT: You'll need TDM v2.0 to run this mission

Are there any Amnesia fan missions whose plot, goals, and story is somewhat similar to the original Thief Trilogy's? I noticed the controls and textures are somewhat similar, and both seem to take place with a mishmash of medieval, electrical, and magical elements.

Yeah, there's the last played date, but there's no (reliable) way to know if you actually completed the game on that date. What I mean by "no reliable way" is that the following would have to occur for the last completed date to be accurate: AngelLoader is running. You're playing an FM (say, Iris) on a difficulty you have not completed yet (say, Expert). You complete the FM, the game marks it as "completed on Expert" and writes that out to missions.tdminfo. AngelLoader detects the change to missions.tdminfo, reads it, and compares to its internal list. It sees that Iris' finished states differ between the internal database and missions.tdminfo: the latter has Expert marked, whereas the internal database only has Normal marked (or nothing, or whatever). It adds the Expert finished state to the internal database for Iris, and updates the UI. Because it catches every modification of this file and updates its internal database every time, it knows the difference in finished states occured on the most recent write. Thus, it could timestamp this and there's your last completed date. Unreliabilities: If AngelLoader were not running when the game writes the value out, then you have no guarantee of time anymore. Not only were you not there to catch the change event, but the file's last-write-time doesn't save you either: the file could have been modified any number of times (updating any number of FMs' entries) since the time of the updating of the actual FM you completed, and individual entries are not marked with the time of their finished state change. So if multiple FMs were finished between AngelLoader runs? Even if you went with the file timestamp, that's still only one. If you finished two FMs between AL runs, any information whatsoever about the time of completion of the first one is completely lost. Same if the game simply wrote over the file with unchanged data, that would lose your correct file timestamp too. If you finished an FM on a difficulty you have finished before, then the game will simply write out the same value resulting in no change to the FM entry in missions.tdminfo. AngelLoader will still detect the file modification and will still read and compare the file, but now no differences will be found, so it's impossible for it to know whether any FM's finished state has been changed, and thus it can't know whether you finished it that run or not, and can't datestamp it. The last finished dates of any FMs you completed before you set up AngelLoader are unknowable, period. It might be the last played date but it just as well might not be. We'd end up with a mishmash of correct data and guesses that may just as well be wrong as right. If you can't trust the data then I'm not convinced it's that useful.

Sorry, I confused the TTLG users then. I'm about 2/3 of the first mission of this campaign. It's great, fantastic level design. Difficulty is nice, not too hard. Haven't encountered any bugs thus far, although the ability to roll back banners seem a bit glitchy. I guess you have to approach them from a specific angle (to the right of the banner). Overall, really impressive. I have only ever played 2 or 3 Thief 2 fan missions, and, they weren't nearly on this level.

Excellent mission(s). I ran into the infinite loop bug when Not exactly a bug, but I did have the issue with the innkeeper going in and out of his room repeatedly like a cat with thumbs. I just learned about TDM a couple months ago (Best Christmas Gift Ever) and have been playing the missions oldest first with some exceptions for series. While most are pretty good and some are exceptional, you're the first to come up with a gimmick to get me to replay a mission.

If I remember correctly: It is a city mission where you are supposed to infiltrate a thieves/gang hideout and do something in the thief/gang boss luxurious apartment. In this mission you could go through/along area of water-way with little boats - you could move to either bank (it was not wide water). This is when you are making your way through the city toward the hideout. The hideout does first consist of exterior where guards are patrolling in the open. Maybe there is some water between them, and they are walking on ramps, alongside walls. The hideout interior begins in a cellar or a jail-alike area. Or I did at least first go there. Might be multiple approaches from the hideout exterior. It was a nicely designed mission. Not short. Maybe medium or between medium and large.

I'm the developer of AngelLoader, a fan mission loader/manager for Thief 1/2/3/SS2. I recently decided to try adding Dark Mod support. The latest release is here: https://github.com/FenPhoenix/AngelLoader/releases I'm going to keep a log of issues, ideas, notes, etc. here and we can discuss them or whatnot. If anyone has ideas or suggestions, feel free to post them here. TDM version requirement: I've only tested it with TDM 2.11. I'm not sure but I dimly remember FMs used to be stored differently at some point in the past? If so, it wouldn't work with those older versions. I assume people would normally keep their TDM install up to date, but just a heads up. How it works: In the Settings window -> Paths tab, choose your Dark Mod executable. Click OK. Now your TDM FMs will be detected, scanned, and added to the list. For the other supported games, there is the concept of "installed" vs "not installed", this is because they normally come in archive files and then the loader can "install" them (extract the file into the "installed FMs" folder). For TDM there is no such concept (FMs are always installed), so the green checkmark "installed" indicator means that that FM is the currently selected one (the one that is loaded up when you start TDM), and only one TDM FM can be "selected" at a time. This indicator is kept in sync with the game, so if you change your selected FM inside TDM, AngelLoader will update its "selected" indicator in-app. Notes & Issues: Deleting FMs: Deleting TDM FMs is not supported yet. I notice TDM itself doesn't allow you to delete FMs either; it has been noted that people have accidentally lost their data and so the option was removed. AngelLoader puts files into the recycle bin when it deletes them, and I could add the option, but figured it was okay to leave it out initially since the game doesn't let you do it either. Note, though, that you can still delete TDM FMs from AngelLoader's database if you've manually deleted the actual FM from disk first. To do this, first click the "Show only unavailable FMs" button (red X page icon on the top bar). Last Played and Finished-On-Difficulty: Finished-on difficulty is now autodetected. Last played date is taken from the game's database only if AngelLoader doesn't have one in its own (its own is more granular). In the FMs folder, there is a file missions.tdminfo which stores certain pieces of data about FMs. Included among this data is which difficulty the mission has been finished on, and the last played date (down to the day only). AngelLoader also stores this information, but it doesn't get these values from this file at the moment. Instead, the last played date (down to the instant, not just the day) is set whenever an FM is started, and the finished-on state must be set manually. I could have it watch the file for changes and update the finished-on-difficulty automatically for the current FM. This would override the user setting, but in theory should be accurate anyway. I could also auto-update the last played date, but because it's only down to the day, that would be less optimal than just setting it on FM start, which would give a more granular date and would have sorting working better. So if you played two FMs in one day, the latest played one would sort at the top. Mods tab is disabled: For NewDark games, there is built-in support for mods, and they can be enabled or disabled per-FM in an official capacity. I've disabled the Mods tab for TDM because - from a cursory look anyway - I don't think there's such a per-FM method of mod management. Language selection is disabled: In the Edit FM tab, there's an option to choose which language to play an FM with. I've disabled it for TDM because there's a language option in-game (not the case with NewDark) and I haven't looked into how I would scan a TDM FM for supported languages anyway. "Play Without FM" Option: For the other games, there is the option (in the bottom bar) to play them with no FM. For TDM there is no such thing as "no FM", but the option is still there currently. It will simply start TDM without passing it anything, and whatever FM it has selected will be there. I might remove the option since it doesn't really make sense. This might make people wonder "where's the button for TDM" but on the other hand having it isn't really useful. Not sure. Mission downloading and updating: An in-app mission downloader is in progress. There is no mission downloader or anything like that currently. It simply lists what you've got on disk. This means that to get new FMs or check for updates to existing ones, you still have to go in-game. I don't know how people feel about the convenience factor of this, having to go in-game to get your FMs and then back out to AngelLoader. However, duplicating the TDM download functionality would mean it might well break if TDM ever changes anything about its downloader. Custom resource stats: In the Statistics tab, custom resource display is disabled for TDM. I haven't looked into what sort of "custom" things a TDM FM can have and how I can detect them. I may do this in the future.

Beta 11 Fix finished-on state auto-update was unreliable Slighty improve scanner title/author detect Tags are now named some whatever regular-version-looking thing to force GitHub to put the newest at the top

In before fan mission where Garrett becomes Jack the dizzy Ripper under some vile necomancer's spell.

Hello! I am going through the (painful) process of detaching some custom stuff I've made over the years from the base mod so I am not replacing so many tdm_ core files in my FMs. I'll be posting updates in here as I know a few people have used custom volta stuff in their missions. @Goldwell @Amadeus @Wellingtoncrab If you are using CUSTOM VOLTA arrows please replace this file: tdm_weapon_arrow.script - Ive updated this script with core mod changes - The only thing that's being replaced is: ARROW_ZOOMDELAY 3 // Shortened time from 6 to 3 seconds If you want to use the default 6 second zoom delay, just delete this file and remove it from your custom_scripts.script. If anyone knows a way I can change ARROW_ZOOMDELAY without overriding the entire file, please let me know asap. Thanks everyone

It totally is more complex than the original missions. Actually, a bit too complex to my liking... it's manageable, but, if every mission is that gigantic, it kinda defeats the focused gameplay, and breaks the rhythm a bit. You also have to remember a hundred things if the missions are that large. I've recently started to use the Steam in-game notes taking function.

In TDM 2.12, some player footstep sound shaders were changed. That's something you might want to check as well. The following diff snippet is an adjustment to metal volumes I made to one of your missions on my local machine, so it matches TDM 2.12. There are probably others, which are best left up to you. I used a diff tool to find what to update. diff --git a/original/sound/tdm_sfx_movement.sndshd b/adjusted/sound/tdm_sfx_movement.sndshd index eecef04..5ae1843 100644 --- a/original/sound/tdm_sfx_movement.sndshd +++ b/adjusted/sound/tdm_sfx_movement.sndshd @@ -424,7 +424,7 @@ tdm_footstep_metal_run minDistance 1 maxDistance 30 - volume -17 + volume -20 editor_displayFolder sfx/movement/footsteps/player @@ -472,7 +472,7 @@ tdm_footstep_metal_crouch_creep minDistance 1 maxDistance 30 - volume -15 + volume -14 editor_displayFolder sfx/movement/footsteps/player @@ -488,7 +488,7 @@ tdm_footstep_metal_jump_land minDistance 1 maxDistance 30 - volume -9 + volume -13 editor_displayFolder sfx/movement/footsteps/player

How about using TDM automation framework (and maybe pcem/qemu)? More info see: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/19828-automation-features-and-discussion/

I use noclip only when I get stuck, what ocurres sometimes in some missions. Godmode in missions with much scaling and manteling (I¡m not so good in this), but this don't give an big advantage in a mission, only avoid to hurt me innecesary falling from a roof. Notarget, to have fun in old, many times played missions, trolling guards, spawning big spiders or zombies. often with hilarious results.

Thomas Porter is back in a TDM FM called... LQD is a medium sized FM, made for the TDM unusual contest 2013, where Thomas Porter sets out to get rid of the Lich Queen once and for all! Will he succeed, or will the evil Lich Queen get her sinister revenge on Thomas? The mission was created by me, Sotha. Betatesters: Bikerdude, nbohr1more and Obsttorte are thanked for their efforts on improving this work. Big thanks to TylerVocal for excellent voice acting. Thanks to freesound audio artists: Amliebsh (39222), Steveygos93 (80401), Jackie4ever (83095) and Klankbeeld (133100). Immense thanks for the developer team and everyone contributing to the mod. Release notes: *This mission has player character narration. There is no way to control the volume of the player lines in TDM 1.08 and they are at 100% volume at all times. For optimal experience, be sure to set SFX and ambient close to 100% volume in the in-game audio settings and fine tune the volume to nice levels from you operating system's mixer. That way the world sounds match the player voice in volume and your gameplay experience is not reduced by very loud player narrative. *This mission involves using objects with other objects. Normally objects are used like this: push R to drop the item into your hands, move the item where you want to place or use it. *This mission has a video briefing, so you have the habit of skipping the TDM logo which is visible before the briefing, do not skip it or you will miss the briefing. Download link: Use the ingame downloader to get it. As always, it is not recommended to read the thread further before you have completed the mission. Someone will fail to use spoiler tags. [spoiler] This will be hidden [/spoiler] Enjoy! Please remember to give comments and vote! -Sotha.

Thank you both! I remember running into the func_* entity types during the tutorials, I should dig into those more and see what else I can do with them. Took a little tweaking, but I got my fan rotating.

This is done by converting the fan to func_rotating via the classname spawnarg. Once converted, check the inherited properties to see a set of spawnargs that control how it rotates.

hmm newer winter nights that is quite a while since i last played any in that series, liked it ok though i allways been more of a diablo fan myself all the way from diablo 1 to diablo 4 mixed in with some wild years in world of warcraft as a member of one of the largest guilds. also played darkstone dragonage divine divinity and a slew of other rpg's. newer been much into the turn based variants before now though i did at some time play bg2 which ended horribly for me also tried dungeons and dragons but i could newer quite get used to it. i was an avid shooter player in my youth counterstrike, quake 1 2 3, medal of honor etc. earliest pc games i played where duke nukem, redneck rampage, carmageddon, omikron the nomad soul, outcast, quake 1, half-life, system shock 1 and 2 thief and a few titles i cant remember anymore . before the PC i played stuff like sid meyers civilization on my commodore 64 plus a variety of the titles avaliable for it at the time. mass effect was one of my favorites in the more recent years the andromeda offshot while having a nice combat system newer really got me though.

The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King won an absurd amount of Oscars as a reward for a superb three-part movie ride. Thief: The Dark Project, The Black Parade deserves a similar treatment as the leading vehicle of 25 years worth of Fan Mission content.