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I haven't played the mission yet, so, I can't comment on it. Regarding the criticism: I think it should also be allowed to note some things you saw as points of criticism. Actually, IMO, negative criticism is better than positive, because it points out what you maybe didn't think through thoroughly, or you simply didn't see when you created the mission on your own. I'm aware that there is a lot of work involved, and people do it in their spare time for their own or other people's pleasure. But, that really shouldn't be a reason to praise everything to the skies. Actually, I've seen my fair share of average missions which have been totally overrated. Again, that shouldn't knock anynone's work, and, I have no idea how this mission is. Just wanted to point out that noting negative things shouldn't be taken as discouraging, but rather the opposite. I've seen some mission authors for Dark Mod going from average to absolutely fantastic missions, because they learned what it takes to make good missions. It's an art, and obviously takes time to perfect.

After editing some objectives, now I'm getting this console warning pop up any time I check the objectives in game. I've never seen it before. Everything appears to be working though. I have not edited the tdm_objectives.gui file and it is intact in the tdm_gui01.pk4 folder in TDM. It references DestroyDelay here. onAction { set "gui::DestroyDelay" OBJECTIVES_DESTROY_DELAY; set "gui::CloseGUI" "1"; set "cmd" "updateObjectives"; } but I have no idea what I could have done in my fm to give it issue. [EDIT] I get this warning in other missions now, not just mine. I reinstalled TDM and I still get this warning. Is this a 2.12 thing?

If by this you mean a series of missions in one pack, like the recent Thief Gold Black Parade campaign I'm a billion percent for this!! No offence to DM FM creators, I know one mission takes a lot of hard work, but I'm fed up of the 'one mission and out' type of missions to be honest. I crave a proper story for once with a series of missions and stuff, not just random associate says steal thing because reasons, oh and you have to steal all this loot but you can't spend it.

I wonder about the alternative models for the arrows. Have they been used in other missions too already? I really like them, maybe I could extract them to my directory to use them in general for the game?

I've seen fun workarounds like that in other game modding as well. Years ago, maybe even a decade, some fella who was making a mod for Mount & Blade over at the Taleworlds forums revealed that he put invisible human NPCs on the backs of regular horse NPCs, then put the horse NPCs inside a horse corral he built for one of his mod's locations/scenes and then did some minor scripting, so the horses with invisible riders would wander around the corral. The end result was that it looked they're doing this of their own will, rather than an NPC rider being scripted to ride around the corral slowly. Necessity is the mother of invention. I don't know about the newest Mount & Blade game, but the first generation ones (2008-2022) apparently had some sort of hardcoded issue back in the earlier years, where if you left a horse NPC without a rider in its saddle, the horses would just stand around and wait and you couldn't get them to move around. Placing an invisible rider in their saddles suddenly made it viable again, at least for background scenes, of riderless horses wandering around, for added atmosphere. First generation M&B presumed you'd mostly be seeing horses in movement with riders, and the only horses-wandering-loosely animations and scripting were done for situations when the rider was knocked off their horse or dismounted in the middle of a battle. Hence the really odd workarounds. So, an invisible NPC trick might not be out of the question in TDM, even though you could probably still bump into it, despite its invisibility.

so secrets are also - no - 2 secrets are Joke ?! but theres still a thievie challenge !!! : Grab the guards arrow - without suspicious ; even it won´t count in the stats . But tell me – why are these April fools so big on the data??? JackFarmers is twice the size – but 5 missions – and each is 10 times bigger

This sounds easy, but wouldn't it be overruled by any pk4s in fan missions or e.g. your mod's pk4? In what order are these pk4s processed, alphabetical, date, ... ? As far as I know the current solution makes sure that my patch is active all the time.

Changelog of 2.13 development: dev17042-10732 * Restored ability to create cvars dynamically, fixing bow in missions (5600). * Fixed issue where .cfg files were saved every frame (5600). * Added sys.getcvarf script event for getting float value of cvar (6530). * Extracted most of constants from weapon scripts into cvars (6530). dev17035-10724 * Support passing information between game and briefing/debriefing GUI via persistent info. Also changed start map & location selection, added on_mission_complete script callback (6509 thread). * New bumpmapped environment mapping is now default (6354). * New behavior of zero sound spawnarg is not default (6346). * Added sound for "charge post" model (6527). * Major refactoring of cvars system to simplify future changes (5600). Known issues: * Bow does not shoot in some missions (only in this dev build): thread dev17026-10712 * Nested subviews (mirrors, remotes, sky, etc.) now work properly (6434). * Added GUI debriefing state on mission success (6509 thread). * Sound argument override with zero now works properly under cvar (6346 thread). * Environment mapping is same on bumpy and non-bumpy surfaces under cvar (6354 thread). * Default console font size reduced to 5, added lower bound depending on resolution. * Added high-quality versions of panel_carved_rectangles (6515). * Added proper normal map for stainglass_saint_03 (6521). * Fixed DestroyDelay warning when closing objectives. * Fixed the only remaining non-threadsafe cvar (5600). * Minor optimization of depth shader. * Added cm_allocator debug cvar (6505). * Fixed r_lockView when compass is enabled. dev17008-10685 * Enabled shadow features specific to maps implementation (poll). * Auto-detect number of parallel threads to use in jobs system (6503). * Improved parallel images loading, parallelized sounds loading, optimized EAS (6503). * Major improvements in mission loading progress bar (6503). * Core missions are now stored uncompressed in assets SVN (6498). * Deleted a lot of old rendering code under useNewRenderPasses + some cleanup (6271). dev16996-10665 * Environment mapping supports texcoord transforms on bumpmap (6500). * Fully disabled shadows on translucent objects (6490). * Fixed dmap making almost axis-aligned visportals buggy (6480). * com_maxFps no longer quantizes by milliseconds on Windows 8+. * Now Uncapped FPS and Vsync are ON by default. * Supported Vsync control on Linux. * Added set of prototype materials (thread). * Fixes to Stone font to remove stray pixels (post). * Loot candlestick no longer toggle the candle when taken. * Optimized volumetric lights and shadows in the new Training Mission (4352). * Fixed frob_light_holder_toggle_light on entities with both skin_lit and skin_unlit. * Now combination lock supports non-door entities by activating them. * Added low-poly version of hedge model (6481). * Added tiling version of distant_cityscape_01 texture (6487). * Added missing editor image for geometric02_red_end_HD (6492). * Added building_facades/city_district decal material. * Fixed rendering with "r_useScissor 0" (6349). * Added r_lockView debug rendering cvar (thread). * Fixed regression in polygon trace model (5887). * Added a set of lampion light entityDefs.

So I've been cleaning off updates on the missions page by updating and replaying them and have been having difficulty with this one. I don't know if there's a trigger broken or what. Aside from my issue listed in my spoiler, I found the update plays much smoother, so thank you for that. I realize this is an older mission so may not get fixed at this point, just thought I'd mention in case.

Since I'm bored and haven't posted in a while and yet still finished Thief 4 a few times, I feel compelled to post. In response to a number of observations @Rio_Walker made: Seeing your hands and all the animations newGarrett would do was fun... at first. But given all the looting and environmental interactions the game has it really did slow things down a lot, especially when the game would occasionally realign the player just perfectly before playing an animation to open a drawer. If they had an option to disable these animations or speed them up significantly I'd have been happy. I've played using the Custom difficulty with the option to disable focus and the experience is kinda mixed. While it does make things a bit more traditional without the superpower ability to find loot more easily, it does seem like the game is designed very much for focus and disabling it can hide things you never even knew were present. If it weren't for the focus for example, I would never have noticed the "special" candles hidden around the city that talk when you light them. This game reminds me of a movie that has been reshot several times with footage from separate reshoots blended together with bad editing. It's painfully clear the story has been chopped and changed over the many years of its development and there's assets in the game that clearly had greater importance in a previous iteration but for which their plot points were cut. The most obvious example is the automatons. There's a dude who provides missions on obtaining pieces for one he's building, but apart from that there's also signs in other areas they had more importance (e.g. you see rooms full of them when going up an elevator, the Baron has disassembled ones on tables in his cutscene, etc.) Some plot elements just feel not fleshed out because they had to cobble together something to create this Frankenstein's monster of a game from so many elements. The ending sucks and is incredibly abrupt. Do we even know what the deal is with that half-built ship? Probably another abandoned plot point. With all of its problems, I still kinda like it in so far as its general gameplay. But it doesn't have the longevity of something like TDM or the classic Thief games especially with all the user missions available for them. Oh well, maybe I'm just pining for what it could have been in the hands of a better developer.

Hello again I just want you guys to double check fms because i think files got mixed up Localization Packs: Vengeance for a Thief Part 1 its says it is for a pawn in the game localization pack String table English (iso-8859-1) for: Vengeance for a Thief Part 1: A Pawn in the Game But it is under VFAT1: The Angel's Tear download I have looked in my fm archieve and i foun fm named The Accountant: Part 1 - A Noble Home (prologue) It is not listed in download section. any idea about this one ?? is it a part of accountant campaign ? Is it obsolete ? or it is missed ? Also i came across Samhain Night on Bone Hill By PranQster Version: 0.9.7 Back again to version matter. Maybe it is not important to keep versions, maybe it is. For me it is important as i am updating my archive of fms so it is nice to just see version straight away than looking in every pk4 file for it. Also it would be very helpful just to add in download section beside released date, update date as well Maybe Sir You just like me. You look but you can not see TDM Fan Mission Lists: Released and Upcoming Thread https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Fan_Missions_for_The_Dark_Mod

Hi Ansome. Congrats on the release. It's a nice little mission. Hey all, if you like this fan mission, please consider logging in to ThiefGuild.com and leave a 1-10 rating. This will help to grab attention of others on the main page of the site. The Terrible Old Man page: https://www.thiefguild.com/fanmissions/64085/the-terrible-old-man Thanks! Konrad

Thanks for the feedback @Rio_Walker As mentioned in other comments in this thread, the optional objective was meant to be for players who enjoy exploring every inch of the map. If all you want to do is complete the mission via the primary objective it's pretty straightforward. It was also meant to be sort of 'open world' in that if you explore everywhere you pick up little hints and bits and pieces and put them together at the end to solve that objective with. It wasn't meant to spoon feed the player. But again maybe not everyone enjoyed that approach. It was also kind of a knee-jerk reaction to players not liking 'linear' missions. But it seems some people still do like that And yeah, some players don't like big maps. I get that. I don't like playing them myself a lot of the time The issue with the bow crash is a known issue (not just with this mission) which we haven't got to the bottom of unfortunately:

Wow... the sheer verticality of the level makes my head spin. The fact that we can climb pipes (that I still couldn't jump up and grab, had to yoink a chair) blew my mind. I got stuck a few times, I couldn't for the life of me discover a way to enter Smythe's apartment. I knew it's possible to enter it, and I assumed I needed to enter it because of a few hints. I loved extra missions. Really felt like it expanded the world. But I'm still confused about the "panic" they showed.

Alright, I've tried this about two days ago and I had quite the fun in it. I think saying anything will be a spoiler, so my whole review will be a spoiler itself, here you go: Overall, it's a great short fan mission, it captures the Lovecraftian atmosphere very well, I always loved Lovecraft horror and I hope to see more from you!

The coin is a little joke in the mission end stats. It exists solely to mock you, similar to the newspaper stating it's missing. There is no actual coin in the mission. Because it's missing, just like the newspaper says. You can clearly see how TDM players do not believe much in thieving-free missions. There has to be loot, right? Rather than pack their belongings and leave, they chase after a coin that does not exist, only because the stat screen tells them there is a coin even though there is none. TDM is a game about stealing, after all. There's no room left for locking your apartment, stacking your furniture onto a cart, and leaving. But perhaps sometimes that's all you can do. Maybe that is what you should do. Ignore the coin. Ignore the ugly stain on the wall, it's no good. Don't even look at it. Pack your belongings and forget. Ignorance is bliss.

Yeah it would be cool to see some more detailed statistics and it’s a shame they aren’t really captured. Since we are talking about fan mission platforms, where players also make the content for the game, I feel like the best thing we’ve got is you can look at the number of content releases for the games. Keep in mind the graph counts campaigns as single missions - so for example NHAT and TBP both count as 1 mission. A good year for TDM has has approaching maybe 50% - mostly we’re 25-30%. https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=152494 You could also look at the number of ratings thief missions get on https://www.thiefguild.com/ vs TDM ones, but that is pretty iffy in that you could chalk that up to more awareness of the site in the thief community than TDM Out of curiosity is there a reason a thief player can’t be a new player? I kind of think a player is a player and new players would be ones who are playing the dark mod who weren't? Is there disagreement the base of players most likely to pick up the game are fans of the thief games? They are certainly the most fruitful place to find feedback on the game beyond the sphere of this forum that I have seen. When we were trying to finish up SLL there was a lot of discussion on the forums about how long it had been since there was a release for the game. I am thankful that the stats show at least some stability over the years in terms of releases for TDM, but the trend for all of the games is decline. Not doing anything is a valid response if that’s what the devs want to do - it is not possible to provide evidence that any effort will slow that inertia. As a player and content maker I would just prefer trying to find feedback where it is offered from players who were willing to try the game but ultimately could not engage with it and see if there is anything that can be done within reason to ease them into the game. The game has a lot to offer imo. All those players are potential contributors - contributions in turn attract players - it’d be nice to see the cycle go on as long as it can.

I was making a list of all the best fan missions to play and had downloaded a few of them to start and I have played about 6 so far. Then I thought why don't I just play them alphabetically from the mission download screen and so that is now what I intend to do because I might miss one. I then realised there might be a few 'series' that might not be alphabetical in that list and I don't want to play them out of order. Is that something that I should look out for? I have done the 4 Hidden Hands and the 2 Accountants and then Iris and House of Locked Secrets and then Requiem. That's it. I'm sure there are other Missions that connect to each other.

Overall, your pack seems almost perfect to me!) Maybe it would be possible to add a frob outline like in the unofficial patch. I only play with the Steam Deck, and using the console on it is very difficult. After all, each button on it needs to be configured separately. Maybe if someone suggests what I can directly configure in the config, it will completely solve my problem. I haven't played many missions yet, and the ones I remember are the two standard ones and "No Honor Among Thieves." There are a lot of items in these missions. Adding new skills has become frustrating for me because it takes a long time to find the right item in my inventory, and this happens every time. I also wanted to say that I haven't found a proper use for the OBSERVATION, COMBINATION, DISTRACTION, and ALTERATION skills. I play on the highest difficulty and don't feel like it's too hard for me, and all these skills, in my understanding, are designed to simplify the gameplay. In theory, MANIPULATION should also be on this list, but I found a use for it.) But no matter where or how I use OBSERVATION, I always see blackness. Maybe it depends on the map? The main problem is still the inventory. I would like it to have fewer unused items.) I even throw away picked up books and scrolls after reading them to keep them from cluttering up my inventory. I also installed the original Thief games, and it feels like they have a lot fewer items. That's how it is.

I plan to gradually try out all or most of the different path node types and adjust them depending on the interaction. Though I don't plan to use it in this particular mission, I have a keen interest in the follow type, as I'll want an NPC to follow the player character in another, future FM I'd like to create. Never too soon to try out various functions while I'm already learning new FM-building skins after a long hiatus. Thank you for the suggestion. I completely forgot about the location system ambients as an option ! A few years back, when I was testing various stuff in DR, I did actually use that approach instead, once or twice. I haven't used DR much in recent years, so I eventually forgot about setting it up that way. Acknowledged, and I'll look into it. It'll save a lot of time concerning the audio side of the mission. My first few missions won't have much a natural environment, they'll largelly be small and focused on buildings or urban spaces, so I won't need to bother with detailed audio for rivers yet. I have an outdoor FM planned for later (it's in the pre-production phase), and I'll have a good reason to study it in greater detail. It's actually okay, I don't reallt need rectangular speakers. Given that I've been reminded I can set a main ambience for each room - something I did know before, but forgot, after not working properly with DR these past few years - I'll do just that, and use the speakers for more secondary ambience concerns. Handy indeed. A rectangular shape would be easier to remember. I'll just use the filters in the editor to put away the speakers if I ever the get the impression they're blocking my view. Also, I don't actually mind the shape all that much. As you and the others say, the size/radius of the speaker is the actual key aspect. I'm a bit disappointed it's seemingly not possible to resize speakers the same way you can resize brushes or certain models, though you can still tweak the radius numerically, manually. As long as I can work with that, the actual shape of a speaker isn't really important. My main concern is expanding the minimum and maximum radius areas to an extent where they'll be audible for most for all of the respective areas the player will visit, rather than fading away quickly once the player leaves the hub of the speaker behind. As was already said above, I'll use the different utility to set the main ambient for the individual rooms, rather than a manually placed speaker, and I'll reserve the speakers for additional sound effects or more local ambience. I've already added some extra parameters to the speakers I'm testing out in my FM, so I'll take a look at those soon, though I'll deal with the main room ambience settings first. I'd like to thank everyone for their replies. While I'm not surprised by the answers, I'm now more confident in working with the path node and speaker entities. On an unrelated sidenote to all of this, the same in-development FM where I'm testing the speaker placement and range was tested yesterday for whether an NPC AI can walk from the ground floor all the way to the topmost floor, without issues. Thankfully, there have been no issues at all, and the test subject - a female mage, whom I won't use in the completed FM, sadly - did a successful first ascent of the tower-like building that'll serve as the main setting. (That's all your getting from me for now, concerning the FM contents.)

Still enjoying the missions you guys make : )

Somehow your missions play out in a scenery that invites me to just hang around and enjoy. I was almost 4 hours in this mission, just because is was a nice place to be : )

I would use this massive list for any fan missions, it includes campaigns too: https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148090 There are a lot of Fan Missions for the picking, I myself go for the lesser known ones and the short variety, because sometimes they hide a gem or two. Just like jaxa, I'm a bit outdated after the temporal retirement, but I do remember some amazing campaigns like "The Black Frog". If you intend to play The Black Frog, you should play the first two of the L'Arsene series missions, it's how I did it myself. Also, yes, L'Arsene are a fantastic series. The first mission of L'Arsene is a "rough draft", author was a bit new to Thief level making, but still great either way, after the 3rd you will see how his skill increased by a massive amount.