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Not only looking - also great playing stuff! Timon's missions are famous of his puzzles, well hidden loot and secret places. I think when he learns the editor, he could make a good use of our existing code for traps and puzzles, which is the thing that Sparhawk waits are betamappers to do...

Nail on the head. I generally finish missions with about 98% of... well, everything, left over. Heh, I even see a big, broad expanse of marble which I have to cross several times, and instead of using one of my three moss arrows, I inch-creep across it. Doh. You're right, I know. It's just... tough. Hi, my name's Dave, and I have Analysis Paralysis and Squirreling Syndrome.

Just one week left for the voting, so if you haven't already go and download the missions, play them all, and VOTE!

I've played SoA and Bhaal and they are both great games. It's funny, I played the demo for SoA, hated it and played it for only like 10 minutes. I then went to future shop a week later and saw the box for the game and loved the box art. (I still don't know why) I installed the game, and played the whole way through. It was an amazing experience that I'll never forget, and bhaal was just as good, only more action oriented. I just hated alot of the fed-ex missions, the filler. Other than that, a good story, and the expansion is fun especially when they make you choose when to transform.

Reason I ask is because uncadonego is my uncle in real life (dad's brother in-law), and I remember him talking about doing something for one of Komag's missions or the other way around.

Ah wow! They are amazing. Can we TDM them, give them all the maps etc. I really want some lovely rich warm TG feeling missions.

hehe, nice poll. Yeah of course everyone wants more contests because they're fun and produce some great little missions. I don't know when there will be another one, probably not for a LONG time. I doubt I'll try another T3Ed contest, as pretty much NOBODY is doing anything with that editor. (quite a travesty I think) I don't plan to do any more Dromed contests - this water one was meant as a "last hurah". So probably it will be TDM in a couple years. About them not being allowed to talk about my banning, I just don't care how they handle it over there anymore. TTLG is part of my past.

In terms of resource management, trying to recreate craymen simply isn't very high on the list of things to do. They were in what, 2% of all Thief missions? We have FAR more important things for modelers and texturers to be doing.

The year was 2000 and I was 17 years old. On the last quater of my senior year I happend to stumble across a copy of PC Gamer, Game of the Year awards. There it was the fabled "Deus Ex." What is Deus Ex? Hmm this game looks pretty good. As I read the review I wondered what this game was all about. Thus I picked up a copy but it was only a preview. The first 3 missions or so and I was stuck until I finally picked up the full version. Anyway it was a hell of a ride and definately the reason that sparked my interest in game development. Never before had I been so immersed. I am JC Denton I am a nano-tech enhanced secret anti-terrorist agent. Woo! Hong Kong, Paris, New York, and so much more. When Jock died in Area 51 I was like noo, Bob Page you will pay for this. Then came the disaster that was Invisible War. This game single handedly caused the downfall of Ionstorm Austin. But that's in the past time to look foward. If you would care to notice that Http://www.deusex3.com has already been registered then you can see that this game will one day be a reality. Perhaps yours truly will be at the side of Warren Spector when Deus Ex 3 returns to it's former glory and claims GAME of the Year!

Whee! Fire Elementals almost done. My favorites! As long as those are in I'll be happy with whatever you guys release. Sounds good, scaling things back to something manageable. My first thought would be to concentrate exclusively on the technology and drop work on the assets. Let the community take that up. But it occurs to me that the people who are working on assets may not necessarily be able to work on technology, so use them while you have them. But yeah, I'd like to see something released sooner rather than later. I think it should be tech-complete though to give modders a unified framework to work under. I'd hate to see a zillion different incomplete versions propogate. I don't want to play versions where, e.g., the head bob is different, the speed is different, height of the player is different, the way blackjacking works is different. The AI should act consistently too. So don't release it before all that is done. But after that I'd say get it out there and add assets via updates as you suggest. You might want to reach out and ask for somebody to manage community-contributed assets at some point after release. So we don't end up with huge individual missions containing all the same textures and models. A typical mission could say it requires at least the Dark Mod Asset Package v. 3.0. Someone could be responsible for maintaining an "official" asset package, making sure future versions are always backward compatible, etc.

If you're depressed, try playing some TDS missions. Even our worst textures are several steps above what you get there, which is what our audience is going to be most used to.

NH: Do you want me to PM you with links to a sample of the wavs or post them here publicly? The voice files were created using an old quick and dirty text to speech generator but this was ideal because it makes no pretence of being human but gives really robotic-sounding monotones. Extra robot statements can be made if necessary to meet any additional requirements of Dark Mod or even custom ones for specific missions being planned. I have produced only a single voice (with almost 100 wav statments) but there is some provision for adjusting the pitch, etc so another slightly different robot voice might also be produced in the same style but I have no plans for this myself. I'm using it with the one humanoid robot in the Thief 2 Dedex gamesys.

I found it rather fun. They had a cool idea about making missions that you can do whenever you feel like it, but also providing a simulated city to explore or just relax and drive around in. Also, each iteration of GTA3 has improved upon the previous one and added more interactivity and new modes of transportation. What drives me nuts, is that the news seems to focus on relatively small aspects of the game. That whole thing about being able to kill prostitutes to get your money back was just a logical consequence of the simulated nature of the game: If you pay somebody in cash, then they must be carrying "your" money, and if you send somebody to the hospital or morgue they drop any money they're carrying. Killing prostitutes for your money back was an example of emergent gameplay. I wish for once a news story would focus on the blunt satirical nature of the game.

I agree with you, Ishtvan...it is very difficult to judge a programmer's abilities. My background may or may not be a match. I've had quite a varied experience, from embedded laser scanners, to CCD camera drivers, to PC applications, to Java applets. Several years ago I wrote an old-school D&D-type game series which featured my own cheesy 3d engine (node-based) sort of like Pool of Radiance crica 1988. Later I wrote a game (which I have since completely lost) which used the raycasting engine that Wolfenstein 3d used. I've also used the Direct3D API (not since 5.0, though), and started developing a game using 3D Game Studio (the A4 Engine at that time), but the project was too much to pull off alone. All in all, I have a decent understanding of 3d graphics and an appreciation for its development. The bulk of my experience in the past two years has been building dynamic GUIs driven by either a structured database, or multiple ".ini"-type files. If any of that seems helpful, I'd be glad to work on some small tasks to get a feel for the environment. If it doesn't work out, I've done several DromEd missions, so mapping would be second nature once past the initial learning curve for the editor. I was also a part-time musician some years ago and am currently working on some ambients for my next mission...so sound production is also a possibility. I'm hoping to help the effort, but want the team to make the right decision(s) for the project. - eep!

Yesh, like they're going to be happy making missions for an ancient engine forever, complete with all it's limitations on their creativity.

The reasoning behind that is probably that the "recent events" show we're dysfunctional or something, and so TDM will fail and so there's no point helping us. But of course that idea will rapidly change when the thing is actually released and waiting for people to make missions for it

I was being a bit facetious I think it is awesome that this stuff was released; mainly in knowing it was original LGS stuff. And it would be cool to see the stuff used in a high quality FM. But beyond that, I know it's nothing entirely new (beyond half-constructed missions/buildigns).

Wow, it must be great to be a mindreader! Please. I severely doubt that whoever released these maps did so with the expectation that they'd be turned into playable missions. I find them fascinating as historical artifacts. If we happen to get to play them at some point in the future, well, that's just a bonus.

I think its amazing that former employees of Looking Glass trust the community enough to release unfinished levels like this. They would only do so if they had confidence that the community could do something special with them, and really, how many communities are dedicated enough to grant that kind of trust and confidence? I really do hope we will be able to play those missions in greater glory then they would have ever seen otherwise.

Wow, devs are coming out of the woodwork I wonder how many more surprises there'll be? Since I joined ttlg the tds soundtrack was released, someone emailed me Garrett_07 for tds which was the model with the cape, and now those t2 missions What else happened?

Ha ha! Yes, exactly. Pretty cool huh? There is already a small group getting together to finish the missions, fix up some problems with the existing ones and release a new patch for the game. There is definately enough information out there to whip something up...especially since one of the developers released his notebook awhile back. Unfortunately, the guy who got his mittens on the notebook only released half of it and disappeared. Grrr.

I'm reading your thread, thinking, erm, so what? All people have to do is open the Thief Gold missions in DromEd, and they're... what? ...Then I noticed the "2". !

After we release the toolset, anything is possible. I certainly don't think you would find many TDM core members sticking around to create another variation of the toolset, that would probably take another two years or more or work, but once we release the toolset, the community can go wild and push our Thief inspired universe in directions they never could before. I just hope we get to see lots of traditional Thief styled missions before all that happens.

This isn't a request by any means, this is just thinking aloud. There was an old (2004?) press release re-posted recently that if they did make Thief 4, it wouldn't be medieval but in a different time and setting, and some people balked. But at the same time I think there is untapped potential here as well. I remembered that one of my favorite Contest Missions was Thief Noir, which had a 1930s-1950s flavor which I thought was cool, and there are parts about thief gameplay that could really fit well in a more modern setting... I particularly thought about like pre-WWI London (or like some synthesis of 1880s-1950s, the City 200 years on), like Jack the Ripper turf, or Sherlock Holmes style badguys, and the PC is more like a cat-burglar, wall climbing and jumping, and the watch are like old school bobbies with nightsticks and in an emergency maybe have a small pistol (maybe they go for tackling and handcuffing the PC, not sure?), and tommie guns might make an appearance, and gangsters, and the PC still has lockpicks, a grappling hook (effectively just like a rope arrow), maybe a swtichblade for an emergency, no gun, and still the blackjack of course. Not sure about working vehicles, but maybe just models. Mostly stylistic differences, I wouldn't want to change the gameplay, but new objects and AI. Not sure how flexible the toolset will be to add this kind of stuff, sounds like a lot of work. But anyway I was just thinking aloud about how it'd be cool to have the ability with TDM to start adapting thief gameplay to a variety of different periods and settings once the core gameplay is under wraps; at least the potential is there. I mean, if work grew on trees, it'd be cool to have a Jack the Ripper thief, Noir thief, contemporary thief, SS2 period thief (ZB already brought this last one up in TTLG using dromed, but TDM seems the way to go IMO), etc. At this point, though, I'm just thinking aloud about it, putting it on the table to deal with much later, "After Dm Is Done" as the topic says.

Yes, I just copied the walk animation and renamed it run, just as I did for the zombie. Last time you said it was because the model needed to be renamed. I did that too, so this time I'm not sure. Ah well, don't worry about it right now, as I said it's very low priority. I might stumble on it myself in time. This thing would only be used in one out of every ten missions at best.