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You seem to forget that that there were missions where you had to pickup the blackjack. So even though you can't drop it, it means that the mapper has SOME influence. And the same can be done for TDM as well. There IS a non-blackajable alternative already built in, remember? It's called ghosting. So it's not strictly impossible to NOT win just because your blackjakc would be gone. It just makes it easier. Apparently you think that we should anticipate all kind of stupidities and prevent them. this IS the problem of the author and the player (depoending on the actual action). So an author screwed up and made an impssoibie way because he didn't properly test? No way! We must ensure that the player can succeed in all cases and must implement an automitc geometry updated to make sure that no impasse exists in a map where the player could stuck in case the author doesn't pay enough attention. The player doesn't find all loot? No way! How can this be? We must ensure that at the end of the map the player really has all loot, so we should make a button for this as well.

Re: The lantern @Domarius: When did we decide that the sword and blackjack were undroppable? I remember coming up with some hypothetical undercover missions where it would benefit you to drop your weapons and stash them away somewhere for later. In any case, if I'm wrong and we did decide that the sword/blackjack were undroppable, that was a compromise, since some people wanted to be able to drop them as well. You can't really use that compromise decision to justify further undroppable things like the lantern. It's not like dropping the lantern serves no purpose either. As many people have pointed out, you could set it down to have a light source and have your hands free to do other things; shoot a rope arrow, pick locks, fight zombies, whatever. Making it not dropable eliminates those possibilities and makes the use of the lantern much more awkward. If we're not going to trust the player with their equipment, why don't we code flashbombs to only be droppable when there are AI nearby, since we wouldn't want the player to waste a flashbomb they might really need later. And when you aim the rope arrow at something it won't stick in and try to shoot it, the character could just say "uh-uh" instead of firing the bow, because you might need a rope arrow to get up somewhere, and if you fired it into a brick wall you'd be stuck!

A lantern would be a great idea. However, missions should be set up so that it doesn't rely on the lantern completely. It would help out when you enter a dark cave, but it wouldn't be necessary. If it is necessary then the FM creator could simply make it so that you can't drop the lantern. The Dark Mod is a toolset for FM makers. Rather than limiting their options it would be best to give them the biggest set of tools to play with, then let them decide. Obviously time available is first. If it is really time consuming to make the lantern droppable then don't worry about it, but if it won't take too long but will give a wider variety of choices to the FM maker, then why not?

Well, decisions you make at the beginning could influence the overall appereance of guards/enemies in the single missions, or even influence the outcome of the whole campaign. Additionally, you could have the opportunity to enter a "bonus"-map after having read a book with additional information. The campaign is more dynamical with global variables, and I am glad they are implemented! Your ideas are good, but I doubt that a "city hub" can be easily relized just as in TDS. The tricky thing is that you must have multiple savegames for each level when you save once. Think of System Shock 2: Once you saved your progress, *every* map you visited so far was saved as well. This allowed returning back to the beginning.

A magical lantern eh? Hey, I have a good idea. How about one of the Dark Mod missions having a either a side or main objective of stealing it from somewhere? A Gypsy (Pagan) magic lantern? Something along those lines? Maybe even writing some story about it to make it mystical. Like a ghost story ;-) Also, the lantern as a droppable item was mostly in my mind for distraction purposes.

Well I've actually been thinking of starting to storyboard something that I can't help but think would make an awesome game experience. I basically have no modding ability other than being able to use photoshop so really I'm thinking more along the lines of fleshing everything out in writing first. I've been reading a lot of articles lately from different sources that cover nanotechnology, and the research that is going into place to create little machines that are able to build or destroy objects one atom at a time. The main idea is that anything can be constructed with enough nanite assemblers (who are fed raw material by nanite disassemblers). A lot of papers seem to cover the possibilities that this introduces in the medical field. Tiny nanite machines that are able to tweak human DNA, enhance human eyesight, hearing, cure disease, all that good stuff. Of course this sounds like something straight out of Deus Ex (I guess I'm on sort of a DE kick lately? I dunno that game just never got out of my system). The crazy thing to me is that this is happening in real life. Predictions say that in 20-50 years this stuff will be mainstream. We'll have computers that are half digital and half organism, all kinds of insane stuff. The setting of the mod is about 10 years into the future, the player i'm thinking will probably be some sort of test-pilot for a mega-corporation that invests heavily in bleeding edge tech. Training missions might first take you first through a few of the corp's "experimental" weapons, but the idea of the first mission is to test out the corp's new thermoptic camouflage, an entire suit constructed of millions of tiny camera nodes that are able to change color based on the surroundings. The suit is not performance increasing or any nonsense other than providing visual camouflage. I don't even want it to work perfectly all the time. At a run or maybe even any sort of motion should produce the sort of fracture effect we saw in predator, because of the cameras having to readjust for their surroundings. After testing the camo, the player is contacted by someone in the corp for a job opportunity. The premise follows afterward something like this: A rival corporation is known to have been sinking a lot of money into nanotech research. Somehow, (information leak, informant who was later found dead, i dunno) word has leaked through that they are on the edge of something big. In basic form, you as the test pilot are to use the camouflage and some company supplied equipment/weapons to break into their facility and discover/steal/sabotage/etc, whatever possible to set them back and leak the research. Obviously at first, levels might be somewhat simple. Human security guards, receptionists, businessmen, etc are the first obstacles. The initial break-in mission might even be in broad daylight just for fun. This will be nice for the player to get used to the limitations of the suit, and the amount of time before the suit shuts down to recharge, etc. The player starts running into obviously more difficult opponents, scenery gets different, etc. Augmented guards, robots, security systems, etc etc etc. The plot to unravel: Gah I've got such a perfect evil scheme but it seems a shame to unravel it all!! The main idea at least is to have a sneaker based in present time but to provide that same sick, uncomfortable feeling you got with the world we live in, that you got after you watched the matrix...

I agree, the lantern is a great idea, especially if it was a hooded one, possibly with animal skins? It would make the entire appratus glow orange in your hands and produce a spooky effect indeed. This is probably one of the best ideas I've seen yet, and I agree, it should be droppable, but also pick-up-able. But should guards react to seeing it on the ground? I don't know...something inside me says it would be too irritating for me to want to have to deal with. But I can see some seriously creepy underground missions where this will come into play significantly.

thanks Ombrenuit, I'm an amature game designer myself but i don't think I have much to contribute besides ideas. I'm only an intermeddiate coder and a horrible artist. I've got a little experiance with world design in Worldcraft/hammer back in the Q2 and HL days but i'm very out of practice and what's worse is the Doom editor, I hate the way that Z is manipulated and the general feel and layout, now if somone made a doom 3 ediotr with the same feel of worldcraft i'd be all over it, especially because I do think that conceptually I have alot to give to the dark mod in the way of missions and story, but I may be a picky pain in the butt, I really can't deal with the damn editor. if anyone has any suggestions tho let me know. actually i've been thinking about that gamma increasing effect, and i dunno how much control doom 3 has over it but adjucting the CONTRAST may be a better idea so it doesn't overbrighten the brights and instead increases the dark levels to a higher level of brightness... BTW I don't know if it's been said at all or not... do we get the OH SO LOVELY (meh...) TDS mechanical eye?

Yes, this is mostly a matter of level design even in T1 and T2 but especially in TDM if it is to be not central character dependent. Seems to me that the minimum things needed to change from man to woman player are the mantling grunts/death shouts etc, and a girly weapon arm/limb model, etc. Perhaps the main character could be given unisex hands etc, not big and hairy, so could be taken either way. The rest is storyline apart from special thought speech such as 'must be a way up there...' though I think these are mostly regarded as training aids and not popular with everyone. Or have I missed out anything? I'm looking forward to a diverse range of storylines and characters in TDM missions! Maybe you should not emphasise the character you put in the TDM campaign so he's(she's) more bland and forgettable (the man with no name) (Ah! I see your smilies work for me in Opera 6; they don't at ttlg)

Boo! Seriously though, don't worry overmuch. D3 has gobs and gobs of rendering power, indoors or out, big or small. Outdoors, be careful with your per-scene portal counts, build it smart, and don't throw a bunch of inefficient lighting all over the place, and you can render a decent sized city. Indoors, use your portals well, and you can probably build the whole NYC subway system or the Hyatt Regency hotel of your choice. I have no doubt a level the size of original Thief missions is completely do-able with good design and proper use of portals. In fact...

There's an interesting discussion going on in the SS2 forum at TTLG about moving SS2 assets over to Thief-dromed to make SS2-type FMs in Thief (this will be relevant, don't worry...). The main punchline of the discussion is that classic-SS2 FMs virtually *never* get made because they have RPG elements; and there are so many Thief FMs precisely because they are not RPG, but limited, discrete, one-shot type missions. Having stats, improvable/upgradable skills, etc, all the RPG elements you see in DX and SS2 require epic campaigns to even be relevant ... and the lion's share of TDM FMs won't (or shouldn't) be like that, nor should authors feel pressured to make epic style FMs (and I mean really big; think about it) because so many RPG elements are part of the basic interface. A lot of authors won't want to bother (they'd rather make the more discrete mission, particularly novices, which everyone will be at one point; and getting new authors to *want* to build with TDM is essential to keeping TDM FMs continuing to be made), and those that do try will waste years making 1 probably incomplete FM when they could have made 3+ complete non-RPG FMs in the same time. That's the best argument I see against having any RPG elements in TDM, and comparing the number of DX & SS2 FMs vs. Thief FMs (not just for that reason, but that's a big reason), is the best evidence. ps, I should say I loved both SS2 and DX, and I loved their RPG elements ... so it's not because of any intrinsic dislike of RPGs that I'm saying this. I just don't think it's conducive to FM-making; it'd do much more harm than good IMHO.

I never liked most RPGs based on the D & D rules, where combat is decided by a roll of the die or a random number generator, instead of player skill. The skill system in Deus Ex was different though, it didn't detract from the players skill in an annoying way. For example, if you picked up a sniper rifle, and were untrained, you could still use it, and if you were a skillful player your won skill would override the wobblyness of using a sniper rifle while untrained. The skill system in DE just made it easier to aim once you were trained. Anyway, what I really liked about Deus Ex was the multiple ways you could play the game, and the way choices made early in the game affected events much later in the game. That aspect can be easily implemented in TDM without any need for an RGP styled skill system, it is just up to mappers building non-linear missions with multiple play styles in mind.

I recently read an interesting discussion of the Canadian elections. My understanding is that the Liberal party is being punished by the voters for some scandals they were involved in. Although the Conservatives are evil they will only be able to push the Canadian electorate so far before they will scream. The majority of Canadians, even those who voted Conservative, hold to liberal values such as strong social spending, safety nets for the disadvantaged, and a more inclusive society. This is all second hand info obviously, any Canadians care to comment? But please dont think this moron is a clone of Bush, Bush is conservative in name only. No real conservative would send American forces around the world on half a dozen doomed missions or would happily sanction the burgeoning power of the American police state. True Conservatives seek smaller government and government spending, more individual liberties at the expense of social relationships, a strong separation of church and state, and in general a weakening of centralized (federal) power. Bush has done none of these, although he pays some lip service to some of these ideas. Its probably more accurate to portray Bush and Co. as the radical right/proto-fascists. Their use of religious/nationalisitic arguments to justify their atrocities, their constant push for increased police powers and civilian survelliance, their willingness to swat aside international niceities between allies and make stark demands, and their overt connections to corporate power place them closer to Europes fascist parties than anything else on the modern political spectrum. In fact, some of the Presidents loudest critics are conservative Dems and Repubs here in the U.S., rumor has it that Bush Sr. and Jr. are no longer speaking and that the father has been hyper-critical of many of the Monkey Kings moves.

Okay, then if I understand, could separate packages be made available?: -a binary which makes changes to files like the gamesys or schema files, or whatever -a zip package which contains the custom textures, sounds, scripts, or whatever That way, we can use the assets for whatever missions we need them for, and this saves the major bulk of size in download and distribution, and the patching is isolated off to the side, so that people can just back their files up if they need (because they have neither vanilla nor enhanced). My problem is, I couldn't run Minimalist for long before I wasn't able to run the editor at all anymore. I was doing nothing more than starting to rebuild my lost map, no scripting or anything, and suddenly it all went bad. Any map I would load would crash as soon as I moved the mouse. So I had to go back to vanilla + my few mods. And as you know by now better than anyone, T3 and the editor are a *bitch* to get set up. Would hate to have to go through all that all over again. Plus, I'm a single folder player/editor. What then? Okay... this is getting really complex.

I'd just like to point out that the idea of a "realistic" thief simulator is silly in itself. In "real life," the biggest part of a master thief's job is casing out the place he is going to rob, which can easily take weeks or even months. That would certainly be no fun in the context of a game. And even if we assume all of the casing has been done ahead of time, the missions themselves would be boring. In a good robbery, there isn't even anyone present. And even if the thief had to deal with patrolling guards, he certainly wouldn't carry around a bundle of silly arrows to douse torches from a distance. There are almost no situations where something like the "gel arrow" oDDity proposed would be remotely useful. If the situation was so desparate that he needed that torch out that badly, then something must have gone badly wrong and the best thing the thief could do is to get the hell out of there. So it's really a moot point whether our thief carries gel or water arrows, since the whole idea is rediculous to start with. Personally, I like magical arrows better than oDDity's MacGuyver arrows, just because it's simpler and it doesn't feel as much like a badly justified excuse for something we know wouldn't work in real life. But again, it doesn't really matter that much. It's a game, and in a game liberties will be taken.

The point is, you have no idea what sort of mission somebody is going to make. You should allow them the most options possible. For all you know, it might be that while exploring some crypt, the player accidently picked up and wore a cursed ring, and the rest of the missions deal with trying to figure out how to remove it. It wouldn't make sense if the player could just remove the ring in the loading screen.

Care to point out which OM had an object that ... 1. you got it right at the start. 2. is mission critical. 3. fails the mission on exit if not existant. IMO ALL the missions either give you something to do somthing with it, OR they are acquired during the mission and need to be carried to the end.

Simple example is if its a plot specific item. This is not a new concept in video games - plenty of them have un-destroyable craft, people, etc. because they are required for the plot. Thief OMs and FMs have been no different. Bottom line is that the FM author should be given the control, we shouldn't restrict them to what types of missions they can create.

Maybe it would be good to have an 'update_time' flag for entities? We could trigger a script function for timer updates on entites that have this set. This way it would also be easy to make timed missions or other time related stuff, like objectives expiring or similar.

Hmm, hadn't heard of that one. I'll have to check it out. Though, can you give me a quick spoiler? Don't say anything other than yes, or no: Is it an all out zombie fest? I don't really like zombie-laden missions. If there are a few zombies, that's okay. But I don't want to spend an hour in a crypt or anything. Don't clarify and tell me, "There are just a few zombies," or "there are no zombies." I don't want that to be that spoiled. Just say yes or no to whether or not it's an undead zombie fest. Thanks! PM me if necessary.

People have requested that feature because they want to have some choice over what they take with them. Some people don't want to be forced to take weapons. Others want to try iron-manning missions with no equipment. How hard is it really to add?

First the bad news: No landing on planets at all, except a few cut-scenes, and the physics are not very realistic - so in that respect no improvement in two decades, it's the same as the original Elite game. Apart from that, I'm really surprised that you hadn't heard of it. In fact I was surprised that I hadn't heard of it when someone at TTLG was talking about X2. Quick history: X was released years ago, then followed X2 and now X3 was released a few months ago. Gameplay: Same as Elite, free play as you fly around in first person perspective and dock at various space stations in various systems, trading goods and buying better equipemnt and better ships. Two big differences between Elite and X are that in X you can own more than one ship at the same time, and you can even buy space stations (factories) and start making serious money, if you can deal with the supply problems and such. Of course there are pirates etc and first-person space battles galore. In X2 you could fly around inside the space stations, but the trips from the station entrance to the docking bays became tiresome and so in X3 you always dock externally at space stations. You travel from star-system to star-system via 'star-gates', although later in the game you can get a jump-engine. There is an optional plot where you can accept a string of missions for the terra-corp company which make the game a bit more personal.

Thanks for the feedback guys, feels good to be back in biz. Pak: All of the vocals on Ruins. All I could do there would be to cut the sample up and rearange it, but I honestly don't see the point if the length remains the same... I understand DF's point as well as I see possible copyright issues. I uploaded it anyways because if it can't be used in the official release, there's always the possibility people can use it for their "private" missions. As for uploading the older ambients, it feels wrong to leave a thread with dead links, so if it's cool with sparhawk I'm gonna do that (about 21 Megs, that ok?). SubjEff: This got me thinking... when we're going for the the toolset approach, maybe more "conservative" Thief-style ambients were in order? I mean, if we want to reach as many people as possible, shouldn't the ambients be "more true" to the original style? I can certainly try to do that, but - Eric Brosius I am not. On the other hand, that three different people liked each a different ambient of those three best is certainly a good feeling. Thanks!

We certainly might be able to tie the independent missions together in a loose narrative of some kind. That's a good idea. We do plan on a serious, multi-mission campaign as well, however. That's the one that will need a great deal more time and energy.

From the perspective of making FMs for Thief, the value of the OMs is that they defined both the mythology and the gameplay. From the perspective of making FMs for TDM... well, let's be perfectly honest here-- the mythology of TDM is basically Thief with the serial numbers filed off. There's no need to establish it because in essence it's already established. So the pack-in campaign for TDM can treat plot as a secondary concern and concentrate on pure gameplay. Someone mentioned how different people like different aspects of the Thief universe. Don't fight that... run with it. Do something like "The Dark Mod: Chronicles" where the campaign is just a collection of unrelated missions, perhaps presented in flashback format. That would give the mappers the freedom to do whatever themes they want, without concern for any overarching plot.