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And here is the tdm_weapon_blackjack.script for By Any Other Name by @joebarnin updated to 2.11/2.11a standards. Nobody asked for it but here it is anyway. To test it, place the *.pk4 in the mission folder, like this: \fms\byanyothername\zzz_byanyothername_blackjack_script_211.pk4 No issues found on my side. zzz_byanyothername_blackjack_script_211.pk4

Find attached the tdm_weapon_blackjack.script for A House of Locked Secrets updated to 2.11/2.11a standards. To test it, place the *.pk4 in the mission folder, like this: \fms\ahouseoflockedsecrets\zzz_ahouseoflockedsecrets_blackjack_script_211.pk4 I have tested it myself and didn't find any issues. zzz_ahouseoflockedsecrets_blackjack_script_211.pk4

Keep in mind also that mission size, and complexity have increased dramatically since the beginning. For a lot of veteran mappers, it can take over a year to get a map made and released. The last dozen missions have for the most part been pretty massive, with new textures, sounds, scripts, models etc. We seem to be long past the point of people loading up the tools, and banging out a mission in a few weeks that's very barebones. We still do see some of those, but I noticed in the beta mapper forums and on Discord, that mappers seem to make these maps, but don't release them, and instead use the knowledge gained to make something even better. Could just be bias on my part scrolling through the forums and discord server though.

Thanks, I can also recommend gog galaxy. The idea of the custom tags is really nice, I'll have to try this out too!

TDM has come a long way since its standalone release, and I've been enjoying 2.10 quite a bit on my legacy machine, which finally is no longer prey to slow loading times! Because of all technical achievements in the past 3 or so releases I wonder if perhaps it could be a good time for the team to show some love to some more outwardly aspects of TDM. This is because I still think the TDM default package is a bit too bare-bones to incentivize new players to invest time into it, and there are some simple yet significant changes that I believe that could change that. I will try to make a short list of suggestions in no particular order for your consideration and for community discussion. Finish St. Lucia campaign - I think that one of the most disappointing aspects of the core TDM package is the lack of a full official campaign. I remember Springheel mentioning many aspects for the 3rd final mission were underway but left incomplete, and that these resources could be ceded to any interested FM creator who was interested in finishing the mission. Why not taking the initiative and do a public announcement? A better training mission - The current TDM training mission is a strange sandbox that doesn't blend too well with the rest of the package. I think something similar to Goldwell's Thief training mission remake would be a more suitable and shorter solution to teach the basics of the game while keeping it within the narrative. It could even be included in the St. Lucia campaign as Mission 0. Better, clearer main menu - even with the most recent changes, I still feel the TDM menu needs a redesign. I'm not quite sure what would be the best approach, so the only suggestion I have at the moment is to have the Mission Downloader available straight from the main menu, instead of being somewhat hidden on the corner of the New Mission section. This is mainly because the game focuses heavily on downloadable, content and thus should immediately point new players towards it. Two-mission community FM sample - one easy way to make the TDM package more complete is by adding a sample of two FMs to the main package - one short, and one long - so that new players can enjoy a small curated selection of what the game offers without having to browse the forums for mission descriptions. These missions could be selected by community vote and then tweaked before inclusion in the package, with the consent of their authors of course. A better intro sequence - The old glowing TDM logo video is really starting to show its age. I wonder if it could be replaced with a better hi-res version, or even with a simple logo texture with an after effect applied, discarding the need for an FMV sequence. Let me know what are your thoughts. I would like also ask the TDM team members if anything similar to these suggestions is already in development.

YOU TAFFERS! Happy new year! Deadeye is a small/tiny assassination mission recommended for TDM newcomers and veterans alike. Briefing: Download link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JWslTAC3Ai9kkl1VCvJb14ZlVxWMmkUj/view?usp=sharing Enjoy! EDIT: I promised to someone to write something about the design of the map. This is in spoiler tags below. Possibly useful to new mappers or players interested in developer commentary.

Alas. I've deleted fms/inplainsight and restarted, and loaded The Hare in the Snare. The (long) intro video plays fine, but after selecting difficulty I get: Looks similar to the original crash.

I thought I would try out the new subtitles feature in the 2.10 beta by developing the subtitle files for "A New Job". I already had the text of the conversations from my own abortive local attempt to add subtitles to TDM a couple of years ago so it wasn't too onerous. The subtitles system seems fairly solid with just a couple of wrinkles (detailed below). If anyone wants to try this out then you will need to add the three attached files as follows. Firstly, create two folders, "subtitles" and "guis", both directly under the "newjob" directory (under the "fms" folder). Copy the mainmenu_briefing.gui file into the "guis" directory and the other two files (briefing.srt and fm_root.subs) into the "subtitles" folder. The mainmenu_briefing.gui file is identical with the one that is included with the FM but includes two extra lines that #include the subtitles gui - without these lines you won't see subtitles in the initial briefing. Adding these lines to an overridden briefing gui probably needs adding to the wiki page. Other wrinkles/comments In the initial conversation between the two guards, the second guard's first (and only) utterance is too long to fit into the space allocated. One could use a .srt file for the relevant sound but this would seem to be overkill if an FM only had one or two sounds that were too long. A way to split up the 'inline' sounds would be a good improvement. If you do a save when a subtitle is being displayed, when you load that save, the subtitle is still displayed but it never goes away. Further subtitles just get written on the top in a mishmash of letters. What's the plan for localisation of subtitles? I tried using the same system as for other texts but it doesn't work, I suspect because the code isn't calling common->Translate when reading in the lines of the files. mainmenu_briefing.gui briefing.srt fm_root.subs

Seems to confirm: https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=5718 does it happen in the latest dev build: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/20824-public-access-to-development-versions/

For some reason when I run "testmap stealth", with stealth.map in the .pk4, the console just tells me "loading maps/stealth" rather than "loading fms/bcd/bcd_stealth.pk4/maps/stealth". Maybe just unpack and delete that .pk4 after renaming the extension to .zip, so that you get darkmod/fms/bcd/maps/stealth.map. Maybe also split up the console commands into "dmap stealth", then "map stealth". You don't need to load bcd beforehand.

No. You submit it to flood, who manages abandoned works, who then distributes the abandoned FMs to those who ask. This is all information that can be found in the original post of this thread

The easiest way is to make a custom particle that has a much shorter lifespan so it stops before passing through the brush (requires trial and error with the duration setting in the particle editor). You can use the console command reloaddecls to quickly reload a particle ingame after a change in the DR particle editor. The other way is more complex to setup and only really needed if you want to make a rainy map. You need a custom version of the particle with specific keywords and settings and then compile your map in a special way that generates 2D textures representing your mission, like for this ship stern section: The textures are colour-coded to represent how high the obstacles are, and automatically sets the lifespan of particles above it to stop just before hitting that obstacle. https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Particle_collisions_and_cutoff

I just read@motorsep Discovered that you are able to create a brush, then select it and right click "create light". Now you have a light that ha the radius of the former brush. Just read it on discord and thought it may be of use for some people in the forums here too.

@Wellingtoncrab In regards to getting discouraged by criticism I was more refering to the reaction of mappers in general. And as stated, I am not for changing it in the core mod (don't mix up my posts with those of others). It has been like this for so long that it doesn't make sense to change it. I, however, consider it important to discuss such things to simple bring it to the mappers attention, as if something is done in a certain way for long enough, people, including myself, tend to stop thinking about it. And yes, the missing balance in tools given, among other aspects, is a general observation. It neither implies that it is like that in every single mission nor does it mean that there has been no thought put into this by the respective mappers. However, putting thought into something doesn't guarantee the best results, so feedback and criticism is vital, as maybe the concepts that went into those thoughts have issues or things have been overseen. I for one just added my opinion in a response to a statement made by Dragofer. The original intent of the thread is not refered to by me. Despite beeing named as mission author I am not. The mission is by Bikerdude, I just helped with scripts and performance. And it has quiet some of the flaws I mentioned here and in other threads, too, like my own mission have (Old Habits and Builder Roads). One other thing both the Elixir and my first Release have in common is bottleneck design, something extremely common among TDM fms. In Old Habits you have to find a specific key to be able to get to the upper levels, and the key is hidden. If you are unable to find the key, something that happened to some players, you end up coming to the forum and making a post starting with the magical words "I am stuck...". Something you read in a lot of mission threads. The Elixir suffers from the same issue. That's one thing I changed when creating the rebuild, providing an alternative way. Other things are no kill objectives (I added it because Thief had them, not for a gameplay reason), and today I would probably not add loot objectives. The light placement allows for players to always have a corridor of shadow to walk through without getting spotted, which is extremely artificial. In regards to the loot amount I am not sure anymore, but iirc it at least differs difficulty dependent. Builder Roads was a bit of an experiment, which automatically leads to flaws. The main thing is that the whole setup doesn't allow for much variety in how you approach the mission. And again there is only one way to fulfill the main objective, requiring the player to solve a puzzle (which sometimes doesn't work ). If he is unable to, he cannot finish the mission. Those missions are old, though, and so are others. I am not as critical to old missions as I am to new ones, because there was a lack in experience back then. But I would have liked to see some sort of evolution in terms of gameplay, which didn't happen (in the sum!). The missions get bigger, they look better and overall production quality increased. But the gameplay didn't. And this is no surprise if almost everytime you write a critic mappers feel offended, even if you stress positive aspects, too, and try to be as objective as possible. This was more so in the past then in the last time, so I guess the mood has changed a bit around here. (Lots of drama going on in the past, so people were probably a bit more thin-skinned). There are two things btw. where I have gotten positive feedback on Old Habits. The loot placement and patroling. The first caused me to pay more attention to it in other fms, noting that there is no (obvious) logic behind it. So I asked. And tell you what: Neither players nor mappers consider loot placement or the values important. At least back then, although I can't say it has changed much. In regards to patroling I was told that it almost appeared as if the patroling was timed (aka thought went into it) and I just thought: "Of course they are, that's a fundamental part of the gameplay. To tight and it becomes unfair, to loose and it becomes boring." But the response and my own observation in other fms tell me that this is something rarely (not never!) taken into consideration. So I don't consider my own work much better in regards to gameplay, from my nowadays standards they are mediocre at best, and my criticism is not only based on how I perceive the missions, but also on the kind of feedback and statements I have read in the forum over the years.

My problem is with this: if you have 2 files of the same name, and 1 is packed and 1 is unpacked, since 2.11 TDM won't start because "File x was loaded twice". It looks to me like an error in the 2.11 code changes to the file loading system. I think there's a misunderstanding. FM/FM and Core/Core overrides are definitely a problem and should post console warnings because (a) you never need multiple copies of the same decl inside core or inside an FM and (b) you don't know which one wins unless you're familiar with the ruleset above. What I think is benign is FMs overriding Core decls or files, either done intentionally or when a custom asset becomes a core asset. This should not generate error messages, and adding new decls to core should not have any effect on FMs.

TTLG? That's Through the Looking Glass Forums. A looking glass fan community. Has been around for a long, long time. https://www.ttlg.com/forums/

That's what I've meant. As far as I see it the problem is the contrast between bright guis opened in an otherwise dark environment, as @Oktokolopointed out already. So the idea would be to make those, like the above newspaper, darker. Yes, and automated version is always preferable. And as @stgatilovsaid it appears that there was something like that been worked on in the past, which I didn't knew. The question is though how reliable it is. Typically such adjustments work gradually over time, but that wouldn't help much here as a bright gui would still be annoying, even if for a shorter amount of time. So the code would have to reduce the brightness immediately. It has to be tested whether this doesn't create any unwanted side-effects and if we exchanging one annoyance with another. As said, I wasn't aware of the implementation and have therefore never seen it in action, so I can't judge on that.

I think the reason the dev forums exist is to provide a place where the implementation of features can be discussed without getting mixed up with other debates when someone believes what the devs are doing is wrong. We often post public discussion threads for features with subjective elements like the frob outline, because community feedback is very important. But there will always be vocal defenders with strong views for or against certain features, or how exactly it should be implemented in their opinion. At some point a decision has to be made and be carried through, which is what the dev forums are for. Almost all of the threads are very technical, basically explaining and discussing recent or potential code changes with other devs. Its hard to say. Its a hobby the devs do in their spare time, so people come and go when they're in the mood and when they have the time. The team page is mostly accurate except for some relatively newer additions like myself.

Yeah I would say I agree with @stgatilov - while I think it does work as is you probably need less movement of the blackjack to make the indicator effective and the shorter the animation that still fulfills the intended purpose the better probably. Though the visibility issue in dark area makes sense - I haven’t really run into this personally yet so couldn’t say how much of an issue that is.

https://github.com/HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton/tags <- directx 12 wrapper for dxvk https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk/tags <- directx to vulkan wrappers D3D 9 to 11 eg. dxvk if you want to try it with horizon zero dawn you need to copy out dxcompiler.dll from Tools\ShaderCompiler\PC\1.0.2595\x64 and bink2w64.dll from Tools\bin and place them next to HorizonZeroDawn.exe. then copy over dxgi.dll from dxvk and d3d12.dll from vkd3d and place them next to it to. now fire up the game and let the shaders recompile -> profit.

I have never stated anything like that. I for one don't necessarely see those principles beeing hurt by what I have written or the example I gave above. A fail-safe route doesn't necessarely mean that the route is one that can be taken by ghosting imho and even if you assume this implication, a setup could also be such that it isn't fail-safe to begin with, but can be turned into such a situation by a minor change by the player, like taking out a guard or a torch. It comes down on how you interpret those principles and how close you want to stick to them. Not doing it in exactly that manner, even if on purpose, isn't rebelling. I know the original games were ghostable and that may even be by design. Deus Ex can also be played without killing anyone. But in most situation I would claim that ghosting (or in the example of Deus Ex not using violence) isn't the easiest and most straight-forward approach to a situation, especially when playing the first time. In TDM fms this is mostly the case, and that's something I am not happy with. Others may differ in there opinon, maybe even the majority. But when we are talking about what makes a game enjoyable, we are talking about a mainly subjective matter anyways. Not everyone has the same expectations towards games and not everyone expects TDM missions to be an exact copy of Thief, even if the latter served as inspiration. And in regards to what TDM is based on: The main motivation for starting the mod as far as I am aware of was the disappointment felt by many about Thief Deadly Shadows, which is probably based on the same fail-safe principles. So the question is on whether said principles are as important for the members here as you consider them to be. That is true, I could have written that in a less polemic way. I just tried to express that the success of those titles may appear as an questionable argument if most of those series aren't produced anymore. This would be a valid point if we would talk about what makes a game or a mission better in regards to how customers experience it. That was what I basically read from your post. He worked on successful titles hence he know how to make successful games. Something I don't doubt, but what isn't the point I was trying to make. This is a hobby. I am not here to do something successful, I don't have to create something a lot of people like. This is not my job. I basically use this as a way to express myself. This has come up in many discussion involving you. You are coming from a professional point of viewing things (which is fine and valid) while others trying to have a good time so to speak. I just assumed that you already know that I am not talking about improving fms in terms of how successful they would be when sold. Maybe my assumption was wrong. In that case you are right and we misunderstood each other. Nevertheless I said that I know that presentation and that I understand what it is about. I see that this is a good approach for making games as a living and that it might be a good guideline even for hobbyists. But there are other approaches to game design as well, some of which are not as popular, some of which are mainly applied in other genres maybe. I just think it doesn't hurt to involve those or our very own ideas, too. This isn't rebelship. The point I am trying to make in many of those gameplay discussions is actually that I get the feeling that mappers often don't have a fleshed out strategy when it comes to creating engaging gameplay. (#) That is probably not even because they couldn't have one, but it is simple not their main focus when creating missions. All I want is to get more focus on that aspect, as in the end we are talking about a game, so gameplay has, at least for me, priority. Obviously they could do this by applying proven strategies like the one you are talking about and this alone would improve the quality of their fms. But they could also apply a different one or come up with their own. They just have to have a strategy. (#) Sorry for the wall of text. @DragoferAs you are a moderator, can this discussion be moved to its own thread? I start to feel bad for abusing poor Goldwells thread and we are clearly off topic here. Thanks in advance.