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Announcing the next installment of 'The Lieutenant' series: High Expectations! Never heard of this series before? That's because I just made it up. Actually, it continues on from my previous FM, In Plain Sight. You don't need to have played In Plain Sight before, but there are some references to it in the readables that might not make sense if you haven't (some of which will be spoiler-ish). "Follow the Lieutenant on his next mission to the City of Highborough" Mission Type: City Missions Beta Testers (thank you all!!! @wesp5 @Acolytesix @Shadow @Cambridge Spy @AluminumHaste @jaxa @thebigh @joebarnin @Mezla @snatcher @datiswous Extra credit goes to @Mezla for providing the idea behind one of the objectives! Notes: TDM 2.11 required You can explore most of the map from the start of the mission, but if you find yourself getting a bit lost or unfocused, just concentrate on the main objective Your objectives will become visible after you read your briefing in your inventory The map does not contain any secrets The only difference in the difficulties is the (optional) loot goal This mission has some replay potential built-in. Explanation below, but I suggest you read this only after your first playthrough: Spoiler warning!: Download links (v1.4): Proton Drive: https://drive.proton.me/urls/ZDTKN6DDM4#8Re0CpARxcbc Github: https://github.com/FrostSalamander/fsx/releases/download/1.4/highex.pk4 Screenshots: https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjAB8qt Known Issues it appears that to some players keys bound to AI are unfrobable. I don't have a solution as I've never been able to reproduce it. As a mitigation, for these doors you can either lockpick them or an alternate key will be available. Other hints Atkinson/Burns objective This objective is more about rewarding the 'explorer' types. It's optional and requires you to find a lot of stuff to piece together the whole story of what happened. Most of these are not really 'hidden', but rather require a visit to most of the accessible areas of the map. If you have given up searching, then: Hotel Safe Combination hint: spoiler: What's going on with Brother Gregory? If this isn't clear, then read on: There's a wooden door in the prison that I can't open... hint: spoiler:

Okay... so... I'll be honest. The verticality of the first mission blew my mind, made me really pay attention, explore. But the verticality of this mission made me frustrated. It didn't help that I kept stumbling upon things, without context. Moreover, some areas didn't have anything, but were traversable, while others had a plenty and required not a clear and direct path but some convoluted route that wasn't obvious to me. And the size of the level... It took me 4 and a half hours to search every nook and cranny, find and complete all objectives and discover the loot. But that time was split between two days, because I could only play before work, and I experienced CTD whenever I'd draw a bow inside the manor. So by the end I ran around like a headless chicken, trying to remember where I've left this NPC and where is that NPC and where the safe is... Now... some things really gave me a pause. For example, the direction of our poor LT's life XD Or the fact that we had such a horrible person working for our Target. But I really liked the story here. All the twists, the clues (that little thing in the cabinet damn), I liked using Thief's Highway... but man was I lost there. I would like to know... how was I supposed to find the Barrel? I had no real reason to actually head there aside from "I see a window open". But since I was thorough, I found the Barrel there before the readable mentioning it in the same place. Was there a hint pointing me there to begin with? (Did I miss it, like the combination to the safe the first time?) Also - the Safehouse dude was freaking me out.

Looks great, thank you! That looks even better: It's where DeusEx had its player status screen, feels even more like TDM with DX characteristics now I think I placed it above the light gem as that's where player info was technically being stored, with the new subtitles covering that position the move is a great decision. By the way: If anyone wishes to continue and improve this mod, I'd appreciate seeing your remixes of it. I had it mostly finished last time on my end; I think the main issue was upgrades require items to be placed on maps, augmentations may not work on every FM without a way for them to automatically spawn in random places... my imagined solution was to also offer upgrades based on loot gathered or other achievements but I never got around to adding that.

After some amount of work I'm happy to be able to share my Christmas gift for TDM! Or at least half of it, considering the other half is still only in design phase. I created an addon that implements detailed player functionality, inspired by the first DeusEx game (The Conspiracy). It's NOT a mission script but an addon, meaning you place the pk4 in your TDM directory to enable the system and it will automatically work in each and every FM. Note that due to using tdm_user_addons.script / user_addon_init() it may disable or get disabled by other addons you have installed... this is a design limitation which can hopefully be lifted at some point in the future. This plugin will be included in my cyberpunk total conversion The Dark Module and automatically active with it, but first I shall design it and make it available as a small independent addon for vanilla TDM. In the current initial release it implements just per-limb damage; The upcoming plan is to add a skill / augmentation system, allowing the player to use loot as skill points to enhance various body parts and gain new or improved abilities. Due to the scripting system being very limited in what it lets me modify, I'm still gathering documentation on how to implement those skills and which I can have. So until then detailed body damage with penalties remains the only part that's theoretically finished so far (further improvements are required here too)... including a HUD component above the lightgem showing the status of each body part: Green = full health, yellow = half health, red = (close to) no health, black = no health left. The individual limbs available: Head, Torso, Left Arm, Right Arm, Left Leg, Right Leg... arms and legs work in unity however. They each take damage with the player as well as healing together with them. The more damaged a group is, the more a respective penalty is applied to the player. Groups and penalties include: Head: When the head is damaged, the player begins to get dizzy and has their vision impaired. Currently the only effect replicates the flashbomb, causing white dots to appear around the player and disrupt their view until the head is healed. As the player can't live without a head, reaching 0 will cause instant death. More effects are possible and pending. Torso: Damage to the torso translates to damage to the cloak, increasing the player's lightgem and rendering them more visible even in dark spots. As the player can't live without a torso, reaching 0 will cause instant death. Given script limitations I'm unable to simulate lung damage and decrease / limit the amount of air the player has. Arms: Arm damage makes it difficult for the player to hold items: In-world objects being held will probabilistically get dropped, more often the worse your arms are hurt. When both arms reach 0 health, the player can no longer pick up anything in the world without instantly dropping it... you also become unable to use any weapons. Due to limitations in the scripting system, I'm unable to decrease the speed or accuracy of the blackjack / sword / bow as was desired. Legs: As expected leg damage will make the player walk more slowly. It was desired that when one leg is lost the player can no longer jump, whereas when both legs are gone you remain stuck in crouch mode until healed... due to limitations in the scripting system this part is also not possible at the moment. A crude limitation is the fact that limb damage is primarily based on the direction the player is walking toward... for example, increased likelihood of suffering damage to your right arm and leg if strafing right the moment you take the damage. The script system doesn't let you extract the vector direction of the last damage event, thus I can't use the real direction the hit came from when calculating which body part should absorb the most health loss. This means that even if an arrow comes from above and hits the player's head area, the player will only take damage to the legs if they're falling downward the moment they got hit... for the time being this provides a bare minimum amount of realism but is a very bitter implementation. For this reason it would be greatly appreciated if any of the code developers could join this discussion and verify if they can help with adding the necessary hooks to external scripts: With 2.09 getting periodic beta releases at this point in time, it would be a great opportunity to make changes to the builtin player script that allow an external function to modify more player variables. This includes the efficiency of weapons, if the player is allowed to jump or forced to always crouch, and I'd also really appreciate a hook to manipulate the breath so air can be lowered as if the player is underwater. I understand other priorities exist or if the work may be considered too much, however this would help in being able to finish this mod with the proper functionality and planned skill set. In the meantime let me know what you think of this idea and how I went about it! So far no new assets are included except the GUI graphics: Everything is done with less than 250 lines of script which I'd say is a good achievement I've attached the pk4 and since it's so lightweight I'll also add the main script straight in this post. player_damage_1.0.pk4 #define DAMAGE_WAIT 0.0166667 #define EXPOSURE_ARM_LEFT 2 #define EXPOSURE_ARM_RIGHT 2 #define EXPOSURE_LEG_LEFT 2 #define EXPOSURE_LEG_RIGHT 2 #define EXPOSURE_HEAD 3 #define EXPOSURE_TORSO 1 #define PENALTY_TORSO_LIGHTGEM 4 player self; float damage_gui; boolean dizzy; entity dizzy_particles; float bound(float val, float min, float max) { if(val < min) return min; if(val > max) return max; return val; } // Range based probability: Calculates a probability per frame independent of wait time (0 - 1 range at 1 chance per second) boolean prob(float x) { return sys.random(1) > x && sys.random(1) < DAMAGE_WAIT; } // Directional exposure calculator float dex(vector dir, float ex_front, float ex_back, float ex_right, float ex_left, float ex_up, float ex_down) { float maxvel = 100; float dir_front = bound(dir_x / maxvel, 0, 1) * ex_front; float dir_back = bound(-dir_x / maxvel, 0, 1) * ex_back; float dir_right = bound(dir_y / maxvel, 0, 1) * ex_right; float dir_left = bound(-dir_y / maxvel, 0, 1) * ex_left; float dir_up = bound(dir_z / maxvel, 0, 1) * ex_up; float dir_down = bound(-dir_z / maxvel, 0, 1) * ex_down; return dir_front + dir_back + dir_right + dir_left + dir_up + dir_down; } void player_damage_update_arm(float dmg_l, float dmg_r) { float hl_l = self.getFloatKey("health_arm_left"); float hl_r = self.getFloatKey("health_arm_right"); float hl = (hl_l + hl_r) / 2; if(dmg_l != 0 || dmg_r != 0) { hl_l = bound(hl_l - dmg_l, 0, 1); hl_r = bound(hl_r - dmg_r, 0, 1); hl = (hl_l + hl_r) / 2; self.setKey("health_arm_left", hl_l); self.setKey("health_arm_right", hl_r); self.setGuiFloat(damage_gui, "PlayerDamage_ItemArmLeft", hl_l); self.setGuiFloat(damage_gui, "PlayerDamage_ItemArmRight", hl_r); // Penalty #1: Disable the weapon once the arm are damaged to minimum health if(hl == 0) { self.selectWeapon(WEAPON_UNARMED); self.disableWeapon(); } else { self.enableWeapon(); } } // Penalty #2: Probabilistically drop held items based on arm damage if(hl == 0 || prob(hl)) if(self.heldEntity() != $null_entity) self.holdEntity($null_entity); } void player_damage_update_leg(float dmg_l, float dmg_r) { float hl_l = self.getFloatKey("health_leg_left"); float hl_r = self.getFloatKey("health_leg_right"); float hl = (hl_l + hl_r) / 2; if(dmg_l != 0 || dmg_r != 0) { hl_l = bound(hl_l - dmg_l, 0, 1); hl_r = bound(hl_r - dmg_r, 0, 1); hl = (hl_l + hl_r) / 2; self.setKey("health_leg_left", hl_l); self.setKey("health_leg_right", hl_r); self.setGuiFloat(damage_gui, "PlayerDamage_ItemLegLeft", hl_l); self.setGuiFloat(damage_gui, "PlayerDamage_ItemLegRight", hl_r); // #Penalty #1: Make movement slower self.setHinderance("health", 0.25 + hl * 0.75, 1); } } void player_damage_update_head(float dmg) { float hl = self.getFloatKey("health_head"); float time_current = sys.getTime(); if(dmg != 0) { hl = bound(hl - dmg, 0, 1); self.setKey("health_head", hl); self.setGuiFloat(damage_gui, "PlayerDamage_ItemHead", hl); // Penalty #1: Without a head the player dies if(hl == 0) self.damage(self, self, self.getOrigin(), "damage_suicide", 1); // Penalty #2: Simulate dizzyness starting at half health if(hl <= 0.5) { if(!dizzy) { dizzy_particles = sys.spawn("func_emitter"); dizzy_particles.setModel("flashbomb.prt"); dizzy_particles.setOrigin(self.getEyePos()); dizzy_particles.bind(self); dizzy = true; } } else { if(dizzy) { dizzy_particles.remove(); dizzy = false; } } } } void player_damage_update_torso(float dmg) { float hl = self.getFloatKey("health_torso"); if(dmg != 0) { hl = bound(hl - dmg, 0, 1); self.setKey("health_torso", hl); self.setGuiFloat(damage_gui, "PlayerDamage_ItemTorso", hl); // Penalty #1: Without a torso the player dies if(hl == 0) self.damage(self, self, self.getOrigin(), "damage_suicide", 1); // Penalty #2: Torso damage negatively affects the lightgem self.setLightgemModifier("damage", (1 - hl) * PENALTY_TORSO_LIGHTGEM); } } void player_damage() { sys.waitFrame(); self = $player1; damage_gui = self.createOverlay("guis/player_damage.gui", 1); float health_old = 100; // Init by sending a heal event filling the limbs to full health player_damage_update_arm(-1, -1); player_damage_update_leg(-1, -1); player_damage_update_head(-1); player_damage_update_torso(-1); while(1) { // sys.waitFrame(); sys.wait(DAMAGE_WAIT); float health_current = self.getHealth(); float dmg = (health_old - health_current) / 100; float dmg_arm_left = dmg * EXPOSURE_ARM_LEFT; float dmg_arm_right = dmg * EXPOSURE_ARM_RIGHT; float dmg_leg_left = dmg * EXPOSURE_LEG_LEFT; float dmg_leg_right = dmg * EXPOSURE_LEG_RIGHT; float dmg_head = dmg * EXPOSURE_HEAD; float dmg_torso = dmg * EXPOSURE_TORSO; // If this is damage and not healing, apply directional damage to each limb if(dmg > 0) { // Currently we estimate damage direction based on the player's velocity, we should fetch the real direction of a damage event when this becomes possible vector dir = self.getMove(); vector ang = self.getViewAngles(); // Protections based on the player's position and relation to the environment // protection_look: 1 when looking up, 0 when looking down // protection_low: Higher as the lower part of the body is exposed float protection_look = 1 - (90 + ang_x) / 180; float protection_low = 1; if(self.AI_CROUCH) protection_low = 0; else if(self.AI_ONGROUND) protection_low = 0.75; // Use the dex function to calculate directional exposure patterns, direction order: Front, back, right, left, up, down // Arms: Somewhat likely to be hit, no added protection // Legs: Somewhat likely to be hit, added protection when the player is crouching // Head: Unlikely to be hit, added protection when the player is looking down // Torso: Likely to be hit, no added protection float exposure_arm_left = bound(sys.random(0.375) + dex(dir, 0.5, 0.25, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 0.25), 0, 1); float exposure_arm_right = bound(sys.random(0.375) + dex(dir, 0.5, 0.25, 1.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.25), 0, 1); float exposure_leg_left = bound(sys.random(0.375) + dex(dir, 0.75, 0.5, 0.0, 0.5, 0.0, 1.0) * protection_low, 0, 1); float exposure_leg_right = bound(sys.random(0.375) + dex(dir, 0.75, 0.5, 0.5, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0) * protection_low, 0, 1); float exposure_head = bound(sys.random(0.25) + dex(dir, 0.25, 0.75, 0.5, 0.5, 1.0, 0.0) * protection_look, 0, 1); float exposure_torso = bound(sys.random(0.5) + dex(dir, 0.75, 1.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0), 0, 1); // Apply the exposure to damage, multiplied to simulate the sensitivity / resistance of each limb dmg_arm_left = exposure_arm_left * dmg * EXPOSURE_ARM_LEFT; dmg_arm_right = exposure_arm_right * dmg * EXPOSURE_ARM_RIGHT; dmg_leg_left = exposure_leg_left * dmg * EXPOSURE_LEG_LEFT; dmg_leg_right = exposure_leg_right * dmg * EXPOSURE_LEG_RIGHT; dmg_head = exposure_head * dmg * EXPOSURE_HEAD; dmg_torso = exposure_torso * dmg * EXPOSURE_TORSO; } player_damage_update_arm(dmg_arm_left, dmg_arm_right); player_damage_update_leg(dmg_leg_left, dmg_leg_right); player_damage_update_head(dmg_head); player_damage_update_torso(dmg_torso); health_old = health_current; } }

This post differentiates between "gratis" ("at no monetary cost") and "libre" ("with little or no restriction") per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratis_versus_libre * A libre version of TDM could: ** Qualify TDM for an article on the LibreGameWiki *** TDM is currently listed as rejected https://libregamewiki.org/Libregamewiki:Rejected_games_list because "Media is non-commercial (under CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0). The engine is free though (modified Doom 3) (2013-10-19)" ** Qualify for software repositories like Debian *** TDM is currently listed as unsuitable https://wiki.debian.org/Games/Unsuitable#The_Dark_Mod because 1) "The gamedata is very large (2.3 GB)", and 2) "The license of the gamedata (otherwise it must go into non-free with the engine into contrib)" and links to https://svn.thedarkmod.com/publicsvn/darkmod_src/trunk/LICENSE.txt Questions: 1) tdm_installer.linux64 is 4.2 MB (unzipped), which is far from the 2.3 GB which is said to be too large. Yes, the user can use it to download data that is non-libre, but so can any web browser too. If the installer itself is completely libre, does anyone know the reason why it cannot be accepted into the Debian repository? 2) If adding the installer to the repository is not a viable solution, would it be possible to package the engine with a small and beginner friendly mission built only from libre media/gamedata into a "TDM-libre" release, and add user friendly functionality to download the 2.3 GB media/gamedata using "TDM-libre" (similar to mission downloading)? 3) Would such a "TDM-libre" release be acceptable for the Debian repository? 4) Would such a "TDM-libre" release be acceptable for LibreGameWiki? 5) Would the work be worth it? * Pros: Exposure in channels covering libre software (e.g. the LibreGameWiki). Distribution in channels allowing only libre software (e.g. the Debian repository). * Cons: The work required for the modifictions and release of "TDM-libre". Possible maintenance of "TDM-libre". I'm thinking that the wider reach may attract more volunteers to work on TDM, which may eventually make up for this work and hopefully be net positive. 6) Are there any TDM missions that are libre already today? If not, would anyone be willing to work on one to fulfill this? I'll contribute in any way I can. 7) I found the following related topics on the forum: * https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/16226-graphical-installers-for-tdm/ (installing only the updater) * https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/16640-problems-i-had-with-tdm-installation-on-linux-w-solutions/ (problems with installation on Linux) * https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/17743-building-tdm-on-debian-8-steamos-tdm-203/ (Building TDM on Debian 8 / SteamOS) * https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/18592-debian-packaging/ (Dark Radiant) ... but if there are other related previous discussions, I'd appreciate any links to them. Any thoughts or comments?

I wrote earlier that I owe this masterpiece a review, so... Here is my detailed review of this groundbreaking and seminal Mission Fan. SPOILERS ABOUND ! TDM PLAYER BEWARE, YOU'RE IN FOR SPOILERS AND MAYBE EVEN A SCARE ! This mission... subverted my expectations. Starting with the briefing video. Not since the days of Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Westerns have I seen such daring subversion right at the start. You're expecting one thing... then, bam ! I tried everything to infiltrate the mansion from the outside ! No luck ! Well and truly, expectations subverted ! NPC dialogue heard from the inside... stellar ! Brought a tear to my eye. Or was it just one of the raindrops that fell on my head ? What else brought a tear to my eye ? The senselessly slaughtered guard at the courtyard ! Clearly, a cautionary story that he who grabs a sword... and yet, forgets to dim his lantern, the fool... shall die by someone's sword or arrow. Figures ! That you hid the masterful sidequest of collecting the pennies-for-a-thought from the rather racy fountain, in order to later thoughtfully redistribute them to the poor and hungry street urchins of Bridgeport, is nothing short of design brilliance worthy of at least a two hours long, detailed GDC lecture. I'd watch such a lecture on a loop, 24 hours a day, twelve times a day. Brilliant stuff ! Ah, the side-yard, with steps and a basement entrance that looked and felt straight out of Thief II's opening mission, Running Interference... Could the cunning TDM homages to the classics get any better ?! Could they ? Well, soon enough, I discovered that, yes, they could get even better ! There was an even more amazing homage that I didn't expect ! Read on to find out what... The chefpick was... indescribably cool. I now yearn for it to be included in every single FM. The classic lockpicks feel completely passé. I knocked out both NPCs and... what is this unexpected social commentary ?! The knocked-out have names ?! I applaud your deeply incisive observation, worthy of a skilled chef with a kitchen knife, that the NPCs in games are not mere fictional constructs, but fictional beings with names, hearts and souls ! I confess, upon this moving revelation, I started shedding tears so uncontrollably, I nearly had to quit playing the mission. Yet, I pressed on, heartened and refreshed by such displays of humanity in a work of stealthy interactive fiction ! The commentary was no less subtle and stealthy, I tell you ! As subtle as the protagonist's gritty, grounded accent ! Two different entrances into the local vent system... I... I can't even... So many possible routes of entry. Truly, in the grand tradition of the TDM immersive sim design philosophy ! The choice of giving the intrepid protagonist a temporary rat companion, bribable by cheese, who fetches priceless hidden loot, was equal parts innovative and a hard-hitting social commentary on the abuse of animals for theft and burglary, and people "ratting out" their fellow tenants by revealing the hiding places of their priceless belongings ! I was deeply impressed ! I was thoroughly amazed ! You even had my 'stalgia sense tingling ! Why ? That minor element of your FM even reminded me of the old but gold Thief II FM campaign The Flying Age: The Abominable Flying Machines of Dr. Zeppelinger, where you escape a prison cell by giving a mouse a bit of cheese you've managed to find, and the mouse then provides you with a means of escape. I have scarcely ever seen such a wonderful duo of homages to other past LGS missions and fan missions ! Of course, the shocking revelation with the undead in the freezer was an even more biting commentary on the undead precariat of today, and their ruthless and dehumanizing exploitation by The Man, maaan, the snobby culinary establishment. Undeadkind merely want to roam their abandoned tombs and catacombs in peace (pieces ?) and get a bite or two out of a stray vagrant or drunk guard every now and then, no big deal. Society needs to be more charitable to undeadkind ! And you've even included a gas arrow up in the rafters ! You well and truly know your audience, as I'm an old, die-hard gas arrow collecting enthusiast. I am a sophisticated, yet simple man: I see a gas arrow in Thief or The Dark Mod, I immediately grab it, owing to its rarity. Thank you for such generous mission design. To cut a long story short, I have had a thorough, engrossing and moving cultural experience with this short-but-dazzling mission ! In the shadowed alleys of TDM fan mission sites, I have crossed paths with missions that were ruthlessly difficult and confounding, yet rewarding, but never have I played a mission this... authentic... avantgarde... thought-provoking... It even made me feel hungry ! Riveting, simply riveting. Like working on the skeleton of a 1930s Art Deco skyscraper. Ultimate verdict: 22 frommages out of 20, with a happy cheese-filled rat as the cherry on the top. (But what kind of frommage ? Cheddar ? Swiss cheese ? Gouda ?! I dunno. Don't have a cheesemaking degree.) In other words, I cannot rate this mission other than with the Chef Excellence Award for... Excellence ! *chef's kiss* Le Mission Légendaire Magnifique ! Roll over, Requiem ! Roll over, Crucible of Omens ! Roll over, Iris ! This, this... is the pinnacle TDM fan mission of all time.

I suppose your right. The Dark Mod was originally made to be a challenge for those familiar with the Thief games, in terms of difficulty and perhaps lower in accessibility to the newer players. It wasn't meant to be a re-creation of what its like to fight or sneak or stealth takedown enemies at all of those games or to mimick real life in anyway. Its just supposed to put all our skills to the test. With that said, I sorta wish the dark mod took a different turn and made the gameplay and difficulty more organic and natural, rather than always relying on bumping it up by forcing certain rules on myself when playing. Like no tools except lockpicks, no KO's, and no killing any human NPC's, put everything back where it was except loot, and keep being spotted to a minimum by only moving around when the enemies our out of sight if I can help it. Your mod is certainly a improvement by a significant margin because its got some consistency that I appreciate And its also got a whistle and peek through doors Great work of course.

Oh you mean the bug on the loot screen? No matter what I did, it wouldn't go away. But there's no need to worry, it's just a floating point precision issue and it can't hurt anyone, ha ha No problem. Upon the receipt of the cashier's check, the guide will be sent to your house within 10 business days. Thank 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.

Inn Business It's business, at an inn, over three nights. Development screenshots: Download: https://drive.google...dit?usp=sharing Update 1.48 uploaded March 8th, 2014, one change: patches key rarely not being frobable in one of its possible spots Big thanks to my beta testers: Airship Ballet, Kyyrma and AluminumHaste! Development supporters of note: Sotha, Springheel and Obsttorte. Also thanks Sotha, for urinating in my mission. ;-) And thanks Kyyrma for the title screen! My appreciation to all forum/wiki contributors, without whom, this wouldn't exist. Thanks to positive commenters on my previous mission too, extra motivation helps! :-) Note this uses campaign features, what you use the first night, impacts subsequent nights. And to quote a tester, "...the level is maybe best experienced in more than one sitting". If you do pause between nights, please be sure to save, you can't begin partway through effectively. (If you accidentally start a night you already completed, just fail the kill objective to switch to another night.) If your frame rates are too low facing the cemetery, please reduce your "Object Details LOD" setting. It was designed with "AI Vision" set to "Forgiving", to be able to sneak through with minimal reactions, if you want more/less, adjust your settings accordingly. There are several random, conditional aspects, and ways of going about things, so others might have slightly different experiences. Post here if you discover hidden objectives for extra points! My condolences to loot completionists, I made a bit on the third night hard, you've got your challenge cut out for you! Speaking of which, there's a TDM bug that mission complete totals too high, here are the real amounts per night: 2026/970/202. Oh, there is something that in the U.S. would be rated PG, in case you play with kids in earshot. I hope you enjoy playing it, feel free to let me know you did, and I'm glad to respond to inquiries (like how stuff was done, nothing was scripted). (Note which night you are referring to if it's something specific.) (Please remember spoiler tags to not expose things meant to be discovered by playing.) Like so: [spoiler]secrets[/spoiler] Developed for TDM 2.01. PS: Thiefette, good news, no spiders! Springheel, if you find an optional objective you can skip...you might find it immersion breaking. Others, no undead! There are a couple other interactive critters though. :-) Edit note: Some posts below were from users of an unreleased version of TDM 2.02 which broke several things, they do not reflect regular game-play.

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.

Here's my first FM. A small and easy mission, inspired by Thief's Den and The Bakery Job, where you must find and steal a cook's recipe book in order to save a friend from going out of business. Download: Mediafire (sk_cooks.pk4) TDM Website's Mission Page The in-game mission downloader Thanks to: The people who helped me get this far, both in the forums and on Discord. The beta testers: MirceaKitsune, Mat99, Baal, wesp5, Cambridge Spy, jaxa, grodenglaive, Acolytesix ( Per the author in the beta testing thread. ) Skaruts has given permission to the TDM Team to add Subtitles or Localization Strings to this mission. (No EFX Reverb.) If anyone from the Community or TDM team wishes to create these we will gladly test them and update the mission database.

A sad and happy day all at once! I will be crying while downloading, then smiling as I install, crying while sneaking, smiling while grabbing loot. Very bittersweet and confusing.

I was thinking of trying something different for the loot objective in a mission I'm making. I don't really mind the traditional way, but sometimes it can get the player stuck, and I don't like having to think about a percentage of loot that seems fair (which, I think, depends highly on the mission's layout). But I'm not sure how to go about this. My first thought was that I could make it optional, and show up in the list of objectives as something like (Optional) Get any loot you can find. I tried having it that way for a while and, personally, I think it's fine (except the objective logic doesn't work as I want it to; but that aside). I'm not sure what makes loot fun. But I'm sure we all get some loot, even if it's entirely optional. I'd love to hear some thoughts on this, or even, if anyone has tried different things, I'd love to hear about it.

We are proud to announce the release of: The Dark Mod 2.12 ! The 2.12 development cycle introduced many large code overhaul projects. Most of these were to lay the groundwork for future fixes and optimizations. The final release is yet another leap in performance over the already impressive 2.10 and 2.11 releases. A full changelog can be viewed here, but some highlights include: The Dark Mod 2.12 is a major step forward for mission designers! The culling system has been extensively overhauled to ensure that your CPU and GPU are not wasting resources rendering unseen geometry, lights, and shadows. Some of our best map optimization experts have achieved similar performance gains to what this new culling system does but it is a rare skill and we have even managed to improve performance on missions that were generally regarded as “well optimized”. Mission authors both new and old can follow standard mapping practices with no need to dive deep into sophisticated optimization techniques even for some pretty challenging scenarios such as wide open areas and long views. Players will immediately notice many missions that have made their system struggle with FPS now may be running much more smoothly! Smoother controls for players! Also during the 2.12 development cycle, work has been done to make controls more seamless and accessible. Frob can now use hold or click actions to use items. Once you get used to the mechanic, it will be hard to go back to using a separate “use key”. Mantling is now smoother, faster, and less prone to cause the player to clip through geometry. Leaning is now more subtle and less prone to cause motion sickness. To reduce the tedium of shuffling knocked out AI around to search for loot, you can now configure TDM to automatically loot any frobbed AI. A special thanks must go out to community member Geep! Over the course of 2.12 development, Geep has created subtitles for nearly all AI barks along with developing testing tools and procedures for this gargantuan task! You can see these changes in action by changing the Subtitles setting to “On” ( rather than “Story” ) on the Audio settings page. Geep also provided substantial feedback for our GUI and subtitle design process and edited font data to improve text quality overall. Datiswous has complimented the massive work by Geep to create AI bark subtitles by creating mission story subtitles for a large number of missions. Thank you! Turrets are now natively supported in The Dark Mod and can be paired with Security Cameras! Finally, the nasty 2.11 bug that caused AI to allow arrows to pass through them at certain angles was fixed by Joebarnin! Your assassin style play-throughs should be far less frustrating. See also, our 2.12 Feature discussions: To UPDATE, simply run the tdm_installer.exe file in your darkmod folder. Note that tdm_update.exe is no longer supported, but you can download the new installer from the Downloads page if you don’t have it yet. Please be aware that old saved games will not be compatible with 2.12, so finish any missions you might be in the middle of first! Also, some missions created prior to 2.12 may need to be updated so they will be playable in 2.12. Use the in-game mission downloader to check for updates.

The Thief2 FM "Mission X" was structured like that. But from the perspective of someone making or using a multiplayer system, it should be as general as possible so mappers can make whatever set-up they want for their FM, like that, or leave it open to the players to play it however they want. I think one way for the system to work most basically is have a coop mode (shared objectives, loot, scripts, etc.) and a "thieves vs. guards" mode (separate objectives, tracking loot count & capture count; it should probably be set up like the old Thievery mod) and those are pre-made so a mapper can just turn one on and tweak some things. Those are the two most popular MP cases for this game. But then if they want to, mappers could micromanage the parameters if they want to make their own mode, and the system should facilitate that. That was my thinking. But I think coop is the big one for us, since all of the FMs will already be set up for that, and that's the way I imagine it'd be most used. So that should come first.

Ah, pity I wasn't reading the forums back in February. I'm fond of that game, along with Bugbear's other early title, Rally Trophy. I was never too good at FlatOut, but it was always a hoot to play.

I was curious about this mission for being just 1Mb. Had a bit of free time to play something today, so I went with this one. Completed in Ghost, not full loot (though I ended up cheating to find JD's key, because I'm a blind dummy). That's a bit of a spoiler. I wish I hadn't read it before I got down there. The only two things that bothered me a bit were that the guards all have the same voice, and that there's too many loot coins. I'm lousy at noticing loot coins in random places. The underground house is pretty damn cool. Very nicely crafted. I nearly got caught at the beginning. I lockpicked JDs door and got in right as the guard turned the corner and commented on the open door. I somehow improvised in a room I had never seen before. I turned off the lamp and hurried behind the desk. Turns out it worked, his lantern didn't reach me there. He never saw or heard me, so he just left and said "must've been rats".

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.

When talking about a possible libre version of TDM (https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22346-libre-version-of-tdm/) it seems we believe all media/gamedata included in TDM is licensed CC-BY-NC-SA. I am not familiar with how the process of adding new media/gamedata works today; I have seen files uploaded to the bugtracker which developers then commit to SVN, but I don't know if there are other ways. It may be a good idea to implement a process that when new components (media/gamedata included in TDM) are added, the contributor is asked to be explicit about the license (a choice which may defaults to their previous preference, for usability). It won't fix the past, but it may help in the future. This will make it easy for contributors to add future data under a more permissive license if they choose. Libre media can be added and its license can be tracked, rather than assumed to be CC-BY-NC-SA. I suggest looking at how Wikimedia Commons has implemented this: the contributor state the source and license at the time the data is uploaded. This can be done either by providing urls or by saying "It's my work and I choose this licsense". The first step could be to add a way to keep track of each filepath in SVN, author, license, sources. Start by setting the value for each file's license to "(default/legacy CC-BY-NC-SA)". Possible implementations for a user interface for new additions are: * Use our own wiki, which runs Mediawiki (same as Wikimedia Commons). I see several benefits of this, but we also need a way to accept uploads of batches, not just single files. * Look at how other open source projects have solved this. There may be more appropriate solutions available. ... but I'll leave the implementation open. Suggestions are very welcome! If the author of each file already in SVN can be tracked, then it may be possible that the author is willing to give a blanket permission for all their past files in one statement, and all their files in SVN can be updated in one commit. A productive contributor willing to release some of their work under a more permissive license could make a big change. If Dark Radiant would support letting mappers search media/gamedata by license (does it already?), it would make it easier for mappers to create a completely libre mission, which would help facilitate a TDM-libre release. If I understand things correctly. This post does not address all details and it may contain misunderstandings or assumptions, but it's a start. Also relevant: * Is there a compiled and maintained list of recommended or deprecated resources for mappers to use? * https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/20311-external-art-assets-licensing/

I thought it would be convenient to collect in one place a list of all mods\addons\improvements created by the community for TDM. After surfing the entire forum I collected the following list of mods, and I present to you their list below. I will be glad if you correct me and provide any other links to mods that I may have missed. Graphic mods Fresnel Mod (MoDB link) Flame Glare Mod (MoDB link) ModPacks Unofficial Patch (MoDB link) TDM Modpack (MoDB link) (with the possibility of separate installation) Gameplay mods Augmentation Mod Wearable disguises Player Lamp (beta) Adjust player speed with mouse wheel Stealth Statistics Tool & Loot Stealth Stat (MoDB link) Textures TDM Texture Mod Small UI tweaks Reflections to all materials containing specular maps Sounds New Footstep sounds Collection of adjusted sounds by Anton Thiefier Sounds Blackjack Draw/Sheath SFX (MoDB link)

This is a great first mission and a neat adaptation of Lovecraft's short story. I especially loved the start - the streets after dark, the door that slams shut as you approach, and the house's silhouette against the starry sky as you walk up the road. The atmosphere was so thick one could practically cut it! Once inside the house, I kept expecting the inevitable, and my enjoyment of finding loot was matched by my paranoid dread of encountering the terrible old man. The end was not unexpected but definitely well done.

If I understand correctly it sounds like something is basically removing the actual glasses entity from game so the inventory item points at nothing? Looking at the scripts this is the area where I see handling of the xray glasses overlapping with with other inventory items - basically it keeps the current inventory item as glasses after picking up other inventory objects so you don't have to constantly scroll through the inventory to to enable/disable them. Not sure if something is going haywire here: // dirty workaround to stop the inventory from changing away from the xray glasses if the player picks up loot or items while wearing them void playertools_xray_glasses::loot_loop() { string frobHighlighted; string selectedCurrent; string selectedPrevious; while( wearing_xray_glasses ) { selectedCurrent = $player1.getCurInvItemEntity().getKey("classname"); if( $player1.getFrobbed() ) frobHighlighted = $player1.getFrobbed().getKey("classname"); // has the inventory switched away from the xray glasses? if ( selectedCurrent != selectedPrevious && selectedPrevious == getKey("classname") ) { // has it switched because the player has frobbed an item or some loot? if( selectedCurrent == frobHighlighted || selectedCurrent == "atdm:inv_loot_info_item" ) { sys.wait(0.65); // if the player still has that item selected, switch back to the xray glasses if( selectedCurrent == $player1.getCurInvItemEntity().getKey("classname") && wearing_xray_glasses ) { $player1.setCurInvItem( getKey("inv_name") ); //switch back to the xray glasses } } } selectedPrevious = selectedCurrent; sys.waitFrame(); } }

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.