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Theme-based campaigns?


RailGun

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I've been following some of the discussions about the DM missions recently released and the criticism about the lack of a concise background of the city and the universe around it. Instead of making a large campaign with a single storyline it could be possible to make small-sized campaigns that revolve around a particular faction of the city (the builders, the pagans, the inventors, the necromancers, etc). The point is to give more background to the TDM universe so that mappers can work with a more fleshed out environment while still maintaining it flexible for new ideas

Of course this should be a community effort, the team has enough work as it is but i think this type of project is much more realistic than trying to make a campaign with 12 missions or more (which would require a team of people to finish)

 

Any thoughts?

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Any thoughts?

 

Seems to make sense. Independent projects that could specialize in various themes, with the hope of weaving a fan mission playlist that fits into a larger campaigne-worthy story?

 

And would this/these project(s) run within The Dark Mod web space, or hosted elsewhere? Is such a project underway?

Edited by Nebrekker
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I've been pondering this for a while - I think its a great idea.

 

I dont really have the whole story side of things, but I can offer my help with mapping, texturing, technical issues and the likes. I could offer a repo or other service to share stuff between members etc.

 

First steps are most likely finding someone that has ideas for the storyline, pitching that and seeing if we can get a few mappers together.

 

The other quite important is someone that can do voice acting on a longish term, I think a lot of what the guys over at TTLG etc are missing is the rapport between player and character that come out strongly in the video/quirky comments of T1/2.

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I've been pondering this for a while - I think its a great idea.

 

I dont really have the whole story side of things, but I can offer my help with mapping, texturing, technical issues and the likes. I could offer a repo or other service to share stuff between members etc.

 

First steps are most likely finding someone that has ideas for the storyline, pitching that and seeing if we can get a few mappers together.

 

The other quite important is someone that can do voice acting on a longish term, I think a lot of what the guys over at TTLG etc are missing is the rapport between player and character that come out strongly in the video/quirky comments of T1/2.

 

Well, if anyone has any great ideas i could also get behind a project. I'm very interested in making a campaign about the inventors since we know almost nothing about them and they are a very different faction from the mechanist in the thief world, unfortunately i don't have much ideas about the plot but here's hoping somebody does :P

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Well, if anyone has any great ideas i could also get behind a project. I'm very interested in making a campaign about the inventors since we know almost nothing about them and they are a very different faction from the mechanist in the thief world, unfortunately i don't have much ideas about the plot but here's hoping somebody does :P

 

I have some ideas, but I'm reluctant to express them publicly until I have a fully realised storyline thread. Right now I have about three separate themes that I'm trying to tie together into a single consistent story. Trying to connect them isn't easy since I'm dealing with four different factions and have to link them all together somehow (some of this is already done). I'll give some thought to having separate smaller campaigns if I can't resolve this.

 

I've also been writing little bits of background info for the TDM universe to help get an idea of the world and those who live in it. I'm trying to keep this as faithful to the existing universe as possible, but I'd love if someone from the TDM team could have a read in an 'official' capacity to provide feedback. If there's anything in there that the team likes it could be added to the wiki, or not as the case may be. ;)

 

One thing to consider though, getting back to the original question of small campaigns, even a single mission (if it's large enough) can give you a pretty good idea of a certain faction. Although Cragscleft wasn't the only Hammerite mission in Thief1, it fleshed out the order pretty well in the player's mind. For this reason, I don't necessarily think that you'd need 3-4 missions focusing on one faction in order to help players understand them.

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I can come up with a story but won't have time to help with mapping other than support and advice. This project would need to work with what assets we have now or in the near future so no chance for inventors, pagans, etc. Instead, city watch, builders, undead, commoners, thieves. The levels can vary of course: A mansion level, a builder level, an undead level, a thief level, a prison level, a factory level, not necessarily in that order. So you start with some simple story design ideas:

 

The typical mansion heist might incidentally uncover some info the lord has got that the builders are up to something.

 

The builders level you have to find out what and it turns out they've discovered an ancient buried temple or whatever with some amazing talisman that can give access to a castle but thieves have stolen info about how to get to the talisman.

 

The thief level you have to get that info.

 

The undead level is the buried temple where you get the talisman. Maybe cross paths with thieves or maybe just find their bones.

 

The final level you use the talisman to gain access to the castle to get a special artifact.

 

If short of manpower, Level 1 can be optionally dropped. So can the thief level.

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I'd really like to see an inventors map developed. But as Fidcal pointed out they aren't currently rigged/ready to go so while a map could be made and almost completed it would have to wait until the AI were ready.

 

Having said that I've also been trying to make more stuff, machines and whatnot but I really haven't found much in the way of concept art to go on and haven't been happy with the stuff I've come up with so far. If I had specifics to work on it would be easier.

Dark is the sway that mows like a harvest

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but I'd love if someone from the TDM team could have a read in an 'official' capacity to provide feedback.

 

Sure, I'd be happy to.

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I'd like to participate as a story writer, and possibly voice acting. My mapping skills are confined to the tutorials, although my brother, nephew and best friend (not active members) are decent at mapping and modelling.

 

I've mentioned in a seperate thread (The Dark Eternity) interest in creating a Machinima production. I still think that would be a powerful implementaion for for The Dark Mod, but my particular story has a long ways to go before it becomes production ready. I'll try not to spam this thread with that topic, other than to say you can view my work so far, and steal any ideas for better or worse (see afore-mentioned thread).

 

It seems to me, the general message, here, is let's get moving in the same direction with a feasible campaign. That seems to begin with a fun and cohesive story line that fits in with the assets already in place. Maybe The Inventors could come in the latter part of Act II?

 

Are we to the point where we could talk about how and where such a project would be hosted? How about some Wiki space for our outline and story draft, and start hashing out some ideas?

 

Sorry if I'm getting ahead of myself. Just excited about The Dark Mod.

 

P.S. I could, possibly, be taught to script AI.

Edited by Nebrekker
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It seems to me, the general message, here, is let's get moving in the same direction with a feasible campaign.

 

As someone with some experience in trying to get a group of people moving in the same direction to create a TDM campaign, this is much more difficult than it sounds.

 

You'll need to have serious mappers sign up before any other work makes sense.

 

You should also seriously consider what you want to accomplish with a campaign that you could not with a series of individual missions.

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I´d be happy to lend a hand as a mapper for a project like this and think the idér of separate missions that interlink story wice and showing off the different factions of the city (the builders, the pagans, the inventors, the necromancers, etc), is a great idé as TDM can´t handle campains (yet) and as a project like this is going to take time I can´t see whay a mission with/about the inventors can´t be plande (maby not as the first) to fit the story along the way!

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It certainly would be nice to flesh out some of the setting, but you don't have to interlink everything. Most of the "factions" (neither pagans or necromancers would actually qualify as a 'faction' btw) don't really have anything to do with each other.

 

The upcoming map "Builder's Influence" reveals a lot of interesting information about the Builders, for example, but it is just a standalone mission.

 

I guess my overall opinion is that the setting should grow organically, rather than some big project to define it. Let the setting grow in bits and pieces, by mappers who have something interesting to offer, instead of trying to shoehorn missions into serving as 'chapters' in a setting encyclopedia.

 

If people really want to get involved in shaping the setting, they should go through the wiki pages and look for something that catches their attention. Then think about how they could expand upon it and turn it into a cool mission.

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The other quite important is someone that can do voice acting on a longish term, I think a lot of what the guys over at TTLG etc are missing is the rapport between player and character that come out strongly in the video/quirky comments of T1/2.

Well, this point has been on my mind for quite some time. My suggestion for a temporary solution would be this:

 

Someone writes a script that copies the Thief voice files from the player's Thief CD-ROM to a certain subfolder that is defined beforehand. The player would just have to point the script to his CD-ROM drive. The FM mapper who would want to use these voice files would then just have to insert a pointer in his/her FM to the location of the specific file(s) to use. With this method, his/her FM would use the player's own Thief files but not contain the files themself and thus break no part of the copyright Eidos holds. It would work much like a Torrent tracker that just points to a file but does not contain any part of it.

 

What do you guys think? Is this method compatible with US copyright law?

My Eigenvalue is bigger than your Eigenvalue.

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No! There are technical reasons against this method, as the voice-overs from Thief are only half compatible with our AI scheme, just to name an example. Most of the files are not fitting in anyway, from the content's perspective either.

 

Plus, you'd basically shut the door to all those people who don't own a Thief copy - they'd be required to buy Doom 3 and Thief. We've even had complaints from people who didn't want to buy Doom 3 alone, for whatever reason.

 

And lastly, I personally find it disturbing that people still try to tack Thief/Garrett stuff onto TDM, as if to "fix" something that is "broken". This Garrett fetish has no place in the TDM world. If people want Thief voices, then go ahead and play Thief for all that's holy, but leave TDM out of this fetish.

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Ah, okay, I get it. It makes sense, after all. Sorry for bothering you with this idea, greebo, I realize it must make you mad to put all this effort in something that some people don't seem to appreciate. This is most definitely not the case for me. Sorry again.

My Eigenvalue is bigger than your Eigenvalue.

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I guess my overall opinion is that the setting should grow organically, rather than some big project to define it. Let the setting grow in bits and pieces, by mappers who have something interesting to offer, instead of trying to shoehorn missions into serving as 'chapters' in a setting encyclopedia.

 

I think this is a good idea as well. There are a lot of mappers that would like to work on FM that is based on an existing theme, but don't want to be connected to a project. A project is still a good idea of course, but not only just that. I decided a few days ago that my first FM, The Sons of Baltona, is the start of a continuing story. I'm planning to add small bits and pieces about the world the player, Carlos, lives in, in each FM. So after The Sons of Baltona series is finished, the story will continue.

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Ah, okay, I get it. It makes sense, after all. Sorry for bothering you with this idea, greebo, I realize it must make you mad to put all this effort in something that some people don't seem to appreciate. This is most definitely not the case for me. Sorry again.

Don't worry, my complaint was more of a general one (after years of hearing the same thing being suggested over and over again), it's definitely not directed to you personally, so you don't need to apologise to me at all. I was under the impression that you suggested this in an attempt to please the Garrett-Lover-Folks out there. Even if it's your actual preference, you don't need to apologise for it. ;) I just don't see the point in connecting (copyrighted) Thief stuff to TDM, it's kind of lame if that's necessary to enjoy the game.

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I can come up with a story but won't have time to help with mapping other than support and advice. This project would need to work with what assets we have now or in the near future so no chance for inventors, pagans, etc. Instead, city watch, builders, undead, commoners, thieves.
Do we have some idea of when the Inventors, Steam Beasts, etc. might be released? I've just started working on a map that I'd intended to leave open so I had the option of developing it into some sort of campaign in the future. The plot will interweave necromancers and the Inventors, but I thought that it might work well to have things like Steam Beasts available to add into the map. Obviously, if we are looking at years before they are going to be available then I'll either make do without or work on other projects first. Just curious.

 

Incidentally, I'm happy to work collabortaively on the campaign I'm working on. If anyone's interested in creating missions towards a campaign, or standalone missions that fall in line with a single theme, then please feel free to PM me and I'll give you a run-down of my ideas. I'm a bit reluctant to post my plot ideas here as I'm hoping for a couple of twists and suchlike that I don't want to make public at this time.

Edited by bambini

"We were travelling in the night of first ages, of those ages that are gone, leaving hardly a sign — and no memories" - Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

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I got the idea for my suggestion from Shrak for Quake (1), which I can proudly say I still own. See here under "Incompatibilities": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrak

 

My idea was to kind of have something to bridge the time until someone gets access to studio equipment (or at least better quality than the standard headset mike) and can record some voice overs. I'm a Garrett lover myself and was about to name my son Gerritt (in the end, me and my gf decided against it), so hearing his often snarky comments is a real pleasure.

 

(In that regard the Dungeon Keeper (1 and 2) voice overs are great as well: "Die Wände Eures Dungeons gähnen voller Vorfreude auf Euren nächsten, faszinierenden Zug.")

 

So what I want to say is: I fully agree that adding voice overs in the tradition of the Thief games would immensely increase immersion for the player. Unfortunately, all I can offer is a crappy headset mike and a reeeally bad German accent.   ;)

My Eigenvalue is bigger than your Eigenvalue.

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I don't see why anyone can't do anything they dare... but I also don't see that anything will become any kind of "canon". It may become "canon" to those who craft a certain story, but it will never be followed by the many who will create whatever interesting story lines they want - overlapping, contradicting, transcending, undermining, breaking, blaspheming, stealing, thieving, bending, bloating, blighting, enhancing, scuttering... what others pronounce as the "true" TDM universe.

 

It's impossible.

 

And, ultimately, undesirable.

"A Rhapsody Of Feigned And Ill-Invented Nonsense" - Thomas Aikenhead, On Theology, ca. 1696

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And lastly, I personally find it disturbing that people still try to tack Thief/Garrett stuff onto TDM, as if to "fix" something that is "broken". This Garrett fetish has no place in the TDM world. If people want Thief voices, then go ahead and play Thief for all that's holy, but leave TDM out of this fetish.

 

I agree 100%.

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