Jump to content
The Dark Mod Forums

Things that could be improved


Berny

Recommended Posts

You ought to keep the notes for the purpose of possibly doing an FM yourself in this setting! Who knows how things change, and where we end up at.

 

 

Unfortunately I don't have the talent to make a map but I can certainly create stories or adapt Old Folk Stories based in this setting that can be interesting. But they need a specific formula. I'm gonna give an example of a story related to Necro Witches.

 

 

 

Act 1

The thief is contacted by a Necro Witch. And Old Lady, owner of an apothecary (It should be noted than no one around her know about her hidden agenda). The lady looks completely harmless. The Old lady explains the situation that a client of hers asked for a love potion but these things come with a price, which was given. The love potion didn't work and the unsatisfied costumer is threatening with accusations of witchcraft to the Church. The job of the thief is to place a small Pagan statue in a chest inside the customer (A noblewoman) House and leave an anonymous letter to the authorities alongside more evidence scattered to make it all believable.

 

Act 2

The Client is burned alive in the Town Center and the Thief watches the consequences of his actions (Consequences should always be visible). It showed the Witch, the Thieve can be reliable and reveal their evil plan of creating a "Perfect Vessel" out of human parts, each one have to be representative of something specific stored in a jar and then create a certain situation in the city that causes hate and suffering to empower the piece of the vessel. The thieve goes into collecting the pieces of the vessel and watches the consequences of his actions unfold each time.

 

Act 3

The last part of the ritual is to get a baby of a noble family heir of something great in reflection of the vessel heir of the reign of evil. The thief proceeds to kidnap the baby and watches the consequences of his actions, feels remorse and start thinking that this ritual could actually be real. The necros proceed with the ritual in an abandoned house outside Bridgeport with the final part being to sacrifice the baby in order for his soul to reanimate the vessel. The Thief gets in the way in a party pooper style, steals the baby back, encloses the house and burn the witches inside and bringing the baby safe and sound back to his cradle.

 

 

 

 

The meaning of the story is that even if the thief may despise noble people, he realized that he was becoming worst than they are. The thief should be able to make lots of mistakes, watch the consequences and learn from them or try to fix them.

 

 

I'm not suggesting the Lore should be changed. I just pointing out that some details could be consolidated and placed all inside the city to add depth. Make story premises that are interesting cause in terms of gameplay, TDM will not reinvent the wheel, so concentrating in interesting and flashy stories may be the perfect formula. In fact I think Bridgeport should be potentially depressing, so depressing the player would never want to live in this particular setting and even wish to nuke it all. But still feel related and compelled with certain key characters that are trapped there and make the player keep going because of them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

Unfortunately I don't have the talent to make a map but I can certainly create stories or adapt Old Folk Stories based in this setting that can be interesting. But they need a specific formula. I'm gonna give an example of a story related to Necro Witches.

 

 

 

Act 1

The thief is contacted by a Necro Witch. And Old Lady, owner of an apothecary (It should be noted than no one around her know about her hidden agenda). The lady looks completely harmless. The Old lady explains the situation that a client of hers asked for a love potion but these things come with a price, which was given. The love potion didn't work and the unsatisfied costumer is threatening with accusations of witchcraft to the Church. The job of the thief is to place a small Pagan statue in a chest inside the customer (A noblewoman) House and leave an anonymous letter to the authorities alongside more evidence scattered to make it all believable.

 

Act 2

The Client is burned alive in the Town Center and the Thief watches the consequences of his actions (Consequences should always be visible). It showed the Witch, the Thieve can be reliable and reveal their evil plan of creating a "Perfect Vessel" out of human parts, each one have to be representative of something specific stored in a jar and then create a certain situation in the city that causes hate and suffering to empower the piece of the vessel. The thieve goes into collecting the pieces of the vessel and watches the consequences of his actions unfold each time.

 

Act 3

The last part of the ritual is to get a baby of a noble family heir of something great in reflection of the vessel heir of the reign of evil. The thief proceeds to kidnap the baby and watches the consequences of his actions, feels remorse and start thinking that this ritual could actually be real. The necros proceed with the ritual in an abandoned house outside Bridgeport with the final part being to sacrifice the baby in order for his soul to reanimate the vessel. The Thief gets in the way in a party pooper style, steals the baby back, encloses the house and burn the witches inside and bringing the baby safe and sound back to his cradle.

 

 

 

 

The meaning of the story is that even if the thief may despise noble people, he realized that he was becoming worst than they are. The thief should be able to make lots of mistakes, watch the consequences and learn from them or try to fix them.

 

 

I'm not suggesting the Lore should be changed. I just pointing out that some details could be consolidated and placed all inside the city to add depth. Make story premises that are interesting cause in terms of gameplay, TDM will not reinvent the wheel, so concentrating in interesting and flashy stories may be the perfect formula. In fact I think Bridgeport should be potentially depressing, so depressing the player would never want to live in this particular setting and even wish to nuke it all. But still feel related and compelled with certain key characters that are trapped there and make the player keep going because of them.

With all mentioned you're definitely right in that the cliche "I steal to pay my rent" eventually must be surpassed.

The problem is as usual the implementation. Everyone has ideas, but it's really, really hard, and better to have a small FM with a conclusive or at least some kind of message, a good ending. A satisfying debrief as much as a good briefing intro does the trick for me. It means the author paid a minimal attention to narrative/story.

That's why a campaign of 3 missions will take years. A good example in recent times is Dragofer I suppose or Sotha. There's a lot of other talents that come and go. Quality takes time. Competition breeds excelence, but it's complicated when we're in communism where everything is free. Nonetheless it's a training ground and we'll see where this goes.

 

To me as long as a story takes the E.A. Poe approach or the C. Dickens approach, for instance as Thief 2 was compared to "A Tale of Two Cities". I think that works a lot for TDM.

 

Today what we lack direly, in spite of having some tools - The Moors in a properly dignified story.

Edited by Anderson
  • Like 1

"I really perceive that vanity about which most men merely prate — the vanity of the human or temporal life. I live continually in a reverie of the future. I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active — not more happy — nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. The result will never vary — and to suppose that it will, is to suppose that the foregone man has lived in vain — that the foregone time is but the rudiment of the future — that the myriads who have perished have not been upon equal footing with ourselves — nor are we with our posterity. I cannot agree to lose sight of man the individual, in man the mass."...

- 2 July 1844 letter to James Russell Lowell from Edgar Allan Poe.

badge?user=andarson

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Taquito, if you don't want to make a map, why don't you write a fan fiction story?

Then you could package it with Illustrator or something to look like a polished publication, add some cool art, etc.

That's probably more interesting & offers more inspiration to mappers than a whole lore bible, and hopefully inspire more fans to contribute things like that.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

An old suggestion of mine: implement a "Takedown from Above" attack.

Someone has started working on this :ph34r:

 

Regarding lore: I for one wouldn't add too much to the basic lore. Mission authors should granted some freedom, and the lore developes with the missions released. A more complex lore makes it more complex or even complicated for FM authors to create stories that don't interfere with it.

  • Like 1

FM's: Builder Roads, Old Habits, Old Habits Rebuild

Mapping and Scripting: Apples and Peaches

Sculptris Models and Tutorials: Obsttortes Models

My wiki articles: Obstipedia

Texture Blending in DR: DR ASE Blend Exporter

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For the record, that's why I recommended packaging lore really just as fan fic.

FMs authors can take parts they want or don't want, or just take inspiration.

It's an incentive to do good world-building because authors will only take it to canonize it if it's actually well constructed and good, so you can't just indulge in your own personal vision and expect it to be taken up.

 

I think it's already established that in FM-dom, in both TDM and T2, authors are free to build their own interpretation of the world, e.g., Calendra's Legacy was quite a different vision of Garrett than T2, or like Batman has been reimagined in rather different worlds. That's how a lore author should feel building their vision of the world, which is one interpretation. But whether it becomes canon depends on whether/how much the community takes up.

 

Re: Takedowns from above, don't forget T2 had a stat specifically for "Airborne KOs" to cover that situation. It may be something we can already count now with only a little extra code tweaks.

  • Like 2

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ok I understand now. I though the Lore was pretty much written on stone and going beyond canon was considered a no no. Good to know.

 

@Demagogue. I can't write novels in English since my grammar is poor but I can certainly add some story prompts and premises to the Inspiration thread.

Edited by Taquito
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Taken downs from above would be awesome.

 

In general, the Thief games were pretty generous with KO detection. With a little practice, you could ambush guards while practically doing somersaults down a hallway. TDM is much less forgiving and requires more skill, which is nice. However, it might be fun to see some FMs that incorporate easier AI while still encouraging skill and thought.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

About takedowns: it would need some research and development to find out how they could be done in terms of our old-skool skill-based gameplay, rather than boring modern "when near enemy, press TAKEDOWN button to win" -approach.

 

Certainly not something to the core mod, but a fun bonus in a single FM.

  • Like 1

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have to admit, there have been a few times where I've seen an AI below me and wanted to be able to jump on top of him to take him out. I would imagine it working something like dropping crates--if the player is high enough and lands on the AI's head, they KO them. If not, they just do some damage and the AI does a failed-ko animation. It would have to be reasonably high though, otherwise this could become an easy exploit to get around guards that can't be KO'd in the traditional manner.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree, they would still need to be skill based. Its possible in TDM to get the timing just right, jumping and blackjacking in mid-air. It would be a matter of making it slightly easier to do.

 

One approach would be to tweak the AI KO volumes in an FM. In Thief, the physics / gravity is fairly "floaty" making it easier as well. I'm curious and will do some investigation into this.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Takedowns are entirely possible with current game play it just takes practice I was able to knock out guards in this way in behind closed doors. One thing that might be thought about as if the player jumps on a Guard the guard would fall over and get knocked out. I'm sure that the player weighs more than a wooden crate.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Are you sure? I tried this myself and all I've experienced was that I've taken damage myself. The ai however was neither damaged nor ko'ed. I've therefore implemented a way to enable this feature, but it is a bit hacky (see my mapping/scripting thread).

FM's: Builder Roads, Old Habits, Old Habits Rebuild

Mapping and Scripting: Apples and Peaches

Sculptris Models and Tutorials: Obsttortes Models

My wiki articles: Obstipedia

Texture Blending in DR: DR ASE Blend Exporter

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The gamma/brightness setting screen as below is useless in my opinion

post-8491-0-16420700-1482408874_thumb.jpg

To explain

My monitor is set up almost perfectly with a full gamma range from white to black and setting the brightness/gamma in the Training Mission gives 1.33 for each as about right

However you can see that the gamma standards just don't give a result which is in anyway meaningful

Note that this shot was taken in the latest beta but it has been the same for as long as I can remember

If the gradient in the chart can't be sorted perhaps it should be removed

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The gamma/brightness setting screen as below is useless in my opinion

attachicon.giftraining_mission_2016-12-22_12.11.22.jpg

To explain

My monitor is set up almost perfectly with a full gamma range from white to black and setting the brightness/gamma in the Training Mission gives 1.33 for each as about right

However you can see that the gamma standards just don't give a result which is in anyway meaningful

Note that this shot was taken in the latest beta but it has been the same for as long as I can remember

If the gradient in the chart can't be sorted perhaps it should be removed

Well, Windows 10 is plagued with problems with Gamma Ramp changes in Games so TDM isn't the only game to have these kinds of problems.

 

That said, one of the workarounds I suggested in the 2.05beta thread was invalid because the build was not XP compliant.

If you run tdm_updater once more then choose XP compatibility mode, does it still fail to work for you?

 

(Note: I have Windows 10 64-bit with a Geforce GT 730 (latest drivers) and gamma\contrast both seem to work well for me.)

  • Like 1

Please visit TDM's IndieDB site and help promote the mod:

 

http://www.indiedb.com/mods/the-dark-mod

 

(Yeah, shameless promotion... but traffic is traffic folks...)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree, they would still need to be skill based. Its possible in TDM to get the timing just right, jumping and blackjacking in mid-air. It would be a matter of making it slightly easier to do.

 

One approach would be to tweak the AI KO volumes in an FM. In Thief, the physics / gravity is fairly "floaty" making it easier as well. I'm curious and will do some investigation into this.

 

That's part of the reason why platforming, jumping, mantling was more of a pleasure in the Thief games.

Think of "The Bonehard" and how easy it is to do all those acrobatics versus the rough edge navigation that the Doom 3 engine allows with The Dark Mod. The first 2 Thief games were almost Quake-like in regards to the versatality of the flow of the movement that the player is given. Thief Deadly Shadows wasn't quite there, but it still didn't feel too clunky (and there wasn't much need to jump and such either). More climbing than anything else.

"I really perceive that vanity about which most men merely prate — the vanity of the human or temporal life. I live continually in a reverie of the future. I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active — not more happy — nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. The result will never vary — and to suppose that it will, is to suppose that the foregone man has lived in vain — that the foregone time is but the rudiment of the future — that the myriads who have perished have not been upon equal footing with ourselves — nor are we with our posterity. I cannot agree to lose sight of man the individual, in man the mass."...

- 2 July 1844 letter to James Russell Lowell from Edgar Allan Poe.

badge?user=andarson

Link to comment
Share on other sites

knockouts in thief 2 were controlled by the stims/reactions system which is why you could knock them out while you were in the air. it wasn't the case of a volume above the AI it was whether the source (blackjack) matched the receptron on the AI, that made it possible to whack them, while the player was off the ground. the receptron range was set from 0.0 to infinity.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Stumpy- Thats interesting. I'm not familiar with thief's wacky receptron system, but I imagine its a version of hit detection?

 

Just for fun, I tested out ways to make mid-air blackjacking a little easier. Turning down the gravity to 1000 and re-oriented the hit detection volume of the black jack to get a little more reach makes mid-air blackjacking slightly easier. This required a pretty significant amount of tweaking to the blackjack and changing the world gravity is scary so I wouldn't recommend doing this in FMs without lots of testing.

 

As Spring mentioned, jumping on AI might become an easy exploit.

Edited by kingsal
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Is it possible to make the death screen an option upon death?

For example let the game still being on and the camera just laying on the ground, but the screen not fading away.

Instead let the mouse appear and let us select from : quit FM, quit TDM, load save and start over.

This would make the game feel more accessible and friendly towards our mistakes. Think of how fast you're back in Super Meat Boy.

Edited by Anderson

"I really perceive that vanity about which most men merely prate — the vanity of the human or temporal life. I live continually in a reverie of the future. I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active — not more happy — nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. The result will never vary — and to suppose that it will, is to suppose that the foregone man has lived in vain — that the foregone time is but the rudiment of the future — that the myriads who have perished have not been upon equal footing with ourselves — nor are we with our posterity. I cannot agree to lose sight of man the individual, in man the mass."...

- 2 July 1844 letter to James Russell Lowell from Edgar Allan Poe.

badge?user=andarson

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There shouldn't be an option to quit the game from any place except the main menu. Psychologically removing as many possible places to allow the player to leave the game is important. I do agree with you that there should be more options on the death screen. I don't think it's possible to have an integrated on top of the play review I believe when the background changes the GUI changes which allows the player to work the mouse difference. I don't know that's a hundred percent I'm just assuming this based on the way the game behaves and other Integrations of idTech4.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I mean, to remove the annoying things about death in TDM that feel clunky.

An improvement would be even simply removing the animation and death sound. Just instantly transport to the screen of load, quit. Allow to load any save, from the FM, not force in the options a mission restart or return to the main menu in order to load the save we want.

"I really perceive that vanity about which most men merely prate — the vanity of the human or temporal life. I live continually in a reverie of the future. I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active — not more happy — nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. The result will never vary — and to suppose that it will, is to suppose that the foregone man has lived in vain — that the foregone time is but the rudiment of the future — that the myriads who have perished have not been upon equal footing with ourselves — nor are we with our posterity. I cannot agree to lose sight of man the individual, in man the mass."...

- 2 July 1844 letter to James Russell Lowell from Edgar Allan Poe.

badge?user=andarson

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


  • Recent Status Updates

    • Petike the Taffer

      I've finally managed to log in to The Dark Mod Wiki. I'm back in the saddle and before the holidays start in full, I'll be adding a few new FM articles and doing other updates. Written in Stone is already done.
      · 4 replies
    • nbohr1more

      TDM 15th Anniversary Contest is now active! Please declare your participation: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22413-the-dark-mod-15th-anniversary-contest-entry-thread/
       
      · 0 replies
    • JackFarmer

      @TheUnbeholden
      You cannot receive PMs. Could you please be so kind and check your mailbox if it is full (or maybe you switched off the function)?
      · 1 reply
    • OrbWeaver

      I like the new frob highlight but it would nice if it was less "flickery" while moving over objects (especially barred metal doors).
      · 4 replies
    • nbohr1more

      Please vote in the 15th Anniversary Contest Theme Poll
       
      · 0 replies
×
×
  • Create New...