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Things that could be improved


Berny

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Check the lich queens demise. That had player character voiceovers. All the entities are in the chasm in the starting location. I think it was called atdm:voice or something.

 

You can always ask some nice voice actors to speak a few lines, or even record yourself.

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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@Sotha

You can always ask some nice voice actors to speak a few lines, or even record yourself.

 

Well, I could possibly do my own recording; that's not the problem. The problem is, how to implement the audio into the map? Can it be done with a speaker and trigger? Or what? :huh:

Quando omni flunkus moritati" ("When all else fails, play dead")

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Can it be done with a speaker and trigger? Or what? :huh:

 

Yes it can. There's a spawnarg for speaker entities to not play until triggered. However even better is using atdm:voice instead of a regular speaker (so sound located at player, rather than at the speaker, for proper volume) and a trigger or location to activate atdm:trigger_voice (in targets) as Sotha mentioned.

 

(There is another map that used internal voice extensively.)

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"The measure of a man's character is what he would do if he knew he never would be found out."

- Baron Thomas Babington Macauley

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Well, I could possibly do my own recording; that's not the problem. The problem is, how to implement the audio into the map? Can it be done with a speaker and trigger? Or what? :huh:

 

Record audio. Make it into .ogg, following there guidelines.

http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Sound_File_Formats

 

Make a soundshader. It looks like this:

sotha_rev_corridor1b
{
 description ""
   minDistance	  1
   maxDistance	 20
   volume    8

sound/sfx/sotha/rev_corridor_dialogue_1b.ogg
}

 

It basically gives the sound a name ("sotha_rev_corridor1b") and points it to audio files. It also gives you possibilities to set other things like volume adjustment and max/mindistances (how far it is heard).

 

Save the soundshader data into a filename.sndshdr that sits in you sound-folder.

Now you can add speakers or otherwise refer to a sound called "sotha_rev_corridor1b."

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Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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I don't like to have extra "baggage" to have to cycle through when looking for a certain item or weapon; so it's nice to have the option to drop unwanted items at the Buy Equipment screen. However, it doesn't always work with every mission, and not all missions have this option. I've been doing a lot of testing (unrelated to this issue.) in Vengeance for a Thief: Part 2. (A fantastic mission :D ) I found that weapons that I drop, are removed from my inventory, but items are not. I almost never use the compass and rarely use the spyglass. Dropping my compass in The Beleaguered Fence (also a fantastic mission :laugh: ) did remove it from my inventory. So it seems to be hit and miss.

 

Can anyone tell me a console command to manually remove items and weapons from my inventory please?

Edited by SirGen
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  • 2 weeks later...

Apologies if this has been posted before, but one tiny little thing that I think could be improved is in the mission downloader. Instead of showing as:

 

* Update

 

I think it should show as:

 

* Update or earlier/different version

 

Or something like that, as it was confusing for me since I downloaded the missions on the website and older versions(the release date for a mission I downloaded was 2013 whilst the downloader one was 2010) on the downloader were labeled with * as an update. Or am I just getting it wrong? In which case I apologise again. :P

 

Thanks for your time.

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The mission downloader should really have the most recent version.

In my experience, however, the downloader isn't able to tell whether the currently installed mission is different from what's available for download if the mission names are the same. There ought to be a checksum on the pk4 or something like that so the downloader could "know" that an update is needed.

 

I'm saying this because I spent ages playing what turned out to be an outdated version of a mission because a patch had been uploaded but the downloader hadn't detected it.

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if in doubt, delete the local version.

Of course -- but if I just run the updater routinely I've no reason to know that the local version of a particular mission is obsolete and needs deleting; it would be good if the updater could know that this needs to be done.

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When mantling over obstacles to escape from enemies, they often sheathe their weapons, (as they should, so they can throw stones at me) but once I'm back to ground level, they don't draw their weapons again. They just run into me without attacking. I've had this happen about 4 or 5 times while playing Penny Dreadful 2: All the way up. (Loving this mission so far btw :D)

 

 

Here's a picture of a guard just running into me.

post-23705-0-25976600-1405196236_thumb.jpg

Edited by SirGen
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I'm not sure if this is something that is appropriate for this thread(apologies if it is not) as this is also a sort of request:

 

So after playing this great game for some time, I'm personally finding it really difficult to defeat revenants with the sword even with the combat difficulty lowered. I've tried back stabbing and aiming for their heads but it still takes quite a lot of slashes and stabs to bring one down. Against human NPCs, I personally find the combat difficulty at 'Master' quite alright, where at times it's easy and at other times it's hard.

 

So after thinking of a possible way to give the player a bit more of an advantage(players like me that might want an advantage at any rate) in sword fighting them, I wondered if a feature could somehow be implemented where using holy water would increase your sword's damage against undead too.

 

As an example, it could have the same 30 second duration meaning both sword and water arrows are "blessed" at the same time. As such, you would need to choose either to use the water arrows or the sword before the timer runs out. This might also make holy water potions still useful after your water arrows ran out.

 

I think the increase in damage should be just about significant and not much, enough to give a bit of a better advantage in fighting those revenants(and also other undead) with the sword.

 

I mostly thought of this after comparing the combat to Thief 1 and 2 where sword fighting haunts, zombies and spectres was not as difficult overall, and that was part of the fun for me in those games. I know I should not expect the exact same kind of fun here, but I do like the combat in this game and am somewhat disappointed when it comes to sword fighting revenants and to a lesser extent, zombies(due to the amount of sword hits they can take) in general. So I'm hoping the additional sword damage from holy water can even the odds just enough to keep things fun instead of frustrating.

 

Anyway, this was just an idea and semi-request I had. Nothing more than another suggestion.

 

Thanks for reading and sorry if I wasted anyone's time. :smile:

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Can you destroy the undead? I've always assumed from my experience that they're simply unkillable. I've tried holy water arrows, which in Thief I seem to remember were instantly deadly, but with TDM it looks like I'd need to spend all my water arrows to kill anything, so I've always concentrated on evasion instead.

 

In fact, there's one mission I've been unable to play because of the mandatory sword fighting, alas.

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I've been able to kill most all undead with my sword.

In Alberic's Curse I just assumed that Alberic was invincible because he survived so many sword attacks, but I eventually killed him. In the Lich Queen's Demise, I did come across some kind of ghost that I couldn't seem to hurt at all.

Undead usually have far more health than human enemies. Fire arrows work quite well. Water arrows will only hurt the undead if you use holy water with them. Broadhead arrows don't seem to deal any damage to the undead.

 

EDIT

 

I just reread your post and realized that you already know that you need to combine holy water with water arrows :blush:

Edited by SirGen
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I wondered if a feature could somehow be implemented where using holy water would increase your sword's damage against undead too.

 

I like this idea but then I'm not the best person to give an opinion because I'm a hopeless sword-fighter in TDM. I avoid it at all costs. But it seems consistent with the game world. If you can sprinkle a vial over several water arrows why not a sword too?

 

Can you destroy the undead? I've always assumed from my experience that they're simply unkillable. I've tried holy water arrows, which in Thief I seem to remember were instantly deadly, but with TDM it looks like I'd need to spend all my water arrows to kill anything, so I've always concentrated on evasion instead.

Same here. Yes you can but only by using several (holy) water arrows, as you suspected.

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So after thinking of a possible way to give the player a bit more of an advantage(players like me that might want an advantage at any rate) in sword fighting them, I wondered if a feature could somehow be implemented where using holy water would increase your sword's damage against undead too.

Mappers can definetely do this, but I'm not sure whether it is a good idea to add this as a basic behaviour, as mappers who made undead missions may wanted to restrict the player by the amount of water arrows.

 

In addition, we are talking about a stealth game. It is not intented that you run around and kill everything that comes across you. If you aren't able to defeat revenants in melee combat, you may should change your approach ;)

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Just a small bug: Currently the sleeping animation for skeletons is the same as for human guards (i.e. with their chests moving up and down). It should be the one used for revenants (where they are completely still).

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urrently the sleeping animation for skeletons is the same as for human guards (i.e. with their chests moving up and down). It should be the one used for revenants (where they are completely still).

 

It already does. From "tdm_skeleton" modelDef:

 

 

//nonbreathing sleep animations

anim sleep_idle_lft models/md5/chars/guards/proguard/rev_sleep_lft.md5anim

anim sleep_idle_rgt models/md5/chars/guards/proguard/rev_sleep_rght.md5anim

 

The unarmed skeleton uses the zombie sleep animation, which is on the floor, but also shouldn't have breathing.

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Hmm, looks like the unarmed skeletons have a "sleep_idle" animation inherited from the zombies, but they don't have a sleep_idle_lft and sleep_idle_rght, so they inherit those from the proguard (hence the breathing).

 

Thanks for noticing.

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Mappers can definetely do this, but I'm not sure whether it is a good idea to add this as a basic behaviour, as mappers who made undead missions may wanted to restrict the player by the amount of water arrows.

 

While I think I can agree with this, I don't think I fully understand. If mappers wanted to make things more challenging by restricting the player based on the water arrows they have, couldn't they remove the sword altogether? Without any additional damage, the sword can still be an effective undead "killing" weapon. Getting rid of the sword would better solve the issue if that's the idea behind the mission. Also, using the example I wrote, choosing to use the sword over water arrows would already mean 1 holy water vial/potion less that could have been used for your water arrows.

 

A slight to significant increase in sword damage wouldn't make things really that easier as well, as sword fighting undead is still noisy, dangerous and you may expend your health potions doing so. This is as opposed to firing your holy water arrows in the dark and/or from a safe distance.

 

In addition, we are talking about a stealth game. It is not intented that you run around and kill everything that comes across you. If you aren't able to defeat revenants in melee combat, you may should change your approach ;)

 

While I can also agree with this, from my perspective Thief 1 and 2 were great stealth games that allowed the player to engage in sword combat with the undead in more rewarding and effective ways than in TDM(in my opinion), if the player chose to do so. For reference, you could back stab and instantly kill a haunt with your sword if you desired. That however, was a noisy and dangerous thing to do as other undead would most likely be nearby and be alert to the noises. Whilst you were not able to kill zombies, a good back stab or a few swings in confrontation would cause them to lay on the ground and that could have been a problem solver in certain situations. Of course, doing so would also cause a lot of noise and you risk getting damaged by said zombie.

 

It allowed you to do these things in more rewarding ways with the sword, and more often than not I found I accomplished something when I did so. And this existed as a nice "compliment"(in my opinion again) to the options the player had alongside the primary aspect of the games which was stealth. Even as someone who likes and focuses more on the sword combat in both the Thief games and TDM, I do spend almost all of my time hidden in the shadows. Personally, I only fight when I have been detected, where running is not an option or when I am thinking I could defeat my opponent(send them running and not just kill) so I certainly do not attack everything and anything I see. :P

 

In TDM, a sword confrontation with a revenant for me is now more of a no-no rather than "could I defeat it?" after getting killed repeatedly trying to do so. That only leaves me with the options of running, using holy water arrows, fire arrows and mines(and I can't really keep my sword drawn for parrying because it'll give me away when I'm trying to run and hide from it). Only 1 of which I think I'll even remotely be able to pull off well enough whilst being chased and possibly into a corner.

 

Perhaps I would not even have thought of this idea at all in missions with less revenants and zombies wandering around, but there do exist maps with a large number of undead and few resources to deal with them. Though that isn't a complaint too, as I appreciate the variety of having such missions.

 

I'm fine if this never gets added and frankly thought I would only make 1 post about this but I felt I had to make a reply. :smile: As always, thanks for your time.

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For reference, you could back stab and instantly kill a haunt with your sword if you desired.

 

Which made them a lot less frightening.

 

Actually, you may not want to hear this, but zombies and revenants are currently much _easier_ to defeat with swords than they're supposed to be, due to a bug that makes every third or fourth hit do more damage than it should. :)

 

The idea of a holy sword is a neat one, and would certainly fit some types of missions. But it would have to be a mapper-created thing, not a default tool.

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I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry at the fact they're easier now. :P

 

At any rate, I'm fine with it being a mapper-created thing though I'll certainly welcome the possibility of it being a default tool in the future.

 

Thanks for the replies and thanks for this great free game. :smile:

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