Review Responses

[Tels]

Probably the wrong thread but some blog called "Games Codex" has a recent overview of the mod:

 

http://games-codex.com/Blog/2011/the-dark-mod-a-worthy-successor-to-the-thief-series/

 

Nice review, I wish he'd had gone more in-depth. Btw,

 

You wrote there:

 

nbohr1more on July 27, 2011 at 1:00 am said:

 

Please use this:

 

http://www.mindplaces.com/darkmod/download_the_mod.php

 

…more direct address to the download page.

 

Please do NOT use http:/ /www.mindplaces.com, it is just a shell redirect due to technical reasons. Please use always thedarkmod.com, as in http://www.thedarkmod.com/download_the_mod.php !

[Tels]

This is an excellent in-depth review. Props to the author.

 

While it is indeed in-depth, I don't think it is "excellent". (I always used to snort at "critics", but the more reviews of our work I read, I can see that having a professional, good critic is something to enjoy... just like professional journalism differs from what a random dude rambles on about on his blog

 

Anyway, there seems to be some language problem in the review, to me it reads sometimes like it was not written by a native-speaker. So I think I'll not weight each word with gold and forgive a few phrasings.

 

 

However, the reviews has a few factual errors (food does heal, albeit by a tiny amount f.i.). It also fails completely to mention our blurry wall textures, and the inconsistency on texture style, that is one thing I thought should have provoked a few critical lines (and is also a thing that even amateurs like us can fix with time and deedication, see below).

 

And then there is the "compare TDM to other current games". One could perhaps forgive the reviewer for doing so, after all, TDM is here NOW so it should be compared to what else there is. However, there are mighty problems:

 

* long development span. We are using a 7-year old engine, and we simply cannot match what others are doing with their cutting edge-technology, even if we wanted.

* Lack of money. We usually cannot drop 50 grand on a recording studio, hire Steve Russel for 10 grand, nor can we use motion capture or any other of the new and shiny stuff. Money doesn't solve every problem, but it can smooth over a lot of bumbs.

* Lack of manpower. If we had money, see above, we could hire someone. So all that is left are a few guys/girls who invest large parts of their spare time to do what others get paid to do.

 

 

So comparing a hobbiest product to the current AAA titles (as in the "the character models should be redone and the voice acting needs to be better) is quite a bit silly. Even if we wanted to, there is no way we could achive that without major help.

 

From a professional review I expect that such differences in scale are accounted for, and that he is not comparing apples to oranges that lightly.

 

 

 

The worst part, however, for me is how the review compares our work to A: Thief, The originals, the original games, thief games, thief 2, TDS and the damn originals, in Every. Fucking. Second. Sentence.

 

That gets so annoying, because every feature we have or have not is either being regared as "better than the originals", or "unfortunataly not as good or equal to the original" or "it is the same as the original". That not only robs us entirely of creativity (it feels we are always compared to the original, and can never deviate from that) but is also makes for silly comparisations. Like the complaint that he cannot store food like in Thief. (The complain sounds like the only reason you want to store food is because Thief did so! Not because it is better, or makes sense, or is logical, or realistic, or fun, no, just because that's the way it has always been and we don't want change, no sir!)

 

Duh! TDM is not Thief! If you want Thief, go dig out the originals and go play them. Sometimes I am so sick for getting the work we do to get reduced to "oh its unfortunately different from the original".

 

Edit #2: Rereading that post made me realize that comparing TDM to Thief is even more silly/unfair if you know that LGS had a budget of about 1 million US$ per game (IIRC), while TDM has a budget of about zero (or whatever the members can spare). So that ties in with the first point, comparing TDM to AAA titles... end of edit.

 

 

 

But ending on a positive note, props for the lenghty review and the time spent to get familiar with TDM and writing the review! And sorry for the bugs, if the author posts here we can see if we can resolve these bugs.

 

Edit: There is also this: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ApocalypsosAtomicArcade/~3/euFakiFM1CU/dark-mod-experience-part-i.html linked at the bottom. I don't know if they relate, but its another long review "rambling text about how he had download problems over months" in two parts. Reading this, I think if I had know his problems, I just had him shipped a DVD with the mod on...

[Melan]

I think the comparing TDM to professionally produced games, while not entirely fair, is to be expected. Games today compete for the time we dedicate to our leisure, and from the standpoint of a player, the source of a game may not figure much into the decision to play and enjoy it. There are some who are drawn to mods for being mods, but not too many, and I think the number is decreasing. TDM's main source of attraction lies in being a modern successor to the Thief experience, one which is faithful, although not identical. The comparisons with not just any pro game, but specifically Thief, are inevitable. You, the mod team, built a game on the basis of Thief, mainly for the Thief fan base, and you are competing for time, player base, editors and mindshare with Thief. They judge it on that basis.

 

From a modding POV, there are some unrealistic criticisms. It is easy to say oDDiTY's models are dated, but good luck finding a free character modeller who can do work a third as good (and not just reskin something). It is easy to criticise sound, when the basis of comparison is Eric Brosius (with a paid-for studio). Criticism also gets unfair (although more on TTLG than here) when the basis of comparison is not Thief, but an idealised image of Thief, and it also gets diluted with unjustified bashing ("it is like plastic", "Doom3 is a crappy game", "I don't want to buy a game to play a mod" and all that). And sure, the Thief community could have contributed to the mod more. But in the end, the results matter.

 

People are looking at the end product, not necessarily the labour of love and insane dedication behind it. They may be more forgiving, but only to an extent. In a sense, this criticism is flattering: you are being compared to a classic. That is something.

 

______________

Addendum: The inconsistency of texture style is IMO a bonus. Thief missions also used a variety of textures and texture styles, which was a good thing. Ensuring conformity in that respect would be a mistake; the responsibility of a coherent vision is a task of the mission authors. The difference here is that TDM has a central repository for much of its textures in the main mod, and they aren't downloaded with the FMs to the extent they were in regular Thief. Judging by the bandwidth/size complaints, it may be for the best, too.

[Tels]

I think the comparing TDM to professionally produced games, while not entirely fair, is to be expected. Games today compete for the time we dedicate to our leisure, and from the standpoint of a player, the source of a game may not figure much into the decision to play and enjoy it. There are some who are drawn to mods for being mods, but not too many, and I think the number is decreasing. TDM's main source of attraction lies in being a modern successor to the Thief experience, one which is faithful, although not identical. The comparisons with not just any pro game, but specifically Thief, are inevitable. You, the mod team, built a game on the basis of Thief, mainly for the Thief fan base, and you are competing for time, player base, editors and mindshare with Thief. They judge it on that basis.

 

From a modding POV, there are some unrealistic criticisms. It is easy to say oDDiTY's models are dated, but good luck finding a free character modeller who can do work a third as good (and not just reskin something). It is easy to criticise sound, when the basis of comparison is Eric Brosius (with a paid-for studio). Criticism also gets unfair (although more on TTLG than here) when the basis of comparison is not Thief, but an idealised image of Thief, and it also gets diluted with unjustified bashing ("it is like plastic", "Doom3 is a crappy game", "I don't want to buy a game to play a mod" and all that). And sure, the Thief community could have contributed to the mod more. But in the end, the results matter.

 

People are looking at the end product, not necessarily the labour of love and insane dedication behind it. They may be more forgiving, but only to an extent. In a sense, this criticism is flattering: you are being compared to a classic. That is something.

 

Yeah, that's what I was trying to get at with the "professional critic" thing above - from the player's POV all that matters is the end-result. But from our (and the professional reviewers IMO) POV the process should be judged, too.

 

It is quite silly to compare a 30-million-dollar product to a homegrown one. Tho quite flattering, as you said, too, because someone thinks that even you have no budget, you are still in the same category to be even compared

 

(Personally, I still do want to stand out from Thief. There is no sense in recreating a classic when you can be your own, different thing. It also means you don't have to be better, or worwse, but you are different. That's important to me. Of course, as someone who contributes a lot to TDM, that seems still to be completely ignored. Maybe I do not align with the original TDM spirit - or probably it is simply that my own goals do not align at all with what (some, most?) players expect. And that is the disapointing thing.)

 

Addendum: The inconsistency of texture style is IMO a bonus. Thief missions also used a variety of textures and texture styles, which was a good thing. Ensuring conformity in that respect would be a mistake; the responsibility of a coherent vision is a task of the mission authors. The difference here is that TDM has a central repository for much of its textures in the main mod, and they aren't downloaded with the FMs to the extent they were in regular Thief. Judging by the bandwidth/size complaints, it may be for the best, too.

 

I didn't mean so much the inconsistency between texture styles (e.g. the artwork), but the technical qualities. Some of our wall textures are only 512x512 pixels, but cover 3x3 m in game, while we have items with 1024x1024 textures that are only 20cm small (I am sure the actuall numbers are a bit better, but not by much That means that you can see some incredible sharp textures right next to some incredible blurry ones, and that makes them stand out. (ironically, it would be better if they all were the same blurriness, as toon shaders prove you can achive a "good look" with "low" quality, as long as the quality is consistent)

[Melan]

Ah, okay, that figures. No easy answers, unfortunately, and a lot of it is due to the development time and diversity of contributors. Plus if you have a 1024x1024 texture, it is easy to scale down, but it doesn't work the other way. I try to supply everything I submit in 1024x1024 (and am wondering if, in five years, the mod will not go higher).

[Tels]

Ah, okay, that figures. No easy answers, unfortunately, and a lot of it is due to the development time and diversity of contributors. Plus if you have a 1024x1024 texture, it is easy to scale down, but it doesn't work the other way. I try to supply everything I submit in 1024x1024 (and am wondering if, in five years, the mod will not go higher).

 

Keeping everything in 4096x4096 and then scaling it down for distribution is the key to success - so in a few years we can make a high-resolution texture pack easily (And let me tell you, on a 1920x1200 screen a good 10240x1204 floor texture looks just beautiful and almost photo-realistic, imagine what you get with 2048x2048

 

However, we are already having problems with certain FM scenes exceeding graphic memory, esp. on cards with 256 Mbytes. So this is not easy, as you need then to tell these people to cap the max. teture size to something like 512x512 or so, and we all know that users don't know about such details, and get a crash and then complain So, the code should handle this (e.g. if it runs out of memory, start to downsize the biggest texture, not just downsize everything). Clearly something where more work is required when D3 goes open source.

 

Compressing our normals would also hugely help, as these are about 4 times the size they could be and are basically half of the texture memory (diffuse + normal are almost always used), so with the diffuse compressed, you have 1 part diffuse, and 4 parts normal, making the normals take up currently 4/5 of the texture memory or so. Ouch

 

Anyway, we are getting off-topic

[jaxa]

Couldn't textures work in a similar way to what LOD does? Farther away, lower quality texture?

[Tels]

Couldn't textures work in a similar way to what LOD does? Farther away, lower quality texture?

 

That is what the mipmaps are for, they are basically 7 (or so?) levels of the same texture, shrunk by a factor of two each time. They are generated with the texture and stored inside the DDS files - for TGA files the engine has to calculate them at load time (probably why it takes longer to load these). Mipmaps do decrease the texture memory used when things are far away, but we still don't save anything if you make a huge city scene with 200 different textures

[Nosslak]

Can you put up a link to that critical review?

[Springheel]

The review links are here: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/12383-fan-mission-reviews-walkthroughs/