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Mission releases for 2011

Springheel

By Springheel
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Springheel

Springheel

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Posted

Interesting numbers in this post on TTLG. I think he may have a few 2010 missions in our list, but still, the numbers are actually pretty encouraging for TDM. If it's accurate, nearly half of the missions made this year were for TDM!

 

Thief 1/Gold: 1

 

Thief 2: 24

 

TDS: 2

 

TDM: 21

 

Full post: http://www.ttlg.com/...d.php?p=2102961

TDM Missions:   A Score to Settle  *  A Reputation to Uphold  *  A New Job  *  A Matter of Hours

Video Series:   Springheel's Modules  *  Speedbuild Challenge  *  New Mappers Workshop  *  Building Traps

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Springheel

Springheel

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Have there been more new TDM mappers this year?

 

No, not so promising there...only 6 mission authors this year were first timers. Well, seven if you count me.

TDM Missions:   A Score to Settle  *  A Reputation to Uphold  *  A New Job  *  A Matter of Hours

Video Series:   Springheel's Modules  *  Speedbuild Challenge  *  New Mappers Workshop  *  Building Traps

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Melan

Melan

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Posted
"Thief 1/Gold: 1" *starts crying*

Me too. Thief 1 is the thiefest Thief. :unsure:

 

It is nice to see that TDM has more mindshare in the community than I suspected. But I cannot say I am happy: there is a general decline of editing activity, and it is seriously bad. Let's look at this chart:

FMStats_All.jpg

44 releases makes 2011 the worst year of Thief missions, ever. Granted: the average quality of a 2011 mission would blow Poor Lord Bafford and The Bear Pits out of the water. But this still points to a community which, without an influx of new editors, is withering.

Come the time of peril, did the ground gape, and did the dead rest unquiet 'gainst us. Our bands of iron and hammers of stone prevailed not, and some did doubt the Builder's plan. But the seals held strong, and the few did triumph, and the doubters were lain into the foundations of the new sanctum. -- Collected letters of the Smith-in-Exile, Civitas Approved

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Tels

Tels

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Amazing, we are beating TDS every year - and even nearly beat T2 - this is encouraging. However, I am really curious why there are still so many mappers working with Dromed and T2...

 

Edit: Waitamoment, the original post at TTLD says there where 17 TDM missions - not 21?

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

 

"Remember: If the game lets you do it, it's not cheating." -- Xarax

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SiyahParsomen

SiyahParsomen

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Me too. Thief 1 is the thiefest Thief. :unsure:

 

It is nice to see that TDM has more mindshare in the community than I suspected. But I cannot say I am happy: there is a general decline of editing activity, and it is seriously bad. Let's look at this chart:

FMStats_All.jpg

44 releases makes 2011 the worst year of Thief missions, ever. Granted: the average quality of a 2011 mission would blow Poor Lord Bafford and The Bear Pits out of the water. But this still points to a community which, without an influx of new editors, is withering.

 

what happened in 2006? It can be saviour in this crisis time.

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nbohr1more

nbohr1more

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T2X came out in 2005 so that likely had several impacts on the community in 2006:

 

1) Authors tied-up with T2X now free to finish old projects?

2) Authors that lacked motivation became rejuvenated by the release of such an impressive fan effort?

3) New authors joining the fray hoping to ride the publicity coat-tails from T2X?

4) Authors who were not included in T2X wanting to prove their worth releasing missions for vindication?

 

Hard to say but I will place my chickens on the aftermath of T2X as the reason for that spike.

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...)

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Springheel

Springheel

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44 releases makes 2011 the worst year of Thief missions, ever. Granted: the average quality of a 2011 mission would blow Poor Lord Bafford and The Bear Pits out of the water. But this still points to a community which, without an influx of new editors, is withering.

 

I think that's inevitable, since most of the community is still working with an engine/editor combo that is more than a decade old. I would expect fewer and fewer new people to pick up dromed over time. Unfortunately the transition of mappers from dromed to DR hasn't happened like I hoped. But TDM is really the future of the stealth community, IMO (unless T4 turns out to be shockingly good and includes a half-decent editor).

TDM Missions:   A Score to Settle  *  A Reputation to Uphold  *  A New Job  *  A Matter of Hours

Video Series:   Springheel's Modules  *  Speedbuild Challenge  *  New Mappers Workshop  *  Building Traps

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fxdwg

fxdwg

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Posted

While the statistics show a waning in number of Thief FM's, they don't reflect the quality of the recent batch of Thief FM's in the past couple of years. So while sad that those numbers are lower, the enjoyment of playing these latest has been, for me anyway, tremendous and compensating.

 

Over the last 10 years that I have been wandering the halls of TTLG Thief Fan Missions, I have definitely noticed many of the earlier experienced Dromeders fading away (life moves on). But it is great to see so many new user posting over there, whom i hope are inspired to create some of their own. IMO, the bar has never been set higher by the new missions coming out. Not only Thief, but TDM as well, to the point of being intimidating. Whether they choose Thief or TDM or both, I welcome them all.

 

While I know that more than a few of those who spend there time here have mostly left Thief behind, I still to this day, cycle may way through the nearly 1000 FMs in my collection. So this means I ride out the slow times with relative ease, without losing the hunger for fresh missions.

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Glyph Seeker

Glyph Seeker

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Posted

@FXDWG

 

Hey - I would be very greatly if you would point me to a good start in Thief FMs. Though I love TDM, I've exhausted all the horror / lost city / ruins FMs so far - I know there are some famous ones out there for Thief 1 and 2. I have an old Sold Out budget copy of Thief 1 and the original boxed version of Thief 2. Shadowhide recommended a few of them but still haven't leapt into digging out the old boxes and fiddling with patches, FM loaders / texture packs etc.

"No proposition Euclid wrote,

No formulae the text-books know,

Will turn the bullet from your coat,

Or ward the tulwar's downward blow

Strike hard who cares—shoot straight who can—

The odds are on the cheaper man."

 

From 'Arithmetic on the Frontier' by Rudyard Kipling

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Melan

Melan

Posted
Posted

Glyph Seeker: The Trickster's Gem Mine (TTGM) mission series is a goldmine of Lost City-style fan missions. They start around mission three or something, and get huge very fast.

Come the time of peril, did the ground gape, and did the dead rest unquiet 'gainst us. Our bands of iron and hammers of stone prevailed not, and some did doubt the Builder's plan. But the seals held strong, and the few did triumph, and the doubters were lain into the foundations of the new sanctum. -- Collected letters of the Smith-in-Exile, Civitas Approved

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fxdwg

fxdwg

Posted
Posted (edited)

Glyph Seeker: That's a tall order. It's almost easier recommending my favorite mission authors. But the least I could do is point you to a TTLG site thread by kamyk who, with the help of others, has grouped many missions by type. There is also a grouping for "Most often recommended/Must play. Its at :

http://ttlg.ttlg.mob...ad.php?t=106781

 

My favorite author recommendations (not all inclusive): cardia1, christine schneider, eternauta, gaetane, haplo, lady rowena, melan, morrgan, purah, r soul, saturnine, sensut, sterlino, team cosas, uncadonego, yandros, zontik

 

The tricky part is getting T1 setup to play fan missions. There are too many that crash on me. T2 is not nearly as bad.

Edited by fxdwg
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demagogue

demagogue

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Posted

Deus Ex HR didn't come with an editor, so I think Thief4 won't either, and I think we've just reached an era where most AAA games just won't come with editors anymore. So I also think we're the last stop for stealth game mapping for a long time to come.

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

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Melan

Melan

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Posted
Deus Ex HR didn't come with an editor, so I think Thief4 won't either, and I think we've just reached an era where most AAA games just won't come with editors anymore. So I also think we're the last stop for stealth game mapping for a long time to come.

There are both technical and legal issues which make releasing them harder:

  • Technical: Level-building has become more dependent on using outside editors - the game editor is usually only for assembling pieces of terrain ("static meshes") made in an external modelling application. So you have to learn two toolsets before you can start, and will probably have to buy one of them for lots of $$$. (This was one of Thief3's major problems when the editor got released).
  • Legal1: Games aren't developed wholesale anymore, but use modular functions licensed from 3rd parties - like a physics engine, AI animation, whatever. This can make an editor release more complicated.
  • Legal2: Business control over game studios is becoming stronger as their budgets rise into the stratosphere, and they do not believe in releasing level editors. They might think, "sure, it may make this game a major hit, but then people will use their time to keep playing it instead of buying new ones" - and they can be right; after Thief, I basically stopped caring so much about new and shiny releases.

So, yeah, I agree.

Come the time of peril, did the ground gape, and did the dead rest unquiet 'gainst us. Our bands of iron and hammers of stone prevailed not, and some did doubt the Builder's plan. But the seals held strong, and the few did triumph, and the doubters were lain into the foundations of the new sanctum. -- Collected letters of the Smith-in-Exile, Civitas Approved

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Sir Taffsalot

Sir Taffsalot

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Posted

The Dark Mod beginners contest is up and running now. We have 4 people already signed up and I'm crossing my fingers for 1 or 2 more people joining later. The deadline is March so all been well we should have at least 4 new FMs and FMAs in the first quarter of 2012.

"I believe that what doesn't kill you simply makes you... stranger"

 

The Joker

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