Question for developers.

[JulioTheDanks]

What is your final vision for the Dark Mod? What do you want your finished product to look like?

[Springheel]

I'm not quite sure how you want us to answer that.

 

While we'll continue to update and improve the mod for the forseeable future, I would think it's already 90-95% "finished". There are still some bugs to iron out, and we have some ideas for making AI behaviour more complex, among other things. But I don't think there are going to be any major changes.

[New Horizon]

What is your final vision for the Dark Mod? What do you want your finished product to look like?

 

We're in year 7 of production. What do we want the finished product to look like? You're pretty much looking at it. TDM was essentially 'finished' when we released it in 2009. There were bugs to fix, a few features that didn't make it into the earlier releases, but aside from some optimizations to do under the hood now that we have the full source code there won't be any major changes to gameplay at this point.

[JulioTheDanks]

Okay I was wondering. The AI fixes and updates are eagerly awaited.

[RPGista]

I think you would get a better idea of what this mod is about if you take a look at it's map creating tools (that ARE the mod, basicly, not the missions themselves); a whole A grade game engine is offered, complete with tons os assets (ready made textures and models, animations, effects, behaviours, etc, etc), just waiting for your idea to be realised - what is really "lacking" now are more and more missions taking these assets and features to their extreme (I say "lacking" because there are many sophisticated missions already); by now, from what I can see, TDM's abundant assets (like textures and models) have been thoroughly used over and over on its more than 50 missions, the ball is mostly on our court now (people willing to make maps) to come up with new, exclusive material and situations, creative content and good production values to really achieve what the mod already allows. Just take a look at the tutorial A-Z Beginner Guide (http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=A_-_Z_Beginner_Full_Guide_Start_Here!); you'll see how fascinatingly easy it is to create a basic TDM mission in like an afternoon.

[Tels]

I can only echo what Springheel and New Horizon said: TDM is essentialy finished. Sure, there will be AI improvements, we want to fix a lot of D3 bugs and the make renderer better (instancing would render a lot of vegetation much faster), but all these things will not essentially change the mod at all. They will only refine it.

 

If you want to look at how the mod is, then go and play some FMs.

[pusianka]

I just hope for guards using ladders and jumping... But I wouldn't mind the option of pushing and throwing heavy objects to knock out the enemies.

[New Horizon]

I just hope for guards using ladders and jumping... But I wouldn't mind the option of pushing and throwing heavy objects to knock out the enemies.

 

Unlikely. We decided long ago not to do those things for both technical and gameplay reasons. Gameplay will often trump realism.

[nbohr1more]

I have seen it implied before that The Dark Mod is missing steam-punk and mechanical elements and a fleshed-out Inventor's Guild inventory.

 

Though, it seems that the core items: Inventor's, Forgers, Laternbot, Generators... are all in-place now...

 

If you take a look at the marvelous underground compound\complex in Silencium18's mission "Special Delivery"

 

http://www.thedarkmod.com/missiondetails/?id=22

 

We have a possible template for a heavily steam-punk tinged Inventor's Guild area.

 

We just need to clone Silencium18... he's got such a great art-style to match the use of the assets.

[Melan]

Yeah, I really like that mission. The architecture in the starting area is very plain, but the mechanical areas just look excellent, and the mission even plays well...