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The Worst TDM Missions


Shadowhide

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Neither Patently Dangerous nor Knighton Manor feature state of art visuals. However, the first features a gradually unfolding plot that's realised well, and the second is a good manor heist with variable points of entry, risky and safe areas, a puzzle (although I prefer Fidcal's engine-based ones in Heart of Lone Salvation) and plot continuity. Winter Harvest features blocky architecture and excessive linearity, but it also features very good lighting, scripted stuff, and custom conversations.

 

Ideally, a mission would have all of the positive aspects above with none of the drawbacks. But we do not live in an ideal world.

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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Please explain how the PD images on the left are visually better or more complex than the Knighton ones on the right?

compare2.jpg

 

To play devil's advocate for a bit, I think I can identify a couple of the things that SH might be referring to in those examples:

  1. The PD lighting is continuously varied, because of multiple point light sources and shadows from geometry. The KM shot consists mostly of ambient lighting, making the textures look flat, with only a couple of smallish point lights using what appears to be a rather unrealistic falloff (constant brightness up until the edge, then a short blend followed by nothing). I remember specifically noticing this when I started to play KM myself.
  2. PD's geometry is asymmetric, intricate and makes use of the vertical axis in many places (including some ramped streets). KM's exterior geometry is mostly symmetrical and flat, with very little use of the vertical axis, and gives the impression of a "rectangle in the middle of nowhere", without any surrounding buildings or skybox to give context.
  3. Both of the shots contain almost entirely "clean" textures with no grime or dirt, but it is more noticeable in KM because of the large areas of a single texture, as opposed to PD's more subdivided texturing.

This is not intended to criticise the mapping of KM at all, given that I have never produced any map of any quality, but I can see why a new player seeing that shot of the KM exterior (or in game) might not feel it gives a good impression of the engine's capabilities.

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Hehe.. Looks like this thread turned into "praise/bash KM." I don't mind. I kinda like the attention... :blush:

 

For me the fact that the majority of the community has expressed their delight towards in the map is enough. Thank you! I personally believe the map is very good if not excellent. At least it did fulfill my personal quality requirements so I was able to release it. Looking back at KM and my current works, I see great improvement in all the fields of mapping, visuals included. One has to release a few maps and learn to improve quality.

 

Everyone can have their own opinion and I believe nobody will change their views of the map just because of this discussion. Certain individuals here should attempt to understand that what they believe is crud, may be great for others, and vice versa. Although, sadly, I suspect such a request has been made in vain.

 

Like any art, like music: what others enjoy, may be an earsore to someone else. Logically, it has to be that way. Otherwise the existence of rap music could not be explained... :wacko:

(My deepest apologies to rap fans out there.)

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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^ I think that is probably why people don't take your crits well Shadowhide.

 

You are great at saying this maps sucks, Skyrim suxors... But you never back it up. Sure in Skyrim you say 'all dungeons look the same'. But still, that doesn't say much. When I go in a dungeon I can tell it's a certain type (ice cave, tomb, rock cave, etc...) but that doesn't make them all look alike. Sorry, it just plain doesn't.

yeah,i think you right.My english skill doesn't allowing me to pick the right words and arguments

I could pick something from 7th crystal, cosas, CL that look way better. I could also show you a pick of blackheart that would blow them all away.

that what should happen.TDM mission should blow away T2fms

So you obviously don't understand what it really takes to produce a good map, but you complain with no good explanations.

i understand,but i have no enough talent for this

Maybe next time you start to complain you should open up DR and try to map instead. Put that energy towards something useful.

i leave mapping to a talented people

examples:

The PD lighting is continuously varied, because of multiple point light sources and shadows from geometry. The KM shot consists mostly of ambient lighting, making the textures look flat, with only a couple of smallish point lights using what appears to be a rather unrealistic falloff (constant brightness up until the edge, then a short blend followed by nothing). I remember specifically noticing this when I started to play KM myself.

PD's geometry is asymmetric, intricate and makes use of the vertical axis in many places (including some ramped streets). KM's exterior geometry is mostly symmetrical and flat, with very little use of the vertical axis, and gives the impression of a "rectangle in the middle of nowhere", without any surrounding buildings or skybox to give context.

Both of the shots contain almost entirely "clean" textures with no grime or dirt, but it is more noticeable in KM because of the large areas of a single texture, as opposed to PD's more subdivided texturing.

yeah,that what I'd say if i were smarter and knew english better

This is not intended to criticise the mapping of KM at all, given that I have never produced any map of any quality, but I can see why a new player seeing that shot of the KM exterior (or in game) might not feel it gives a good impression of the engine's capabilities.

thats it,new players should see something like Blackheart(btw,any news on this one ? or it become part of Omens campaign ?) or something by Biker or Melan

Proceed with caution!

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To play devil's advocate for a bit,

 

And you do it well. :P

 

The PD lighting is continuously varied, because of multiple point light sources and shadows from geometry.

 

Yes, you're correct in those two particular shots. Though I think you could easily find two different screenshots that showed the opposite.

 

But overall, my point wasn't to show that PD looked significantly worse than Knighton's, only that it wasn't any better. PD might have more interesting lighting; Knighton's has more patchwork and rounded edges. Neither of them have stunning visuals, and trying to argue that one has a significantly superior look to the other still strikes me as ridiculous.

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These missions are FAR from crappy. While the visuals may not be Johannes caliber, they both have the biggest ingredient for a successful mission "game-play" and they have it in spades.

 

I'll agree that Patently Dangerous has a small edge visually but it comes at the cost of smaller views and vistas. Knighton is also partly the victim of the poor tree models and hedge textures. Replace those trees with Nosslak's versions and perhaps add a POM shader option for the hedge texture and voila... you've got a lush exterior. As for that cellar image from Knighton... Clearing had every visual setting as low as possible and no anisotropic filtering... of course it will look comparably poor. I'll agree that the cellar isn't a visual stunner but it serves it's purpose. If Sotha would agree to allow somebody to grime that cellar a little more I wouldn't complain ;) I'd go so far as to suggest that if you want a nicer looking cellar then look no further than Sotha's The Beleaguered Fence, or even the vaulted cellar of Glenham Tower... eh?

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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Hehe.. Looks like this thread turned into "praise/bash KM." I don't mind. I kinda like the attention... :blush:

 

For me the fact that the majority of the community has expressed their delight towards in the map is enough. Thank you! I personally believe the map is very good if not excellent.

 

And you are right! Oh sure, one could "enhance" the look of the exteriour with more/better plants, as well as for the interiour etc. There is always room for improvement in the visual department.

 

However, all that is completely beside the point, because isn't the motto here "gameplay matters!"? And if so, why do we even have this ridicoulus thread which does not really help authors, but instead bashes them? I mean, wasn't the arguing in favour of T1/T2 alwas the "graphics is not that important"? And suddenly it is, even tho TDM is leaps and bounds beyond anything T2 ever can offer?

 

Did I miss the memo?

"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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I don't know why everybody starts to compare which FM is crappier..

 

Neither mission is "crappy". Far from it. PD is among the top story-telling missions, IMO, and Knighton is one of the best for gameplay.

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Actually you can set your keybinds to use ~ to put away weapons...in fact I thought it was now like that by default.

 

I think that does not work in Linux (or maybe only not on linux on a German keyboard). It seems the "use another keyboard than american" isn't really supported by D3, evidenced by the fact that a lot of keybindings like "ö", or "RIGHT ALT" register as 0x00 in the menus. One of these things we hopefully now can fix. (Although in my personal option having 100% to mirror the Thief keyboard layout isn't at all important - why should we always cling to the past instead of doing what is good/better/useful? But it seems that is just me).

"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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Neither mission is "crappy". Far from it. PD is among the top story-telling missions, IMO, and Knighton is one of the best for gameplay.

 

So then PLEASE stop comparing which one has the most negative things in it - all of you - now! :P

They're both nice missions (Knighton Manor was even in my Top 5 List). And if Shadowhide can't name five missions that would be his favourite ones, then he simply can not do it. He doesn't have to (he doesn't have to point out five bad ones though ^_^ ). And we really don't need to debate on "The Worst TDM Missions", as we all picked 5 poitive favourites for ourselves.:)

"Einen giftigen Trank aus Kräutern und Wurzeln für die närrischen Städter wollen wir brauen." - Text aus einem verlassenen Heidenlager

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Yes, you're correct in those two particular shots. Though I think you could easily find two different screenshots that showed the opposite.

But overall, my point wasn't to show that PD looked significantly worse than Knighton's, only that it wasn't any better. PD might have more interesting lighting; Knighton's has more patchwork and rounded edges. Neither of them have stunning visuals, and trying to argue that one has a significantly superior look to the other still strikes me as ridiculous.

 

Right. The point is though that while some people may not express themselves in a diplomatic or constructive manner, it is probable that many of the negative comments about TDM not having good graphics or "feeling like Thief" are related to certain common issues that are seen quite frequently, but which the commenting player lacks the mapping knowledge or experience to articulate precisely.

 

Responding that gameplay is more important than visuals is one option, but is likely to be seen as an excuse, and gives the misleading impression that TDM is not capable of stunning graphics, when in fact it is. Hopefully the top five selection will help in this regard (choosing a bottom five certainly won't), as well as more mapper education like this.

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why should we always cling to the past instead of doing what is good/better/useful? But it seems that is just me).

 

I wouldn't call wanting to use familiar key bindings clinging to the past. :) I use the same key bindings I use in Thief in any games that allow it. It's comfortable. One of the goals of TDM was to provide a Thief like experience and for many a minor detail like keybindings can make all the difference.

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This guy has no clue on what it takes to learn how to master a new tool and on top of that master Level Design, a TDM mission developer is a Game Designer, Level Artist or Mapper and a Game-play developer all in one, and they also need to conform to a engine with modern tech that requires more work, we can't expect them to do a better job them a professional game company that has developers assigned to specific roles or even to T2 fms, their developers add more time to master the tools.

 

BTW why is this thread still open and why this guy is still not banned from what i know of him is beyond me.

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Hahaha WTF is going on in this thread... :laugh:

I should have known when I ignored the troll thread my FM would get so much attention.

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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I wouldn't call wanting to use familiar key bindings clinging to the past. :) I use the same key bindings I use in Thief in any games that allow it. It's comfortable. One of the goals of TDM was to provide a Thief like experience and for many a minor detail like keybindings can make all the difference.

 

Hm, yes, point taken. (And just for the records, I support the whole "I want to use this keybinding" purely on the "the user gets what he wants" reason alone, so there would be no reason to disallow any keybinding at all :)

"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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Really, what has that got to do with Doom3 at all? I don't see any resemblance in ANY of the FM's to Doom3 at all. Maybe I don't feel like 'Garrett', but honestly I never did, I just liked the gameplay.

How is the gameplay of TDM REALLY any different than T2? OK, the bow might arc a little different, you have different controls (ie ~ is a console key and we can't use it to put weaps away like in T2), there are dynamic shadows you can hide in...

Sure maybe timing and stuff is off by milliseconds or whatever, but REALLY how is it any different than thief gameplay.

 

I honestly think you just have a mental block against liking TDM gameplay as much as T2. It might not be 100% the same but it's not different enough to just be a completely different experience.

 

We're talking strictly gameplay here. That IS TDM.

 

Perhaps, i just feel it is not complete, i sometimes have a hard time enjoying playing alot of the tdm fms, but that might just be me.

I think D3 can contribute to this yes, D3 is a horrible game, and it would be really hard to create a perfect engine out of it.

 

It has nothing to do with the controls, everything is really perfect, i dont really know what it is that i feel is missing.

I don't see the fm architecture as houses, castles, cathedrals and towns etc, i see brushes with textures placed in a certain way.

Perhaps i suffer from the mappers syndrome.

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Right. The point is though that while some people may not express themselves in a diplomatic or constructive manner, it is probable that many of the negative comments about TDM not having good graphics or "feeling like Thief" are related to certain common issues that are seen quite frequently, but which the commenting player lacks the mapping knowledge or experience to articulate precisely.

 

Yes, true. People also frequently mistake the toolset for the products of this set, too.

 

Responding that gameplay is more important than visuals is one option, but is likely to be seen as an excuse, and gives the misleading impression that TDM is not capable of stunning graphics, when in fact it is. Hopefully the top five selection will help in this regard (choosing a bottom five certainly won't), as well as more mapper education like this.

 

While I see your point (that it sounds like an excuse), I am also saying that

 

* A TDM has already proven the point (see Johannes screenshots, or many of the 50 released missions), so why should bad examples "unprove" that?

* B The argument that "gameplay trumps graphics" is always dug out as the argument in favour of T2 (and "against" TDM, in the sense of "gameplay matters and as long as T2 has gameplay (and somewhat improved graphics) we don't need TDM as it only increases the not-so-important graphics").

 

Basically B amounts to having your cake and eating it, too. Either gameplay is more important than graphics, or graphics are most important. (Or both are important, but even then I am not seeing where TDM would be worse in either department).

 

 

For me the most sad thing is that there are really areas where TDM can (and should be) improved, but this thread does neither help to highlight them, nor does it offer anything in actually fixing these issues! And that I consider a waste of time.

 

(If for every post someone made in this and other pointless threads that someone painted an accented character or translated a string, the I18N project of TDM would be already done! But I guess wishing that someone else makes the work is always easier than doing it *sigh* Now excuse my while I slink back to my working bench called "Gimp" :)

"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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I think D3 can contribute to this yes, D3 is a horrible game, and it would be really hard to create a perfect engine out of it.

 

You do know the difference between a game and an engine, right?

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BTW why is this thread still open and why this guy is still not banned from what i know of him is beyond me.

ban me after all good things i do for TDM ?

Get out.

 

Hahaha WTF is going on in this thread... :laugh:

I should have known when I ignored the troll thread my FM would get so much attention.

You actually a member of TTLG forums where everything except Thief-gen is fat-trolled

Edited by Shadowhide

Proceed with caution!

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Basically B amounts to having your cake and eating it, too. Either gameplay is more important than graphics, or graphics are most important. (Or both are important, but even then I am not seeing where TDM would be worse in either department).

 

It may not be the same person complaining about both, however. Perhaps what is needed are two lists - top five by graphics, and top five by gameplay.

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It may not be the same person complaining about both, however. Perhaps what is needed are two lists - top five by graphics, and top five by gameplay.

 

Yeah, that might be (but I think usually the same people complain a lot - and even if they don't complain, you can never satisfy their hunger for "more" - first they want a better Thief, then they want a release, then FMs, then good FMs, then "top notch" FMs, then a campaign, then more campaigns etc etc. It never stops with the wishes and all the time you get the impression that "only this one thing is missing, andI will finally consider playing TDM" :)

 

Well, from the POV of "how do we get top-notch FMs", maybe, but from the point of "what to improve in TDM", the gameplay thing depends about 95% on the mapper, and not on TDM. The only thing that could be improved would be the editor (make it easier to create good gameplay) and some pre-made things (again, making it easier), but gameplay is a lot more a mapper-defined thing that a toolset-defined thing. (The visuals, however, depend a lot on the provided textures and objects and there TDM could use some improvements. But to say that it is not enough to create stunning visuals is wrong, IMO).

"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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