General suggestion

[Guest john]

I started just with Darkradiant. And one of the most important things i will be aware of, when i creating missions: I will consider technical things in tdm-engine, like bugs, uncomplete modules etc. I will really test it before i make them public.

 

As example the buggy "grabbing-system" in tdm: There are as example a key in a drawer. Believe me, i am not new to Games like tdm. It is almost impossible, to grab the key. I climb on the chest, on the desk or whatever the wanted item includes. In one mission (i don't want name it here) there are many drawers with keys in it. But to highlight the key is a very very annoying thing. Either the drawer is highlighted or nothing is highlighted.

It is almost, like the key were melted with the drawer.

 

In such a case: Why don't you place the key a little bit higher ?

 

Why sometimes chairs etc. nearby a chest not moveable ? And why they are much to close to the chest or whatever. This are little things, easy to solve. But when the missions are not really tested, such little things lead to: don't continue playing, instead deinstall the mission.

 

Such things are not challenging, they are annoying.

 

TDM is great. It is free (except the doom3-game). The atmosphere is better than some movies or books. Some mapper here are really artists.

 

Why embitter the wine by ignoring the technical issues in tdm .. or by not really testing ?

Edited May 6, 2012 by john

[demagogue]

Yeah these are mostly issues that mappers should cover. But of course they have a checklist of a million things to do when building a FM, so they can't think about every little mechanic in every little square inch of the map.

 

What might be good, though, is to set up a wiki page like "Things builders don't think about but should", and it should cover things like: is everything easy to frob, are inventory items like keys droppable (or not droppable) like you want, are you handling non-functioning doors well, are your readables short & useful.... All the kinds of things people complain about sometimes listed in one place so a mapper can at least have it on their radar to think about while they're building.

[Sotha]

But of course they have a checklist of a million things to do when building a FM, so they can't think about every little mechanic in every little square inch of the map.

 

This exactly. I just wanted to add that, almost all mappers do betatest their work. If betatesters do not have same issues some other player might have, the problem will not be fixed.

 

This is a free time hobby and we do not have professional betatesting available. Making a map is a huge endeavor and the mapper puts a lot of work in his work. Of course he wants to make it as perfect as possible, but it is difficult to spot every issue.

 

Therefore, if some player ragequits due to some map limitation, it is ultimately their (the player's) problem, if the map is generally enjoyed by everyone else. Of course, the player should give feedback to the mapper in question in the map discussion thread. That is the only way the mapper can improve his future work.

[OrbWeaver]

Users never see the hundreds of bugs that were fixed. They see the few bugs that weren't fixed, and conclude that no testing was done because the product isn't perfect.

[Guest john]

This exactly. I just wanted to add that, almost all mappers do betatest their work. If betatesters do not have same issues some

Therefore, if some player ragequits due to some map limitation, it is ultimately their (the player's) problem, if the map is generally enjoyed by everyone else. Of course, the player should give feedback to the mapper in question in the map discussion thread. That is the only way the mapper can improve his future work.

 

 

I'm not sure about the intention of your answer. I described as example the thing with keys in drawers. The problem is very easy to avoid, and very annoying to players, if the problem is there. Such things are only possible, when the map is not really tested. I open the drawer, take the key: all i fine. But when i have to climb on the desk, have to try every angle, have to try every distance, then it should be allowed, to critisize it clearly. As you said, this can help make things better in the future.

Sorry, but your "ragequits due to some map limitation, it is ultimately their (the player's) problem" is not a useful reaction, i mean.

After my thoughts above in the first message, you should be able to understand, what i am talking about ;-)

 

I am not talking about the thousands issues, that are hidden and just happens randomly. I am talking about obvious issues, that EVERY serious tester must see (especially the mapper himself).

[Guest john]

Users never see the hundreds of bugs that were fixed. They see the few bugs that weren't fixed, and conclude that no testing was done because the product isn't perfect.

 

Stop stop. The discussion goes in the wrong direction. Is it really so difficult to understand, what i mean ?

[Tels]

I am not talking about the thousands issues, that are hidden and just happens randomly. I am talking about obvious issues, that EVERY serious tester must see (especially the mapper himself).

 

I know your feeling. I see missions (or games, or TDM in general) where months of work have gone in, you start it, and stare the first misaligned texture in the face after 2 seconds. Possible even a spelling error on the loading screen...

 

The truth is, that the testers (esp. the author!) become "blind" after a while. They can see the loading screen 1000 times and never notice the error. They play their own map, but never get the key out of the drawer (because they have a master key for testing and its much faster, or because they know how to stand where to grab that key). They never open door X (because they always run around left-to-right in the mission) and thus never notice when opened it can't open. etc.

 

The amount of betatesting is usually quite low in an FM compared to real games (where you can just hire 10 people for 1 day and let them run free).

 

I know that is frustrating, but I have no solution. Personally I have even given up on providing feedback to authors after they release their map - because either they ignore it (but feel bad about it) because their FM is "done", or they release v1.1 (where they add about 10 rooms with new bugs instead of just fixing the old bugs).

 

And when all is said and done, they work on their next map, anyway. There is just not enough manpower for everything.

 

Of course I'd rather have 30 bug-free FMs than 60 soso-FMs, but as a player I have very little say in this matter.

[Sotha]

I'm not sure about the intention of your answer. I described as example the thing with keys in drawers. The problem is very easy to avoid, and very annoying to players, if the problem is there. Such things are only possible, when the map is not really tested. I open the drawer, take the key: all i fine. But when i have to climb on the desk, have to try every angle, have to try every distance, then it should be allowed, to critisize it clearly. As you said, this can help make things better in the future.

Sorry, but your "ragequits due to some map limitation, it is ultimately their (the player's) problem" is not a useful reaction, i mean.

After my thoughts above in the first message, you should be able to understand, what i am talking about ;-)

 

I am not talking about the thousands issues, that are hidden and just happens randomly. I am talking about obvious issues, that EVERY serious tester must see (especially the mapper himself).

 

There must certainly be some kind of language barrier here. I think I understand what you mean.

 

I do agree that taking a key from a drawer should be trivial for the player. However, posting a general complaint will not necessarily do much good. If I read you correctly, you are describing a mission specific problem. That is, a problem that plagues a single mission by a single FM author. In that case the best course of action would be to mention the problem in the relevant mission thread so that the mission author can either fix it or pay attention to such problems in the future.

 

As a mission author, I would be interested in checking the mission discussion thread if many people complain about the same problem. That usually means that it indeed is significant: ie the problem is real. If only one person says the problem is really a showstopper and everyone else is just happy, I would be inclined to believe that single person has an issue, not everyone.

[Springheel]

Mappers are in control of their own maps. We have no control over the quality of those maps. That said, most maps are well-tested before release.

 

Why sometimes chairs etc. nearby a chest not moveable ?...., such little things lead to: don't continue playing, instead deinstall the mission.

 

If you're quitting missions because some chairs aren't movable, then you're not likely to find much agreement here.

 

And one of the most important things i will be aware of, when i creating missions: I will consider technical things in tdm-engine, like bugs, uncomplete modules etc. I will really test it before i make them public.

 

Great! You might be the first person to release a completely bug-free mission. I look forward to it.

[pusianka]

Me gusta this topic.

[SiyahParsomen]

Yeah these are mostly issues that mappers should cover. But of course they have a checklist of a million things to do when building a FM, so they can't think about every little mechanic in every little square inch of the map.

 

What might be good, though, is to set up a wiki page like "Things builders don't think about but should"

 

Good idea. I'll write down some troubles I have encountered:

 

-Player can't reach to loot/key etc. due to very short frob distance

 

-Object stucks into table/shelf etc. while picking

 

-Player stucks in narrow spaces, even mantling can't save

 

-Very low ceiling prevent hitting AI with BJ

 

-AI doesn't have flee path

 

-AI on sleeping stucks into bed when KO'ed

[demagogue]

Ok good, I've added them to my Mapping FAQ page, as good a place as any. If anybody has some more, post them here or add them to the wiki yourself if you have access.

http://wiki.thedarkm...etimes_Overlook

 

(edit: Can mappers stop the sleeping AI getting KO'd problem? What do they do to stop it?)

 

Back to John, haha, even though Spring was just joking with you, actually the best thing you could do is make a mission and lead by example. Everybody around here recognizes good ideas, but it's one thing to say them; you get a whole new level of respect when you make an FM and show them. So I say go for it! Make a cool FM and put your bug-killing ideas to work, and it should give you a good idea both of how hard it is to actually catch a lot of even big bugs, but also people will respect you when you say mappers should take bug-hunting more seriously, because then you're speaking as a fellow mapper and not just some random guy that started DR last week.

[SiyahParsomen]

@demagogue

 

thanks for wikifying and better explanation.

[Guest john]

I am sorry, that you feel offended. In the replys here i see, that my intention

is not easy to recognize. I thought, here are developers and here are the place,

to talk about everything.

 

 

I pick up the main-misunderstandings from some replys here:

 

My points are not related to one or two Missions. This problems are almost

general problems.

 

I was a little bit surprised because of this: "As long as you don't created your

own mission, shut up".

 

This answer shows me, that i was unable to say, what i mean. Maybe a language-

barrier.

 

I am burning to create my first mission. And i see, this is really complicate. I

have much to learn. And i will make errors. I am sure.

 

But what has this to do with the topic of this thread ?

 

Again: I am really sorry, if you feel offended. That was not my intention. And

also it was not a "call from the ivory-tower" or the arrogance of an greenhorn.

[Melan]

As example the buggy "grabbing-system" in tdm: There are as example a key in a drawer. Believe me, i am not new to Games like tdm. It is almost impossible, to grab the key. I climb on the chest, on the desk or whatever the wanted item includes. In one mission (i don't want name it here) there are many drawers with keys in it. But to highlight the key is a very very annoying thing. Either the drawer is highlighted or nothing is highlighted.

It is almost, like the key were melted with the drawer.

Why sometimes chairs etc. nearby a chest not moveable ? And why they are much to close to the chest or whatever. This are little things, easy to solve. But when the missions are not really tested, such little things lead to: don't continue playing, instead deinstall the mission.

Personally, I am annoyed enough about the first issue to keep those "rummaging in a drawer" instances to a minimum. For the second, mappers can have legitimate reasons for flagging specific groups of objects as moveable or static. Here are the three most important ones:

1. Interactivity is fun, but in a sense, it is "gameplay clutter". If you bump into a moveable every instance you turn in one directionm, that can become a distraction; for someone who prefers a streamlined mission experience, it may be better to just avoid it. (I prefer interactivity, with the caveat of my 3rd point)
   
2. If it's moveable, it is stackable, it is climbable, which means it can break some maps by allowing the player to get out of the level boundaries. Personally, I love it when resourceful people do that; some don't.
   
3. In some very large and very complex levels, we simply have to use statics because of TDM's limits. These limits are fairly flexible, but if you push against them very hard (and I have done that), it can mean players with weak configs can experience extreme slowdowns or the levels will simply not load for them. This only comes up in huge missions with tons and tons of fine detail, but it does - here, you simply can't make every single plate and knife a mobile object. Okay, chairs are still in.
   

[AluminumHaste]

I've noticed the difficulty of frobbing items from chests but it is worse when trying to frob an item from a desk drawer. Very tricky to do.

[DeTeEff]

Would it be possible to somehow create a button command that switches between stuff that potentially could be frobbed? So when I look down the drawer, the drawer is high lighted, but then I may scroll through the objects in the drawer with the scroll wheel for example...Of course the command should only work if there is >1 frobable item in sight...

[Flanders]

About the frobbing from chests and drawers, I think i've said it before but use the spawnargs for the location and size of the frobbox. If you place the frobbox in the center of the opening of the chest all you need to do is look at the opening of the chest and pick up our price. It's as simple as that.

[lost_soul]

Why embitter the wine by ignoring the technical issues in tdm .. or by not really testing ?

 

Hello John, that bit may have offended some of the developers who have spent years building this project. I understand where you're coming from as a new user who hasn't seen the mod evolve, but as someone who has been around here since the Thief's Den demo, I've seen the developers address countless issues.

 

The thing is, TDM is a game and not a movie or book. With games, no matter how hard you try to fix all bugs/glitches, you will never fix them all. Compare that to a book, where you control exactly what the audience experiences and perfection is much easier to achieve.

 

I think the idea of being able to scroll through frobbables in a short distance with the wheel is great.

[jysk]

I am sorry, that you feel offended. In the replys here i see, that my intention

is not easy to recognize. I thought, here are developers and here are the place,

to talk about everything.

 

 

I pick up the main-misunderstandings from some replys here:

 

My points are not related to one or two Missions. This problems are almost

general problems.

 

I was a little bit surprised because of this: "As long as you don't created your

own mission, shut up".

 

This answer shows me, that i was unable to say, what i mean. Maybe a language-

barrier.

 

I am burning to create my first mission. And i see, this is really complicate. I

have much to learn. And i will make errors. I am sure.

 

But what has this to do with the topic of this thread ?

 

Again: I am really sorry, if you feel offended. That was not my intention. And

also it was not a "call from the ivory-tower" or the arrogance of an greenhorn.

 

No problem, its normal for this forum that even for simple topics everybody will freak out and a lenghty discussion about everthing except the thread topic will emerge.

[stumpy]

noclip is your friend