New TDM player, have some gratitude and a question.

[Tkd]

First of all fantastic work from everyone involved!

 

Like many others I've been following the new Thief development closely and have grown more and more wary. I guess despair is how I could best describe my feelings towards it at this stage.

 

It was with great relief that I recently read about TDM 2.0, and watched the excellent video, instantly sent me hunting for the download location. I'm pleased to say I was not disappointed! Setting, atmosphere, gameplay, it's all there intact and some aspects even improved! More than I could hope for. And all from an open source community project.

 

I am humbled that I've been given the opportunity to experience Thief the way I want to play it. How I remember it. Thank you.

 

I've played through the tutorial and St Lucia and felt the need to post. All your hard work, and that goes to everyone who has contributed anything at all, is deserving of a thank you from all Thief fans.

 

I plan to help in any way I can. I have mapping experience way back from Half Life and CS. And a lot in UT. I also played around with Radiant many moons ago. I have a lot of coding experience too. So once I've played through some more maps I will turn my attention first to mapping. Then most likely try and help out with bug hunting to wet my appetite.

 

Finally as a new player the one thing that disappointed me is that there is no campaign. I heard "70 missions" and instantly pictured a huge sprawling story arc. A little naive yes. I know this is a lot of work and I'm sure there is someone, or a team working on it and perhaps has been for some time. Could someone fill me in on if this is a future goal or in progress? Has there been an attempt by writers to hash out a story, and assign mappers to various stages? The community here seems healthy and I'm sure will continue to grow over time. If this hasn't been done yet would it be realistic to start now?

[skacky]

There is an amazing campaign in the works called The Crucible of Omens, and they are currently in need of talented people to help them. You can find the thread here: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/13725-crucible-of-omens-forum-news-feed/

[Mortem Desino]

I plan to help in any way I can. I have mapping experience way back from Half Life and CS. And a lot in UT. I also played around with Radiant many moons ago. I have a lot of coding experience too. So once I've played through some more maps I will turn my attention first to mapping. Then most likely try and help out with bug hunting to wet my appetite.

Brilliant! So you're already over the big hurdle of wrapping your mind around mapping technique, especially visleafs (visportals in idTech4; Hint/Skip in HL2).

 

Finally as a new player the one thing that disappointed me is that there is no campaign. I heard "70 missions" and instantly pictured a huge sprawling story arc. A little naive yes. I know this is a lot of work and I'm sure there is someone, or a team working on it and perhaps has been for some time. Could someone fill me in on if this is a future goal or in progress? Has there been an attempt by writers to hash out a story, and assign mappers to various stages? The community here seems healthy and I'm sure will continue to grow over time. If this hasn't been done yet would it be realistic to start now?

As mentioned, The Crucible of Omens could probably use some fresh motivation.

[Tkd]

There is an amazing campaign in the works called The Crucible of Omens, and they are currently in need of talented people to help them. You can find the thread here: http://forums.thedar...orum-news-feed/

 

That's exactly what I wanted to see! Looks like they are already quite far through the project. From the looks of things they have most of the mapping out the way and coders are being directed to helping with TDM in general so for now I'll be keeping an eye on it but avoiding spoilers for the eventual release. Looks like it's going to be a beauty!

 

Brilliant! So you're already over the big hurdle of wrapping your mind around mapping technique, especially visleafs (visportals in idTech4; Hint/Skip in HL2).

 

As mentioned, The Crucible of Omens could probably use some fresh motivation.

 

I'm more familiar with the term culling volumes as I recall they were termed in the UT series. But I see that they appear to work the same way. I didn't play with optimization in idTech or Source, at least not anything I can remember. But I did practice it extensively in UEd. I'm sure the skills will transfer well.

 

One thing that concerns me is how the engine copes with large outdoor areas. Doom3 is obviously all about tight corridors and rooms with little need to render large amounts of geometry at once. Like I said I've only played around with the tutorial and St Lucia so I've not seen any large areas yet. The original 2 Thief games had some considerably large maps where you could get a high vantage point and survey your surroundings. Just how far can the modified TDM engine be pushed while maintaining framerate? Any good missions you would recommend which give a sense of scale?

Edited October 14, 2013 by Tkd

[Xarg]

None that I can think of (the majority were made with the old restrictions in place), but I imagine the easy way to find out would be to make a large map, put in some cube buildings, and put in a bunch of AI walking around. Visportals will be the biggest killer here, as being up high means most "traditional" visportal usage won't work unless you enforce a close upon x distance, which isn't what you're aiming for here.