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Is TDM a Game?


Springheel

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It explains on the last post of one of those threads. Emotions were running high & the whole line got derailed, so the threads were put on a week-long hiatus. They should open up again soon.

 

A long time ago, I posed the question of whether a player could start in the middle of a campaign, and I never got an answer.

 

Personally I think starting in the middle of a campaign is not only fine, but can be interesting in its own right. If I found time to work on my own campaign, I was seriously debating intentionally releasing it out of order so you get the Pulp Fiction effect, where things are out of order and a mystery that gets solved as previous FMs get released later.

 

That's a possibility. I was thinking something quite small and straightforward, like the TDS training mission, but without the glowing footsteps. Something about the size of Thief's Den or Too Late.

 

Thief's Den has historical value. I remember that first demo so well. I could see a tutorial mission out of it.

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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Aside from starting in media res, you could also have one campaign where, say, a group of thieves breaks into a larger building with different tasks. Then as you go, you'll see the scripted effects of others, like all the different perspectives in Half-Life or the extra missions in Resident Evil 4, to name the ones I can think of.

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It explains on the last post of one of those threads. Emotions were running high & the whole line got derailed, so the threads were put on a week-long hiatus. They should open up again soon.

Didn't check any other threads. Thank you, I'll wait patiently then.

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<sigh>

 

Rein in the personal comments, folks.

 

Let's try to avoid turning this into another thread that needs to be locked.

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But it was said very early on that the mods over there are talking "complete and utter shite", and that went unmentioned. So the crux of the thread is personal comments regarding people over there, and so long as it's nobody active in this thread who can respond to it it's okay? :huh: I know that's not the case, it's just you can either have a perfectly clean forum or one with banter. Granted, lock other threads that end up as pissing contests, but this one is fine as far as I can tell. So long as there are forums and personal opinions, there will be personal jabs. Witty back and forths are fun! They're certainly a lot more articulated now than they were in the past, even on this forum when I look back.

 

I'll wait patiently then.

I'm dreading it. It's always very melodramatic and senseless soliloquizing. It's so easy to respond to as well, so much so that I can never help but end up saying something. It's a shame, too, because if they were a lot less exaggerated I'd probably feel differently.

Edited by Airship Ballet
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Oh, so the Eidos mods are coming to kiss up to someone... You really don't need to. In contrast to your eidos forums posts will not be instantly deleted if they're not sales-promotional to the GAME the forum is about. :rolleyes:

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

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But it was said very early on that the mods over there are talking "complete and utter shite",

 

I assume you can tell the difference between attacking an opinion and attacking a person. Name-calling or telling someone they don't belong here would be examples of the latter.

 

There are plenty of places on the internet where people can go to be nasty, unpleasant, or engage in "personal jabs". That's not what this community is about. Heated discussions are fine. Aggressive debating is fine. Making it personal isn't.

 

And if you're expecting me to deal with every snarky comment that treads the line, I frankly don't have time for that. I expect people to be mature about it and for the community to police itself. Historically that has been sufficient.

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There's no real way to attack an opinion without implying some detriment to the person expressing it, especially if you react so incredulously. It's not attacking the person directly but it is ridiculing them somewhat by proxy. That's my point: there's no personal attacking going on here, it's just people bouncing opinions off one another. There's a blurred line between making fun of a person and making a fun of the way they expressed something. Nobody knows enough about one another to be able to make up any actual personal offense in the first place. Personal jabs are made in the sense that somebody will pick up on somebody's expression and directly ridicule it in their response, but there's nothing genuinely offensive relating to the individual. Somebody puts forward an opinion, another person debates why, often with banter that plays off the opinion stated in the debate, not about their personal life or whatever. Like I said, just skipping back a few years in any forum--this one included--people were a lot, lot less polite to one another while doing just that. I don't know if it's a progression over time or if I just haven't been to the right places, but people are in general way more polite over the intertubes now than years past.

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Personally I always thought of TDM as a game. However, technically, when you absolutelty have to classify it, I guess it is what we always said it is. A toolkit. But this is from a developer perspective. From a player perspective it is a game, because you can download a map and start playing it.

For the majority of poeple it may be usefull to think of it as a game, because they wont delve into the details of it anyway.

It mostly depends on what you define to be TDM. Is TDM the whole package? Or is it the original mod we started many years ago?

Is "Thief" the whole package of each and every map included, that anybody ever released? If somebody never plays Thief and just enjoys to build missions using Dromed, would the lable suddenly change and Thief would no longer be a game (for this person)?

 

Why is this "distinction" even important? It should be clear for players that they can play TDM without even having to any editing or development on their own, and this makes it a game to them. And for all the mappers, it is both. A toolkit and a game.

 

When Quake 3 was released, I never considered it to be a "real" game either, because there was no singleplayer. It was just about online gaming. :D

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Gerhard

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I don't think it's important *philosophically* what you consider it.

I think it's just important in terms of branding.

 

Somebody mentioned earlier how fierce competition is out there for people's time.* Even being a free download isn't enough to get people to show interest anymore. People's time is split between so many different things, and they're skeptical of free things having a catch. So you need the right hook to get people involved. And TDM has historically had branding issues, or anyway people coming up with excuses why it might not be right for them that weren't countered as well as they could have been.

 

So it's important to have a very clear & persuasive message why people should download & play us and to pull the rug out from under traditional excuses not to.

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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Oh, so the Eidos mods are coming to kiss up to someone...

 

I come here for the same reason you do

In this particular thread, I am discussing the topic and the unnecessary hyperbole.

Fyi, I only ever kiss people whom I love and respect.

 

In contrast to your eidos forums posts will not be instantly deleted if they're not sales-promotional to the GAME the forum is about. :rolleyes:

This is exactly the type of hyperbole I speak of.

One only has to view the posts on the official forum to see this simply is not true.

 

 

__

 

Back to the proper topic, TDM FAQs describe it as a game and a toolkit. That means its neither one or the other absolute; it is both.

What else is there to argue about? :P

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TDM FAQs describe it as a game and a toolkit. That means its neither one or the other absolute; it is both.

 

No, you're wrong...

 

TDM is absolute as a game, and Dark Radiant is absolute as a toolkit.

 

This means that TDM is no less of a game than NuThief, yet also has public expansion potentional due to the Dark Radiant toolkit.

 

http://www.thedarkmod.com/faq/

 

Frequently Asked Questions

 

Q: What is The Dark Mod?

 

A: The Dark Mod is a free game that recreates the moody stealth experience reminiscent of the ‘Thief’ games from Looking Glass Studios. Originally created as a mod for Doom3, it is now a completely open-source, standalone game

 

 

TDM IS A GAME

Edited by Vae
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Really not getting the difficulties in understanding that. I can understand the devs playing less and developing more, therefore regarding it a toolkit. DR is the dev kit and TDM is the game it's made for. It's that simple, really, and Viktoria, your explicitly saying that "TDM is not a game so I must exclude it" is pretty definitive of your opinion.

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and Viktoria, your explicitly saying that "TDM is not a game so I must exclude it" is pretty definitive of your opinion.

 

Yes, I realise my brief first statement stated I didn't consider it a game. I provided further clarification in that thread but it hasn't been quoted here.

I went on to explain that when I viewed the poll I was considering commercial games... as the other options provided were of that category, so TDM just didn't fit in my mind.

I further stated that I see TDM more as a platform.

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Yes, I realise my brief first statement stated I didn't consider it a game. I provided further clarification in that thread but it hasn't been quoted here.

I went on to explain that when I viewed the poll I was considering commercial games

 

What you said was "TDM is not a game so I must exclude it"...So by your logic "All games that are not commercial games, are not games"...Which we both know isn't true, and you are caught again.

 

I further stated that I see TDM more as a platform.

 

It's a game, not a platform.

 

Both you and Master Taffer continue to keep up this farce that TDM doesn't qualify as a game, in order to help influence a positive outlook for NuThief...and this poll is only one example of this behavior.

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[semantic pedantry intensifies]

Let's get down to brass tacks. All it takes to accept that TDM is legitimately called a game is reading comprehension and basic goodwill. I do not think reading comprehension is what's missing here.

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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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I have to admit -although I've monitored this only casually- that this thread is one of the most bizarre ones I've seen here for a long while.

I wonder when the debaters realize how much perfectly good and usable time they have wasted on the silly debate... All for nothing.

Poor time. It is wasted so easily, and humans only have so little of it.

Please, use your time more constructively. Why not pick up DR and start making a FM for TDM. Here is how:
[url="http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=A_-_Z_Beginner_Full_Guide_Start_Here"]http://wiki.thedarkm...uide_Start_Here[/url]!

Thank you for your cooperation.
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Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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I stand by my views on TDM in regard to the poll. I voted for Thief because it was the only contemporary game I prefer from the options given.

 

There is absolutely no reason for anyone to be upset about my opinions.

The nonsense reasons put forward by some here as to why I hold this view is derailing this otherwise interesting discussion.

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I stand by my views on TDM in regard to the poll. I voted for Thief because it was the only contemporary game I prefer from the options given.

 

You squirm with your "opinion" on each new post you make, really. After this you say that we come up with the nonsense reasons.

I guess Sotha is right, it's all a waste of time and not doing any good. I am out of this discussion.

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

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